Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, on February 10, 2009, the House adopted a motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 1 by a vote of 403 yeas and no nays. That motion directed the managers on the part of the House to withhold their signatures on the final conference agreement until that agreement had been available electronically for at least 48 hours. Madam Speaker, it is a matter of public record that the three majority House conferees affixed their signatures to the conference agreement while the hard copy had been available for less than 1 hour and the electronic copy was as yet unavailable. In fact, a correct electronic copy was not made available until after midnight last night. So it is uncontroverted that the majority House conferees acted in direct opposition to the unanimous instructions of the House. Madam Speaker, my inquiry is this: Given that the majority managers on the part of the House ignored the instructions given them by 403 of their colleagues, without a single dissenting vote, what remedy do we have against the managers who disregarded the instruction to make the conference report available for 48 hours?

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for the past 70 years the AbilityOne formerly Javits-Wagner-O'Day (ABILITYONE) Program has empowered Americans who are blind or severely disabled by providing them with a diverse set of employment opportunities. Today over 40,000 disabled Americans are realizing their potential by working in their local communities across the country under this program. These Americans are proud to provide federal and military customers with a wide array of SKILCRAFT and other ABILITYONE products and services. The ABILITYONE Program prides itself on delivering high quality products and services at a competitive price in the most convenient way possible. Some of the product categories offered by the ABILITYONE program include office supplies, military specific, safety, maintenance, repair, medical-surgical, janitorial-sanitation, and customization. The services that are provided to the federal and military customer include but aren't limited to call center and switchboard operation, military base and federal office building supply centers, CD-Rom duplication- replication, data entry, document imaging and grounds care. I rise today in support of the AbilityOne Program and the opportunities it provides for an underemployed population of hard working Americans. Furthermore, I urge my colleagues to purchase SKILCRAFT and ABILITYONE products from the House-Senate Stationary stores not only because of their quality and value, but also because of the socioeconomic benefits that can come from supporting the program. By purchasing these products and using these services we are enabling more disabled Americans to have the opportunity to become taxpayers. Today in Winston Salem, North Carolina 156 blind Americans are employed under the ABILITYONE Program and are producing high quality items or services for us. The ABILITYONE Program is administered by the Presidentially-appointed Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled, with much assistance from National Industries for the Blind (NIB) and NISH, which serves people with a wide range of disabilities. More than 650 local nonprofit agencies associated with NIB and NISH employ people who are blind or disabled to produce the quality products and offer the services authorized for sale to the federal government under the ABILITYONE Program. The ABILITYONE Program is a great illustration of a successful partnership that has the ability to continuously grow with the changing procurement environment within the federal government. This is a Program that works for America.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I thank my colleague for yielding me time, Madam Speaker. I'm highly insulted by the comments of the Deputy Attorney General from California that were shared with us a few minutes ago. As a lifetime farmer and a representative of many farmers, this is another indication of the atmosphere of arrogance within the majority party. It's an arrogance also expressed here this morning that only the President of this country can save us. Well, thank you very much, the American people have done very well by themselves over the last 200- plus years, and we haven't needed any President to save us. The majority says saying ``no'' is easy. Republicans aren't saying ``no'' to the needs of the American people. We have a better alternative that's not being considered. For the majority, spending other people's money is easy. That's what this bill does. It's generational abuse. Last night, Mr. Obey said that the bill had been worked out with the White House. So I asked him to show us the accountability the President's been promising, show me how the spending leads to job creation section by section. He could not. I ask you, where's the beef? Then he said, it's irrelevant what we think about this bill. The first article in the Constitution is about the Congress. It's not irrelevant what we think about this bill. My constituents don't like this bill. I don't like the bill. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule, vote ``no'' on the bill and say to the majority, we're not going to take your arrogance and we are not going to take your stealing the money from us, our children and our grandchildren.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight one component of the so-called stimulus package that is particularly egregious. There is a pile of money for grants for ``pretrial release and pretrial release agencies'' in the stimulus. This is an unacceptable use of taxpayer dollars. Why? Because this program is a criminal bailout. Expanding the budgets of taxpayer-funded pretrial release programs is fiscally irresponsible when the private surety bail industry can be utilized to a greater degree with no expense to taxpayers. In fact, this provision not only puts taxpayers on the hook for bailing out criminals, it also would squeeze out private-sector solutions, in effect, killing jobs. So much for job creation. Mr. Speaker, this is a taxpayer-funded get-out-of-jail-free card that will end up costing our economy jobs. It's no wonder we were given only 12 hours to analyze this 1,000-page bill.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his response. What I'm trying to get at and what I'm intrigued about in terms of his comments is where do we know these jobs are going to be created? You know, we've heard from the other side; we've even heard from the President. We want accountability. You know, that's something I have debated over and over and over. We're getting all of these pie-in-the- sky numbers about what this bill is going to do, and even my colleague admitted it's too big a bill. I appreciate his mentioning that. But we have no idea where these 4 million jobs are going to be created. There is no accountability in terms of tracking that. You know, I come from a background in education where people are asked always to have an evaluation of what you do. We could have lots of inputs, but if we don't know what the outcome is going to be and we have to measure that outcome, we're forcing people in education to do that all the time. But that never gets done in government. We're never forcing people to have an outcome and a measurable outcome. Again, we can talk about these, but we don't know how. We don't know how many jobs also are going to be lost to this suffocating spending that's contained in this bill. And I find it intriguing that as you went through the parts of the bill, that tax cuts were number four in the list. That's where it is in the priorities of the Democrats. For us, tax cuts are the number one priority. And what you say it's going to do, that's going to result in about $13 a week for the average citizen in this country. And you're going to assist people who are being laid off. That's the fifth thing. I find it intriguing again that that's your order of priorities. I read the Constitution, too, a lot, and I noticed that you said one of the things that you're doing is helping the States with their shortfalls. I don't understand why we're doing that. You know, this Federal Government was formed for the defense of this Nation. The States are supposed to be taking care of these things. And what we're doing is we're rewarding bad behavior on the parts of the States. If they know the Federal Government is going to continue to bail them out over and over and over for bad behavior, it's like bailing out your children when they make mistakes. I want to say the motto of the State of North Carolina, which is ``to be, rather than to seem.'' I wish the Democratic Party would take on that motto because we keep hearing what it is you say is happening, but that's not really what's happening. I'd like to point out to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado that the Clerk read the resolution. Nowhere in that resolution does it mention these four bills that we're going to talk about today. This is a wide-open resolution, lots of things could be talked about. In fact, I'm, again, as I said before, happy to talk about the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln, happy to talk about American Heart Month. I'm even wearing my red today. I wore red last week when we were asked to do that. I'm happy to name the post office, even happy to congratulate the Pittsburgh Steelers because I didn't have a dog in that fight. But I think that we need to say to the American people, ``This is a sham. This is a sham.'' All we're doing is delaying because we're not doing the real work of the American people, which is to deal with this issue. And contrary to what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said, we don't want to avoid this issue; we want to hit it head- on. We have an alternative. We have a superior alternative that has never been allowed to be considered. And even when we have amendments that were adopted unanimously in committee, they were taken out in the Speaker's office because they were too good to be dealt with and they did too many good things. So again, I would like the Democratic Party to adopt the motto of the State of North Carolina, ``to be, rather than to seem.'' You get a lot of publicity for talking about what you want to do. Let's take the motion to instruct that passed unanimously the other day that said we'd have 48 hours to deal with this bill. We aren't going to have a chance to do that. But you all are going to be able to go home and say, ``Oh, I voted for that,'' but then you're going to completely ignore it. And this is going to be a bill that nobody is going to have read. We're not going to know all of the bad things that's in it. And I will tell you, as I say, a rose by any other name is still as sweet, an earmark by any other name is still an earmark. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will close. As my colleague has said, we're here to debate a rule which is going to allow us to deal with four fairly good bills today, but that's not all that the rule is going to allow us to deal with. It's an open-ended rule. Many, many things can come up under this rule, and it's not the kind of rule that we should be voting on. We have lots of quotes that I'm not going to give today about how the majority has said that we should do things in regular order; we should revert to doing things the right way in this body. We're not doing that. We had a wonderful opportunity to do that with this bill, but we're not. I have no objections to congratulating the Pittsburgh Steelers, to supporting the goals and ideals of American Heart Month. Certainly, I am extremely in favor of commemorating the life and legacy of President Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, the President who freed the slaves and who kept this country together, or in terms of naming a post office. But what we should be dealing with is the so- called stimulus bill that we know is going to come to us without the proper debate. Republicans are very concerned about the recession we find ourselves in. We are very concerned about the American people who are hurting. We want to deal with those issues. We have a plan. We have an alternative. We want a stimulus bill that will work. As I've said, I think this is a cruel hoax on the American people because they're expecting something good to happen, and they're expecting it to happen right away, and that isn't going to be the case. My heart goes out to those who have lost their jobs and who are going to be fooled into thinking that what the Democrats are doing with this bill is going to bring about real progress in this country. So I will urge my colleagues to vote against the rule, not because of the bills that we're going to be dealing with today as a result of the rule, but because of other things that might come up and because of the very serious nature of the issues we're facing that we're not dealing with. With that, I yield back, Madam Speaker.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments.

Ms. FOXX. I thank my colleague from Colorado, and I want to say that you're being a really good soldier today, and I commend you for doing that. You talk about this bill as though you have read the bill. And I want to ask, has the bill been made available to the Democrats in the Chamber?

Ms. FOXX. The Fifth.

Ms. FOXX. Will my colleague yield?

Ms. FOXX. Unfortunately, we know that the conference report cannot be amended, so we will not be able to take out the egregious pieces in this conference report. So it's going to be an up-or-down vote on anything that is good in this bill, and there is not very much good in it, and there is all that is bad.

Ms. FOXX. No, sir. I agree with you. I don't think anybody else has seen it either.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now yield such time as he may consume to my distinguished colleague from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding the customary time. I am here to say that this is a very important time in our country. The House Republicans know we are in a serious recession, and this is the time when we should be dealing with what's on the minds of the American people. We were promised 3 years ago by the majority, who were then in the minority, that we were going to have a different way to do things once they took over. But it seems like it's business as usual. Things are being done secretly. Bills are being crafted behind the scenes without any involvement from Republicans. We're dealing with things that don't need to be dealt with on the floor because we are avoiding dealing with the things that we should be dealing with and debating them in open. We don't know what's going to be coming up tomorrow. This rule is very open-ended. We certainly have no objections to honoring the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln. After all, he was the first Republican President, and we honor him for keeping our country together and for all that he stood for. But frankly, Madam Speaker, there are more important things that we should be dealing with, and I am concerned that the majority is going in this direction. And I will recommend to my colleagues that we vote against the rule, and we will be talking more about what we should be dealing with as others of my colleagues speak. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, there are several points that need to be responded to from my colleague from Colorado. Again, certainly, we want to honor these people who are being brought up today on suspension, but it's really an opportunity for the majority party to bring up things that are not the most important things for us to be dealing with. But I want to reject the argument that we are in unprecedented times. The seventies were much worse in terms of economics than we're in now. I'm frankly getting sick and tired of that argument being used for why we have to do these really terrible things that are being proposed in this so-called stimulus package. Obviously, people have very, very short memories. They say it's the worst time since the Great Depression. Well, we had 20 percent interest rates. We had 14 percent unemployment. Much, much worse. What was the answer? What was the Republican answer? What did Ronald Reagan suggest and the Republican Congress pass? The Republican Senate and the Democrats in charge then had the good sense to understand that cutting taxes did it. What we have to do is cut off the money coming to the Federal Government that is often very, very poorly spent. My colleague says he's concerned about his kids and grandkids. Well, are you concerned about the fact that you're putting every family in this country in debt for $6,700 as a result of this bill and they're going to get a $13 a week tax cut? Again, I wish you would remember the motto of the State of North Carolina, ``To be, rather than to seem.'' Yet, this bill certainly deserves the emperor's new clothes award. This is a sham on the American people. You know, in Dante's ``Divine Comedy'' the worst place in hell was designated for the lawyers. I really am concerned about the promises that are being made in this bill and how the American people are going to be so disappointed that instantaneously these jobs aren't going to be out there for these poor folks who have lost their jobs. Republicans are very sympathetic to this. We know the American people are hurting. We've offered real alternatives to this, and I want to say to my colleague and his colleagues who keep talking about the last 8 years, I know you didn't come until 2007 and you don't remember that we had 54 straight months of job growth up until January of 2007 when the Democrats took control of this House. You talk about the last 3 months losing 2.6 million jobs. Who's been in charge for the last 3 months? The Democrats have been in charge of the Congress, and we elected a Democratic President last November. I think you-all need to look in the mirror and see where the problems have come from. We haven't caused this problem. Republicans haven't. The Democrats have been in charge of this Congress. Things started going downhill when they took over in January of 2007. Bipartisanship and invitation to a cocktail party and to watch the Super Bowl, no, thanks; I don't think that's true bipartisanship. True bipartisanship is including the amendments that Republicans offer in committee, that are passed unanimously by Democrats and Republicans. It's including those in the final version of the bill. And my colleague speaks so positively about what's in this bill, but yet he hasn't read the bill. He's telling me he's read the bills that were passed in the Senate and the House, but you don't know. I don't believe anybody knows what's in the final version of this bill. You talk about it being on the Web and being available to people. It's going to be available after it's passed, not before it's passed. Again, the promises that were made are not being kept. A promise that the President said he would let any bill stay out there for 5 days before it's signed, that's been breached more than it has been kept. The bill, we're supposed to have 48 hours. That was passed unanimously in here to read the bill. That has been not dealt with or not kept to, and it could have been so easy. Let me tell you the nonpartisan, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in today's publication says we are going to increase the deficit $838.1 billion with this bill, and because we know so many of the jobs that are going to be created are going to be government jobs, that are going to stay on the payroll forever, this bill is really going to cost $3 trillion. $3 trillion. I'm concerned about my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and more because we are loading them up with a debt that is irresponsible. This is generational abuse. We're taking the easy road out and giving the burden to our future generations. And I want to say, since we were going to talk about President Lincoln, some of the things he said. ``You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot borrow your way to prosperity.'' This is what is happening. It's a shame that today, when we're supposed to be honoring Lincoln on his birthday, that we are doing absolutely the opposite of everything that Lincoln stood for. We are borrowing our way or trying to borrow our way into prosperity, and it never works. We can't ``strengthen the weak by weakening the strong,'' Lincoln said. ``You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.'' That's the role that the Democrats have taken, go in the direction opposite of what Lincoln preached. I think it's a sad day in our country when we say we're going to honor Lincoln, and we go just in the opposite of the values he stood for. Madam Speaker, could I inquire as to how much time is left.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I think specifically the money is for those mice in San Francisco, California, not just California, but specifically San Francisco, California.

Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I thank the ranking member. I am sure from hearing the speakers on the other side that this nanotechnology bill is worthwhile and that what we have gotten from nanotechnology in the past are very good results. But what we have to be looking at right now, because the major issue before us and before the people in this country is what's going to happen in this so-called stimulus bill. I got a call a little while ago from a lady who wanted to know if what she had heard on the radio was true, that part of this bill is going to fund chips to go inside United States citizens so the government can track them. We frankly don't know what is going to be in this bill. But what we do know is the Republicans have an alternative to this bill. And contrary to what the leadership on the Democratic side has been saying, it's not that Republicans don't want to do anything. We want to do things. We understand Americans are hurting. We understand that. But we want to do what's right, not waste American people's money on what fits. You know, Rahm Emanuel said never waste a crisis, so go in and put in all this pork that we want to get passed that we can't get passed in other bills, put it in this and get it done. But that's not what Republicans want to do. We want to make sure the money is being spent well. Here we have in this bill some things we know: $1,500 tax credit to anyone who purchases neighborhood electric vehicles. Those are also known as golf carts. So we are going to subsidize people to buy golf carts. We have a $750 million earmark for the National Computer Center. You know, the President says no earmarks. That's not true. There are plenty of earmarks in this bill. We have $275 million for flood prevention. How long have we known that we needed to prevent floods in certain areas of this country? Why are we using this bill for $100 million for lead paint hazard reduction? This is the wrong bill for this country at this time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, America faces an unambiguously dramatic economic downturn. And Americans are hurting in this very difficult economic time. But Republicans in the House are still waiting for an opportunity to bring our ideas for economic recovery to the table. So far we've been shut out of negotiations. For instance, Republicans have proposed real assistance for the unemployed by slashing Federal taxes on unemployment benefits, but our suggestions for economic recovery have been ignored. The result? A bill that does little to stimulate the economy and lots to stimulate the Federal Government and our national debt. We must pass a bill that helps struggling workers get back on their feet, and that encourages entrepreneurs, the real engines for job creation, to take risks again. Madam Speaker, we cannot borrow and spend our way back to prosperity.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time. I support his motion to instruct and think he has done a very fine job of explaining part of the problems that we have with this bill. President Obama I understand had promised that, before he would sign any bill, it would be available to the American public for at least 5 days. We are only asking for 48 hours, and yet we are getting excuses after excuses for why this bill cannot be made available for 48 hours. We all remember the rush to fund Katrina, what a debacle that was. And I remember the old saying: act in haste and repent at leisure. We don't know what is in this bill, and we need to know. Much has been made of the Senate action to cut spending in the bill, but it doesn't show the full picture, because in many ways the Senate bill will lead to an even bigger expansion of the Federal Government and long-term Federal spending than the House bill. If all the new programs proposed by the House and Senate make it into the conference report, we will have created 42 new government programs, programs that the taxpayers likely are now on the hook to continue funding in the future. The Senate bill did nothing to cut the number of existing Federal programs that were included in the House. In fact, the House and Senate combined to propose to expand 87 existing Federal programs, 82 billion from the Senate bill and 93 billion in the House bill. This is not funding for one-time stimulative programs, but will go on to expand these programs, forcing Congress to maintain most, if not all, of these higher funding levels. The public doesn't understand that. The final stimulus package can include as many as 129 new and expanded Federal programs. And my colleague, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, failed to mention that, in terms of amendments that were accepted by the committees, that after three amendments were accepted by the full Appropriations Committee they were taken out in the Speaker's office when the bill was rewritten in the Speaker's office.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, last week the bailout watchdog set up by Congress to conduct oversight on the $700 billion megabank bailout concluded that the government had already overpaid the banks by nearly $80 billion, and only half the money has been spent. According to an investigation by the bailout oversight committee, the Treasury paid $254 billion for assets that are worth about $176 billion. That's a loss of $78 billion right off the bat. The investigation concluded that it was likely that the Federal Government might not have driven as hard a bargain as the private sector would have. Fancy that. Next time someone tries to sell the idea that government bailouts are ``good investments,'' just remember that the Treasury Department lost 30 percent on its so-called investments in just three short months.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Florida (Mr. Stearns). (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)