Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. And reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil while creating good jobs here in America, as opposed to their plan which taxes people on their energy bills and runs jobs to countries like China and India that will emit more carbon for doing the exact same thing we do here. So I yield back.

Mr. SCALISE. Again, what we're talking about here is this is a proposal that just passed out of committee 2 weeks ago, a very detrimental proposal to our Nation's economy, a proposal that threatens our energy security at a time when we've got proposals and solutions that we've presented that actually would allow America to have energy independence. So it is a true debate between the two parties where we have very different views. Their proposal is this cap-and-trade energy tax which, literally, to that senior citizen who is on a fixed income--the President's own budget director, President Obama's own budget director, said this proposal, cap-and-trade energy tax, would add another $1,300 per year to that fixed income senior citizen's electricity bill. Now, I don't know how they're going to go explain that to people, that this is what they're trying to do to them as we're talking about a summer coming up where people want to run their air-conditioning to stay cool. They're going to just tell those people to turn the air-conditioning off. When people start wondering why we're not developing our own natural resources, in my State of Louisiana and in Dr. Fleming's own district, my colleague from Louisiana, the largest natural gas find in the history of our country was found just 3 years ago in Haynesville, enough natural gas to supply all of our country's natural gas needs for 10 years. And then in my colleague from Pennsylvania, Congressman Thompson's district, another find, the Marselles find, which could be even bigger. They're just discovering how big that find is, could be even bigger than the Haynesville find. We've got kinds of natural resources: oil, natural gas, clean coal, not to mention the nuclear capability that Europe and other countries have gone to in large proportions, that we are denying by policy, and they're saying don't use our own natural resources, which then increases dependence on Middle Eastern oil. We're trying to put up a proposal here to say let's use our own natural resources, not send jobs to China and India like cap-and-trade, not raise people's electricity bills. We've got the ability to create our own energy independence and secure our future while creating good jobs, and that's the true difference right now between their cap-and-trade energy tax and our American Energy Solutions Act, which is a very different approach to a comprehensive energy national policy.

Mr. SCALISE. I thank my friend for talking about this issue. This cap-and-trade energy tax, this proposal that this administration and this leadership in Congress has brought forward--you're talking about the Spain study, and Spain is an interesting study because there are other countries that have gone down this road. So there are some good models to look at and see what is cap-and-trade, what has this national energy tax done to other countries, and you go to Europe and see the devastation to their economies. And you look at Spain. They just did a study on the Spain experiment in cap-and-trade, and they came back with some numbers that showed, for every green job they created, they lost 2.2 regular jobs. And what's even more than that is that 9 out of 10 of those new jobs they created were temporary jobs. So, in essence, for every one permanent new job they created with cap-and-trade energy tax, they lost 20 regular permanent jobs in their regular economy. So if you look at what's happening here in the United States with this proposal, this cap-and-trade energy tax, it literally would run-- estimates by the National Association of Manufacturers say that it would run 3 to 4 million jobs, American jobs, run them overseas to countries like China, India, and Brazil that are not going to comply with this. So the real irony is for those people who really do believe that we need to reduce carbon emissions--ultimately we all recognize that carbon emissions have the same effect if they're emitted in the United States or in China. And so the real irony is, if you want to reduce carbon emissions, if you support cap-and-trade, you're going to have an increase in worldwide carbon emissions because the jobs that are done here in the United States, for example, that produce steel, to produce steel in the United States, and that same steel is going to be produced in China, for example. The same steel produced in China will emit four times the amount of carbon that the steel in the United States would emit because we already have tougher environmental regulations in place. So for the people that are trying to use cap-and-trade, this energy tax to reduce carbon emissions, you'll actually have an increase in carbon emissions because the jobs that are in America right now that will go overseas, that we will lose in our economy, the 3 to 4 million jobs we will lose in tough economic times while American consumers actually end up paying over $2,000 or $3,000 a year in their electricity bill, those jobs go to China.

Mr. SCALISE. Ultimately, we need a national energy policy. We don't have that in our country. So you've got very clear differences. The approach that we here that have been talking tonight support is a comprehensive national energy policy that understands that we've got our own national resources like oil, natural gas. We can develop clean coal technology. We can promote more nuclear, and we can use that to fund more solar and wind and other alternative sources of energy, but using our natural resources in America, not shipping jobs overseas like the cap-and-trade energy tax proposal by our colleagues on the Democratic side.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 284 I regret that I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote 284 on ordering the Previous Question on the Rule to provide consideration for H.R. 915-- FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my friend from Illinois on his leadership on this issue as well. As my other colleague said, this is one of those big battles that happens up here in Congress not too often, but at a time when we are facing very difficult times in our economy. We are talking about different things that we can do to get our economy back on track. But for the last few years, a lot of us have been talking about what we need to do to really achieve energy independence, to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, stop sending billions of dollars to countries that don't like us, but also to really promote those alternatives in our own country so that we can get to that next level of generation of new energy sources. So this bill, this cap-and-trade energy tax, comes before us. If you look at President Obama's own budget, President Obama's budget estimates that a cap-and-trade energy tax would generate $646 billion in new taxes on American families--something that would have a devastating impact. The National Association of Manufacturers estimates 3 million to 4 million jobs would be lost. The President's own budget director says average American families would pay thousands of dollars more on their home utility bills. So I think as people look at this, they realize this is the wrong approach. The good news is there is a better way to do this. We filed last year the American Energy Act, a bill to actually promote a comprehensive energy plan to get energy independence in America, but to get it by using our own natural resources; to explore our oil, our natural gas, which we keep finding more reserves throughout the country. Up in Shreveport, Louisiana, we found the largest natural gas reserve in the country's history. So we have got those natural resources in our own country. Unfortunately, a lot of policies here stop us from using them. That could create hundreds of thousands of jobs, generate billions of dollars for our economy, and then you would use that money to promote and find and explore those alternative sources of energy like wind, like solar, to get those online; to encourage more conservation, as people are already doing. But we also need to include clean coal technology and nuclear power. Nuclear is a source that emits no carbon. And so as we have heard from some of these studies, the Spain study is a really good indicator, a country that has gone down this cap-and-trade energy tax road and has realized how devastating it is to their economy. That study that just came out in Spain that said for every green job they created, every permanent green job, they lost over 20 full-time jobs, because even the bulk of the jobs they created were temporary jobs. So for every job they created that was a permanent job, they lost 20 jobs in their economy. And they have realized it was a failure. America surely shouldn't go down that road. That's why we are proposing these alternatives. There is a much better way--a way that we can achieve American energy independence by promoting the alternatives and using our natural resources that we have in this country to create good jobs, keep those jobs here, promote the alternative sources of energy, and reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. What's ironic is over 100 Republicans just 3 weeks ago voted to balance this Federal budget, to balance it. And this is during the cries of many on the other side who were criticizing all the spending that went on. And as they were criticizing the spending, they were raising spending by 10 times what had happened under Republican administrations, not one Democrat voted for that balanced budget amendment that was proposed on the House floor while many of them turned around and voted for the largest budget in the history of the country. I say that because people don't want to hear about the partisan politics. But what many people are being told by this administration, incorrectly, is that there are no alternatives proposed by the other side, and that the Republicans are the Party of ``No.'' They don't propose any alternatives, which is clearly disingenuous because we have proposed many alternatives. They have been the party, not only of ``no'' because they have opposed those alternatives, they have been the party of fiscal recklessness, fiscal irresponsibility, of spending large amounts of money that literally will double our national debt in just 5 years. That's what I think has gotten most Americans frustrated now is that they know what they are doing to take care of their business. They are cutting back, and they are watching this Democrat leadership in Congress and this administration spending record amounts of money, running up the debt and the deficit at record levels, and money at record levels that we know nobody can sustain. So I think when people look, they say, this has only been 100 days. We have already, today, as we stand here, added 20 percent to the national debt, money we can't even get back. The stimulus bill alone added almost $1 trillion of new debt, and we are still seeing some of the wasteful, frivolous spending.

Mr. SCALISE. Will the gentleman yield.

Mr. SCALISE. I sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and for the last 2 weeks we've been having hearings on President Obama's cap-and- trade energy tax. A number of things have come out that Judge Carter and that you've mentioned that are very frightening that have not been conveyed to the American people, in fact, go directly against President Obama's pledge there that people making less than $250,000 would pay no new taxes. The President's own budget, again, a record budget, the largest in the history of our country, a bill that passed this House today, his budget has a line item in it that allocates $646 billion that would come in the form of new taxes from this cap-and-trade energy tax. Now, that is a tax on energy that every American family uses. A few of the things that have come out in committee that have not been denied by anybody: Number one, the President's own budget director just a year ago was testifying before Congress, when he was the head of the Congressional Budget Office, he said this cap-and-trade scheme would roughly add $1,300 per year more to every American family's energy bill, their utility bill. That's a low estimate. We've had revised numbers that have gone over $3,000 per American family that they would pay in higher energy taxes if this cap-and-trade energy tax passed.

Mr. SCALISE. What you're talking about, and we touched on it a little earlier, over the last few years we've heard a lot of complaints about previous Republican Congresses and the spending. I was definitely one of those people that was not happy with some of that level of spending. In fact, if you look back in 2006, the last Republican Congress that we had, I was not here, but in that 2006 Congress, the deficit, the Federal deficit, was about $160 billion, a number I think that was too high, $160 billion. Today, just 3 years later, with a Democrat Congress and the White House, that deficit went from $160 billion in 2006 to what it is today, $1.9 trillion. So for those of us who had concerns about the deficit 3 years ago that are voting against this reckless spending today, what I think is hypocritical is you hear some people complaining about the spending that went on 3 years ago when it was $160 billion, but yet they're voting for the spending today when it's $1.9 trillion of deficit just this year. So I think the American people are watching all of this. Clearly they were watching it when they took to the streets on April 15 in those TEA parties and said enough is enough. We have got to stop this reckless spending because of what it's going to do to future generations. I have got a 2-year-old daughter, and my daughter, Madison, she's going to be the one, her generation is going to be the one, that's going to have to pay these bills. And those of us that were here voting today, this is my voting card, and this is the card that Members of Congress use to cast their vote. Some people up here think that this is a credit card, that they can just rack up trillions of dollars of debt that the future generations of this country are going to have to pay. That's not responsible. Obviously that's what we are trying to stop.

Mr. SCALISE. You know, when we throw all of these numbers around, obviously the massive amounts of money--and when you talk about trillions of dollars, it's such a large number that it's hard for many to grasp just what that really means. When we talk about the budget, and ultimately you look across this country, we are in tough economic times. Families across this country are actually cutting their budget. They are tightening their belts to live within their means. And I think what frustrates most people is when they look at what's happening in Washington, whether we are talking about hundreds of billions in deficits or trillions in deficits, which, unfortunately, we are in today, they look at these numbers and they say, what's happening up there in Washington when we are tightening our belts, we are cutting back, Washington is actually mushrooming spending. There is a lot of blame to go around. But when you look at what happened just a few weeks ago when the first budget came up for a vote here on this House floor, it didn't get any attention, but there was a balanced budget amendment that was proposed that day. Many of us proposed that amendment and voted for that amendment.

Mr. SCALISE. Congressman Flake from Arizona, when we first had this conversation, and I agreed with him, and really, it's a characterization based on policy. I think in terms of personality, clearly President Obama is one of the more articulate speakers in Presidents that we've had. I think President Reagan still rates up there as probably the top. Unfortunately, I don't think we have had anybody like Reagan since he left office and unfortunately passed away. But in terms of policy--and I think this is really what really matters and that is what the American people are watching--it's this reckless spending. Spending at record levels. A budget that just passed today here on this House floor that all of us opposed but unfortunately passed, the largest budget in the history of our country, a budget that would double the national debt in 5 years, triple the national debt in 10 years. I think if you look at what happened just a few weeks ago with these TEA parties, these taxpayer TEA parties, where hundreds of thousands of people showed up around the country. They weren't necessarily revolting against this President or revolting for a party or against a party. A lot of people really don't understand what happened in the media who were covering the TEA parties. What really happened on that day back on April 15 was people across the country said--maybe some of them voted for the President, some of them voted against--but they said, We're very concerned about the direction of our country because of the reckless spending and borrowing that goes with it and what it would do to our future generations, to our kids and grandkids, where, literally, we will be borrowing this money from China, from India.

Mr. SCALISE. I thank again my friend from Missouri. You know, there are very critical areas of our economic problems that we have proposed alternative solutions to, three in particular I think that are critical to what is happening today that we presented to President Obama. Unfortunately, he hasn't taken them in the first 100 days. Hopefully he will take them in the next 100 days. But if we talk about the overall economy, number one, the banking system, which is still holding back our economy; number two, energy policies, where we still don't have a comprehensive national energy policy; number three . . .

Mr. SCALISE. Well, if you start with the overall economy, one of the biggest things we can do, rather than just massively growing the size of government and adding trillions of dollars to our national debt, we can empower our middle-class families and our small businesses. We presented a bill to do just that, a bill that would actually cut taxes for middle-class families and for small businesses, who create the bulk of our jobs. What some people on the other side have said is, it is the tax cuts that have gotten us into this problem. What they fail to recognize is history. Every time we cut taxes, you can go back to when John F. Kennedy cut taxes or when Ronald Reagan or George Bush cut taxes, revenues to the Federal Government actually increased. What was always wrong was that the Congress spent more money than came in from those tax cuts. So tax cuts clearly have worked. It is the fiscal discipline in Congress that has always failed us. So maintain fiscal discipline, cut the taxes to get the economy back on track, go into the banking system--we had proposed alternatives that would actually get the banks working again.

Mr. SCALISE. The problem is fiscal discipline hasn't been maintained by Congress. For all of the new revenue that came into the Federal Government, Congress always went on to spend even more money. So that is one area you can address. On the banking system, we still have major problems in our banking system, a lot of it created by irresponsible lending by groups like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who gave loans to people with no ability to pay, and they were encouraged by government. We need to end that. On a comprehensive national energy policy, we can actually use our own natural resources, continue drilling for oil, natural gas, cleaning coal up and using nuclear power and take that extra revenue with those millions of jobs we would create and fund the alternative sources of energy, like wind and solar, to get us to that next level of jobs, rather than a cap-and-trade energy tax that would run millions of jobs out of our economy and also raise taxes on American families. So we have presented these alternatives. In the first 100 days, unfortunately, President Obama has not worked with us to embrace any of these ideas, but hopefully that will change as more people become concerned about this record level of record spending.

Mr. SCALISE. Some people stop at F. I actually use a different rating, and I have been asked, How do you rate President Obama's first hundred days? And I've said that I rate President Obama an ``L'' for ``liberal.''

Mr. SCALISE. I thank my friend from Missouri for continuing to host these discussions where we can really talk about the policies, what happens here in Washington, how it affects people across the country. But as we stand here today on the 100th day of President Obama's administration, it's going to become a tradition, as you said, going back to FDR--which there are a lot of ironic similarities to FDR in this administration--but that's when they started measuring Presidents by their first hundred days. A lot of people like doing letter grades for a President's first 100 days.

Mr. SCALISE. Fortunately, it has not. It's in committee still.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, in the next 2 days we will be coming upon the 100 days, first 100 days of President Obama's Presidency, and the last few days we have already started to have some analysis, some discussion on those 100 days, what's happened, how does it compare to prior Presidents? Of course, this is one of those traditions that seems to occur going back to the days of FDR. And I guess it's kind of ironic that a lot of these comparisons go back to FDR, because a lot of things that are happening today in our country have a lot of similarities to what happened back in the 1940s when FDR became President, when our country was in a depression, a depression that lasted for over 8 years. It didn't end until World War II got us out of it. I think one of the things that seems to have symbolized the first 100 days more than anything has been the record levels of spending that's gone on here in Washington. All across our country we are facing tough economic times right now. Families are tightening their belts. Families are dealing with the problems that are existing in our economy, but they are doing it by trying to live within their own means. I think one thing that's really symbolized this first 100 days has been the record levels of spending that's gone on with this new administration to run our country deeper into debt, adding more than 20 percent to the national debt in just the last 2\1/2\ months, and record levels of spending that I think have concerned many people across the country to the point where just a few weeks ago you saw thousands, hundreds of thousands of people taking the streets in these taxpayer TEA parties where people were literally showing up all throughout communities in this country to protest and send a signal. I think that they are frustrated with the record borrowing and spending and taxing, as well as these bailouts that are not working. And so as we look at all of this, I think it hopefully is an indication that we need to pull back and refocus our country on those things that we truly need to take care of to address the problems that our country is facing and act in a fiscally responsible way to address those problems. So I think what we need to talk about now are the ways that the next 100 days can hopefully shape us in a different direction than first 100 days. And as we look at some of these policies, we are debating right now in the Energy and Commerce Committee a major change in our Nation's energy policy. I think our Nation is severely lacking a national energy policy. There are good alternatives that are out there. I am a cosponsor of a bill called the American Energy Act, which takes an all-of-the-above approach to fixing our national energy crisis, and a bill that would actually open up more areas of our own country's natural resources to drilling for oil, for natural gas, for developing clean coal technologies and then using that revenue not only to create good jobs and to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but to fund our ability to transfer into those alternative sources of energy like wind and solar power. But we also need to keep nuclear power as one of the components of a strong national energy policy. On the other side of that, what we are seeing is the presentation of a bill called cap-and-trade. And the cap-and-trade energy tax is nothing short of that, a massive change of energy policy that the President has brought us in the first 100 days that would literally turn over our energy economy in this country to a Wall Street speculative market where companies would be limited in how much carbon they can emit in this country, but then they would have to pay taxes, in essence, on any more production that they would do. Early estimates are this would raise $646 billion in new taxes, but it would saddle every American family in this country. Early estimates by the President's own budget director show that there would be over $1,300 a year more that every American family would pay in their own home energy bills, not in addition to all of the jobs that would be lost. Early estimates by groups like the National Association of Manufacturers show that a cap-and-trade energy tax would literally ship 3 to 4 million jobs out of our country overseas to countries like China, India, Brazil and other nations that would not have the same kind of environmental regulations that we have today. So for people who are concerned about carbon emissions, the cap-and-trade energy tax wouldn't do anything to lower carbon emissions in the world. What it would do is run off a lot of companies in the United States, ship those jobs, millions of jobs out to other countries like China, India, Brazil and others who will emit even more carbon. So it's a very counterproductive strategy from that standpoint but one that has a lot of support by some in Congress. And then hopefully there will be enough of us on this side to not only defeat that bill but then bring our alternative plan, like the American Energy Act, a plan that would put a comprehensive national policy in place to get our economy back on sound footing, but also to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, something that has been a problem for a long time, something that hasn't been addressed by Congress adequately, but one that can be. And so while we are talking about and evaluating these first 100 days, there are a lot of things that we can do to look at how to move us to a better place in our country. And if you will look at what has been happening with the budget, one of the interesting conversations that we hear about is how much debt was run up in prior administrations. Frankly, I was not a supporter of the debt back then. I surely am not a supporter of the debt that's being added to our children and grandchildren right now. And if that debt was bad, which I agree it was, then these proposals, in fact, the President's own budget that's going to be coming up on a vote here on this House floor probably later this week, would double the national debt, double the national debt in just 5\1/2\ years. And so just about a week ago the President had met with some of his economic advisors and his Cabinet, he pulled in his Cabinet and he said, I want you to go out and find--in a $3.5 trillion budget, he called all of his Cabinet members in and gave them the task of cutting $100 million. Now, I think we can all find ways to cut $100 million in the budget. But to bring all your Cabinet members as a task to figure out how to go and cut $100 million, just to equate that to an average American family, that's like a family of four who makes $35,000 saying, let's sit around the table. We have got tough economic times. We need to cut our budget. A family of four making $35,000, if the best they could do is come up with a way to cut $1, that would be the same equivalent of the President's challenge to cut $100 million out of a $3.5 trillion budget. So I don't think any family would be celebrating after they found that $1 amongst all of their expenses, $1 they could cut out of their entire $35,000 budget. That's, so far, the best that this administration has been able to come up with. I think we can do better. I think the American people are challenging us to do better. Some people that are here will talk about ways that we can do better and have some good ideas of their own. Dr. Gingrey from Georgia is one of them, and, Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield to Dr. Gingrey of Georgia.

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Dr. Roe. I would like to have Dr. Gingrey wrap up this hour that we have had a great discussion on health care.

Mr. SCALISE. And reclaiming my time, that is why these policy changes can be so dangerous because they have serious ramifications if they are not done properly. I want to go back for a moment to Dr. Roe before we wrap up with Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. SCALISE. And Dr. Broun, I think the strength of the American system is the fact that the patient and the doctor, the two of them get to decide what their health care decision is going to be, not some outside party, some government bureaucrat like we saw in the stimulus plan where they set up this health care czar, literally a Federal bureaucrat that would be able to interfere with the relationship between the doctor and the patient. Definitely the wrong road to go. That is why I think it is so important that you are bringing up this point. And I will yield for one moment.

Mr. SCALISE. The chart you showed gives us a good indication why we have the physician shortage in this country. It is a crisis in health care, and in part because of not only the high cost of medical education, but then when so many get out, they realize that these types of payment methodologies actually inhibit their ability to make that back and ultimately be able to pay back those student loans. And so these types of programs have very dangerous consequences that we're seeing today. Somebody else that can talk about that is our good friend from Georgia on the east side, as you said, Dr. Broun.

Mr. SCALISE. I appreciate your comments, and hopefully we can hear more from you about the TennCare experiment as well as the other ideas that you've got that make a lot of sense. I yield back for a few moments to Dr. Gingrey, until we go to the other side of Georgia.

Mr. SCALISE. Before our committee just a few weeks ago, Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospital's Secretary, Secretary Levine, was testifying about exactly that problem about a Medicaid-type model being followed and used by Congress to replicate that throughout the country and the devastating impact it would have because, clearly, as you pointed out, there are serious drawbacks from having a Medicaid system. The lack of access to health care physicians is a big disincentive that many consumers would have if they found out that they were being shifted over to a system like Medicaid that's very broken right now, to have that system replicated for the entire country. Again, I appreciate you pointing out these dangers, because before we go down that road, these are important things to lay out. Somebody else that's going to help lay that out is our colleague, a doctor from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.