David Schweikert

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of Mr. Jesse Hernandez, a close member of our Phoenix community, devoted to his family and spiritual fellowship, and a long-time political activist in Arizona. Jesse not only served as a member of my district staff, serving as Director of Outreach, but he also devoted himself to the Arizona Latino Republican Association, where he served as Chairman and Executive Director. His hard work and commitment to his community truly helped make a difference in the lives of his fellow Arizonans. He served his country proudly in the United States Marine Corps, and we are forever grateful for his sacrifice and service to our nation. Jesse had great love for his family and always supported everyone in their personal journeys to grow and learn. He was a role model and inspiration to his family: Margaret, James, Jessica, and Elvia, as well as his grandchildren. To all who knew Jesse, we shall continue to cherish the memories of his wit, laughter, love of family, friends and faith, and his commitment to the Republican Party. Jesse served unselfishly for the betterment of others. May we continue to honor his memory through our passion and service to our communities.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of Mrs. Leona Johnston, a passionate educator, traveler, and dedicated political activist in Arizona. Leona devoted 30-plus years of her professional life teaching disadvantaged students in South Bend, Indiana, before retiring to Fountain Hills, Arizona, where she was deeply involved in local political activism in her community and throughout our state. She was a member of the Fountain Hills Republican Club, and the club named her ``Republican of the Year 2005''. She was also highly involved with the Arizona Federation of Republican Women, the Paradise Republican Women Club, the National Federation of Republican Women, the Arizona Republican Party, and Dodie Londen. To all who knew Leona, may we continue to cherish the memories of her wit, laughter, story-telling, love of family and friends, and commitment to the Republican Party. Leona served as a role model for political activism to better local communities. May we continue to honor her memory through our passion and service to our communities.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, before comments, this was my first term on the Ways and Means Committee. I will tell you that, both on the Democratic side and the Republican side, is a group of very special Members, having been on other committees, even in moments like this, where we see the world very differently. Everyone is freaky smart, incredibly respectful, and if they could see what goes on in the back where we actually get along, it is a very special committee. But the fact of the matter is we sort of see the world very differently. Have you ever had that moment where you were walking up to the podium and you were going to read something? I was going to originally read the comments from a number of Members, particularly on the other side, who were incredibly critical of the fact that many of these tax cuts expired and now they are complaining that we are extending them. We do have this sort of body where we race to whatever the current argument is. But that would actually be a little hard to do, right after saying such nice things about everyone. So let's actually have a couple of comments on the reality of what we see in the math. Do you remember when the tax bill passed, the math was that we needed a 0.4 percent growth in GDP over 10 years and the tax reform paid for itself? How are we doing so far? We have had, now, multiple revisions upward. Something is working out there in our society when you see more jobs than workers; when you see, in my community, the populations that have had a really rough decade with the growth recession of the last decade, they have jobs. There are good things happening. You would think there would be almost this joy on both the left and the right when you see job training in our Arizona prisons. We actually brought one of the three-time convicted felons to testify in the Ways and Means Committee. It is so hard for this body to actually give a little and say: Look at the great societal things that are happening right now. Also, we have the backup on the math. If we do not have substantial economic growth this decade and next, we can't keep our societal promises. I would like to argue, when we get beyond this, we have the conversation of: What does tax reform do for future economic expansion? Again, yes, we are going to have to talk about a lot of difficult things to keep that economic expansion, but the baseline math--and I know we are only 8, 9 months into the data--it is working. Could we at least have a little sound of joy for what is working?

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Hill for yielding. And to the gentlewoman from Arizona, I thank her for doing this every year. This is one of those moments where you are walking toward the microphone because we just got out of votes in Ways and Means, and you are sort of discussing in your head whether you ultimately tell the personal story. I have two I want to share. My reason for doing this is, if someone is watching, we have someone in our life, and you are having self-destructive thoughts, please, please reach out, get the help, and understand the devastation that happens and the pain that happens when someone takes their life. My two stories. When I very first got elected in the Phoenix- Scottsdale area, one of the very first constituent meetings I had was with a mom. Her son had been part of the Phoenix VA. She always felt that the prescriptions he was given put him into an emotional spiral. They kept trying to get him mental health services. They felt all that he was receiving was more prescriptions and a future date for mental health services. And he took his life. That mother, the pain, the tears, the crushing blow, what the loss of her son's life meant to that family. I believe now, a few years later, the Phoenix VA is better. They have learned a lot, they understand how to be almost a quick reaction force in helping an individual. But we need to make sure these things never happen again. Now for the personal one that I have never told in public. I was born in an unwed mothers' home in L.A. I was adopted. It turns out the gentleman who adopted me had multiple sclerosis. But he was a veteran, and he was receiving his medical treatments from VA. This is a long, long time ago, but this is about the pain that comes when a veteran takes his or her life. Because of the pharmaceuticals he was given, the lack of emotional counseling, and the failure to properly diagnose his disease, he put himself in a car in a garage, turned on the motor, and took his life. That was my dad. Some time later, my mother remarried Mr. Schweikert. I got readopted, and I was blessed to grow up in a wonderful household that had brought me to Arizona. Many years later when I was a young adult, my mom sat me down and told me the story. You could tell there was still that burning hole in her heart of finding her husband, my dad, dead in that car, having taken his own life, believing it was the failure of the very services he was receiving from the VA. Now it is decades later, and I believe we have learned a lot. This body has tried as hard as it can to get their heads around: Are we allowing too many pharmaceuticals to be prescribed? Are we not providing emotional services? Do we need to put resources into having that communal get-together, the quick reaction force? I believe it is getting better. But understand the pain that Mom shared with me when I was first elected about the loss of her son. Even these many, many years later, it is still part of our family's legacy of that pain. If this body can do anything, if we can find ways to make that pain come to an end, then we will have done something very honorable and very powerful. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Hill for yielding to me.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Hill for doing this Special Order. Mr. Speaker, I am going to give you, actually, a slightly different recollection, because I am one of those who, over the years, since almost 1982, had time around John McCain. I want to start with the fact that I have had the pleasure of having John McCain step in when I was running for office and endorse me and help me and do things. And I have had the pleasure of having John McCain step into one of my races to oppose me and work against me. It was always a really interesting experience, because one of the reasons I have never held hostility, and, actually, always really appreciated him, it is something that rarely happens around this body. Someone fusses at you and a couple of hours later calls you and says: Hey, I thought about that. We need to talk it through. I think there is a way we can fix it. Hey, I didn't mean that. To have a U.S. Senator sometimes being frustrated with what you were doing, and then a couple of hours later call you and say: Hey, I am sorry. I was probably a little aggressive on that. I understand. Have you thought about doing it this way? This place never says sorry. This place never sort of has that type of passion. And you heard over and over in the memorials in Phoenix and here at the Capitol discussions of people who were very close with Senator McCain, this sort of discussion of how human he was, how passionate he was. I want to make the argument of someone who knew Senator McCain most of his life and interacted with him in and out throughout that life. It is that humanity, that ability to at one moment put a finger in my chest and fuss at me, and an hour later call me and say: David, how can I help you? I want to help you get something done. Can I help you get this done if you do it this way? That humanity, that passion, is something that desperately is missing around here. We have all become so careful in everything we say and everything we do, because there is always the next moment we are going to get beaten up by someone out in the community, or the press, or those things. Imagine this body if we all were like Senator McCain, where you just sort of let your passion fly. If you went a little too far, you said you were sorry. If it was something worth fighting for, you stood up and you engaged in it. And then, a few minutes later, you went out and had a hamburger with the very people you were debating. Some of that is really missing around here, because we are so far in our camps. I am not sure the public completely understands the power, whether it be on the Democratic side or the Republican side, of when the cameras go off, when the reporters aren't around, when we are walking through the hallways, when we are in the elevator. There is this great humanity around here. I think that humanity was exemplified by my former senior Senator, John McCain.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 1047) resolved, that the House has heard with profound sorrow of the death of the Honorable John Sidney McCain, III, a Senator from the State of Arizona, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life of Lois Fitch who passed away on July 23, 2018. Throughout all of my life, I have known Lois as someone who dedicated herself to helping young people find ways to become more meaningfully engaged in their community. Through her work leading the Teenage Republicans, Lois helped so many individuals find their place in the civics of working to improve our town, state, country, and America's place in the world. Lois epitomized a leader. She was kind and gracious to all. She was encouraging and supportive in helping others find their passions. She was the reason I decided to run for elective office. And, she has inspired me and so many others to serve on all levels of government. This past Sunday I had a chance to visit with Lois in the hospital. As I shared with her then, I will share here in the United States Congress--``Lois, you changed me for the better, and I will forever be grateful for your courage and service.'' May the flag of the United States Capitol fly in full tribute to her.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I will do this really quickly. Being from Arizona, where I have, functionally, 23 Tribes, 21 or 22 reservations, it is surprising how often this becomes a subject and trying to understand how big and complex many of our Tribal communities are. We think our lives are sometimes complex. Imagine having to operate in the world of multiple layers, where you have to deal with State and local, Federal, and then Tribal politics, issues, and those things. I was visiting some of my friends on a Tribal community called Ak- Chin. It was interesting. One of the gentleman there basically said: I am on council. I can't participate in Social Security. But before I was on council, I managed one of the Tribal operations, and there I could participate in Social Security. I know this is sort of a glitch, but this is one of those honorable things where we step up and we create some optionality. Within that optionality, I think we respect Tribal sovereignty, and we are just doing the right thing here.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, just sort of a quick commentary. I want to thank the gentleman from California for his input, his observations. He has been incredibly constructive and paid a lot of attention to protecting his constituents. Those of us from arid areas, we care a lot about this. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck).

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 519, which would provide tax- exempt mutual irrigation companies with more flexibility in respect to funding their operations, maintenance, and improvement of their water infrastructure, especially in drought-stricken areas. Tax-exempt mutual ditch or irrigation companies are important to rural communities and to agriculture. These companies allow farmers, ranchers, and others, including water users and even some urban water users, to collaborate and pool resources to install and maintain vital infrastructure for the delivery of water. To maintain their tax-exempt status, however, mutual ditch or irrigation companies must satisfy Tax Code requirements that the bulk of their income, which is used to fund operations and capital improvements, must be from the shareholders of these irrigation and water delivery districts. H.R. 519 allows these companies to receive other sources of income and still maintain their tax-exempt status. The bill provides that, for the income from other sources to receive this preferential tax treatment, it generally must be used for operations and maintenance to ensure that these funds will be reinvested in irrigation infrastructure systems. This bill would provide mutual irrigation companies with more flexibility with respect to funding their operations and maintaining improvements to their water infrastructure, especially in the drought- stricken areas, and it will facilitate more efficient water allocation in support of these rural economies. This bill also clarifies that governance matters in regard to these mutual ditch or irrigation companies may be arranged as permitted under the State laws. This bill supports local economies, promotes more efficient use of water, helps farmers and ranchers in many arid areas, and actually is just much fairer in how these resources are maintained and the ability to maintain these districts under the understanding of the current Tax Code. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume for a very quick closing. In a previous life, I was the treasurer of Maricopa County. We had 3,300 taxing districts in this county. A substantial number of those taxing districts were actually just these, irrigation and water delivery. Many of them were in the rural parts of my county, but a lot of them, you would be surprised, were actually in the suburban and even some in downtown Phoenix. I have actually had a conversation with a couple of them, one asking if they had an excess water allocation that year, could they actually sell it to the local pond, the little conservation reserve in our riverbed, and those things; and if they did so, if that amount of money exceeded 15 percent of their revenues, would they blow up their tax status. In this case, this legislation would prevent that, but they still have to use that money to constantly improve their infrastructure, therefore, I believe, being more water economical. So this is a good thing for our communities, particularly rural, particularly the uniqueness of those of us in the desert Southwest. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, this week I bid farewell to my longtime Chief of Staff, Oliver Schwab, who served with great heart and commitment in this body for nearly a decade. Since Oliver's announcement on Monday that he would be transitioning his role to pursue new opportunities, I have been moved by hundreds of people who have come up to me to share just how much Oliver's friendship has meant to them. As a mentor, Oliver has been devoted to helping others discover qualities and confidences that they did not always know they possessed. As a mentee, Oliver has sought guidance and perspective with the kind of dedication to lifelong learning that only the finest of others can bestow. Oliver is the best that I have ever seen at helping others work through their needs. Anyone who knows Oliver can attest to his passion for history, love for our country, and work to restore civility to our politics. Oliver began serving as my Chief of Staff in January 2011 after managing my successful 2010 election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Since that time, Oliver has guided an inspired management approach, building one of the best teams on Capitol Hill. Just this year, the Congressional Management Foundation recognized Oliver's efforts by naming our office a finalist for the first-ever Democracy Award highlighting excellence in workplace culture. Oliver's academic focus on behavioral science, talent management, and decision theory has made him one of the most effective practitioners of leadership. I will always be grateful for the manner in which Oliver directed strategy and operations to help me achieve two seats on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee followed by a seat on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee. Additionally, Oliver masterfully directed a member services initiative that enabled me to secure a cardinal seat on the U.S. House Republican Steering Committee. I thank Oliver for the talented hard work and devotion that he has given me, the people of Arizona, and the United States Congress. I am going to miss having him by my side, but I know there are great things in store for him next. Oliver and Ana will always have my support and friendship.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, there is actually some really fun and wonderful things we are seeing out there in the data. As we were also talking about the unemployment numbers, what has also been amazing is, if you look at home prices, if you actually look at savings rates, and if you actually look at a lot of the data that we care about as a society, it is important that we actually embrace and understand we are in what we would refer to as a Goldilocks economy. Madam Speaker, if I had come to, like our previous thought experiment a year ago, and said we would be in this sort of world where the inflation numbers are within the calculation of the Fed targets, where we have more jobs than workers, when we are actually seeing incomes really beginning to rise, when we are actually seeing some first signs of data saying for the first time in decades that income inequality is actually shrinking because there are so many more of our brothers and sisters in the labor force with rising incomes, this would actually be really exciting. I will make the challenge to every Member in Congress: How do we not screw it up? How do we keep that engine going forward? Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko). She has the district right alongside me and she will basically tell the story of what she sees happening on the west side of Maricopa County.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I know I kept him longer than I promised to, but I never get the chance to talk. Madam Speaker, I have appreciated this block of time. I appreciate your patience with us, particularly talking about Arizona, but it is-- you know, we love our State, and we are very, very proud of how far it has come. We are proud of the fact that we are leading much of the Nation in growth--in population growth, economic growth, income growth--and it is, in many ways, our moral goal around here to keep this vitality up for every American. Whether you live in a red State, blue State, whatever you pursue, you should have the ability and the opportunity to pursue that. We want to make the powerful argument that where we have gotten this country to economically right now is pretty darn amazing. Now, can we do even more? Our goal is we are going to even make it better. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I think he is his constituent.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, it is a powerful story.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I ask Congressman Biggs: Those of us who see these numbers, how do we find a way to humanize that discussion? We want to talk about economic vitality and these things, but there is almost this cruelty of you are going to remain unemployed, you are going to remain underemployed, you are going to remain undercompensated, you are not educated well enough to come into the mainstream. We have demonstrated in the last several months that that doesn't have to be the America we live in, that we are seeing individuals who were substantially marginalized in our society finding employment and finding opportunity and finding that economic vitality and growth. We are looking for a way to humanize the story that, it turns out, a robust economy actually is really good for families, for individuals, for your future, for just the individual psyche. And maybe there is an artist out there of language who can help us find an elegant way to say this story. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. In that same vein, it was only a couple of years ago, actually behind these same mikes, that a discussion was had of the sort of concept of people being trapped, trapped in their house because they were underwater, trapped in their job because they didn't have mobility and options. For a State like Arizona, the fact of the matter is that your ability to sell your home and get a job in another State because you are choosing to move to the Southwest is important to our growth. You could actually see that in the migration statistics around the country of how many people, because of the thin employment market, job opportunities, were underwater in their homes. As the job opportunities and our real estate values and the stability of the economy have come back, all of a sudden, you are seeing people have this thing called choice, options, the ability to move around the country, pursue their dreams, pursue those careers, change jobs. I think, actually, that is what the American Dream is supposed to look like. If you have a dream of living in a certain part of the country or pursuing a certain career, you get to do it. You get to do it because the economy is working. Madam Speaker, as we started to talk early on, if you really do love and care for people, take a look at what is happening to the income and employment statistics of so many groups that have been disaffected in our population for the last decade. They had a really rough decade, and they are coming back, their opportunity, their ability to save for their retirement, their future, and their kids. There should be a sense of joy. There should be, actually, sort of a uniform discussion between the right and the left of how we keep it going, because it is not only things I fixate on, of being able to have revenues or being able to cover our unfunded liabilities and our entitlements, but also that ability to have a society that is healthier, that actually the income gaps shrink because there is mobility and growth. Populations that so many of the so-called smart people, the economists, had almost written off as the marginally employable--which is, if you take a step sideways, it is just really cruel. Those people are finding a way to come back into the economic part of our society. I know when the gentleman was in the State legislature, he had worked on a job training program, and now we are actually seeing some really interesting data in Arizona where the employers themselves are saying: We are so desperate for employees, we will do the job training. We will take someone who is not even from our field, and we will train them. It turns out that has been incredibly successful, because you are actually trained not in a job training program over here and then you get trained again for the actual job you have taken, but now you are being trained for that rhythm. I know there has been just tremendous employment growth in the southeast valley. I think it is a type of high-tech CNC machine shop that some friends own in the gentleman's district, and they are talking about even taking in very young people and training them right there on site.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the topic of this Special Order.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, this is actually one of those sort of joyful moments that we finally get a chance to come up here, and we don't very often get to do that. We are going to have a discussion of what is happening in our economy, in our society for both our friends on the left and those of us on the right, the love of people, and the fact that they have opportunity. When you look at the unemployment statistics, when you actually take a look at how many of our brothers and sisters are moving back into the workforce, the income, and the closing of income inequality, there are wonderful things happening out there. The neat thing tonight, we are going to bring a number of Members from different parts of the country, particularly in the West, and we are going to talk about what they are seeing happening in their region. We are going to talk also about a little bit of the data and a handful of fairly interesting things that I am actually excited about. So, first, I yield to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Gianforte) and give him an opportunity to talk about what is happening in his State.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, as we walk through these, there are fun little tidbits to understand. Math is complicated and tax revenues--the fact of the matter is we are only where we are at in the year, so we are not completely done with the fiscal year. But we pulled up, a little while ago, the status from the amount of revenues up until April. So in the 2017 fiscal year, at that April time, we had taken in $456 billion in revenues. Revenues come from lots of different sources, but substantially they are from the economic activity in our Nation, the income tax, corporate tax, payroll taxes, and other things. So it was 456 last year. This year it is $510 billion. So understand that. It is not a complete fiscal year, but as our friend from Montana was just saying, there was such hyperbolic language from some of our friends on the other side that the world was going to come to an end, the fact of the matter is that revenues are blowing the doors off from where we thought they would be. This is a wonderful thing. To tell one of the other stories, I will invite the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton) to tell us what is happening in Colorado. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton).

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. This is one of my favorite stories. About 6 weeks ago, maybe 2 months ago, I believe it was Starbucks that gave the bonus, and I am in my favorite Starbucks. As the gentleman knows, I have a coffee problem and openly admit it. If anyone wants to start a 12-step program, we are holding the meetings at a coffee shop. I walk in. I am not someone you typically would be jumping up and down to see, you know, a fairly conservative Republican Congressman. She looks at me and goes: ``Dude, thank you.'' She had just gotten, I guess, a bonus check from her employer, and she actually understood what it meant monetarily to her. It was one of the neatest conversations I had with this young woman as I am ordering my coffee about how excited she was to have the money and what it meant to her to pay off some bills and just how things were going. That is when it starts to click. That is when it is more than just sitting behind tables with stacks of binders and spreadsheets and analytical reports and feedback loops of what the tax reform is going to do and growing the size of the economy, when it gets down to those individual lives. Look, I often walk around with this app. It is from the Atlanta Federal Reserve. Madam Speaker, if I had come to you even months ago and said: ``The Atlanta Federal Reserve has the calculation for this quarter, at this moment, at a 4.6 percent GDP growth,'' you would have worried about my mental health. It turns out, that is actually what the number is. The odds are that it doesn't stay there, and it is going to go through cycles, but that number is stunning. The bias has been, actually, over 4 in the last handful of data points. I know I am back to speaking like an accountant on steroids, but the fact of the matter is that we have some pretty rough things coming toward us as a society. We are getting older very fast. We have tremendous unfunded liabilities in Medicare. We have issues on Social Security. We will find a way to keep our promises to those folks who have paid into those programs. Turns out, making the math work is a lot easier if you have a society, an economy, that has actually been able to hold economic growth rather than one that has been in the troughs as we were for the previous decade. How do we sort of tell that story to folks who may be on the left or those who are just trying to raise their families or those of us who our constituents are paying attention? This really is that moment where the rising tide raises boats and opportunity for everyone.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I am one of the people who have to actually admit to this, that, often, as Republicans, we sound like accountants on steroids. We are looking at the numbers. We want to do policy by facts and not feelings, because when you do things by feelings, you end up, ultimately, hurting people. When you do it by facts, you actually build something that is sustainable. This is one of the moments where a lot of the economic theories we have talked about, if you would lighten and go to a more rational regulatory model, if you would design a Tax Code that got rid of these incentives to move your profits overseas and pull your expenses into the United States and go to a territorial system where you had the vitality, where capital would flow in, where you actually gave businesses the incentive to actually buy much more efficient capital equipment--because the way you pay people more is we have to get more productive as a society. Yes, some of the barriers we were worried about were: Will folks get this tax benefit and spend it all? Now we have seen some data, which is different than how CBO modeled it. People are paying off debt and other things, so the capital stock in our country is going up. There are just really good things. Right now, we have a labor shortage, and you can see something amazing. Take a look at things like Social Security Disability. A year ago, it had only like a year before the trust fund was empty. Now we are seeing some things that it may be 5, 7, 8 years now, just substantially because we did change some rules, and we tightened up. We also have so many more people paying in and working, and many of our brothers and sisters in the country making a decision saying: ``I could pursue a disability claim, or I could go into the workforce.'' They are going into the workforce. So there are all these tells out there right now. The gentleman sees it in his community. I am blessed to see it in my community. How do we keep it going? Because, it turns out, the economic vitality is a powerful thing for families, their ability to save for their retirement, for their kids' education, for being able to pay off, let's face it, a certain amount of debt that built up over a pretty rough decade, particularly being a State like ours with so many people who are coming to it for opportunity. As the gentleman talks to small businesses, and I talk to small businesses and even big businesses, we have this conversation: How do we keep it going, and how do we keep it going for as long as possible? Those are the policies we are chasing.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, we just finished a visit to the McKesson facility that is on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and they are talking about several hundred additional positions. As we sort of talk about this, we actually had a really neat experience about a month ago. The Arizona correctional system has sort of a pilot program that has been up and running for about a year. So picture this. We are in the Ways and Means room, we are holding a hearing. And sitting on the table before us is the woman who is a friend of ours who is the Central Arizona Homebuilders representative and over here is a gentleman with a very large electrical contracting company. The person sitting in the middle there with tattoos and those sorts of things is, I think, a three-time convicted felon who actually now is making $22 an hour and telling the story of how he had a substance abuse problem and had multiple times fallen back into that lifestyle. This time, he actually said: I am going to give this a try. They set up job training in the prison solely funded by the businesses, because they actually need electricians and carpenters and other things. They did the job training in the prison with a deal that if they finish this program, we will guarantee you a job. It doesn't mean they guarantee they are going to keep you, because you still have got to show up, you have to demonstrate productivity. But think about a world where the economy is so vibrant that businesses are actually going and reaching into our prison communities and doing job training and actually offering employment. I guess my heartbreak is I thought there would be this sense of joy around here in Washington that we have actually passed a level that so many economists just a couple of years ago said we could never reach, this level of economic vitality, where we are actually seeing felons being able to be pulled into society's workforce. We see programs like that in our State that are being creative, because we need those carpenters; we need those plumbers; we need those electricians. He started, I guess, at like $13 an hour. Within a year, he was up to $22, because he was productive, and he showed up to work on time. He had one of the greatest quotes of all time. He says: I am working so many hours, I haven't had a chance to relapse. It turns out maybe there is something to that saying about idle hands.