Earl Pomeroy

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming my time, I welcome that, because when the Pension Protection Act passed in the last Congress when the minority was the majority, I did not find that willingness to work with me. The legislation, I believe, needed correcting. This is a pox on both parties.

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in favor of moving the Pension Technical Corrections Act of 2008 forward in an expedited manner. The bill is most needed by employers who are committed to providing their employees with a financially secure retirement through a defined benefit plan. Why do we need this bill? Why do we need to act this quickly? Let me just break it down for you. On August 17, 2006, the President signed into law the Pension Protection Act. This bill imposed sweeping reform affecting how employers fund their defined benefits plans maintained for their employees. In addition, the bill imposed significant reforms for pension plans offered to many union workers who participated in multi- employer plans. However, many provisions in the PPA became effective on January 1 of this year. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service cannot implement many of these provisions because they need further clarification of congressional intent. This bill provides the needed clarification for the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, corporations and other businesses who sponsor retirement plans, as well as working families who contribute to and benefit from 401(k) plans or defined contribution plans. For the employers who have weathered the storm and are persistently committed to providing a secured retirement for their workers, this bill is for you. For the beneficiary of a 401(k) plan who wants to keep money in a retirement plan savings vehicle to finance retirement rather than being forced to spend it currently, this bill is for you. This bill provides clarification for the correct application of the non- spousal rollover provision. For the construction worker whose plan may be experiencing underfunding and could be subject to a benefit reduction, this bill will make it clear when the plan must provide you with the notice alerting you of the plan's funding status. It would also clarify whether you are subject to such a reduction in pension benefits. You see, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about quality-of-life issues for working families and about helping those employers who want to help their employees provide for a financially secure retirement. I encourage my colleagues in this body and in the Senate to keep this bill clean and move it quickly. I encourage them to join me in doing what we were sent here by our constituents to do, provide legislation to help improve their lives. Let's pass this bill and get it to the President before the end of the month, because people are waiting. We have kept them waiting long enough. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As we have just made formally a matter of record, the Pension Protection Act was an imperfect piece of legislation. This technically corrects, not substantively changes, but technically corrects an imperfect bill. It should go forward. We should be doing more, Mr. Speaker, and this is where I want to spend the balance of my time tonight. I am almost shaking with anger at what we are not doing to correct the Pension Protection Act before it will have a very negative impact on the very working people that we talk so much about trying to help. I will give you a couple of examples. There is a provision in the bill, never discussed, that inadvertently changes funding requirements for public pension plans. A plan like the State of North Dakota offers for its employees has a rate of 7.5 percent. Well, the Pension Protection Act in its present form requires them to credit interest at no greater than market rate. Without correction, we are going to have State legislatures reducing the interest credited for their public employees under fully funded public plans. It makes no sense. It needs fixing. It is a mistake. But we can't get the critical people in the critical committees to agree to fixing this. Let's make no mistake about who we are talking about. We are talking about the Education and Labor Committee and we are talking about the Ways and Means Committee. Those are the committees of jurisdiction. We have not been able to get critical an agreement between the leadership of those committees and ranking members on fixing this public provision. And, as a result, for no reason whatsoever, other than an act of Congress that wasn't meant to have this impact, people may have their pensions reduced by Federal requirement. I want those workers to know, Congress didn't mean to do this. But Congress knows that that is the effect of the law we passed, and this is a Congress that can't fix it in a timely fashion because we haven't had the will, we haven't had the time to think about it. We don't care enough. Because of the inattention of this body, if workers are forced to take lower credited interest in these public plans, these workers get less of a pension, and for no reason whatsoever. There is another provision we should be fixing. These provisions are a little more than technical, so maybe should have been another bill, maybe not under the technical corrections act, but a bill we could have brought like tonight under the suspension calendar, a bill to address funding in a reasonable way. You know, a pension is paid over many, many years. Yet the funding balance is determined by things that capture where the stock market is today, what the interest rate is today. Now, that can give you a pretty dire picture if you have got a stock market that is tanking and a low interest rate environment. It may look suddenly like forevermore the plan isn't going to earn much money on its assets. Now, we know that the interest rate is going to change and we know the stock market valuation is going to change. So if you project 30 years based on today's picture, you are going to be coming up with a wrong number. There is something called asset smoothing that lets you basically average a bit so that a bad picture today doesn't mean a draconian funding requirement upon the employer to meet what looks like a funding requirement that is not in fact reality. Now, some might think, well, gosh, if the employer has to put in more money than is really needed that just is a good thing for workers because that means there will be a lot of money in there, and in no way will that solve it. There is a hitch to this. Employers do not have to fund pension plans. Employers can freeze pension plans. They can get out of the pension business. In fact, my friends, 43 pensions have frozen since we passed the Pension Protection Act.

Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming my time before I run out of time, this is a pox on both parties. Both parties passed it, and both parties have failed to fix it. I believe the failure, relative to getting this fixed, is on both parties. But the majority party carries a disproportionate burden because we are the majority party. I could not be more disappointed. Getting back to the point I was making about frozen plans, I believe plans will freeze and workers will lose their pensions because asset smoothing is not addressed on the suspension calendar before we go out, before this critical April 15 deadline for pension funding. This is completely unacceptable. It's incompetent, and I am ashamed of this House in failing to address this before we leave. I hope that I have made some people angry by these comments. I have intended to. We need to get after this, and we need to get after it when we are back. If we don't get after it, I assure you, I will be having more of these speeches, because those who pretend to protect the world, the world's workers, when what they are doing is protecting these workers out of their very pensions, the very thing they need for retirement, income security. They are not doing anybody any favors. The games have got to end. The posture has got to end. We have got to fix problems and fix them in a timely way and shame on us if we have fallen short. Let me get back to the bill before us, because it's important. The bill before us is a technical corrections act. This one needs to pass. This is fine. The problem is, there is so much more that needed to be done, that could have been done on a suspension calendar tonight and tomorrow. We didn't do it, and we need to do it in short order when we get back.

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

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3361.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, this debate has been quite extraordinary for my friends on the other side of the aisle. They create a picture of great concern: poor, poor oil companies. Oil priced globally at over a hundred dollars a barrel. Prices at the pump approaching record levels, certain to hit record levels at the time the North Dakota farmers have to go to plant their crops. Oil companies reporting record profits. Now, not just record profits relative to their earnings and profits of years past. I mean with ExxonMobil, the biggest profit ever posted by a corporation in history. And yet, when we look at trying to break this stranglehold on imported oil and build renewable sources of energy so that our economy is not so dangerously dependent upon imported oil, we look to using as a pay-for for these renewable energy incentives a tax provision exploited by oil companies beyond what was ever intended by the Ways and Means Committee. You have the White House threatening veto. You have House Republicans screaming tax increase. I'll tell you, that is an energy policy completely out of gas. We need to move, and move now, to renewable sources. Take, for example, one, wind power. You know, we are now into a period of time where the wind production tax credit expires at the end of this year. The consequence relative to new products put online is already going to be felt. A recent study by the Solar Energy Industry Association, American Wind Energy Association estimates that if this credit expires, it will cost 6,000 megawatts of new wind energy production, nearly 77,000 jobs, 11.5 billion in economic impact, all in 2009. This is the group on the other side when they were in the majority that allowed the wind production tax credit to expire three times since 1999. They extended it an additional five times. Now, how in the world can we build a renewable energy system when you have got a tax credit that maybe there isn't there, you can never get your financials right, to make the move this country must make to renewables with wind power playing the major role. We need to pass this bill and break this lock that oil companies have had on policies coming out of this Chamber.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, on February 25, 2008, due to flight delays, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 69, 70, and 71. Had I been present, I would have voted in the following manner: rollcall No. 69, ``yea''; rollcall No. 70, ``yea''; rollcall No. 71, ``yea.''

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to say that I will be voting for H.R. 5104. However, I believe that passing a long-term extension of the Protect America Act is not the answer. Instead, we must update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in a way that will enhance our national security while at the same time protecting the privacy of United States citizens. As such, it is my hope that this extension will give us time to responsibly modernize the FISA law, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in ensuring that these dual aims are accomplished.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 1176, regarding passage of the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act, I was detained by important constituent business and inadvertently missed the vote. Had I been pesent, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, on December 18, 2007, I missed Rollcall vote no. 1176 on H.R. 3793. I am a cosponsor of this important piece of legislation that will ensure that our troops receive the enlistment benefit that they have been promised. Had I been present, I would have voted in the following manner: Rollcall no.: 1776--``yea.''

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I hold this picture of Major Alan Johnson and his wife Victoria and their daughter Megan. Alan Johnson lost his life last January 26 in service to our country in Iraq. Major Johnson had served in the National Guard and the Army Reserve for 26 years. Additionally, he had a civilian job. He was still in the public sector. He was sergeant of the Corrections Department of Yakima County in the State of Washington, shift supervisor, one of the largest jails in the State of Washington. You can imagine how awful the surprise for Victoria Johnson, deep in her grief of losing her husband, to learn that his pension in the State of Washington was treated as though, on the day he left on his deployment, he quit work. They offered only return of the amounts he had paid into the pension plan. Now, if he had been an active Washington State employee, she would have received a lifetime annuity benefit. But the law didn't provide for that, and her circumstance has alerted us to a loophole that must be addressed. Legislation introduced by Congressman Doc Hastings and me, the HEROES Act, addresses this flaw in our law, a law that presently allows for reintegration of pension benefits for our returning soldiers. This will also mean that should they lose their life in service to our country during their deployment, they are treated as though their life was lost while a fully employed participant in the pension plan. This is desperately necessary. Do it because it is right. Do it for the memory of Major Alan Johnson.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. This has been a very curious discussion, and statements made have no relation whatsoever to either reality or to history. We just heard the pay-for in this bill described as a massive tax increase that will affect teachers in Texas. This bill goes after hedge fund managers, parking income in Bermuda bank accounts, exploiting tax loopholes and not paying what they owe. The alternative is to do what the minority is suggesting, and that is just to borrow the money, borrow the money and let the kids worry about how they're going to pay it back in their day. Well, at least we have agreement we need to address the alternative minimum tax, but let me tell you why we're worried about borrowing the money. Since President Bush took office, the gross national debt has increased nearly $3.5 trillion. At that rate of borrowing, do you know something? We will borrow an additional $57 million in the course of this debate. It is truly astounding the red ink that they've run this country into, and all we hear from them today is more borrowing, please. You know, they had a chance during their tenure here to fix the alternative minimum tax. They say we shouldn't have to pay for it because it was never intended to act this way. Well, they had 7 years to fix this alternative minimum tax, and instead, you know what they did? They counted the revenue that was projected to come in on the alternative minimum tax to justify those tax cuts, those budget-busting tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 that have put us in this deficit ditch that we find ourselves in. It's time for fiscal responsibility. Pass this bill. Pay for AMT relief.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. I thank my friend, the chairman, for yielding. I want to begin by acknowledging the work Paul Gillmor put into this legislation. He and I were the original cosponsors. He was a colleague with whom I worked on a variety of initiatives trying to keep our children safe against those who would prey upon them through the Internet. We miss Paul, but his efforts and his work continue with this legislation. I agree with the words of the chairman in the facet of this bill relating to grooming, and I think stiffening the sentences for those convicted of engaging in deceptive behavior relative to lying about their age to incur the trust of minors with whom they're interacting on the Internet, making that an item that would bring them longer prison time when convicted is a positive clarification to this bill, probably better than the original bill. There is a feature of the bill that was left out, that I'm quite disappointed at, and work is going to need to continue on this one, and that is, helping these Internet sites keep sexual predators off in the first place. We have a number of provisions in our code dealing with what's required of high-risk sexual predators, and I believe it would be appropriate to have a voluntary registry where their names would be required to be on file, and social networking sites could keep them off of their site. I want to especially commend the efforts of MySpace, one of the most popular sites out there, for the extraordinary efforts they've gone to to identify sex predators and keep them off the site; 29,000 are blocked from participating on the MySpace domain because of their efforts, and I think the Federal Government ought to do more to help them. That's work in progress. A lot of bills that come to the floor aren't perfect, at least at this iteration in the legislative process, so this is an aspect of this bill I want to continue to work on. There are a couple of other things that I think are very useful, and that is the authorization of funds to step up the supervision of the Internet activities of high-risk sexual predators, as well as the portion that criminalizes financial facilitation of child pornography. If there is a banker making a buck by basically facilitating the credit card transactions on child pornography over the Internet, that is not an acceptable business practice. It is so not acceptable that we are criminalizing it, and I hope they get that message loud and clear. We've worked a lot with the Judiciary Committee on this bill. I think the chairman's comments about higher sentences aren't something that he is often willing to put in a code. I think that he has been fair-minded in this, and I look forward to continuing to work with him as we get this legislation where it needs to be. Thank you. This is a positive bill. I urge Members to vote for it.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I find this debate absolutely incredible. If you pull it up on the Treasury Department's own Web site, the national debt of our Nation this past week went over $9 trillion. And the bright dividing line between the parties in the debate today is that our friends on the minority side want to drive that debt even deeper and that our friends on the majority side say enough additional debt for our children. We either find a way to pay for this AMT fix or 23 million people get a tax increase or we pass the debt on to the children. Now, I am glad about the bipartisan agreement that we should do something to stop the 23 million from getting the AMT tax hit. But we cannot just run that credit card balance even higher, just lay this debt onto our kids. It's time we face the music and we begin paying for the costs that we are incurring. We have got to put this budget in order, and we need to start with this bill.

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support this responsible tax relief package. The bill before us today: protects 23 million middle-class tax payers from the Alternative Minimum Tax, including nearly 35,000 North Dakotans. provides tax relief for millions more American families who want a better life for their families by putting more money in their pockets, and protects future generations from tax increases by not adding to our national debt. The president and my colleagues across the aisle say we should not have to pay for this package of tax relief. They are still acting as though they're living in a mythical Alice in Wonderland--in an America where borrowing $9 trillion in debt and running record budget deficits for years doesn't matter. But deficits and debt do matter because every dollar we borrow places a ``debt tax'' on future generations who will have to pay for the decisions we make today. At $9 trillion, each of our children will be responsible for paying $30,000 of that debt, and that is before interest gets added on. We crossed that 9 trillion dollar mark in the amount of outstanding public debt owed by this Treasury just earlier this week. We saw that anxiety over that level of debt can have a short-term impact in the markets on Wednesday when a low level Chinese official suggested that the government may slow purchasing Treasury bonds. In reaction, the dollar fell sharply and the stock market plummeted by 361 points. That is one day. A huge persistent debt has greater cost for the economy. So, the moral issue today is passing a fiscally responsible bill that protects future generations by not asking them to finance current tax cuts. Each day the average daily interest payment on the debt adds more than $1 billion to the tab we leave behind. My colleagues across the aisle would rather we pay for today's tax relief--tomorrow. Would that leave the cost to our children, who might just end up having to repay the Chinese holders of U.S. Treasury Notes with EUROs? I try to teach my two kids important values. Among those values is teaching them that things worth doing are worth paying for. That same core principle is behind PAYGO. Not paying for this important tax relief signals high disregard for this basic principle that we teach our kids and that motivated Congress to reinstate PAYGO rules. With the massive fiscal challenges the Nation faces in coming decades, it is irresponsible to foist the cost of tax relief today on future taxpayers. Today, this Congress again should face up to that challenge and pay the cost now. Reverse years of failed Republican policies that have mortgaged our grandchildren's future with additional foreign-owned debt. Let's set an example for our kids--we do not let them eat dessert before they eat all their vegetables. Congress should not rush to dessert either. I urge my colleagues to responsibly pay for middle-class tax relief. I also want to express my appreciation to Chairman Rangel of several important provisions in H.R. 3996 that provide millions of American families tax relief and business in our rural communities. The bill helps 4.5 million taxpayers to meet the cost of paying for their children to get the ticket to a better future--a college education. We extend the tax deduction for the cost of college tuition for another year. Also this bill extends for one year the current-law provision that allows taxpayers over age 70 and a half to make tax-free distributions from their individual retirement accounts (IRAs) for gifts to charities. In the few short months when senior citizens could use these Charitable IRA rollovers to donate nearly $112 million to help the work of worthy charities it is important that this tool for giving, mostly in small amounts of a few thousand dollars or less, remains available to taxpayers. The bill extends for one year an important tax credit that allows: short line railroads that serve many of our rural communities to upgrade the track on these important links that get our products to the marketplace. Unfortunately, fiscal constraint embodied in H.R. 3996 only allowed us to consider extending these expiring tax provisions generally in their current form. We were not able to make these important tax provisions permanent and make needed improvements. For example, the Public Good IRA Rollover Act (H.R. 1419), which I introduced and which has 90 cosponsors, would broaden the charitable IRA rollover to allow younger retirees to get a lifetime income and provided for charities and to allow distributions to donor-advised funds and would strengthen other aspects of the present-law provision. I remain committed to the enactment of these improvements and would urge my colleagues to work with me in that regard. I urge my colleagues to pass this bill.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 3688, the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, and urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. I would like to thank Chairman Rangel and Subcommittee Chairman Levin for their hard work on the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement. Through their leadership, for the first time in U.S. trade policy, the trade agreement we are considering today incorporates internationally recognized labor and environmental standards and other key priorities. This was a major achievement and I am pleased that this new Congress has pushed forward a trade policy that will expand and shape trade in ways that spread the benefits of globalization here and abroad by raising standards. Congress is resuming its proper role as an active and full participant in the development of U.S. trade policy. Under these circumstances, a new approach to trade policy--one that better reflects American values and spreads the benefits of globalization broadly--is especially critical. This is the kind of approach that we have long espoused and will begin to implement with the Peru FTA. Once enacted into law, this FTA will lock in these gains and give us a basis to build on in the future. Central among the changes to our current trade policy is a new bipartisan commitment to the inclusion of a fully enforceable commitment that countries adopt and enforce the five basic international labor standards in all future trade agreements. This includes the freedom of association; right to collective bargaining; elimination of forced and compulsory labor; abolition of child labor; and elimination of employment discrimination. I think it is particularly important to note the importance of what we have established with this trade agreement by way of a labor template. The Peru FTA includes basic worker rights, because workers must be a key part of the trade equation. Accordingly, for the first time in any U.S. free trade agreement, the Peru FTA includes protections for the basic rights of workers in its core text. It also prohibits Peru from lowering its labor standards in the future. It also makes these labor obligations subject to the same dispute settlement processes and remedies as all other provisions in the FTA. If Peru fails to enforce fundamental labor rights, or fails to enforce its labor laws, the U.S. Government can sue Peru for not complying with the Agreement. These are the real labor standards that are applied by the International Labor Organization (ILO)--the exact standards we have sought for more than a decade. Notably, Peru has already changed its legal framework to comply with the FTA. I urge my colleagues in joining me in voting ``yes'' for the U.S.- Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. This is a photograph of Major Alan Johnson, his wife, Tori, and his daughter, Megan. This beautiful family suffered the tragedy of losing Major Johnson in Iraq. Last winter, we buried Major Johnson at Arlington Cemetery. His widow contacted me 2 weeks later to tell me that what had happened in the State of Washington is the pension plan there had simply given the money back that Alan Johnson had paid in as if he had terminated his employment at the time he was called to duty, called to deployment in his status as a Reserve officer. It brought to light a gap in the law that protects our deployed Reservists and Guardsmen. When they come back, this law seamlessly reintegrates them into the pension plan of their employer, but there was no provision if we tragically lose our soldiers under deployment. Included in this bill is the HEROES Act, introduced by Doc Hastings and myself, that allows for survivor benefits to be paid in this situation. It is a very important addition. It is terribly important that survivors of our soldiers who paid the ultimate price have survivors benefits under the pension. This law will afford that. Madam Speaker, I include for the Record a letter to this effect from Mrs. Tori Johnson. November 5, 2007. Hon. Charles Rangel, Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Rangel: I am writing to thank you for introducing the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax (HEART) Act, H.R. 3997. Your bill makes many important changes to the tax law that will be of great help to the men and women who serve in the Reserve and the National Guard and their families. My husband, Major Alan R. Johnson, who was killed in Iraq earlier this year, was a public servant both in the Reserve and in his full time job. In his civilian life, he worked for fifteen years with the Yakima County Department of Corrections. We were a team. He was a strong leader and he depended on the strength of his family. We needed to be strong so he did not need to worry about us when he was serving his county in the Reserves. Dealing with the problems and technicalities our family had to face after we learned that Alan was killed has not been easy. My husband was 44 and we were planning on his retirement for our future. Because his employer considered Alan as an employee who had voluntarily terminated when he left for his deployment, the survivor benefit under his pension that we would be paid was less than the amount we would have received if he was still an active employee. When I asked why, I found out that in order to have his pension protected under existing law he had to return to work. The HEART Act corrects the gap in the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Right Act's pension protections for survivors of National Guard and Reserve soldiers who are killed in action and can not return to work. Our Guard and Reservists should know that the families that they leave behind will be able to rely on the survivor benefits that they have earned in their civilian employment. Over 81,000 Reservist and National Guard members have responded to our Nation's call to duty. They believe in our country and are willing to make that ultimate sacrifice. When they cannot return to their former jobs your bill will make sure that their families will get the full survivor benefits that they earned from their jobs at home. Again, I thank you for your leadership and that of Congressman Pomeroy and Congressman Hastings in making sure that the country that Reservists, like my husband, have sacrificed everything for will take care of their families. I hope that your bill, H.R. 3997, will become law soon. Sincerely, Victoria C. Johnson.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I have sad news for the House today. Our former colleague and dear friend, Peter Hoagland of Nebraska passed away yesterday in the hospital in Bethesda. Peter served three terms in the House. Being an at-large Member from North Dakota, as I arrived, I looked to this distinguished gentleman from Omaha to be not just a friend but also a mentor. During my years in this body, I have never served with anyone who enjoyed service in this Chamber more than Peter Hoagland. And yet, he would lay his tenure right on the line to stand for what he believed in and cast his votes in a way that were an example in high principle. Peter will be deeply missed by his family; his wife, Barbara Hoagland; five children, Elizabeth, Katherine, Christopher, David and Nick; as well as the countless friends he leaves behind. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this difficult time. And I have, for any Member requesting, the information in terms of how to contact the family during this hour of bereavement. I want to yield a moment to Congressman Lee Terry, who now represents the seat previously held by Congressman Hoagland. And at the conclusion of Congressman Terry, if we might rise in a moment of silence.

Mr. POMEROY. At this time, then, Mr. Speaker I'd ask that we might have a moment of silence.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I got to be a father late in life so that now I have got an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old at home. And last winter I had a real long, miserable, anxious weekend, one that any parent probably has experienced. I had a sick kid and I didn't know what to do. A fever higher than I was comfortable with. The disposition of my little fellow, very different than usual. And in the end, we sought some medical care. I have spent a lot of time thinking about that weekend as we have thought about this SCHIP because there are families with sick young'uns and they don't know what to do, but they cannot afford medical care. They don't have coverage. They don't have Medicaid for the poorest of the poor. But by virtue of working in a place that doesn't provide employer-provided health insurance, by virtue of earning an income that doesn't let them afford it, they're uncovered. What do you do? The cost of one trip to an emergency room is a month's rent. What do you do? You pray and you hope that the little one gets better. And, fortunately, they often do. But, tragically, they sometimes don't. So when that long-delayed trip to the doctor or the hospital occurs, we have got a runaway health issue that the parent has had to sit and watch develop, all the while trying to figure out how to handle this situation. We can make this problem go away for 10 million children by moving this legislation forward. To me, this isn't a Democrat, this isn't a Republican matter. This is a matter of basic morality. Are we going to help families get access to medical care by getting insurance coverage for their kids so they don't have to pick between bankruptcy and trying to address their kids' medical problem in a more timely way? It's as simple as that. Gosh, the rhetoric has gotten so heated, this and that, one charge or another. But what we have tried to do is take many of the issues that were offered in support of sustaining the veto of the President stopping this insurance coverage for children from taking place. We tried to address it in this bill. They said families earning $83,000 can get this kind of coverage. It wasn't true, but we have taken steps in this bill to make absolutely certain it couldn't happen under any circumstances. They said parents are getting coverage. Well, there are a few isolated examples of where grandfathered programs allowed that, but we have phased that out. We have listened and we have responded, and it's time for this side to take ``yes'' for an answer because there is something that has got to rise above the daily squabbling in this place, and that is responding to the needs of families to get their kids the health care they need. Vote ``yes'' on this bill.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to give Members 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on this bill, H.R. 3056.

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are in a time where there is a complete fascination in this administration with contracting out. If you are happy with Blackwater in Iraq, then I expect you are perfectly fine with contracting the debt collection of IRS debt to private bill collectors. But there are some essential facts at issue which should give us pause to reconsider. First, the start-up costs. We were told, in testimony by the IRS Commissioner, this venture was going to cost about $14 million to get up and running. The tab so far, $70 million, five times the anticipated cost to begin this venture. Now, you might say, well, okay, start-up costs are a little more than expected, but how are we doing on receipts now that we have got them fully going, collecting these receipts? We don't have a very good story on that one either. It was anticipated that $46 million to maybe $63 million would be collected. Coming in at about half of that anticipation, $32 million in. It costs five times more to start and bringing in about half as much as advertised. Well, okay, $32 million. It still sounds like a lot. Well, not really when you consider the fact they have been given 118,000 cases with an unpaid debt of $512 million. For the kind of money we have invested, do you know what we are getting back? We are getting about a 6 percent return from this experiment in private debt collection. You might be asking yourself, look, there must be some more efficient way to do this. Well, there sure is. Let's fund the IRS, hire, train, manage the debt collection. My gosh, if there is one government responsibility, it ought to be in making certain that the revenue owed is the revenue raised. And the statistics show by the IRS themselves that for $1 spent on IRS staff collecting debt, you get a 20 to 1 return, $20 back for every $1 spent. Private debt collection, the IRS again projecting, at best, $4 back for every $1 spent. That's $20 if we hire to $1 spent, $4 if we hire to every $1 spent under contracting. And that's their projection. Look, at $32 million collected and $70 million spent, we are collecting 50 cents for every dollar spent so far. That's pretty bad business. If we had spent the $71 million to hire a Federal collection staff, we would have already collected $1.4 billion. That is the total amount they project over 10 years under this experiment of private debt collection. I sit on the Ways and Means Committee. And as we considered this notion before it became operative, I thought this is the most expensive way to do this. It reminded me of that $600 toilet seat that the Department of Defense paid for awhile back. I call this a $600 toilet seat of tax collection. Well, when you look at it, they have taken $70 million to build this gold-plated throne and they flushed away $50 million on this foolish experiment. There are many reasons to end this ill-advised endeavor, and the speakers we present are going to offer those reasons. But the fundamental is it's a matter of dollars and sense, and this don't make sense. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, the unrefuted data is that IRS collection with IRS staff is five times more efficient in terms of dollars received than contracting out. If we are worrying about IRS efficiency, do it on the staff model. And I might say that their cost estimate about this bill contemplates that the IRS would hire no staff, would just forget hiring out contractors, hire no staff, and just walk away from them. No. We have got a very different notion. We want to take the money we are sending to these private bill collectors and hire IRS staff that are going to collect on this five-to-one ratio. We have got a much better, more efficient model to address this issue of unpaid balances owed to the United States. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).