Lynn Westmoreland

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Let me just make a couple of comments too about some of the things that the lady from Ohio said, of those 4,162 people, I wonder if they would be interested to know if they took the $700 billion, that about $175,000 each of that would have paid and straightened out their mortgage. They would be appalled to know that. Not only that, if the government had been serious about this, and it put that money and told those banks that made those loans, whether the government made them, make them or what, you need to go back and renegotiate those loans, whether it's for 40 years or 50 years at a less percentage rate so you are getting your money back, that's what you need to do. But, no, it's a lot easier to give it to the big cats and let them wipe the slate clean, let them fix their balance sheet, throw those people out, sell it for whatever they can and go on about their business. That's wrong. I would like to recognize my friend from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yes.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, and I think the gentleman makes a great point because, you know, change was the key word of this election cycle. And I think the American people love that word ``change,'' and they did want to change. But I think the change they wanted was trust and transparency. That's what they thought change meant. If we are going down this path, and the path that the majority in the House and the majority in the Senate is talking about, was spending their tax dollars, it's not that trust and transparency that they are going to get. You know, that's the amazing thing, these 4,162 foreclosures, they are the ones that put up the 700, or part of the $700 billion to allow their house to be sold. I see another good friend of mine, somebody that I have served with in the State legislature and now have a great opportunity to serve in Congress with, somebody that is the new Republican Study Committee chairman for this Congress, and I am certainly excited about that, and that's my friend, Dr. Price.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. The gentleman brought up a good point about government and the fact that we have an interest now in banks and we have an interest in the car business. We even have a car czar I guess that's going to tell them what kind of cars will sell best. But the question I have and I think the question that the American people have is the government is what brought this on in the Community Reinvestment Act. And, look, I love the Community Reinvestment Act in some of the design of it because I believe in downtown redevelopment. I think we need to go into some of these downtown areas, especially places like Detroit and other places, to redevelop that downtown. These downtowns are beautiful. So some of that Community Reinvestment Act was good. But the part that was put in place in 1995 by President Clinton that told these lending institutions, look, you're either going to make so many of these loans to people who can't afford them or we are going to fine you, and then we, the government, are bailing out these people that not only took that but then made all these different loan programs with derivatives that nobody in the free world with any type of computer could figure out, and here we are; so the government's being involved--and that's why this statement right here concerns me so much when it says ``Only government can break the vicious cycles.'' There's truth in that, but it's kind of a different truth than what the President-elect means. We can break the cycle; we've got to get out of it.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Sure.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you. Now I want to recognize another friend of mine from New Jersey, the Honorable Representative Garrett.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Absentee ownership.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I would like to do today is to talk a little bit about the new stimulus package that President-elect Obama and some of the leadership has been talking about, the last stimulus package that we did, the rescue plan, and talk a little bit about the timetable. And exactly, Mr. Speaker, where the people of this country may get an idea of exactly where we're going because sometimes things happen so fast in Washington that they don't really have an opportunity to grasp exactly what has happened to them not only now, but in the future. And not only in their future, but in their children's future and in their grandchildren's future. So what I would like to do today is talk a little bit about how we got into the situation that we're in now and what direction the new administration and the new majority or the larger majority is going to take us. And what I would like to do, Mr. Speaker, is start in October of 2007 when the Dow Jones was 14,078, October 10. The Bush administration responded to the unfolding subprime mortgage crisis with the HOPE program, which was a program designed to help people in foreclosure to go back and to renegotiate their mortgages. At the time, if you will remember, we were told that there were about 80 million mortgages in this country, about 5 percent of them were bad or subprime or delinquent, which is about 4 million loans. January of 2008, the Dow closed at 11,971, and it has gone down continually since then. In September of 2008, we were informed--the White House, the Congress was informed by Secretary Paulson that we were in a financial crisis; that something had to be done to unfreeze the credit market; that the credit market was frozen; that banks couldn't borrow from each other or wouldn't lend to each other; that large corporations were not able to do overnight borrowing; that student loans were not there; that automobile loans were not there; that loans for new homes were not there, and that we need to unfreeze this. And to unfreeze this, it was going to take $700 billion. Now, $700 billion is a lot of money, and it's going to affect people for a long time. It's going to create more of a deficit for our country, which a lot of people in this body, especially on the majority side of the aisle, has said was not good policy, not good finances to spend deficits. So we had $700 billion. Now, if you take the 4 million delinquent or toxic assets or mortgages, that's about $175,000 per mortgage And, Mr. Speaker, I don't know of a lot of mortgages that were in trouble that $175,000 would not have cured. But what we did is we didn't do anything with those mortgages. We decided that we would bail out those guys that had taken these mortgages and had leveraged them 45, sometimes 50 percent. And while they were doing this, they were making money hand-over-fist. While the poor guy in the house was losing his home, he was losing his job, this guy that had come up with all of this creative financial stuff with all of these derivatives that nobody really understood, and the only thing a lot of the guys coming up with these derivatives understood is that they were making a ton of money. So they were selling these things. And not only did it affect our economy and our banks and our financial institutions, but it did worldwide. These four million bad loans that could have been solved with $175,000 each, if you took from the $700 billion--probably much, much, much less than that--and all of a sudden we had this great financial crisis. And so the one thing that I heard, Mr. Speaker, over and over again, not only in this body, but in the Senate and all the pundits on some of these talk shows, was, well, this is kind of like a traffic accident on the expressway and it's got all of the lanes blocked. Credit is frozen. This is the highway of credit; it's frozen. And behind it sitting in line in traffic is the student loans, the car loans, the mortgage loans, the small business loans, the payroll loans, all the credit is sitting in line. We've got to free up this accident. And so we did. Congress voted to free up this accident. All lanes are clear--well, at least the majority of the lanes are clear; we've only done $350 billion of the $700 billion, but they're going to be back wanting the other $350 billion. But the credit market is not unfrozen. We still have people today that are getting foreclosed on every day. I don't care if you've got credit that's 850 on your credit score, you probably couldn't go borrow a dime today. These banks and these financial institutions, AIG is one--you know, AIG used to write bonds for construction and development. They wrote bonds. They won't even write you a bond now, and the government has given them about $125 billion. What are we doing? So if you look at all of these things that were intended in this one bailout that was intended to unfreeze the credit market, we can see that it hasn't worked. And not only has it not worked, we have not even tried to make any of these lending institutions, these banks, holding companies, insurance companies accountable for the money that we've given them. Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that you've got the same thing I've got, community banks, small banks calling me every day saying we've applied for the TARP, we've applied for the Capital program, we can't get any money. We can't get any money. And so what's happening? If you think that the big nine banks are going to come into these communities and loan somebody money to start a beauty salon or a car wash or an automotive repair, or whatever, you're badly mistaken. The community bankers, those small banks in our communities that know Fred and they know Jane, they know their families, they know what kind of reputation they've got, they know their ability to pay back this money, these are the people that are being squeezed out. And the American people are depending on us to do something about it. I was happy to talk to Chairman Frank, and he said within the next 2 weeks he's going to have legislation come out of Financial Services that's going to do that. We need to make these people accountable because the very taxpayers that are paying the $700 billion that we've given to the fat cats to balance their books and to hold the money to buy out the small and the community bank, we've given them the money and we still can't get credit. Mr. Speaker, I had a Chrysler dealer that came into my office and he sat down and told me over a period of time, a small period of time, he had sent 155 contracts or sales to Chrysler; they had approved seven of them. If we were supposed to have cleared the wreck and we were have supposed to freed up this credit market, it has not worked, and the American people and myself and many others in this body want to know why it has not worked. Now, let's look at the deficit for a minute because we're borrowing this money that we're using to stimulate or to buy out--or whatever you want to call--remember that we passed a $150 billion stimulus package, Mr. Speaker, where we actually sent checks to people to stir up the economy, to give the economy credibility. I don't think it worked. Evidently it didn't work. So what's been the result of that? We borrowed that $150 billion from China. The stimulus that's being discussed today--now, we're beyond the $700 billion stimulus--well, let's start out with the $150 billion stimulus, then the $700 billion stimulus, and then the loan to the automakers. And now we're talking about another $700, $800 billion up to 1.3 trillion. Now, keep in mind if you look at the bailout that had already been done after the first stimulus where we gave checks back to people, we had AIG, we had IndyMac, we had Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we had the housing bill, we had already spent about $700 billion. You're starting to talk about some real money now, Mr. Speaker. You now, this range of $800 billion to $1.3 trillion, what does that mean? Well, I'll tell you what it means; it means that the deficit for 2009 is going to be $1.3 trillion, triple the current year's deficit. In fact, it's going to be 9 percent of our gross domestic product, 9 percent of our gross domestic product in this one--not counting all the other things--this one deficit in this 1 year, 9 percent, which is a 50 percent increase over World War II's record deficit of 6 percent of the gross domestic product. So what that means is that some governments, some countries are thinking about charging us a prime or a premium interest rate from foreign investors, such as China is now thinking about charging us a premium for this money that we're borrowing from them. Now, what I've heard is that this majority plan, the Democratic plan, Mr. Speaker, that's coming from the President-elect and the Senate and the House leaders is that this infrastructure, part of this will be infrastructure projects that's ready to go, shovel ready so to speak, they're ready to get out there and they're ready to get it on. The Conference of Mayors published a list of these projects that were ready to go, they put it on their Web site. So Mr. Speaker, if anybody was listening today--and I have to remember that most of my constituents at 2:30 in the afternoon, those that have jobs are out working. We didn't have any votes today in this body, so for you that may be taping this or may have an opportunity of a loved one to see it, we actually counted votes today--or had some people count them for us and we watched them. So we had a pretty easy day today, had a pretty easy day yesterday. In fact, we were out by about two o'clock yesterday. We'll probably have a pretty easy day tomorrow, I think we've got two bills. But for those of you that are watching--and that could be, Mr. Speaker, if I was talking to somebody out in the audience, if I was addressing them I would tell them to go to a Conference of Mayors Web site and look at some of these projects that are ready to go, that are infrastructure and vital--I believe it says vital infrastructure projects. The first one is $350,000 for an Albuquerque, New Mexico fitness center. That's a vital project. Ninety-four million for a parking garage at the Orange Bowl in Miami. Now, these are the ready- to-go infrastructure projects that our tax dollars are going to go into, these are those vital projects; $4.5 million for Gretna, Florida to bottle water with recyclable bottles; $35 million, Music Hall of Fame in Missouri; $55 million for a mob museum in Las Vegas that's described in the Mayor's report as ``historic post office museum rehabilitation.'' You know, we think of so many good ways to name these bills that they just are really warm and fuzzy, and so sometimes you don't pull back the covers. Twenty million for a minor league baseball museum in Durham, North Carolina, and $6 million for snowmaking and maintenance facilities at Spirit Mountain, Minnesota. Now, I apologize to those Members, Mr. Speaker, that these are in their districts and that these may have been put in--not necessarily put in the package to get a vote or two, I don't know. But what I do know is that the lady and the gentleman and the family that's sitting around the kitchen table wanting to know how they're going to pay their house note or their car note or what they're going to do because mom or dad, or both, don't have a job, they don't think these are such vital projects. They don't think they're that vital. What they think is vital is us starting to do something rather than just talking. We've been talking long enough. It's time to take some action and to have some real cure for the taxpayers of this country; and not just the taxpayers today, but the taxpayers of the future, my children and my grandchildren, and maybe even my great grandchildren at the rate that we're going. I'll turn now, after we've talked about that for a little bit, Mr. Speaker, and I want to quote President-elect Obama, January 8, 2009, ``Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy.'' You know, I think there is some truth in that. Although I think that we the people, the entrepreneurs, the free market system, do a much better job than government doing anything, but I think the truth of this statement is that only government can break the vicious cycle. Yeah, government's got to get out of it. If we want to break the vicious cycle that we're in of rewarding bad behavior, we've got to get out of this and let the market take care of itself. But no, we haven't learned from that because, you know, you would think that with the Dow going down every day, even with all the money that we're pumping in it, we would go, you know what? This isn't working. We've got a problem here. Let's look at it, let's see what it is. And we might find out that we're our own worst enemy, Mr. Speaker. But let's talk about the national debt. Let's talk about the deficit. The national debt is currently more than 10.6 trillion--and I'm talking with a ``T.'' You know, it took me a while, when I got into government, to learn what a million dollars was, and then it took me a little bit longer to learn what a billion is. It's hard to get your head around a trillion. So Mr. Speaker, if anybody is at home that is going to go to the Mayors Conference vital projects Web site might also want to go to a math Web site and try to figure out how much a trillion is. But our national debt today is $10.6 trillion, continues to grow. The national debt has increased by $2 trillion since the Democrats took over Congress just 2 years ago, $2 trillion increase. The President-elect on 60 Minutes, November 16, said we shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even the year after. Speaker Pelosi, on a floor speech on March 17 of 2005, said, ``Democrats have made a commitment to honor the value of accountability, including eliminating deficit spending.'' Steny Hoyer, speech at the National Press Club September 28, 2007, Mr. Speaker, he said, ``Today Democrats are fighting to restore the fiscal discipline that has been sorely lacking since 2001. Why? Because we believe deficits and spiraling debt threaten our future prosperity and national security.'' What has changed in a year, a little over a year; what's changed? Rahm Emanuel, the President-elect's Chief of Staff in the White House, January 26, 2005 floor speech, ``If you're looking for a crisis to solve, look no further than the President's budget deficit. The President's reckless policies are damaging our Nation's future.'' This is the same Chief of Staff of the President-elect that the President- elect said we shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even the year after. Bart Gordon, in a press release of January 5, 2007, said, ``American families must live within their budgets, and it's time for Congress to do the same.'' Mike Ross, in a floor speech December 6, 2005, said, ``Deficits do matter. Deficits reduce economic growth. They burden our children and grandchildren with liabilities. They increase our reliance on foreign lenders who now own 40 percent of our debt.'' That's right, foreign lenders now own 40 percent of our debt. I would venture to say to my good friend from Arkansas I would like to work with him to try to find out what percentage foreign investors and lenders own of our debt right now, where they're even thinking about charging us premium interest because 9 percent of our gross domestic product is going to be in that debt. Tim Ryan, July 6, 2004: ``We have almost a $600 billion annual deficit for the past year. This is getting rolled into our $7 trillion debt that we have. So almost 20 percent of our annual budget that we pay down here is interest on the debt that we have. So if you keep accruing the big debt, you have to keep taking tax money to pay it off. Who's lending us this money? Japan and China are lending us this money.'' Mr. Ryan, you're right. They are. But now rather than a $7 trillion debt, it's a $10.6 trillion debt that has increased by $2 trillion since the Democrats have been in charge here. Brad Ellsworth, in a press release January 5, 2007: ``Hoosier families in my district make the tough choices to balance their family's budget. Congress should be held to the same standard when it comes to our Nation's budget.'' Ron Klein, in a floor speech on September 10, 2008: ``It's now the Democrats, many of us, who are sort of leading the fight on fiscal discipline. We are the fiscal hawks.'' Representative Klein, the gentleman from Florida, I hope you're right. I hope you're telling the American people the truth. Mr. Speaker, I hope this is truth that's come out where these people said we're going to look after the fiscal well-being of this country, because if they follow this plan or if they follow the plan that's being discussed right now by the President-elect and the majority in the House and the majority in the Senate, these things are going to be a lot worse than what they were when they were reading these floor speeches. So they're going to be caught head on looking into the headlights of what they've said and how that's going to balance out with what they do. Mr. Speaker, we are going to be held accountable for what we say and especially in what we do. So if you want to look at Mr. Cardoza, in a floor speech December 6 of 2006: ``The past few years the Republican rule in Washington has left our Nation severely crippled with debt. Reckless fiscal policies have turned record surpluses into record deficits in 6 short years. Democrats believe that fiscal responsibility is a crucial ingredient in good government. The American people turned to Democrats to get our Nation's books out of the red.'' What a disappointment that must be, Mr. Speaker, for the American people to find out that they hired the Democrats to get the American books out of the red and since that time the debt has grown by $2 trillion. Dan Boren, in a press release January 5, 2007: ``If the government is going to buy something, Congress has to figure out how to pay for it. It's time the government be held to the same standards as every American family.'' I couldn't agree with you more, Representative Boren. I couldn't agree with you more. We need to be held to those same standards as that American family. But you know what? We're not. And the path that has been laid out, the map that has been laid out by the majority that has been increased in both the House and the Senate and by the President- elect, we're not headed out of the red, we're headed deeper into the red. But this red is not just for this generation, it's for our children and our grandchildren. Kendrick Meek, in a floor speech June 22, 2005: ``The share of the national debt for every American is $26,255.76. This has to be paid off. This is not monopoly money. This is not funny money. When this House was run by Democrats, we balanced the budget without one Republican vote, and that is a fact. That is prima facie evidence, as they say in the courtroom. That is not a fabrication. That is not an exaggeration. That is not something that some Democrat said on the floor and it's not true. We balanced the budget.'' I want to challenge the gentleman from Florida, my friend (Mr. Meek), to balance the budget. I want to do that. I see my good friend over here. She wants to balance the budget. We all want to balance the budget. And to balance the budget, we're going to have to make some tough, tough decisions in this House. We cannot continue to go down the same road that we have been going down. Sure, we have borrowed the money to do this, but you know what? Here's the hard part: The hard part is that the people that we have done these things for are not receiving the relief and we are still not unfreezing the credit market. So what are we doing? We're not unfreezing the credit market. What we are doing is we're piling more and more and more and more debt on them. So we have got to bring that to a close. I see a good friend of mine from Texas, the gentleman that came up with one of the most brilliant tax packages last December that I know of but we can't seem to get a hearing on it or seem to get it to the floor for a vote, and that's my friend from the First District of Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you. Let me say this. I think $1 trillion is actually 12 zeros. That is amazing. So I hope, Mr. Speaker, that anybody that is watching would go to a Web site that has got some of these math solutions on it and look at exactly how much $1 trillion is. One billion seconds, one billion seconds is 32 years. There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year. One billion seconds is 32 years. And we are talking trillions now, trillions with a ``T.'' Mr. Speaker, when I was running for office, when I was running for Congress, I had served in the State legislature. I went to a gathering and I met somebody there, he was a lobbyist for the peanut shellers, and as I got on the plane to come back to Georgia I thought to myself, you know, everybody must have a lobbyist. Everybody. If the peanut shellers of America have a lobbyist, then everybody must have a lobbyist. But I thought of one group, one group and only one group in this country that does not have a lobbyist, and Mr. Speaker, you probably know who that group is, and I would imagine that anybody watching this knows what that group is. But in case you don't or you may have forgotten, I am going to tell you who that group is that does not have a lobbyist up here. That is the American people. The American people have representatives up here. They have somebody that is supposed to represent them on this floor. And about half of America is being shut out because of the process. We are going to bring bills to the floor that are going to deal with the deficit. We are going to bring bills to the floor that are going to deal with the national debt. We are going to bring bills to the floor that are going to talk about health care and are going to talk about all different types of things. Half of this body, Mr. Speaker, half of the Representatives, who are the only people in this city that represent our people back home, are going to be shut out of the process, because it is going to be done under suspension, which is a form that the majority has chosen to do some very important bills, without debate, without committee hearings, without input, in fact, a lot of times without even being available to be read for two or three hours. That is no way to do business. So we not only have the problems that we have discussed here today with the budget, with the deficit, with the national debt. This whole process is broken. The whole process is broken. The gentlelady from Ohio, the gentleman from New Jersey, myself, we all had amendments and different ideas that we wanted to put in this legislation. What is so wrong with letting us vote on it? Why did this have to happen so quickly and so immediately? Why is something more important than open, honest, fair debate? There is no disinfectant in the world like sunlight. So we need to open up this process. We need to have sunlight. Mr. Speaker, if I could tell the American people anything, it is to understand that the only person in Washington, D.C., that is here on your behalf is your Representative. And let me tell you something, you better keep a close eye on him or her to make sure that they are representing you, and not only that they are representing you, but that they have the ability to have some input into what is happening in this body. There are many Members in the majority party that can't get any input if they disagree with what is going on, not just if you are in the minority, but if you are in the majority. This has been a closed system, a closed House. I am not saying we did it perfectly, Mr. Speaker, when we were in charge for 12 years. But I want to put all of that aside. President- elect Obama gave many people in this country hope. He gave them hope and he promised change, and part of that hope and that change was to open up the process and to work in a bipartisan way. So as I am closing today, I want to hope. My hope is that your hope will be brought to fruition, and that we can sit in this Chamber and we can have open, honest discussions about how the constituents of the Third District of Georgia feel, or how the district of the gentlelady from Ohio's feels, or how the district of the gentleman from Virginia feels. We will make sure that our 600,000 or 700,000 constituents give the only representation they have in this body the ability to speak, to speak freely and openly and share ideas, not only with their colleagues, but with everybody in this country. So, Mr. Speaker, if I could ask for them to contact their Representative, I would, and pay attention, because I promise you that nobody is going to look after you if they know that you are not looking at them. Mr. Speaker, with that, I appreciate the opportunity that the minority leader gave me to share this hour with you and others.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank the gentleman from Texas. It might not be your accent that hurts you with the points IQ, but it may have been your introduction of me. But it is good to be here with you to talk about the stimulus package. I voted against the stimulus package, or the recovery bill, as I know you did and many others did, because we didn't see any real plan out there. And the only plan that we really heard, Madam Speaker, if you will remember, they said there was a bad automobile wreck, that this credit crisis was like a bad automobile wreck clogging up the expressway and that behind this accident there were trucks carrying student loans, automobile loans, mortgage loans, all different types of credit, and that because of this accident that those loans were not getting through to the people that needed them; so we need to spend $700 billion. And I think at the time they said it was about a 5 percent bad mortgage of home loans, and there are about 80 million mortgages; so that's roughly 4 million loans. So this credit crunch was caused by these 4 million loans to spend $700 billion. So we cleared the accident, or at least we were told that we were clearing the accident. But the accident is not cleared, or if it is cleared, nobody has let the traffic through because there are people every day being foreclosed on because the banks that are getting this money, and one bank in particular that does business in Georgia got $4 billion of TARP money and they are foreclosing on people every day. They are not giving people an opportunity to restructure their loans. They are calling more principal due on these loans. And I'm not telling a bank to make bad loans, but the reason that we are in this situation is because they originally made bad loans. What I think we're telling them is they need to clean up the bad loans that they made. They need to clean up their own mess. But now that they've got taxpayers' dollars, they especially need to be using that for the intent that Congress gave it to them. There was an article, and I think it was in the New York Times, this is the name of the article, December 17, ``Fed Cuts Key Rate to a Record Low.'' It says: ``Of much greater practical importance, the Fed bluntly announced that it would print as much money as necessary to revive the frozen credit markets and fight what is shaping up as the Nation's worst economic downturn since World War II.'' And you addressed that. We're not necessarily in that economic downturn, and we're going to continue to print money until we unfreeze the credit market. Well, this first $350 billion should have done something to help fall it out in the least, but people every day--I have got builders and developers, small business people in my district, the Third District of Georgia, every week calling me saying, we're going out of business. A good friend of mine has been in the grading business. His family has been in the grading business for 57 years. He's been running it for the past 30 years. His father started it. He called me and he said, ``Lynn, today is the last day we're going to be in business. I've got employees that have been with me for over 30 years that I have got to let go. What do I need to tell them about the bailout?'' This money is not getting through to these small businesspeople, and we need to make these lending institutions accountable. I talked to Chairman Frank, and he said that they're going to come up with a bill in about the next 2 weeks or so to make these people accountable. And they need to be held accountable. These are taxpayers' dollars. These are people's individual dollars going to this bailout, and they are not having the ability to even access any of the money. These banks are holding the money, and they're holding the money so they can buy small banks. I've had community bankers call me and say, we applied for TARP but we can't get it. We can't get the TARP money. So do you think that some of the Big Nine are going to go into our communities, into Grantville, Georgia; or Griffin, Georgia; or Thomaston or Greenville, Georgia; and make somebody a loan that wants to open up a barber shop or wants to have a nail salon or wants to do an automotive repair shop? No. We depend on these community bankers, and right now these big banks are sitting around waiting on these community banks to fail so they can go in, gobble them up, and do away with our community banks. These community banks, some of them told me they voted not to get them. The gentleman from Texas, they voted not to take the TARP money. The Federal regulators came in and said, you need to take the TARP money. And then they applied for it and couldn't get it. We have got to stop this nonsense, and we need to let the free market work. It will work. It has worked. It will work again if we will just quit muddying the water. Now I hear about this new stimulus package that the President-elect is going to come up with. He is going to create about 3 million jobs, and I heard today on the news, before I came over here, of 1.2 trillion, which means that each one of these jobs is going to be about $400,000. Now, I don't know about you, but that's pretty expensive for the taxpayers to create 3 million jobs at $400,000 apiece. I would think that we might create, with that kind of money, we might create a lot more jobs than that at $200,000 apiece, twice as many jobs. In fact, I know a lot of people today that would just love to have a job. But the government creating jobs, 600,000 new government jobs, that's 50 percent of the people, exclusive of the Postal Service, that we employ right now. We are fixing to employ 50 percent more people. Now, that's great that we are creating these jobs, but that means that this 600,000 people are going to have to continue to be paid every year and their insurance and their benefits. I am telling you, we are going down a real rocky road. I am glad that the President-elect has realized that this economic situation that we are facing in our country today needs some attention. This Congress has tried to give it the attention. The current President has tried to give it the attention, but I think there has been too much love and not enough firm discipline that everyday citizen is out there facing, the firm discipline of not being able to pay your bills. They don't have the ability to print more money, and they are out there suffering. We are not doing the suffering here. We keep printing the money and keep throwing it out there, and it keeps going to the big dogs. It keeps going to the people that made these major mistakes that leveraged some of these mortgage investments 45 and 50-1. We are bailing them out, and the average guy is not getting bailed out. I have got a real good friend of mine that called me yesterday, he is in his early 50s, he has been in the real estate business and the building business along with me--he and I have been in it together for a long time--he is going to the police academy. He is starting the police academy. He is starting a new career because he cannot make a living doing what he's doing. We need to wake up and to realize that if we are going to clear the wreck, if we are going to unfreeze this credit market, these lending institutions need to be accountable to us, the taxpayers, and make sure that they are taking this money and doing what they are supposed to do with it and not just paying their top dogs, their bigwigs, all this money going to the resorts, sponsoring championship football games, buying banks in China for $6 billion, but they are lending the money out. I don't care if you have got a credit rating of 835, you are not going to be able to borrow a dime, because they are afraid. They don't want to lend it, and they are saving this money to help their balance sheets. This is no way to run a railroad. It's not the intention that this Congress had. We need to do something to make these people that are receiving this TARP money accountable. We need to make them go back and correct the bad loans that they made and to make sure that the everyday guy out there that's furnishing this $700 billion can have some type of benefit from it. With that, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to do this.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, at the end of 2008, a great Georgia lawman turned in his badge to retire after a long, distinguished career. Randall Johnson worked for Fayette County as sheriff for 32 years. At his retirement, he was one of the longest serving sheriffs in the state of Georgia. But more important, he was one of the most distinguished sheriffs in Georgia. Sheriff Johnson oversaw the department during three decades of incredible growth. In the 1970s when Johnson first won election to the post, the Fayette Sheriff's Department has less than a dozen employees in a county then considered a rural outpost. By the time he left, the department had transformed into a modern law enforcement operation that protected a large suburban county in the booming metropolitan Atlanta region. Sheriff Johnson acted as a constant, a steady hand and a voice of leadership throughout those times of change. The sheriff's post fulfilled Johnson's lifelong dream. He said at his graduation from Fayette County High School in 1960 that he was going to be sheriff one day. He got his start in law enforcement working for the state of Georgia, busting moonshine operations along the multitude of Georgia's creaks and streams. As testament to the depth of respect he holds in the community, some of those moonshiners he arrested decades ago showed up at his retirement party to wish him well. During my two decades in politics, I've seen a lot of politicians come and go. Most are quickly forgotten. It is the rare public official who holds the job for three decades. It is even rarer that one constantly maintains the integrity, dignity and honesty that Sheriff Johnson demonstrated in office. I'm well aware that, as I enter my third term in the U.S. House of Representatives, I owe a large debt to Sheriff Johnson. I got my start in politics in Fayette County as a state representative. No one in the county back then won office without the express consent of Sheriff Johnson. His support was the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for any local campaign. He carried great weight not because he carried the proverbial big stick but because he had earned the people's trust and respect. His loyalty and backing through all these years humbles me. In Fayette County, ``sheriff and -Randall Johnson'' are synonymous. When he entered a room, everybody knew the sheriff had arrived--even if he wasn't wearing his uniform. His presence was a statement in itself The county will sorely miss one of the greatest leaders in its history, but the department that he has built up will carry on, and its continued success will serve as part of Sheriff Johnson's legacy. On behalf of the people of Georgia's 3rd Congressional District, I want to thank Sheriff Johnson for his lifetime of service to the people of Georgia and to Fayette County. He is a great American and an inspiration to us all. Best wishes to Sheriff Johnson and his wife Kaye as they enter a new phase of life in retirement, a reward that's richly deserved.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank my friend from Alabama for yielding the time. Madam Speaker, I've often said as I have stood up that when the process is broken, the product is flawed. And I appreciate all of the meetings that the chairman and ranking member and others have attended and the time that they have spent. There was only one hearing that I know of in the Financial Services Committee that was held before this bill, and that was to have Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke come and testify. Those were the only two witnesses. And I'm not sure what alternatives are out there, what the plans are for a free market, for capital infusion and not just buying these toxic assets. And I think that's going to be the key to any plan working is the infusion of capital. But the process is broken because there was no markup on the bill. The bill was introduced about 24 hours ago. It's 106 pages. And as we saw earlier in the week with some of the tax extender bills and some of the other bills that were introduced early in the morning, brought to the floor early afternoon, had problems in it, having to recommit, redo the rules. You cannot do this type of bailout of $700 billion without adequate hearings, without adequate testimony, without hearing other alternatives that can be injected into this that we could do some of the things as the net operating loss, how that can help a business. Doing away with the capital gains tax, the repatriation of money to come back into this country. The last time we did that, $350 billion came in. These banks need cash. They need capital. They do not need somebody buying these assets when they still have mark-to-market. They still have accounting rules that don't allow them to have the amount of money they need to loan to small businesses and individuals to keep our economy going. This is a rush. We need to defeat this bill.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, I object.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the gentleman for that. I have just a few minutes to close. I appreciate all the kind folks that came here tonight to help me with this. But I want to bring up one other thing that will characterize what the Democratic majority has said. I have already quoted Mr. Kanjorski on ``we sort of stretched the truth and the people ate it up.'' I read you quotes from then Minority Leader Pelosi, now Speaker Pelosi, and the things that the American people were told, Mr. Speaker, to be able to gain the majority. But I want to tell you something that is a little more fascinating, and we will have to talk about this again. This Congress passed a card check bill. We all like to be in the privacy of the voting booth. Even if somebody asks you how you are going to vote, you say, hey, that is a personal matter. Because a lot of times the polls will say one thing, the election results are something else, because people get in that voting booth and they decide to do something else; or it may not have been the popular thing to talk about with the people they were with. We passed a card check bill that said if you wanted to become unionized it would have to be an open vote; not anymore a secret ballot, but an open vote. They passed this in this Congress. The bill was introduced by Mr. George Miller. But I want to read you a letter he sent to the Mexican Government in 2001. ``We understand that the secret ballot is allowed but not required by Mexican labor law. However, we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose. We respect Mexico as an important neighbor and trading partner, and we feel that the increased use of the secret ballot in union recognition elections will help bring real democracy to the Mexican workplace.'' They want to bring democracy to the Mexican workplace, but they want our guys not to have that same democracy that they want the Mexican workers to have. This is right in line with everything that we have heard tonight. This Congress is being controlled by big labor, by environmentalists and by trial lawyers. If you fit into one of those groups, then you should be doing very well. If not, you are like all the rest of us; you are suffering at the pump, you are worried about how you are going to pay your high home heating oil bill, you are worried about your job as the unemployment rate is skyrocketing with the price of gas. You are living under the failed systems we have had in this body. And remember, they have 235 Members. It only takes 218 to pass something out of this House. Quit whining. Get out of the fetal position and do something for the American people.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you. Now it's my privilege to recognize the gentlelady--and I say gentlelady--from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

Mr. WESTMORELAND. How many do we have now?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the Policy Committee chairman. And you're exactly right, we owe it to the American people to stay here until we can put our partisanship aside, do a bipartisan bill that the American people--and we thought we had that last night with the motion to recommit, with all the Democratic cosponsors that were on it--to have a bill that we could pass, send to the Senate, and hopefully get some agreement on. But you mentioned the process, that the process is important because, you know, when the process is broken, the product is flawed. Mr. Speaker, I don't want to get too elementary, but this is a book that we give to children that come to this body, and it says, ``How Our Laws Are Made.'' The beginning of a bill: Propose a bill, introduce a bill, committee action, subcommittee action. The bill is reported, considered on the House floor. Vote the bill. Refer to the Senate. Now, Mr. Speaker, this is if we were going through the proper process that our Founding Fathers and people who had the idea--this is the process that was set up, and this is what we teach our young people that come to the Capitol. Now, I will show you the chart that is being used right now by the majority. You have the beginning of the bill, propose a bill. And then you kind of go through the introduction, the committee action, the subcommittee action, and the bill is reported. It basically just kind of comes to the floor of the House. So what we're teaching our kids is not exactly right. And so I think while the majority is in control of Congress, they may want to shift this a little bit and give the children a more accurate depiction of what's going on in the Congress. And I will yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I'd like to ask the gentleman from Tennessee a question. You're on the Appropriations Committee. On the bill that we passed here yesterday, I believe there were some appropriations in there or earmarks in there. I think there was $1.2 billion for Mr. Rangel for the New York City liberty bonds. Was that not in the energy package that we had?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. And I wonder if the $9 billion bailout of IndyMac, the $29 billion bailout of Bear Stearns, the $85 billion bailout of AIG, the $200 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which, under that bill, is some of the ability that they gave Secretary Paulson to do some of these bailouts. Also, the $300 billion exposure that they gave the American taxpayers to expand the FHA to refinance problem mortgages, and now they're talking about a $25 billion bailout for the automakers. So the gentleman from Tennessee has some great points. But let me speak to the energy thing that he mentioned. In the bipartisan bill, there were 25 of the 35 Democrats that sponsored this bill that voted against it; they were actually cosponsors. But let me tell you where a little of this makeup comes right quick. Energy crisis: ``There is no energy crisis on our side of the aisle.'' And that was from a Democratic House aide that was written in the Politico on August 5, 2008. Also, according to Speaker Pelosi, ``If Democrats relented on drilling, then we might as well pack it up and go home.'' That was from July 11, 2008. Then we've got, ``This is a political month. There's all kinds of things we try to do that will just go away after we leave.'' And that's Representative John Murtha. And if I could, Mr. Speaker, I would recall you to the quote that Mr. Kanjorski said: ``We kind of stretched the truth, and the people ate it up.'' So this makes me believe that what we've done here, just the sham that's gone on, might be just to fool people until after we leave. ``This is all about politics, not necessarily about policy.'' And this comes from Karen Whalen, who is with the Natural Resources Defense Council, that she spoke of in September. Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, on the Democrats' latest energy plan, said, ``It is dead on arrival in the Senate.'' So when they passed this sham of a bill last night so they can go home and say that they passed an energy bill, even their own party in the Senate recognizes that this thing is dead on arrival. And some of the other comments, it was just politics, it is election-year stuff. Now, this is the last quote I'm going to show you tonight from Speaker Pelosi, but her quote is, ``I'm trying to save the planet. I'm just trying to save the planet.'' Well, we wish that her and the Democratic majority would try to do something to relieve everyday Americans of the pain at the pump that we're facing, the loss of jobs that their economic policies that they've passed since they've been here have created, the fact that gas has been from a little over $2 to over $4, the fact that 17 of the refineries were closed down with Hurricane Ike and the 3,200 drilling platforms because they are in the direct path of hurricanes, when we could be expanding our energy resources to the east coast, to the west coast, to Alaska, where these hurricanes don't normally hit. So keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, that Speaker Pelosi is trying to save the planet and not help the everyday American that is feeling the pain at the pump. Now I want to recognize our distinguished policy chairman of the Republican Conference, the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina. As she showed on this chart here with the unemployment rate going from a little less than 4.5 percent up to over 6.1 percent, the correlation, if you will notice, is with the gas prices. All this has happened since the new Democratic majority took over. When we look at this unemployment, we wonder is it because of record energy prices? Is it because of increased labor costs because of the minimum wage increase? Is it the assault on companies that are making too much profit? Is it the trade agreements that have been ignored? Is it the new government mandates on everything from cars to light bulbs that could be causing this unemployment rate to go up? We need to talk about that for just a minute, and I recognize the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Just to follow up on that, we have shale, we have natural gas and we have the need for refineries. Not a new refinery has been built in this country. And those are good paying, mostly union jobs that are here. Those are good paying jobs that we are causing people to go to Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, other parts of the world to even have employment. I recognize the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, I don't know how many people have been watching the last hour, and I don't know that I can straighten it out in the next hour. But I do want to start out with something that is kind of elementary, I guess, to most people, but I want to explain the makeup of Congress. And excuse my penmanship. The House consists of 435 Members. The Democrats have 235, and that's because of the loss of the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones. The Republicans have 199 Members. You can see that the Democrat number is larger than our number. To get anything passed in this body, it takes 218 votes. You can see that the Democrats have more than 218 votes. In the Senate, 100 Members; Democrats have 51, Republicans have 49. The Democrats have had the majority in Congress since January of 2007. And so what that says to me is that all of the stuff that I have heard in the last hour, Mr. Speaker, if they've got all the answers, why haven't they been brought to the floor? Now I'm sure that's a question that many of us are asking because if they are in control and they've got all of the brilliant ideas that's going to save the world, then why haven't they brought them to the floor and put 218 votes up to pass it out of the House? That's got to be a question on a lot of people's minds. Now in order to gain the majority, there were some things said and some things promised during the campaign cycle that led up to the new majority. Here is one of their promises: ``Members should have at least 24 hours to examine bill and conference report text prior to floor consideration. Rules governing floor debate must be reported before 10 p.m. for a bill to be considered the following day.'' This was Speaker Pelosi in a New Direction for America, 2006. Let me say that the sham of an energy bill that was brought to this floor yesterday was presented the night before to the Rules Committee at 10:45. This is just a little example of what we've been faced with and the fact that the new majority won that majority by saying such things as this that the people believed that they would actually carry on. I will tell you that this is not a rule. They did not make this a rule. This was one of those empty promises. Let's look at something else. Speaker Pelosi in 2006 before they gained the majority: ``Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.'' Since the new majority has been in in 2007 and 2008, they have had over 60 closed rules, which means that there are no amendments, you can't bring your ideas here and have them openly debated. The last energy bill that was here was one of those rules. I might add in the 109th Congress when Republicans were in control, we had just about half of that amount in closed rules. Now here is the thing that I think that most people will get a grasp on, Mr. Speaker. This was by Representative Paul Kanjorski when he was in his hometown after becoming the majority. He was in his hometown, and he was asked about the Democrats' promise to bring back the troops from Iraq. And as he was talking--but this kind of relates to everything that has been said by them to gain the majority--before he said this, he said, ``In our desire to win back the majority, we sort of stretched the truth and people ate it up.'' Well, you know, that's something. But then we got to the point where we're at today with the energy crisis. In 2007 when the Democrats took over, gas was about $2.10 a gallon. Unemployment was 4.5 percent. Today, gas is over $4 a gallon and employment is 6.1 percent, but yet they want to blame the Republicans. Now they're constantly blaming President Bush. I don't know, Mr. Speaker, but I have never seen President Bush in this body casting a vote. In fact, if you've studied your government, you know that there's an executive branch, there's a legislative branch, and there's a judicial branch. The legislative branch is responsible for making laws. Now if you go back to the first chart, you can remember that they have more than enough to pass anything that they want to in this body, and they control the Senate. So what is the problem? We don't know. We want to understand why we are constantly being blamed. They talked about the economic problems. They've been in control since January of 2007. They passed a housing bill that gave Secretary Paulson the ability to do what he's doing with some of these bailouts. The majority of Republicans voted against that bill. So when are we going to take some responsibility and stop all of the blame shifting? We've got some Members here tonight that might want to explain some of that to you because it's a problem when the people in control want to blame somebody else for their problems. I heard them mention the SCHIP. Why didn't they proceed with it, continue on with that leadership if they thought that was the right thing to do rather than caving? No idea. I have no idea. Why have they not done some of the other things that they talk about that would help with the economic crisis that we find ourselves in today? Hopefully we will give you some of those answers. Now I would like to recognize my good friend from the State of Tennessee (Mr. Wamp).

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great American soldier who has dedicated his life to our country. Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski will retire from the U.S. Army Jan. 1 after more than three decades of service, capping his career as the commanding general at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. A native of Colorado, Wojdakowski found a welcoming home in Georgia. In this way he is no different than thousands of soldiers who've come before him. The people of west Georgia are deeply proud of Fort Benning; they hold the soldiers in high esteem and treat them like part of the family. Wojdakowski felt that family feeling strongly in 1976 when he was first stationed at Fort Benning. On one fateful July night that year, a young Columbus woman named Candy Cooper caught his eye at the officers' club. It wasn't long before they were off on their first date at a local Shoney's Big Boy and a year later Candy Cooper would become Candy Wojdakowski. The soldier's lifelong love would become his lifelong partner in service to their nation and to fellow military families. As a military family, the Wojdakowskis have moved their family to points across the nation and across the globe--from Georgia to Alaska to Germany and Kuwait. The Wojdakowskis' road, however, often pointed back toward Georgia. In 1993, then a colonel, Wojdakowski assumed command of the 11th Regiment at Fort Benning. He returned in 1996 as a brigadier general. Wojdakowski's final tour of duty at Benning began in 2005 when the major general took charge of the entire base. Wojdakowski's crowning achievement in the military would come at the same base where his own family began, Fort Benning, GA. There, at the world's largest infantry training center, Wojdakowski kept the focus on training our nation's warriors and supporting the War on Terror. At the same time, his leadership prepared Benning for a massive expansion that will greatly transform the base. While it was the general alone who wore the uniform that got a little heavier every year with military hardware, Wojdakowski's career was anything but a solo mission. It was a family affair. Candy volunteered at every port of call. For example, she ran a family support group at Fort Hood during the first Gulf War. At Fort Benning, she worked as a master trainer for Army Family Team Building and she began a leadership seminar. Their son Steven followed in his father's footsteps. After graduating from Columbus High School in 1998, Steven entered West Point--where his 6 foot 4 inch father played on the basketball team under coach Bobby Knight 30 years before. Steven, now a captain, is currently serving in Iraq as a Troop Commander to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Their daughter Ami may have started a family tradition when she got married earlier this year in the same Fort Benning chapel where her parents tied the knot. The American people owe the Wojdakowskis a debt of gratitude for a lifetime of service and sacrifice, a lifetime of duty before self. Maj. Gen. Wojdakowski has worn his nation's uniform with honor, dignity and pride since the day he graduated from West Point. On behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives, I want to thank the general and his wife Candy for everything they have given us. I congratulate them on their many accomplishments and wish them years of happiness as they retire to beautiful Harris County in Georgia's 3rd Congressional District.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, this bill that was introduced last night at 9:45 has the same MO as the other lies that the Democratic Party have told the American people. I quote here from A Congress Working for all Americans, something put out by the then-Democratic minority trying to become the majority. ``Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process.'' More smoke and mirrors to get elected. In fact, Mr. Paul Kanjorski stated it best when he was talking to a reporter about the promises the Democrats made on the campaign trail, ``We sort of stretched the truth, and people ate it up.'' They have stretched the truth. Speaker Pelosi in April 2006, said, we have a plan to lower the skyrocketing price gas prices. It was $2.06 at the time. Now, as you know, it's over $4. But Mr. DeFazio from Oregon told the truth. He said, ``It is sad to see the Republicans come to this.'' Now they laughingly say this will lead to higher prices. The energy bill they passed in January of 2007 has caused gas prices to double. This is a sham.