Phil Roe

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 1377, as amended, to amend title 38, United States Code, to expand VA's authority to reimburse veterans for the cost of emergency care provided in a nondepartment facility. I want to thank the chairman for introducing this bill, which would provide financial protections for veterans in need of emergency care. Current law allows VA to reimburse a veteran for emergency treatment obtained in a non-VA facility only if the veteran does not have any other entitlement to pay from a private party. As a result, a veteran with a policy that covers only a small part of the emergency care costs could be personally liable for substantial out-of-pocket expenses. H.R. 1377, as amended, would change current law to authorize VA to cover additional expenses in cases where a veteran receives only partial payment from a third party. However, the legislation does make it clear that VA would be the secondary payer and that payment would be limited to the difference between the amount paid by the private insurance and the VA authorized rate. It also ensures that VA payment fully absolves a veteran from any liability to that provider. In addition to providing prospective protection for veterans, H.R. 1377 was amended to allow the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to retroactively apply this law on a discretionary basis for a veteran who may have incurred a medical debt for emergency treatment prior to the date of enactment. Madam Speaker, the chairman has talked about the need for this discretionary authority. As such, Ranking Member Buyer requested during our markup last week that the bill report make it clear that it is the committee's intention for the Secretary to use this authority and take into consideration the facts and circumstances of each veteran's situation. A veteran should not be discouraged from seeking emergency care at the closest community hospital for fear of financial uncertainty. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida, Congresswoman Brown-Waite.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the Subcommittee on Health chairman, Mike Michaud, and Ranking Member Henry Brown for their hard work on this legislation and Chairman Filner and Ranking Member Buyer for moving this bill so quickly through the committee process. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I yield back the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I yield the gentleman as much time as he may consume.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman).

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in support of H.R. 1171, as amended, the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Reauthorization Act of 2009. This bill would extend the Homeless Veteran Reintegration Program, HVRP, through fiscal year 2014. This bill was introduced by Ranking Member Dr. John Boozman and the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, and I am proud to join him as an original cosponsor. I would also like to thank Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity and Chairman Filner and Ranking Member Buyer of the full Committee on Veterans' Affairs for moving this important measure with our first group of authorizing bills. At the proper time, I will yield to Ranking Member Boozman to describe his bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, H.R. 1171, as amended, includes an amendment offered by Ranking Member Buyer during our full committee markup session on March 25, 2009. This amendment is similar to language in H.R. 293, the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans With Children Act of 2009, or what is also referred to as HVRP-W. Mr. Buyer's amendment adds the provisions of H.R. 293 to H.R. 1171, as amended, to create a new grant program that complements the current HVRP program with a focus on homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children. As amended, H.R. 1171 authorizes a separate appropriation of $10 million to fund grants to community organizations that provide service to homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children. Today, VA estimates there are about 154,000 veterans counted among the homeless, and this is indeed a tragedy. As many of you may be aware, women now comprise a larger percentage of our military, and in addition to sexual trauma, women are increasingly exposed to the same stressors and dangers as men, and we are now seeing more women in need of homeless services, including the training and employment services offered through HVRP. This legislation is critically important to our Nation's veterans, and expanding the program to include additional grant services for homeless women veterans and veterans with dependent children continues our mandate to care for those who fought so bravely for many freedoms which we, as a Nation, enjoy. Madam Speaker, despite the headway this country has made in reducing the number of homeless veterans, we have much further to go in order to end homelessness among our Nation's heroes. I believe H.R. 1171, as amended, will go a long way towards this goal. I urge my colleagues to support the bill. Having no further requests at this time, I yield back the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1513, the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2009. I would like to thank my colleagues, Mr. Hall of New York and chairman of the Disabilities Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee, and Mr. Lamborn of Colorado, the ranking member of the subcommittee, as well as the bill's sponsor, Mrs. Kirkpatrick of Arizona, for their leadership on this bill. Madam Speaker, H.R. 1513 would increase, effective as of December 1, 2009, the rates of compensation for veterans with service-connected disabilities, and the rates of dependents and indemnity compensation for the survivors of certain disabled veterans. The COLA adjustments include veterans disability compensation, additional compensation for dependents, clothing allowance, and dependents and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses and children. Madam Speaker, this is an important annual authorization which provides much-needed assistance to our Nation's veterans, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I recognize Congresswoman Brown-Waite for as much time as she may consume.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Again, I'd like to thank Chairman Filner, Ranking Member Buyer, Subcommittee Chairman Hall and ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Lamborn, for their leadership in bringing this much-needed legislation to the floor. And I urge my colleagues to support it. And I'd like to thank the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs. Halvorson) for her help today. This is a great piece of legislation, and I urge tonight we vote unanimously for this bill. I yield back the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. When I was home this weekend in Johnson City, Tennessee, I met a few small business owners who are really feeling the effects of this economy. These are real people I'm going to introduce you to, not just some abstraction. One is a fourth-generation owner of Glenn Wynne Paint and Wallpaper Company. Like many responsible small businessmen and women, he is trying to figure out how to keep his company long enough to ride out this economic mess we are in. He did have 25 full-time employees for whom he provided benefits, including health care. First, he had to cut back on health care, and then he had to eliminate it altogether. Then he cut 15 percent of the workforce, and he reduced it again to 15 employees. Finally, he cut 10 percent of the pay for all his employees, including himself. He even went so far as to cut out the $90 a month he was paying for trash removal, choosing to haul the trash himself. He also cut out the cable TV in his business. As he sees it, he's making tough economic decisions on how to keep his company financially stable during this rough economic time. But he is astounded that people in Washington can't do the same thing, especially because help isn't being targeted for businesses like his that really need it. He sees this cap-and-trade tax as one that will just finally put him completely out of business. Another individual I met has been in business for 35 years and has very, very little debt, which makes it easier for him to survive this crisis. He had to cut his staff from 50 down to 18 employees and cut unnecessary expenses. What he's mad about is that while he hears talk about wanting to help small business, he still has hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of fees to pay to OSHA and Tennessee's Department of Labor and Workforce Development. As he sees it, large employers can afford these fees and weather the storm, but he doesn't see help for small business. He would like to see the government make it easier for small businesses to stay in business by easing up on the regulations when they can least afford it. Of course, what I had to tell these two gentlemen was that you make too much sense to get your ideas heard here in Washington. We haven't tightened our belts at all, and definitely haven't gotten our financial house in order. We certainly haven't curtailed the unnecessary regulations on small business or reduced their fees to help them weather this economic storm. It's time we started acting more responsibly and passed legislation that will stimulate economic growth and prevent our children from bearing the burden of this crushing debt we're racking up to pay for irresponsible choices of the present. On top of this economic stimulus bill comes the President's budget, which spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. That, ladies and gentlemen, may be the understatement of the week. With a worsening economic crisis in the forecast, you would think we'd be talking about how some of the President's ambitious proposals could be scaled back. In fact, new economic numbers show larger deficits than the President originally predicted--and these numbers are already very significant. Instead, the administration and its Democratic colleagues are insisting they will press ahead with the agenda undeterred, as though we don't have an economic crisis. The President is not at fault for the State of our economy, and I know he is sincere in his desire to get us back on track. But it's important he acknowledge the impact of our current economic crisis on his agenda. The recession does impact his ability to spend billions upon billions of dollars to meet his priorities. I think many Americans would take it as a positive sign if the President told the people frankly that because we're in a recession, we have to scale back some on his agenda and focus all our efforts on restoring economic growth and creating jobs. The American people will appreciate hearing this because it's what they're already doing. I think they would have much more confidence in our government if we acted just like them.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Thank you. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I have just a couple of comments. I was back in my district this weekend and talked to some of our local governments. My background is a physician and a local mayor. And the community that I was mayor in just before I came here is looking at making a 5 percent cut in their budget, worst case scenario. They are looking at what they have to do to balance their budget. I also talked to a town administrator of Morristown, Tennessee, this past week. They were looking at their MTPO funds. They got an extra $720,000 in stimulus money for a bus system. To show you how out of touch the Federal Government is, they had about $600,000 in MTPO funds, that is Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization funds, and they can buy buses with these funds and they can build bus stations. There is just one small problem in that community. Their general fund budget has got a $1.6 million hole in it. They have 16 people they can't hire right now that they normally do. They can't afford to hire the bus drivers. That is something that gets lost in this place up here is that we spend at these record deficits, and local communities are making these tough decisions. And they are tough decisions. Business leaders are doing exactly what they are doing with their budgets, tightening their belts. What do we do up here? In the omnibus spending bill, which I call the ``ominous spending bill,'' when everybody else is cutting it, what are we doing? Up 8 percent. Now, how can I go back to Tennessee and explain to people that we print money--or borrow it--and then go back and spend at that level while they are having to make these tough decisions? I yield back.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. We have already had a perfect example of cap- and-trade. It was last year when oil prices went to $147 a barrel. Every American citizen knows that that went straight out of their hip pocket. And like you pointed out, everything you buy at the grocery store, every product that is transported by energy pays for that. And we have already seen that. We know what will happen with cap-and-trade.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. A couple of things to historically go back over, and I might mention that if the public out there that is watching this tonight thinks that the government's management of AIG is good, then they are going to be thrilled to death with the government management of health care, I can tell you that. I am going to go through a couple of historical things. You and I went through the managed care in all of the 1990s and all of the promises that were going to occur, the cost savings and so forth, that didn't show up; and one of the things that concerned me about health care going forward is accessibility, not just in physicians but in other health care providers. For instance, our nursing staff. By 2016--that is 7 years from now-- we're going to need one million more registered nurses in this country. And in the next 8-10 years, more physicians will be retiring and dying than we're producing in this country. And let me go back a few years to read this to us just briefly. It is a 1994 report to both Congress and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the National Council on Graduate Medical Education noted, ``In a managed care dominated health care system, the Bureau of Health Professions Commissions projects a year 2000 shortage of 35,000 generalist physicians and a surplus of 115,000 specialist physicians'' and recommended that the ``nation `produce 25 percent fewer physicians annually.' '' That was just 13 years ago. ``In 1995, the PEW Commission recommended medical schools `by 2005 reduce the size of entering medical school class in the U.S. by 20-25 percent,' arguing further that this reduction should come from the closure of existing medical schools.'' Have you ever heard of anything as ridiculous as that? And think of what a catastrophe that would have been had we followed this. The Institute of Medicine committee ``recommended `no new schools of allopathic or osteopathic medicine be opened, that class sizes in existing schools not be increased, and that public funds not be made available to open new schools or expand class sizes.' '' Now, to give you an example just to reiterate what you said, if physicians don't retire--and there are over a quarter of a million physicians over the age of 55; that is a third of the practicing doctors in America--do retire in the next 10 years, which they most certainly will, this number--and the reason that is so important for the folks listening is is the access to care. What happens will be that patients won't have access to their physicians, and I have seen that. I have practiced and trained in Memphis, inner-city Memphis and a rural area where I am now, and you all know inner-cities and the rural areas are the two most underserved areas in America now. Patients in those areas are now not only having a difficult time paying for care, just finding someone to give them the care. So this particular recommendation that was made, if it had been followed, would have been an utter disaster for the American health care system. We need to encourage more and more young people. The community where I live has a Quillen College of Medicine, has 26 students. It hasn't increased the class size in 20 years. Why? They don't have funding to do it, and we have a tremendous shortage of primary care physicians. At the end of my practice last year when I was still in the operating room, one of the most difficult things I had to do was find a primary care provider for a post-surgical patient. It is difficult to do now, and it is going to get much, much, much worse. I will mention a couple of things about our TennCare system, and it was a system that was started with noble objectives, to provide care for all Tennesseans. It was rapidly put together, and I heard you say at the beginning of this, we don't need to do this fast; we need do this right. It's to important. The health care that we provide affects every citizen in this country. Every one of us is going to have to abide by this system, and who should be in control of that system are the patients and the physicians. That's who should be making these health care decisions. Now, in a survey that was done in the current budget crisis in the State, the State was about $1 billion short before the stimulus package came along. And what the stimulus package does is simply put off these hard decisions for about 2 years in our State. But that survey showed that nearly half the physicians in the State of Tennessee would end their participation or consider ending their participation in one or both of the MCOs in the State--that's the medical care organizations-- if those cuts were enacted to ease the State budget crisis, and another 31 percent said they would reduce the number of TennCare patients they're seeing. That's 80 percent either would stop or reduce the number that they're currently seeing. I spoke to one of our large hospital administrators this past weekend, and right now, we have TennCare covering 60 percent of hospital costs. Medicare covers about 90 percent of hospital costs. The uninsured obviously cover none of the costs, and the private payers have to make up that difference to keep the hospital open. You hear that your medical benefits are tax deductible and so forth. Well, I would argue they're not. If you go ahead, that's a hidden tax right there that a person who has private health insurance has to pay when they pay it. Now I know this year because in the past year, I bought my own policy. I've a health savings account, and to buy this health savings account, I was fortunate to be able to do that. It is about $1,000 a month, but I had to earn about $18,000 to pay that after taxes. So, for a person with a health savings account or a small business or whatever, they're on your own, you're in real trouble in this country now. And I think the health care plan in this country should have about four principles. One is a basic health plan for all Americans, and we can define that a lot of ways, but I think one of the ways you could define it is the least expensive government plan. And number two, illness should not bankrupt you. If you get sick, if you develop multiple myeloma or a malignancy or something or at no cause of your own, you should not be bankrupted by that illness. And number three, it should be portable. You should be able to move. If your lose your job, as many people have done during this current recession, you should be able to carry your health benefits along and not have COBRA payments that people with expensive, who let's say Bill Gates would have a hard time paying. So I look forward to continuing this discussion in the future.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified by the text I placed at the desk.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. My amendment would cap the authorization level in this legislation for fiscal year 2010 at the fiscal year 2008 level of $405 million. This is 5 percent less than fiscal year 2009, which I think reflects what State and local governments are asking their programs to do all over the country. The legislation we have before us today continues the process of turning the AmeriCorps program into a much more streamlined, cost- effective program that is leveraging a great deal of service for dollars we are spending. While I have some concerns that a few programs want additional scrutiny, the majority of the programs within the national service laws are performing well. With that being said, the fact is we are in a recession and face record deficits. The legislation before us includes a sense of Congress that the AmeriCorps and several other programs should increase the number of volunteers to 250,000, up from its current level of just over 75,300, which, if achieved, would represent a 300 percent increase. While it seems to me this is a worthy goal for the future, I'm concerned about the temptation to try to get there all at once without some direction to the Appropriations Committee on how much funding to allocate the program. Nothing in this amendment prevents the program from growing in future years. If our economy gets back on track and revenues increase, which we all are hoping will happen, I think it's perfectly reasonable in the future years to increase the funding for the program. At least for this year, however, when our focus should be on tightening our belts to lower our deficits, this amendment sets what I think is a reasonable boundary for the program. I urge adoption of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I know I am new here in Congress and probably don't understand the way things work, but I have a basic philosophy that I have applied throughout my public service. It's very simple: The government should spend less than it takes in. It's a concept that our State governments and local governments achieve every year, and I know there's pain, but they get it, and it's because that's what they have to do. States like California and Tennessee have to make major spending cuts this year to bring their budgets in balance. The city I was mayor of has a 5 percent cut in their budget this year. Congress, unfortunately, seems to be best at completely ignoring this principle. I'm not blaming Republicans or Democrats, because it has occurred under the watch of Presidents of both parties. But now is our chance to do something about it. Our economy is in crisis, our deficits are soaring, and I think it's reasonable to ask good programs like AmeriCorps to join the rest of the country in tightening our belts and making do with what we have for 1 more year while we try to get out of this crisis. With that I urge adoption of my amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in support of conducting a GAO study of whether the NCCC and PART programs are accomplishing their mission in a cost-effective manner. While reauthorizing the Corporation for National and Community Service in our committee, I learned that approximately up to $27,000 dollars is spent per volunteer in the NCCC. In Tennessee, where I am from, you can go to a university in our State for 3 years for that. I understand that this is a residential program, so there are additional costs for this program that don't exist for other programs, but it still seems high to me. I think it would be helpful to have an independent evaluation of this program to prove its effectiveness, and I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, while I was running for Congress last year, I noticed that Democrats everywhere were campaigning on the notion that they were fiscally responsible and would make wise decisions for our country based on what we could afford. Frankly, as the former mayor of Johnson City, Tennessee, who has grown accustomed to balanced budgets and living within our means, this sounded pretty good. It made me excited to come to Washington and get our financial house in order. My excitement, however, was short lived when I realized how thoughtlessly we would spend a billion dollars. First we approved the second $350 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which is what people back home and I call a bailout of our banking institutions. Then we approved $787 billion for what was called economic stimulus, but what was in reality a laundry list of spending items the Democrats hadn't been able to get funded the past few years and won't produce sustainable economic growth. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, we went out and passed a fiscal year 2009 omnibus spending bill that included $410 billion and an 8 percent increase for our Federal agencies. I am going to pause for a second and let that sink in, an 8 percent increase at a time of record deficits where local county, city and State governments are cutting and balancing budgets. I think the American people are so skeptical of what's happening in Washington because what they see people in Washington do is disconnected completely from reality. The reality is in Johnson City, Tennessee, they are asking their agencies to fund a 5 percent cut over last year's budget. All over America, families and State and local governments are tightening their belts and making do with what they have. Only in Washington do we respond to a huge drop in tax receipts by spending even more money. Now the administration has proposed a $3.9 trillion budget, which will be 27 percent of gross domestic product of this country. This will create the largest Federal Government since World War II. This budget is especially troubling because it's coupled with tax increases, and our job creators have to pay for it. The math of these policies seems to be more government spending, plus higher taxes, equals more jobs and economic growth. If this equation seems questionable to you, I'm right there with you. This budget spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much. I think the American people are beginning to question everything they hear being done in the name of economic stimulus and recovery. They heard ``fiscally responsible'' during the campaign and assumed that meant we would be looking for savings from ineffective programs and keep income in families pockets where it's most needed. They are getting just the opposite. My House Republican colleagues prefer a simpler strategy that has proven effective time and time again. First you want to leave the money in the hands of the families to decide how to spend their own money. We proposed lowering the lowest two tax brackets from 15 to 10 percent and 10 to 5 percent respectively. We would like to create tax incentives for small businesses, the engines of our economy, to create these jobs. We believe it's important to eliminate taxes on unemployment insurance, which will help those who have lost their jobs stay afloat until they find a new job. And I believe we should invest in our transportation, water, education, and infrastructure. As a fiscal conservative, I generally don't like deficit spending unless future generations will get to enjoy the benefit of the spending. By leaving a lasting infrastructure in place, our children will be able to enjoy the benefits, even if they are asked to pay for some of the costs. While I am hopeful we can consider these commonsense solutions, the fact is Republicans are in the minority. We don't have the ability to stop these harmful policies from going forward, only President Obama, and Democrats and Congress can. I urge the American people to ask President Obama and his Democratic colleagues to fulfill their campaign promises of fiscal responsibility and stop these tax increases and wasteful spending, and help restore our economy, which is still the strongest in the world.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Obviously one of my heroes, too, is Thomas Sowell whom Congresswoman Foxx quoted a minute ago who happened to be a student of Milton Friedman. And Dr. Friedman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago. And Dr. Friedman stated very clearly that if you want more of something, you subsidize it. If you want less of something, you tax it. So, if you want less wealth, you tax wealth, and you will have less wealth.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. One of the things that my good friend from Ohio is talking about on the cap and trade, so people understand and get this jargon out of the way, cap and tax is a better definition or description of it. So people understand how it works, when you pump anything out of the ground, whether it is oil or you pump natural gas out of the ground or you dig coal out of the ground, there is a tax. It was first listed at $15 a ton. I saw the initial tax on coal was $15 a ton, or I should say on the carbon dioxide per ton, and then it goes out $10 a year. So you are absolutely correct; everything you purchase is going to cost more. The exact opposite thing you should be doing in an economic downturn is even consider raising taxes because you have taken more capital out of the market. Right now small businesses are having to compete with the government for capital. It is difficult to do. The banks, the regulators, are having more stringent rules on banks, so it is much more difficult for them to get this capital. In fact, there is no question in my mind that it is delaying our recovery.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Thank you. I went home this weekend and met with a number of constituents, and one of the things that they brought out is that they understand. And these are from police officers, sheriffs, builders, developers, grandmothers, grandparents. They are saying this is the craziest thing they have ever seen in their life. And the builders and developers believe that simply if we will get the financial situation straight, the banking straight in this country, they said: Look, we will go out and create the jobs if we will get where we can lend money. I will give an example. A person came in my office in the local district, and he said, Doc, this is the deal I am trying to put together. He had 14 or 15 commercial lots on a river, beautiful river not too far from Knoxville, Tennessee. And they are not making any more Holston River, not making any more lots on the river. It was a $1.7 million project. It was appraised at $2.3 million. He put $500,000 of his own money down on this project. The bank regulators said, okay, if you had to have a fire sale, what could you sell this property for, the bank, in one month? Well, nobody does a project like that where you have got to liquidate. When you develop homes, you do it over a period of years is how you do these developments. The appraiser said, well, a fire sale would be probably $1.1 million. The bank then said that was a bad loan because it is $100,000 upside down and would go as a bad loan against that bank. Now, if you can't release capital when somebody puts down $500,000 on a $1.7 million project, then you can't do business. And that is one of the things that is clogging up right now, is this access to capital is being choked off. And until we open the capital market up, you are not going to see our businesses and jobs be created. The single number one thing the President of the United States should be doing right now is making sure that our banks are solvent and that capital is available, and that we can go out and let these business people create jobs. And they cannot create the jobs if you increase tax on small business, because that is where most of the jobs are being created in America. Certainly in my district that is the case. Now, we have been very fortunate in our area. The unemployment rate overall is not quite as high as it is Nationwide, but it is heading in that direction. And if you are a person who loses their job, basically it is a depression for you if you don't have a job.