Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. You know, if you look at what the President said in his speech last week, I and many others were angered by the fact that he spent almost as much time trying to exploit this crisis to promote his cap-and-trade energy tax as he did in talking about the oil spill and how we can battle the oil and keep it out of our marsh. In fact, if he just were doing his job and were focusing on what his responsibility is under the law, then he actually would be focusing exclusively on helping us battle the oil instead of, not only blocking our attempts on the ground, but of then diverting it and trying to exploit it to talk about this cap-and-trade energy tax. Then you go into so many of the other things that are happening on the ground that are causing so much frustration for our local leaders, who should all be not only working with the government to battle the oil, but they should be empowered. They should be given ideas from Federal agencies. Look, I'm for smaller government. Right now, we've got the largest government in the history of our country, but whether you're for bigger government or for smaller government, I think we should all be able to expect competent government. Clearly, we are not getting that now.

Mr. SCALISE. You know, the gentleman is correct about not only the Governor but about the people, who all throughout the gulf coast are jumping up mad because they're seeing this kind of dysfunction, this lack of leadership from the President, every day in different ways, and there is no reason for it. The President is giving speeches, talking about how he is in charge, but any time anything goes wrong, you can't find anybody who is in charge. Nobody takes responsibility. Nobody wants to be held accountable. Yet nobody wants to actually help us solve the problem. You were talking about food. Just Monday, I was in New Orleans. I ate at one of the great restaurants, Drago's, and I was eating my shrimp po-boy. The seafood is still great to eat. Unfortunately, a lot of the seafood beds are closed right now. There are still seafood beds open, and when you can find good seafood, it's still good to eat, and the shrimp po-boy I ate was wonderful. The problem, though, is with some of those seafood beds we've been trying to protect. Just weeks ago, some of those seafood beds had no oil. Today, oil is starting to come in. That's what this whole barrier plan is about--protecting our marshes, our estuaries, and the pelican nesting areas. In some of the other areas that haven't been affected by oil, we are trying to keep the oil out, and so we've come up with a plan. Unfortunately, the Federal Government didn't have a plan. So you would think that they would be working with us to help us implement our plan. In fact, they've been fighting us. It took us over 3 weeks to get the President to finally approve the Governor's plan, but he only approved 25 percent of it. He spoke last week in his national address as if he'd approved the whole plan. There is still 75 percent of that sand barrier plan that has not been approved, so there are still a whole lot of seafood beds and marshes that haven't been protected. Here we had at least 25 percent that we were working with to build up these barriers. Then yesterday the Federal Government comes and shuts it down. Again, this is something we fought for for over 3 weeks, and the Federal Government finally permitted. They were so successful, supposedly, that the President bragged about it on national TV. Then yesterday they just shut it down quietly, but we're not going to let this go by quietly because this is something that is their job, and they're not doing it.

Mr. SCALISE. It was shut down yesterday by the Federal Government. Spoke to our Governor's office about it. They basically said it was a Federal agency that shut them down. I talked to the Federal agency today, and they said they didn't shut them down. We went round and round, and of course they were shut down by the Federal agency. Again, this is a classic problem we have had every day.

Mr. SCALISE. Just directly related to those rigs. Of course, you've got service industries, and you've got restaurants. You've got all of the secondary spending that goes along that you can't even calculate because it's so big. These are high-paying jobs. These are skilled jobs that will leave our country, and some of them are already starting to. Ultimately, if you go back, the President is trying to say this is a fight between safety and jobs. Unfortunately, he probably--or maybe he hasn't even read the recommendations of his own scientists who came up with a report. Right after the explosion on the rig, they asked to have a panel of scientific experts, who were assembled by the President and by the Secretary of the Interior, put together a report. They asked for a 30-day report. Sure enough, this panel of scientists came back with a 30-day report of specific recommendations to increase safety, to make sure you go and you inspect every rig. For the ones that are working, fine, like every other one is, and you allow them to do what they're doing. If there are any problems you find, you address those problems, but you don't shut down an entire industry because one company didn't follow the rules. In fact, the Federal regulator, under President Obama, didn't enforce the laws that were on the books. The recommendation came back and said to look at these safety guidelines we're giving you, but don't shut the industry down. Well, the President conveniently discarded, threw away, the recommendations of the scientific panel, and he recommended the moratorium. They actually pointed out, No, we didn't. You're misstating what we said. They apologized for that, but they still went forward with this moratorium. Then, just yesterday, a Federal judge in New Orleans said, You cannot have this moratorium because it's not based on fact; it's not based on science, and it doesn't help safety. In fact, it could decrease safety. Yet they still continue to ignore the fact that they are throwing away science and are trumping it with politics. They are playing politics with this decision, and they are still going to try to ignore now a ruling of a Federal judge and of their own scientific experts to run 40-plus thousand jobs in Louisiana and over 150,000 good, high-paying jobs in this country to foreign countries and are going to make us more dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

Mr. SCALISE. Well, obviously you've been studying this. I know you, and I have spoken about the problems on the ground, and I appreciate your concern and the interest you have in trying to help us. I wish that the President had that much interest in helping us in the day-to- day problems we're facing. Just the other day I was talking to one of the local fire chiefs who was there on the ground after Katrina, who is there on the ground right now battling the oil, and he said that the level of government dysfunction is higher today--more dysfunction today--than it was during Katrina. A case in point just happened yesterday when this sand barrier plan that our Governor and our entire congressional delegation fought for over 3 weeks to get the President to finally approve. In fact, last week, when the President gave his address to the Nation from the Oval Office, he actually bragged about the fact that he approved this sand barrier plan. Well, yesterday the Federal Government shut it down.

Mr. SCALISE. No. Another thing that needs to happen is you need to have a real clear command structure on the ground where decisions are made quickly and decisively; and if things go wrong, there are people you can hold accountable to go fix them. Not to sit around and point fingers, but to get things done. The problem that we continue to have-- and we're over 2 months into this now and there was no excuse for these kinds of delays 3 or 4 days after the rig exploded, but especially 2 months later, when everybody knows how important this is, how much national significance it has not only for the 11 lives lost, for the environmental damage, but now for the economic and energy security issues that are being raised, you would think that this would be the number one priority of this President and he would be focusing all of his resources. And when local leaders have ideas like our local leaders have had ideas, the Federal Government is right there working with them saying, How do we get this done today instead of 3 weeks going by, fighting with the Federal Government to get approval for things that should have been approved on day one, if this was the top focus. And then where the Federal Government is even coming up with ideas. I watched the movie ``Apollo 13,'' and it's an inspiring movie. It's one of those movies you watch if you really want to get your juices boiling. And you can see what American ingenuity is all about. This was a case where the American spirit was alive and well and those NASA folks sat in that room and said, We're not leaving until we get our men back home safely. ``No'' was not going to be an answer and no excuse was going to be accepted. You don't have that same can-do spirit today by the Federal bureaucrats, who continue to block our attempts to protect our marsh, to keep the oil out of those seafood beds, to protect those pelicans and the other wildlife that are threatened every day, when we have ideas to protect them. Again, if they've got a better idea, wonderful. We'd love to hear. Unfortunately, not only did they not have any ideas to help us, but they're spending their time blocking our attempts to save our marsh. And there's no excuse for that.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman for his kind comments. All I've been trying to do is not only represent the people of my district and my State, but also to make sure that the President is meeting his responsibility under the law. And of course under the law in this case, with the Oil Pollution Act, the President himself is responsible for directing the recovery, and the responsible party, BP, is responsible for paying. BP ought to be paying. The problem is the President is allowing BP to still run the show on the ground in too many different areas, which is not his job. And now something that has really added insult to injury is that the President came out a few weeks ago with this ban, this moratorium on offshore drilling across the board, not focusing on finding out what went wrong on that rig, why the Horizon exploded--and we still continue to battle this oil today. In many cases our local leaders tell me, including just yesterday, our local leaders are spending more time fighting the Federal Government than fighting the oil, which is inexcusable, and it's still going on to this day.

Mr. SCALISE. I'd like to thank my friend from Missouri for leading tonight's discussion about the economic problems that we're facing today in our country. And of course, as you showed those comments from Henry Morgenthau, who was the Treasury Secretary under FDR, who in fact not only pointed out the problems of the massive spending back then, but really was kind of prescient because some of the things he talked about back then are still as relevant, if not more, today because he predicted the problems, he discussed the problems of government spending and spending and borrowing and borrowing with no results, and in fact with detrimental results because of the damage it's done. And of course here we are today seeing the results of that same failed policy of history, unfortunately, repeating itself.

Mr. SCALISE. And of course those who are running things right now-- the liberals who are not only in the White House, but here in Congress--have not learned the lesson of history. And there is that saying that if you don't learn from history, then you're doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, we've been trying to prevent history from repeating itself, and yet we're seeing that happen right now. I represent southeast Louisiana, and of course we are battling this devastating oil disaster----

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the legislation to give subpoena powers to the commission. I would hope the commission would be an objective commission that actually looks into and helps us find out just what went wrong because I think we all need to know what went wrong on that rig to lead to the explosion that, unfortunately, took the lives of 11 people and has led to not only this human loss but this environmental loss. I would hope that they would be objective in their deliberations. I think I do have concerns that some of the members appear to maybe come to this with a predisposed outcome. And they would be well served and the country would be well served if they put their political agendas on the side and actually focused on finding out what went wrong and coming up with real recommendations. Now, if we look at the legislation not only here before us but also some of the problems we're dealing with on the ground, we continue to have problems and we seem to be spending more of our time fighting against this administration rather than fighting the oil because we're not getting the leadership we need from the President. Just yesterday, the sand barrier plan brought forward by our Governor that the President himself bragged about helping approve last week was stopped, halted by the Federal Government. Yet again, this kind of administrative red tape is something that's holding us back from properly responding to this disaster. But if you look at what's happening with this ban on drilling in general, Secretary Salazar had initially put a commission together to come up with recommendations. They had a 30-day report that they issued. And these were scientists that were put together on recommendation by the National Academy of Engineers, and they came up with some solid recommendations to improve safety; but they opposed a ban on drilling. Unfortunately, Secretary Salazar set that ruling on the side, set that report on the side, and ignored the reports of scientists and put politics over safety and science and went forward with the ban that yesterday a judge ruled was not legal, not proper. And so as this commission moves forward, I would hope that they would actually follow the rule of law and come up with objective decisions. But I think the Secretary would be well served and the President would be well served to go back to the report that was issued by his own scientific panel that came up with suggestions to improve safety on rigs without shutting down an entire industry. Unfortunately, the President and the Secretary continue to set those kinds of scientific recommendations on the side and allow politics to trump the science by continuing to pursue this ban, even though the judge said that their decision was arbitrary and capricious; that they did not have the legal authority to have a complete ban on drilling. In fact, the scientists recommended and suggested that a complete ban, as this moratorium that's in effect would currently have, would actually decrease safety on rigs. So, again, I would urge the President and the Secretary to go back and read that report and follow the recommendations of his own scientists.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I spent this last Friday on Grand Isle, South Louisiana, which is at the epicenter right now of this battle against the oil which is coming into our marsh. The anger and frustration I heard from official after official on the ground was that they are spending more time fighting the Federal Government and BP than they are fighting the oil. This is unacceptable. It still goes on day after day, 57 days in, and the President continues to refuse to lead on this crisis. He has let BP be the gatekeeper for our local officials who have plans to protect our marsh. Yet they now have to go through BP instead of having the President have a real command structure that holds people accountable. The latest plan by the President is to actually have this ban on offshore drilling that actually punishes everybody--people who haven't done anything wrong and who have much safer records than BP. Now, over 40,000 people are going to be put out of work by the President's arbitrary ban, which actually goes against the recommendations of his own scientific panel. So now he is placing politics in front of science. When is the President going to meet his obligations under the law to lead and to be responsible for the disaster recovery with BP's paying the bill instead of allowing BP to call the shots on the ground?

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Orleans for yielding. This is a sad time for those of us from south Louisiana. It's a sad time especially as we look at what's happening every day as more oil gushes into our marshland, our valuable, fragile ecosystem. But if there is anything that eclipses the sadness we're experiencing on the coast, it's the loss of those 11 lives, the 11 brave men who died on that Horizon rig, and the families that they left behind. So many of those young men left behind young children and wives who now have to cope with the loss and somehow find a way to move on. So our prayers go out to those who lost their lives, and their families who are continuing to experience the tragedy that we're all so sorry for experiencing on the gulf coast. So it's a sad time for all of us on the gulf coast, but we want to give a special pause for those who lost their lives and the young children and spouses that they leave behind.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, it's been a month now, over a month, since oil has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well explosion. And now 2 weeks after our Governor submitted a request to the Federal Government for a plan that we put on the table to protect our marsh from oil coming in, we still have not heard one word from the President, 2 weeks after the request was made. This isn't something that BP can approve; this is something that only requires Federal approval and the Federal Government is standing in the way of our leaders on the ground protecting our marsh. Where is the President? Does he not understand the magnitude of what is probably the worst environmental disaster in the country? And then we get mixed messages from his various Cabinet secretaries who come down and they say, looks like they are satisfied with the coordination going on. They need to come down to New Orleans. The President needs to come down to New Orleans and actually help us and do his job. We are tired of them talking like John Wayne and acting like Pee-wee Herman. It's time to step up.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill dealing with professional education, but I just arrived from New Orleans and landed in D.C. a little while ago, and I am angry. The people back in my State are very angry right now about what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. We have got a crisis right now that is probably the largest environmental disaster in this Nation's history, and we are not getting the adequate response we need from this Federal Government. Now, our governor for over 2 weeks has been asking for the Federal Government to approve a barrier plan to actually protect our marsh from the oil, and we are not getting an answer from the Federal Government. All we are getting is excuses. We have got letters from the Corps of Engineers and others that are saying they need to do studies, they need to look at the environmental impact. Well, the environmental impact is right there in our marsh. Here is a dead pelican from just the other day. We have got oil coming up into our marshes in globs, thick globs, every single day, and we don't have one ounce of action from the President. Now, the law is very clear. The Oil Pollution Act says the President shall ensure effective and immediate removal of discharge. Instead, he is just pointing fingers at everybody. We know BP is responsible for this. Madam Speaker, I understand we are talking about veterans issues, but right now we are talking about the livelihood of the people of the gulf coast whose livelihood is threatened, and all we are asking is the President to fulfill his duties under the law, which he is not doing. We don't need a finger-pointer-in-chief. We need somebody who is going to step up to the plate and actually follow the law, take charge of this and stop not only the oil from flowing, but let our local leaders do what they said they need to do. And they have gotten no response from the White House. They are not getting the help they need. The President has paid a lot of lip-service, but we have had oil coming into our marsh every day now for days. It has been going on for a month now, and all we see is ceding of power to BP. We know they are going to pay the cost, but the President under the law is responsible for actually taking charge. We need a quarterback on the field, like the law says the President is supposed to be. He is not supposed to be the commentator in the booth. So all we are doing is saying we are tired of the excuses, Mr. President. It is time to live up to your obligation under the law. Help us protect our marsh. If you don't have a plan, we do, but you are not letting us implement our plan. Get out of our way and approve our plan. Otherwise, you come up with your own. But this is inexcusable.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill dealing with professional education, but I just arrived from New Orleans and landed in D.C. a little while ago, and I am angry. The people back in my State are very angry right now about what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. We have got a crisis right now that is probably the largest environmental disaster in this Nation's history, and we are not getting the adequate response we need from this Federal Government. Now, our governor for over 2 weeks has been asking for the Federal Government to approve a barrier plan to actually protect our marsh from the oil, and we are not getting an answer from the Federal Government. All we are getting is excuses. We have got letters from the Corps of Engineers and others that are saying they need to do studies, they need to look at the environmental impact. Well, the environmental impact is right there in our marsh. Here is a dead pelican from just the other day. We have got oil coming up into our marshes in globs, thick globs, every single day, and we don't have one ounce of action from the President. Now, the law is very clear. The Oil Pollution Act says the President shall ensure effective and immediate removal of discharge. Instead, he is just pointing fingers at everybody. We know BP is responsible for this. Madam Speaker, I understand we are talking about veterans issues, but right now we are talking about the livelihood of the people of the gulf coast whose livelihood is threatened, and all we are asking is the President to fulfill his duties under the law, which he is not doing. We don't need a finger-pointer-in-chief. We need somebody who is going to step up to the plate and actually follow the law, take charge of this and stop not only the oil from flowing, but let our local leaders do what they said they need to do. And they have gotten no response from the White House. They are not getting the help they need. The President has paid a lot of lip-service, but we have had oil coming into our marsh every day now for days. It has been going on for a month now, and all we see is ceding of power to BP. We know they are going to pay the cost, but the President under the law is responsible for actually taking charge. We need a quarterback on the field, like the law says the President is supposed to be. He is not supposed to be the commentator in the booth. So all we are doing is saying we are tired of the excuses, Mr. President. It is time to live up to your obligation under the law. Help us protect our marsh. If you don't have a plan, we do, but you are not letting us implement our plan. Get out of our way and approve our plan. Otherwise, you come up with your own. But this is inexcusable.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank my colleague and the gentleman from Georgia, and I appreciate you bringing this issue to the forefront because what we're talking about here is responsibility. And Speaker Pelosi, when she took the gavel 3\1/2\ years ago--she's been Speaker for 3\1/2\ years--and they talked about doing things differently. They laid out all kinds of promises. They bashed Republicans for being fiscally irresponsible. And yet all we've seen from Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants who are running this Congress is spending at unprecedented levels. This year a trillion and a half dollars. They're breaking records every day on deficit spending that is being dumped onto the backs of our children and our grandchildren, denying opportunity to the next generation. And yet when you look at what families are doing across this country--these are tough economic times. People are looking to Washington saying, Where are the jobs? Why isn't Washington focused on creating jobs? And we've come up with ideas and solutions that we've put on the table to create jobs, to cut taxes, things that have been proven to work to get the economy back on track, and every time we've been turned away. And yet when families are tightening their belts, they're pulling back. They're cutting their budgets. Our States: in Louisiana, in my State, we've got a Governor right now, our Governor's cutting the budget to balance it. They're going to balance the budget this year even though it's tough economic times, like most States are doing. And like most families are doing. And Washington seems to be the only place where they not only don't get it, but at a time when everybody else is cutting back and tightening their belts to live within their means, Washington's spending out of control in record levels. And now, as you pointed out, they haven't even brought a budget to this House floor for next year. No budget. Haven't even brought a budget. Now, we think they should bring a balanced budget. In fact, we've proposed a balanced budget. They haven't even brought a budget, any budget. Maybe you'd say, well, maybe it's because Congress is so busy dealing with so many important issues and creating jobs and all of these other things. Unfortunately, that's not the case. They brought the government takeover of health care. They had time for that. Something that's going to run millions of jobs out of this country, billions of dollars in new taxes. They brought this cap-and-trade energy tax, a tax that would add thousands of dollars to every family's electricity bill. Just look at today's agenda. My colleague from Georgia, as he points out, they haven't brought the budget. You say, well, maybe that's because there's a lot of things on the agenda other than a budget that is so important. Let's look at some of the votes we took on the House floor today. We named a post office. We congratulated a basketball team. In fact, we even honored a courthouse. Honored a courthouse. That's what was on the agenda of the United States House of Representatives today. And yet they haven't even brought a budget to this floor--not only a balanced budget like we think they should bring, but the President's budget--the only document that's sitting out there. The President's budget doubles the national debt in 5 years. Doubles it. Now, we want to say rein in that spending. Rein it in. Stop this out- of-control spending. They started last year with the stimulus bill, $787 billion of money that we don't have. But they said, Oh, it needs to happen so we don't exceed 8 percent unemployment. Well, today we're sitting at 9.9 percent unemployment. It just keeps going up. Millions more Americans have lost their jobs in the year and a half that President Obama has been President, Speaker Pelosi has been running the House, Harry Reid's running the Senate. They control all of government. And all you see is out-of-control spending, more lost jobs, and hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes. And you wonder why businesses in this country are afraid to hire or afraid to invest, why families are scared to death looking not only at their own pocketbooks, but more concerned with what Washington's doing to deny them, and especially our children and grandchildren, more opportunities. So I think we need to keep this focus up. We need to address this problem. We need to balance our budget. I yield back.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Missouri. And this latest smoking gun that's come out is just yet one more example of why the American people are so angry about what happened with this government takeover of health care, with the way it was rammed through, with all the broken promises. And you can go back to the very beginning when the President was a candidate. He said multiple times all of these hearings would be on C- SPAN so you could actually have transparency and find out what's going on. In fact, none of that transparency happened. None of those meetings were held on C-SPAN. And now we see this document that comes out conveniently just 2 weeks, 3 weeks after the vote that barely passed by three votes that confirms what we were saying, that this would actually raise the costs of health care for most American families at a time when we should be lowering the cost of health care, like our bill did that we filed that actually would have addressed the real problems in health care. But in fact their bill does the opposite, and now it's confirmed that. What I really want to find out is when did the administration know about this report? Was this report produced by CMS, a Federal agency, before the vote and then covered up, literally held under wraps so that this couldn't become public until after the vote, when the American people would once again see that yet another promise by this administration on health care was broken with their government takeover?

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, we just got yet another smoking gun in this latest report by the Obama administration on this government takeover of health care. And the report confirms what many of us said: the bill actually increases spending over $300 billion. With all the new taxes on medical devices, drugs, and insurance, it's going to increase the cost of health care for American families and small businesses. Over $575 billion in cuts to Medicare, they point out, will actually lead to reduced services for Medicare recipients, and in fact 50 percent of all Medicare Advantage participants will lose that health care that they like. The American people are asking us and continue to say, Why isn't Congress focusing on creating jobs? Well, we should be, but Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants just want more government takeovers and more Wall Street bailouts. They are now trying to push this permanent bailout fund of Wall Street, and the American people continue to ask: Where are the jobs? The tone-deaf liberals running this Congress just don't get it.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. History can teach us good lessons and bad lessons. There have been good things that have happened through our history and bad things. And clearly during the depression, that was a bad time in our Nation, but there were telltale signs and things that government did that made things worse that we should be learning from and, unfortunately, the folks running Congress right now haven't learned from. But there's also good things that have happened over the years, just as when President Reagan cut taxes and you just saw this robust economy take off for over 20 years and job creation that no one's ever seen in the world. And yet that is another part of history that's not being followed that we ought to follow. And Congress, over its time, has spent more money than it's taken in, too, and that's another lessen to learn. But I think what's so frustrating to people across the country, they want us to be focusing on creating jobs and getting the economy back on track, and that's something that I want us to focus on, too, but what they've seen is just the opposite--policies like this health care bill that's going to run jobs out and these other policies that you talked about. And now this permanent bank bailout fund that's moving through Congress, it's a top priority of the President, and the American people are saying, once again, Enough already. We don't want any more bailouts. We didn't want the first one. We voted against that first bailout because we knew it would fail, and it failed. And so here the President is again not learning from history but repeating the mistakes of history by trying to create this permanent bailout fund establishing more of this concept of ``too big to fail.''

Mr. SCALISE. The frustrating thing about all of this, and of course there's a saying that if you don't learn from history, then you're doomed to repeat it. And it seems like we're repeating history now. But what's frustrating is, really, starting back in January of last year, over a year ago, what the American people said, what many of us here in Congress said back then was we need to be focusing on creating jobs and getting the economy back on track. And, in fact, there are tried-and- true ways of doing that that have been proven every time they've been tried. And one sure proven way of getting the economy going again is cutting taxes.

Mr. SCALISE. If the gentleman would yield?

Mr. SCALISE. I know President Obama and Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants don't like the concept of cutting taxes. And, in fact, they have got a lot myths going around out there that cutting taxes are what created this problem instead of what we know created the problem, and that is like groups like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac giving loans to people who had no ability to pay. But cutting taxes, if you go back in history, and you can go back to John F. Kennedy. You can go back to Ronald Reagan. When they cut taxes, Federal revenues grew because the economy got going again. People were spending money much wiser than government spends money, but they were spending money to create jobs. And jobs were being created, and the economy got going again because taxes were cut. And those tax cuts yielded in more revenues coming in to the government.

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my friend and colleague from Missouri for leading this hour. And I know we've continued to have this conversation and talked about this months ago, back when the original bill came through to do the stimulus package and, you know, President Obama said that he's got to spend more money to get the economy back on track. And I know you're getting ready to talk about Henry Morgenthau, who was Treasury Secretary under Franklin Roosevelt. And he warned back then that spending and spending money and acquiring more debt doesn't get the economy back on track when you're growing the size of government. And it didn't work then and it's not working now. But of course now we've got this bailout bill, this permanent bailout bill by Chairman Barney Frank, who, as you pointed out, was defending Fannie and Freddie when they helped create this mess, and Chris Dodd. And they've got this bill that creates a permanent bailout fund. And then it also taxes a lot of our banks who didn't have anything to do with creating this problem in the first place. And, in fact, this bill not only will create this permanent bailout fund and will enshrine this whole concept of too big to fail, but it's going to hurt our local banks, the folks that actually played by the rules, that didn't do anything wrong. And now they're going to be at a disadvantage. It's going to be harder for them to give loans to our small businesses and middle class families who are trying to get by, because now they're going to actually create a two-tiered system that favors those big Wall Street fat cats that helped create this problem that are now permanently too big to fail and get a permanent bailout fund at the expense of our local banks who didn't do anything wrong and played by the rules. And so it's really frustrating when you see this bill moving through. And they're trying to call it a reform. Really, all it does is it lets the SEC off the hook for their failures to actually do their jobs as regulators when they let Bernie Madoff off, and they had a Ponzi scheme similarly in south Louisiana by this guy called Stanford. Once again, a report just came out the other day that the SEC knew about this back in the 1990s and did nothing. And the SEC's been derelict in their responsibility so they're going to try to go create some new Federal agency to do the job that the SEC was supposed to do but didn't do. What we ought to do is hold those folks accountable, like the folks at SEC and the folks that propped up Fannie and Freddie that created this mess, instead of trying to blame somebody else and punishing our local banks who didn't do anything wrong, and now making it harder for them to give loans to our small businesses and middle class families.

Mr. SCALISE. And if my friend would yield.

Mr. SCALISE. You're too generous in your praise. I don't think it's much of being an economic whiz as it is being a student of history. And as you were saying, we've studied history. And you don't need to figure out and reinvent the wheel here. Our country has cyclically gone through good times and bad. You know, sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down. A typical recession lasts about 18 months, and our country was in a recession, and it was starting to taper off. And we were in the sevens, 7\1/2\ percent unemployment, which was too high. But the President was saying, you've got to pass that $787 billion stimulus bill or else unemployment might go over 8 percent. Basically, they said unemployment won't go over 8 percent if you pass the bill. And of course we knew that wouldn't work because, as history shows us, it's never worked before. It's only created even more problems. And sure enough, just like history's always shown, and just as we predicted over a year ago, when they spent all of that money growing the size of the Federal Government, not creating jobs in the private sector, it actually created more problems to the point where unemployment is now hovering over 10 percent.