Frank Wolf

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I would like to share with our colleagues a letter I sent yesterday to Secretary Rice regarding the plight of Iraq's struggling Christian community. It is my hope that people of faith throughout the country contact both the incoming and outgoing administrations and urge immediate action to protect this ancient community, some of whom still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, January 8, 2009. Hon. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, Washington, DC. Dear Secretary Rice: Millions around the world just celebrated Christmas. In churches and homes throughout our own country children learned of Mary, Joseph, a census, a stable--of Nazareth and Bethlehem and other far away places. These lands of old that are found throughout the Bible are still home to ancient Christian communities with deep spiritual and cultural roots. In fact, with the exception of Israel, the Bible contains more references to the cities, regions and nations of ancient Iraq than any other country. The patriarch Abraham came from a city in Iraq called Ur. Isaac's bride, came from northwest Iraq. Jacob spent 20 years in Iraq and his sons (the 12 tribes of Israel) were born in northwest Iraq. A remarkable spiritual revival as told in the book of Jonah occurred in Nineveh. The events of the book of Esther took place in Iraq as did the account of Daniel in the Lion's Den. Tragically Iraq's ancient Christian community is facing extinction on this administration's watch. According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Iraq's Christian population has fallen from as many as 1.4 million in 2003 to between 500,000 and 700,000 at present. USCIRF also reports that ``while Christians and other religious minorities represented only approximately 3 percent of the pre-2003 Iraqi population, they constitute approximately 15 and 20 percent of registered Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria, respectively, and Christians account for 35 and 64 percent, respectively, of all registered Iraqi refugees in Lebanon and Turkey.'' It is critical to note, as the figures above indicate, that the violence and intimidation that Iraq's Christians and other ethno-religious communities have faced is targeted. In July 2008, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration & Refugee Services said this about the minority religious communities: ``These groups, whose home has been what is now Iraq for many centuries, are literally being obliterated--not because they are fleeing generalized violence but because they are being specifically and viciously victimized by Islamic extremists and, in some cases, common criminals.'' We need a comprehensive policy or even a point person at the embassy in Baghdad to address the unique situation of these defenseless minorities. An article in Christianity Today by Philip Jenkins described what was happening this way: ``What we are seeing then is the death of one of the world's greatest Christian enterprises.'' I urge you, in your final days as Secretary of State, to take dramatic action on behalf of this hurting population and a good starting point is the recent recommendations put forward by USCIRF. I respectfully request a response from you, rather than the assistant secretary for Legislative Affairs. Best wishes. Sincerely, Frank R. Wolf, Member of Congress.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, on behalf of the entire Virginia Congressional delegation, the people of the 10th District of Virginia, and everyone who uses Washington Dulles International Airport, I want to thank Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters for her efforts in giving final Federal approval to the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. The Department of Transportation signed off on the project committing some $900 million in Federal funds to this project, which has been discussed and in the planning stages for decades. It is gratifying to see this project become a reality and it would not have been possible without Secretary Peters's bold leadership, personal attention, and ability to recognize the critical need for congestion relief in the Dulles corridor.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, we saw yesterday the CBO projection that the Federal budget deficit for this fiscal year, which started in October, will balloon to $1.2 trillion. A member of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, called it ``jaw-dropping.'' And our budget chairman, John Spratt, said he got ``sticker shock.'' President-elect Obama has predicted that ``potentially we've got trillion dollar deficits for years to come.'' President-elect Obama then said, ``if we do nothing, then we will continue to see red ink as far as the eye can see.'' Most Members know that our country is facing a critical crisis, and if we fail to find solutions that will halt a mortgaging of our children and grandchildren's future, I seriously consider and believe the 111th Congress will really go down as a failed Congress. We have an opportunity at hand to deal with this issue, and we need to do it in a bipartisan way. There's a bipartisan plan on the table that Congressman Cooper of Tennessee and I have, called the Cooper-Wolf SAFE Commission, that sets up a bipartisan panel to put every spending program and tax policy on the table and require this institution that has avoided its responsibility to vote it on up or down. Today's Washington Post, in this editorial which I will submit for the Record, talked about our effort and the tough decisions that Congress faces. The editorial said, ``Ideally, Congress could make the necessary hard choices through the normal legislative process. Its repeated failure to do so, however, may necessitate a commission to recommend reforms for the House and Senate to accept or reject.'' Amen. The Post is right. Unless we do the Cooper-Wolf concept of a commission, this Congress will not deal with the issue. And if we don't do it now, both parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, will have failed the American people, and both parties will have to explain to the American people their failure to act in the best interest of future generations. Others have spoken out. Ben Bernanke, Fed Chairman said, ``The quality of the future that we will endow to our children and our grandchildren will depend in important measure on how we rise to the occasion.'' David Broder, a respected columnist for The Washington Post said, ``The need for such a bipartisan approach (to examine the future of entitlement programs) is evident.'' Robert Samuelson, Washington Post columnist, Newsweek said, ``What would distinguish this commission from its many predecessors is that Congress would have to vote on its recommendations.'' David Brooks, from the New York Times, said ``The Commission would come up with a plan to restore fiscal balance, and the plan would immediately go to Congress for an up-or-down vote.'' John Snow, the 73rd Treasury Secretary, said, ``I agree that because of the huge debt overhang we face a looming financial crisis and I know of no better approach than the SAFE Commission idea.'' Editorials from the Richmond Times Dispatch said, ``The Cooper-Wolf bill would give the commission some teeth by requiring Congress to take an up-or-down vote on the recommendations of the 16-member bipartisan panel.'' The Washington Times said, ``Two rays of bipartisan sunlight appear to be trying to shine through the clouds casting dark shadows on the Nation's long-term fiscal horizon. The two rays of bipartisanship sunshine take the form of legislative proposals working their way through the House and the Senate.'' And there were many others. Policy groups across the political spectrum, including the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the Concord Coalition and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget also have embraced the SAFE Commission. Make no mistake. This could well be the hardest economic issue our Nation will ever be faced with, but we cannot afford to wait. I will end with a statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a Lutheran pastor who stood up to the Nazis and was executed, hung in Flossenberg Prison when the artillery was coming, the western ally artillery was coming to liberate Germany. He was hung by the Nazis. Here's what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, and I think he was exactly right when he said, ``The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.'' Will this Congress, will this 111th Congress meet the Dietrich Bonhoeffer test? I don't know. But I'm going to do everything I can, offer amendments on the floor, amendments in committee, to see that this Congress is forced to deal with this issue so that we can honestly say to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we have tried and done whereby we, however, are a moral society, and we have left a good environment and society for our children. [From the The Washington Post, Jan. 8, 2009] Years To Come ``FISCAL SPACE'' is an economist's term for a country's capacity to borrow and spend its way out of recession without risking exorbitant interest rates and inflation later on. Generally speaking, the more public debt a country already has as a share of its economy, the less new debt it can take on. As President-elect Barack Obama and Congress contemplate a fiscal stimulus package that could total hundreds of billions of dollars, they still have some fiscal space to work with. At $6.3 trillion, the publicly held national debt is about 45 percent of the $14 trillion economy--not much above the post- World War II average debt-to-GDP ratio of 43 percent. But the space is shrinking rapidly. According to new figures from the Congressional Budget Office, federal debt is rising at the fastest rate since World War II. It is estimated at $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2009, or 8 percent of gross domestic product. This stunning number reflects both the direct effect of the recession on tax revenue and spending and the high cost of measures taken to combat the downturn, such as the financial sector bailout. And it is likely to be matched or exceeded when the Obama stimulus plan kicks in. Mr. Obama was just leveling with the American people when he noted yesterday that the country faces `` trillion-dollar deficits for years to come'' unless policymakers ``make a change in the way that Washington does business.'' The question, of course, is how to change. Though Mr. Obama's appointment of an efficiency-minded chief performance officer sent a useful signal, the real answers are legislative. The stimulus package must not bloat the government's permanent financial commitments. According to a recently published International Monetary Fund paper, appropriate measures include increased transfers or temporary tax cuts to consumers at the bottom and middle of the income scale; aid to state and local governments; and repairs and improvements (especially energy-saving ones) to existing infrastructure. The IMF recommends against increasing the federal payroll, cutting corporate tax rates or letting companies deduct their recent losses against past years' profits. The stimulus plan should include a plan for offsetting spending cuts and revenue increases once the economy recovers. Over the long run, investors will finance the U.S. government at reasonable rates only if it tackles its huge unfunded health-care and pension commitments. Unchecked, the cost of providing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to 77 million retiring baby boomers could push the debt-to-GDP ratio up to nearly 300 percent by 2005, according to a December 2007 CBO report. Ideally, Congress would make the necessary hard choices through the normal legislative process. Its repeated failure to do so, however, may necessitate a commission to recommend reforms for the House and Senate to accept or reject. Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) have offered proposals for such a panel. Hard as it is, jumpstarting the U.S. economy will be easy compared with securing its financial future. But Mr. Obama and the Congress must do both.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Presidential Library Donation Reform Act. I have long been troubled by the fact that fund-raising for Presidential libraries is completely unregulated and therefore ripe for corruption. By making information about donations publicly accessible--including the amount, date of the contribution and the name of the contributor-- through a free, searchable, database managed by National Archives, we take an important first step toward the accountability due these national landmarks. However, I do not think that this legislation goes far enough as it does not limit donations in any way, it only discloses them. While the majority of people who contribute to Presidential libraries do so for the right reason, there are some who do not, including those who do not share our national interests. In fact, while donations to Presidential election campaigns are limited in amount, and restricted altogether from foreign governments, amazingly, foreign individuals and foreign corporations can donate to Presidential libraries even when the President is still in office. In November I wrote to President Bush urging him not to accept any money from the Chinese government to help fund his Presidential library. I did not want his library to be tainted by contributions from a government with such a deplorable human rights record. I am similarly concerned by the $41 million that former President Clinton's foundation has collected from foreign nations including the likes of Saudi Arabia, which is widely known to promote the radical Wahhabi interpretation of Islam within its own borders and in schools and madrassas around the world. Transparency in government builds accountability. And accountability is good for our democracy. It is long overdue for the American public to know who is contributing to these libraries, and how much, especially when it involves sitting Presidents. This legislation will help--but we must do more.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I have never been more concerned about the short-term and the long-term budget shortfalls we face as a Nation. Yesterday, President-elect Obama said we have trillion-dollar deficits for years to come even with the economic recovery we're working on. Whatever stimulus package, rumored to top $700 billion, is brought to the House floor for a vote, Congress has an historic opportunity to work in a bipartisan way. There is a plan already on the table that has garnered the support of over 100 Members of the House. It is the bipartisan plan that Congressman Cooper and I have that puts every spending program on the table and that sets up a bipartisan commission of eight Republicans and eight Democrats. If this Congress does not pass this, then no Member ought to be able to go home and give the traditional Rotary speeches about how concerned they are for your children and for your grandchildren of the country. The real issue is, with trillion-dollar deficits, if we don't deal with the entitlement issues, we will fail.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I have been concerned about the financial future of our country for some time and in 2006 introduced a bill to set up a national commission to review our Nation's long-term economy, including mandatory entitlement spending, discretionary spending and tax policy. It is bipartisan. We have well over 100 members from both sides of the aisle. The bipartisan Cooper-Wolf SAFE proposal was similar to the commission proposal by Senator Conrad and Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, would be bipartisan and a way to review entitlement spending and force the Congress to act. The commission has over 100 cosponsors during the last Congress. We've all read, Mr. Speaker, the stark figures of the 2008 Financial Report of the Federal Government. Even more telling is, during the month of October and November, for the first 2 months of this fiscal year, the Federal Government piled up $401 billion in red ink, and we're on a pace to surpass the fiscal year 2008 deficit of 455; in 2 months almost we're going to rival that. And yesterday, President-elect Obama predicted a $1 trillion deficit, he said, ``for years to come.'' Now, does anybody really care? It just seems that this institution continues to go and do what it's done in the past. In the past few days, numerous sources have reported that the economic stimulus is expected to cost $675 billion, and some are saying up to $1 trillion. Mr. Speaker, whatever package is voted on, Congress has the obligation to their children and their grandchildren and to their constituents to find a bipartisan way to address the Nation's looming financial crisis by including a mechanism to deal with the underlying problem, what is now on auto-pilot spending. If we don't do this in this Congress when we're doing the stimulus, I think both political parties in this Congress, the 111th Congress, will go down as the Congress that refused to deal with the fundamental issues that are facing this country. There's the Simon and Garfunkel song, The Boxer, that says ``Man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.'' This Congress disregards the overwhelming debt that we have faced in this Nation. I have here, Mr. Speaker, a bill issued by the Federal Reserve of Zimbabwe in July of last year. It's $100 billion. $100 billion. It won't even buy a loaf of bread. Is this the future of our country? And if this Congress, and let me just say to my colleagues on this side, if our party doesn't deal with this issue, and they don't deal with this issue then, frankly, this Congress will go down in Congress' history as the Congress that's neglected to deal with these fundamental issues. So many say, why a short-term stimulus simultaneously with this? Well, it takes two legs to walk. If we can demonstrate that we are dealing with the entitlement issue now, that may very well get whatever short-term thing we're going to do to demonstrate that we have the commitment to make it work. Isabel Sawhill, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, has likened the situation in our country, she said, to ``termites in the woodwork, slowly eroding our strength as a nation.'' I recently read a speech by Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; it's called Storms on the Horizon. It's a sobering account from a monetary policy point of view of why deficits matter. And it is frightening. I put it in the Congressional Record every day. I would hope Members of Congress could read it. But what he said is doing deficit math is a sobering exercise. It becomes an outright painful one when you apply your calculator to long- term fiscal challenge posed by entitlement programs. Then he goes on to say that we are facing catastrophic conditions. Our children, our grandchildren, our constituents are facing a catastrophic condition if we don't act. Some people say we need regular order. Frankly, if we don't do this in a bipartisan way, 8 Republicans, 8 Democrats, similar to what we did on the Iraq Study Group, frankly, I think this Congress will not have the courage, the foresight, the ability to vote on these issues to deal with it. So what we are saying is a massive package up-or-down vote, 8 Republicans, 8 Democrats, this bill was drafted by the Heritage Foundation, by the Brookings Institution, supported by David Walker, supported by David Broder, by David Brooks, by economists all over the country, and then it uses the language that is in the Base Closing Commission that requires, because if you don't require this institution to act it will not act. It will find all the reasons it can to neglect it. It will require it to act in 60 days. So I say to my colleagues on this side, if we're going to deal with this stimulus, we'd better have our own ideas and put up for a proposal, which I will do unless I'm tied and gagged, I will offer a motion here to force us to vote on this. And I say for the other side, I ask you to do the same thing so we could come together in a bipartisan way so when we leave this Congress we know that we have truly dealt with the entitlement issue and saved America for our children and our grandchildren and future generations.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I have never been more concerned about the short- and long-term budget shortfalls we face as a Nation. We must work to address these issues simultaneously in a bipartisan way. Last October the Washington Post reported that China had replaced Japan as the United States' largest creditor, increasing its holding by 42 percent over the past year. On December 15, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released the ``FY 2008 Financial Report of the Federal Government.'' Not only is America facing a projected $1 trillion in deficit spending for this fiscal year, there is now $56 trillion in unfunded mandates through Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, a number which will only continue to grow and has increased by $3 trillion in the last year alone. Funding the deficit means that U.S. must attract approximately $2 billion a day from foreign countries or risk a drop in the value of the dollar. I believe that this is an economic, moral, and generational issue. Is it right for one generation to live very well knowing that its debts will be left to be paid by their children and grandchildren? In the past few days numerous sources have reported that the economic stimulus bill on the agenda of the soon to be Obama administration is expected to cost between $675 billion and $775 billion. Other reports say it could expand to as much as $1 trillion. Whatever package is passed, Congress has a historic opportunity to work in a bipartisan way to address the Nation's looming financial crisis by including a mechanism to deal with the underlying problem of autopilot spending. The bipartisan SAFE Commission I introduced with Rep. Jim Cooper in the 110th Congress would create a national commission to review entitlements with everything--including tax policy--on the table. This idea garnered the support of over 100 members during the 110th Congress. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad and ranking member Judd Gregg introduced similar legislation, which has also gained momentum. The time is now. I share with our colleagues a speech by Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. ``Storms on the Horizon'' is a sobering account from a monetary policymaker's point of view on why deficits matter. Mr. Fisher calls the mathematics of doing nothing to change the long-term outlook for entitlements, ``nothing short of catastrophic.'' The 111th Congress will have on its watch this unfolding reality. What will we do to make a difference for our country's--and our children's and grandchildren's--future? Storms on the Horizon: Remarks Before the Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco, California, May 28, 2008 (By Richard W. Fisher) Thank you, Bruce [Ericson]. I am honored to be here this evening and am grateful for the invitation to speak to the Commonwealth Club of California. Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, two of Ben Bernanke's linear ancestors as chairmen of the Federal Reserve, have been in the news quite a bit lately. Yet, we rarely hear about William McChesney Martin, a magnificent public servant who was Fed chairman during five presidencies and to this day holds the record for the longest tenure: 19 years. Chairman Martin had a way with words. And he had a twinkle in his eye. It was Bill Martin who wisely and succinctly defined the Federal Reserve as having the unenviable task ``to take away the punchbowl just as the party gets going.'' He did himself one up when he received the Alfalfa Club's nomination for the presidency of the United States. I suspect many here tonight have been to the annual Alfalfa dinner. It is one of the great institutions in Washington, D.C. Once a year, it holds a dinner devoted solely to poking fun at the political pretensions of the day. Tongue firmly in cheek, the club nominates a candidate to run for the presidency on the Alfalfa Party ticket. Of course, none of them ever win. Nominees are thenceforth known for evermore as members of the Stassen Society, named for Harold Stassen, who ran for president nine times and lost every time, then ran a tenth time on the Alfalfa ticket and lost again. The motto of the group is Veni, Vidi, Defici--``I came, I saw, I lost.'' Bill Martin was nominated to run and lose on the Alfalfa Party ticket in 1966, while serving as Fed chairman during Lyndon Johnson's term. In his acceptance speech, he announced that, given his proclivities as a central banker, he would take his cues from the German philosopher Goethe, ``who said that people could endure anything except continual prosperity.'' Therefore, Martin declared, he would adopt a platform proclaiming that as a president he planned to ``make life endurable again by stamping out prosperity.'' ``I shall conduct the administration of the country,'' he said, ``exactly as I have so successfully conducted the affairs of the Federal Reserve. To that end, I shall assemble the best brains that can be found . . . ask their advice on all matters . . . and completely confound them by following all their conflicting counsel.'' It is true, Bruce, that as you said in your introduction, I am one of the 17 people who participate in Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) deliberations and provide Ben Bernanke with ``conflicting counsel'' as the committee cobbles together a monetary policy that seeks to promote America's economic prosperity, Goethe to the contrary. But tonight I speak for neither the committee, nor the chairman, nor any of the other good people that serve the Federal Reserve System. I speak solely in my own capacity. I want to speak to you tonight about an economic problem that we must soon confront or else risk losing our primacy as the world's most powerful and dynamic economy. Forty-three years ago this Sunday, Bill Martin delivered a commencement address to Columbia University that was far more sober than his Alfalfa Club speech. The opening lines of that Columbia address were as follows: ``When economic prospects are at their brightest, the dangers of complacency and recklessness are greatest. As our prosperity proceeds on its record-breaking path, it behooves every one of us to scan the horizon of our national and international economy for danger signals so as to be ready for any storm.'' Today, our fellow citizens and financial markets are paying the price for falling victim to the complacency and recklessness Martin warned against. Few scanned the horizon for trouble brewing as we proceeded along a path of unparalleled prosperity fueled by an unsustainable housing bubble and unbridled credit markets. Armchair or Monday morning quarterbacks will long debate whether the Fed could have/should have/would have taken away the punchbowl that lubricated that blowout party. I have given my opinion on that matter elsewhere and won't go near that subject tonight. What counts now is what we have done more recently and where we go from here. Whatever the sins of omission or commission committed by our predecessors, the Bernanke FOMC's objective is to use a new set of tools to calm the tempest in the credit markets to get them back to functioning in a more orderly fashion. We trust that the various term credit facilities we have recently introduced are helping restore confidence while the credit markets undertake self-corrective initiatives and lawmakers consider new regulatory schemes. I am also not going to engage in a discussion of present monetary policy tonight, except to say that if inflationary developments and, more important, inflation expectations, continue to worsen, I would expect a change of course in monetary policy to occur sooner rather than later, even in the face of an anemic economic scenario. Inflation is the most insidious enemy of capitalism. No central banker can countenance it, not least the men and women of the Federal Reserve. Tonight, I want to talk about a different matter. In keeping with Bill Martin's advice, I have been scanning the horizon for danger signals even as we continue working to recover from the recent turmoil. In the distance, I see a frightful storm brewing in the form of untethered government debt. I choose the words--``frightful storm''--deliberately to avoid hyperbole. Unless we take steps to deal with it, the long-term fiscal situation of the federal government will be unimaginably more devastating to our economic prosperity than the subprime debacle and the recent debauching of credit markets that we are now working so hard to correct. You might wonder why a central banker would be concerned with fiscal matters. Fiscal policy is, after all, the responsibility of the Congress, not the Federal Reserve. Congress, and Congress alone, has the power to tax and spend. From this monetary policymaker's point of view, though, deficits matter for what we do at the Fed. There are many reasons why. Economists have found that structural deficits raise long-run interest rates, complicating the Fed's dual mandate to develop a monetary policy that promotes sustainable, noninflationary growth. The even more disturbing dark and dirty secret about deficits--especially when they careen out of control--is that they create political pressure on central bankers to adopt looser monetary policy down the road. I will return to that shortly. First, let me give you the unvarnished facts of our Nation's fiscal predicament. Eight years ago, our federal budget, crafted by a Democratic president and enacted by a Republican Congress, produced a fiscal surplus of $236 billion, the first surplus in almost 40 years and the highest nominal-dollar surplus in American history. While the Fed is scrupulously nonpartisan and nonpolitical, I mention this to emphasize that the deficit/debt issue knows no party and can be solved only by both parties working together. For a brief time, with surpluses projected into the future as far as the eye could see, economists and policymakers alike began to contemplate a bucolic future in which interest payments would form an ever- declining share of federal outlays, a future where Treasury bonds and debt-ceiling legislation would become dusty relics of a long-forgotten past. The Fed even had concerns about how open market operations would be conducted in a marketplace short of Treasury debt. That utopian scenario did not last for long. Over the next 7 years, federal spending grew at a 6.2 percent nominal annual rate while receipts grew at only 3.5 percent. Of course, certain areas of government, like national defense, had to spend more in the wake of 9/11. But nondefense discretionary spending actually rose 6.4 percent annually during this timeframe. outpacing the growth in total expenditures. Deficits soon returned, reaching an expected $410 billion for 2008--a $600 billion swing from where we were just 8 years ago. This $410 billion estimate, by the way, was made before the recently passed farm bill and supplemental defense appropriation and without considering a proposed patch for the Alternative Minimum Tax--all measures that will lead to a further ballooning of government deficits. In keeping with the tradition of rosy scenarios, official budget projections suggest this deficit will be relatively short-lived. They almost always do. According to the official calculus, following a second $400-billion-plus deficit in 2009, the red ink should fall to $160 billion in 2010 and $95 billion in 2011, and then the budget swings to a $48 billion surplus in 2012. If you do the math, however, you might be forgiven for sensing that these felicitous projections look a tad dodgy. To reach the projected 2012 surplus, outlays are assumed to rise at a 2.4 percent nominal annual rate over the next 4 years--less than half as fast as they rose the previous 7 years. Revenue is assumed to rise at a 6.7 percent nominal annual rate over the next 4 years--almost double the rate of the past 7 years. Using spending and revenue growth rates that have actually prevailed in recent years, the 2012 surplus quickly evaporates and becomes a deficit, potentially of several hundred billion dollars. Doing deficit math is always a sobering exercise. It becomes an outright painful one when you apply your calculator to the long-run fiscal challenge posed by entitlement programs. Were I not a taciturn central banker, I would say the mathematics of the long-term outlook for entitlements, left unchanged, is nothing short of catastrophic. Typically, critics ranging from the Concord Coalition to Ross Perot begin by wringing their collective hands over the unfunded liabilities of Social Security. A little history gives you a view as to why. Franklin Roosevelt originally conceived a social security system in which individuals would fund their own retirements through payroll-tax contributions. But Congress quickly realized that such a system could not put much money into the pockets of indigent elderly citizens ravaged by the Great Depression. Instead, a pay-as-you-go funding system was embraced, making each generation's retirement the responsibility of its children. Now, fast forward 70 or so years and ask this question: What is the mathematical predicament of Social Security today? Answer: The amount of money the Social Security system would need today to cover all unfunded liabilities from now on--what fiscal economists call the ``infinite horizon discounted value'' of what has already been promised recipients but has no funding mechanism currently in place-- is $13.6 trillion, an amount slightly less than the annual gross domestic product of the United States. Demographics explain why this is so. Birthrates have fallen dramatically, reducing the worker-retiree ratio and leaving today's workers pulling a bigger load than the system designers ever envisioned. Life spans have lengthened without a corresponding increase in the retirement age, leaving retirees in a position to receive benefits far longer than the system designers envisioned. Formulae for benefits and cost-of-living adjustments have also contributed to the growth in unfunded liabilities. The good news is this Social Security shortfall might be manageable. While the issues regarding Social Security reform are complex, it is at least possible to imagine how Congress might find, within a $14 trillion economy, ways to wrestle with a $13 trillion unfunded liability. The bad news is that Social Security is the lesser of our entitlement worries. It is but the tip of the unfunded liability iceberg. The much bigger concern is Medicare, a program established in 1965, the same prosperous year that Bill Martin cautioned his Columbia University audience to be wary of complacency and storms on the horizon. Medicare was a pay-as-you-go program from the very beginning, despite warnings from some congressional leaders-- Wilbur Mills was the most credible of them before he succumbed to the pay-as-you-go wiles of Fanne Foxe, the Argentine Firecracker--who foresaw some of the long-term fiscal issues such a financing system could pose. Unfortunately, they were right. Please sit tight while I walk you through the math of Medicare. As you may know, the program comes in three parts: Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays; Medicare B, which covers doctor visits; and Medicare D, the drug benefit that went into effect just 29 months ago. The infinite- horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A is $34.4 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion. The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion. The total? If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy. Why is the Medicare figure so large? There is a mix of reasons, really. In part, it is due to the same birthrate and life-expectancy issues that affect Social Security. In part, it is due to ever-costlier advances in medical technology and the willingness of Medicare to pay for them. And in part, it is due to expanded benefits--the new drug benefit program's unfunded liability is by itself one-third greater than all of Social Security's. Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent. I want to remind you that I am only talking about the unfunded portions of Social Security and Medicare. It is what the current payment scheme of Social Security payroll taxes, Medicare payroll taxes, membership fees for Medicare B, copays, deductibles and all other revenue currently channeled to our entitlement system will not cover under current rules. These existing revenue streams must remain in place in perpetuity to handle the ``funded'' entitlement liabilities. Reduce or eliminate this income and the unfunded liability grows. Increase benefits and the liability grows as well. Let's say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four--over 25 times the average household's income. Clearly, once-and-for-all contributions would be an unbearable burden. Alternatively, we could address the entitlement shortfall through policy changes that would affect ourselves and future generations. For example, a permanent 68 percent increase in federal income tax revenue-- from individual and corporate taxpayers--would suffice to fully fund our entitlement programs. Or we could instead divert 68 percent of current income-tax revenues from their intended uses to the entitlement system, which would accomplish the same thing. Suppose we decided to tackle the issue solely on the spending side. It turns out that total discretionary spending in the federal budget, if maintained at its current share of GDP in perpetuity, is 3 percent larger than the entitlement shortfall. So all we would have to do to fully fund our Nation's entitlement programs would be to cut discretionary spending by 97 percent. But hold on. That discretionary spending includes defense and national security, education, the environment and many other areas, not just those controversial earmarks that make the evening news. All of them would have to be cut--almost eliminated, really--to tackle this problem through discretionary spending. I hope that gives you some idea of just how large the problem is. And just to drive an important point home, these spending cuts or tax increases would need to be made immediately and maintained in perpetuity to solve the entitlement deficit problem. Discretionary spending would have to be reduced by 97 percent not only for our generation, but for our children and their children and every generation of children to come. And similarly on the taxation side, income tax revenue would have to rise 68 percent and remain that high forever. Remember, though, I said tax revenue, not tax rates. Who knows how much individual and corporate tax rates would have to change to increase revenue by 68 percent? If these possible solutions to the unfunded-liability problem seem draconian, it's because they are draconian. But they do serve to give you a sense of the severity of the problem. To be sure, there are ways to lessen the reliance on any single policy and the burden borne by any particular set of citizens. Most proposals to address long-term entitlement debt, for example, rely on a combination of tax increases, benefit reductions and eligibility changes to find the trillions necessary to safeguard the system over the long term. No combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, though, will change the total burden borne by current and future generations. For the existing unfunded liabilities to be covered in the end, someone must pay $99.2 trillion more or receive $99.2 trillion less than they have been currently promised. This is a cold, hard fact. The decision we must make is whether to shoulder a substantial portion of that burden today or compel future generations to bear its full weight. Now that you are all thoroughly depressed, let me come back to monetary policy and the Fed. It is only natural to cast about for a solution--any solution--to avoid the fiscal pain we know is necessary because we succumbed to complacency and put off dealing with this looming fiscal disaster. Throughout history, many nations, when confronted by sizable debts they were unable or unwilling to repay, have seized upon an apparently painless solution to this dilemma: monetization. Just have the monetary authority run cash off the printing presses until the debt is repaid, the story goes, then promise to be responsible from that point on and hope your sins will be forgiven by God and Milton Friedman and everyone else. We know from centuries of evidence in countless economies, from ancient Rome to today's Zimbabwe, that running the printing press to pay off today's bills leads to much worse problems later on. The inflation that results from the flood of money into the economy turns out to be far worse than the fiscal pain those countries hoped to avoid. Earlier I mentioned the Fed's dual mandate to manage growth and inflation. In the long run, growth cannot be sustained if markets are undermined by inflation. Stable prices go hand in hand with achieving sustainable economic growth. I have said many, many times that inflation is a sinister beast that, if uncaged, devours savings, erodes consumers' purchasing power, decimates returns on capital, undermines the reliability of financial accounting, distracts the attention of corporate management, undercuts employment growth and real wages, and debases the currency. Purging rampant inflation and a debased currency requires administering a harsh medicine. We have been there, and we know the cure that was wrought by the FOMC under Paul Volcker. Even the perception that the Fed is pursuing a cheap-money strategy to accommodate fiscal burdens, should it take root, is a paramount risk to the long-term welfare of the U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve will never let this happen. It is not an option. Ever. Period. The way we resolve these liabilities--and resolve them we must--will affect our own well-being as well as the prospects of future generations and the global economy. Failing to face up to our responsibility will produce the mother of all financial storms. The warning signals have been flashing for years, but we find it easier to ignore them than to take action. Will we take the painful fiscal steps necessary to prevent the storm by reducing and eventually eliminating our fiscal imbalances? That depends on you. I mean ``you'' literally. This situation is of your own creation. When you berate your representatives or senators or presidents for the mess we are in, you are really berating yourself. You elect them. You are the ones who let them get away with burdening your children and grandchildren rather than yourselves with the bill for your entitlement programs. This issue transcends political affiliation. When George Shultz, one of San Francisco's greatest Republican public servants, was director of President Nixon's Office of Management and Budget, he became worried about the amount of money Congress was proposing to spend. After some nights of tossing and turning, he called legendary staffer Sam Cohen into his office. Cohen had a long memory of budget matters and knew every zig and zag of budget history. ``Sam,'' Shultz asked, ``tell me something just between you and me. Is there any difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to spending money?'' Cohen looked at him, furrowed his brow and, after thinking about it, replied, ``Mr. Shultz, there is only one difference: Democrats enjoy it more.'' Yet no one, Democrat or Republican, enjoys placing our children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren in harm's way. No one wants to see the frightful storm of unfunded long-term liabilities destroy our economy or threaten the independence and authority of our central bank or tear our currency asunder. Of late, we have heard many complaints about the weakness of the dollar against the euro and other currencies. It was recently argued in the op-ed pages of the Financial Times that one reason for the demise of the British pound was the need to liquidate England's international reserves to pay off the costs of the Great Wars. In the end, the pound, it was essentially argued, was sunk by the kaiser's army and Hitler's bombs. Right now, we--you and I--are launching fiscal bombs against ourselves. You have it in your power as the electors of our fiscal authorities to prevent this destruction. Please do so.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I share with our colleagues moving remarks that 19-year-old Ti-Anna Wang, a U.S. citizen, delivered at a press conference on the occasion of International Human Rights Day. She had recently returned from China where she visited her father, Dr. Wang Bingzhang, who is serving a life-sentence in a Chinese prison for his pro-democracy activities. His ordeal bears the markings of so many Chinese dissidents who have been robbed of their freedom and endured severe hardship at the hands of their captors. One thing we learned from President Ronald Reagan in his dealings with the Soviet Union is that it both inspires hope in the oppressed and shames the oppressors when we raise the individual cases of political and religious prisoners, like Dr. Wang. I would like to start by thanking everyone here, on behalf of my family, for taking the time to come to this event. Since I started my work in DC, I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by supportive, generous and kind people who are genuinely concerned about my father's case. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in his fight for freedom. More specifically, I would like to thank Dr. Yang, Congressman Wolf, Congressman Smith, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Feinstein for their recent work on my father's case. It is the compassion of everyone here that gives my family hope and reason to believe that the unlikely is possible. I'm here today to tell you about my recent visit with my father just two weeks ago. To give a little background, my father's sentence allows for only one visit a month. Each of these visits last about 30 minutes. The standard procedure is that my family receives a visitation notice in the mail that lets us know the date of the visit. As my whole family lives in North America, we usually have a very short amount of time to make the necessary travel arrangements for a long trip to China. Once there, we have to go through a lengthy authorization process before we are allowed to see him. For my latest visit, I had some difficulties getting my visa as scheduled, and didn't have the proper paperwork, which added a lot of additional stress to this already difficult process. The visit takes place in a bare concrete building that borders the gate of his remote prison, several miles away from the closest city. It is so secluded that we have to be driven there by the prison officials, as some of the terrain in that area has yet to be paved. Right before we can meet, the prison authorities reminds us of the rules and regulations, which include only speaking in Chinese, and staying away from topics that will cause my father anxiety. These visits are conducted in visitation booths and are monitored by four prison officials, two standing behind the each of us. Separated by metal bars and two layers of plexi- glass, my father and I can only communicate using a telephone. I was very nervous about seeing my father this time. It had been over a year since my last visit, and my family had lost contact with him for 2 months without any clear explanations from the prison, so I was worried about the state that my father was in. I was so relieved when I was finally able to see him, cheerful enough to smile. My first concern was his health. My father said that while he is stable, his chronic allergies and sever phlebitis continues to plague him. We talked mostly about my family, my educational future and the work that we are doing on his behalf. As we spoke, it was clear to me that my father's untreated depression and psychological health continues to worsen. He had difficulty making steady eye contact and sometimes repeated the same sentences several times. The prison officials monitoring our conversation were kind enough to allot us an extra 10 minutes. My father wanted me to let everyone know that he is eternally grateful for all the work that has been done on his behalf and that he remains hopeful that justice will prevail. As our conversation came to an end, my father began to cry. He said the thought of never seeing his ailing 87-year-old mother again often brings him to tears and that his only wish is that they will be reunited before it's too late. It has now been over 6 years that my father, now almost 62 years old, lingers alone in prison. I come here today in hopes of conveying the message that my father's situation has become evermore critical and his time is running out. This is my third time I've visited my father, and it is obvious that both his physical and mental health is deteriorating. He has aged so much in the last few years, and his depression is becoming dangerously severe. The prison authorities have told my family that my father's only chance of receiving medical parole is if he admit guilt to the charges of ``terrorism'' and ``espionage''. . .but I know that my father would never, nor does my family want him to confess to claims that are not only false, but that will comprise his dignity and values. As we commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I just want to remind everyone that it is because of my father's unwavering commitment to this cause that he is being so unjustly punished today. As the founder of the Chinese overseas pro-democracy movement, there was nothing harder that my father fought for than the values of human rights, freedom and democracy for the people of his homeland. His contribution to his beliefs has now cost him 6 years of solitary confinement, and possibly his life if we do not continue to fight for his freedom. So I would like to close today by asking the present and new administration to call for my father's immediate release on medical and humanitarian grounds. I also invite everyone here, along with your friends and family to visit www.initiativesforchina.org to sign an online petition addressed to President Hu Jintao, also calling for my father's release. Lastly, I would like to work with congressional leaders toward the goal of obtaining honorary U.S. citizenship for my father as recognition of his lifelong service to democracy and as a statement of America's recommitment to making human rights a priority in its agenda. On behalf of my family, I would like to thank everyone here for coming and for your sincere concern for my father.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize that on November 1, 2008, the Board of Directors of Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, Virginia, celebrated the completion of a $1 million campaign to purchase 183 acres of adjacent land. I was pleased to join in the celebration of this milestone which is an important step toward preserving an essential part of this historic landscape for future generations. The master of ceremonies was Belle Grove Board Member Ambassador James E. Nolan, Jr. During the program, held on the 1797 Manor House's front lawn, James R. Wilkins, Jr. presented the final $10,000 gift for the campaign to Belle Grove's executive director, Elizabeth McClung. The gift was a grant from the James R. Wilkins Foundation, which made the first major contribution to the campaign. The Wilkins family members are descendants of Jost Hite, the first recorded settler in the Shenandoah Valley. The land they helped preserve at Belle Grove was originally owned by Jost Hite in the 18th century. Major Isaac Hite, Jost's grandson, received this land in 1783 on his marriage to Nelly Madison, sister of President James Madison. Here they built their limestone Manor House in 1797, with design assistance from Thomas Jefferson. The plantation grew to 7,500 acres during Major Isaac Hite's lifetime. On October 19, 1864, Belle Grove was at the epicenter of the Civil War Battle of Belle Grove or Cedar Creek. The newly-purchased 183 acres reclaims a portion of the original plantation and Civil War battlefield, and nearly triples the size of the historic site which has been open to the public since 1967. Belle Grove Plantation is both a Virginia and National Historic Landmark, is owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and is the centerpiece of the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park. The following major donors who made the land purchase possible were honored at the event, and a commemorative preservation plaque was dedicated: James R. Wilkins Foundation, Fred and Christine Andreae, Belle Grove, Inc., Byron and Kathleen Kanter Brill, County of Frederick, Virginia, Mr. and Mrs. Carl W. Thompson, The Beirne Carter Foundation, David and Barbara Came, Martha Cook, Nancy Larrick Crosby, Bob and Betty Edwards, Mary C. Ewing, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Mary P. Robinson, Lilburn and Nancy St. Clair Talley, Kathryn Perry Werner, William and Elaine Brandt, Malcolm and Mildred Brumback, Mr. and Mrs. Harry F. Byrd, III, Chemstone Corporation, The Robert Claytor Family, William H. and Jean G. Clement, Joy Holler Costello, Pat and Warren B. French, Jr., The Hite Family Association, Suzanne W. McKown, Charles J. Reeder, Donald and Madeline Stewart, and William S. and Elizabeth W. Talley.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, despite the seemingly heartfelt personal convictions of President Bush, I believe that history will show a legacy of missed opportunities on human rights for this administration--failure to consistently apply their rhetoric; failure to be a tireless advocate for the voiceless. ``From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on Earth has rights, and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and Earth.'' These rousing words were spoken by President Bush at his second inaugural address--a stirring articulation of what is at the core of this ``shining city on a hill'' and a reminder of the hope that is inspired by extending the promise of America's founding to all the oppressed of the world. But in order for our soaring words about freedom, liberty and democracy to ring true to the ears of countless dissidents languishing in prisons the world over, they cannot only be applied to pariah states like Burma and North Korea, but consistently in places like China, Egypt, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia where these virtues are daily under assault. While our national interests are complex and manifold, we can be assured that it always befits a great nation to boldly stand with the forgotten, the oppressed, the silenced and the imprisoned. If not America, then who? And yet, with the State Department, boldness was rare, and in some cases altogether absent. For more than a year during President Bush's second term the critical position of Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the lead human rights position within the United States government, went unfilled. It bears considering what message this sent to dictators and tyrants the world over. Personnel aside, the administration's policy in this area was unpredictable at best. I have binders of letters I sent over the last 8 years to a host of officials throughout the administration, pleading for action on human rights issues and cases. Many went unanswered and those which did garner a reply were rarely satisfactory. In January 2001, after having returned from a trip to Central Africa which included Sudan, I wrote the administration urging the appointment of a high-level, high-profile special envoy for Sudan, who would give the same type of attention to Sudan that Senator Mitchell gave to Northern Ireland. It was the first of many letters I would write with this request including an April 2001 letter in which I joined with a bipartisan group of dozens of Congressional colleagues in again urging the administration to appoint a high-caliber special envoy to address the deteriorating situation in Southern Sudan where over 2.2 million people had died over the previous decade because of the civil war. Eventually in September 2001, the President appointed former Senator John Danforth as special envoy and his leadership was in fact instrumental in securing the Comprehensive Peace Accord thereby bringing the 20-year civil war to end. I remain grateful for the President's leadership in helping to bring about an end to the bloodshed in this tortured country for at least a time. But the Khartoum regime was not finished with its atrocities--they were now pursuing a campaign of terror in Darfur. I wrote President Bush in June 2004 and again in November urging him to take every means necessary to press the United Nations to act quickly to save innocent lives in Darfur. Secretary of State Powell rightly spoke the truth, despite considerable indifference by members of the international community, in calling evil by its name and declaring the atrocities in Sudan genocide. But there was little followthrough. In February of 2005 I again wrote the administration, this time Secretary Rice, urging appointment of a special envoy to focus on Darfur--hopeful that the model utilized in the South might bear similar fruit in Darfur. In April of that same year, against the backdrop of genocide, the CIA flew Sudanese intelligence chief Maj. General Saleh Gosh to Washington for ``consultations on the war on terror.'' Gosh is well-known to be an architect of the genocide. I wrote the administration protesting the visit. While I understand that in the intelligence business it is sometimes unavoidable to deal with unsavory figures, it is hard to conceive of what information he could have provided, here in our Nation's Capital, which could justify our government hosting such a person. Several months later, in October, I wrote Secretary Rice after learning that the government of Sudan had hired Mr. Robert Cabelly, managing director, C/R International, to lobby on its behalf. It was appalling that the State Department had granted the necessary waiver to permit a genocidal government to obtain representation. In July 2006 I again wrote the administration reiterating my request for appointment of a special envoy for Sudan to work to ensure the successful implementation of the CPA and to bring a keen focus to the genocide in Darfur. Other Members of Congress had shown their support for a special envoy by appropriating $250,000 for this office in an Emergency Supplemental bill. With the funding available, and peace in the region hanging in the balance, I believed that a special envoy would send a clear message to Khartoum that the U.S. was committed to the success of the CPA. At long last, in Fall 2006, the President appointed Andrew Natsios as special envoy. An August 2008 New Republic piece had this to say about Sudan: ``No genocide has ever been so thoroughly documented while it was taking place . . . In the case of the genocide in Darfur, ignorance has never been possible.'' In a heartbreaking account in the same piece, William Ezekiel, editor of the Khartoum Monitor, is quoted as having great hope in America's ability to rescue Sudan. In response to a question about the cause of this hope he says, ``Americans? They are not angels. But they are keen enough to save the weak from the oppressors.'' Sadly Mr. Ezekiel's hope in this instance was misplaced. China repeatedly undercut the United States in the U.N. Security Council, and thwarted our attempt to impose sanctions on the genocidal Sudanese government because of their own self-interest--namely energy resources. The China National Petroleum Corp, a state-held entity, has more than a 40 percent stake in Petrodar, a major Sudanese oil consortium. But China's offenses at home are even more staggering-- imprisoned pastors, brutal crackdowns in Tibet, North Koreans refugees forcibly repatriated, reporters silenced--the list goes on and on. In 2006, the administration afforded Chinese President Hu Jintao full military honors at the White House. Hu Jintao first visited Washington in May 2002 as vice president, and summarily refused to accept a letter from four members of Congress raising various human rights concerns and urging China to release political prisoners, including 25 Tibetans, who had been imprisoned during the vice president's tenure as party secretary in Tibet. I was deeply troubled when the so-called ``Butchers of Beijing'' were awarded the honor of hosting the 2008 Olympic Games. I urged the president not to attend the Games, fearing that it would communicate a tacit approval of the Chinese communist government, and would dishearten the countless political dissidents and people of faith who languish behind bars. Once it became clear that the president was set on attending the Games I maintained hope that he would mark his time in China with more than mere sporting events. He could have worshipped with the underground church. He could have given a major speech in China, like President Reagan did at the Danlov Monastery in Moscow during the height of the Cold War, publicly calling on the government to promote religious tolerance. He could have boldly laid a foundation in his words and actions, such that when the Olympic flame was extinguished in Beijing, and the eyes of the world looked elsewhere, the flickering flame of freedom would burn yet more brightly. In fact just weeks before the Games got under way Secretary Rice was in China on official business and failed to publicly even mention the fact that several notable Chinese pastors and activists were arrested during her visit. Instead she limited her public remarks to the topic of preferred Olympic sporting events. And now that the Games have ended, we see once again that China's repression knows no bounds. Just this week, Christianity Today reported that ``Amid post-Olympic shifts in China's attitude toward the West, the government decided that sacred music should disappear'' including the seasonal masterpiece Handel's Messiah. In short, the State Department's relationship with the Chinese government did not help. I shudder to think what the dissident, rotting in prison for 19 years now, for the ``crime'' of marching through Tiananmen Square with a paper mache statue of lady liberty, thought when much of the world, including the United States, spoke glowingly during the Summer Games of how far China had come? What about the peace-loving Buddhist monk who, because he expressed loyalty to the Dalai Lama, is living under house- arrest? Or the Uyghur Muslim mother who had her second child forcibly aborted? What of the Protestant house church leader who lives in fear every time he gathers his flock to disciple them or the Catholic bishop who administers holy communion under government surveillance? What message was communicated to the Falun Gong practitioner in a reeducation camp or the labor activist toiling in the logai who hears that leaders of the free world came to his country for the Olympic Games and failed to raise their plight with the man to whom their captors answer? I have repeatedly been assured that high-ranking U.S. government officials are raising these ``sensitive'' matters privately when they meet with their foreign counterparts. But whispered pleas are not the same as public proclamations. Countless dissidents from Sharansky to Solzhenitsyn can attest to this truth. Their lives in captivity did not improve because President Reagan quietly urged Gorbachev to set them free, but because he publicly shamed them. In Egypt opposition leader Ayman Nour, who was himself inspired by President Bush's call for democracy in Egypt, challenged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 elections and was jailed prior to the election. His wife has tirelessly advocated for his release with inconsistent help from the U.S. Nour's plight is indicative of a confused policy in Egypt and throughout the Middle East which gave occasional lip-service to human rights and freedom and then rarely stood with reformers who dared to answer the call. In 2002, the administration boldly threatened to withhold additional foreign assistance to Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid since 1979, largely because of their imprisonment of pro-democracy activist Saad Ibrahim. This was the first time that any administration linked the human rights of a Middle Eastern country to its eligibility to receive foreign assistance. The efficacy of this approach was apparent when Ibrahim was eventually released. The amount of aid we give Egypt is a powerful means of prompting political reform and protection of vulnerable minorities, like the 9 million Coptic Christians--an ancient community withering under tremendous pressure. But the visionary approach of the early days of the administration quickly faded to business as usual with the U.S. expressing only mild disapproval over Mubarak's February 2006 announcement of the delay of municipal elections and aid continuing unabated. Vietnam is another example, like China, where trade has trumped human rights for the last 8 years. Just this summer, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited the U.S. but the focus of talks with the President was almost solely on economic cooperation with little to no mention of human rights abuses particularly of political dissidents and the Christian minority. Since 2004 Vietnam had been on the Countries of Particular Concern list annually put out by the State Department which names the worst violators of religious freedom. But in 2006, on the eve of the President's visit to Hanoi, Vietnam was removed despite persistent abuse, harassment and detention for those seeking to practice their faith outside of government approved religious organizations. Shortly after the removal the government launched a crackdown. Sadly we had relinquished a major diplomatic tool for bringing about reform. If China is any indication of the future, we would be naive to assume that more trade between our two countries will bring about political reform. The list of missed opportunities goes on and on. The ancient community of Iraqi Christians is on the verge of extinction, Egypt's Bahais continue to be denied basic rights, the people of Tibet are helpless to do anything as their homeland is plundered, a sobering assessment on this International Human Rights Day which marks the 60th anniversary of the U.N. adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Reagan once said, ``To prisoners of conscience throughout the world, take heart; you have not been forgotten. We, your brothers and sisters in God, have made your cause our cause, and we vow never to relent until you have regained the freedom that is your birthright as a child of God.'' A word to my Republican colleagues as our party seeks to once again find its voice in the aftermath of a difficult election year: we must return to the principles at the heart of the Republican Party--the party of Lincoln and Reagan. We must affirm that we stand for the defenseless, champion liberty, confront injustice. In the words of our own party platform let us not forget that, ``the international promotion of human rights reflects our heritage, our values and our national interest.'' And to my Democratic colleagues, specifically President-elect Obama, I pray that the words which rang out on the night of his historic victory will in fact be realized during his administration. He rightly spoke directly to those ``huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the globe,'' and told them that the ``true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.'' I would go a step further. America is never more strong, never more fully America, than when we are seeking to secure these ideals the world over: for the Egyptian opposition leader, the Chinese house church pastor, the Vietnamese reporter, the Darfurian refugee.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I have been concerned about the financial future of our country for some time and in 2006 introduced legislation to set up a national commission to review our nation's long-term economy, including mandatory entitlement spending, discretionary spending and tax policy, and recommend a plan to Congress to get America on a sustainable financial path. During the 110th Congress this bipartisan legislation--the SAFE Commission Act--was reintroduced with Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee. The bill has over 110 bipartisan cosponsors in the House, and similar legislation was introduced in the Senate by Budget Chairman Kent Conrad and ranking member Judd Gregg. In November I wrote to President-elect Obama asking that he consider the SAFE Commission as a bipartisan way to mandate action on this critical issue. Mr. Obama has indicated his willingness to reach across the aisle to find bipartisan solutions. I have always believed that working together in a bipartisan manner is what the American people expect of their elected leaders. That's why I have asked the president- elect to join the effort Congressman Cooper and I have been pushing. I submit a copy of this letter for the Record. The American people are experiencing a crisis of confidence. The SAFE concept has active support from many who have a deep understanding of economic issues, and could help restore America's confidence and get us on the right track. Doing nothing is not an option. The window of opportunity is now. With the mounting short-term federal deficit from the additional spending needed to get our banking system on sound footing, and the growing long-term debt from mandatory spending programs, we have an historic opportunity to address the nation's financial future in a truly bipartisan manner. I am committed to bringing attention to this issue and getting something done. Not only are we facing a projected $1 trillion in deficit spending for this fiscal year, there is now $53 trillion in unfunded mandates through Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which will only continue to grow until we reverse course. As if that amount were not difficult enough to comprehend. it is expected that when the new total is released later this month, it is likely to be over $56 trillion. Over and over again there are warning signs that something is terribly wrong in our economy. You may have read recently that China now tops Japan in U.S. debt holdings, amounting to about 1 out of every 10 American dollars. In my opinion there is no greater wake up call than China--a government who persecutes its own people because of their faith--slowly becoming our banker. This is an economic, moral, and generational issue. I think about sitting on my front porch someday and telling my grandchildren about my days serving in Congress. It isn't right for us to look the other way while out-of-control entitlement spending threatens the way future generations will live. George Washington said that, ``Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.'' I worry that Congress isn't up to its job, and we will allow our children and grandchildren to languish in a political divide. The SAFE Commission process gives us the necessary push to get the job done. We are at the point of no return in our nation's history. We have hard questions to answer. Are we willing to make the sacrifices necessary so that future generations will have even greater opportunities than today? National syndicated columnist Robert Samuelson recently wrote, ``The great project of the next president is to improve the economy's stability without subverting its vitality.'' Make no mistake, autopilot entitlement spending is slowly undermining America as we know it. Isabel Sawhill, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, has likened this situation to ``termites in the woodwork, slowly eroding our strength as a nation.'' Congress must do the right thing for the American people. Support the SAFE effort, and if there are other bipartisan proposals that could pass Congress, let's look at those, too. But we just can't continue the current course.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I have never been more concerned about the short- and long-term budget shortfalls we face as a Nation. These issues must be addressed simultaneously in a bipartisan way. I share with our colleagues the letter I sent today to President- elect Barack Obama, urging him to adopt the SAFE Commission process as a way to provide a path toward a safe and secure economy for generations--a renaissance for America. Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, November 20, 2008. Hon. Barack Obama, Office of the President-elect, Chicago, IL. Dear President-elect Obama: As you prepare to take the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States, I want to congratulate you on your historic election, which has reminded the nation that America is indeed a land of boundless opportunity. I write today because you face enormous challenges of change in building an administration in a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis for the American people. As syndicated columnist Robert Samuelson recently wrote, ``The great project of the next president is to improve the economy's stability without subverting its vitality.'' Recent congressional action aimed at shoring up the nation's financial system and restoring the flow of credit to help folks keep their homes or small businesses, get student loans or car loans, and protect the value in their retirement accounts I believe addresses only a symptom of a far greater financial crisis on the horizon. I voted for the financial rescue plan because I believed that immediate action was critical to restore confidence and stability in the Nation's financial system. I remain deeply concerned, however, not only by the debt burden nearing $11 trillion, but also by the mounting deficit spending, predicted to reach $1 trillion this fiscal year alone. You are inheriting not only a short-term deficit and debt problem, but a looming long-term crisis former Comptroller General David Walker has characterized as ``a financial tsunami that could swamp our ship of state.'' Mr. Walker, of course, is referring to the current $53 trillion in unfunded obligations promised through Medicare, Social Security, and other entitlement programs which have skyrocketed from about one-third of the federal budget in 1965 to nearly two-thirds today. As if that amount were not difficult enough to comprehend, it is expected that when the new total is released in mid-December, it is likely to be over $56 trillion. That means in just a year, spurred by soaring health care costs and retiring baby boomers, our Nation's unfunded commitments have jumped another $3 trillion. It's noteworthy that the obligation of Medicare alone is 50 times the $700 billion rescue bill. I believe both short- and long-term budget shortfalls must be addressed simultaneously. Yet I fear this daunting task is only part of the immense challenges of change our nation faces. I also continue to be alarmed that America is losing its competitive edge in the world economy. Once bustling U.S. cities and towns that were home to industrial and manufacturing bases are shuttered and crumbling. On a drive across the old cast iron bridge linking downtown Trenton, New Jersey, with Morrisville, Pennsylvania, you will read the outdated slogan etched in rusted letters, ``Trenton Makes, the World Takes.'' There was a time when Trenton made the steel used for the world's longest suspension bridges, its cars, and farm tools. But Trenton, like so many other U.S. centers of domestic manufacturing, today is a shell of its past. The slogan today could be, ``The World Makes and America Takes.'' And it's not only America's competitive edge that is dulling. The United States has always been the world's innovation leader, but we graduate half the number of physicists that we did in 1956--before Sputnik spurred America's last ``great awakening'' in science and engineering. I worry that the National Science Foundation reported that in 2004 China and India graduated 950,000 engineers compared to a meager 70,000 in the United States, and one-third to a half of those we graduate with science and engineering degrees are foreign students, and most will return to their home countries rather than applying their skills in the U.S. I worry that U.S. patents are down. I worry that our companies are spending more on tort litigation than on research and development. How will we remain competitive, how will we rebuild our manufacturing base, how will our children compete in the global marketplace with the tsunami of mandatory spending obligations coming closer to our shores and the national debt racing past $10 trillion? As the rate of mandatory spending grows, discretionary spending used to meet the needs and challenges of future generations shrinks. What will we tell our children when we can't afford to pay for a first-class education? Where will we find the money to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and transportation systems? What hope do we provide for American families touched by health care concerns and battling devastating diseases when we don't have funds for medical research to find cures for cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and autism? Not only is this unacceptable, I believe it raises serious moral questions. Is it right for one generation to live very well knowing that its debts are being passed on to its children and grandchildren? Routinely increasing the amount of money the government can borrow without taking any action to stem the country's growing debt has been standard operating procedure in Congress. But the storm warning signs have been posted. Standard and Poor's Investment Service has projected that the U.S. could lose its triple-A bond rating as early as 2012, while Moody's delays its projection to 2018. It's hard to believe that the United States of America could be such a poor investment risk that it is poised to lose its gold standard rating. As our nation's financial outlook erodes, we also are mortgaging the economic opportunity of future generations to countries like China and Saudi Arabia, two of the largest holders of U.S. debt. You may have seen The Washington Post report earlier this week that China now owns nearly $1 out of every $10 in U.S. public debt. Are we willing to allow China--a country that persecutes its own people because of their faith--or Saudi Arabia--which breeds the kind of radical ideology that led to the terrorist attacks on our country--to own what generations of Americans have worked so hard to build for their children and grandchildren? This is the same China linked to cybersecurity attacks on the computer systems in congressional offices and committees, in federal agencies and even at the White House. How do we respond to these challenges of change? Where do we start? I bring to your attention one plan already in place. It has attracted the support of 111 bipartisan members of the House of Representatives and newspapers and think tanks across the political spectrum. I believe it is an idea upon which you can build with bold, courageous and bipartisan leadership. Democrat Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee and I have teamed to offer legislation to create a national bipartisan commission to review the totality of our nation's financial future-- entitlement spending, other federal spending and tax policy. This proposal differs significantly from other blue ribbon- type panels, however, because it has teeth and mandates action, similar to the base closing commission. After spending several months holding town hall meetings across the country, gathering comments and explaining the depths of America's current unsustainable financial problems, the commission will report back to Congress. The legislation requires Congress to vote up or down on the commission's recommended plan of action. The proposal is called the SAFE Commission--Securing America's Future Economy--and a companion effort has gained traction in the Senate. While we have been encouraged with the support generated by the SAFE proposal, I have been disappointed that Congress continues to languish in the political divide while the financial tsunami edges closer. In 1968 songwriter Paul Simon wrote ``The Boxer.'' You may recall its refrain: ``Man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.'' That could describe Congress's reaction, or lack thereof, to the financial crisis staring America square in the face. The American people deserve to know the truth, not just what we think they want to hear. Your former colleague Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, sponsor of the SAFE Commission idea in the Senate, said that he supported your candidacy because you are ``somebody that reaches out to bring people together to get results,'' noting that ``nobody is more responsible for that than the president of the United States. It starts at the top.'' America is facing extraordinary challenges that call for extraordinary action. I worry about the future for my five children and 13 grandchildren and your two young children if we do not act now to make certain that America continues to be a land of boundless opportunity. I believe the SAFE concept can provide the outline of a plan that you as president could embrace in the 111th Congress which convenes in January. Enactment of the legislation setting up the commission during the first session next year would ensure a vote on the commission's recommendations during the second session in 2010. Your active support of the SAFE Commission effort in Congress would signal the critical immediacy of attacking this problem head on in the only way I believe it will be solved--by working together in a bipartisan way. America is yearning for bipartisanship. With your leadership in reaching across the aisle of Congress to bring people together, I believe we can start down the path that will lead to a renaissance in America and ensure that the essential goodness of the United States endures. I would be pleased to speak with you about the SAFE Commission plan, and I wish you Godspeed as you begin your presidency. Sincerely, Frank R. Wolf, Member of Congress.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I want to share with our colleagues a commentary from the recent edition of Manufacturing & Technology News by its editor Richard McCormack. He writes that manufacturers in this country know about economic collapse because that sector of our economy has been on the downward slide for years and that their experience should be a lesson for this Nation's leaders who are trying to find a way to turn around the economy. His article follows: [From the Manufacturing & Technology News, Sept. 30, 2008] Commentary: Manufacturers Know All About Economic Collapse (By Richard McCormack) It is sad what has happened to the United States. For years, as editor of Manufacturing & Technology News, I have heard dozens of domestic manufacturing company CEOs talk about an impending ``collapse'' of the U.S. economy. These were the men who were in the unenviable position of having to close their companies or shut down factories and watch as most all of their competitors did the same thing. These were the men who implemented Six Sigma, lean, ISO 9000, and the Baldrige National Quality and Shingo Prize criteria. They were leaders who agonized over having to move the world's most efficient production capacity from the United States to Mexico and China in order to stay in business, because no matter how good they were, it wasn't good enough to survive. They could compete with other companies, but they could not compete against other COUNTRIES--countries that cheated in every way imaginable. These manufacturing company CEOs were men who loved their employees. Who grew up with their employees. Who knew their families. Who knew in their hearts the economic, cultural, moral and physical destruction that was being wrought upon their communities. U.S. manufacturing company CEOs died many deaths, watching as Wall Street mavericks and their economic ideological apologists in the U.S. federal government, in Congress and their high-paid agents in Washington, D.C., forced hundreds of thousands of dedicated, hard-working Americans into the street, to fend for themselves in a game that was rigged against them. Has the financial class driven through the heartland of America lately? Have they not taken AMTRAK between New York City and Washington, D.C., passing through the industrial back lots of Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton and Newark? Have they not seen an American landscape stretching for thousands of square miles that looks like it has been bombed out? There are places in America that are ``healthy,'' but these places are even worse: shopping and strip malls located on the edges of America's deteriorating towns and cities, lined with vast parking lots and national chain stores: Applebees, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Wendy's, Days Inn, Outback Steak House. They are soul-less places--``Anywhere USA''--as depressing as the crumbling inner city cores of hundreds of American cities and towns. This is what has become of America. Wall Street had a lot to do with this. As part of the financial bailout bill, they needed to include a provision on teaching ethics and civics. The heroic men running companies that made durable goods wept on the phone when I called to ask about why they closed their factory after it had been in operation for 80 years or more. These people were not selling financial paper or making products that were obsolete and no longer in demand, like buggy whips. And yet when I speak with economists about manufacturing, they invariably rationalize the loss of America's wealth-generating sector by claiming the companies that are dying are making ``buggy whips.'' It is wrong and it is infuriating. We're talking about the United States economy, which has just suffered a massive financial heart attack. I remember writing about the manufacturing job situation in early 2004. It was the 35th consecutive month of manufacturing employment layoffs, with the latest BLS figure coming in at 135,000 production workers being told to go home and not ever come back. This was a crisis. I wondered why in the hell not a single person in the Bush administration and only a handful of people in Congress cared about the collapse of the wealth-generating sector of the American economy. As is happening with the financial sector today, manufacturing five years ago was being disassembled in front of their eyes. There were no bailouts--manufacturers weren't looking for them--there weren't even bromides. I remember thinking as Bush invaded Iraq that it was America's last great hurrah. As America's military hardware was being shipped to the Middle East, America's industrial base was being shipped in the opposite direction to China. The war was happening at the same time that ``outsourcing'' became a big story in the media. But the business press got bored and started covering the incredible run-up of housing prices. ``Whoopee,'' said all the journalists and economists. ``Who needs industry when we've got finance and housing!'' But the manufacturing industry's plight continued. I wanted to rename my publication ``One Outrage After Another.'' I was constantly questioning whether I should continue writing all the stories of companies dying, of industries leaving, of workers being laid off, of trade deficits skyrocketing, of China cheating, of the perverse reaction among Washington elites to rationalize the destruction. I wondered if I was the problem. If being Irish meant fixating on the negative. But I had covered manufacturing through the 1990s, and the story wasn't depressing. I even wrote a book about U.S. companies' adoption of the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing and the good it was doing. It was not me. It was the story that could not be ignored. I got to know other people who couldn't sleep at night fretting over what was happening to the United States industrial base. These were patriotic people who started to coalesce around these issues, who were utterly perplexed by the federal government's total unwillingness to act on behalf of American producers and their workers. The government knew what was going on. But its political appointees made nonsensical ideological arguments concerning ``free trade'' and ``free markets.'' ``We've got a war going on, we can't support U.S. manufacturing'' was a refrain I heard over and again by political appointees at the ``Commerce'' Department and White House. Manufacturers weren't looking for a hand out or a bailout. They only wanted one thing: for the United States government to put the interests of American producers above the interests of foreign countries, foreign producers, importers and the multinational companies that were taking advantage of mercantilist practices in China. American manufacturers wanted the U.S. government to put the interests of American producers ahead of the law firms representing foreign shipping companies, the lobbyists representing Wall Street and, again, the multinational companies that were swimming in record profits by sending their production offshore; all while the critical manufacturing sector was left for dead. ``Good riddance,'' said the financial elite and its power structure: ``those jobs sucked anyway.'' Those same free-market, capitalist, anti-government, anti- regulation ideological zealots are now begging--demanding-- that taxpayers give them a trillion dollars for destroying the American economy. I never once reported about the dire warnings of an economic meltdown--about the inevitable financial catastrophe being caused by the asymmetrical global trade imbalances that were mounting by the day. I had my own 401k to worry about along with three older children, and I was not going to be a reporter who stoked the possibility of economic Armageddon. I guess I was wrong. I guess I should have been reporting on the impending collapse because President George Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sure haven't had any such reservations about scaring the bejesus out of us. What strikes me as particularly sad, however, is the clear FACT that in all of the discussion about bailing out the financiers and their agents who killed the American economy, there has not been one mention of the real reason for America's collapse, nor of what is needed to start the long process of restoring the country back to some semblance of economic health. The housing bubble and sub-prime loans are only part of the problem. The real culprit is the fact that almost everything Americans buy is made somewhere else. The country continues to ship all of its wealth overseas. Did the economic policy makers not watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing? Have they not seen the 200-story skyscrapers going up in Dubai? The core of America's economic problems stem from the trade deficit and the elimination of tens of thousands of factories and millions of jobs that were creating the wealth the country needed to pay for everything. Without that wealth, the financial sector invented playthings and the nation borrowed until it could borrow no more. Oh, but wait! The answer to the problem is to borrow more to bailout the people who over borrowed. The Paulson proposal, unexpectedly defeated on Monday September 29 in a harrowing live television broadcast, was to allow the U.S. government to payoff bad debts by going deeper into debt. It did not sit well with anybody. September 29, 2008, will be an important day in the history of the American Republic. It is the day the American era ended. Watching the live pictures on CNBC of the traders in the pits watching the television monitors above their heads as the vote on the House floor was tallied was like watching New Yorkers standing in horror as they watched the burning World Trade Center towers in 2001. The congressional vote count was simulcast with the Dow, and they were crashing in unison. There was shock in the eyes of the traders, and a panic among the CNBC broadcasters, who couldn't believe what they were witnessing. These men and women are consummate professionals and are not prone to panic. But there they were barking out: ``What's happening with gold?'' ``Look at the oil markets!'' The market did what the towers did and what our President predicted: it collapsed. For the second time in seven years, the energy was visibly drained out of Lower Manhattan and the country at large, as it realized a scary new era had begun. Yet, there is still NOT ONE mention from anyone in power-- especially not the two presidential candidates, nor of a single congressional leader--of what is really needed to bailout the United States. The only way out of this mess is for the United States do everything it can to make the country what it was until 30 years ago: a nation that valued manufacturing. The U.S. economy long ago collapsed around domestic manufacturers. Now it's collapsing around the financial wizards who either forget or didn't know that their livelihoods depended on a robust industry and workers making livable wages. As someone who works in Washington, attends press conferences, government meetings, congressional hearings and who asks questions of the power elite, I can assure you from first-hand experience that the United States government did not do a single thing--nothing--to re-set the global ground rules to allow U.S. industry and its millions of workers to be competitive. In fact, all the rules were changed to favor the foreign and financial interests. The country is now paying the real price of saving a few bucks at Wal-Mart. The United States government and its elected reprsentatives long ago stopped representing the interests of American workers and American producers. If there is any silver lining in the historic House vote on the Bailout Plan on September 29, it is that maybe Congress has woken up to the power of the people. Unfortunately it was the wrong time to wake up. ``The people'' must now pay the consequences of their elected representative's somnambulance. They must now prepare to confront the ``dire'' consequences caused by decades of Wall Street's short-term focus on quarterly profits at the exclusion of everything else. The country has a lot to learn from American manufacturers and their workers, and it will not like what's coming one bit.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, when the House responded to the economic crisis facing our country and considered a financial rescue plan this past Monday, September 29, the vote failed 205-228. Because of my deep belief that Congress must take action to restore the confidence and stability in the Nation's financial system and keep credit flowing to the people of Virginia and to households across the country, I voted for that legislative package and enclose for the Record my statement that day explaining my vote. I have never been more concerned about the financial future of our country. Following the results of the House vote, there was a record 1- day point drop in the stock market that wiped out $1.2 trillion in wealth that average folks have tied up in retirement accounts, pension funds, and college savings. While there was a short-lived rebound on Tuesday, the market has continued on a downward spiral. The latest unemployment figures announced today showed that the economy shed 159,000 jobs in September, the steepest drop in 5 years and the ninth straight monthly decline. Also that day, world stocks fell to a new 3-year low. This news, combined with reports this week that U.S. auto sales fell in September by 27 percent from a year ago, points to a worrisome sign that credit is tightening and the economy is hurtling toward a deep recession. If we don't deal with this financial crisis now, foreign governments like China and Saudi Arabia, who already hold a significant portion of our debt, are waiting in the wings to buy up even more of America. We cannot allow China--a country that persecutes its own people because of their faith--or Saudi Arabia--which breeds the kind of radical ideology that led to the terrorist attacks on our country--to own what generations of Americans have worked so hard to build for their children and grandchildren. After the House's failed vote, the Senate worked to revise the bipartisan package. The new bill includes the base of the economic rescue plan voted on in the House plus additional taxpayer protection and tax relief provisions and was passed by the Senate 74-25 on Wednesday. Because I continue to believe that this Congress must act to restore confidence in our economy, I will vote today for this amended measure. The revised bill has significant new safeguards for taxpayers and important tax relief provisions that will increase the amount of bank deposits insured by the FDIC from $100,000 to $250,000 through 2009, to help stop a run on banks; protect 21 million working, middle-class families from getting hit with an average tax hike of $2,500 from the Alternative Minimum Tax, AMT, for tax year 2008; extend critical energy tax credits and incentives to encourage conservation and the development of renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar power; extend tax deductions on State and local sales taxes and out-of- pocket expenses for teachers; expand the income threshold used to calculate the refundable portion of the child tax credit; extend a property tax deduction to homeowners who don't itemize, and provide tax relief for those in areas hit by recent natural disasters including hurricanes and floods. As in the original legislation, the revised measure authorizes up to $700 billion for a troubled assets relief program for the Treasury secretary to buy mortgages and other assets that are clogging the balance sheets of financial institutions and making it difficult for working families, small businesses, and other companies to access credit. While the legislation gives the Treasury secretary an immediate $250 billion for the program, it requires the president to certify that additional funds are needed, $100 billion, then $350 billion subject to congressional disapproval. The assets acquired by the Treasury will eventually be sold. Many economists believe that if they are purchased at appropriate discounts, it is fair to say that the Treasury will recoup the taxpayers' investment or could even turn a profit over the long-run. The measure also provides strong watchdog authority over the Treasury through an oversight board and a special inspector general to protect against waste, fraud and abuse. The bill also ensures that irresponsible corporate executives at institutions participating in the Treasury program will not be rewarded with multi-million dollar ``golden parachutes'' or severance pay. The FBI continues to pursue corporate fraud investigations related to lenders, brokers, and appraisers involved in the mortgage and sub-prime loan crisis. I understand the concerns raised about the response to the financial crisis our country is facing. This package, including some provisions added by the Senate, is certainly not perfect. But I can't pick and choose from the parts. As I said in my statement after the House's initial vote, credit is the lifeline of our economy. Overall I believe this plan is vital to protect the long-term economic future of our country and to ensure that people in my congressional district as well as folks across America are able to keep their jobs, get a home loan or car loan or a student loan to send their kids to college, and protect their savings and the value in their retirement accounts. I have always worked for the best interest of the taxpayers and residents of the 10th District which I represent. I am voting for this package because in good conscience I cannot stand by and watch the financial futures of the people across America tumble toward ruin not seen since the Great Depression. I believe this vote is the right thing to do at this time for our country. The American people are understandably angry that our Nation's financial condition has reached this point and I understand the worry that has brought. I'm angry and worried, too, and share the concerns of the scores of people from the 10th District who contacted me in recent days. I understand when folks say they don't want to ``bail out'' Wall Street when they see the greed and irresponsibility we've witnessed from some in the financial system gambling with other people's money and losing. Experts say that the root of the current financial crisis can be traced to the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage industry and the impact of high-risk loans on the Nation's housing industry. I agree and also share the concern about reports that some CEOs on Wall Street and top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--which are now in Federal conservatorship--have gotten sweetheart deals and bonuses in the millions of dollars. That kind of action must not be rewarded and that's why I applauded the news that the FBI as well as the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have launched investigations into potential criminal cases against firms accused of contributing to the market collapse. But I'm more worried about the people of Virginia and across America if we don't respond to the collapse in the credit markets in our country. We face a financial crisis and threat to the U.S. economy the proportions of which many say we haven't seen since the economic collapse of the Great Depression. For the past few weeks, the news has been filled with reports of some of the most prominent financial institutions in our country in free fall. Just this Monday, Wachovia, one of the largest banks in Virginia and perhaps a bank you or your family or neighbors use, was sold, and more banks are expected to fail. Access to credit is the lifeline of our economy. I'm worried that if we don't take the necessary action to shore up the Nation's credit system it will be the mom and dad in Herndon who won't be able to get a student loan to send their kids to college or buy a new house, or the young college graduate in Leesburg who won't be able to get a loan to buy a first car, or the older couple in Winchester nearing retirement whose nest egg in a 401(k) account is losing value, or the mom and pop store around the corner in Front Royal that can't get the loan to make payroll, or the family in Manassas who need to sell their house but watch as home values drop and the prospective buyer can't get a home loan. I believe this crisis calls for extraordinary action. Some say without action millions of jobs could be lost. I believe the legislative package before Congress was mis-named as a ``bailout.'' It is important to understand that it was a depression prevention plan to help restore confidence in and stabilize our country's credit system and ultimately the American economy. No legislation is ever perfect and there will be people of good will who disagree. But in tough times, it is the responsibility of lawmakers to act and make tough choices. I voted for this legislation today because I believe it was the right thing to do to begin the process of resolving this crisis and setting the country's financial institutions on sound footing. This legislation was a bipartisan compromise dramatically changed and improved from the original proposal and forged after tough negotiations between both political parties and the call that the measure must first and foremost protect taxpayers' investment and have transparency, accountability and oversight. The package fulfilled those goals by: Providing the Treasury secretary with authority to buy troubled assets currently held by financial institutions, but cut in half Secretary Paulson's original proposal of $700 billion in up-front, immediate authority. The plan would allow $250 billion in immediate authority, with another $100 billion available after the Secretary reports to Congress, and providing Congress with the authority to withhold the remaining $350 billion, assuring that economic assistance will be financed by Wall Street, not Main Street. Many economists predict that ultimately taxpayers will see all their investment fully recouped. Providing transparency and oversight through establishment of a bipartisan oversight commission, split evenly between minority and majority; reporting requirements to ensure proper reports to Congress and the public; a special inspector general; a financial stability oversight board; strict conflict of interest and unjust enrichment rules, providing that if after 5 years the Government has a net loss of taxpayer funds as a consequence of the purchase program, the president will be required to submit a legislative proposal to recoup such funds from program beneficiaries. Protecting taxpayers--not shareholders and not corporate executives-- against loss by placing taxpayers first in line to recoup losses from participating financial institutions in the event they fail or lose money. Prohibiting executive compensation or golden parachutes to ensure bad actors on Wall Street are not rewarded. Requiring the establishment of an insurance guarantee program that in lieu of purchasing assets with taxpayer funds is available to insure assets at no cost to the taxpayer. Costs would be fully paid for by participating companies, i.e., those receiving the assistance. Assets insured by the program would count against the total funds the Treasury secretary would otherwise have available to make purchases. In considering this package I had to answer this question: What is the consequence of doing nothing to help stop the hemorrhaging of the Nation's credit system, and even the broader consequence of a potential worldwide depression? I had to decide what is in the best interest of our country and the taxpayers and residents of this congressional district. When faced with that decision, I cast my vote for the legislative package. I was disappointed that the bill failed passage by a vote of 205-228 and that a majority of my House colleagues both Democrat and Republican did not recognize the need to shore up our financial system and restore the flow of credit to help protect Main Street America. Just minutes after the final vote, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped over 700 points and closed for the day down 778 points, the largest one-day point drop in history. The broadest measure of the American stock market, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, fell 8.77 percent, its biggest drop since October 1987. The failure to approve the legislation resulted in uncertainty and turmoil in the markets, eroding billions of dollars in individual savings and household wealth. In a few hours, an estimated $1.2 trillion in assets lost their value-- that is people's retirement accounts, pension funds, and college savings. With the failure of the legislation, it is uncertain what the next step will be, but the crisis in the financial markets continues, and congressional leaders have pledged to go back to work and negotiate a bipartisan solution to restore confidence in the markets and come back to the House for another vote. No matter what final legislation is enacted to help stem the current crisis, I believe Congress has lots of work to do in the future to reform financial market regulation so that our country is not faced with this kind of crisis in the future. The crisis in the credit markets, however, may be a symptom of a greater financial crisis on the horizon. We must come to grips with the national debt which is approaching $11 trillion. Then we must focus on the over $53 trillion in unfunded and unsustainable entitlement obligations we face as well as uncontrolled Federal spending. The statistics are staggering and real. Standard and Poor's Investment Service has indicated that the United States could lose its triple-A bond rating as early as 2012 if we do not take action to reverse course. By not dealing with this issue we are enabling foreign governments like China and Saudi Arabia to buy America. That is bad for our country. That's why I introduced the SAFE Commission Act, H.R. 3654, with Democrat Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee to set up a national bipartisan commission to put everything on the table and recommend to Congress a way to put our country on sound financial footing. The legislation requires an up-or-down vote by Congress. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call said in an editorial that the SAFE Commission should be part of the discussion of any response to the financial markets crisis. Other newspapers and organizations across the political spectrum have agreed that the SAFE plan can be the way forward. P.S. I have based my service in Congress on the principles of honesty and integrity and doing what I believe is best for the people of this congressional district and the country.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Ms. Judy Park on the occasion of her retirement after 40 years of dedicated service to the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, NARFE, and the 4.6 million Federal workers and annuitants it represents. Judy began her career at NARFE, then known as the National Association of Retired Civil Employees, in 1968 when newly elected president Thomas G. Walters asked her to join him in starting a legislative presence. Only 4 years out of college, Judy wasted no time. Early victories included granting survivor benefits to second spouses of retirees, extending survivor benefits to spouses in postretirement marriages, making retirees eligible to participate in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program open season, restoring full annuities to retirees at the death of a survivor, and increasing the Government share of health premiums. In 1976, Judy became the first legislative director for NARFE and began hiring a staff. In the 1980s, Judy coordinated a major NARFE effort that resulted in the crafting of the Federal Employees Retirement System, FERS, after Federal employees were required to be universally covered by Social Security. Perhaps the biggest legislative accomplishment of her career was the repeal of the Medicare Catastrophic Protection Act of 1988, because everybody said the repeal would never happen. Judy saw that the new law placed an unjust surtax on all retirees, especially Federal retirees. NARFE worked with the Military Officers Association of America and ultimately put together a 38-organization Coalition for Affordable Health Care that continues to work together today. Judy has dedicated her life to ensuring that Federal employees and retirees are treated fairly and with respect--an incredible recognition of the important work civil servants perform given that she is not a Federal retiree herself. During her 40-year career, Judy has met with six U.S. Presidents and scores of congressional Members; she has worked with a dozen NARFE presidents; and she has seen the NARFE membership double in size. Perhaps a former employee describes Judy best when she says that Judy ``embodies the words `trust, leadership and grace.' '' It has been my pleasure to work with Judy on issues of importance to Federal employees and retires and I ask that you join me in applauding Judy Park for her excellent service to protecting the rights of Federal employees and retirees. I congratulate Judy in her retirement and wish her the best in her future endeavors.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Reclaiming my time, I will take you at your word that you're going to have hearings, is that accurate, early in the year?

Mr. WOLF. I was watching this meeting and resolution in my office today, and I support it. I think it's a good issue, but I want to say to the gentleman from New Jersey, I don't understand why you've boxed up for months and years the bill that Congressman Chris Smith has that deals with Lyme disease. I was at a national Lyme disease conference this week. Lyme disease is spreading through our Nation. Lyme disease is spreading through my congressional district. Lyme disease is spreading through New Jersey, spreading through the gentleman's district, spreading through Mr. Smith's district, and if I could get the gentleman's attention, rather than whispering back and forth, I would like to know, if we are going to do resolutions like this and take them out of the committee, why Mr. Smith's bill, which has been pending in your committee for a long time, cannot be considered? If you watched the movie the other day, the number of people that have been impacted by Lyme disease is very serious. This is spreading. It's in Pennsylvania, I would tell the person who's chairing the House. It is spreading throughout the United States, and yet the bill is boxed up, locked up in your committee, and I want to know, because I've had enough of seeing this thing and seeing it go time after time after time, and you're keeping the bill from coming out. So if I could yield to the gentleman to tell me, what do you plan on doing about Lyme disease? Why won't you get that bill out? What is the status of it? And what would we tell somebody who happens to have Lyme disease today to know that the bill is pending in the committee? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. WOLF. Reclaiming my time, why hasn't the gentleman had hearings on it?

Mr. WOLF. Reclaiming my time, we're not going to let this issue go away, I want to tell the gentleman from New Jersey, even if I have to come up into New Jersey and go throughout to say that this bill is being boxed up. Just so Members know, instances of Lyme disease are rapidly rising in Virginia, not only in my congressional district but across the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 1993 to 2007, reported cases of Lyme in Virginia have risen 990 percent, and this committee has done nothing. In the same time frame, reported cases are up 235 percent nationwide. Lyme disease is frightening, keeps the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts from camping during summer months or children playing in the backyard or joggers on bike paths through tree-lined neighborhoods, sharing the outdoors with a minute insect that can bring monumental health problems. Congress needs to get serious. I was watching this and I think you have boxed it up. You know, when the gentleman was speaking--if you could look at me, I would just appreciate it. I want to tell the gentleman that we're going to hold you to this with regard to hearings. I will come and testify, but if this issue is boxed up next year, we're going to deal with it in many ways. I would ask unanimous consent--if you want to say something, I'll wait.

Mr. WOLF. Reclaiming my time, I never said--we've discussed it twice. What I'm saying is that you've boxed the bill up, you've boxed Chris Smith's bill up. You've held no hearings. And there are a lot of people around the country that are suffering with Lyme disease. And you appear to be the rail block. And so what we're asking for is hearings, and give us an opportunity for all people of all sides to be heard.

Mr. WOLF. I would yield.

Mr. WOLF. Reclaiming my time, I was going to offer the Chris Smith amendment to the appropriations bill. The Appropriations Committee hasn't met and had any hearings for months. Your side has prohibited any amendments from being offered. But I will tell the gentleman, next year, if you don't move this bill, I am going to offer it to the Labor-H bill next year and we will have to deal with it on the floor. I believe we have a responsibility to address an issue that is wreaking havoc in my district and across the country. That's the rapid rise in Lyme disease and there is a bill pending in the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee that could go a long way towards helping raise awareness about the threat of Lyme. Just this week I went to a briefing sponsored by the National Capital Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Association. People are suffering from Bell's palsy, meningitis and other manifestations from Lyme disease. There are people in my district whose entire nuclear family suffers from chronic Lyme: Young men and women who have had to take medical leave from their college studies to battle severe joint pain and bleeding ulcers, once healthy people unable to dress themselves or tie their shoes; and folks hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt just trying to get some quality of life back for their loved ones. Americans need to learn about Lyme and press their Federal legislator to act. It is unacceptable--an outrage--for Congress to ignore this issue. This past August I held a Lyme disease awareness forum in my district in Loudoun County, Virginia, to help my constituents learn how to prevent Lyme disease from touching their families. Three medical doctors, including two county health departments, volunteered their time to share their expertise in Lyme-related issues. Lyme disease is an illness caused by bacteria that are transmitted to people by the bite of an infected black-legged tick, also known as the deer tick, which is comparable in size to the tip of a ball point pen. With all of the natural beauty and outdoor activities in many of the congressional districts we represent, it's important we work to educate our constituents about this debilitating disease. Speaking as a father of five and grandfather of 13, I worry about deer, mice, and even family pets transporting ticks and transmitting Lyme. Incidents of Lyme disease are rising rapidly in Virginia and across the country. According to the Centers for disease Control and Prevention, from 1993 to 2007 reported cases of Lyme in Virginia have risen 909 percent. In that same time frame, reported cases are up 235 percent nationwide. Lyme disease is frightening. Picture Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts camping during the summer months or children playing in the backyard, or joggers on bike paths through tree-lined neighborhoods--sharing the outdoors with a minute insect that can bring monumental health problems. This Congress needs to get serious about stepping up to the plate, and making sure people in high risk areas are aware of this threat. H.R. 741--The Lyme and Tick-Borne disease Prevention, Education, and Research Act--legislation introduced by Chris Smith with a host of original cosponsors from New York, Connecticut, Arizona, Illinois, Rhode Island, Washington, among others, now has collected well over 100 bipartisan cosponsors. The bill, which would expand Federal efforts with respect to prevention, education, and research activities, will go a long way toward getting the word out about Lyme disease and the precautions people can take to ensure that they never have to suffer the consequences of chronic Lyme. ``An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'' could not be a more appropriate adage for Lyme disease. Failure to recognize Lyme disease early in its course can result in the development of difficult to treat infections in the brain, eyes, joints, heart, and elsewhere in the body. As public servants, we have given our word to do everything we can to protect the public interest. We are sorely lacking in Federal efforts to increase awareness and education about Lyme disease. Every year since 1998, legislation similar to H.R. 741 has been introduced in the House, and we have failed to act. I urge every member to educate themselves on the Lyme statistics in their home state and take a close look at H.R. 741. For those Members who sit on the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, I urge you to step forward and act to see that this bill is reported out of committee before the House completes its legislative business for the 110th Congress. For the House leadership, I urge that this bill be placed on the calendar now for action. If we can spend time loading up the suspension calendar and voting on commemorative anniversaries and naming post offices, we surely can find time to address legislation that can make a difference in the lives of Americans.

Mr. WOLF. This is a growing issue. It is becoming a more important issue and a new issue. If you look at the statistics, it is growing around the Nation, it is now becoming an epidemic. And so, when I now see an epidemic taking place in my congressional district, in your congressional district, through New Jersey, through Connecticut--if you talk to Senator Dodd, he will tell you--through Massachusetts, all up and down the east coast, it is time to do something. And so I think it is time to deal with it. And I see the gentleman from New Jersey here. You have blocked this bill for a long period of time. And I will tell you, I will not permit you to block it. And next year, I will offer amendment after amendment after amendment and do whatever I can to make sure that people who are impacted by this, to make sure that people who do not even know what may very well be threatening them will not be threatened. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey to also make some comments about this.

Mr. WOLF. I didn't know I was going to be doing it until I saw the gentleman, Mr. Pallone, standing up and taking this up on suspension.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. I thank the gentlelady. First off, I would like to thank Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen for their support on the resolution, and also the staff. At the end I will include all of the staff members who have worked on this issue from my side from the very beginning. I also want to thank my colleague, Jim McGovern, who has taken on the role of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus succeeding our good friend and colleague, the late Tom Lantos, for whom this resolution is named. Mr. McGovern has hit the ground running, and I believe that Mr. Lantos would be very proud of the job he is doing. I first became interested in human rights when in 1984 my good friend, former Congressman Tony Hall, asked me to go to Romania with him. It was a life-changing trip. I would urge all Members to sort of try to find these different events and places around the world where people are being oppressed and suffering. It is an eye opener for us. Ronald Reagan once said that the Constitution is kind of a covenant. It is a covenant that we have made not only with ourselves, but with all of mankind. By making the Congressional Human Rights Caucus into a commission, which will serve as an arm of the House of Representatives, I believe we are helping to take a step to fulfill that covenant. The creation of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission will tell the world that the United States is still the shining city upon a hill, a beacon of hope in a world of turmoil and vision. It was the vision that led Congressman Lantos and former Congressman John Porter, with the help of their wives, Annette Lantos and Kathryn Porter, to really establish the Human Rights Caucus in 1983. There is much else that I can say. One, I am looking forward to working with Jim. This is to honor Mr. Lantos. It has seemed in the past that when major issues came up, the giants were Mr. Lantos and Mr. Hyde. And I may say, my colleague to the right, Mr. Smith and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), and Mr. Berman and some others, but really not a lot of others. This is an opportunity for us to come together to really care about this issue and hopefully we can get some of the new Members who don't know they are going to be Members who are campaigning around the country somewhere who will come here in January next year so the baton is passed to new Members so there will be other people like Mr. Lantos and Mr. Hyde who will carry it well into the future. I thank the leadership on that side for this. And I want to thank Jim and I thank Mr. Berman and Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen for their support of this resolution and the staff on both sides. I would also like to thank my colleague, Representative Jim McGovern, who has taken on the role of co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, succeeding our good friend and colleague the late Congressman Tom Lantos, for whom this resolution is named. Representative McGovern has hit the ground running, and I believe that Mr. Lantos would be very proud of the job he is doing. I first became interested in human rights when in 1984, Congressman Tony Hall, a Democrat and my best friend in Congress invited me to go on a trip with him to Romania. At that time Romania was a very dark place. Under Nicolae Ceausescu, the securitate engaged in severe violations of human rights and religious freedom. Many people I met slipped notes in my hand telling me that their family members had been taken away or killed by the government. The trip to Romania, combined with a trip I took later that year to Ethiopia, which was in the midst of a famine, sparked my passion for human rights. In Ethiopia, I held malnourished babies in my arms. It is a profound and humbling experience to see this kind of suffering first hand. Ronald Reagan once said that the Constitution is ``a kind of covenant. It is a covenant that we've made not only with ourselves, but with all of mankind.'' By making the Congressional Human Rights Caucus into a Commission which will serve as an arm of the House of Representatives, we are fulfilling this covenant. This creation of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission will tell the world that the United States is still the ``shining city upon the hill,'' a beacon of hope in a world of turmoil and tragedy. No other Member of Congress can claim to have known turmoil and tragedy like our late colleague. In the ashes of despair, Tom saw hope and opportunity. It was this vision that led Congressman Lantos and former Congressman John Porter with the support of their wives, Annette Lantos and Kathryn Porter, to form the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1983. Since then, it has grown into one of the largest, most active, bipartisan caucuses in the Congress. I was deeply honored to succeed Congressman Porter as the Republican co-chair of the caucus when he retired in 2001. After the retirement of John Porter and then with the losses of Representative Tom Lantos and Representative Henry Hyde, we are without some of the greatest champions of international human rights and religious freedom It is fitting that we ensure that their legacy is preserved and honored through the creation of this commission. It is our duty as Representatives of the people of the United States of America, to speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves. Our world will be a better and safer place for our children and grandchildren, when all people can live together and respect the most basic dignities and freedoms of all human beings. Madam Speaker, over the years I have been supported in my work on human rights by a dedicated staff who has shared my passion for advocating on behalf of the oppressed and persecuted people in this world and worked to promote the mission of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. I want to thank those staff members and recognize them today: Molly Miller, Elizabeth Hoffman, Elyse Anderson, Samantha Stockman, Anne Huiskes, David Dettoni, Karen Feaver, Scott Flipse, Stuart Mallory, Brett Dody, Karin Finkler, Aldo de Pape, Fay Johnson, Hillary Hosford, Evan Baehr.