Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chair, the Student Aid Fiscal Responsibility Act that is in front us today will authorize $6.6 billion in new mandatory taxpayer dollars to create three Federal school construction programs for elementary and secondary schools. What my amendment will do is strike these new government programs that would nationalize the school construction industry and direct the savings toward deficit reduction. You know, in the years I have been in Congress, one of the things that we continue to see over the years is the continued expansion of the role of the Federal Government in K-12 education. We saw the most massive expansion in 2001, the passage of No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind has left a tremendous number of mandates, increased costs, and little improvement in schools, in children's performance around the country. Now, rather than giving back and yielding control for our kids' education back to parents, back to local schools and back to States, again, we are having another massive expansion of the Federal Government's involvement in K-12 education, this time in school construction. I am sure the arguments will be: but we need to help the schools. We need to help the States. We need to build them and give them the money to build new schools. Excuse me, where does this money come from? Well, some of this money, if not all of it, will be deficit spending which States can't do. But in reality, if it is deficit spending, it is our kids and grandkids that will be paying for it. And if it is money that we collect in taxes, it is going to be money that comes from the States, comes from individuals in our local communities, comes to Washington, and then we will tell them how they can spend it. There are 27, at last count 27, directives as to how States and local school districts will be able to spend their own money. School districts must ensure that a certain percentage of the school construction materials meet green standards. School districts must compile a report describing the projects funded under the bill and seven other reporting requirements. School districts should educate students about the school construction being constructed at their school. I am assuming if they are going to have to be required to teach their students, there is going to have to be some reporting requirement saying I educated my kids at my school about what this project is about, and they are going to fill it out and send it to the State and send it to Washington. Meaning that for every construction dollar that we spend, maybe 60-65 cents of it will actually be spent on construction. The other 35 to 40 cents of that dollar will be spent on reporting requirements, applying for it, meeting Federal requirements, and those types of things This is a bad idea. We will not end up building more schools. We will not end up having more construction; we will have less construction because Federal bureaucracy and Federal bureaucrats will end up siphoning a lot of this money for their purposes to make sure that the local school districts do what Washington bureaucrats want them to do and not what needs to be done in their local school districts. This is a bad idea. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment and reduce the deficit, take some of the burden off our kids and grandkids in the future. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, Washington has helped enough. My local school districts are saying: Stop, we don't need more of Washington's help. You gave us No Child Left Behind with great fanfare, promises of all of this money, and all we got were rules and regulations which are taking valuable time and resources away from educating our kids and putting it into bureaucracy and trying to follow ill-advised guidelines, mandates, and directives from Washington, D.C. They say: Stop, we don't need any more of this Washington help where you come into our school districts, where you come into our communities. And if you are going to pay for these bills, which most likely will not be paid for, but if they were, you come into our communities and you extract $6 billion out, and then you force us to apply to get that money back knowing that the money will be appropriated or allocated by who has power in Washington, D.C. and who has the quote/unquote ``most influence'' and it will be distributed unfairly. They don't need that kind of help anymore where we take their money, allocate it back to them after they have applied for it, tie all sorts of mandates and restrictions to it so we shrink the purchasing power of that dollar. And then we have the Federal Government come in, this wonderful Department of Education come in, and they will audit us to make sure that we spend the money exactly the way they told us to spend it. That kind of help is no longer helping our kids. It never did help our kids. We are failing our kids with this legislation. We are shrinking the purchasing power of education dollars, not enhancing it. This kind of Washington help needs to stop.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding funding that will benefit the Second Congressional District of Michigan as part of H.R. 3326. Requesting Member: Congressman Pete Hoekstra Bill Number: H.R. 3326 Account: Army, Aviation Advanced Technology Legal Name of Requesting Entity: L3 Communications Combat Propulsion Systems Address of Requesting Entity: 76 Getty St. Muskegon, Michigan, 49442 Description of Request: Provide $4 million for Heavy Fuel Engine Family for Unmanned Systems. The funding would be used to continue the development, installation, and testing of fuel efficient and higher power density heavy-fuel engine to meet the Department of Defense requirement that Unmanned Aerial Systems' engines to operate on JP-8 fuel.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the chairman of the committee and the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee for moving so expeditiously and getting this bill to the floor of the House this afternoon. The response from consumers to this program has been, as one of my dealers described it this week, he had chaos in his showroom. It accomplished what we wanted it to accomplish. I was skeptical when this program passed a while back, but it has delivered customers into the showroom and they are buying cars. And being from Michigan and experiencing a 15.2 percent unemployment rate, this is not going to only provide opportunities for employment in the people that assemble cars, but also for the suppliers and those types of things. And hopefully this can be a catalyst for a stronger economic recovery. It appears to be one of the programs in the stimulus packages that have passed this House that actually appears to be working. At the same time, while we are maybe euphoric about the parts of the program that are working, I think we also have to recognize that the back end of this program, the parts that are being handled by the Federal Government, have been a disaster for our dealers. I have yet to have one dealer who has sold a car that has gotten it approved by the Department of Transportation. The Federal Government can't process a simple rebate. I've got dealers that have submitted the paperwork three times and have gotten three rejections. The last one came back and it said, No reason for rejection. What is a dealer supposed to do? They've already destroyed the cars that have been traded in. They have sold the car. They're now on the hook and expecting a check for $3,500 to $4,500 from the Federal Government and they're not getting it. We need to get these backroom problems fixed to be able to call this program truly successful. It can't just be the front end. It has to be the entire process, from selling it to the customer to the dealer getting the money from the Federal Government. That all has to work seamlessly for this program to be an unqualified success.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. We're from Michigan. We think in smaller numbers. And I know that my colleague has been very interested in what's been happening with dealers, automobile dealers. But as we talk about a $787 billion stimulus plan, as we talk about the bailout, as we talk about the cap-and-trade bill--I'm not sure exactly how big that is going to get in new taxes--and then you talk about there are folks here who want this government to take over health care, $1.6 trillion. Can I just share with you two examples of what happens when we try to do a $1 billion program? Will the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. This Cash for Clunkers program, I've talked with four of my dealers in the last couple of hours, they've sold a total of about 150 cars over the last 5 days. And all we're doing is processing a rebate, right? It's either a $3,500 check or a $4,500 check. Out of those 150 sales, zero, exactly zero rebates have been approved, although the paperwork has been filed. Some of the paperwork has been filed three times. The paperwork is 21 pages--this is from one of my dealers. They sent in 21 pages, and here's what the sales guys wrote: Each of these pages have to be scanned in and must be saved with the attached file names, and each page must be uploaded separately. You cannot save anything until the end. So if the Web site crashes, you get to start over. If the Web site works, it takes approximately 1 hour per deal?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. That's the paperwork.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Yes. And it crashed again this morning. Then they get the rejection notice. And to one of my dealers, I said, Well, you know, you file it the first time, you get a rejection, and it comes back, and you fill it out appropriately the second time like it's filling out taxes, these 21 pages. And he said, Pete, I've had a number of these things come back for a third time. He said, I've just had one come back. This is what happens from the people who want to run our health care system, The voucher you have submitted with invoice number da da da has been rejected for the following reason: No reason provided. The next line says, The voucher can be resubmitted if the reason for rejection can be corrected. Now, what is this dealer supposed to do? Go back and submit exactly the same 21 pages that he did before? Because the reply came back and said, The reason you've been rejected is ``no reason provided.'' Under this program before you file, you've already destroyed the car. You've had to ruin the engine, and the guys are now riding around in their new car. The dealer can't get their rebate check. So we can't even handle a billion-dollar program. The consumers love this program.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Consumers love it. It's a program that has been well intentioned. It's driving car volume. But it's driving our dealers absolutely nuts, and they are already under a tremendous amount of stress and strain. And, remember, these folks can't implement a $1 billion program that all it does is provide a rebate. That's all it does, is it provide a rebate. And they want to run our health care system. And I asked him how hard is it to do a rebate through Ford or GM or Chrysler? He said, That's not a problem at all. They handle it just like that. They send it in, and we get it done just like that. These guys can't process a voucher, and then we're asking them to plan wages, plan salaries, and all these other kinds of things.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The reason for your denial of care is ``no reason provided,'' but you're not getting it.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague for yielding. But I think the issue that we see in front, that you've highlighted with the cap-and- trade bill, actually begins much earlier in the new Congress and the new administration. It was only the second day of the new administration when the President indicated that we are going to close Gitmo, we are going to close Guantanamo. He announced a whole series of task forces that were going to evaluate and present a plan as to how this was going to happen. The first thing is, you don't set a deadline without a plan. And the President is now finding out that perhaps he got out in front of himself because a couple of the task forces were supposed to report within the last couple of weeks, and they've missed their deadlines. And the reason they've missed their deadlines is that they started looking at closing Guantanamo--an objective that President Bush had before him--it's like, whoa, this is more difficult than what we thought, and we may not be able to do it. So we had an objective without a plan. And I'm not sure what's going to happen here, but we may get to the same point where we get to January of 2010, and we won't be able to accomplish it. Then you go again, before cap-and-trade, $787 billion in a stimulus plan that was rushed through the House, rushed through the Senate, made its way to the President's desk, and he signed it. And here we are now, what, 4 months----

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is. And we're trying to find out exactly who put it in. But it was $787 billion, and I think the promise was something like, this is going to ensure that the unemployment rate will not exceed 8 or 8.5 percent on a national basis. We are now at 9.5 percent; in Michigan we're at 15.2 percent. The money is going out a lot slower than what people anticipated. It's going to a lot of questionable projects that we are now starting to find out where this money is going. It's $787 billion on the backs of our kids and our grandkids. We now, last month----

Mr. HOEKSTRA. That's right. It's the same bill.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. 9.5 percent. And I believe next week we will see a new number, and it will probably be somewhat higher. But we've seen higher unemployment numbers than what was promised under this bill. We see people questioning whether the bill is working or not. It's being spent out slower than what people expected it to be spent out. And last month, at the end of June, think about it, we have, for the first time, exceeded $1 trillion for a deficit for 1 year. And then we hurry through and we do cap-and-trade, which, again, you can argue about the bill, but it was passed. And it wasn't passed in the middle of the night--although 350 pages of it were inserted in the middle of the night. And now we are in this mad rush to pass health care. And every day we're hearing about there is going to be this new markup or that new markup. And this affects 16 to 18 percent of the U.S. economy, and it is going to be done without a full hearing.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I would put forth the premise that maybe we should just set health care aside for a period of time and take a look at this $800 billion that we have put on the backs of our kids. I mean, if we have committed to spending $800 billion to stimulate the economy and it's not working----

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Unemployment is still going up. Maybe Congress ought to stay in session, and rather than taking a look at another massive program that we're not sure whether it's going to work or not--I am not saying health care reform is not important. It's essential. It's vital that we do it, but--

Mr. HOEKSTRA. How we do it is important. But let's step back. Maybe Congress ought to stay in session for the month of August, and rather than doing another half-baked idea, let's take a look at this stimulus program worth another $800 billion----

Mr. HOEKSTRA. And finish the half-baked ideas that we have started. Too often we think here in Washington that if we pass the bill, we have solved the problem. In the business community, if you get the agreement from the board of directors and say, okay, Pete, you've got the approval to move ahead with this new product launch. We are going to invest $2 million to build this product to do the marketing campaign, and you just kind of walk away from it and say, well, I guess I have that one done. No. What the board of directors would ask you is, by the way, we are investing $3 million, $4 million, $5 million on this. We want an update every quarter. As a matter of fact----

Mr. HOEKSTRA. You spent $800 billion of our money, the public's money, to deliver a result of 8 percent unemployment or less. You're clearly missing the targets. Maybe you ought to go back and reevaluate, and reevaluate the $800 billion rather than talking about a second stimulus package which is going to spend even more money.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I think one of the things that we need to be a little careful about, we keep talking about ``the bill.'' And being a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, you know very well that the bill that you have today may be very different than the bill you will see tomorrow if you mark it up because there are all these negotiations going on behind closed doors, very limited groups, that by the time you start working on this bill tomorrow, it may be a very, very different bill than what you think it is today. So not only is it this bureaucracy, but it is something that is very much in flux, out of the public eye, and you may have to vote on that bill coming out of committee, which is going to be probably very different than what you're looking at right now, by what, maybe Friday?

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, it's time for us to slow down. The second day in office, the President said within 12 months Guantanamo will be closed. He's now found out that rushing and making that decision was the wrong decision and that the teams that he has in place have clearly indicated they will not be able to make that goal. Then we rushed into a stimulus bill, $787 billion on the backs of our kids and our grandkids. And it's not working. Rushing through this process doesn't work. We then did an ill-advised cap-and-trade system which has further put the brakes on our economy. We rushed it through. And now we're looking at rushing through a health care bill. People are talking about what's in the bill. No one really knows because they're still negotiating, and there are still some that say we should vote and we should vote this week, even though a bill isn't in front of us. Let's slow down; let's do this in a professional way and make sure that we have a professional product.