Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as we come out to discuss this resolution, H. Res. 72, I couldn't but think of a story from the middle part of the United States of America. There was a Methodist minister who fell ill, very, very seriously ill, and the head of the board of deacons called the board together to have a discussion about what they should do about the problems of the ailing minister. They had a long discussion. It took, not as long as this debate will take, but it took 2 hours. And at the end, by a vote of 4-3, with 17 abstentions, they wrote a letter to the minister urging him to get well. Now this resolution has about as much effect as that letter to that minister in central Illinois. Two years ago--and what a difference a day makes--January 28, 2009, this Congress passed the American Recovery Act. Seven hundred billion dollars that stopped the economic collapse in this country, that got us started on recovery from the problems created by the previous administration. We did that in less than a hundred days. We've been here a hundred days. There used to be a TV program I liked when I was a kid called This Is The Week That Was. Now let's review this week that was. I arrived back from Seattle and on the calendar were two bills. One was a bill to deal with, as the gentleman from Michigan has suggested, the problems of workers who have been displaced by trade, the so-called Trade Adjustment Act, TAA. That was one bill. The other bill was a bill to extend the Patriot Act. I don't know what the leadership on the other side was thinking. Maybe they can't count. But the bill to extend the Patriot Act went down in flames. They then pulled the bill on extending TAA. That was Tuesday. Then we came to Wednesday. That was the day they brought the bill in, a meaningless bill, messing with the United Nations funding, that didn't save one single dollar but simply said we weren't going to pay our dues to this, then that section of the United Nations that somebody didn't like, and so they decided they'd come out here and make a big show about the United Nations. That bill went down in flames. Now the week has not been a total loss. We did change the name of a courthouse; we did it on Wednesday, and I think we got something to go home and talk to our people about in our districts. And now we're to Thursday. Here we are spending 9 hours out here on a meaningless piece of legislation. It is truly a sad day for the House that we are spending another day not helping the people of America. Not helping the private sector create jobs. Not doing what the people sent us here to do. Early this morning, congressional representatives and staff came to work on Capitol Hill to work for the American people. It is the job every day for Members and staff to oversee the agencies of the Federal Government, to oversee the regulations so that the common good is served. It doesn't require House Resolution 72. We are here to track how money is being spent and that it is being done responsibly. That is the Congress' constitutional responsibility and has been for 224 years. You would have thought that maybe the people on the other side would have figured this out, Mr. Speaker. We stood out here and read the Constitution. I guess for some of them it was the first time they had ever read it but they weren't paying attention or something because this resolution is simply restating what has always been our responsibility. Now it's been 100 days, as I said, for the Republicans in control of the House, and they have done not one single thing to create a job. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Nothing. Not a single thing to create a job in 100 days. We have 14.9 million unemployed in this country. We have an intense economic competition with the rest of the world that we are in danger of losing if we don't get moving. We have a home foreclosure crisis in this country. We've got two wars. We've got huge energy and environmental issues to deal with and an economic system that's falling further and further behind the rest of the world. We do not lead the world in college graduates per capita. We are about sixth or seventh or eighth, somewhere down there. Other countries are passing us because of our inaction. And what do we do? The Republicans say, let's go out and waste the 10th of February. Now, instead, the Republicans are having us working for two whole days to tell the House of Representatives to do its job. For heaven's sakes, what a silly piece of legislation. This bill is an insult to the American people. It's an insult to the people who work here, and they don't even seem to understand they're insulting themselves, as though they didn't know what their job was. It's like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. The House is sitting here while millions of Americans are unemployed. They're selling their belongings. They're emptying their 401(k)s. They're doing everything possible to stay afloat. Now, this isn't 1930. In 1930, what people did was, they took what few belongings they had, went out, put it on the top of the car, drove to California, and found a job. That's what people did. But every day, millions of Americans can't move to take a new job because they can't sell their house because their homes are under water, according to the banks. In Seattle today, one-third of the homes are under water. Now, if you don't think some foreclosures are coming out of that, you don't understand how it works. There is a whole new underclass of unemployed, undertrained Americans who are not being helped to compete in the world economy. And while Americans across the country suffer, the Republicans come out here with H. Res. 72. They are going to do nothing. The Republicans, the party of ``saying one thing and doing another,'' promised big action on jobs during the election: If you elect us, we will get this country rolling again. So they have taken control of the House, and what do the American people get? Instead of helping the private sector with a smart science, technology, and energy investment policy, we are considering Republican legislation on pornography. That certainly makes a lot of sense if you don't have a job. Instead of compassionately and energetically helping the unemployed, the Republicans want to redefine the rape of women to keep some women who have been raped from getting abortions. You will see that one next week. That's going to be the great bill. Where's the job bill? Where are the job bills? I have no idea. There are more 99ers every week. Now in case you don't know what a 99er is on the other side, let me educate you. We have an unemployment system that provides for unemployment insurance for 99 weeks; and when it runs out, you are done. And there are four or five people for every job that comes up in America. So if you go out looking for a job, you have a one in four chance of having any chance at getting it. And yet these 99- weekers are piling up all over the country because they've run out of their unemployment insurance, and the Republicans do nothing about creating jobs. Instead of intelligently debating administration plans in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Republicans want to vote on meaningless bills like the one I talked about with the United Nations that save no money and don't advance the U.S. interest in anything. The Republicans ran on a slogan, Mr. Speaker: Government spending kills jobs. They are the extreme party of ``everyone for themselves,'' no action for the common good. And now that the Republicans have responsibility, all they have is their message machine. That's what these 9 hours are about. Just in case you haven't broken the code, they are all in their offices now, Mr. Speaker, cranking out press releases: I'm going to take on this regulation. I'm going to take on that regulation. And somehow they think that those messages will get them reelected in November of 2012. They are creating a paper blizzard. Like we have had some snow around here, well, this is a real blizzard. Now when you try to govern without ideas, it doesn't go over very well with the American public, and slowly the Republican leadership is hearing the feedback. What is the new Republican response? They say the need to ``retool their messaging.'' Since we have to waste the people's time on the floor today on this meaningless resolution, I thought I should try and be helpful to the Republican effort. It's my civic duty. As a member of the minority, I should help the majority rule. Now, the problem the Republicans are having is that what they ran on, that `` Big Government is the problem,'' isn't true. Big Government is not the problem. No one wants Big Government. What do we want that for? We've all been through TSA. We don't want that stuff. But the government is not the problem. The government is made up of Americans, good Americans who are writing rules and regulations to do things that Americans want. Americans want clean water. They want to be able to drink the water. They want some water to irrigate their crops. They want water for a lot of things. And it takes regulation because if you let anybody take as much water as they want, some people and some very important things are not going to get done. They want clean air. Americans want clean air. They know there is an epidemic of asthma among children living in cities, and they're worried about it. And they want regulations. They want regulations in construction so that you don't create an epidemic of youngsters with asthma who fill the emergency rooms every night in hospitals in this country. Now, the American people want fairness. They want the rule of law. They want laws fixed that don't work. Sometimes you pass a law; and 10 years ago, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Things change. Things need to be changed. Sure, we ought to be doing that. But you don't need House Resolution 72 to tell you to do it. Common sense would tell you to do it. And the American people need the collective help that we can give them. The American people want effective government that deals with people's problems. Now the Republican ``fear and blame machine'' is an old, tired, failed philosophy that from time to time can be used to scare the American people in an election. They did it in 2004. Remember the orange alerts and the Oh, God, yellow alerts. Oh, God, we've got to have 4 more years of the same stuff. And we got 4 more years of it. In 2010, here they are again. We were over in the Ways and Means Committee today doing oversight with a wrecking ball. Let's wreck the bill that we passed last year on health care. Now Bill Frist--you are not going to call him a wild-eyed liberal. He used to be the majority leader in the Senate. Bill Frist said to the Republicans, Mr. Speaker, don't repeal it. Fix it. But what we're doing today is getting ready to blow the bill out of the way so that we can have the Paul Ryan road to the end of Medicare and to a voucher system. Paul Ryan vouchers for every senior citizen in this country is the goal. And that oversight is really set to blow apart any chance of developing better law than we got through here last year. It would work better if both sides worked together, there's no question about it. But if you're going to use a wrecking ball and try to put in a voucher system and say to all the old people in this country, Hey, here's your voucher. This is an $8,000 voucher. Go out and find yourself an insurance company that wants to give you insurance. Mr. Speaker, consider that idea. I mean, I don't know how old the Members' mothers and fathers are; but when you get to be 75 or 80, and you go out with an $8,000 voucher and try to build health insurance, you can't do it, except by taking another $5,000 or $6,000 out of your pocket. The seniors in this country spend already one-third of their income on health care. They have got plenty of skin in the game. They don't need any more. But the Ways and Means Committee today is doing that rather than trying to figure out what it is that we can do to make the law better. There wasn't a single question about how can you make the law better. All it was was an attack on the man who ran CMS. The first question was, Do you still believe that the national health system of Great Britain is the best thing since sliced bread? The question wasn't, Doctor, how can we help you make this law work more effectively for the American people? There is an extreme agenda here, and it won't be helped by retooling the message. Now, the other thing that is kind of ridiculous about this whole thing is, we have an Oversight Committee on the Ways and Means Committee. We have a very distinguished Member from Louisiana. Dr. Boustany is a very smart Member of Congress. He is the ranking member on the Oversight Committee. He does not need H. Res. 72 to tell him to do oversight. He is a very thorough man. He is a cardiac surgeon. I mean, come on. This guy is smart and able and can see what the problems are, and he doesn't need these 10 hours out here flogging this resolution so that we can then have our press releases. The American people deserve better than this. They deserve us to put positive proposals forward that will create jobs, that will deal with the foreclosures, that will deal with the health care problems they have, that will deal with the energy problems, will deal with what's happening in the world and what's going on overseas. And we are about to see in the budget that comes out what the priorities of the Republican Party are. The budget is a moral document. It is when you say what you really care about. And when you look at that document, you will see what they really care about. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I'm just sitting here thinking about this whole business about regulation. Since I've been in Congress, when I arrived here we were in the midst of the savings and loan crisis which cost this country something like $50 billion or something to bail ourselves out of. It wasn't the fact that we didn't have the right rules and regulations; we just weren't enforcing them. Then we had Enron went on down in Texas, and we had the Exxon Valdez, and you look at all these issues. We need regulation and enforcement to make sure that the people are protected. It is our job, in part, to protect the American people from the capitalist system. The capitalist system is not bad. It simply doesn't have any morals. It is designed to make money. That's all it's about. And the regulations that are put in are, in large measure, to protect the American people from the excesses of the economic system. And if we don't do that, we don't do our constituents what they sent us here to do, which is to represent them and protect them. We think about protections in terms of, you know, things overseas and missiles flying in from somewhere and all that kind of stuff, but there is more damage done to American people by what happens here in this country by our own companies to the water and the air and the land and the air we breathe. So it is very important that we do this. We should be doing continuous oversight. And in some instances, we should be tightening the regulations. The banking system that collapsed collapsed because we allowed Wall Street to have a heyday with derivatives and said, you know, do whatever you guys think is right. What they thought was right was to gamble with our pensions and our people's savings, and the whole system collapsed. And we're digging our way out of it. And to come out here and say what we need is to remove regulations is simply not--doesn't make sense, and it shouldn't make sense to anybody who thinks about it for 1 minute. And I urge my colleagues to vote against this. It's useless. It's stupid. Every committee already has an oversight subcommittee and they will do it, and I think that there is no reason to pass this. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, the legislation introduced by House Republicans to return $179 million from the United Nations Tax Equalization Fund, TEF, is both factually inaccurate and diverts Congress' attention from far more pressing national security considerations facing the 112th Congress, such as Afghanistan. The bill incorrectly states that there is $179 million in the TEF to date, when in fact there is $79 million. The legislation fails to take into account the $100 million that United States has already committed to support critical security upgrades at the U.N. Headquarters, as requested by the City of New York. Forcefully transferring $179 million to Treasury--as this bill dictates--would make it impossible for the U.S. to follow through on our commitment to fund necessary security enhancements that we as the host nation are responsible for, not to mention place U.N. personnel at risk. At a time when U.S. taxpayers are spending a staggering $100 billion per year in Afghanistan, it seems odd that the Republicans would choose this as a top priority. I do not support this bill and urge my colleagues to vote against it. I also urge my Republican colleagues to follow through on their number 1 campaign promise and focus on creating jobs and growing our economy-- something they have yet to do in any meaningful way since assuming control of the House.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I voted against the PATRIOT Act in 2001, voted against its extension in 2005, and will again vote against it again today. The PATRIOT Act was sold as a measure to ensure the safety of the American people. Instead, the PATRIOT Act has served primarily to subvert fundamental rights afforded to American citizens. A plain extension of the PATRIOT Act, without revisiting its many problems and abuses, is a huge mistake and missed opportunity to truly protect our country against terrorism and do so in the confines of the Constitution. Freedom does not have to be compromised to defend liberty. Continuing to weaken fundamental American principles will not leave us more secure, but instead more vulnerable. Through mutual trust and fearlessness, we can progress together. It is time to stop extending the PATRIOT Act and restore full American freedoms and liberty to our citizens.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The short title of this bill ought to be ``The White Flag of the United States Congress on Campaign Finance.'' My distinguished colleague from Oklahoma says, if it's broke, why don't we write a bill. That's exactly what the point is. There weren't very many people on this floor who were involved in politics when this whole thing blew up. You've forgotten 1972. We wrote a bill in the Congress--we didn't, but the Congress wrote a bill. Interestingly enough, they left themselves out of it, but they tried to control how much money went into a Presidential campaign. Now, if you don't index it for inflation or do some kind of mechanism, it's pretty clear that a law written with the limits of 1972 is going to be pretty out of date by 2012. There are some things we could do to change this process and make it more in sync with what's going on in society financially. But by saying you repeal it with nothing to replace it, you simply are saying we don't care how much money is spent in the election of the President of the United States; it is of no concern to the Republican Party whatsoever. It fits very nicely with the Citizens United lawsuit that allows corporate money to come in in a variety of other ways. And the system is now so corrupt that what you heard my colleague from California say, that is, all the things that were uncovered as a result of Watergate and the investigation that followed and led to the ejection of the President from the White House, was because we didn't have any controls on anything. Now, did we put the perfect controls in? No. Should we be amending this bill? Yes. Because I don't know what 2012 is going to cost--maybe $1 billion on either side. Sarah Palin will have $1 billion and Barack Obama will have $1 billion, and that will be all right with everybody. But the problem with that is that the ordinary folks in this country don't have any opportunity to participate. They also know that people don't give $1 billion with no expectation of something coming back. That's what happened in 1972. People gave money and they expected something back. And that's where the real fallacy here is in simply wiping this out without trying to fix it. It's an admission that you do not care how much money gets spent in a Presidential campaign. And if that's your view of how the democracy works, I think we are in serious trouble. I'm one of those who think there should be publicly financed campaigns. I think even my opponents against me--I get 84 percent, but I think my opponent ought to have an equal shot at me. But the Congress didn't put that in this bill because they didn't want that. Neither did the Senate want that. They wanted to put it on the President and say, well, we fixed it over there. We really need it for this House and the Senate as well as what's going on in the Presidential election. And to simply repeal this is bad public policy and it is an admission that we don't care. I oppose the bill. Statement of Administration Policy H.R. 359--Termination of Public Financing of Presidential Campaigns and Party Conventions (Rep. Cole, R-Oklahoma, and 18 cosponsors, Jan. 25, 2011) The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 359 because it is critical that the Nation's Presidential election public financing system be fixed rather than dismantled. The Presidential election public financing system was enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal to free the Nation's elections from the influence of corporations and other wealthy special interests. Rather than candidates having to rely on raising large sums of private money in order to run, the system provides qualifying presidential candidates with the option of accepting matching funds in the primary and a public grant in the general election. It has done so at minimal cost to taxpayers, who fund it by voluntarily choosing to direct $3 of their Federal taxes to this beneficial system. For many years, the system worked well and attracted wide participation. In time, however, it became clear that a system introduced in the 1970s was in need of modernization and repair. Beginning in the 2000 Presidential campaign, candidates began to opt out. Since that time, promising proposals for the strengthening of the system have been made. H.R. 359 would kill the system, not strengthen it. Its effect would be to expand the power of corporations and special interests in the Nation's elections; to force many candidates into an endless cycle of fundraising at the expense of engagement with voters on the issues; and to place a premium on access to large donor or special interest support, narrowing the field of otherwise worthy candidates. After a year in which the Citizens United decision rolled back a century of law to allow corporate interests to spend vast sums in the Nation's elections and to do so without disclosing the true interests behind them, this is not the time to further empower the special interests or to obstruct the work of reform. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of my time be controlled by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brady).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I want to give folks a preview of tonight's off-Broadway performance that will follow the President's State of the Union Address. The stage will be the House Budget Committee hearing room. The actor in the one-man show will be Republican Representative Paul Ryan from Wisconsin. The script will begin with something like, Hello, I'm Representative Paul Ryan, and I'm speaking to you from the very location where the Democratic job-killing spending binge unfolded during the last 2 years. Unfortunately, the script for tonight's performance will not include the fact that Democratic investments have created more jobs during the last 2 years than were created during the entire 8 years of George Bush. You also won't hear about the one thing that Republicans fought tooth and nail for during the last 2 years: an extension of a budget-busting $700 billion tax break for wealthy Americans. Coming attractions? The chairman will have another show in the next week where he pulls a budget number from a hat filled with rabbits. That will be our budget number. Enjoy the show.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, at its core, the budget is a statement of America's priorities. It says what we as a Nation value. After all of the Republican budget-cutting promises that preceded and followed the recent midterm elections, we are finally seeing what the Republicans are really about, what they really value--press releases. Their whole legislative agenda since they gained control of the House has amounted to nothing more than Republican theater. The Republicans are doing the exact opposite of what they promised. They are offering no transparency and no thoughtful consideration of the budget in the Congress, and no job proposals. Instead, they are just offering a radical Republican wish list to appease their base. Sadly, the budget process is going to be just another backroom deal. Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin has been appointed to determine, on his own, with no input from the rest of the House, what the budget spending limits will be. If you care about openness and transparency, you're going to be disappointed. The Republicans said everything would be on the table, with increased input and debate among the Members. Instead, we're going to get a budget number drafted by one Member, and we'll be forced to accept it without a vote. If you care about fairness and democracy, you are about to get a very rude awakening. If you care about making smart investments where all Americans can benefit and prosper, you're going to be disappointed. And if you're a faithful deficit hawk who thought a Republican-controlled House would reduce the deficit, you've been hoodwinked. In the runup to the midterm elections, Republicans promised that if they won the House, they would cut $100 billion from the budget. They didn't have a plan, but $100 billion sure sounded like a good number. Well, it is now months after the election, and they still don't have a plan, no specifics, no baseline number. And boy, are they running away from that $100 billion commitment as fast as possible. The Republicans do have a list that includes over 100 cuts that completely disregard the economic and social impacts the cuts would have. Mr. Speaker, budgets are about values. They are a moral document. In general, you are either in favor of making smart investments and helping the less fortunate--so, you're smart and compassionate--or you demonize collective government and it's everybody for himself, laissez- faire capitalism. The Republican Study Committee's list of budget cuts shows us which side of the values equation the Republicans are on. They want to preserve hundreds of billions of dollars for corporate tax breaks but take away student loans from tens of thousands of students. They want to keep building weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't want, but they cut historic preservation. They want to encourage the off-shoring of jobs, but want to cut programs that help our exporters. Mr. Speaker, we are a month into the Republican leadership of this House, and we haven't seen a single move toward creating jobs. We are a month into the Republican leadership of this House, and we don't have a budget number. We haven't had a hearing, and we have no budget proposal that can be honestly debated. Cutting the budget is no easy task, and I strongly urge the Republicans to end the political theater and think about our country's values and priorities when it comes to laying out the budget. Let's have an open, fair, and transparent discussion of job creation. The talk of shifting all of the costs of Medicaid onto the States is foolish. You know the poor will suffer with that kind of a proposal. So let's work together toward a responsible budget that reflects that we are both smart and compassionate.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, a very famous Republican 100 years ago proposed that we have national health insurance in this country. And he also said this--his name was Teddy Roosevelt by the way--``It's not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man or woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. ``The credit belongs to the man or the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.'' Now, I have been here for 23 years, and since the Republicans defeated the efforts of the Clintons in 1993-1994, I have waited for 16 years for my cold and timid friends to make one proposal that will deal with the preexisting condition question. We have 125 million Americans who cannot go out and get insurance, who cannot leave their job if they have insurance through their job because they have a preexisting condition, and you have been silent for 16 years. Now you want to come up and throw this away. Why don't we just settle down and we can make some amendments to this bill. I think there are some things wrong with it. There is a lot of stuff that I didn't get into it when it came through this House. I am sure that there are some things that you would like. But throwing it away is a political farce. You know it isn't going to work. You have admitted it isn't going to work. It is never going to pass, and so we go through. Let's get the vote out of the way. Vote ``no.'' Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my Republican colleagues to start having an honest debate about the health care law which they call a ``job-killing'' law because it polls well, but not because it's true. It seems pretty clear, especially from listening to the Republican attack ads during the last campaign, that the Republican pollsters have found the key to winning this debate and others is by saying ``job-killing'' as often as possible. If a Democrat said the sun rises in the east, the Republicans would say it's a job-killing sunrise. Republicans entitled the current bill we are debating the ``Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.'' The basis for their ``job- killing'' rhetoric is a report that they released recently entitled ``ObamaCare: A Budget- Busting, Job-Killing Health Care Law.'' I have a copy of it here if anybody wants to get it. All you have to do is contact the Republicans. Mr. Speaker, in the last Congress, we took up the challenge of reforming health care in this country because the system was broken and creating tremendous damage to the American economy. The fact is the health care law will help the economy. It will result in more efficiency, more stability of care, healthier Americans, and at fairer costs. That's what the law will do. Republicans have repeatedly misused statistics from the CBO to support their argument that the law is primarily a ``jobs killer.'' We are truly in a situation of Republican conclusions desperately in search of honest facts. Let's look at the typical example--the Republicans' twisting of the views of experts to support their view. On the very first page of the report House Republicans released on January 6 entitled ``ObamaCare,'' Republicans state that according to a nonpartisan CBO report from August 2010, the law will result in a loss of 650,000 jobs. Now you can get that from the CBO. It's available for people to read. But if you actually go to what they cite from the CBO report--it's on page 48--the report really says that the economy will use less labor because many people will choose to work less, or retire early, as a result of the benefits of the new law. Let me read the exact quote from the Republican report. It says, ``the nonpartisan CBO has determined that the law will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by roughly half a percent,'' an estimate that adds up to roughly 650,000 jobs. The Republican report, however, deliberately chops off the last part of the CBO sentence to substantiate their claim. Here is the entire sentence: ``The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount-- roughly half a percent--primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply.'' CBO explicitly makes clear that jobs will not be lost but instead that people will choose to work less in order to have a decent life. With the new health care law, the American people won't be drowning in health care costs and risks to their coverage. Some evening, on Friday, fly home to Seattle with me and meet the flight attendants from United Airlines. We have the oldest base in the country. Most of those women are working so that they can have health care benefits for their family because their husband has a job and no health care benefits. They're not flying for the pension. They're not flying for the salary. They're flying to keep their health care benefits until they can get to Medicare. The Republicans want to focus on their message--no matter what the facts are. Republicans say that health care reform is bad for American business. The National Business Group on Health, a collection of nearly 300 large employers including Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin and others, disagrees and says repeal will be bad, bad for businesses. I will close by quoting, in a somber splash of honesty, the economics editor of the Wall Street Journal. On January 6, just 2 weeks ago, he wrote: Talking about repeal of the health care law--remember, this is the Wall Street Journal--talking about repeal of the health care law may be a winning political strategy for Republicans, a rare way to please both workers and business executives, and here is what they finally end with--as long as they don't actually succeed in doing it. The health care law isn't a job killing bill. It's good for business, it's good for American taxpayers, it's good for consumers, it's good for everybody in the society, and I urge my colleagues to recognize that words really do matter and they should stop mischaracterizing the health care law and confusing the American people.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, those who are watching this today may wonder what just happened in the House of Representatives. And I want to talk a little bit about it so they understand what goes on next week on the floor of this House. Today we set the stage for the passage of the Republican health care plan. It won't be a repeal of what the Democratic Congress did before. It will be returning us to the status quo where the health care insurance industry in this country is totally in control of the private insurance industry. Now, yesterday I was on a conference call with groups that represent 18,000 physicians who want us not to act and repeal the Affordable Health Care Act next week. They have taken resolutions in every district around this country among physicians. They have delivered them to the Speaker's Office, Mr. Boehner in Cincinnati. They have taken them to Mr. Cantor's office in Virginia. Because doctors know what this act really does. I listened to a couple of my colleagues who are physicians, and I heard them say they wanted to repeal it all. But the 18,000 physicians who I was talking to, or their representatives, on the phone yesterday were talking about what the real experience is out in the doctors' offices, not on the floor of the House or not in some political arena where we are making points, but when you are actually dealing with patients. I am a physician. I have been there. I have done it also. I have had phone calls from Omaha, Nebraska, about whether I could continue to see a patient. And every doctor who has practiced in this country in the last 30 years knows that is what goes on. They know that patients don't have health insurance because they have a preexisting condition. They know that people who thought they had insurance suddenly get an illness and then find out their insurance company won't cover them because of some technicality or whatever they find. They worry about their own children who finish college at age 21 or 22 and can no longer be covered on their insurance policy. But with the bill that we passed last year, those young people can be covered from age 22 to 26 until they get a job where they have health care benefits. Those are the reasons why doctors want to see this bill stay in place and be enacted. Now, what we're going to see out here next week is political theater. I call it the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Follies Act of 2011. We have a piece of legislation which we weren't told about today. It is exactly one page long and repeals everything that happened. It repeals the prohibition against preexisting condition exclusions. It allows insurers to no longer cover children over the age of 22. It sets lifetime limits again on people's insurance policies. All of that occurs here in one single piece of paper, with no debate, no committee hearings, no effort to find out what's going on out there in the community. It's a political document for a political purpose for a part of the Republican Party. It is not what the American people are actually feeling. Now, what you will hear next week is even more interesting because we are going to get a fraudulent piece of legislative hot air. They will say, Well, yes, we are repealing ObamaCare. You know, it's strange. They never call Medicare ``Johnson Medicare.'' It passed under President Johnson. I wonder why not. Because it was for all Americans. It's not the President. It's the body that sits here that passes the legislation that covers all Americans. And yet we are now, next week, going to be offered this piece of fraudulent hot air. It's House Resolution 9. They will say, Yes, we're repealing that, but we have this. And when you read H. Res. 9, it's one page of nothing. Read it. You've got the weekend.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman. Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King. Connecticut: William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman. New York: Alexander Hamilton.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, we have a new leader in the House and a new majority, and next week they are going to begin their legislative activity with a stunt. It is a stunt they are bringing out here to pretend that they are repealing the Accountable Care Act that was passed in the last session. They know it won't pass the Senate, they know the President isn't going to accept it, so it is being done simply for their base. Now, I object to doing stunts like this when they affect real people's lives. I just would ask you for a minute to consider what the repeal of this means to middle class families in this country. I am a physician. There are other physicians on the floor. They know how this repeal will affect people in this country. In September, we already had go into effect the ability of families to put their children on their health insurance up to the age of 26. This repeal will say, if you have got a 25-year-old who has cystic fibrosis and is on your health care plan and getting their medications through your health care plan, we are going to take it away from you. That is what they are saying in this. They are saying for preexisting conditions, if you were trying to get a health care plan and your wife or your son or you have a preexisting condition, you can be denied by an insurance company. We have already passed a law that says that can't happen. It went in in September. Yet the Republicans are going to come out here and say to the middle class in this country, we are going to take away your protection against insurance companies denying you coverage. It goes on and on and on, but I want to focus on one particular part of this bill. This bill has the largest middle class tax cut in history--the largest tax cut for the middle class in history--because the tax cuts in this health care bill to help the middle class are used for giving credits to people when they buy insurance. People buy insurance, they get a tax credit. It is the largest one in history. Let me say that again so you get it: They are going to vote next week. They are going to stand out here with a straight face and vote to repeal the largest middle class tax cut in the history of this great Nation that will be worth $110 billion that they will take away from the middle class. Now, a few weeks ago we passed a tax bill out of here and we had to give tax cuts to people who make millions and millions of dollars-- millions. They said if you don't give the tax cuts to the rich, we are not going to give them to the middle class. The entire Republican Caucus voted against tax cuts unless millionaires got them. Well, we should have learned from that that this repeal will be just more of the same--take $110 billion away from the middle class by taking a repeal of this law. You don't have to take it from me. This isn't me making this up. Families USA, a nonpartisan group, has put out this information, and everybody understands it. Now, upstairs in the Rules Committee right now, I could be up there talking but I decided I will talk here first and then go up there and try to get this amendment offered in the bill that will be on Friday. Allyson Schwartz and Gwen Moore are up there already working on this. But it would prevent a repeal effort from increasing taxes on moderate-income or low-income individuals, including through the elimination of tax credits for health care premiums as provided under the health care reform law. We would exempt that one part out of the repeal. I don't know what success I will have up there, but we will go and try, because it is worth trying. It is worth pointing out how absolutely unthinking this is. It is a mindless thing to come out here with this repeal.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the powerful contributions made by Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) President Rick S. Bender and Secretary-Treasurer Alan O. Link to policies that benefit working families. Throughout their lengthy and distinguished service, they have done much to advance the cause of organized labor in Washington State and, thereby, to improve significantly the lives of our residents. Thanks to steadfast support of its labor movement by Rick Bender and Al Link, Washington State today is the fourth most unionized state in the nation, with the state's 574,000 union members accounting for 20.2% of its overall workforce. Rick Bender became President of the Washington State Labor Council in 1993, after serving as WSLC Vice President (1988-1993); Executive Secretary of the King County Labor Council (1991-1993); and Executive Secretary of the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council (1987-1991). He is a member of Laborers Local 242 and Elevator Constructors Local 19, and he began his career with organized labor as an apprentice with Cement Masons Local 528 in 1966. In addition to his exceptional service to organized labor, Rick also served the citizens of the State of Washington for many years as an elected member of the State Legislature; I was fortunate to serve with Rick in the Washington State Senate, where he was much respected for his expertise, his hard work, and his commitment to fairness. Al Link also is a giant in the Washington State labor community. He served in numerous leadership positions in that community prior to his 1994 election as WSLC Secretary-Treasurer, including President of the Spokane County Central Labor Council (1989-94) and President of Steelworkers Local 329 (1991-94), when he represented workers at the Kaiser Aluminum plant in Spokane. Al has been a member of the United Steelworkers of America since 1961. Together, Rick Bender and Al Link provided bold leadership to the Washington State Labor Council as it achieved many proud accomplishments: they crafted a far-sighted and effective legislative platform to promote pro-working family laws and policies in Washington state government; these included passage of long-sought collective bargaining rights for state employees, protection and strengthening of Washington's model unemployment insurance and workers' compensation systems, promotion of innovative apprenticeship programs, and development of affordable health care and family leave policies. Intent on highlighting labor's importance to our democratic political process, Mr. Bender and Mr. Link created a groundbreaking grassroots political program featuring the ``Labor Neighbor'' program, a highly successful effort that became a national model for engaging union activists and volunteers in the election process and informing rank- and-file members of labor's endorsements. They also led successful campaigns for pro-worker ballot measures, including the nation's first indexed minimum wage law, which began as an initiative filed by Rick Bender; it was approved by the voters of Washington State in 1998 following an exciting campaign co-chaired by Rick and especially memorable because it relied entirely on volunteer signature gatherers. Mr. Speaker, the formidable team of Rick Bender and Al Link leaves a vital legacy that will strengthen the lives of working people and their families for decades to come. On the occasion of their retirement from the Washington State Labor Council, I join thousands of union members, working families, and appreciative citizens across Washington State in thanking them for their vision, their bold leadership, and their dedicated service. We wish them good fortune and much satisfaction in the coming years.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have until publication of the last edition of the Congressional Record authorized for the Second Session of the 111th Congress by the Joint Committee on Printing to revise and extend their remarks and to include brief, related extraneous material on any matter occurring before the adjournment of the Second Session sine die.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, your committee appointed to inform the President that the House is ready to adjourn and to ask him if he has any further communications to make to the House has performed that duty and advises me that the President has directed them to say that he has no further communications to make to the House.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, we've had a long, tough Congress, and we come to the end of it, and I'm sorry that my good friend from Texas implied the vote was held open for some nefarious reasons. We passed the bill for our first responders a long time ago, and they finally got around to it over in the Senate. Those people were important, and it was important that we wait and make sure it gets over here and we get it passed into law. Unfortunately, one of our Members had gone home to visit her grandmother, who is near the end of her life, and the plane was coming in and trying to drive in the traffic of the rush hour makes it a little difficult. And so it didn't happen quite as quickly as we wanted, but I'm sure at this time of Christmas, when we all believe that we want good will for all men and all women around the world, we can extend a moment to finish the business of taking care of the first responders who on the 11th of September 2001 didn't hesitate on our behalf.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 6517) to extend trade adjustment assistance and certain trade preference programs, to amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States to modify temporarily certain rates of duty, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and concur in the Senate amendment.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 5901) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt certain stock of real estate investment trusts from the tax on foreign investment in United States real property interests, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendments thereto, and concur in the Senate amendments.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I send to the desk a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the chair and ranking minority member of each standing committee and each subcommittee be permitted to extend their remarks in the Congressional Record, up to and including the Record's last publication, and to include a summary of the work of that committee or subcommittee.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, my question is, if we take one of these green cards and sign it and have it sent back by certified mail, would that be acceptable as a vote in the House, if you are more than 1,000 miles from the Capitol?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.