Steve Kagen

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. I rise in strong support of the Perlmutter, Gutierrez, Klein, and Kagen amendment. Why? It's exactly the medicine we need in our economy right now. Small businesses in Wisconsin, small businesses in Colorado and across the country are looking for access to credit at a price they can afford to pay. And right now our community banks are unable to lend, not because of their own activity, but because of the bad judgment of big banks on Wall Street. Main Street community banks and Main Street small businesses should not have to continue to pay for the mistakes of Wall Street. The Perlmutter amendment would allow community banks under $10 billion of assets to amortize potential losses over 6 years and up to 10 years if they increase their lending to small businesses. We get it. We understand that small businesses are the economic engines of this country. It's time to give small businesses the opportunity to grow our economy and the jobs we need to work our way back into prosperity. I would urge a strong ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, I met with people in Appleton, Shawano and Green Bay, Wisconsin, listening to their concerns. And what did they ask me to do? They asked me to cut their taxes and to help small business owners grow the jobs that we need to work our way back into prosperity. Well, you may not have seen it on television or heard it on the radio, but President Obama and the Democrats here in Congress have already delivered the biggest tax cuts in American history. In USA Today 2 days ago, it said: ``Tax Bills in 2009 at Lowest Level Since 1950.'' But don't stop there. Let's take the word of President Reagan's domestic economic adviser Mr. Bartlett: ``Federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became President. According to the JCT, last year's $787 billion stimulus bill, enacted with no Republican support, reduced Federal taxes by almost $100 billion in 2009 and another $222 billion this year.'' But we all know that helping small business must be a top priority as well. And that's why we passed the bipartisan HIRE Act which will generate jobs. That's why we worked together with Republicans and Democrats to pass the HOME STAR Act. We're working together to rebuild this country.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Madam Speaker, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, I come to the floor to recognize two outstanding educators from Northeast Wisconsin. Greenville Middle School's Jennifer Koenecke and Green Bay Edison's Nancie Brennan exemplify what we hope to see in all of our teachers. As the newest National Board Certified teachers in the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin, they demonstrated a commitment to taking their teaching practice and the teaching profession to a different level. We entrust teachers with the nurture and care of our most precious resource--our children, and we are grateful to them not only for the security they provide, but for the example they set. For Jennifer Koenecke and Nancie Brennan, their leadership and the example they set extends not only to the students they teach, but to the peers who surround them. Like board-certified medical doctors, teachers who become National Board Certified go through a rigorous year-long evaluation of their performance. Each educator is measured against the most rigorous standards through an extensive series of performance-based assessments that include thorough analysis of the candidate's classroom teaching and student learning. As a physician who has been three times board certified, I have a keen appreciation for the initiative and effort these women have made on behalf of the future of our children. After all, if we get public education right, everything else will follow. But if we get education wrong, not much else will matter. Today I'm proud to recognize Greenville Middle School's Jennifer Koenecke and Green Bay Edison's Nancie Brennan for getting it right.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, everyone in Wisconsin wants to know the answer to the question: Whose side are you on? Yesterday, the partisans in the United States Senate voted to return to the good old days--to the good old days of unregulated financial markets, of voodoo economics on Wall Street, and of the continuing deregulation of big banks on Wall Street. We cannot afford to go back to the losing policies of the Bush administration when Wall Street was allowed to consume the wealth of an entire generation. People in Wisconsin believe if you're too big to fail, then you should not exist. People in Wisconsin know that we are on their side and that, when Wall Street innovates, Main Street pays the price. We have got to work hard together to catch all of the crooks and to follow their trails wherever they may lead. We have to make certain that we balance our budgets, that we live within our means, and that we rewrite our financial regulations to make things fair for people on Main Street. That's what we have to do together.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, all across northeast Wisconsin, everywhere I go people are asking me whose side am I on? Whose side are we on? Isn't it time we finally began to work together to solve these complex problems, to help rebuild our country, to rebuild our jobs, bring these jobs back home where they belong instead of sending them overseas? Whose side are we really on? Isn't it time we pursued each and every one of the crooks on Wall Street who took our money? People in Wisconsin want their money back. They want their jobs back. And they are going to be asking the question whose side are we on? Well, let's work together, rebuild our families, our communities, and make certain that any bank, any bank or any investment firm that is too big to fail ceases to exist. Let's break up the big banks on Wall Street.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. I thank the kind gentleman for agreeing to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, in the true spirit of a very efficient operation, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KAGEN. I thank Chairman Oberstar for allowing me to move this amendment forward. And, Ms. Johnson, thank you very much. And it's good to see Mr. Boozman on the floor. This is a very simple and straightforward amendment that includes language for measuring the outcomes. The coordination and cooperation between State, local, and Federal agencies will be necessary to guarantee that our dollars are well spent and that we have a very efficient operation as we protect our estuaries. So I would submit this amendment and hope that I would have bipartisan support for it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Larry Weyers of Green Bay, Wisconsin, as he enters his retirement. For 24 years, Mr. Weyers has served northeastern Wisconsin as a distinguished community leader. As his friends, family, and colleagues will gather at the Green Bay Packer stadium, Lambeau Field, on April 19 to pay tribute to him and his dedicated service to our community, I respectfully request my colleagues join in honoring this outstanding individual. Among his many accomplishments, Mr. Weyers has been presented with the Rotary Free Enterprise Award and received an honorary Golden Apple Award from the Green Bay Area Partners in Education. In 2009, he was a nominee for the Platts Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Weyers has supported his community, and we wish him well in his retirement. Mr. Speaker, as Mr. Weyers celebrates his retirement, I ask all of my colleagues to salute him and to remind him that retirement is simply reoccupation, and he will be just too busy to go back to work.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment here to honor the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay women's basketball team for their historic at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to folks from the big cities or from the East or West Coast, but in northeast Wisconsin, we could not be prouder of our Phoenix being the first team from the Horizon League to earn an NCAA at-large bid. I want to commend Head Coach Matt Bollant and his team for their remarkable achievement this year. They entered the tournament with 27 wins and launch into the second round today after upsetting the Virginia Cavaliers over the weekend. I also want to point out most of Coach Bollant's team is homegrown in Wisconsin. For the lady Phoenix players, most of them spent their lifetime growing up in northeast Wisconsin. I want to thank the entire UWGB team for making Wisconsin proud, and I wish them good luck tonight in their road to the Final Four. University of Wisconsin-Green Bay 2009-10 Roster: #4 Celeste Hoewisch, Junior, Hortonville, WI; #10 Hannah Quilling, Sophomore, Eau Claire, WI; #13 Adrian Ritchie, Freshman, De Pere, WI; #20 Sam Zastrow, Freshman, Algoma, WI; #22 Lydia Bauer, Freshman, Lake Zurich, IL; #24 Heather Golden, Junior, De Pere, WI; #25 Jenny Gilbertson, Sophomore, Wabasha, MN; #30 Katie Bushman, Sophomore, Phillips, WI; #32 Julie Wojta, Sophomore, Mishicot, WI; #33 Morgan Faase, Junior, Green Bay, WI; #42 Kayla Tetschlag, Junior, Sheboygan, WI; #43 Sarah Eichler, Freshman, Grafton, WI; #45 Stephanie Sension, Freshman, Hopkins, MN; #52 Breannah Ranger, Freshman, Skokie, IL. Coaching Staff: Head Coach: Matt Bollant; Assistant Coaches: Mike Divilbiss, Amanda Leonhard, Sarah Bronk; Director of Operations: Kari Flunker.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Thank you for yielding and thank you for bringing up this subject about tax cuts. But really the American people have to pay attention, because they have to ask the question, Whose side are you on? Whose side are we on, and how did we get into this mess? We fell into an economic ditch. We were driven into it by a number of different factors, but, first and foremost, it was a failed economic policy. It was a policy wherein we had two wars at the same time and haven't paid a single dime for them. We have had two tax cuts to the very rich; haven't paid a penny for those either. We also had, in the last administration, a $400 billion handout to big drug companies, not paying for a penny of that either. All deficit spending, not paying our way. And then we fell into this terrible situation of the mortgage fiasco where people were buying things that didn't really exist. Fell into another $10 trillion hole. And at the tail end of the last administration, their friends asked them, in the administration, to open up the door to the Treasury, and the Wall Street banks looted our Treasury for nearly a trillion dollars. Again, we haven't paid a dime for that. And then came a great recession. Not just here in the United States, but this great recession took us all the way around the globe. It wasn't just the United States that began to see the tremendous loss of jobs. Last year, January, over 700,000 people lost their job. This year, much less. So we're beginning to move up, but we are moving up, first and foremost, by living within our means. We didn't have, during the Bush administration, the laws we did have on the books during President Clinton. We handed over to the Republican Party a surplus, a budget surplus that would amount to over $5 trillion. And what did they do? They spent us into a ditch. We have reinstated pay-as-you-go rules so we can't bring a bill to the House floor and consider it for anything unless we show how we're going to pay for it by either raising revenue or reducing other programs. So along came the Recovery Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and in February, we passed it through the House, the Senate, and the President signed it. And this $787 billion investment in America was aimed at providing middle class families--the hardworking people who have really created prosperity in the past--the biggest tax cut in American history. And I thought tonight we should have a conversation about eight of these tax cuts that are available right here and right now giving the American people an opportunity to see that we are on their side.

Mr. KAGEN. Aside from Making Work Pay, which really focuses on middle class families, let me step back a little bit and remind everybody that back in Wisconsin we don't call it the Recovery Act. We call it the stimulus bill. That is just the slang of where we are in northeast Wisconsin. But we look at the stimulus bill, it didn't meet everybody's expectations in terms of all of the jobs we were hoping to see because we were in such a deep economic hole, but we focused on those people who needed help the most, in particular, the unemployed. Now, today, in northeast Wisconsin, there are about 35,000 people who are underemployed and unemployed. They are looking for work. We are hard-working people. Give us a level playing field. We can compete and outwork anybody anywhere in the world. For unemployed workers, immediately the Recovery Act gave $25 a week in additional spending power to help them get through the week. We also covered 65 percent of COBRA, which is when you fall out of work, you now need some insurance, but you get COBRA insurance. And the Federal Government stepped up to cover 65 percent of that cost of guaranteeing you have got insurance.

Mr. KAGEN. Sixty-five percent is covered by the Federal Government. We went beyond that, because we made sure that there was money there for stabilization of State governments. So we helped the States to stabilize their State governments, help unemployed and made sure that people had their own money that they have earned in their own pockets. You know, the old idea is, you have earned the money. It ought to be yours. Keep it in your pocket. You are going to be a better investor of that revenue than the Federal Government. Well, we have done that. We also did it for students in the American Opportunity Credit Act, where we gave up to $2,500 back to the parent or parents or to the student for their educational expenses.

Mr. KAGEN. That wasn't in the stimulus bill. That was in the American Opportunity Act. In the stimulus bill for students, we had tax credits of up to $2,500 for 25,000 students in my district. So 25,000 students benefited from having that tax credit immediately available. We also increased the Pell Grant amounts up to $5,350 in the stimulus bill. Stafford loans were increased to $2,000. So we made it possible for students who want to move up to have that higher education become more affordable. The best time to be in college or technical school is during an economic slowdown or a recession, because then, when the jobs are available, you will have moved up and can step out into a higher payment level.

Mr. KAGEN. Well, from the people of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin auto dealers want to thank Representative Sutton and the House of Representatives dominated by the Democrats at the current time, because you emptied half of the inventory of all of our sales lots. Not only did we empty the inventory, because of that we started several steel plants up and going. So we generated jobs. The whole idea of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus act, was to do what? It was to stabilize State governments, provide the biggest tax cut in American history, and save or create millions of jobs. By that measure, it was a success. Yes, we would like it to have done more. We think we need to do more now. That's what we are working on. But let me bring your attention back away from the cars to the homebuyers. The First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit, which expires in a few days, if you are thinking about getting a home, you can get an $8,000 tax credit back. We have just lowered the cost of getting into your first home. If you have been in a home for a while, I think it's 5 years, you get $6,500 back by getting into another home. You don't have a lot of time left. Get the paperwork going. Visit your real estate office in Wisconsin. Look, come to live in northeast Wisconsin. You don't have to go to California. We have got a lower overhead there, lower cost of living.

Mr. KAGEN. Well, the whole idea is this is not just a stand-alone. This is a whole cadre, a whole way in which we are trying to lower your cost of doing business to keep you in your home. Whether it's the making work pay, whether it's American Opportunity Tax Credit or the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, the Democrats are on your side helping you to stay in your home, helping you to get employed at that higher- wage job, to make sure we can work our way through this recession back into prosperity. The First-Time Home Buyers Tax Credit is soon to expire, so I would urge everyone listening, talk to your family, maybe this is the time you want to move into your first home.

Mr. KAGEN. I would put it into two categories. When we talk about restoring our economy--or to use a medical phrase, ``resuscitating our economy''--it will be small business owners that drive the job creation. Small businesses are 93 percent of all employers in the country. When we do create jobs, eight out of 10 new jobs are coming from small business owners. And we produce, in small business, 52 percent of our Nation's gross domestic product. So take a look just for a moment at what the Recovery Act, the stimulus bill, did for small business. First, we had the Small Business Administration, section 7A and 504 loans, where the guarantee by the Federal Government moved up from 75 to 90 percent. That 90 percent guarantee made it possible for many small businesses to get access to credit that they needed to continue to survive. Another small business advantage was a 3-year extension to the production tax credit, the PTC. Thirty percent investment tax credit, or ITC, for renewable energy, helping our wind, our non-fossil fuel base, non-Saudi Arabian outside-of-our-country energy. Renewable energy bonds, which are now becoming available, extension of depreciation loans, 50 percent of the purchase price expensed right away; 5-year carryback net operating loss. For a small business operator, this is a tremendous boom. You can survive this economy recession by this----

Mr. KAGEN. And you can allow up to $250,000 of depreciation on something you've invested in right away. So we understand the importance of small business. Now, I'm co- chairperson of the Congressional Business Owners Caucus. We came up with some wonderful ways in which the President could begin to lower the cost of labor. Lowered cost of labor means we can compete on a better playing field with our foreign competition. We had come up with a very simple way to do it on form 940 by reducing the amount of taxes you will pay. We give you a tax credit back if you simply increase the amount of money that you're paying to your employees, whether you hire more people, rehire people that have been laid off, or simply pay your existing workforce more money. That was converted into the Hiring Act. So the Hiring Act now and the HIRE Act really has a tax credit available for small business. So we're helping small business and we've got to do more. What we've done so far has got us to this point, but we've got to do more. And we are working with the SBA Director, Karen Mills, to do just that. That's on the business end of it. But right now, in northeast Wisconsin, business owners are telling me, Kagen, we don't want more credit necessarily; we need more customers coming in the door, we need more contracts. Then we can really go to the bank and say we've got somebody here that wants us to produce something for them. That's why we focused not only on small business, but on tax cuts for working families. The next one I would mention is the residential energy tax credit, up to $1,500 for weatherization improvements on your home that you did in 2009. You still have a few days to claim that credit on your tax return for 2009. Take advantage of that opportunity. Take a look with your tax preparer or your accountant if you have one. Talk to somebody who is in your family that is preparing your taxes. Take a look at what you've done for your home, because you can get up to $1,500 back in your pocket straightaway. The other one I'd like you to take advantage of is the sales tax deduction for vehicle purchases.

Mr. KAGEN. Well, when it comes to asking the question who is on your side, the answer is clearly we are on your side. We are delivering tax cuts to the middle class like never before. We are making certain that you will be in your house if you get sick, not the poorhouse. We are delivering earned income tax credits. In northeast Wisconsin, 61,500 people benefited from that. With regard to the stimulus bill, in my home county of Outagamie County, we delivered $50 million of tax cuts and millions more in educational support. Without that life's breath, we wouldn't have an economy to talk about any longer.

Mr. KAGEN. Exactly. We have got 53,000 college students who can take advantage----

Mr. KAGEN. Is very significant. We really do believe in higher education in northeast Wisconsin. All of Wisconsin is progressive- minded socially and fiscally responsible, just like this House of Representatives is today.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, today in the House of Representatives, we must take a positive step forward and finally guarantee an end to discrimination against all citizens because of the way they were born or what illness they may have. This bill that we're about to pass today will save lives and save jobs by putting patients first, strengthening Medicare, and finally guaranteeing access to affordable care for all of us. No longer will a child's illness cause their family to go broke and lose their home. Senior citizens in all of our communities will see a stronger and better Medicare as we begin to close the prescription drug program doughnut hole. Small business owners, like myself, will soon be able to buy health insurance for all of their employees at the same discounts that big corporations do. We're beginning to fix what's broken in our health care system and improve on what we already have at a price we can all afford to pay because this bill will be not only paid for but will cut our deficit by a trillion dollars over time.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, today in the House of Representatives, we are going to answer the essential question: What kind of Nation are we? What kind of Nation would deny 30 million citizens access to health care? What kind of Nation would allow a child's illness to cause their family to go broke and lose their home? What kind of Nation would turn its back on neighbors who are in need, our seniors, our children, and millions of unemployed workers who through no fault of their own have lost their jobs, and soon, their hope. What kind of Nation are we? And what kind of Nation will we become if we do not pass this rule and pass essential health care legislation that we need? This bill will save lives, and it will save jobs by putting patients first, and guaranteeing that Medicare will be there when we need it. No longer will a child's illness cause their family to go broke and lose their home. Senior citizens will benefit by gaining access to prevention services with no copayments, no deductibles. This is going to be our time, and I would encourage all of us to stop pointing fingers and start joining hands. Pass this essential legislation and save our Nation. Today, in the House of Representatives, we will answer two essential questions: What kind of Nation are we? and Whose side are you on? What kind of nation--would deny 32 million citizens access to health care? What kind of nation--would allow a child's illness or accident to cause families to go broke and lose their home? What kind of nation--would turn its back on neighbors who are in need? Our senior citizens, our children and millions of unemployed workers who through no fault of their own have lost their jobs and need our help right here and right now? And what kind of nation will we become if we do not take this positive step forward today? This bill saves lives and jobs by putting patients first, strengthening Medicare, and finally guaranteeing access to affordable care for all of us. No longer will a child's illness cause their family to go bankrupt and lose their home. Senior citizens will see a stronger and better Medicare as we begin to close the prescription drug program's donut hole. Small business owners will soon be able to buy health insurance for their employees at the same discounts big corporations do. We are beginning to fix what is broken in our heath care system and improve on what we already have, at a price we can all afford to pay, for this bill is paid for and it reduces our national deficit by 1.2 trillion dollars over time. Today, in the house of Representatives, we must take a positive step forward and finally bring an end to all discrimination against any citizen because of the way they were born or the illness they may have. Today, people across America want to know whose side are you on? Are you sitting in the boardroom of a Wall Street run health insurance corporation? Or standing with your feet on the factory floor, prepared today to stand up for the best interests of your neighbors, by putting patients first? Well, I am standing up for my patients and will vote yes on this bill, because it saves lives and jobs and begins to push insurance companies out of my patient's examination room. There is much work yet to do to clean up the economic mess we have inherited. So, let's stop pointing fingers and start joining hands and work together to build a better nation. Join me. Let's take this positive step forward today. Join me in this effort and we will finally begin to guarantee access to affordable care for all of us--for my patients cannot hold their breath any longer.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for putting together the Populist Caucus. Once again, as Mr. Braley has pointed out, we're populists because we are standing with our feet on the factory floor. We don't have our heads sitting in a board room on a corporation on Wall Street. We do not share their values. We have those working class values that ordinary people have. This battle that we're in now, this battle for America's future to create the jobs that we need to work our way through today's troubled times and work our way back into prosperity, this battle that we're in didn't just start 10 years ago, it just didn't begin with 10 years of net zero job creation. I will take us back a century because it's really not 2010, it's 1910 all over again. In the words of Teddy Roosevelt, who, on August 31, 1910, in his speech entitled, ``The New Nationalism,'' set forward the idea of the progressive movement and the Populist Caucus--and I will quote him in part because it was a very long speech: ``Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics; that is one of our tasks today. Every special interest is entitled to justice, full, fair and complete. And now mind you, if there were any attempt by mob violence to plunder and work harm to the special interests, whatever it may be, that I most dislike. And the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice, for every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good; but it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.'' We the people have rights, corporations don't. Now, over the short period of history that we've been here in Congress, beginning in 2006, with Representatives Sutton and Braley and Welch, we took forward some ideas that we gathered from people. And everywhere I go in Wisconsin, Mr. Braley, people are telling me the same thing: We want our money back, we want our jobs back. For too long, our jobs have been shipped overseas. Instead of our values being shipped overseas, it's been our jobs. And here on my left is a short picture of where the jobs have gone. During the previous administration under George Bush, just before President Obama came into office in January, we had lost 700,000-plus jobs; this January, 2010, 20,000. We are moving up in the right direction. And, yes, we need to generate more jobs, but how did we get into this mess that started really back in 1910 and we're not done yet? We've had two wars at the same time without paying a dime for it; we've had two tax cuts to the rich without paying for a penny; we've had a $400 billion handout to the big drug companies on Wall Street without paying a nickel for it. And then at the tail end of the last administration we had a looting of the United States Treasury of nearly $1 trillion while they fed their friends on Wall Street, again, without paying a single dime for it. Well, in Wisconsin, much like in Ohio and everywhere else across the country, including Iowa, we have a saying, you know, there is no free lunch, we have to pay our bills. So we have to pay our bills, we have to live within our means; and to do that, the Populist Caucus has put forward a blueprint for America's future, and I yield back my time.

Mr. KAGEN. Will the gentleman yield for a question?