Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas).

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my colleague from New York (Ms. Slaughter), Chair of the Rules Committee, for yielding time. This is a bill I know she feels strongly about. Mr. Speaker, this bill is being brought to the floor as a rule bill today because it failed to win enough votes to pass under the Suspension Calendar yesterday. It's being brought to the floor under a closed rule. This is yet another closed rule on top of an entire appropriation season filled with closed rules. And I come before you today deeply concerned by the closed rule we have before us. After promising the American people during campaign season that this would be the most open and honest Congress in history, Speaker Pelosi has gone back on her word by making this the most closed and restrictive Congress in history. Instead of having their ideas heard, the American people are being silenced with Speaker Pelosi's justification that ``we won the election; so we decide.'' Majority Leader Hoyer stated this past February his agreement with restoring the House to the regular order process of legislating. He said, ``I think that is a very important pursuit . . . our committees and Members are served on both sides of the aisle by pursuing regular order. Regular order gives to everybody the opportunity to participate in the process in a fashion which will affect, in my opinion, the most consensus and the best product.'' If the majority leader believes this, then why, Mr. Speaker, are we faced with another closed rule today? As my colleagues have expressed time and time again, bringing this number of bills to the floor under closed rules is unprecedented. It does an injustice to both Democrats and Republicans who want to have the opportunity to offer amendments and participate in debate with their colleagues over pressing issues of our time. By choosing to operate in this way, the majority has cut off the minority and their own colleagues from having appropriate input in the legislative process. This is not the way the greatest deliberative body in the world should operate. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, in December 2007, our economy slipped into a recession, and since then, the recession has only gotten worse. The American people are hurting. President Obama and Democrats in Congress promised that their stimulus plan would bring ``immediate'' relief. Unfortunately for the American people, the results are rolling in. Two million American jobs have been lost since the stimulus was signed into law. More than 400,000 jobs were lost in the month of June alone. Just when you thought it was clear that we can't spend, borrow and tax our way to a growing economy, Democrats propose a government takeover of health care that will lead to higher taxes, to more government spending, and to even further job losses. The American people deserve a real plan for real recovery, not another excuse to increase spending, to raise taxes, and to grow government. The Republican economic recovery plan brings fiscal discipline back to Washington, and it puts money back into the hands of the American people.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. I'm pro-life too. That's why I oppose the Democrat health plan. Mr. Speaker, in the midst of a major recession, the House is considering health care legislation that will place new punitive taxes on small businesses. We need job creation, not job destruction. And small businesses are our best hope for emerging from this economic downturn, but not if we tax them out of their job-creating potential. I've heard from scores of small business owners in North Carolina who are struggling to keep their businesses running, and who want nothing to do with the taxes and burdensome government mandates in the House health care legislation. Mr. Speaker, we need health care reform in America. I support reform that puts patients first and that won't destroy small businesses. Republicans have a better solution that won't put the government in charge of people's health care, that will make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans, and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, President Obama recently held a televised press conference to discuss health care reform. As Republican John Boehner noted last week, several of President Obama's points may not accurately reflect the health care legislation before the House. The President said that the government will stay out of health care decisions. But that isn't how the legislation is shaping up. A simple amendment to the legislation that would have guaranteed that no bureaucrat will make any decisions or interfere with any decision between a doctor and a patient was rejected by the Democrats in control of the Energy and Commerce Committee. That doesn't bode well for government staying out of health care decisions. President Obama also said that the plan will not add to the government's deficit. Of course we all know that the Congressional Budget Office has been throwing water on that idea for weeks. They've already estimated that the current plan will add $239 billion to our deficit over the next 10 years. And that deficit number is based on a provision in the plan that starts collecting taxes before the health care component kicks in, essentially offsetting a significant deficit with taxes collected before the bills start arriving. That means that after 10 years we will have a new structural deficit as the costs of this plan far outstrip the punitive taxes on small businesses. But what really concerns me about this plan is Washington's history of underestimating costs of expensive plans like this. If you look at this chart, based on research from Congress' Joint Economic Committee, you will notice that over the years congressional estimates of the cost of health care programs were extremely unreliable. For instance, when Congress was considering Medicare part A, the hospital insurance component, Congress estimated it would cost $9 billion by 1990. Actual cost in 1990? $67 billion, seven times more than Congress estimated. And the 1967 estimate for the entire Medicare program in 1990 was $12 billion. Actual cost? $111 billion, almost 10 times the original estimate. Later, in 1987, Congress estimated that Medicaid's disproportionate share of hospital payments to States would cost less than $1 billion in 1992. Five years later the results were in: $17 billion, which is an incomprehensible 17-fold increase over the estimate just 5 years earlier. You get the idea. Government programs have a tendency to take on a life of their own and cost taxpayers way more than was originally estimated or envisioned. While I'm willing to allow for some margin of error in estimated costs--they are estimates after all--what concerns me is that we are starting out with estimates for huge deficits with this health care plan. At the same time, we are paying for it out of the pockets of America's job creators, the small businesses. If the current proposal becomes law, are we going to be coming back to these small business with another tax increase in 5 or 10 years? We need health care reform that puts patients first and that won't destroy the small businesses that are a pillar of our economy. Republicans have a better solution that won't put the government in charge of people's health care, that will make sure that we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and ensure affordable access for all Americans. We should be considering the Republican plan and not this job- destroying Democrat plan.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Washington and my colleague from Guam for bringing my bill forward, and I especially want to thank the committee for bringing H.R. 1121, the Blue Ridge Parkway and Town of Blowing Rock Land Exchange Act forward for consideration. This is noncontroversial, bipartisan legislation, which is recognized by the North Carolina delegation as essential to the Blue Ridge Parkway's vital tourism industry and the town of Blowing Rock's access to public drinking water. My two colleagues have done a phenomenal job of explaining the need for this legislation and the fact that it is noncontroversial and very, very positive legislation. In recent years, the North Carolina mountain region has experienced remarkable population growth and increased tourism, increasing the need for a reliable water supply in the towns like Blowing Rock. A testament to its importance in the region, this legislation is cosponsored by the entire North Carolina delegation. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation and again thank the committee for bringing it to the floor for consideration. This land exchange will ensure an adequate public drinking water supply for the Town's citizens, guests and Parkway travelers. The Town's economy is heavily based on tourism generated primarily by the Blue Ridge Parkway. With thousands of annual visitors, the transfer will benefit the town's residents and the many North Carolinians who visit Blowing Rock each year. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Town of Blowing Rock have had a long, successful relationship and history of working together in order to serve their constituencies. This land exchange will continue to provide demonstrable benefits to both parties and the region.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Well, I want to thank my colleague from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), whose loss to this House is going to be immeasurable. His contribution here in the House of Representatives representing his district in Tennessee has been outstanding. Not only has he done a fantastic job as a legislator, but his leadership in our weekly prayer breakfast has been exemplary. I should think of some better adjectives to say, but exemplary will have to do. He is really a tremendous role model for all of us in his attendance, in his caring for others, and he is going to be very much missed in the House when he leaves here. He didn't pay me to say that. He didn't know I was going to say that, but it needs to be said. Fortunately, we have him for the next 17 months still in the Congress, and I'm very, very grateful to him. He has set the stage very well on this issue of the cap-and-trade bill, which the majority in this House pushed through the House with no chance for people to read, a 300-page amendment brought to the Rules Committee at 2:30 in the morning, and then the bill brought to the floor later that day. There is a lot of sentiment out in the public now by the American people about the fact that people voted for that bill without having read it. Now, fortunately for our side, most of us voted against the bill. We knew pieces of it, and we knew there was enough bad in that bill to vote ``no,'' because the bill is going to do a lot of negative things in this country. It's going to raise taxes. It's going to raise the cost of utilities. The President warned during his campaign last year, he admitted it--and we're quoting him--he admitted that, you know, under his energy plan, utility rates would necessarily skyrocket. Well, skyrocketing means probably an average of $3,000 more to pay for energy for the average family. The average family is going to have to pay over $3,000 more a year for energy. The American people deserve better, and as my colleague from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) said, we are the most innovative people in the world, and the reason we are the most innovative people in the world is because we are the freest people in the world. This country was founded on the concept of freedom, founded on the concept of innovation. Many people don't realize that, until this country was formed, never before had a people believed that they weren't the property of another human being. We believed in freedom, God-given freedom, and that's what formed this country. Now, through the people in charge of this Congress, the Democrats in charge of this Congress, and a Democrat President, they are working at every level of our lives, every aspect of our lives, to take away that freedom. They want to take away our ability to have low-cost energy. Many people also don't make the connection between the fact that the reason we were such a manufacturing powerhouse for so long was that we had low-cost, reliable energy. India and China didn't have low-cost, reliable energy. They couldn't count on having the energy they needed to run their plants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week like we did. It helped us tremendously to become a manufacturing powerhouse. But with the cap-and-tax bill and the concepts that the Democrats have put forward, it's going to seriously undermine that ability. Republicans want us to be energy independent, and I am highly insulted when over and over the President and the leadership of the majority party say that Republicans don't have an answer, that we just want the status quo, that we're the Party of No. We're not the Party of No. We're the party of doing things right. Let's stick with what has worked in this country over the years. We can look at Europe and see what they've done. They've tried cap-and- tax, and what has it done? Bankrupted them. Spain wanted to create lots of green jobs, they said. They have the highest unemployment rate in Europe, over 15 percent. We can look across the ocean and see how this has failed, and it just is mind-boggling that the people who are in charge of this Congress and in the White House think that they can replicate what was done in Europe and have a different outcome. It's never happened before. It's never going to happen again, and as my colleague from Tennessee said, we are facing one of the greatest takeovers of our freedoms through cap-and-tax and the health care plan that's being proposed. But you know, the American people are still in charge. They stopped a bad immigration bill a couple of years ago that was being debated in the Senate. They stopped it cold. We can stop these things, too. And what I'm urging people to do is--you don't have to write to most of us, all of us are going to be on the floor tonight--and say, Don't vote for this health care plan. We know that. We're not going to do it. Cap-and-tax has passed the House, gone to the Senate, but put the pressure on your Senators and write to somebody who lives in a district who is represented by someone who voted for cap-and-tax and tell them you're going to remember that, they're going to remember that. Encourage them to do that. We have other very eloquent Members on the floor tonight who want to speak on this issue so I'm going to yield back to my good friend, Mr. Wamp from Tennessee.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, this organizational chart is a chart that represents the new way that health care would be handled in the United States under the Democrats' plan. This is a chart that we will not be allowed, though, to send out to our constituents because it has been ruled inappropriate to send out. But we want the American people to see it. The other thing that people need to know about the Democrat health bill is that it's going to give higher taxes to small businesses and it's going to destroy jobs. According to the Democrats' plan, filers making $280,000 will be hit with a 1 percent surtax. Filers making $400,000 will be hit by a 1.5 percent surtax, and filers making $800,000 will be hit by a 5.4 percent surtax. Because most small businesses pay their taxes as part of their owner's individual tax filing, a majority of those hit by this new tax will be small businesses. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, an industry hard hit by the economy, 68 percent of manufacturers file as S corporations with an average income of $570,000. We also know this bill will destroy 4.7 million jobs. That's too many jobs to destroy in this country. We don't need this health care bill.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I find that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going a bit through revisionist history again. We hear them talk over and over again about the things that have happened, what was happening about gas prices last year. They never mentioned that the Democrats were in charge of the Congress when a lot of these things that they talk about were happening, but I think it's important that we always point that out. A rule was just reported in by my colleague from the Rules Committee, and I've just come from the Rules Committee myself where we reported out a rule for a bill that's going to be heard on the floor tomorrow called the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2009, and I thought it might be important to talk a little bit about that rule and that bill tonight because I know this is going to create some confusion in the minds of the American people as to why in the world are we passing something called Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2009 here just before the August recess. It's also a confusing thing I think to people because they don't understand why we have to pass legislation that says you should pay for things as you go. Most people in this country do that. That's what they expect us to do in the Congress, but that isn't what's going to happen and there's several things going on with that bill that I think need to be explained. Some will be explained tomorrow. But first of all, that bill did not go to the committee, the Budget Committee, from which it is coming. And when I asked the chairman of the Budget Committee today, he said there just wasn't time to do it. We're dealing with the appropriations bills, we're dealing with the health care bill, and there simply wasn't time to do that. But just like the American public expects us to read bills before we vote on them, I think they expect our bills to go through committee and go through the process of legislating. That's what we're here for. But, no, there's no time to do that. We keep hearing that from the majority party: there's no time to do what we're sent here to do. But we know that this is just another diversion on their part, and I think I have an appreciation for why that's happening. Today, the headline in Politico: ``Poll, Public Starts to Lose Trust in Obama; Health Timeline on Life Support; Obama Good for K Street; Energy, Health Care and Finance Agenda a Boon to Lobbying.'' I think what the majority wants to do is sort of take some of the attention away from some of the headlines that are coming out. One of the interesting things about this bill that's going to be dealt with tomorrow, which is it's supposed to be PAYGO, you pay-as-you-go. However, it exempts 40 percent of our budget. So 40 percent of the budget is not going to be included in PAYGO, and yet they are increasing spending on that 40 percent of the budget at least 8 percent a year. So how in the world are they going to control spending if 40 percent of the budget is exempt and you're allowing it to increase 40 percent a year? You simply ignore that. It's as though the family sits down-- they're always comparing what we do here with what the family does. It's like you sit down at the family table to talk about your budget and you say, well, we're only going to deal with 60 percent of the budget; we're going to put 40 percent over here and just going to ignore it, and we're going to spend whatever we want to on that side of the budget. That's exactly what they are doing with this, and it just seems really ridiculous, and I think the American public needs to understand that a little bit. Now, what they say is, well, this was all instituted in the past; we're exempting things Republicans exempted. But the very first PAYGO bill was passed under Democrats in 1990, a bipartisan effort to try to rein in spending. But what's happened since then is they've ignored it. They even had a PAYGO rule in the rules that the Democrats passed when they took over the Congress in 2007, but the rule is not strong enough for them so now they want to put it in statute. I think it's simply to divert attention from the headlines. The President's approval ratings are going down. The health care bill is creating many, many problems. We asked today 134 times on this floor where are the jobs that were promised. The economy is going south, and what do the Democrats want to do? They want to divert the American public's attention away from all of those things and say but we passed a law that says we have to pay for these things as we go along. Passing this law is going to make no difference to them than their rule does. You know, I find it just so interesting that when you say you're going to do something you don't do it, but that's normally the way the Democrats do it.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I think a lot of people don't realize one of the things that made us such a successful Nation has been the extremely reliable energy that we've had over the last 200 years. We developed energy and learned how to use it very, very well. I believe we are the smartest people and the most innovative people in the world, but what helped us become a manufacturing giant was not just our intelligence, not just our innovation, but our reliable sources of energy. I worry a great deal about the pie-in-the-sky promises that have been made about alternatives. I, like you, want to see us use every alternative that we can, including foot power and walking a lot more, but I do think that we have a problem because we are hearing these unrealistic expectations of how we could go to alternatives and simply abandon carbon. I don't think we can do that. You pointed out that our colleagues, who were here the hour before, talked about the creation of 250,000 new green jobs. I want to point out that I have heard that Spain, which went very much to green jobs and alternative energy, now has the highest unemployment rate in Europe. It appears that many of our colleagues have established Europe as the standard to which we should aspire, but when you start breaking down what the situation actually is there, you will see that simply making the goal of switching these jobs that we have now in manufacturing that are going to go away with this national energy tax, that are going to go away with the national health tax, all of these new taxes that they want to put on are going to throw jobs out of this country. We need to look a little bit deeper. I think that so much of what's happened, particularly in the last year and a half as promises were made, lots of promises were made--a lot of those promises were made in 2006, which have also not been lived up to--the American people are beginning to see that it's easy in a campaign to make promises. It's a lot more difficult once you're in office to fulfill those promises. I think that's one of the things that we're seeing now. We've seen a tremendous change in our economy since the Democrats took control of the Congress. They keep talking about problems that they inherited, problems that President Obama inherited, but as I said earlier, they conveniently leave out the fact that in '07, '08 and up until this time, they have been in charge of the Congress, both Houses of the Congress. It's the Congress that establishes the budget. It's the Congress that appropriates the money, and much of the problems that we've had have come from the expenditure of money. I wanted to point out something. I know that we talked today, as you said earlier, about jobs, jobs, jobs and that 134 of us came to the floor today. I think we should have had magnifying glasses to say that we're looking for the jobs that have been promised to us. That's what was promised by President Obama, promised by the majority in the House, but that we ought to talk about the fact that during the month of June alone, the national debt increased by $223.7 billion, and as of June 30, 2009, the national debt had increased $2.9 trillion since the Democrats took control of Congress on January 3, 2007. That works out to an increase of $9,342.83 per person. We know now that the American people are getting very, very concerned about that debt and about our deficit. And you pointed out the deficit earlier, but we have to keep pointing out to the American people who's in charge, who spends the money, and who's responsible for putting us into the situation that we're in.

Ms. FOXX. Will the gentleman yield?

Ms. FOXX. In having this energy debate that we were having a few weeks ago before the Democrats passed their national energy tax, which they call cap-and-trade, that CBO predicts will levy $846 billion in new taxes on the American people, we talked a lot about this issue. We have been talking about different issues in the last couple of weeks. But I heard during that debate that during the last 18 months of President Bush's term, that his administration doubled the use of wind and solar and that they did that in 18 months. But they went from about 1.5 percent to about 3 percent. Did the gentleman hear the same information I heard?

Ms. FOXX. You know, President Obama has said he would double the use of solar and wind in his first 4 years. Yet, President Bush did it in 18 months--the last 18 months of his term, he did it. So, going ahead and doubling it again, going from 3 percent to 6 percent, doesn't seem to me it's going to be a terribly difficult job. But I heard this also, and I'd like the gentleman to tell me--check my facts--that, at the most, we are going to be able to absorb 10 percent of wind and solar in our electric grid because wind and solar are not as dependable as other forms of energy, and that to put more than 10 percent into the grid would jeopardize the Nation's energy source. Have you heard that figure too?

Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry I don't have the time to respond to the majority leader's comments about PAYGO. But I would just simply say that the Democrats passed a PAYGO policy when they first took over, and we're getting deeper and deeper into debt. If that's what PAYGO does, then woe be unto us if we sign on to it. The President, the Speaker and the majority leader are all in a rush to pass legislation here. So much in a rush, they will not even give Members a chance to read the bills. Why is that? It's perhaps because they don't want people to know what's in the bills. But the American people want to get health reform right, not just fast. Artificial deadlines for passing legislation serve a political purpose, not a legitimate purpose. I have promised that I will not vote for any health care legislation that is not publicly available in its final form for at least 72 hours in advance of a vote. Every Member of Congress should have time to read the health care bill they are asked to vote on, and the American people should be given this same common courtesy. Let's give them significant time to fully understand the details of a health care proposal rather than steamrolling partisan legislation through Congress. We should make August a national health care awareness month so that Americans can let their Member of Congress know where they stand before voting because we already know of many problems in the proposals that are being put forward. Number one, the bill contains zero savings from eliminating or even reducing waste, fraud and abuse. In an attempt to correct this egregious lack of oversight, Ways and Means Republicans offered six amendments during the committee's markup to reduce wasteful spending. All of them were rejected by the Democrats. We know that the House Democrats' health care plan will increase Federal spending significantly, that coming directly from the CBO, appointed by the Democrats. We know that it's going to raise taxes on small businesses through surtax increases. Of taxpayers who file in the top brackets, more than half of them are small businesses. The Democrat plan, according to a study by the Tax Foundation, would raise the top tax rate in 39 States to more than 50 percent. Significantly, it includes fines of up to $500,000 on employers who make an honest mistake thinking they had provided what the government deemed ``sufficient'' coverage. It will impose an 8 percent payroll tax on employers who can't afford to offer health insurance to their employees, and on employers who do the right thing and offer health coverage to their employees but it is deemed insufficient by the government, and employers who are not paying at least 72.5 percent of an employee's premium or 65 percent for family coverage. What they plan to do is take over more aspects of our life. Every piece of legislation that is passing out of this House this session is aimed at putting the government more in control of our lives and giving us less freedom. The health care bill is the worst of those. Cap-and- tax was horrible; this is even more horrible. We must not rush into passing health care legislation. We must slow down and get things right. The American people are hurting. We know they are hurting. Unemployment is going up dramatically under this Congress and under this President, and we need to be dealing with what we can do to create jobs and help individual families, not make things worse by killing more jobs and raising taxes. That's what PAYGO does. It is hard to make cuts in spending, easy to raise taxes, and that's what they plan to do. We shouldn't let them fool the American people again. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. We have got to stop letting the Democrats do these things, rushing bills through, hiding things in obscure language, and taxing us into high unemployment in this country.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, our economy is in the midst of a historic recession, and millions of Americans have lost their jobs over the past several months despite promises from Speaker Pelosi and President Obama that their extravagant spending would create jobs. But Americans are a hardworking and resilient people. So I was excited when I heard from a laid off entrepreneurial constituent of mine from Allegheny County, North Carolina, who's working on starting his own business. He plans to hire around 20 people over the next 2 years. However, he recently wrote to tell me that if the Democrats' health care bill becomes law, the new taxes and burdensome rules will take a devastating bite out of his ability to grow jobs. In fact, he said he would hire only half the workers if this legislation becomes law. Mr. Speaker, this is a travesty. This Congress should be implementing policies that create jobs, instead of burdening entrepreneurs with job- killing taxes and new government mandates and red tape.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for yielding me the customary time, and I'm looking forward to our having fun here this morning as he promised yesterday. I am intrigued by my colleague saying that this is being done to correct something slipped into a bill in the middle of the night when the Republicans were in charge. It sounds like something very nefarious was done. This is sort of news to us. We didn't hear it in Rules yesterday, and I need to point out that there was something put in an appropriations bill in 2005, as my colleague says, but it certainly wasn't nefarious. And it's my understanding that our colleagues on the other side have modified that provision several times. So I don't think this is really trying to correct something that Republicans did some time ago in the dead of the night. But be that as it may, I think I need to point out that we are bringing this legislation at a time when more than 2 million Americans have lost their jobs since the Democrats' $1 trillion stimulus bill became law and that it is somewhat of an insult to those people. We have a 9.5 percent unemployment rate and a budget deficit of more than $1 trillion which is predicted to go to $2 trillion before the end of the fiscal year. Given those facts, it's a little unclear to know what exactly are the priorities of the Democrats in charge of this Congress. Small business and middle class families are struggling all across this country; yet, the Democrats in charge of Congress are poised to ask them to bankroll a $700 million welfare program for wild horses. This is just another example of how out of touch Washington Democrats are. If Democrats want to join Republicans in focusing on job creation, then we should be dealing with our American Energy Act which will create new jobs, bring down energy costs, and pave the way for a cleaner environment. And we should scrap this job-killing health care bill Speaker Pelosi is seeking to rush to a vote before the end of the month. Now, what this bill is going to do that's underlying this rule, which I'm going to urge my colleagues to vote against, it will establish a horse census every 2 years. It provides for enhanced contraception and birth control for horses. It makes available an additional 19 million acres of public and private land for wild horses. It covers a $5 million tab to repair damage done by horses to other property and mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before Americans can adopt horses. I hardly think this is what the American people expect us to be doing these days as they face the many challenges that they're facing. And with that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. I yield the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) 10 seconds.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, it appears as though we are beginning to touch a nerve on the part of our colleagues because we are presenting the facts, and they can't handle them. We know that this economy is in terrible shape. All they can do is continue to blame President Bush. As one of my colleagues said, they asked for a chance to be in charge. They have been given a chance to be in charge. And what have they done? They have increased the debt to every American in this country in the first 6 months of this year by $9,342.83. We do face the greatest economic problem we have had in 25 years, not since the Great Depression. Madam Speaker, I am going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule because we don't need to be dealing with this issue now. We should be dealing with the American people who are hurting and continuing to lose jobs under the policies of Speaker Pelosi and the Bush administration. I am asking my colleagues to vote no on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule making in order an amendment by Mr. Chaffetz of Utah which was not made in order by the Rules Committee. This amendment reconfigures the Joint Advisory Board to ensure representation by affected Indian tribes and State grazing boards. It also ensures that all members of the advisory board have expertise in wildlife management, rangeland management, animal husbandry or natural resources management and requires that the board members reside in a State in which wild free-roaming horses and burros are currently located. Amendment to H. Res. 653 Offered by Ms. Foxx of North Carolina At the end of the resolution, insert the following: Sec. 3. Notwithstanding any other provision of this resolution, after consideration of the amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules it shall be in order to consider the amendment printed in section 4 of this resolution, if offered by Representative Chaffetz of Utah or his designee. Such amendment shall be considered as read, shall be separately debatable for 10 minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question. Sec. 4. The amendment referred to in section 5 is as follows: Section 8, strike paragraph (2) (page 17, lines 4 through 11) and insert the following new paragraph: ``(2) by striking `Governments' and all that follows through `management.' and inserting `Governments shall include two representatives of the livestock industry; two representatives from State grazing boards (or equivalent State agency) who are not State employees; two representatives of the environmental community; two representatives of the animal protection community; two representatives of Indian tribes who manage wild horses or burros; and four scientists. All advisory board members must have expertise in wildlife management, rangeland management, animal husbandry or natural resources management and must reside in States comprising the current range of wild free-roaming horses and burros.'; and''.

Ms. FOXX. I yield our colleague from Iowa (Mr. King) 2 minutes.

Ms. FOXX. I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, there is so much to say in so little time. I don't think that Republicans need a lecture on how we should be spending our time and whether we should be in Washington 5 days a week. There is an old saying that nobody is safe as long as the Congress or the legislature is in session, and I think most Americans believe that. Being here in Washington is not necessarily meaning that Congress is being productive, and I think that is the point that we have made over and over again. Again, I will say, the wisdom of the world is not here in Washington; and I think with what's been happening, particularly in the last 6 months, the American people have found that out. I am going to be very interested to see how long our colleagues on the other side continue to defend their actions and the action of this administration as the year goes by. In terms of looking after all God's creatures, I am a person--and my husband is--who are both owned by a dog and a cat. They live in our house. We have farmed all our lives. We have raised horses. We are very, very fond of animals. We give a lot of money to organizations that look after animals. In fact, there is one organization out West that keeps animals until they die a natural death. We feel very strongly about that. So questioning my feeling about how we should treat all of God's creatures is not going to go very far with me. This is also a group of people that wants to provide government-funded abortions and kill unborn babies at the same time we're talking about saving horses and spending money on that. That argument doesn't go very far with me. What the difference is between our colleagues on the other side and us is that we don't believe in growing government. These are not the things the Federal Government should be about. The Federal Government should confine itself to the very narrow set of issues laid out for us in the Constitution. We should adhere to the 10th Amendment which says that if it isn't mentioned in the Constitution, then it's a province of the States; and that's what we should be doing. So I thought my colleague promised me fun today, but you brought up some issues where you've gone to meddling. I now yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, during the worst recession in a generation, Democrats propose a government takeover of health care that will lead to fewer jobs, higher taxes, and less health coverage. Since the recession began, 6 million jobs have been lost, yet the Democrats' health care plan includes hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax hikes on small businesses, the engine of job creation in this country. Democrats propose more than $800 billion in new tax hikes. According to economic modeling by the President's own chief economic adviser, the business tax hikes alone would destroy up to 4.7 million jobs. Despite their claims of reform that it will reduce health care costs, CBO Director Elmendorf told Congress that the Democrats' proposed reform will only increase future Federal spending on health care. House Republicans will oppose any plan that puts Washington bureaucrats between patients and the care they need. House Republicans have a plan for reform that expands access to affordable health care and gives families the freedom to choose the health care that fits their needs without imposing a job-killing tax hike on small businesses and working families.