John Linder

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding funding that I requested as part of H.R. 3288, the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. Requesting Member: Representative John Linder Bill Number: H.R. 3288, the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. Account: Federal Highway Administration Interstate Maintenance Discretionary Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Georgia Department of Transportation Address of Requesting Entity: 2 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, GA 30334 Description of Request: This project will allow the Georgia Department of Transportation to make modifications to the I-85 interchange at Pleasant Hill Road. This will ease congestion and enhance access to I-85 for through traffic along Pleasant Hill Road. According to the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation, ``the modifications will allow the interchange to meet increasing traffic demand along Pleasant Hill Road for travel across I- 85, as well as to provide access to/from I-85 at adequate levels of service.'' Funding for this project will provide for preliminary engineering, environmental documentation, and right of way planning/ acquisition phases to keep this plan on schedule and ease congestion.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, does anybody see what's happening? Does anybody even care? The $700 billion TARP program was to buy troubled assets. Did we do that? No. We bought car companies and banks. And we own them. And then we took the money away from the bond holders of the car companies and gave it to the unions. The $787 billion stimulus package only stimulated more welfare. It hasn't created jobs. Not one. And now we have put upon us a government takeover of health care that's going to lose, according to Christina Romer's formula, 4.7 million more jobs. This has never been about jobs for the Democrats. It's never even been about health care. It's about power. Who's going to make the decisions over your life, the personal decisions? The Democrats think they can. We think you should. Does anybody see what's happening? Does anyone even care?

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I will submit a statement for the Record, but I'm not going to read that statement. I want to respond to the gentleman from Connecticut, who said we need some honesty in this discussion, and the gentleman from Illinois this morning on the rule. The gentleman from Illinois said on the rule that there are zero peer-reviewed articles by scientists who disagree with the notion that humans are causing global warming. That will come as a surprise to Professor Morner from the University of Stockholm, who has written 520 himself on sea levels. He's the world's foremost expert on sea levels. Or Richard Lindzen from MIT, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, who has written many peer-reviewed articles. He is a denier. Professor Willie Soon from MIT, one of the world's foremost scientists on precipitation. John Christy and Roy Spencer from Huntsville, Alabama. Fred Singer, who was responsible for leading the charge to get all of our weather satellites in the air from Northern Virginia. And the five authors of the first IPCC report who wrote in their scientific reports that there is no evidence that humans are causing any of this. And those five sentences were removed by a bureaucrat who replaced them with one sentence that said, It's clear that humans are the cause. In a court action under oath, that bureaucrat was asked why he removed those sentences and replaced them, and he said because of intense pressure from the top of the United States Government. There are 32,000 scientists, 9,000 Ph.D.s and 23,000 masters in science who signed a petition against this silliness that we're discussing, and they want to join the deniers Galileo and Einstein. Einstein questioned Newton's 200 years of settled science, and he was sent a letter by 100 of the most important scientists in the world who challenged him on his questioning of that settled science, and he showed the letter to his friend, and he said, You would think one of them might have produced a fact. That's all we ask from you is a fact. Not a computer model but a fact. ``Energy Stamps'' in Democrat Bill Is the Biggest Welfare Program Ever--16 Times Bigger than the Current Welfare Program Mr. Chairman, some Members deny this bill is a massive tax hike. To them, I can only say you're not paying attention. Everything takes energy. If you raise the price of energy, as this bill does, you raise the price of everything. CBO admits it, again and again. The authors know very well their bill is a massive tax hike. That's why, as this chart shows, they create the largest welfare program in U.S. history, to relieve some. This legislation would pay checks--call them energy stamps--to 16 times as many people as are on welfare now. Here's what it says on page 1010: ``The Secretary shall . . . administer . . . the `Energy Refund Program' . . . under which eligible low-income households are provided cash payments to reimburse the households for the estimated loss in their purchasing power resulting from (this bill) . . . each eligible low-income household . . . shall be entitled to receive monthly cash payments . . . if . . . the gross income of the household does not exceed . . . 150 percent of the poverty line . . .'' 65 million Americans fall below 150 percent of poverty. Every one would receive a monthly energy stamp check, on top of any welfare or other benefits they collect now. Amazingly, this number is down from prior versions because Democrats, predictably, removed any vestige of middle class tax relief. So the other 235 million Americans would get nothing but a new National Energy Tax. Every family of four earning over $33,000 ``loses''--getting no energy stamps but all the energy tax hikes. So much for the President's pledge to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. And so much for the Speaker's pledge this won't raise costs for American families. In his 1935 State of the Union Address, Franklin Roosevelt said ``continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.'' On that President Roosevelt was right, as surely as this legislation is wrong. Vote ``no.''

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, this Sunday, millions of American families will honor mom on Mother's Day. Next month, our Nation will celebrate Father's Day. So it is appropriate to also note the contribution of so many adults who step in as foster parents to care for children when biological moms and dads cannot do so. This resolution recognizes those enormous contributions by foster parents. Every day they step in to care for hundreds of thousands of children across America who cannot safely remain with their own parents. For that, as this resolution expresses, our Nation says ``thank you.'' The children aided by foster care range in age from birth to 21 and come from a wide range of homes. In the congressional district I represent, they include the infant born to a drug-addicted mom, three boys taken in on Christmas Eve after their single mother died of pneumonia, and a little girl who lived in abandoned cars while her father was on drugs. Those are some stories relayed by Suzanne Geske, the executive director of the Foster Children's Foundation based in Duluth, Georgia. The Foster Children's Foundation reflects the efforts of organizations nationwide that coordinate thousands of volunteers, all to better support foster kids and foster parents. As Ms. Geske says of kids in foster care, ``These children all experience the fear of their unknown futures. Thanks to the love and support they receive from foster parents, mentors and organizations that provide many services to them, there is hope. May is a time when we recognize these individuals and raise awareness so others can get involved to save our children. These children live in our own communities and need our help. Please encourage everyone you know to find out how they can reach out to make a difference in the lives of our children.'' Sound advice. This town often focuses on policy questions about where billions of dollars will be spent and where the money will come from. We have these discussions in foster care, too, including developing major reforms last year. We hope those reforms work as intended and improve the lives of children and families. But children care little about policy discussions. What matters to them is if mom is there to see them in the school play or if dad can play catch after work, or if their birthday is remembered and they get their favorite dinner that night. If only that's where the concerns ended for children who suffer from abuse or neglect. Through this resolution today, we remind all Americans of the role they can play in helping children who have already missed out on much in life and who need assistance. These children surely deserve to make progress in life, like any other child. Through the efforts of tens of thousands of dedicated foster parents, they often do, against great odds. We owe these dedicated individuals our thanks and continued support. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. I do not. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman from Washington for bringing this bill to the floor. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Protecting Incentives for the Adoption of Children with Special Needs Act of 2009. This bipartisan legislation makes an important technical fix to ensure that Congress' intent is carried out and that States have improved financial incentives to help more children in foster care find permanent, loving adoptive homes. This legislation continues a long tradition of bipartisan activity by the Ways and Means Committee, a tradition designed to promote the adoption of children from foster care. In 1997, the committee played a key role in crafting the landmark Adoption and Safe Families Act; in 2003 the Adoption Promotion Act; and last fall the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. These laws streamline the adoption process. They encourage more efforts to quickly move children from foster care into permanent, loving homes, and they helped achieve the dramatic increases in the number of children successfully adopted from foster care in the past decade. In each case, the legislation was designed to benefit children who face some of the most daunting personal challenges in our country--those who have spent years, sometimes practically all of their lives, in the foster care system. The legislation before us today would ensure the goals of last year's bipartisan Fostering Connections law are realized. That legislation encouraged increased adoptions from foster care by revising the Adoption Incentives Program and by extending its authorization through fiscal year 2013. Among other improvements, the Fostering Connections law gave States more generous Federal funds if they helped more families adopt children now languishing for years in foster care, especially older and disabled children. Unfortunately, the fiscal year 2009 omnibus appropriations bill, which passed through the House with limited consideration, included an error that effectively overrides some of the improvements in last year's Fostering Connections law. In short, the omnibus bill incorrectly stipulated that adoption incentive funds should be provided under the old, less generous rules Congress wanted to replace instead of the new, more generous rules included in the Fostering Connections law. This legislation makes a simple repair of ensuring that congressional intent is followed so that States have the full intended incentives to promote the adoption of older and disabled children in foster care, among others. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this technical fix has no cost. I would like to thank my colleagues, Representatives Camp and Rangel--ranking member and chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means respectively--for introducing legislation to correct this error in the House. Their bill, H.R. 1840, is identical to the legislation before us, S. 735, which Senators Baucus and Grassley introduced in the Senate and worked to pass earlier this month. I encourage all Members to support this important legislation so it can be signed into law as quickly as possible. April 15, 2009. Hon. Charles Rangel, Chairman, Hon. Dave Camp, Ranking Member, Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Representatives Rangel and Camp: On behalf of the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) and its affiliate the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA), we applaud and support your efforts to fix the incentive program for states that increase their numbers of adoptions from foster care and support H.R. 1840. As you know, the adoption incentive program, originally part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (P.L. 105- 89), was reauthorized in the previous Congress through the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-351). States perform well when provided with incentives. Between 1998 and 2006, states received approximately $211 million in incentive bonuses for increasing the number of children adopted from foster care. During the same time period, nearly half a million children were adopted from state custody. Today, the waiting child population tends to have higher special needs and may pose challenges for caseworkers to find families willing to adopt them. The reauthorizing language reset the base number of adoptions a state needs to finalize to earn an incentive bonus to FY 2007. For each child adopted above that baseline, a state will continue to receive $4,000. Recognizing that older children and children with special needs may be more difficult to place in adoptive homes, Congress improved the bonus awards. The incentive amount for adopted children nine or older increased from $4,000 to $8,000 and adopted special needs children increased from $2,000 to $4,000. For the first time, Congress also added an increased rate of adoptions bonus for states. To earn this bonus, states must achieve a ``foster care adoption rate'' that exceeds its previous ``highest ever foster child adoption rate'' back to 2002 adoption numbers. Moreover, states now have 24 months to spend incentive funds on any Title IV-E and IV-B programs. These were significant improvements to the program that would help many children languishing in foster care find permanent loving homes with adoptive families. However, due to an oversight, the recent Omnibus 2009 Appropriations Act (P.L. 111-8) changed the adoption incentive program back to pre-Fostering Connections. Prior to the reset of the baseline, many states were unable to reach continued higher goals of finalized adoptions and the numbers of children waiting to be adopted were starting to decline in many states. On behalf of those that work so diligently to find homes for waiting children, we thank you for fixing this oversight. You are true champions for our nation's most vulnerable children. Sincerely, Jerry Friedman, Executive Director.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for organizing this Special Order. I think it might be good right now to repeat what the Fair Tax is. The Fair Tax would repeal all taxes on income. No more corporate income tax, personal income tax, no more payroll tax. Most Americans pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. That pays for Social Security and Medicare. We would get rid of the gift tax, the estate tax, the alternative minimum tax. No more tax on income at all. And instead, we would tax a national sales tax on everything that you purchased. On average today, the average income American gives the government 33 cents out of every dollar he earns. Under the Fair Tax, they would give the government 23 cents out of every dollar they spend and raise the same amount of money. Now we are going to come to this point because economic forces are going to drive us to this point. I had the privilege of visiting with Chairman Bernanke last week or 10 days ago or so. One day, whether I am here or not, this Congress is going to decide the only way to go is to a more fair tax, that taxes not what you put into society, but what you take out. Today we know that on average, 22 percent of what you pay for is the embedded cost to the IRS. With all of the companies that it takes to get a loaf of bread to your table, there are payroll taxes, income taxes, there are compliance costs, they get embedded in that price system. That is the only way a business can pay a bill is through price. And you pay that business' light bill, their rent, and their tax bill. If we have a price system that is inflated by 22 percent because of the embedded cost of the IRS, that makes us less than competitive in a global economy and jobs move into better tax jurisdictions offshore. Secondly, the Tax Foundation said that last year we spent $350 billion filling out IRS paperwork. We spend another $125 billion a year calculating the tax implications of a business decision. If we are spending in excess of $450 billion a year just to fill out forms to send them in, that is inefficient. That is stupid. It is like paying for a dead horse. You get nothing from the transaction. Third, the underground economy is about $2 trillion a year. And the more complex our code gets, the easier it is to go underground and avoid paying taxes. They are not contributing. Fourth, there is today in offshore financial centers in dollar- denominated deposits $13 trillion. My point to Chairman Bernanke was this: that is money that would be on shore in our markets, in our banks, if we didn't have an IRS. All four of those issues: the embedded costs, the compliance costs, the underground economy, and the offshore investments, would be eliminated and fixed by getting rid of the IRS. None of them will be touched by nibbling around the edges of our current tax system. Fifth is this point. We are having a serious problem starting in real estate in America because people can't afford to pay their mortgages. Some made bad choices, but that is a simple fact. Under the Fair Tax the average income earner would have a 50 percent increase in take-home pay. They would pay their mortgages. Now all of this stuff gets fixed in the economy without spending $700 billion here and $700 billion there without raising taxes and everything, as Mr. Mica said. Lastly, this point: we have never taxed wealth in America; we tax wages. The first thing very wealthy people do is stop getting wages so they pay 15 percent on capital gains and dividends, and if the Obama plan goes through, they will pay a 20 percent tax. But they don't pay anything to Social Security and Medicare because they have no wages. When Mrs. Kerry had to release her tax return in 2004 during the Presidential election, it showed she had $5.1 million in income the previous year. She paid a 12 percent tax on it. She paid nothing into Social Security and Medicare. She had no wages. This taxes wealth when it is spent. It is fair to assume that she spent a good part of that $5 million on several houses and travel. And in that case if she had spent it all, she would have put $400,000 into Social Security and Medicare, but we don't tax wealth when it is spent today. Now what would happen if all of this comes to pass? Our studies from outside consultants say that in the first year we would have a 10.6 percent increase in the GDP. I asked Chairman Greenspan when he was chairman if that was inflationary, and he said not at all. We would have a 72 percent in capital spending, and we know that real take-home pay for workers increases in exact correspondence to capital spending. We would have jobs coming here. An informal study done at Princeton many years ago asked 500 international companies located in Europe and Japan: What would you do in your long-term planning if the United States eliminated all taxes on capital and labor and taxed only personal consumption? Eighty percent said they would build their next plant in the United States. If you are selling to Detroit, you would rather be in Detroit because transportation costs are high. But we have driven them off with tax policy. We have lots of debates on the floor of this House, but punishing people who go offshore, locking up their accounts, they are not leaving because they hate America, they are leaving because we kicked them offshore with confiscatory tax policies. This will come to pass, and it will be fair, and I hope one day we can give back to the American people and the freest society ever known the privilege of anonymity. No one should know as much about us as our Tax Code. We should have no agency of the Federal Government that knows more about us than we are willing to tell our children. Under this system, there would be no agency that knew how you made your money, how much you made, or how you spent it. You could anonymously go into any store, buy something, have the tax collected there just like we do in 45 States with the sales tax, and we would contract with those States to collect the money and remit it to us. We would have a system of government that was fair. Let me just close with this comment. During the debate in 1912 when income tax was hot and heavy in the United States, one southern Senator made a statement that was considered so ridiculous and outrageous that he was laughed off the floor of the Senate. Here is what he said. He said, ``Mark my words, if we pass this, in time they will be taking 10 percent of everything you earn.'' It was considered ridiculous, but it did bring back to mind my favorite country song, if 10 percent is enough for Jesus, it ought to be enough for Uncle Sam.

Mr. LINDER. I think that is correct. And in the last Presidential election, Governor Huckabee did run on the Fair Tax. In your State, he won the Republican primary. And he told me he ran because of the Fair Tax Organization in Iowa. We have organizations in 50 States, and most States have dozens of them. These are people who, no matter that happens to me or you or the folks right now pushing this idea, they are not going to let it die. If you Google ``Fair Tax,'' you will find that they are meeting in every State, every week. Somewhere along the way it winds up in the literature. The American people are going to demand this. If you remember the debates from the Republican primary, it came up in virtually every debate and brought down the house. So I don't think it is going to go away because the American people are not going to allow it.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Griffin Bell was a friend of mine for maybe 20 years and a decent human being. I'm not going to go back and reflect on his contributions to his city, his State or his Nation. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Poe have already done that. He served in many capacities in a decent way, but I just want to get something in the record. You never, ever will understand Griffin Bell until you understand what a wonderful sense of humor he had. I moved to Georgia from Minnesota in 1969, almost 40 years ago, and one of the things we have in the South is respect for story telling and great good humor. And I have never heard a better one than Griffin Bell. And some of the stories he told me about he and Charlie Kirbo, who was another of President Carter's close personal advisers, as partners representing companies and individuals were just hilarious. I want you to know that the Nation is going to miss a great man, and those of us who knew him are missing a great humorist.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The State Children's Health Insurance Program, which started in 1997, was for children, for children who lived in families who did not qualify for Medicaid but still needed health insurance programs. Today, four States have more adults in the program than children. It is being abused. The health insurance program for children also required, originally, those in this country to show that they lived in this country legally, to have documentation. This program removes that proof. You now need only to say, ``Yes, I am here legally.'' It also removes the 5-year requirement. When you are here legally and you are sponsored by someone, they have to be responsible for taking care of your needs for 5 years. This is removed. What will happen if we follow on with an amnesty bill for the 20 million illegals who would be immediately eligible for the SCHIP program? Would it then be fully funded? The funding, by the way, mostly by tobacco, falls on low-income people. The burden on the lowest 20 percent with the tobacco program is 37 times more burdensome than were it funded by an income tax. It also requires 22 million new smokers just to pay the bill. I want to see the majority go recruit them. It is estimated that 2.4 million people will drop private insurance; families will drop because they qualify. Employers paying employees less than $80,000 a year will drop it. This isn't mean-spirited; it is in their interest. We saw this happen before. In 1965, every physician and dentist in America had a file drawer full of patients that they treated for free. It was their community responsibility. When Medicare and Medicaid came along, they said, ``Well, my taxes are going up to pay for that. The government will now do it.'' And they dropped that responsibility, and the burden fell on the taxpayer. With the upper limit disregards in this program on income ceilings, we essentially make 75 percent of all Americans eligible for the program. Again, I repeat. I have heard it said many times it is fully funded. And Lyndon Johnson said that about Medicare and Medicaid. I was in dental school and watched his great society speech. He said, ``We know, using easily quantifiable user statistics that, by 1990, Medicare will only cost $9 billion and Medicaid will only cost $1 billion.'' He was wrong. Medicare costs over $100 billion; Medicaid costs over $75 billion, and those entitlements are breaking this country. The same is going to happen when the ceilings are taken off incomes and other people are put into this program. It will not be fully funded by tobacco. This program will pay less than one-half the reimbursement to providers through Medicare or SCHIP that currently Blue Cross pays. And those providers are going to disappear from the program. We are already seeing it in Medicare and Medicaid. Who is going to be left to treat these people? There was a real bipartisan effort to reauthorize this program last year, to expand its income protections and to increase the money to pay for it. It wasn't enough for the majority. They wanted to make it for everybody all of the time. This will not work. I will vote against it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to my friend from Texas (Mr. Culberson).

Mr. LINDER. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to my friend from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson).

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of the time.

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, can I inquire as to the time remaining on each side?

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I reserve.

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that nobody on this side opposes children. The SCHIP program was started under the Republican majority in 1997, principal sponsor being Republican Senator Orrin Hatch. We believe the program was a good start in allowing for the health coverage of children whose parents did not qualify for Medicaid. What will destroy this program is a lack of restraint and irresponsible expansion of it. It is true we are in the midst of a global economic collapse. And what has caused that? Abuse, lack of restraint, corporate leaders spending other people's money, shareholders, ignored limitations, ignored risks, ignored warning signs, and gave us the problem we have in the economy. What makes us different? We are spending other people's money and we're spending more and more of it. We have a GAO study that says that if we continue to spend in our discretionary spending at the current percentage of the overall economy, and if we continue to tax at 19 percent of GDP, which is about the average since 1945, that in just 31 years from today, the entire Federal revenue stream will be insufficient to pay the interest on the debt because of entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, which is much worse than Social Security, Medicaid. And to solve those programs in the face of President Obama's desire to get a handle on entitlements, we stand here today proposed to add a new one. It is true that this is designed as a block grant program. But there are no limitations on it. This will go out of control just like all of the other programs have, and our children will pay. Madam Speaker, I hope we all oppose this.

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, we have all heard the proverb that if you give a man a fish, he can eat for a day. If you teach him to fish, he can eat for a lifetime. This bill is full of fish going to deserving people to eat for 1 day. There is nothing in here for fishing rods. There is nothing in here for training. To get out of the slump, we need to get people who are unemployed employed in real jobs with real companies. We have the second highest tax on corporations in the world. Lowering that tax burden would help get people hired. To hire people, most of whom will be hired by small businesses, the owner of that business needs a predictable future. This gives him none of that. The other side is very proud to say that 95 percent are going to get a tax cut. But that tax cut means a refundable tax credit for people who do not pay taxes. Today, 15 million people get their income tax rebated plus a payroll tax plus more from the taxpayer.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, when SCHIP first passed about a dozen years ago, Georgia's program was called Peach Care. It was open to large numbers of people, and millions signed up, many of whom came off private health insurance to do so. A friend of mine, who made $150,000 a year, signed up too. She never used it. But you could sign up by the Internet. Some of that's been tightened up, but this bill opens that back up again. You're eligible by just stating your Social Security Number, no need to prove who you are. The 5-year waiting period that's always been in place for legal immigrants who come here sponsored, is erased. And we all know that sooner or later we're going to have an amnesty for those 20 million illegals, and that will dwarf this system. I was in dental school in 1936 when Lyndon Johnson delivered the great society speech; and he said, using easily quantifiable user statistics, we know that by 1990, Medicare will cost $9 billion, and Medicaid will cost $1 billion. He was wrong. And this will be abused also.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.