John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who spent two years in Ethiopia with my wife Patti eradicating small pox and building schools, it is my pleasure to recognize National Peace Corps Week. Forty-nine years ago this week, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps as a way to show the world that the United States is interested in helping our struggling neighbors across the globe. Since then, nearly 200,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps in 139 countries around the world. Peace Corps volunteers educate children, treat illnesses, assist local businesses, introduce new technologies, modernize agricultural techniques, and help protect local water supplies. To millions of people in the developing world, Peace Corps volunteers are the face of America, and we are a safer and more appreciated nation because of it. To the 7,671 volunteers around the world presently engaged in the Peace Corps' noble mission, thank you for your service. So long as I am in Congress, I will resolutely support you in your efforts. You stand on the shoulders of giants, and you are a vital contributor to a more peaceful and just world.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago today, the State of California made a decision that would alter the course of a nation. By establishing the California State University system to work in conjunction with the University of California and California's community colleges, our state's forward thinking policymakers declared that California would be a state where higher education was the birthright of every qualified resident. Since then, CSU has awarded nearly 2.5 million degrees, about 90,000 annually. Because leaders in California's past had the vision of what a better California could look like, the Golden State has become the world's great innovator in computers, biotechnology, space exploration, and clean technology. The history of human civilization is replete with examples of great societies that fell into decline when they no longer prioritized education. We know that CSU returns $4.41 for every dollar the state invests in it, and CSU creates $13.6 billion in economic activity. What will happen to us if we continue to systematically defund the 23 CSU campuses that produce our future teachers, nurses, and engineers? What will happen to California if our leaders fail to recognize the fierce urgency of now? I was proud to serve as a California State University trustee, and it was saddening to witness almost yearly increases in student fees. I never voted for an undergraduate student fee increase--essentially a tax on students--because when we tell qualified students that we can't afford to give them the education they deserve, we don't just harm the individual. When we tell more than 40,000 qualified students that they are no longer welcome to an education in California, as we did in 2009, we are really saying that California is no longer prepared to be a leader in our global economy. Today is a day for celebration. CSU has been a pillar of growth for California for 50 years, and I congratulate all the administrators, faculty, staff, and students that have made it a success. But today must also be a call to action. We must unite to say it's time to increase investment in education and California's future.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, members of the House, we have before us a very simple but extremely important proposal by our Republican colleagues to provide the insurance industry with the opportunity to continue to collude, to set prices, and to harm the consumers. Call it a safe harbor. It is indeed a very safe harbor to do what is illegal in every other portion of the American economy except for baseball. So why should we approve what the Republicans want here? No good reason at all. Competition is necessary. A safe harbor is specifically designed to allow the insurance companies to continue to gather specific information that they then use to set prices and to collude and to harm the consumers as well as the providers. There are two cases out there over the last decade in which the industry has clearly colluded and harmed providers, a case in New York and another case that was put against the insurance companies by the doctors. This proposed amendment by Congressman Lungren would harm both the providers as well as the consumers, and provide a safe harbor to do what is illegal in every other part of the American economy, that is to set prices. We ought not to do it. We ought to put this aside.

Mr. GARAMENDI. The proposed amendment opens the door for collusion. It gives the tools for collusion to the companies. We ought not do that. And there is no other part of the American economy that such collusion and such an open door and invitation to collusion is provided.

Mr. GARAMENDI. When my colleague from California was attorney general, I was insurance commissioner, and we had a grand fight over this very issue, the very issue of whether the State of California would allow the insurance companies to continue to use rating bureaus to get their price information and to continue to set prices in what could be a collusion. We put that aside. The regulations that I put into effect were adopted, and the end result was, when they could no longer use a rating bureau, which this proposal would allow, the prices began to drop in homeowners and auto insurance in California.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Chairman Conyers, thank you so very much. Mr. Speaker, I keep thinking about that movie ``Casablanca.'' The guy says, I am shocked to learn that the Republican Party that has championed itself with the free market economy would oppose a measure that would, in fact, allow for competition. Now, a lot has been said on the floor today, but the fact of the matter is--and I spent 8 years of my life as the insurance commissioner in California, and I am here to tell you that the insurance companies, using the exemption from the antitrust laws, are able to conspire to fix prices on premiums and on payments to doctors. That has been proved in cases, national cases, brought by States and by private attorneys as well as by the attorney general of New York. Similarly, they are able to vertically integrate. In a case that took place in New York, where UnitedHealthcare owns a company called Ingenix, which actually sets the reimbursement rates, they are able to have a serious conflict of interest. The lower the normal reimbursement rates, the more the copay to consumers. So there are varieties of practices that take place in the insurance industry, practices which are anticompetitive and anticonsumer. What we are doing here is very simple and very, very straightforward. It is this: Under the antitrust laws that have been in place since Teddy Roosevelt is a long history of people pushing back against the powerful interest groups--in this case, the powerful interest groups of the insurance industry. It is time for us to simply say, You must compete as every other part of the American economy must. Vertical integration to the detriment of consumers: not allowed. Price-fixing on selling the products: not allowed. Not able to use that market power to set prices on the payment to doctors and hospitals. All of those things have taken place. The proof is there. With regard to the States' ability to do this, yes, many States do have antitrust laws, and we are thankful for that, but the Federal Government, the Federal Attorney General, is precluded from involving in the matter of competition in this industry.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you. Mr. Speaker, directly to Mr. Lungren's proposed amendments, actually there are three major elements. If you look at those major elements, they do in fact give the insurance industry the opportunity to collude, because that is the data that sets future prices for consumers as well as payments for doctors. I know this business. I was the Insurance Commissioner in California for 8 years. And I know that if an insurance company is able to collude in collecting, compiling, classifying, or disseminating historic data and determining a loss development factor, and finally, using actuarial services, they have the power to collude. This is an incredible loophole. It should never be allowed. And the final point having to do with the insurance commissioners collecting data, nowhere in any antitrust laws are States precluded from any collection of data. This ought not be put forth. I ask for a ``no'' vote.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Tomorrow is an extremely important day here in Washington, D.C., and across the Nation. Tomorrow's a day in which the President will hold a summit on health care. The outcome of that meeting is of extraordinary importance to individuals, to families, and to millions upon millions of Americans, indeed, the entire Nation. A successful outcome would be one in which we have bipartisan consensus on the critical issues of health care, on how we're going to provide coverage for all Americans, how we deal with the pernicious and all too common insurance company practice of terminating policies when a person becomes ill or denying coverage because of some preexisting condition. Tomorrow's summit is extraordinarily important in that the outcome of that summit may very well give us insight into how we control the extraordinary increase of cost in health care, a cost that is not sustainable either for individuals or for this economy. We're currently spending somewhere in the range of 17 percent of our current GDP on health care. Compared to the rest of the industrialized nations, that's nearly 60 to 70 percent more than they spend of their wealth. Most every other industrialized nation spends 10 percent or less. We're giving away an extraordinary advantage to our competitors. Now, if our health care system actually produced extraordinary outcomes for all the population, we might say it was worth it, but the fact of the matter is that our health care system does not. Our population statistics, which are the statistics on how well we are, how long we live, how well our children thrive, how many of them die at birth and in early childhood, all of those statistics would indicate that this Nation's health care system is very, very poor. In fact, we rank below Colombia and other emerging nations around the world. So what are we going to do? This House passed a very important piece of legislation that goes to address many of these issues--the issue of how we contain our costs, how we improve our system, how we provide for wellness rather than just sick care--a very complex bill, but one that also provided a very, very important element, the element of a public option. I'm from California, and 2 weeks ago the largest insurance company providing policies, more than 80 percent of the single-person policies, said, well, I think we're going to increase our rates by up to 39 percent, and that was on top of a similar rate increase in the previous year; some 60 percent increase for those individuals that are not in a group that have to go out and buy insurance on their own, a totally unaffordable situation. And they also announced that in the intervening year, or the year after these increases went into effect, they would willy-nilly, and at their own will and their own desire, increase the cost of those policies, an extraordinary and new event. Those individuals, in fact, every individual in America needs a public option, a place to go to get a competitive health insurance policy that provides real benefits at an affordable cost. This House passed such a public option. Hopefully, at tomorrow's summit, that issue will be renewed. But the papers in this town say that that issue is dead. I think not, because in America we do have public options today--they're not readily available to all of us unless you happen to be 65--and that public option is Medicare. If you happen to be a Federal employee, like I and others in this room, you have a public option available to you. If you're in the military, you have a public option available to you, a military family. Public options are widely available in America. We need to provide that option for every American. We need real competition. We need WellPoint Blue Cross of California to have a competitor. They have none today. Fortunately, this House, today, took a step to end the monopoly, to end the antitrust exemption that the health insurance companies have. It will help, but it will not provide the solution that we need. We need that public option. We need the health care reform that this House passed. And hopefully tomorrow, at the President's summit, the outcome will say, follow the lead of the House; give us a public option, give us the controls on prices, give us the steps toward staying healthy, and let's finally put this Nation into a universally available health care system.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, my colleague. I look forward to your continued pushing of this issue. It was a century ago that Teddy Roosevelt established an effort, the progressive effort, to push back against the rapacious greed of Wall Street and those who were raping the American environment and began the progressive movement. Competition was at the heart of that effort to bring about justice and an opportunity for the small guy to actually make it. Right now here in Washington, those of us who care about individuals, who care about small business, who care about the future of this economy are pushing back against those very same forces who over the last 65 years have been able to embed themselves firmly in the American system in a way that has created greater profits for them at the expense of people. The health insurance industry has clearly put profits before people, and it's time for us to end that. With this bill, we force that industry into the same competitive market that we want all of American industry to be in, that is, in the free market competitive system, and to no longer be able to monopolize the health insurance marketplace. Let me give you an example of what happens in California where WellPoint, Blue Cross of California, has 80 percent of the individual market. Last year, in 2009, they raised their rates an average of 30 percent in that individual market. The result of that was that their fourth quarter profit year to year, 2008 to 2009, increased some 700- fold from 300-plus million dollars to over $2.7 billion. How did they do that? They did that by controlling the marketplace, having a virtual monopoly on the market. Now, that wasn't enough for them. Because of their market control, they have been able to institute, although it's been delayed, a 39 percent, up to 39 percent and a 30 percent average increase in this same marketplace. It is time, it's absolutely essential, that this two- page, 24-line bill that establishes the antitrust law in this field of health insurance be enacted. Later, when we come back around with another comment, I will tell you how it worked in California in 1991 when we instituted proposition 103 that eliminated the ability of the property casualty market, automobiles, homeowners, similar products, limited their ability to monopolize and to take advantage of being outside of the antitrust laws. Let me congratulate you and our colleague from Colorado for putting forth this bill. It is essential.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, what happened in proposition 103--and I was the newly elected Insurance Commissioner in 1991 responsible for implementing the law. The insurance industry had the ability to work together to set rates and to monopolize the market in a way that was in a pattern to be able to have a uniform rate system using what was called rating bureaus. We simply outlawed rating bureaus and forced each company to use its own statistical analysis to set rates. The result was, over a 10-year period, a $30 billion reduction in costs to homeowners and automobile insurance consumers in the State of California. I will tell you this, when you force these companies to compete, when you eliminate their protection from the antitrust laws, you will see a significant rate decrease. And when you have a company such as Blue Cross, that dominates a segment of the market, that is what is outlawed under the normal antitrust laws of this Nation.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, there is absolutely no doubt that it's an axiom of American business, and the American economic system, that competition leads to good things, lower prices and better product. But in the case of health insurance, as we've seen over these last decades, we've seen an increasing concentration and less and less competition. This bill will put competition back into the health insurance sector, and it is desperately needed. Right now, in California, with Blue Cross of California, where they have 80 percent of the market, they don't need to compete for the customers. The customers are desperate to get coverage, and they've got to take whatever is being offered by a company that has 80 percent of the market. So let's get some competition back in there. This is also an issue that affects individuals. I know a 23-year-old girl who's no longer on her parents' health insurance, cannot get health insurance, even though she's applied to Blue Cross, because she had acne. And the list of preexisting conditions is three pages long. So if we have competition, by eliminating this antitrust exemption and forcing and ending the monopoly, then I think companies are going to have to go out and search for customers, and that would help us all. And let us also be very, very aware. I've spent 8 years of my life regulating the insurance industry, and I know this about that industry: It's about profit. It's not about people. Now, in the property casualty business, it's important to pay attention to people. But it's not life or death, in most cases. In the case of health insurance, it is about a human being's life. It's about the young lady that I saw at a town hall meeting this last week, a 12- year old girl, born with a heart condition, whose father cannot leave the job, cannot go to a better job for fear of losing his health care, knowing that if he lost his health insurance, this young lady would not survive. She would lose her life. That's wrong, and that's got to end. This bill is one small piece of the larger puzzle that we're working on to put in place in America a health care bill where people come before profit. We can do that. We can do that with this bill, and it'll be very clear in this House tomorrow where we stand. Do we stand with families who need health care? Do we stand with individuals? Do we stand with young Gloria and her parents and say: End the monopoly. Put the antitrust laws in place so that the health insurance industry has to compete? That's our choice. And we'll see tomorrow where we stand. Do we follow the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican who went after the big corporations and said that in America, competition must be there, who fought back and pushed back against Wall Street? Or do we stand with the health insurance industry? That's our choice tomorrow, and it's there because two Members of this House have put forth a bill: my colleague from Virginia and my colleague from Colorado. I thank you for bringing this before us so that we can identify with the individuals who need health care or, on the other hand, with the insurance industry.

Mr. GARAMENDI. My colleague from New York, thank you for bringing to our attention, did you say $24 billion for the executives of the five largest?

Mr. GARAMENDI. If I might, Mr. Tonko just reminded me of two cases. One, a New York case last year in which the New York Attorney General brought action against 11 insurance companies in your State of New York who had conspired not only against consumers but against doctors and hospitals to artificially lower their rate of reimbursement to those hospitals. Now, that followed on the heels of another national case in which insurance companies, the largest insurance companies in this Nation, also conspired against doctors in reducing their rates in a conspiracy. Those kinds of conspiracies are specifically outlawed by the antitrust laws of this Nation and this bill. I thank you so very much, Mr. Perriello and Ms. Markey, for bringing this to our attention, bringing this bill here, because the kind of conspiracy that we have evidence that exists in America today will be outlawed at the Federal level. These other cases were brought in State courts where there are antitrust laws that prohibit these kinds of conspiracies to harm the consumers or the providers of services.

Mr. GARAMENDI. That ought to be enough. In fact, that ought to be about a hundred times too much. Competition. You also brought out the word ``progressive.'' It was Teddy Roosevelt, in the early part of the last century, that really created the early progressive movement and the trust busters, recognizing that companies like Standard Oil and others had dominated the market and were squeezing, driving down and harming small businesses and individuals, and tried to set about a better balance. And they did. That long tradition of standing up for families, working men and women, is a tradition that we now hold on the Democratic side of this House. It is what we are trying to do in so many different ways here with this bill, ending a 65-year opportunity that the health insurance industry has had to monopolize, to engage in conspiracies to set prices, and to harm the public not just in their economics and in their family income, but in their ability to sustain their life. We have a chance tomorrow to follow a long tradition of righting the balance, of pushing back against those forces that would dominate us economically, socially, and, in this case, in our very health. So tomorrow is a very, very important day. But it is also a day when we can continue the process that we have seen this last year in this Chamber, where the Democratic Party is pushing back against those forces. In December, we put forth a health care bill that would move us towards accessibility, towards accountability from the health insurance industry, and to affordability. We pushed back. Here is one more push that we are making tomorrow. We also pushed forward on regulating Wall Street. There are those over here I heard earlier this evening that said that this thing began in 2009. It didn't. It began because the previous administration refused to push back against the rapacious greed of Wall Street, and we wound up with the collapse of the financial industry. We need to right that. We are doing that with the bill that we put out here in December on regulating Wall Street, and now following up with taking money back from Wall Street that was put out there by the TARP and sending it to Main Street in our jobs bill; righting the balance in America so that young families, hardworking Americans have a chance, in this case, to get health care, to get a job in the case of Jobs for Main Street. And for Wall Street, the days of unbridled opportunity for greed are over. And it is time for them to also hew to the lines of correct American competition, not greed--greed has never been good--but, rather, to provide the financial services that this economy needs. We have a choice tomorrow. One more step along a policy of righting the ship of this Nation's economy, pushing back against the greed, pushing back against the rapacious attitudes that have dominated the American economy for the last decade.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, as I was listening to you, several thoughts came to mind. You were listing a series of activities that are clearly contrary to the normal competitive marketplace, price fixing and the like. There is also an issue in this health insurance sector called vertical integration, in which these large companies not only monopolize the market, but they have now reached into the various other aspects and vertically integrated, owning consulting companies, actuarial companies that provide them with the basic data where they can more easily manipulate that data, now moving into the pharmacy benefit programs and gaining control over the entire marketplace. That is one of the activities that would be able to be attacked by the Federal Attorney General if this law were to go into place. The monopolization of the market, as I described in California where Blue Cross has 80 percent of the individual market, leads to a terrible situation. And I would just like to bring us back to why we are doing all of this, why we are doing the health care reform that is now going to be taken up in the summit on Thursday of this week, why we are doing this particular bill. It is really about Gloria, that 12-year-old girl that I talked about who was born with a heart condition and also has diabetes. Her father is desperate to hang on to his job and the insurance policy that comes with it because they know--the mother, the father, and Gloria--know that should he lose that job, that family is uninsurable. And that young girl who has had to fight for every treatment in her 12 years to sustain her life is an opera singer, a Class A student, and has a future ahead of her. But if they have no health insurance, she is going to die because she needs constant care. I can talk about a carpenter who retired because he couldn't continue to work who I saw on his deathbed saying, I just want to live long enough so that my wife can turn 65 and get Medicare, because if I die before that, she has no insurance, and she has a preexisting condition. There is hurt upon this land. People are suffering for lack of a job, and they know that if they lose that job, they will lose their health care and they will lose their wealth and they may very well join the 40,000-plus Americans that lose their lives for lack of health insurance. This side of the aisle, the Democrats, are pushing back against these situations. And tomorrow, one step, one more step, one more pushback and saying, in America, the present system is wrong, and tomorrow there will be an end to the ability of these insurance companies to monopolize the market, to engage in anticompetitive activities, price setting, vertical integration, and the rest. I want to congratulate, I want to thank Mr. Perriello and Ms. Markey for what you are doing tomorrow in your legislation.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Five biggest.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thought I would never hear such foolishness in all my life. In fact, in California, the stimulus bill has worked. We have thousands of teachers that are in the classroom teaching. In my own district, we have a $970 million stimulus program that is going to provide 6,000 jobs directly to drill a tunnel through the Caldecott Hills so that we can deal with the transportation program. Thousands of people are working. It was David Stockman on national TV last week who said he no longer believes that you can move this economy forward by cutting taxes. And he was, as I recall, Mr. Reagan's budget director. The fact of the matter is times have changed, and this call of cutting taxes and ending the stimulus is a lot of foolishness. We need jobs. We need to put people to work. That's the role of the Federal Government. And I would remind my colleagues on the other side that every industrialized nation of the world has done more to stimulate their economy than has ours, and they've been more successful. We need a new jobs bill. We need those jobs now. And we also need to pay attention to what Mr. Stockman said.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, if Americans are believing that the stimulus isn't working, then the media must be telling them that. So I am kind of curious about the previous argument. The facts are that the stimulus in my district in California is in fact working, and without it, there would be even more layoffs. It's not that this whole thing started in January of 2009. The Great Recession started the previous 2 years, so we've been trying to catch up. The stimulus is actually working. Thousands of teachers are working in California as a result of the stimulus. Thousands of jobs have been created. And in my own district, schools are being repaired and major transportation projects are going forward. So I know in my district that the stimulus is working regardless of what the media may be saying. It is working. Without it, there would be even greater layoffs.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I keep hearing this discussion that the stimulus didn't work. I don't know what people are looking at, because, in my district in California and in the State of California, the stimulus has been of utmost importance in maintaining at least a base. California received some $63 billion from the stimulus. Where did the money go? Well, $9 billion went to the school systems in California so we didn't have to lay off teachers and janitors and bus drivers. Those people continue to be employed, and they continue to do an extremely important piece of work. That is investing in our children. Along the way, we also invested in those schools. In my district, some nearly $100 million went into repairing schools--painting, fixing, improving their energy efficiency. $197 million backfilled money that the State of California couldn't put up to build a tunnel through the Caldecott mountains. Six thousand jobs will be underway now and into the years ahead as people work on building the tunnel, and we are going to eliminate one of the great traffic jams in the Bay Area. It goes on and on and on. The University of California and the State university system, instead of laying people off, received stimulus money, so they were able to continue to provide classes. I don't know where all of this talk that the stimulus doesn't work comes from. It certainly doesn't come from the reality of what is taking place in California. I've also noticed on television many of my Republican colleagues, who come here on the floor and say the stimulus does no good, who then go home and show some huge checks, taking credit for the stimulus money's providing jobs in their districts. So perhaps there is a speech on the floor, and then there is the reality out in the country. Yes, we do need a second stimulus, and we need it to be a big one. People want to work. They don't want to take unemployment insurance. They don't want to have to be tax takers. They want to be taxpayers. The first stimulus did that. A second stimulus should do that. I would also point out that, around the world, every industrialized Nation in the world, including China and India, did the same thing that we did in America, and they did far more. They actually put up a larger percentage of their GDP. Most of them borrowing as we did here in America. It is required that we put people to work. Otherwise, you are going to have tax takers. You are going to have greater unemployment. Let's give people a chance to have a job. Yes, it is deficit financing, but the second stimulus is going to be paid for fully by taking back the money that was given to the Wall Street rip-off. So, Mr. Speaker, I think we need to understand that the stimulus, which is 1-year- and 1-week-old, actually worked. The second one is desperately needed because there is a world of hurt out there. If you are listening to your constituents, you know that they want to work. That is what the stimulus I did, and jobs for Main Street will do the same, using Wall Street money for Main Street jobs.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Long ago, I learned as a Boy Scout you need to be prepared, but to be prepared, you need knowledge and information. This amendment is all about knowledge and information for the public. About 70 percent of Californians are linked to the Internet, but that Internet brings great problems. A new infected Web page is discovered every 5 seconds; a new spam-related Web page is discovered every 20 seconds. And additionally, there are some 2,500 e-mail messages that contain infected information. So we best be prepared. In order to do that, we need knowledge, and that is what this amendment is all about. It provides the opportunity for the Institute to carry out the Cybersecurity Awareness and Education Program by conducting workshops around the Nation. With those workshops available, the information can be disseminated and made available to individuals. That is the thrust of the amendment, and I seek an ``aye'' vote. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. The gentleman points out some very good points that there are issues about the budget. I am sure that the Institute will find the very best way to carry out this particular task. I yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the committee.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I rise for the purposes of offering an amendment.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you. Madam Speaker, it is a great honor to be here with the other freshmen. We are new to this system, but we are not new to the problems in our districts or in our Nation. We often go home on weekends to spend time in our districts. And what I have found in the district that I represent and the East Bay of California is a lot of pain, a lot of people that are suffering, but are filled with hope with the possibility that things are indeed turning around. I met a carpenter 2 weekends ago. He is a member of the carpenters union, and he had been out of work for about 8 months. The housing industry had literally shut down, and he had been thrown aside. And he said to me, ``Why can't those bankers make loans to my company? Why can't they do that? They have been given hundreds of billions of dollars, and yet they cannot make a loan.'' One of the things that we have been working on here is to force those bankers to make loans, to use our tax money not for the great bonuses that they are giving themselves this month, but rather to use that tax money to put people to work with loans to this home construction company that this carpenter was once employed by. Another person that I met in the City of Antioch about 8 months ago was protesting the fact that the loan modification program that had been put through was stalled once again by the bankers. We all know the statistics. A lot of talk, but very few loan modifications. This person had worked as a painter painting houses, had two jobs to support their family, and yet was unable to continue their mortgage when the Great Recession began. A third person just this last weekend was a heavy equipment operator at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Caldecott Tunnel in Contra Costa County. The heavy equipment operator said, ``Thank God the stimulus is working for me.'' In that project alone, over a $300 million project, the State of California was unable to pay its share because of the downturn in the California economy. So it was the action of my colleagues here, the freshman class plus the other Democrats in this House that voted to pass the stimulus bill, and $197 million of direct stimulus money went into that project, and 6,000 men and women will be employed, and a major commuting backlog will cease. It is working. The statistics we saw just a moment ago clearly show that with the new administration coming into place, with the stimulus money that was put in place last January, the first vote, supported unanimously by our caucus and opposed unanimously by the other side, that is working. The statistics are clear. We are seeing job declines slowing down, and we will soon see it turn around. Tomorrow the President will be here speaking to all of us about what we need to do in the months ahead. We need that Jobs for Main Street bill that passed here in December. Get it out there, get it passed, get people to work. We also need to make sure that Wall Street is properly disciplined. If they are going to get those big fat bonuses using our tax money, then we ought to tax those bonuses and put that money back to work with small businesses. We can do these things. And much has been done. We have seen the turnaround. We have seen the statistics showing that we are on the right track. We will continue that. And for all of us, we have a choice. We can do nothing, and people will be on welfare, people will get the unemployment checks, people will lose their insurance, and we will try to keep them going with COBRA support. Or we can do the jobs program, the stimulus programs, the Jobs for Main Street program. And in doing that, we will put people to work. They will not be tax takers, they will become taxpayers. I yield my time.