Francis Rooney

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Foxx and Subcommittee Chairman Byrne for bringing forth this important legislation, the Save Local Business Act. Construction is a major employer in the U.S. economy, with over 6 million employees, 650,000 employers, creating over $1 trillion worth of construction every year. Building a project involves a complex web of subcontractors, vendors, and consultants all working together in a spirit of teamwork to accomplish a difficult task. I have been in this business for 40 years. The general contractor has to put control terms in its subcontracts and purchase orders to make sure that the subcontractors and vendors execute the work safely, on schedule, and in coordination with the other trades on the project. Lastly, they have to follow all the fitness-for-duty provisions to make sure that they pass drug tests and deal with smoking and health safety issues like that. These requirements run right into this Browning-Ferris standard. There is no way that you could follow the literal words of those court cases and this horrible Obama rule and not have the argument made to you that all these subs and vendors are part of a common enterprise. Now employers, including myself and my employees, are left in a big quandary as to their status under Browning-Ferris, under the Obama rule. I can see a scenario where a batch plant located clear across town from a construction project could have a hazardous waste problem. Because of this ridiculous rule, my job or someone else's job using that batch plant to supply concrete could be linked to them. How perverse is that? So the Save Local Business Act will fix this abuse and be beneficial not only to the American economy, but to the safety and well-being of American workers. I urge my colleagues to support this practical fix to this egregious action, and I thank Chairman Byrne for introducing this legislation.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the St. Omer Foundation as it commemorates a great American family, the Carrolls, who played a tremendous role in securing our constitutional freedoms, and the founding of our country. Prior to the American Revolution, and before the freedom of religion was enshrined in the United States Constitution, Catholic families sent their children to France for an education. Many of these students attended an English-speaking, Jesuit-run university in St. Omer, France. Notable among these children were the sons of the distinguished Carroll family, who owned much of Maryland, including the future site of the United States Capitol. Charles, Daniel, and John Carroll all studied at the Jesuit University in St. Omer before returning to the colonies to play significant roles in the American Revolution. In St. Omer, the Carrolls learned the values that helped inspire their participation in the fight for independence from the British Empire. Charles Carroll signed the Declaration of Independence, Daniel Carroll was involved in the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution, and John Carroll became the first Catholic Archbishop of the United States, founded Georgetown University, and established the first Catholic seminary in our country. During the French Revolution, the Jesuit University in St. Omer was disbanded, many of its buildings were destroyed, and the memory of the Americans who studied in France began to fade. Recently, the people of St. Omer, alongside many friends in the United States, sought to refresh this memory, and remind Americans and Frenchmen alike that the American Revolution took some of its impetus from a Jesuit university in the North of France. Together, they restored the handsome Jesuit chapel where the Carrolls attended mass as students in the 18th century. On October 15, Archbishop Lori of Baltimore will cut the ribbon on this newly renovated chapel and kick off a weekend of celebration and dialogue surrounding the Carroll family and their contribution to our great nation. I thank the St. Omer Foundation for its contributions to help preserve the legacy of heroes of the American Revolution.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today as a member of the Spain Caucus to discuss why a unified Spain is both legally, culturally, and economically justified, and how it best serves United States foreign policy interests. First, the illegal Catalan independence referendum was held in violation of the Spanish constitution and in defiance of the federal government. Catalunya, as an autonomous region within Spain, enjoys many rights and privileges under the Spanish constitution, but self- determination is clearly not one of them. The historical and cultural ties between Spain and Catalunya are strong. Spain and Catalunya have a shared history, being united since the reign of Ferdinand and Isabel over 500 years ago, and later, under the governance of the Kingdom of Aragon, similar to how it is a part of the Kingdom of Spain today. Because of this history, Catalunya has a pluralistic society, with a mix of Spaniards and Catalans, and where both cultures' languages are regularly spoken. Lastly, the deep economic ties Catalunya shares with Spain are evidence that Spain should be united. Catalunya relies heavily on Madrid for its financial sector, infrastructure, and its social security deficit. A united Spain is a friend of the United States. A strong, united Spain has been a reliable ally in fighting the spread of Islamic extremism. Our relationship with Spain is invaluable to our foreign policy interests, and we need to speak out on behalf of a unified Spain.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Chris Pendleton, President & CEO of the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, who has announced her retirement at the end of the year. For the past 16 years, Chris has been a cornerstone of our community and is leaving the Estates well positioned for the future. More than 250,000 people each year visit the Edison & Ford Winter Estates. In fact, the annual Holiday Nights event was named by USA Today as one of the `10 Best Historic Homes for the Holidays.' While the Estates and our entire community are still recovering from Hurricane Irma and the damage left behind, the Estates are open for visitors. I thank Chris for her years of service to Southwest Florida. Her actions to preserve the history and honor of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford for future generations are invaluable.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Chair, with all respect, the cruel and unusual punishment is the Democratic-proposed substitute amendment. The raw deal is the Democratic-proposed substitute amendment that increases spending $6.2 trillion over our budget. This thing raises taxes--$2.7 trillion, the largest tax increase in American history, at a time when we are drowning in debt and stagnant wage growth. It requires a one-to-one match of defense and nondefense discretionary spending at a time when we can't keep our F-18s flying and we have airplanes crashing around the country for lack of maintenance. This is unconscionable. This budget never balances. It will leave us with an $852 billion deficit by fiscal year 2027. It expands ObamaCare, the most disastrous and heinous trick played on the American people that I can remember. It prioritizes amnesty over security. We are never going to get our country straight and preserve our sovereignty if we don't protect our security. On the other hand, we have got the Republican budget that offers to do a lot of things. One thing it offers to do is put a work requirement for able-bodied adults with no dependent children into welfare. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record an article by Nicholas Eberstadt of AEI talking about the horrible condition of our labor force now and how drastically important this is and how much it will improve the opportunities for people to rise out of poverty. We have got three 25- to 54-year-old males sitting out of the labor force collecting benefits for every one that is unemployed. The unemployed rate is 4.7 percent. That makes the total 20 percent. It is almost over 5 million people that we owe them a moral obligation to offer them an opportunity to rise out of poverty through work, and that is what the Republican budget does. [Commentary, Feb. 15, 2017] Economy: Our Miserable 21st Century (By Nicholas N. Eberstadt) On the morning of November 9, 2016, American's elite--its talking and deciding classes--woke up to a country they did not know. To most privileged and well-educated Americans, especially those living in its bicoastal bastions, the election of Donald Trump had been a thing almost impossible even to imagine. What sort of country would go and elect someone like Trump as president? Certainly not one they were familiar with, or understood anything about. Whatever else it may or may not have accomplished, the 2016 election was a sort of shock therapy for Americans living within what Charles Murray famously termed ``the bubble'' (the protective barrier of prosperity and self-selected associations that increasingly shield our best and brightest from contact with the rest of their society). The very fact of Trump's election served as a truth broadcast about a reality that could no longer be denied: Things out there in America are a whole lot different from what you thought. Yes, things are very different indeed these days in the ``real America'' outside the bubble. In fact, things have been going badly wrong in America since the beginning of the 21st century. It turns out that the year 2000 marks a grim historical milestone of sorts for our nation. For whatever reasons, the Great American Escalator, which had lifted successive generations of Americans to ever higher standards of living and levels of social well-being, broke down around then--and broke down very badly. The warning lights have been flashing, and the klaxons sounding, for more than a decade and a half. But our pundits and prognosticators and professors and policymakers, ensconced as they generally are deep within the bubble, were for the most part too distant from the distress of the general population to see or hear it. (So much for the vaunted ``information era'' and ``big-data revolution.'') Now that those signals are no longer possible to ignore, it is high time for experts and intellectuals to reacquaint themselves with the country in which they live and to begin the task of describing what has befallen the country in which we have lived since the dawn of the new century. Consider the condition of the American economy. In some circles people still widely believe, as one recent New York Times business-section article cluelessly insisted before the inauguration, that ``Mr. Trump will inherit an economy that is fundamentally solid.'' But this is patent nonsense. By now it should be painfully obvious that the U.S. economy has been in the grip of deep dysfunction since the dawn of the new century. And in retrospect, it should also be apparent that America's strange new economic maladies were almost perfectly designed to set the stage for a populist storm. Ever since 2000, basic indicators have offered oddly inconsistent readings on America's economic performance and prospects. It is curious and highly uncharacteristic to find such measures so very far out of alignment with one another. We are witnessing an ominous and growing divergence between three trends that should ordinarily move in tandem: wealth, output, and employment. Depending upon which of these three indicators you choose, America looks to be heading up, down, or more or less nowhere. From the standpoint of wealth creation, the 21st century is off to a roaring start. By this yardstick, it looks as if Americans have never had it so good and as if the future is full of promise. Between early 2000 and late 2016, the estimated net worth of American households and nonprofit institutions more than doubled, from $44 trillion to $90 trillion. Although that wealth is not evenly distributed, it is still a fantastic sum of money--an average of over a million dollars for every notional family of four. This upsurge of wealth took place despite the crash of 2008--indeed, private wealth holdings are over $20 trillion higher now than they were at their pre-crash apogee. The value of American real- estate assets is near or at all-time highs, and America's businesses appear to be thriving. Even before the ``Trump rally'' of late 2016 and early 2017, U.S. equities markets were hitting new highs--and since stock prices are strongly shaped by expectations of future profits, investors evidently are counting on the continuation of the current happy days for U.S. asset holders for some time to come. A rather less cheering picture, though, emerges if we look instead at real trends for the macro-economy. Here, performance since the start of the century might charitably be described as mediocre, and prospects today are no better than guarded. The recovery from the crash of 2008--which unleashed the worst recession since the Great Depression--has been singularly slow and weak. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), it took nearly four years for America's gross domestic product (GDP) to re-attain its late 2007 level. As of late 2016, total value added to the U.S. economy was just 12 percent higher than in 2007. The situation is even more sobering if we consider per capita growth. It took America six and a half years--until mid- 2014--to get back to its late 2007 per capita production levels. And in late 2016, per capita output was just 4 percent higher than in late 2007--nine years earlier. By this reckoning, the American economy looks to have suffered something close to a lost decade. But there was clearly trouble brewing in America's macro- economy well before the 2008 crash, too. Between late 2000 and late 2007, per capita GDP growth averaged less than 1.5 percent per annum. That compares with the nation's long-term postwar 1948-2000 per capita growth rate of almost 2.3 percent, which in turn can be compared to the ``snap back'' tempo of 1.1 percent per annum since per capita GDP bottomed out in 2009. Between 2000 and 2016, per capita growth in America has averaged less than 1 percent a year. To state it plainly: With postwar, pre-21st-century rates for the years 2000-2016, per capita GDP in America would be more than 20 percent higher than it is today. The reasons for America's newly fitful and halting macroeconomic performance are still a puzzlement to economists and a subject of considerable contention and debate. Economists are generally in consensus, however, in one area: They have begun redefining the growth potential of the U.S. economy downwards. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO), for example, suggests that the ``potential growth'' rate for the U.S. economy at full employment of factors of production has now dropped below 1.7 percent a year, implying a sustainable long-term annual per capita economic growth rate for America today of well under 1 percent. Then there is the employment situation. If 21st-century America's GDP trends have been disappointing, labor-force trends have been utterly dismal. Work rates have fallen off a cliff since the year 2000 and are at their lowest levels in decades. We can see this by looking at the estimates by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for the civilian employment rate, the jobs-to-population ratio for adult civilian men and women. Between early 2000 and late 2016, America's overall work rate for Americans age 20 and older underwent a drastic decline. It plunged by almost 5 percentage points (from 64.6 to 59.7). Unless you are a labor economist, you may not appreciate just how severe a falloff in employment such numbers attest to. Postwar America never experienced anything comparable. From peak to trough, the collapse in work rates for U.S. adults between 2008 and 2010 was roughly twice the amplitude of what had previously been the country's worst postwar recession, back in the early 1980s. In that previous steep recession, it took America five years to re-attain the adult work rates recorded at the start of 1980. This time, the U.S. job market has as yet, in early 2017, scarcely begun to claw its way back up to the work rates of 2007--much less back to the work rates from early 2000. U.S. adult work rates never recovered entirely from the recession of 2001--much less the crash of '08. And the work rates being measured here include people who are engaged in any paid employment--any job, at any wage, for any number of hours of work at all. On Wall Street and in some parts of Washington these days, one hears that America has gotten back to ``near full employment.'' For Americans outside the bubble, such talk must seem nonsensical. It is true that the oft-cited ``civilian unemployment rate'' looked pretty good by the end of the Obama era--in December 2016, it was down to 4.7 percent, about the same as it had been back in 1965, at a time of genuine full employment. The problem here is that the unemployment rate only tracks joblessness for those still in the labor force; it takes no account of workforce dropouts. Alas, the exodus out of the workforce has been the big labor-market story for America's new century. (At this writing, for every unemployed American man between 25 and 55 years of age, there are another three who are neither working nor looking for work.) Thus the ``unemployment rate'' increasingly looks like an antique index devised for some earlier and increasingly distant war: the economic equivalent of a musket inventory or a cavalry count. By the criterion of adult work rates, by contrast, employment conditions in America remain remarkably bleak. From late 2009 through early 2014, the country's work rates more or less flatlined. So far as can be told, this is the only ``recovery'' in U.S. economic history in which that basic labor-market indicator almost completely failed to respond. Since 2014, there has finally been a measure of improvement in the work rate--but it would be unwise to exaggerate the dimensions of that turnaround. As of late 2016, the adult work rate in America was still at its lowest level in more than 30 years. To put things another way: If our nation's work rate today were back up to its start-of-the-century highs, well over 10 million more Americans would currently have paying jobs. There is no way to sugarcoat these awful numbers. They are not a statistical artifact that can be explained away by population aging, or by increased educational enrollment for adult students, or by any other genuine change in contemporary American society. The plain fact is that 21st- century America has witnessed a dreadful collapse of work. For an apples-to-apples look at America's 21st-century jobs problem, we can focus on the 25-54 population--known to labor economists for self-evident reasons as the ``prime working age'' group. For this key labor-force cohort, work rates in late 2016 were down almost 4 percentage points from their year-2000 highs. That is a jobs gap approaching 5 million for this group alone. It is not only that work rates for prime-age males have fallen since the year 2000--they have, but the collapse of work for American men is a tale that goes back at least half a century. (I wrote a short book last year about this sad saga.) What is perhaps more startling is the unexpected and largely unnoticed fall-off in work rates for prime-age women. In the U.S. and all other Western societies, postwar labor markets underwent an epochal transformation. After World War II, work rates for prime women surged, and continued to rise--until the year 2000. Since then, they too have declined. Current work rates for prime-age women are back to where they were a generation ago, in the late 1980s. The 21st-century U.S. economy has been brutal for male and female laborers alike--and the wreckage in the labor market has been sufficiently powerful to cancel, and even reverse, one of our society's most distinctive postwar trends: the rise of paid work for women outside the household. In our era of no more than indifferent economic growth, 21st-century America has somehow managed to produce markedly more wealth for its wealthholders even as it provided markedly less work for its workers. And trends for paid hours of work look even worse than the work rates themselves. Between 2000 and 2015, according to the BEA, total paid hours of work in America increased by just 4 percent (as against a 35 percent increase for 1985-2000, the 15-year period immediately preceding this one). Over the 2000-2015 period, however, the adult civilian population rose by almost 18 percent--meaning that paid hours of work per adult civilian have plummeted by a shocking 12 percent thus far in our new American century. This is the terrible contradiction of economic life in what we might call America's Second Gilded Age (2000--). It is a paradox that may help us understand a number of overarching features of our new century. These include the consistent findings that public trust in almost all U.S. institutions has sharply declined since 2000, even as growing majorities hold that America is ``heading in the wrong direction.'' It provides an immediate answer to why overwhelming majorities of respondents in public-opinion surveys continue to tell pollsters, year after year, that our ever-richer America is still stuck in the middle of a recession. The mounting economic woes of the ``little people'' may not have been generally recognized by those inside the bubble, or even by many bubble inhabitants who claimed to be economic specialists--but they proved to be potent fuel for the populist fire that raged through American politics in 2016. So general economic conditions for many ordinary Americans--not least of these, Americans who did not fit within the academy's designated victim classes--have been rather more insecure than those within the comfort of the bubble understood. But the anxiety, dissatisfaction, anger, and despair that range within our borders today are not wholly a reaction to the way our economy is misfiring. On the nonmaterial front, it is likewise clear that many things in our society are going wrong and yet seem beyond our powers to correct. Some of these gnawing problems are by no means new: A number of them (such as family breakdown) can be traced back at least to the 1960s, while others are arguably as old as modernity itself (anomie and isolation in big anonymous communities, secularization and the decline of faith). But a number have roared down upon us by surprise since the turn of the century--and others have redoubled with fearsome new intensity since roughly the year 2000. American health conditions seem to have taken a seriously wrong turn in the new century. It is not just that overall health progress has been shockingly slow, despite the trillions we devote to medical services each year. (Which ``Cold War babies'' among us would have predicted we'd live to see the day when life expectancy in East Germany was higher than in the United States, as is the case today?) Alas, the problem is not just slowdowns in health progress--there also appears to have been positive retrogression for broad and heretofore seemingly untroubled segments of the national population. A short but electrifying 2015 paper by Anne Case and Nobel Economics Laureate Angus Deaton talked about a mortality trend that had gone almost unnoticed until then: rising death rates for middle-aged U.S. whites. By Case and Deaton's reckoning, death rates rose somewhat slightly over the 1999-2013 period for all non- Hispanic white men and women 45-54 years of age--but they rose sharply for those with high-school degrees or less, and for this less-educated grouping most of the rise in death rates was accounted for by suicides, chronic liver cirrhosis, and poisonings (including drug overdoses). Though some researchers, for highly technical reasons, suggested that the mortality spike might not have been quite as sharp as Case and Deaton reckoned, there is little doubt that the spike itself has taken place. Health has been deteriorating for a significant swath of white America in our new century, thanks in large part to drug and alcohol abuse. All this sounds a little too close for comfort to the story of modern Russia, with its devastating vodka- and drug- binging health setbacks. Yes: It can happen here, and it has. Welcome to our new America. In December 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that for the first time in decades, life expectancy at birth in the United States had dropped very slightly (to 78.8 years in 2015, from 78.9 years in 2014). Though the decline was small, it was statistically meaningful--rising death rates were characteristic of males and females alike; of blacks and whites and Latinos together. (Only black women avoided mortality increases--their death levels were stagnant.) A jump in ``unintentional injuries'' accounted for much of the overall uptick. It would be unwarranted to place too much portent in a single year's mortality changes; slight annual drops in U.S. life expectancy have occasionally been registered in the past, too, followed by continued improvements. But given other developments we are witnessing in our new America, we must wonder whether the 2015 decline in life expectancy is just a blip, or the start of a new trend. We will find out soon enough. It cannot be encouraging, though, that the Human Mortality Database, an international consortium of demographers who vet national data to improve comparability between countries, has suggested that health progress in America essentially ceased in 2012--that the U.S. gained on average only about a single day of life expectancy at birth between 2012 and 2014, before the 2015 turndown. The opioid epidemic of pain pills and heroin that has been ravaging and shortening lives from coast to coast is a new plague for our new century. The terrifying novelty of this particular drug epidemic, of course, is that it has gone (so to speak) ``mainstream'' this time, effecting breakout from disadvantaged minority communities to Main Street White America. By 2013, according to a 2015 report by the Drug Enforcement Administration, more Americans died from drug overdoses (largely but not wholly opioid abuse) than from either traffic fatalities or guns. The dimensions of the opioid epidemic in the real America are still not fully appreciated within the bubble, where drug use tends to be more carefully limited and recreational. In Dreamland, his harrowing and magisterial account of modern America's opioid explosion, the journalist Sam Quinones notes in passing that ``in one three-month period'' just a few years ago, according to the Ohio Department of Health, ``fully 11 percent of all Ohioans were prescribed opiates.'' And of course many Americans self-medicate with licit or illicit painkillers without doctors' orders. In the fall of 2016, Alan Krueger, former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, released a study that further refined the picture of the real existing opioid epidemic in America: According to his work, nearly half of all prime working-age male labor-force dropouts--an army now totaling roughly 7 million men--currently take pain medication on a daily basis. We already knew from other sources (such as BLS ``time use'' surveys) that the overwhelming majority of the prime- age men in this un-working army generally don't ``do civil society'' (charitable work, religious activities, volunteering), or for that matter much in the way of child care or help for others in the home either, despite the abundance of time on their hands. Their routine, instead, typically centers on watching--watching TV, DVDs, Internet, hand-held devices, etc.--and indeed watching for an average of 2,000 hours a year, as if it were a full-time job. But Krueger's study adds a poignant and immensely sad detail to this portrait of daily life in 21st-century America: In our mind's eye we can now picture many millions of un-working men in the prime of life, out of work and not looking for jobs, sitting in front of screens--stoned. But how did so many millions of un-working men, whose incomes are limited, manage en masse to afford a constant supply of pain medication? Oxycontin is not cheap. As Dreamland carefully explains, one main mechanism today has been the welfare state: more specifically, Medicaid, Uncle Sam's means-tested health-benefits program. Here is how it works (we are with Quinones in Portsmouth, Ohio): [The Medicaid card] pays for medicine--whatever pills a doctor deems that the insured patient needs. Among those who receive Medicaid cards are people on state welfare or on a federal disability program known as SSI. . . . If you could get a prescription from a willing doctor--and Portsmouth had plenty of them--Medicaid health-insurance cards paid for that prescription every month. For a three-dollar Medicaid co-pay, therefore, addicts got pills priced at thousands of dollars, with the difference paid for by U.S. and state taxpayers. A user could turn around and sell those pills, obtained for that three-dollar co-pay, for as much as ten thousand dollars on the street. In 21st-century America, ``dependence on government'' has thus come to take on an entirely new meaning. You may now wish to ask: What share of prime-working-age men these days are enrolled in Medicaid? According to the Census Bureau's SIPP survey (Survey of Income and Program Participation), as of 2013, over one-fifth (21 percent) of all civilian men between 25 and 55 years of age were Medicaid beneficiaries. For prime-age people not in the labor force, the share was over half (53 percent). And for un-working Anglos (non-Hispanic white men not in the labor force) of prime working age, the share enrolled in Medicaid was 48 percent. By the way: Of the entire un-working prime-age male Anglo population in 2013, nearly three-fifths (57 percent) were reportedly collecting disability benefits from one or more government disability program in 2013. Disability checks and means-tested benefits cannot support a lavish lifestyle. But they can offer a permanent alternative to paid employment, and for growing numbers of American men, they do. The rise of these programs has coincided with the death of work for larger and larger numbers of American men not yet of retirement age. We cannot say that these programs caused the death of work for millions upon millions of younger men: What is incontrovertible, however, is that they have financed it-- just as Medicaid inadvertently helped finance America's immense and increasing appetite for opioids in our new century. It is intriguing to note that America's nationwide opioid epidemic has not been accompanied by a nationwide crime wave (excepting of course the apparent explosion of illicit heroin use). Just the opposite: As best can be told, national victimization rates for violent crimes and property crimes have both reportedly dropped by about two-thirds over the past two decades. The drop in crime over the past generation has done great things for the general quality of life in much of America. There is one complication from this drama, however, that inhabitants of the bubble may not be aware of, even though it is all too well known to a great many residents of the real America. This is the extraordinary expansion of what some have termed America's ``criminal class''--the population sentenced to prison or convicted of felony offenses--in recent decades. This trend did not begin in our century, but it has taken on breathtaking enormity since the year 2000. Most well-informed readers know that the U.S. currently has a higher share of its populace in jail or prison than almost any other country on earth, that Barack Obama and others talk of our criminal-justice process as ``mass incarceration,'' and know that well over 2 million men were in prison or jail in recent years. But only a tiny fraction of all living Americans ever convicted of a felony is actually incarcerated at this very moment. Quite the contrary: Maybe 90 percent of all sentenced felons today are out of confinement and living more or less among us. The reason: the basic arithmetic of sentencing and incarceration in America today. Correctional release and sentenced community supervision (probation and parole) guarantee a steady annual ``flow'' of convicted felons back into society to augment the very considerable ``stock'' of felons and ex-felons already there. And this ``stock'' is by now truly enormous. One forthcoming demographic study by Sarah Shannon and five other researchers estimates that the cohort of current and former felons in America very nearly reached 20 million by the year 2010. If its estimates are roughly accurate, and if America's felon population has continued to grow at more or less the same tempotraced out for the years leading up to 2010, we would expect it to surpass 23 million persons by the end of 2016 at the latest. Very rough calculations might therefore suggest that at this writing, America's population of non-institutionalized adults with a felony conviction somewhere in their past has almost certainly broken the 20 million mark by the end of 2016. A little more rough arithmetic suggests that about 17 million men in our general population have a felony conviction somewhere in their CV. That works out to one of every eight adult males in America today. We have to use rough estimates here, rather than precise official numbers, because the government does not collect any data at all on the size or socioeconomic circumstances of this population of 20 million, and never has. Amazing as this may sound and scandalous though it may be, America has, at least to date, effectively banished this huge group--a group roughly twice the total size of our illegal-immigrant population and an adult population larger than that in any state but California--to a near-total and seemingly unending statistical invisibility. Our ex-cons are, so to speak, statistical outcasts who live in a darkness our polity does not care enough to illuminate--beyond the scope or interest of public policy, unless and until they next run afoul of the law. Thus we cannot describe with any precision or certainty what has become of those who make up our ``criminal class'' after their (latest) sentencing or release. In the most stylized terms, however, we might guess that their odds in the real America are not all that favorable. And when we consider some of the other trends we have already mentioned-- employment, health, addiction, welfare dependence--we can see the emergence of a malign new nationwide undertow, pulling downward against social mobility. Social mobility has always been the jewel in the crown of the American mythosand ethos. The idea (not without a measure of truth to back it up) was that people in America are free to achieve according to their merit and their grit--unlike in other places, where they are trapped by barriers of class or the misfortune of misrule. Nearly two decades into our new century, there are unmistakable signs that America's fabled social mobility is in trouble--perhaps even in serious trouble. Consider the following facts. First, according to the Census Bureau, geographical mobility in America has been on the decline for three decades, and in 2016 the annual movement of households from one location to the next was reportedly at an all-time (postwar) low. Second, as a study by three Federal Reserve economists and a Notre Dame colleague demonstrated last year, ``labor market fluidity''-- the churning between jobs that among other things allows people to get ahead--has been on the decline in the American labor market for decades, with no sign as yet of a turnaround. Finally, and not least important, a December 2016 report by the ``Equal Opportunity Project,'' a team led by the formidable Stanford economist Raj Chetty, calculated that the odds of a 30-year-old's earning more than his parents at the same age was now just 51 percent: down from 86 percent 40 years ago. Other researchers who have examined the same data argue that the odds may not be quite as low as the Chetty team concludes, but agree that the chances of surpassing one's parents' real income have been on the downswing and are probably lower now than ever before in postwar America. Thus the bittersweet reality of life for real Americans in the early 21st century: Even though the American economy still remains the world's unrivaled engine of wealth generation, those outside the bubble may have less of a shot at the American Dream than has been the case for decades, maybe generations--possibly even since the Great Depression. The funny thing is, people inside the bubble are forever talking about ``economic inequality,'' that wonderful seminar construct, and forever virtue-signaling about how personally opposed they are to it. By contrast, ``economic insecurity'' is akin to a phrase from an unknown language. But if we were somehow to find a ``Google Translate'' function for communicating from real America into the bubble, an important message might be conveyed: The abstraction of ``inequality'' doesn't matter a lot to ordinary Americans. The reality of economic insecurity does. The Great American Escalator is broken--and it badly needs to be fixed. With the election of 2016, Americans within the bubble finally learned that the 21st century has gotten off to a very bad start in America. Welcome to the reality. We have a lot of work to do together to turn this around.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of an outstanding teacher in my district. I stand today to celebrate Dunbar High School teacher Jill Borstelman Klausing of Cape Coral. She returned to the classroom after a 16-month hiatus due to stage 3 breast cancer. After months of extensive treatment, she is blessed to continue her passion of teaching. Jill has devoted almost two decades to teaching intensive reading at Dunbar High School and has had a lasting impression to countless students. Her high energy and determination is unmatched and enhances the learning environment every day. I wish her and her family the best as she continues her recovery. The students and faculty of Dunbar are in a better place with Jill in the classroom. This has been a challenging start to the school year, and I wish all our local educators the best.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to speak a little bit here about the tax reform opportunities that we are seeing now. Some people don't like to admit it, but there is a proven, inescapable correlation among tax treatment, capital investment, and job creation. As this chart right here shows, unequivocally correlating an investment of capital with economic change, when you have more money put in, you get more jobs and more economic growth. And some people don't like to admit that connection, but it is inescapable. It has been that way ever since the first commerce took place in the Roman era. We have a second chart that shows the post-World War II GDP change, an average of 3.1. The American middle class was built on opportunity, lower taxes, economic stimuli, and growth. It wasn't built on this 2.3 to 1.6 that we are going to get if we don't get back to some serious business-centric, investment-centric tax reform. There is another equally inescapable fact, and that is that capital is fungible. If tax treatment nurtures it, like watering your yard, it will grow. If not, it will be invested somewhere else. Just look at Texas, just look at my home State of Florida, and look at Ireland, for example. When the tax climate is nurturing and favorable for investment, you get money put in, you get jobs created, you get economic growth. Investment goes where it is most favorably treated. So going to 20 and 25 percent from 35 to 40 percent will unleash a torrent of capital investment and job formation. Rapid capital recovery by expensing capital assets purchases will attract massive investments, stimulate our economy, make our manufacturing companies do better, and build up the capital stock of our country again, like we used to do. This is going to create one thing: job-creating economic growth. That is what we need and that is what the Republican reform program offers. It also offers one more thing and it changes treatment of foreign income, which is something I have some experience in, and it will incentivize companies to keep their income here. That is a good thing for America. So I might just mention for just a second about what they say and what we say. They say tax cut for the wealthy. No, it is not a tax cut for the wealthy. It lowers taxes on all businesses and middle class Americans. They say rising brackets on low income. This is an absolute incorrigible falsehood. No. We are taking the 10 percent rate to zero. We are taking the 15 percent rate to 10. By the way, Ronald Reagan reduced the 11 percent rate to zero.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. They say it will explode the deficit, but we all know that economic growth shrinks deficits. Ronald Reagan proved that in spades, and we are going to see it again. When we eliminate many of these narrowly-crafted, special interest, lobbyist- driven credits and deductions, we are going to save enough money. Especially when we eliminate the State and local tax deduction, we are going to save a couple of trillion dollars that will help balance this. Then they say loss of itemized deductions is a bad thing. When we double the standard exemption, no one is going to need to itemize. The people that do itemize, fine, they can have mortgage interest reduction, charitable reduction, whatever. But most Americans are going to be able to pay their taxes on a postcard. In the polling in this country, the frustration of Americans with the IRS is directly related to the fact that nobody can fill out a tax form anymore. So we have great progress here. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to speak.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the extraordinary actions of the Lee County Emergency Management Team. With Hurricane Irma hitting Lee County, the Lee Emergency Operations Center (EOC) took decisive action coordinating emergency responses and recovery efforts throughout Lee County. The employees and volunteers staffing the EOC went above and beyond the call of duty keeping residents informed and sheltered, and are now working to clean up the damage left behind by the hurricane. I applaud Sheriff Mike Scott, Sheriff Carmine Marceno, County Manager Roger Desjarlais, Director Benjamin Abes, Director Lee Mayfield, Chief Cochran, Chief Diggs, and all city and local officials for their tireless work in keeping our community informed and safe before, during, and after Hurricane Irma.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the Collier County Emergency Management Team. In the wake of Hurricane Irma in Collier County, the employees and volunteers of Collier County Emergency Management (EM) worked diligently to keep residents informed and safe both before and after the storm. I applaud and thank Sheriff Rambosk, Director Summers, County Manager Leo Ochs, Deputy County Manager Nick Casalanguida, Chief Schettino, Chief Weschler, Chief Murphy, and all city and local officials for their tireless work in keeping our community safe and secure.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize David Morgan of Naples, Florida. David is a rising senior at Seacrest Country Day School and has committed to play golf at the University of Virginia. This past week, David advanced to the match play round at the 70th U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at Flint Hills National Golf Club in Andover, Kansas. For 70 years, the USGA has organized the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship for players under the age of 19. It is designed to determine the best junior golfer in the United States. He was one of just 64 golfers in the entire country to advance to this stage, achieving a dream held by every young golfer. This was truly an extraordinary accomplishment. I congratulate David and wish him the best of luck during his senior-year season as well as in his future at Virginia as a student- athlete.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in recognition of Lt. Scott Wilson of the Greater Naples Fire and Rescue District. On Sunday, July 23, Lt. Wilson took part in the 10th Annual Brotherhood Ride to honor the 20 first-responders who fell in the line of duty in 2016. This weeklong ride started in North Naples and will finish in South Miami. The purpose of this 600-mile ride is to bring awareness and support for the first-responders' fallen colleagues. Over the last decade, the group has raised over $379,000 for the families of our fallen heroes. Lt. Wilson has participated in every ride this group has completed. We are fortunate to have leaders like Lt. Wilson serve our community. I thank him and all our first-responders for making Collier and Lee counties the perfect place to live.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Norm Alpert in his 30th year as owner and founder of WAVV 101.1 FM in Naples. 30 years ago, Norm moved to the area and started his radio station to provide the people of our area quality jazz music to bring timeless entertainment to our community. Norm fulfilled the American dream by starting his business from the ground up. He has proven to have found his calling, as his station consistently ranks among the top stations in the region. Further, he has helped our economy by providing jobs and advertising for businesses that reach across the state. I congratulate Norm on his successes and look forward to see what he will accomplish and bring to the community in the years to come.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of a true pioneer and icon for the City of Cape Coral. Paul Warren Sanborn was a man of commitment; to his wife of 70 years, Mildred, to his daughters, Carol, Donna, and Mary, to his friends, and to the community he loved, and that loved him back. There are far too many accomplishments in a life well lived to fit into this writing, but to put it simply, Paul was Mr. Cape Coral. Paul Sanborn served his country as a B-24 gunner and radio operator with the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Upon moving to Cape Coral in 1962, Paul immediately turned his service towards the small community of 1,100 people; as a charter member of the Rotary Club of Cape Coral and American Legion Post 90, Chamber of Commerce President, Cape Coral Hospital Board member, Lee County Mosquito Control official, Cape Coral High School task force member, and official city historian. During his 55 years in Cape Coral, countless other charitable, business and civic organizations benefited from his generosity. Paul was named citizen of the year in both 1968 and 1992. By the time that Paul Sanborn Park was dedicated in 2008, the city had grown to a population of over 160,000. Mr. Speaker, there is no greater example of service over self than Paul Sanborn. His wit, wisdom, generosity and friendship will be missed by all.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of NFL player De'Vondre Campbell. A native of Fort Myers, Campbell is returning to his home town to host a summer football camp for our community's youth. As a rookie with the Atlanta Falcons, Campbell forced a fumble, recorded forty-eight tackles, and had one interception. Campbell is the epitome of hard work and determination as he paid his way to Hutchinson Community College, then earned a scholarship to the University of Minnesota. He did not let this nor his necessary Lasik surgery deter him from achieving his dream of playing in the NFL. At his camp, he will teach young boys not only the fundamentals of the game, but also the value of teamwork, perseverance, and self- discipline. I commend Campbell for giving back to our community and look forward to seeing his accomplishments in the years to come.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate the nine swimmers from the Cape Coral swim team who qualified for the Florida Age Group Championships this weekend. Swimmers Brent Baker, Evan Baker, Maddie Lehman, Jacob Bilancione, Hayden Tedhams, Skylar Gusler, Natalie Handzlik, Anne Kokosinski and Melana Greene have displayed tremendous skill and determination to qualify for this competition. All under fourteen years of age, these swimmers have shown commendable character as they have practiced tirelessly for this opportunity. I would also like to honor veteran coach Ed Collins for his dedication to the swim team and the City of Cape Coral. His hard work has brought a record of nine swimmers from the team to this elite competition this year and his three decades of service have inspired many children in our community. I am honored to have the Cape Coral swim team and Coach Collins represent our district at the championships in Sarasota this weekend.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of George Takacs, a student at Gulf Coast High School in Naples, who recently committed to play football at the University of Notre Dame. By signing his commitment, George fulfilled a lifelong dream to attend the University he has admired throughout his life. Selected as an Army All-American, George has proven his dedication to the sport and achieving his goals. He will be on the field with some of the finest athletes in the country, while pursuing his academic goals with some of the finest scholars in the world. I congratulate George on his perseverance and look forward to seeing what he will accomplish in South Bend over the course of his collegiate career.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize several outstanding individuals from my district who have received prestigious Fulbright awards during this past academic year. They are Cristaly Carrion, Debra Darnell, Emilio Feijoo, Joy Hazell and Mark Simpson. Established by Congress in 1946, the Fulbright Program attempts to forge relations between Americans and emerging leaders around the globe through international education exchange. Each year, over 3,000 U.S. students and professionals in a myriad of disciplines are offered merit-based Fulbright grants to lecture, study, and conduct research all over the world. Alumni of the Fulbright Program have gone on to achieve distinction in science, the arts, business, and several other fields. The five grantees from my constituency traveled to a diverse array of host countries--Cristaly to Spain, Debra to Peru, Emilio to the United Kingdom, Joy to Dominica, and Mark to Rwanda. Under the Fulbright Program, they worked with a wide range of partners and gained valuable skills and expertise that will serve them well in any endeavors they may wish to pursue. The relationships they formed will help build a foundation of trust on which the U.S. may advance global peace and security. I congratulate Cristaly, Debra, Emilio, Joy and Mark on their outstanding honors, and wish them the best of luck as they continue toward their academic and professional aspirations.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the JROTC teams of Mariner, Riverdale, and Gulf Coast high schools. These teams recently competed in the National All- Services JROTC Academic and Leadership Bowl Competition in Washington D.C. and all three placed in the top fifteen of 64 teams. For over a century the JROTC program has instilled in students the value of teamwork, citizenship, and public service. This competition tests students in both academics and leadership. To get to the national competition, the three schools competed against a combined 2,600 teams. It is humbling to see the young men and women of Collier and Lee Counties excel and show their knowledge and passion for civil service. I look forward to seeing what these young scholars will accomplish for our community and our country in the years to come.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Captain Wayne Smith of Naples in honor of his sacrifices to this country during his service in Vietnam. As pilot, Wayne flew 90 missions over North Vietnam until he was shot down and taken prisoner in 1968. Wayne spent five years and two months as a POW, where he suffered continuous torture, isolation, and separation from his family. In recognition of his service, Wayne was awarded the Legion of Merit, two Silver Stars, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Bronze Stars, seven Air Medals and the Purple Heart. Since his time in the military, Wayne continued his career as a pilot in the private sector and he has remained an active member in our community. I would like to thank Wayne for his unwavering service to our country.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Jonathan Isaac of Naples on being the sixth overall pick in the NBA draft to the Orlando Magic. Isaac spent part of his high school career playing for Baron Collier High School in Naples and he continued to amaze fans of the game during his time at Florida State University. During his freshman year at Florida State, Isaac averaged 12 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. He also led the Seminoles to one of the most memorable seasons in program history with a 26-9 record, and an advancement to the second round of the NCAA tournament. I am look forward to seeing what Jonathan will accomplish as he continues to make his home of Naples and the entire state of Florida proud.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Jesse Katzeff of Naples, Florida, who has just recently earned the Congressional Gold Medal Award. The Gold Medal award program presents an opportunity for young people to set and achieve challenging goals that build character and foster growth. It demands a significant time commitment of several hundred hours devoted to community service, personal development and physical fitness. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest honor Congress may bestow upon a young civilian. This year, Jesse Katzeff is one of just 373 young people from across 39 states to have earned it. Jesse volunteered with Teen Court and the Sheriff's Department while also completing two summer internships at a local museum. This allowed him to learn more about his community while devoting his time for the benefit of others. Jesse learned to fly a plane while taking part in the Civil Air Program for nearly 5 years. Additionally, he competed on a local swim team while also improving his physical fitness with CrossFit. He chose to go hiking in the mountains of West Virginia, giving him the opportunity to learn more about himself while outside of his comfort zone. The Congressional Gold Medal Award program has allowed Jesse to lay a foundation of engagement, determination and fortitude that will serve him immensely well going forward. I congratulate Jesse on this truly extraordinary honor, and wish him the best of luck as he continues to grow and advance in life.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Chloe Eagan from North Fort Myers High School. The National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists has selected Chloe as one of the delegates to attend the Congress of Future Medical Leaders at the University of Massachusetts Lowell later this month. Chloe will be joining hundreds of other students from around the country in an honors-only program for high schoolers who wish to become physicians or go into the medical research field. I am proud that Chloe is representing our southwest Florida community. She and her fellow delegates will be meeting with a distinguished group that includes Nobel Prize-winning laureates, top medical school deans, and leaders in medical research. The goal of the program is to honor, inspire and direct top students like Chloe toward their desired goals in the medical field. I commend Chloe for her outstanding performance in her studies which led to her selection to the Congress of Future Medical Leaders. I wish her continued success on her path to fulfilling her aspirations in the medical field.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Dan Czahor of Fort Myers and Madison Heinrich of Naples. It has come to my attention that these two students have been selected to represent the state of Florida at the Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders in Lowell, Massachusetts later this month. The Congress is an event headed by the National Academy of Future Scientists and Technologists and is an honors-only program whose intention is to motivate the top students of the country, who are interested in a career in science or technology, to achieve their goals. The Academy selects all delegates based on nominations from teachers, proven academic excellence, and leadership ability. Further, their alumni include Nobel Prize winners, top scientific university deans, and other leaders in the STEM field. It is encouraging to know that Dan and Madison are among these five hundred nationally selected students to go to the conference. I look forward to the work these two individuals will do in the years to come and wish them the best of luck in their future academic studies.

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida

Mr. FRANCIS ROONEY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Jeffrey Passantino, who was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 2017 Major League Baseball draft. Passantino is an alumnus of Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers, and most recently played at Limpscomb University. This season at Limpscomb, Jeffrey had a 4-3 record with a 3.09 Earned Run Average and 95 strikeouts. During his career at Bishop Verot, he helped lead the Vikings to three straight state title appearances, which included one championship in 2011. It was during this time that he also posted an impressive 22-4 record on the mound. I would like to congratulate Jeffrey for his hard-work, dedication, and leadership on and off the field. I look forward to hearing about his future accomplishments.