Tom McClintock

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Not necessarily. It will still be very easy to build a successful small business in America. All you'll have to do is start with a successful large business.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. If H.R. 3200 is passed, that's precisely what it proposes.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Well, we know what H.R. 3200 says. About a half a trillion dollars is going to be from raising the taxes of the very wealthy individuals who earn over $250,000 a year. Well, we get paid pretty well by the taxpayers for our jobs, but that doesn't affect us. It doesn't affect most people. What a relief, right? Until you scratch the surface and you realize that more than half of those taxpayers aren't very wealthy and they aren't even individuals. They are small businesses filing as subchapter S corporations that are barely holding on by their fingernails right now. Those are the people who will be bearing that.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. No, it leaves me with a great deal of confidence that the supporters of this bill don't believe that claim. And that's the point I came down here to make. If the President's supporters actually believed this bill would not add to the deficit, they should have had no problem with the amendment. Obviously, they don't have that confidence.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. It was.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Yet just a few months before that on a straight party-line vote, his supporters in this House defeated an amendment that would have protected the Treasury against this measure adding to our deficit.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. We've been assured from the outset that this was not going to add to this catastrophic deficit. So when H.R. 3200 was taken up before the House Committee on Labor and Education, that's exactly the amendment that I offered. If the Congressional Budget Office says this is adding to the deficit, we'll suspend the cost provisions of the bill. Well, perhaps not surprising to you or to those who follow this carefully, but I think surprising to a lot of folks who believed the President, that amendment was defeated on a straight party-line vote.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. This is the same President who recently announced that he'd underestimated the current deficit projection by $2 trillion. But he assures us this isn't going to add anything more, we're going to pay for it. Well, my problem with that is we've got plenty of experience with government health plans, both in this country and abroad. They've produced very consistent results. They've produced massive cost overruns, followed by an absolutely brutal rationing of care. Now, the point I wanted to make in coming down to the floor today is that when this health bill was considered by the House Committee on Labor and Education, I offered a simple amendment to take the President at his word, to take the Democrats at their word that this is not going to add to the deficit. So the amendment simply said that we're going to suspend the cost components of the bill if the Congressional Budget Office determines that it will be adding to the deficit.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. This is on the spending side, not on the tax side. In fact, the deficit is the difference between what we spend and what we take in. That's what we're talking about with the deficit. And that's four times larger than it was last year. And as I said, that is being taken out of the future economic prosperity of our country. That's being taken from our kids. Now we have before us the health care measure which is nearly $1 trillion more. But we are told, don't worry, that won't add a dime to the deficit. Well, pardon my skepticism but----

Mr. McCLINTOCK. We're just looking right now at what we've spent in fiscal 2008 and what we expect to spend by the end of midnight tonight. That's a nearly fourfold increase in a single year.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. He has dramatically increased that deficit beyond anything that we've seen in the peacetime history of our Nation.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Actually nearly four times more than last year's deficit.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Exactly right. I mean, as we know----

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Bush added another 700 billion with the bailout which of course Obama supported. So he can't just blame Bush for that. He supported that bailout, adding another 700 billion. The point is today this year's budget deficit exceeds $1.6 trillion and that is absolutely catastrophic. We all know that if you live beyond your means today, of necessity, you're going to have to live below your means tomorrow and that's the tomorrow that we're creating for our country.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Well, actually, fiscal 2008 was about $450 billion.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Now, this red line, that red line is this year's budget deficit ending today, September 30. That's the full fiscal year deficit. You can see it's on a magnitude completely unprecedented in the history of our Nation.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. That's this bar and this point right here.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address a matter of the health care debate that was brought up by none less than the President of the United States in this very Chamber just several weeks ago where he assured us that it was not going to add a penny to the deficit. I don't think we can fully appreciate the magnitude of the health care debate without also recognizing the magnitude of the Nation's deficit, and I'd have to call into question the accuracy of the President's assurances to this House several weeks ago. I brought along a chart. This represents, both as a percentage of GDP as well as total dollars, our deficit over the past 40 years, from 1970 to 2010. As you can see, we've not done a very good job of managing our Nation's finances, except for 4 years during the Clinton administration. I might add, there was a Republican Congress, but give credit where credit's due. Bill Clinton produced 4 years of surplus budgets. We then go into the Bush years which was the most fiscally irresponsible that we've seen in peace time. The last budget deficit taking nearly 3 percent of the gross domestic product of our country.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life and service of Lance Corporal Brad Shuder of El Dorado Hills, CA, who was killed in action on April 12, 2004 while serving his country in Iraq. Lance Corporal Shuder graduated from Oakridge High School in El Dorado Hills. The day he graduated, Brad enlisted in the Marine Corps. He is survived by his parents, Glenn and Rose, and his younger sister, Chelsey. I cannot begin to comprehend the tragedy of losing such a loving and courageous young man and I cannot soothe that pain with my words. All I can do is say thank you for Brad's sacrifice. Brad's cousin, Reverend Michael Bugarin, officiated the funeral service and delivered the following words: ``Brad did something extraordinary. He was willing to sacrifice his life for me and you.'' May we never forget the sacrifices that the sons and daughters of our great country have made.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Timothy Smith of South Lake Tahoe, CA, who was killed in the line of duty on April 7, 2007. Tim is survived by his wife Shayna Richard-Smith, their son Riley, his parents, Patricia and Michael, his brother Tom, and his sister Jackie. Tim graduated from South Tahoe High School in 2001 and joined the Army in April 2004. He will always be remembered for his sense of humor, his warmth, and his great courage. Senator Harry Reid, on the floor of the United States Senate, called Tim Smith ``a hero--a real- life American hero--who gave his life so that others might be safe.'' Timothy Smith gave the ultimate sacrifice, may we never forget.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota. Madam Chairman, this really is a case study in how a public option ultimately becomes a public monopoly in a span of just a few years. The gentleman from Minnesota is absolutely right, this Direct Loan Program was established in 1993 as a public option. It was designed to increase consumer choice; that's what we were told at the time. It had only one problem. The consumers never warmed to it. At its peak, the government Direct Loan Program only attracted 34 percent of loan volume. Today, even with all of the financial difficulties in the private sector, it has earned only 27 percent of the market. The rest of that market is ably administered by 1,500 active lenders and servicers and guarantee agencies that employ more than 30,000 private sector workers. This bill literally shuts down 40 years of successful private sector involvement with student loans and hands the government monopoly control. As the bumper sticker warns, the government hates competition. We're told this is going to save money. Well, pardon my skepticism, but I seriously doubt that the same government that runs FEMA is going to bring efficiency to the student loan program. In fact, it's precisely the fierce competition among loan providers that has produced lower prices for students and universities and that produces innovations in loan delivery and processing and servicing, not to mention broader benefits such as college planning services, financial literacy education, default aversion, and FAFSA assistance. One of those providers is the California EdFund, near my district. Last year alone, the EdFund helped nearly 420,000 borrowers to avoid default. They saved taxpayers $4.2 billion in default claims; that's one provider, $4.2 billion in savings for American taxpayers. Before the government took over our automobile manufacturers, Will and Ariel Durant asked this question: What makes Ford a good car? Chevrolet. Competition. That creative and innovative force is snuffed out by this bill for the student loan industry. And mark my words, if this bill becomes law, we are going to be back here in a few years to address growing cost overruns and inefficiencies in yet another failed government monopoly program.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, on September 17, 1787, thirty-nine delegates from twelve states met at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to sign the Constitution. The Constitution went into effect two years later, on March 4, 1789. Each September 17 is designated as Constitution Day. Constitution Day is a day to display the flag of the United States of America and many Americans observe it in our nation's history by attending local events. One such event is Nevada City's Constitution Day Parade, which has been a local tradition since 1967 and is reported to be the oldest and largest Constitution observance in western America. Festivities include a parade through the downtown historic district with marching bands, floats, antique autos, equestrians, politicians and perennial crowd favorites such as the Ophir Prison Marching Kazoo Band and the Famous Marching Presidents of Nevada City, a humorous but reverent group that portrays each U.S. president. Members of the American Civil War Association also offer living history and battle reenactments and more than 200 military and settler reenactors are expected to take part. Nevada City is located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains midway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe and is known for its classic small town spirit and unique events. With a population of 3,001, Nevada City swells to 10,000 or more on Constitution Day.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a young man who gave his life last week while fighting the Backbone Fire in the Trinity Alps wilderness. Thomas Marovich, Jr. was just 20 years old. He was in his second year with the U.S. Forest Service assigned to the Modoc National Forest. He was training with the Chester Helitack crew assigned to the Backbone Fire when a training accident claimed his life. He was born and raised in Hayward, but he had come to Northeastern California to protect our forests, our communities, and our citizens from the ravages of fire. Thomas Marovich had wanted to be a firefighter since he was a little boy and, by all accounts, had an exemplary life ahead of him. He was only able to live 20 years of that life, sacrificing the rest of it for the safety of our community. And for that, we owe him and his grieving family our eternal gratitude.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, in order to support the Democrats' health care plan we are asked to accept three arguments that are fundamentally absurd. First, that the same government that pioneered $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats is somehow going to control our health care costs. Second, that the same government that runs FEMA is going to make our health care system more efficient and responsive. And third, that the same government that runs the IRS is going to make our health care more compassionate and understanding. Frankly, I doubt it. Instead of putting government in charge of our health care decisions, let's put patients back in charge. We can do that by using tax credits to bring within the reach of every family a basic health plan that they can choose, that they can own, and that they can change if it fails to meet their needs. That is what the Republicans are proposing, and it is a much better way.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. I want to thank my colleague from Utah (Mr. Bishop) for yielding and for organizing this Special Order for the House tonight and for the attention he's devoted to the suffering in my district that's been caused by the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement that now seems to be so firmly in control of our national policy on public lands. At this point, we're not just trying to create jobs, we are desperately trying to stop losing them because of these policies. You know, a generation ago we recognized the importance of proper wildlands management. We recognized that there is a balance between the environment and the economy and that both can thrive through proper policy. We recognize that nothing is more devastating to the ecology of a forest than a forest fire, and we recognize that public lands should be managed for the benefit of the public. We recognize that in any living community, including forests, dense overpopulation is simply unhealthy. So we carefully groomed our public lands, we removed excessive vegetation and gave timber the room that it needed to grow. Surplus timber and overgrowth were sold for the benefit of our communities. Our forests prospered and our economy prospered, and forest fires were far less numerous and far less intense than we see today. But that was before a radical ideology was introduced into public policy--that we should abandon our public lands to overgrowth and overpopulation and, in essence, to benign negligent. We are now living with the result of that ideology. Forest fires that are fueled by decades of pent-up overgrowth are now increasing in their frequency and their intensity and their destructiveness. One victim of this wrongheaded policy is the environment itself. Recent forest fires in my region make a mockery of all of our clean-air regulations. And anyone who has seen a forest after one of these fires knows that the environmental devastation could not possibly be more complete. But these policies also carry a tremendous economic price. Timber is a renewable resource. If it is properly managed, it is literally an inexhaustible source of prosperity for our Nation. And yet, my region, which is blessed with the most bountiful resource in all of California, has literally been rendered economically prostrate by these policies. A region that once prospered from its surplus timber is now ravaged by fires that are fueled by that surplus timber. Which brings me to the story of the townspeople of Quincy and El Camino, both little towns in the northeast corner of California. Two months ago, 150 families in each of those little towns received notice that the sawmills that employ them must close. The company made it very clear in its announcement that although the economic downturn was the catalyst, the underlying cause was the fact that two-thirds of the timber that they depended upon had been held up by environmental litigation. Despite the recession, they still had enough business to keep those mills open--and to keep these families employed--if the environmental left had not cut off the timber that those mills depended upon. Now bear in mind that the population of the town of Quincy is about 400 families--the greater Quincy area about 1,250 families. We are talking about pink slips going to 150 of those families. And they are not the only ones who have lost incomes. Many more jobs were lost indirectly--the folks who drive the trucks and sell the supplies--all lost their jobs as well. This occurred despite the groundbreaking work of a local coalition called the Quincy Library Group that forged a model compromise between environmental, business and forest management advocates a decade ago. That work had culminated in legislation called the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act. It was adopted 11 years ago in this very Chamber by a vote of 429-1. This consensus agreement provided for sound and sustainable forest management practices that in turn would support both local jobs and healthier forests. As Senator Feinstein, a Democrat, pointed out at the time, every single environmental law, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, would be followed as this proposal is implemented. Yet despite a model compromise that produced a model law, the will of the Congress, the livelihoods of hundreds of innocent families, and the fire safety of scores of mountain communities is being challenged and undermined by a constant stream of litigation from groups purporting to support the environment. And I say ``purporting'' because, as the Web site of one of those groups declares, their number one policy goal is to ``eliminate commercial logging on all public lands in California.'' Their policy is not to protect the environment. Their policy is deliberately to destroy commercial enterprise. We held an informal hearing in Quincy after the mill closures that my friend from Utah was kind enough to join us for. And the stories we heard at that hearing were absolutely heartbreaking. It is a story of how, despite the law, this constant litigation, which is ultimately rejected by the courts, has nevertheless delayed implementation of the Forest Recovery Act until the mills collapse, and that's what we are dealing with today. They know they don't have to win the litigation, all they have to do is draw out the process. And they have done that very successfully until 150 families in Quincy and another 150 families in El Camino lost their jobs. We then held a formal hearing here in Washington, and from that hearing, Congressman Herger has introduced his bill, H.R. 2899, to prevent frivolous litigation from continuing to destroy those jobs and continuing to impede the fire safety measures that are so vital to the preservation of these forests. I'm in the final stages of preparing legislation to at least grant litigation relief for the land that is actually within the Quincy Library Group territory defined in the legislation. And of course these bills are already being attacked by the same radical groups responsible for the litigation and regulation that is destroying these jobs, destroying these families, destroying these communities and destroying our forests. These extremists even oppose the salvaging of timber that has already been destroyed by forest fires or by disease. Now think about that. Trees that are already dead cannot be salvaged because of lawsuits filed by these extremist groups. And again, they know if they can simply delay the salvage for 2 years, the trees decay to the point where they can't be recovered. And they would rather let those trees rot on the ground rather than to be removed and salvaged to provide jobs for families and lumber for homes and revenues for the national Treasury. The economic suffering this is now causing is immediate, and it is acute. But an even more ominous effect is placing at risk our mountain communities and our national forests to intense wildfires made possible because overgrowth is no longer being removed. As one forester told me, those trees are going to come out of the forest one way or another. They are either going to be carried out, or they will be burned out. When the excess timber was carried out, we had a thriving lumber industry that put food on the tables and clothes on the children of thousands of working families throughout northern California. More importantly, we also had much healthier forests and far fewer and milder forest fires than we suffer today. This isn't environmentalism. True environmentalists recognize the damage done by overgrowth and overpopulation and recognize that the role of sound forest management practices is to maintain healthy forests. We are also watching them systematically shut down our public land for public use and public benefit. And every time a little town like Quincy or El Camino is strangled to death by these policies, it has a ripple effect throughout the Nation. Our Nation loses tax revenues, commerce withers, the price of raw materials rises and public resources are diverted to provide economic relief. And our forests suffer as well. But there's one infinitely higher cost that I haven't mentioned yet, and that brings me to the tragic news that I must impart to the House tonight. There is a raging fire in the Shasta/Trinity National Forest as we speak right now. It's called the ``Backbone Fire.'' About 2 hours ago, I received word that a young man, Thomas Marovich, Jr.--20 years old--from the little town of Aiden in my district, was killed this afternoon fighting that fire. And every time a little town like Aiden mourns the loss of a promising young man like Thomas Marovich, Jr., it is not only a tragedy--if preventable, it is an outrage. Mr. Speaker, the time has come for the great silent majority of Americans to rise up against the most radical elements of the environmental movement that now seem to control so much of our public policy and to demand that we restore our public land for public use and public benefit, and that we restore the sound forest management practices that once minimized the forest fires that are now again destroying communities and taking lives.