Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, the ranking member of Energy and Commerce, Mr. Barton. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk about the need for debate on this bill, and I want to say that Mr. Hoyer has said himself, 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 best product. I agree with my colleagues that this has been a terrible process. We have not debated the extension of this deadline. I also want to say that June 17 is a Friday. We're going into tornado season March 1st, hurricane season June 1st. We have the potential for harming the very people the majority says that it wants to help because they will not be able to get the help they need. The numbers they have been throwing around are exaggerated and, in some cases, absolutely wrong. There are 10 million coupons out there, and the numbers were January 22 numbers. I want to urge defeat of the rule and say, again, we should be doing this under regular order. I yield back.

Ms. FOXX. May I inquire exactly how much time we have left, Mr. Speaker?

Ms. FOXX. I give the gentleman 10 seconds.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield now 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus). (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to our distinguished colleague from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen).

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

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my esteemed colleague from California (Mr. Issa). (Mr. ISSA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

Ms. FOXX. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from California for yielding time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. We have some very eloquent speakers lined up on our side to talk about this bill, so I'm going to speak just a short time so I can leave plenty of time for my colleagues who have very eloquent statements to make on this issue, but I do want to point out that this process began a very long time ago. It is a rather complicated issue, but even by Federal Government standards, this is a long time to accomplish a task. It's also, I think, an indication of the change that has come to Congress in the past 2 years. We want change. President Obama has said he wants change, but he wants change that makes government work. This is going in the wrong direction, in my opinion. And my colleagues are going to talk, again, about why this is going in the wrong direction. But I want to point out that in the so-called stimulus bill, the majority party has put another $650 million to deal with this issue. According to our calculation, a small percentage, less than 1 percent of the people who need this assistance, have not requested the coupons. That equates, we believe, to spending over $3,000 per household for the holdouts who have not gotten their converter box. That is a lot of money to be spending. I, frankly, think this is an excuse to put three times the amount of money that we think needs to be spent on the remainder of this program, and it's just another example of overreaching on the part of the majority. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. The national debt will jump by more than $1 trillion in the 6 months ending in March. $1 trillion dollars in 6 months. Think about that. The previous record increase in the national debt was less than half this amount, and that was over the course of an entire year, which means we are currently racking up debt at four times the rate of the previous record. And all of this debt doesn't include the so-called stimulus package that the Senate has already porked up to $900 billion. It's so full of spending unrelated to job creation that we can't even begin to tally the waste. We must stop and take stock. With hardly a second thought, the Federal Government is careening towards a record $2 trillion deficit-- payable by our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. My friends, we cannot borrow and spend our way to prosperity.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to thank my colleagues for the great information that they have shared today and how they have laid out the issue that we're dealing with, but I want to add some more to that. Yesterday, the Treasury Department announced that it will need to borrow $493 billion in the first 3 months of 2009, the highest amount ever borrowed in the first quarter. This is on top of the record debt racked up in the last quarter of 2008--$569 billion. It is important to emphasize here that the only money the Federal Government has is that which it takes from taxpaying citizens or borrows from foreign countries. We have never in the history of our Nation taken on this much debt this quickly. For those keeping track at home, that's $1.062 trillion in 6 months. Did I mention that this is more than $1 trillion in new debt in a mere 6 months does not include the so-called ``stimulus'' plan, which now costs $900 billion? Folks, the Federal Government is broke. Every single dollar of new spending is added to our national debt. And how do we pay back this debt? That's easy. New taxes. Higher taxes. In the meantime, we keep hearing how this borrow-and-spend stimulus plan is going to quickly create jobs. How does upgrading the Department of Agriculture's computers create jobs quickly? Or $650 million for DTV coupons, or a billion for Census follow-up in 2010 or $7 billion for a GSA fund that is already running a surplus? Well, this kind of spending doesn't create jobs. It creates debt. It has no business in legislation billed as ``job creating.'' Some of this spending may actually have merit, but it belongs in the budget process, not tacked onto a must-pass bill because it couldn't stand a chance in the actual budget. This kind of back-room deal-making and wasteful spending is just the kind of Washington business-as-usual that Americans are tired of. If we are going to have an economic recovery package, let's do it right. Despite our colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying we do not have a plan, Republicans have proposed a package of tax relief and unemployment assistance that will create twice the jobs at half the cost. Let me repeat that. The Republican proposal creates twice the jobs at half the cost. And the GOP plan addresses the underlying cause of our economic distress in the U.S. housing market. I want to thank my colleague from Virginia, Eric Cantor, for helping to spearhead this plan and for setting up a helpful Web site that discusses the Republican economic recovery plan at republicanwhip.house.gov. This plan will help small businesses start hiring and will get the housing market moving again. And it acknowledges that every dollar the government borrows today must be paid back by our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren tomorrow.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, it is important that we continue to help the American people understand what is in this so-called ``stimulus bill.'' The bill passed last week, but in addition to every Republican voting ``no,'' there were 11 brave Democrats who also voted ``no.'' That has not been told much on the news. Here are some more facts about how the Senate, which is now debating the bill, has made this awful bill even worse. When the public knows the facts, it then can react and tell its Members what they should and shouldn't do. The Senate added $88 million for ATV trails, park trails, fish and wildlife trails and fish passages. There is $524 million to create 388 jobs in the United States through the State Department Capital Investment Fund. This equals $1.35 million per job created. There is $696 million for the Department of Homeland Security headquarters consolidation, $70 million for a support computer for climate research, $34 million of renovations at the Department of Commerce and $20 million for IT improvements to the Bureau of Industry and Security. The American people are angry, and they should be.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to be the first to say how much I appreciate the bipartisan results of this last vote on a bill which had been called a ``stimulus package.'' Many of us understood this was not going to help our economy because there was too much government spending, not enough tax cuts and too much money that was going to be put in a budget that was going to last forever and ever. I am so proud of the fact that we had bipartisan opposition to this legislation instead of bipartisan support for it. It was very important that we let the American people understand that some of us do have principles and we stand on those principles. This was not a political vote. It was a philosophical vote. That is what the President said he would respect, and I take him at his word. We voted ``no'' because of philosophical differences. We believe that we should return more money to the American people and not put more money in government coffers and not mortgage our children, our grandchildren and great grandchildren. My granddaughter asked me recently, why do you want to put little children in debt? And I said that I don't want to do that. The less we put them in debt the better off this country will be.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the ranking member of the Rules Committee, for giving me this time. I want to say that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle practice revisionist history. President Bush inherited a recession. But the tax cuts that were put in place in 2001 and 2003 helped revive our economy and put it on the path to having 54 straight months of excellent job growth. When things started going poorly in the economy was when the Democrats took control of the Congress in 2007. That is when we started having problems. And I think it's important that we point that out. They have a real hard time, I think, dealing with the facts. Yesterday we got what was called a ``fact sheet'' from the Speaker's Office saying that this was a bipartisan, open and transparent legislative process. And yet we learned during the process of the committee meeting that information on here was not accurate. And I think it is important, again, that we see there is a pattern of trying to change the facts to suit themselves. Now I want to talk a little bit about what else is wrong with this rule and the bill that it supports. I have a strong background in education. I was a school board member, a university administrator and a community college president. And I want to say that putting money into education in the way it's being done in this bill is not going to help stimulate the economy. We know, again, from research that more spending K-12 does not significantly improve educational performance. So this is not going to stimulate the economy. We also know that Federal early education programs don't have lasting benefits for disadvantaged children. Much as we would like to rewrite the facts, it doesn't happen.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, last month the Granite Bears of Mount Airy, North Carolina, notched one final win in their perfect 2008 season. The Bears won a decisive victory over Williamston in a North Carolina 1-A State high school football championship game on December 13. The Bears 37-14 championship victory was reminiscent of their triumphant 2008 season, in which they allowed only 80 points in their first 15 games. In the playoffs Mount Airy dominated every opponent they faced, scoring 261 points to their opponents' meager 26 points. Coach Kelly Holder and the whole Mount Airy team, led by quarterback Aaron Wheeler, made the Mount Airy community glow with pride when they capped their perfect season with the State title. And with 16 seniors filling the team's roster, the State championship is a crowning achievement for a team of young men who have played together for so many years. I congratulate the players, coaches, parents, teachers and fans for a perfect season and State championship. The Mount Airy Bears deserve to be celebrated for making this community proud in their 2008 season.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot this week about what the Democrats' $825 billion stimulus package should do or may do or what Democrats hope it will do. Let's look at what it really will do: It will bill every American household with a $6,700 tab. That's the cost of the Democrats' plan for every American family. Put another way, it will cost every American--every man, woman and child in this country--$2,700. The cost of this bill is almost as much as the amount the Federal Government spends every year in discretionary spending. The bill will spend millions of dollars in digital TV coupons. The bill will spend $200 million to plant grass on the National Mall. And the bill will ensure our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will encounter not necessarily a great economy, but an enormous national debt. This is totally irresponsible and should not be allowed to pass.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). (Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Paulsen, 2 minutes.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do is recognize Mr. Paulsen from Minnesota. And then when it is Mr. Frank's time, I will yield to a question.