Scott Garrett

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor now for the next 60 minutes to address an issue that is of utmost importance to all Americans, and it is a very simple one: Where do my tax dollars go and why do I pay so much in taxes? We will see over the course of the next hour where some of the dollars go, and we will also see the fact that, quite honestly, it is hard to determine where some of those dollars go and what the Republican conference has tried to do to address that issue, to try to nail down some of what the facts are. I am referring, of course, to earmarks and transparency in the budget process because, as we all know for all too long, it has been a difficult issue to try just to figure out, when you send your taxes every April 15 to Washington, DC, where some of those hard-earned dollars go to. These are important issues, as I said at the very beginning, to the American family because, as I have always said, I believe, as Members of Congress, that our focus should be on the family budget as opposed to focusing on the Federal budget, because when we focus on the family budget, the American family from the east coast to the west, the fact that they have to spend day after day working hard for their money, for their income, to pay for their expenses, when we focus on those facts and when we focus on the fact that the American family has to pay for their housing, their rent or their mortgage, the education of their children, their food and their clothing and other expenses and health care and the like, if we keep our mind focused on that, maybe we in this Congress and the administration will not be amiss as to where those dollars go in the long term. If you may recall, it was just a week ago this Monday that we celebrated the 220th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. The Founding Fathers, brilliant men all, had wisdom probably beyond their years and beyond their ages when they crafted, in 1787, that document that lives with us today. It is our job, as Members of Congress, to read that document, to understand that document from an original intent point of view, and by that, I mean to understand what the Founders intended at that time for generations to come. One of the hallmarks of that document was to understand a federalist system of government. And within that, the States were sovereign in the sense that they were to take care of many factors; people were supposed to have utmost responsibility for themselves and their family, and the Federal Government was to have very limited powers. And in that Constitution it specifically set out, article I, section 8 sets out much of the limitations on the powers that Congress has. Just shortly after the enactment of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights was created and added a portion of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. And the 10th Amendment to the Constitution says something that I think is important to our fiscal spending, and that is, ``All rights not specifically delegated to the Federal Government are retained by the States and the people, respectively.'' Those powers that are retained by the people, all other ones are by the people and the States. So the Constitution, if you would look at it, basically just lists what the Federal Government is supposed to do. Everything else is in the hands of the people or the States. Now, over the generations, unfortunately, especially in the last 40 or 50-some-odd years, the Federal Government has grown expansively. And because of that, so, too, has the budget, and so, too, has the burden on the American family. We come tonight to point out that the budget we have seen crafted by the other side of the aisle continues to grow out of control without constraint and, therefore, puts an additional burden in the form of higher taxes. Here we stand 9 months into this 110th Congress, and what have we seen as far as the budget is concerned? What has this 110th Democrat-controlled Congress wrought? Most specifically, the largest tax increase in U.S. history. Let me repeat that, and I will probably say that later on, the largest tax increase in U.S. history. And why is that? Well, for a couple of reasons. One, you have continued to see excesses in spending out of the budget coming from the other side of the aisle. That, in and of itself, is bad for the American economy and for the American taxpayer. And secondly, those higher taxes are part and parcel of the Democrat plan. Why do I say that? Well, because part of their plan when they came in here, and this is something that they championed and they said was to be good, was something called PAYGO, pay-as-you-go. Now, in the heart of things you would think that that is not a bad idea to pay as you go. When you think about it, that's how every family in America really should be operating on their budget each week or each month when they pay their bills, figure out how much is in the checkbook, and before they can go on any further they have to make sure they have enough income. But when the American family needs additional income to pay for additional expenses, where do they get it from? Well, they have to earn it through additional work, or that American family has another alternative, just don't spend the money in the first place. Unfortunately, the other side of the aisle doesn't ever seem to want to choose that second option of decreasing spending or holding spending flat, and that's why we see spending continuing to grow out of control. And as that spending continues to grow out of control, how do they make up for it? Well, they, unlike the American family, are not out there earning those dollars for those PAYGOs. They do it the old-fashioned way; they tax it. And they take it out of my pocket and out of your pocket, out of the American taxpayers' pocket. So we're here to discuss those dilemmas that are facing the American family. And I'm pleased to be joined this evening by a gentleman who has been fighting on this floor those very issues, fighting on the floor for the American family to make sure that the American family can retain as much of their hard-earned dollars as possible, and to address these issues that we've begun to address so far as far as spending and trying to constrain it. So right now I would like to yield the floor to the good gentleman from Texas.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I want to stand and say I am pleased today that the rule will provide one amendment that Chris Shays from Connecticut and myself also brought to the committee yesterday, but I also want to take this 1 minute to say that I had been hopeful that we could have had a vote on another amendment which would have delayed the FAA's New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia airspace redesign until a further study could have concluded. You see, Mr. Chairman, the air routes, in an attempt to cut delays, means that thousands of residents will be exposed to new levels of aircraft noise and pollution. There is great concern in townships throughout my district that these new routes will negatively impact upon the quality of life. The FAA claims to have looked into alternative options to decrease airline delays, but all those options dealt with changing the design of the airspace and reroutes over quiet neighborhoods; yet the FAA has admitted that many of the frustrating delays are caused not by airplane congestion but by airline overscheduling. The amendment that unfortunately did not come out of Rules would have required that the FAA look into those matters before proceeding. But, again, I am appreciative of the fact that what did come out of Rules, an amendment that we will be discussing a little later on to allow for further studies by the GAO.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for his assistance. As indicated before, this is extremely important to our districts. We are completely frustrated over the months with the FAA for their lack of response, lack of consideration for alternative methods, and I appreciate that. We look forward to the amendment later on today with regards to the GAO report that will finally put the information right before the FAA. They can't look any other way. They haven't listened to our constituents. Maybe they will listen to the GAO report, and I am sure, absolutely sure, that they will listen to the chairman and the ranking member. Thank you again for your assistance.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chair and I thank the ranking member and I thank the chairman as well for this opportunity to engage in this colloquy. I'd like to thank my friend from Florida for your advice and your assistance on this matter with regard to the New Jersey and New York airspace redesign. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) knows the issue firsthand because he has traveled up to New Jersey last year and knows of its importance as a top concern for the residents of north Jersey. I need to reiterate my concerns with the FAA's record of decision- making regarding this design plan. The alternative chosen by the FAA will reroute planes over areas that used to be quiet communities in an effort to reduce delays and air congestion. But because of this, thousands of residents in north Jersey will soon have planes flying over their homes for the first time ever. And these citizens are justifiably concerned that the increase in noise and pollution and affecting their quality of life will be negative. Just recently, over 1,400 of these concerned citizens showed up at an FAA meeting to make their concerns known to the design plan. Unfortunately, the FAA did not listen to their concerns and they published their record anyway earlier this month. The FAA chose this plan because they believe it will achieve their goal of reducing delays. Despite all attempts by myself, other colleagues, local officials, there was no attempt at all to balance this goal with the needs of the citizens of the area. There was also no attempt to consider other factors such as airline overscheduling and the size of the planes flying in and out of the area. Only air routes were studied. I understand that the legislation we have before us today attempts to deal with the problem of overscheduling, and it would be my hope that the FAA will continue to review the New Jersey airspace issues with an eye towards these less-intrusive solutions to the delay problems. I would appreciate, then, the support and assistance of the chairman and the ranking member to determine if there are other practical steps that can be taken to decrease the noise and, therefore, to increase the quality of life that this will incur. I yield now to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to offer this amendment with my colleague from Connecticut. The FAA recently released their Record of Decision regarding the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Airspace Redesign and it simply fails to achieve a livable balance for tens of thousands of citizens living in north Jersey. The State goal of the redesign was to reduce delays and airspace congestion: the FAA met this goal by flying planes over communities that up till now have not had to deal with the noise and pollution generated by overhead air routes. The FAA's study failed to look into any strategies other than airspace redesign to reduce delays and congestion. Our amendment will ask the GAO to evaluate how other strategies could reduce delay. I have asked the FAA to review alternative strategies and politely been rebuffed. Perhaps when we compare the results of this study with the FAA's claims perhaps we can have a clear view of whether rerouting planes over our communities is really called for. While the Record of Decision has been issued, the plans contained in it will be implemented over a course of years. I am hopeful that this will give the FAA time to reconsider and to reconstruct their plans to accommodate the concerns of citizens below the flight paths.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend a seventh grade student at East Brook Middle School in Paramus, NJ, for demonstrating a tremendous commitment to his community with exuberance and spirit. At his tender young age, Joey Rizzolo has already offered more of an example of public service for America than many adults. Under the tutelage of their teacher, Jane Cosco, Joey Rizzolo and his fellow students take part in a service-learning project called Operation Goody Bag. For the past 3 years, students at East Brook Middle School have decorated lunch bags; stuffed them with letters, poems, candy, and other such items; and shipped them to local first responders and service members overseas. Fifty thousand packages have been shipped already and each one is sure to bring a smile to the face of its recipient. As an outgrowth of that effort, Operation Goody Bag decided to participate in the Department of Defense's America Supports You program and the annual Freedom Walk. This year, Joey, as the Paramus Freedom Walk chairman and his fellow students took to the streets with about 400 local citizens to show their support for the men and women serving in the military and for their families. I was proud to join Joey and his fellow students for this special event. From their homes in Paramus, these students had a front row seat to the horrific terrorist attacks on September 11. Many of their family members and neighbors were there at the World Trade Center that day or were amongst the first responders who rushed into Manhattan to help in the hours and days and weeks that followed. These students approach their work with poise and grace, dedication and commitment. And Joey Rizzolo organized and led this first annual walk as if he'd been doing it for a lifetime. It was an honor to stand with these students earlier this month to commemorate the sixth anniversary of September 11 and it is an honor to represent these students, their teacher, and their families in Congress.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I rise in honor of the 85th anniversary of the Glen Rock Public Library in Bergen County, New Jersey. On June 9, 1922, the library first opened its doors in a small store on the town's main street. It is now a cornerstone of the community where people come to read and learn, meet and discuss. It is where so much of the town business is conducted. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the Friends of the Library, a group of committed volunteers who have helped to make the library one of the Borough's most valuable assets. With their help and the help of a volunteer Board of Trustees, Glen Rock has reached the distinction of having one of the highest circulation figures of the more than 70 libraries in the Bergen County Cooperative Library System. In fact, 85 percent of the Borough's 11,546 residents have library cards. The Glen Rock Public Library is not just a place where people come to check out books; it is where people come to build their community. It is an important part of what makes Glen Rock such an outstanding place to live, work, and raise a family. I commend the staff and volunteers who toil endlessly, yet lovingly for their tremendous efforts on behalf of the people of the Borough of Glen Rock.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, this evening, Susan A. Dickey, who has served as elected Surrogate for the past seven years, will be honored for her record of dedicated service to the people of Warren County, New Jersey. I join my friends and neighbors in commending Susan for her commitment to this office. The constitutional office of Surrogate is not a glamorous one. There aren't a lot of ribbon cuttings and photo ops to do. There aren't many big ticket items that make it to the front pages of the local papers. But, there are few elected offices that can have a greater impact on individual lives. We come to seek the aid of the Surrogate and her office when we are in the midst of issues involving trusts, wills, estates, and probate. Our visits to the Surrogate's office are rarely on happy occasions, often following loss of a loved one. And, though winding through the confusing red tape of probate law is just about the last thing we want to do under those circumstances, Susan Dickey and her staff have done all in their power to ease the difficult burden. Susan has sought to computerize estate processing, to make information and forms available online, and to simplify the process. She has made her office more accessible to those who are handicapped, ill, or homebound. And, she has been working with the County Office on Aging to develop a free-will program for qualified seniors--a program she first introduced as a Warren County Freeholder before she was elected to the Surrogate's Office. Susan Dickey is a true public servant, and I commend her for her work and for the example she provides.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I rise to join the more than 20,000 families in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area that have been impacted by aphasia, an isolating loss of words, but not intelligence, that often follows stroke or brain injury, in paying tribute to their very own angel, Angelica Berrie. Angelica is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Adler Aphasia Center, opened in 2003 in Maywood, New Jersey to provide education, training, advocacy, and research hope to those suffering from aphasia. Since then she has been an active member of the Board. Angelica is also a driving force behind a number of other charitable organizations: the Board Chair for Gilda's Club Worldwide, a free cancer support community; Board Chair for the Center for Inter- Religious Understanding; and a Board member of American Friends of Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. She formerly was a Board member of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine and a former member of Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons' Diabetes Advisory Committee. Her well-rounded pursuits bring hope and help to so many people in North Jersey and, indeed, around the world. Her late husband, Russ, founded the world renowned gift company, Russ Berrie and Company. His philanthropic gifts live on through the Russell Berrie Foundation, which Angelica serves as President. Amongst its many accomplishments, the Foundation has created the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital, the Berrie Fellows Program for community leadership, the Berrie Humanistic Care Center at Englewood Hospital, and the Berrie Performing Arts Center at Ramapo College. Angelica has been a generous benefactor, a compassionate voice, and a dedicated advocate for so many. In her lifetime, she has touched a million lives in overwhelmingly positive ways. Tonight the Adler Aphasia Center is honoring Angelica Berrie for her service to her fellow man, and I join them in commending her for giving so much of herself to make the world around her a better place.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to voice my very reluctant opposition to the underlying bill. Over the last 8 months, the Financial Services Committee has had several hearings on this important topic, including one that I attended in New York City. I thought these hearings were very productive and I am pleased that the Committee and this House are focused on an issue that is not only very important to the 5th district of New Jersey, but to our national economic well-being. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, terrorism risk insurance either became unavailable or extremely expensive and many businesses were no longer able to purchase insurance that would protect them in any future terrorist attack. Financially, terrorist threats pose a risk of serious harm not only to the insurance industry, but also to the real estate, transportation, construction, energy, and utility sectors. Even beyond the horrific human toll, terrorists could inflict real pain by melting our infrastructure and economy down. Recognizing the detrimental effects an attack could have upon our economy, Congress acted quickly and responsibly to debate and pass the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, better known as TRIA. This temporary Act helped stabilize the terrorism insurance marketplace and restore capacity to that large part of the U.S. economy. In 2005, Congress extended the TRIA program with some additional reforms and changes for 2 more years. I supported this extension because I felt that more time was needed to allow the private markets increase their capacity and develop new and creative ways to work out the problems that existed. Since September 11, insurers and reinsurers have cautiously reentered the terrorism insurance market, allocating more capacity year-to-year. More commercial policyholders are becoming insured, year-to-year. At the same time, the federal role has scaled back correspondingly, with higher deductibles, higher co-pays, higher triggers, and fewer lines of insurance covered. I view this increased private-sector involvement and decreased government involvement, to be a positive development. Unfortunately, the bill before us today sets these positive and natural developments back. Still more unfortunate is that though this is an issue that the Financial Services Committee has historically acted on in a bipartisan manner, the Chairman rebuffed in full and without, what I believe, proper consideration a number of very reasonable proposals that my colleagues on this side of the aisle offered--amendments that might have made this bill more palatable and perhaps staved off the Presidential veto threat now on the table. My primary concern is the proposed length of duration of the government program. This bill would extend the life of this program by 15 years. A short-term, temporary extension allows for periodic reassessment of market conditions to see if there is more room for private sector participation. It allows for a gradual scaling-back of the government program going-forward as we observe how private insurers and reinsurers continue to expand the market. A short-term extension permits the natural evolution of the market to occur. Given that the private sector continues to increase its capacity to cover terrorism risk insurance, I believe a short-term extension is more appropriate than creating a permanent government program. If we establish an essentially permanent program, the private sector will lose its incentive to look for innovative and newer solutions. And realistically passing a 15-year extension is equivalent to passing an essentially permanent program. If we extend the program for too long of a time period, I fear we will not revisit this important topic and continue to try and make improvements like we did after the last time the program expired. As we all know, Congress rarely opens already passed legislation to make changes and improvements. We did not reopen the Transportation Bill, the Farm Bill and other long-term reauthorizations regardless of the problems that arose. And, we will not reopen this bill either. So, Mr. Chairman, while I would support a temporary extension of this important program, I cannot support extending the program by 15 years, decreasing the amount of private sector participation, and loading an extra burden on the U.S. taxpayer. I ask my colleagues to vote against this legislation.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the Speaker for the clarification. I appreciate it.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. The final element of when a vote is actually closed is when the Speaker, in this case yourself, actually hands down the gavel and not the board?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Further parliamentary inquiry?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Just so I am clear, it is not upon the board, nor is it at the time of handing of the gavel down? Some other action has to occur?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Further parliamentary inquiry then.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Can the Speaker please clarify within the rules of the House when a bill is final in terms of not being subject to open and changing the votes? Is it when the board says final or is it when the Speaker gavels the bill down?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I will leave you to make that point in greater detail because I think it is a significant point. I will leave you on this note as well, that the other side of the ledger sheet, if you are not going to cut spending, the other side is increased revenue. I believe you will probably show a chart that you will have later on with regard to how they have been doing it. But the American public must know this in a larger sense, that since the Democrats have been in power, they have given us the largest tax increase in America's history. The last time we had such a large tax increase was back when the Democrats were in charge 12 years ago. It was just a week ago, a couple of weeks ago when they wanted to raise taxes by $53 billion with regard to a piece of legislation that they had no offsets for. Additionally, just yesterday, or the day before, they wanted to raise taxes again by another billion dollars on redundant programs. So as you pointed out, there are two ways to do this, either cut spending, which they are not agreeable to do, or raise taxes; and of course we have seen the history over the last month: every time they get a chance, they do that.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the good work of the gentleman from Georgia on so many areas that I work with you on, Financial Services and otherwise; but here tonight most specifically what is important to the American public and American taxpayer, and that is just how much money is coming out of their wallet, out of their pocket here and being sent down to Washington, where those dollars are going and whether are being held responsibly. I am not sure whether you were on the floor at the moment, but prior to your speaking we had a Member from the other side of the aisle on the floor giving their comments, and the gentleman from the other side of the aisle, the Democratic Caucus Chair, who was speaking for a little bit about the new book that is out there on Federal responsibility and issues of such. Alan Greenspan just did the book. If you listen to his comments, it almost harkens back to prior to the elections and the exact same rhetoric we heard at that time as we did just 35 minutes ago from the other side of the aisle. He was lambasting and had been lambasting this administration and the past Congresses, saying that they have spent too much money, that the past leadership in this House was being fiscally irresponsible, that they were passing bill after bill, spending increase after spending increase. On and on the rhetoric went, just 35 minutes ago, the same rhetoric that we heard during the last election about looking towards the past and all the mistakes that were made in the past. Now if you listen to that, you would always assume that the next words out of their mouth were going to be: but this is what we are going to do when we get into the majority. We are going to reverse those trends. If spending was too high, we are going to go in the other direction. That is what you think would be the next words out of their mouth, but of course they can't be. Here we are in September, 9 months into this new 110th Congress, under the leadership now of the Democrat majority, both in this House and the Senate, and we have their track record to look at to see what course do they take. They lambasted, attacked the path of too much spending. Did they reduce spending? They did not. Instead, they have piled onto that spending. Increased spending in the past was bad. Well, they exacerbated that problem by spending even more. There was a study recently that goes to this point, taking a look now at this new 110th Congress. The National Taxpayers Union, basically a nonpartisan organization, looking at both sides of the aisle fairly recently did a study that shows that the 110th Congress, both Senate and House, have introduced far more bills for budget savings than they have in previous administrations, previous Congresses. On first blush, that would be a positive thing until, again, you think of what the record has been over the last 9 months. Has anyone seen any of those savings bills passed through this House and passed through the Senate and get signed into law? I can't think of any. It's one thing to talk the rhetoric, which they have been doing. It is another thing to drop in the savings bills, which some of them may have been doing. But when we see the leadership will not post any of those savings bills, that is the problem. For each bill introduced in this House that would reduce Federal spending, and this makes the point, there have been over 20 bills, a 20 to 1 ratio increasing the size and amount of spending in Congress. If you additionally listened to the other side, they will talk about and applaud themselves and pat themselves on the back about PAYGO, which you have already discussed, which is a good term described in a very elementary way to say pay-as-you-go, something that all families have to do in this country, and we wish Congress could live by that as well. Well, there are two aspects to PAYGO. One is the spending side of the equation. Let's talk about that for a minute. I don't know whether you have this chart up there. I know you have a number of charts. One of the charts is headed ``New Majority's Fiscal Irresponsibility.'' I don't want to make you go through all your charts. One of the ways you can deal with PAYGO is this, and this is exactly what every family does as well. When the family sits down and looks at their budget for that week or that month as far as paying their bills, they have to prioritize and say we may have a new expense here that we would like or need to pay, but we don't have enough money in the checkbook. So what are we going to do, we are going to reduce spending elsewhere. Good idea. American families should do it; Congress should do it. This side tried to reduce spending by 2 percent. That didn't get anywhere. How about 1 percent? Can we agree there is 1 percent of waste, fraud, and abuse in Congress? You would think we could agree to that. But if we could look to the chart right next to you right now, what that chart says is as follows: when that 1 percent reduction legislation was proposed to this House, who voted for it and who was against it.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the tremendous public service of Noreen Egan of Glen Rock, New Jersey. For the past quarter of a century, Noreen has been the rock of the Glen Rock Volunteer Ambulance Corps. A graduate of Holy Name Hospital School of Nursing and Seton Hall University, Noreen settled in Glen Rock with her husband, Tom, and has raised two sons there--Dan and Jamie. She soon became interested in using her nursing skills to help her community by joining the Glen Rock Volunteer Ambulance Corps. Over the years, she has not only been one of its most active members, Noreen has also served as its Chief and Lieutenant. Earlier this year, Noreen was nominated by her fellow Corps members for the John R. Rinaldi Special Recognition Award given by the Bergen County Chapter of the 200 Club at their Annual Valor Awards luncheon in April 2007. The award is a highly competitive honor presented to one person each year for his or her outstanding contribution to emergency services. And later this year, the Glen Rock Ambulance Corps will honor Noreen for her 25 years of service at their annual installation dinner. In addition to serving people in need through the Ambulance Corps, Noreen has also served the children of the Academy of Our Lady as their school nurse for the past 24 years. And, last year, she was appointed Assistant Director for the Glen Rock Office of Emergency Management. Furthermore, Noreen and Tom Egan--a Vietnam War veteran and Commander of VFW Post 850 in Glen Rock--have cultivated a sense of community spirit and civic responsibility in their sons. Dan, who joined the Ambulance Corps with his mother when he was in high school, is now an emergency room doctor at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York and at Bergen County's own Valley Hospital. Jamie just completed a tour of Iraq as an Army Ranger. The Nation has achieved its greatness because of families like the Egans. The Glen Rock Volunteer Ambulance Corps has served the people of Glen Rock for just over 50 years--almost half of that with the help of Noreen Egan. She and her colleagues are what make the words of the Ambulance Corps' slogan, ``Neighbor helping Neighbor,'' ring true.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, as we come to the floor 9 months into the control of this House and this country by the Democratic majority, we have to ask ourselves, what has it brought? Well, it has brought us expanded government programs outside the area of jurisdiction, increase in Federal spending, and of course efforts to raise taxes on Americans. Just at the very beginning of this year, it was the largest tax increase in U.S. history. A short time ago, it was a $53 billion increase through the SCHIP program. On spending, it was a $1 billion program just yesterday tried to do. And, of course, there is a litany of earmarks that we still don't know where it is going to and who is sponsoring it. It was a Republican majority that forced the Democrats to give us a list of all the earmarks in their spending and have asked for more transparency. But I want to remind the American public, to this day we still do not have a list of all the earmarks, who is sponsoring them, and where the dollars are going to. I encourage the Democrat majority to do as the American public must do, to live within their means, and to be open and honest as to where the American tax dollars are going to.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for the points you make and for joining me on the floor this evening and joining with me and other Members of Congress who are supporters of the LEARN Act, and who in general believe that we must do all we possibly can to help elevate and raise up the standards and the quality of education in this country. Sometimes the best way to do that is to allow those people closest to it and those people with the most interest in it, and that is the parents and local school and the teachers, to become involved with it. The gentleman from Georgia raised a couple of interesting points, and I want to go back and highlight some of them. One is what has been the result so far since No Child Left Behind has been on the books. Now my charts over here have shown that ever since President Lyndon Johnson came into office and made it one of his major legacies, and that is what he said it was going to be, the authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which has now been on the books for 40 years, we have seen the result in test scores over the last some-40 years of Federal control and involvement in education, and those results are pretty dismal. If this was something in business or anywhere else and you saw a flat, no increase with additional spending year after year and additional regulation and modification on the Federal level, you would say something is wrong here. Well, there is because the Federal Government has become involved and has taken away some of the accountability and authority that should rest back at home with the local community. Since No Child Left Behind passed the first time, the first report came out I believe in the beginning of 2006 with regard to No Child Left Behind and the results from that. In essence, the proponents of NCLB jumped and said it is working. We are seeing a slight improvement, and they said that is all because of NCLB. Then you have to sit back and think: NCLB was passed in 2002 with an effective date of 2003. Portions as far as the implementations didn't begin until 2004 and 2005. Here this report was coming out in the beginning of 2006. So you realize at the end of the day that NCLB wasn't having any of those positive impacts. These were things that were just long in the books already, long in the course of things already that the States had already taken upon. For example, in certain reading areas, almost two or three dozen States had already instituted a reading program that NCLB later on would say this would be the reading program that they would encourage States to employ. Of course those States that are already doing it were ahead of the game and they skewed the numbers upwards. So the reports that you read in some of the press reports coming back from NCLB, they say NCLB is working. You have to look--at was it NCLB or something the teachers and parents had already instituted by themselves? Now, I can speak from personal experience on some of these topics because, as I indicated before, I used to be in State government before I came to Washington. I served on an education committee there. One of the things that we did in the great State of New Jersey was to come up with what we called the CCC, that is the ``core curriculum content'' standards. So we had already in our State realized that we needed to address some deficiencies in public education in the State, and one of the ways you can do that is by coming up with an entire spectrum, if you will, of topics that we want our kids in our schools to learn, and learn at a good level. So that was the core curriculum content standard. So we were going to say that all public schools would have this in the great State of New Jersey. They ran the gamut. They were not just math and reading, which is what NCLB is about, but other topics as well. History classes and social studies classes, literature and arts and art classes and technical classes as well. And on and on the list went. Foreign languages and the like. They were things that the people of the State of New Jersey said was important for our kids and our State in a way that we wanted them to be educated in it. After NCLB came into place, our State had to do what a lot of other States had to do as well, and that is turn from what we said, what our parents, what our community said was important for our children, to what Washington was now saying was important. Washington said that math and reading are important, and they are. You will get no debate with me on that. But when you make just two items the premier and the only topics that you are going to be judged on, and if you only make two areas the only area that you are going to be potentially funded or defunded on, what is the natural inclination of administrators and the like? It is to shift local resources away from these other programs like physical education, health, arts, sciences, history, shift your dollars away from those things, things that the local community might feel are very important and shift them over to what now the bureaucrats in Washington say are the only things that are important. When you think about it, there is another consequence to it as well. When you make that shift, you do a disservice to some of the children in your school or who are perhaps doing well or just getting by at certain levels as you focus exclusively on one area. Let me give you a classic example of that. We had a school in our district which was an exceptional school. It has been considered that by the State of New Jersey for many years; it has been considered that by the parents of the children who go to that school. It is a school that all the kids do well on their SATs. I think it has like nearly a 100 percent graduation rate, just about an equal percentage of children going from high school on to college. By anyone's classification, almost anyone's classification, an exceptional school. NCLB comes along, and because of some difficulties in just a very small area with just a very small select group of children in that school, it rated as not performing as NCLB wanted them to perform. That, therefore, made a problem for the administrators in the school, that they would have to now shift their focus and shift their attention and shift their resources from what had been a successful school in the past to address some of these concerns on the Federal level. So now what do you do? You leave behind the whole idea of NCLB, No Child Left Behind, and now you are leaving behind the vast majority of children in that school Let me just take a moment then first to finish on a point I raised earlier, the problem of the race to the bottom that NCLB is causing and then what some of the solutions are. I think I mentioned earlier one example, which was Michigan. Michigan, like New Jersey, had prior to NCLB raised its standards because that is what the parents and the community and teachers all said was appropriate and what they wanted for their children in their school. Then NCLB came along with their new rubric of how things are going to run. What happened? By the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year, Michigan found itself with more failing schools than any other State. Obviously, if you have the bar of your standards way up here and all the other States are down here in the middle someplace, you are not going to have 100 percent efficiency up here. So they had more failing schools than any other State. So NCLB in essence was making Michigan look worse than any other State that had set the bar lower. How did Michigan respond to this embarrassment? By lowering the passing rate on its high school English test from 75 percent to 42 percent, which helped reduce its reported number of failing school from 1,500 schools to 216. So instead of getting the 75 that is usually like a C average in a school, instead of saying you needed a C in order to be passing in English, they say all you need is a 42 percent. When did you ever go to school and say a 42, which would be a D or E or something like that in school, was passing. That is what Michigan did in response to NCLB. What did other schools do? They lowered their bars as well. One of them did it in a more clever way. They changed what they call the ``confidence intervals.'' That is when you take a poll. They have a confidence factor or margin of error of 3 or 4 percent. If you raise that percentage point all the way up to the point so the confidence factor is very small, then you can say in essence that you are changing the facts by statistics. That is what a number of schools did. Kentucky did that. By choosing 99.5 percent confidence, they made it a very narrow range as far as what was within the failing range, and, therefore, all of a sudden their grades as far as NCLB was concerned went up. On the list goes. How about average yearly progress? I will talk about where that came from in a moment. Some of the schools have decided in order to do average yearly progress, they will treat it like balloon mortgages, something that we know about in the press right now. What that means is instead of saying we will do so much each year, we will only do a little tiny bit the first several years and really do a whole lot at the end. Of course you never get to the end. So some of those are just some of the classic examples of what are some of the problems with NCLB and the race to the bottom, basically saying that we are not doing what everybody wants. Everyone's high standards, whether you want to call it a national standard, world-class standards in the schools, everybody wants what is the best for their child. But when you have a system in place where the Federal Government is going to be sending out the money in relationship to their standards and allowing the flexibility for the States to have it set those standards, you are, as I said at the very beginning, speaking out of both sides of your mouth with regard to this, and you are going to have a failing system. That is what we have with the Federal Government's involvement here So what is the solution? Well, one of the solutions is simply this: do whatever you will with NCLB, and you will see a host, probably a hundred bills, right now in Congress to try to tweak it here or tweak it there, increase spending even more, as this chart shows, or take away the accountability here. On and on the list goes. You will see all that come down. I suggest, however, in addition to whatever Congress throws out on the table as far as their solution to the problem, I suggest this as well: allow the States, if they want to, voluntarily, so that means they are not forced to, to opt out of No Child Left Behind. So if your State says thank you very much, Washington, thank you very much, bureaucrats in Washington and the Department of Education, bureaucrats who have never seen my school building, never saw my child, never saw my county or town, or what have you, we do not need your assistance on how to hire our teachers, buy our books, develop our curriculum, teach our kids. We can do it ourselves. We have the competence as parent, teachers, administrators in the community to do it. We would have the ability then, if that State so desired, to opt out of No Child Left Behind and keep our own money here in our own State and not send it to Washington any more. That last point is an important one. Right now, if a State wanted to, it could opt out of No Child Left Behind, as I just described it, and say that we don't need your rules and regulations, thank you very much, Washington. But all the money would still go to Washington and that State would never get any money back. That is obviously inherently unfair to that State. Why should the taxpayers be sending money to Washington and see absolutely zero benefit from it? It makes no sense. So what the LEARN Act does, 3177 that I spoke to at the very beginning, simply says this: not only would a State, if it so desired, opt out of NCLB and all the vast red tape and rigamarole that comes with it and all the burdens that comes on the teachers and administrators and the burdens that it places on the kids who are no longer going to have high standards to live up to, not only would be able to opt out, but those taxpayers in that State would be able to in essence keep their money in their own pocket and not send it to Washington any more; keep the money in that State, in the taxpayers' pocket where it belongs so they can decide how that dollar should be spent on the public education in their own respective State. Now, mind you, some, maybe the vast majority of the States would not want to opt out of No Child Left Behind. Maybe you all live in one of those States that feels that you need Washington and the bureaucrats down in Washington to assist or to tell you how your local schools should be run. Maybe there are States, maybe there are Congress people who represent districts and those districts feel that they are just not able to decide how to run their schools, they are not able to decide what a quality teacher is, they are not able to decide what a violent school is. Maybe there is some school districts or some congressional district that just can't make a determination of how to set up a curriculum or set testing standards or set levels of accountability. For those congressional districts, they would be able to stay in the system and not opt out. That is the inherent benefit of a voluntary system. Again, I appreciate my colleagues from the various States who have already signed onto this and my colleagues who joined me on the floor this evening for discussion of NCLB and its reauthorization

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield on that point, we can break this down into two elements: first, what has happened since NCLB has been passed; and, secondly, over the longer haul. Before you came to the floor, I was giving a little brief history of where we came from on the whole area of education. As you know, this country started with the idea that education was first and foremost with the family, and after that the local schools and normal schools developed and what have you, and then the education bureaucracy developed on the State level, and a progressive education format began to grow with more rules and regulations. Finally, in the last century, and more specifically you cited it in the 1960s, with Lyndon Johnson with his growth of education. Prior to that time, you really had very little education laws passed on the Federal level. For the first 176 years of this country, there were only 41 laws in total, total laws passed in the Federal Government for education. Since LBJ passed the legislation, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 40 years ago, 117 more laws have been added to the books just on the Federal level. So since LBJ came in, there was the idea that the Federal Government is going to have a role. As the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) said, an unconstitutional role in education, but be that as it may. Since that time, the Federal Government has been doing two things: funding and setting down requirements and regulations. So you would think that if this is a good Federal program or agency, we would have something to show for it as far as where our dollars go. I have a couple of charts. This first chart here is labeled Federal Education Spending and Reading Scores. Again, as I referenced before, these are NAEP scores and they are green, yellow and red. Green is the top, 17-year-olds, and the yellow is 13-year-olds, and red is the 9- year-olds. The middle one is how much money we are spending on the Federal level. Watch what happens here. This starts in 1970. Going across here to 2005, Federal spending starts and flattens out and goes down in the 1980s. The Reagan administration, when they thought they were going to turn control over to the States, began to create block grants; but the Congress, even though it was a Republican Congress, had a different idea. Spending immediately went up dramatically. And this administration brags about the fact that they have seen a 40 percent increase in spending at the end of the chart here. So what happened with that spending? Look at the lines. Perfectly flat. The scores here, these are the NAEP scores on both sides. Perfectly flat. From 1970 to 2005, the 17-years-old NAEP scores flat; 13- and 9-year-olds, the same thing. This is sort of documenting it. This presents in a different graphic percentage change from baseline over here. The red this time is our Federal spending on education which starts over here in 1980 to 2004. Look at how it just takes off over here. You would think with all of these extra dollars, the scores on the bottom, these are math scores again for those same age groups, what do they do, perfectly flat all of the way across the bottom. No changes whatsoever as the dollars go up. That makes the point graphically that throwing the money at it from the Federal level has had no result.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Absolutely.