Peter Welch

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Thank you. This is such an important issue about the future. We can get a deficit deal. The President is committed to doing it. It's got to be balanced. Balanced means there's got to be revenues. Our taxes, especially from the high-income, are at historic lows. We have to have health care reform, and that can get the cost of health care down, bring that rate of growth of spending down. In Vermont, that's what we're trying to do. We're a single-payer State. We're trying to move towards a single-payer. And the reason is that it's the best way to get our arms around health care so you can continue the access. And we know that there are reforms that we can make in Medicare. Just for example, if we purchase drugs wholesale, why do we pay retail? In the VA and in Medicaid, the government is a big purchaser and it negotiates price discounts with the pharmaceutical companies that are quite eager to sell their prescription drugs to Medicare.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, it's been 141 days. That's how long it's been since the House Agriculture Committee, on a bipartisan basis, passed the farm bill by a vote of 35-11. That's the high watermark of bipartisanship in this Congress. It represents something that is too lacking in Washington today: a serious attempt at progress through bipartisan work. We need a farm bill. America needs a farm bill. Our farmers, our folks dependent on nutrition programs, our folks who are farming and want to conserve the land, they're entitled to have Congress act. You know, it's one thing to vote ``yes'' and it's one thing to vote ``no,'' but it is unacceptable not to vote at all. The decision on whether we will vote on a farm bill is up to the leadership. They owe it to each one of us so we can be accountable to the people we represent and give America a farm bill. There is absolutely no excuse for Congress to not even try to do its job, which will occur when a farm bill is brought to the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman. You know, on the farm bill, we've got the worst drought we've had in 50 years. We've got people who need nutrition programs. We've got farmers who need certainty about what the price support programs are going to be, what their future is going to be. We've got livestock farmers that are in desperate straits because of the drought. And we've got a Senate that's passed a farm bill. We've got a House Agriculture Committee that's passed a farm bill, on a bipartisan basis, Democrats and Republicans working together to pass that bill. And the House leadership, who has the authority to bring this bill to the floor, won't do it. That's the first time in the history of the House of Representatives where a farm bill passed by the Agriculture Committee has not been brought to the floor for a vote. Mr. Speaker, we could defend, each and every one of us on both sides of the aisle, a vote of conscience, whether it was ``yes'' or ``no,'' on the farm bill. None of us can defend not even taking a vote on the farm bill. That decision is not within the authority of any individual Member of Congress. That is the decision that the majority leader and the Speaker of the House have the authority to make, and their refusal to bring this bill to the floor will be absolutely an indictment of Congress' inability to do its job. America needs a farm bill. This Congress needs to do its job. We've got the time to do it. We should act. That bill should be brought to us for a vote.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago, Congress took action finally to reform out-of-control debit card swipe fees charged to our small businesses and customers every time they swipe a debit card. For years, the card companies and big banks have essentially been ripping folks off, overcharging them on swipe fees. With no one watching just because they could, they were charging the highest fees in the world, running up billions of dollars in profits but all at the expense of small businesses and consumers. That's just too much. There is no justification for this. A year ago, Congress finally took action on the debit cards. That's good for our economy and fair to our small merchants. But we need to do more. Abuses continue in credit card swipe fees. The credit card companies and the big banks should step back and have a business model where they charge a fair price for an important service but not rip off their customers.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to bring attention to the town of Waterbury, Vermont. There was an article in The Boston Globe identifying it as the best beer town in New England. In this small town, beer pilgrims from across the country flock to appreciate and enjoy the finest beer in America. It's the quality of the beer that's brewed that's really revered. Let me just tell you about a few. It's the home to the Alchemist cannery, which makes an IPA called Heady Topper. I can tell you personally that it's really good. The Beer Advocate, the bible of the beer community, rates it as the third best in the world. The beer is sold in cans, but it sells out early, so get there early. It's not hard to see why it's so popular when it's the third best in the world, but there are others there. Waterbury is the home to a number of restaurants: the Prohibition Pig, the Blackback Pub, and Arvad's, to name a few with great beers. Vermont is coming back from Hurricane Irene. In Waterbury, it's one beer at a time.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, we have a very serious debt problem in this country. We have a very serious jobs problem in this country. Both of those serious problems are solvable. The impediment is political. This is exhibit A of a dysfunctional Congress. The supercommittee failed this Congress when the leadership on the Republican side implemented these sequester cuts. We all know they make no sense from an economic standpoint, but it puts the burden back on us to come up with the balanced approach that every American knows is the only way forward, a balance of revenues, a balance with entitlement reform, and the Pentagon making a contribution to solve our problems. That is what is going to create jobs, and that is what is going to create fiscal stability.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, the American people are going to make a decision on November 6 about the future leadership of this Congress and this country, and they face, as they do every 4 years, two fundamental questions. The first: Who can be in charge of the cash register? Who will best manage the economy? The second: Who will be a firm hand in protecting America's foreign policy interests? If we look at the past 2 years with this Republican-led Congress, which has accomplished nothing and, in fact, has done damage, the question on who is best in charge of the cash register is quite clear. The Ryan budget that was passed by this House and that stalled in the Senate would actually increase the debt. The whole point, supposedly, of the Republican agenda coming into Congress was to lower the debt. The budget they passed would increase it by $6 trillion. Why is that? Well, first of all, many of the proponents of this budget are the folks who voted for policies that actually exploded the debt: the war in Iraq on the credit card; nation-building in Afghanistan on the credit card; the prescription drug program unpaid for on the credit card. Those policies played a very big role in getting us into the debt that we have. Then the Ryan budget, which is supposedly the blueprint to reduce the debt, increases it by $6 trillion in 10 years. Why? Because it increases those Bush tax cuts that were never paid for and would lower their Republican Presidential candidate's effective tax rate to 1 percent. Secondly, it vastly increases Pentagon spending beyond what even the Pentagon is asking for. Even though it then imposes savage cuts on domestic discretionary spending--making it really difficult to do scientific research, to help our kids go to college--the net result is a $6 trillion increase in the debt. On foreign policy, no responsibility is so vested in one person--the President of the United States--when guiding American foreign policy. It needs a firm hand, a calm voice, a person who thinks before he speaks, who aims before he fires. The recent tragedy of losing our ambassador and three other brave civil servants from the State Department is an indication that the Republican Presidential candidate lacks the temperament to do that job. Why is it that in the first statement that he made after the loss of four American lives he descended into what essentially was tactical politics--arguing about the wording of a communique from the American Embassy in Egypt? Is it really the case that we in America cannot defend the right of free speech and promote religious tolerance? We need a President--and have a President--who is thoughtful, who is firm, who can act with conviction and clarity, and does it in a sober way that is going to defend and promote American political and foreign policy interests.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentlewoman from California, and I thank the gentleman from Texas. This is terrific. The EB-5 program works. We're doing it together. We're working with the Senate, and we're getting something done. Let me tell you that the place we're getting something done includes the Sugarbush Valley and the Mad River Valley in Vermont, in the Northeast Kingdom, where we've had, among other jobs created, two ski areas that have been able to take advantage of the EB-5 program--to get investor money and to build the infrastructure that is so essential to the tourist economy that we have in Vermont. So this is a program that works, and it is delightful to me to be able to participate in reinstating this program so that it can continue to help create jobs and promote economic development in my State of Vermont. I thank the gentleman from Texas and the gentlewoman from California for their leadership on this and for the bipartisan team of Senator Leahy and Senator Grassley in the United States Senate.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, America needs a farm bill. The Senate has passed a farm bill. The House Agriculture Committee on a bipartisan basis has passed a farm bill, and that is not being brought to the floor for a vote. We have a drought. It's the worst that we've seen in 50 years. We've got nutrition programs that need to be funded. We have environmental and conservation programs that need to be revised and passed. We have farmers across this land whose goal is to feed America, and they need a farm bill. Never in the history of the United States Congress has a farm bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee not been brought to the floor for a vote. There's no question that a farm bill is contentious. It always is. But with Frank Lucas and Collin Peterson, Republican leader and Democratic leader, and the Agriculture Committee working together, we got a bipartisan vote. Why is this not being brought to the floor? That it's difficult is not a reason not to do it. Bring a farm bill and pass it.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman. There is agreement in this Congress that we've got to create jobs in this economy. There is 100 percent agreement that we should extend tax cuts for 98 percent of the American people. If there is 100 percent agreement among the 435 Members of Congress to provide a continuing benefit to 98 percent of the people, why don't we do it? That's pretty good. The election will allow each side to make its argument about the tax cuts for the 2 percent. Incidentally, that 2 percent would be included. They'd get their tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income. So what we really have is 100 percent agreement that 100 percent of the people will get a tax cut, and we have a disagreement about whether 2 percent of the people will have their tax cuts stopped at $250,000. We know that extending those Clinton-era tax rates is very important in order to maintain what is a fragile recovery. If we can step back from our political posturing and acknowledge that, in fact, we do agree that it is essential to the economy to extend those Clinton-era tax rates, why not do it sooner rather than later? Number one, there is no guarantee after the election that it will be easier to do then than it will be now. It's a roll of the dice on both sides. It would be one thing if the only thing at stake were our political futures, our political careers. That's not a big deal. Yet what's at stake is the American economy. It's about whether people have jobs, whether they have security, whether they can depend on what they need to raise their families. Some of those provisions are really important to students--a tax credit if you have a kid in college. Some of those are important as to whether you're going to be able to continue to itemize your deductions if you're a middle class family. Some of those are about the rates of tax that you pay. We agree on all of this, but it is solely within the power of the majority to decide whether to bring this bill to the floor for a vote. We are asking that it be done on behalf of the American people.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentlelady. Madam Speaker, let's first of all define what these two bills are. Number one, the Democratic bill would provide tax relief to 100 percent of Americans: 98 percent would get tax relief on every dollar of income; 2 percent would get tax relief on up to $250,000 of income. Above that, they would be going back to the Clinton rates. The Republican bill would provide 100 percent of Americans tax relief, including those top 2 percent. At what cost? A trillion dollars added to the debt, number one. Number two, higher taxes on military folks and low-income folks who would be hammered by the tax increases in the Republican bill. Why is that? There's two reasons: One, the underlying philosophy behind the Republican bill is that trickle-down economics works. It is a proposition that says that the tax cuts that go to the 2 percent, the highest-income Americans--who don't need them--will benefit 98 percent of Americans who don't get them. There's absolutely no evidence to back that up. Secondly, there's a total doubling down on supply-side economics, trickle-down economics. Our bill basically has two propositions: Number one, if we're going to work ourselves out of the biggest recession that we've had since the Great Depression, we have to increase employment and we have to increase demand. That's why we've got to give purchasing power to the vast majority of low-income and middle Americans. That's why we sustain the tax breaks that we've had in place since the Bush tax cuts were passed. Number two, we have to pay down on the debt and have money to invest in things like infrastructure, science, and education. That's a trillion dollars that would be made available by going with the Democratic approach. We've been here before, trickle-down economics versus middle class commitment.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, America needs a farm bill. America needs a farm bill. Our ranchers, our agricultural conservation districts, our dairy farmers, our commodity farmers need and deserve a farm bill. It was passed by the Senate. It was passed by the House Agriculture Committee in a strong bipartisan vote. But for the first time, literally the first time in the history of this country, a farm bill passed by the Agriculture Committee is not being allowed to come to the floor. There's no excuse for that. Is it a hard job? Yes. But is that an excuse for Congress to duck its responsibility? No. Are there contentious issues? Yes. Some on the other side want to cut commodity programs. Give them a shot. Let them bring an amendment. My colleague, Rosa DeLauro, thinks we ought to restore all funding for nutrition. I agree. Give her a shot. Congress must do its job. It must bring a farm bill to the floor for a vote so that each and every one of us is held to account to our constituents.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Yes.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman. So is the question this, that we're supposed to do literally nothing about extreme weather? Are we supposed to pretend that we don't have extreme weather? We've had the worst drought, the hottest 12-month period in the history of keeping records since 1895. You can go throughout the entire country and see almost everywhere now the effects of extreme weather. In our State of Vermont, Mr. Chair, last August 28, Tropical Storm Irene dumped an immense amount of water and did the worst damage since 1927. We didn't used to have storms like that. We also are starting to have a threat to our maple trees, from which come the best maple syrup in the country, in the world. Mr. Chairman, extreme weather is real. It's serious. And our response is to put our heads in the sand. I support this amendment.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, I want to preface my remarks by two things: number one, not all regulations are good. It's a fair and appropriate question to examine whether regulations are useful or harmful. But second, not all regulations are bad. They can be useful, particularly in the area of energy efficiency. Now, Mr. Chairman, we're having a very contentious debate about energy policy, but we've found one area where there is common agreement, and that's less is more. Any time, whatever your fuel choice is--whether it's coal, nuclear, oil, solar, wind--using less means you save money. That's a good thing. Regulations can play a very constructive role in helping those of us who participate in the economy as individuals and as businesses to save money. My amendment would exempt from this overbroad bill rules that would prohibit energy efficiency-saving regulations. Let me give a very good example of something that would happen detrimental to the economy if this bill is not amended. Fuel standards were established in November. They have not yet gone into effect and would be prohibited from going into effect. The fuel economy standards for model years 2017 to 2025 will carry our vehicle fleet to an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon. The consumers support this and, my friends, the industry supports this. The car industry supports this. And one of the reasons they do is, if you have a rule that applies to all our manufacturers, that's the rule that they will manufacture their cars to. So you won't have gaming of this to try to get some short-term advantage at the expense of the consumer, at the expense of a competitor. So energy efficiency is something that can help us save money. It can help the economy be more efficient. And in order to achieve the goal of energy efficiency, regulations, reasonably enacted, are absolutely essential to achieving that goal. Mr. Chairman, I urge this body to adopt the amendment and improve this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WELCH. May I inquire as to how much time I have.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, two things: number one, we can't have a comprehensive, one-size-fits-all bill that applies to regulations. It requires some judgment. That means that there are some regulations that are good, some are bad. The gentleman, I think, is defending a bill that essentially has, as its proposition, all regulations, by definition, are detrimental to the economy, when that's not even close to accurate. Second, I appreciate the gentleman's description of a waiver process that gives, unfortunately, a theoretical way to resolve a situation, but it's not a practical remedy. It requires congressional action. And here's, Mr. Chairman, where I think we've got to get real with ourselves, and we've got to get real with the American people. The idea that we can agree on a disputed regulation would suggest that we could have agreed on student loan interest rates, that we could have agreed on the debt ceiling, that we could have agreed on a grand bargain. All of these issues that are enormously contentious and consequential for the American people, we have sharp divisions. And I'm not asserting who's right or wrong in this. I'm saying that all of us have to acknowledge the obvious and, that is, that Congress is pretty close to dysfunctional. Things that have to be addressed are being neglected. So this notion that when it comes to the car mileage standard, we'll be able to come into Congress and do a Kumbaya and all of us get together and reach agreement on one thing when, on everything else, the simplest of things we can't reach agreement, is not being direct and straightforward with ourselves or with the American people. Let's carve out an exception to this bill so that when this economy and our consumers and businesses can benefit by energy efficiency, which our industry supports, which our people and consumers support, we allow them to do that. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, retailing is an important part of the American economy. The Main Street retailers--brick-and-mortar retailers--play an essential function of providing access to stores in communities. They're the engine of downtown revitalization. E-commerce retailers are emerging as a very strong retailing force, providing convenience and low cost to consumers. The challenge we face is having a level playing field between these two retailers. The way things stand right now, if a State assesses a sales tax, Main Street retailers have to collect it; e-retailers, more often than not, don't. That's not a level playing field for them to compete on a fair basis. There are two bills in the House to resolve this: the Main Street Fairness Act and the Marketplace Equity Act. Both I am a cosponsor of, with bipartisan support. Fair is fair. We're making progress on this. Just recently, the Governors from both parties attending the National Governors Association spoke in favor of the importance of updating Federal law so there will be this level playing field. And just this morning, in Chairman Smith's House Judiciary Committee, there was a hearing on the Marketplace Equity Act. Let's bring this to the floor for a vote. Let's pass it. Let's return fairness.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Madam Chair, the war in Afghanistan had a legitimate purpose when it began. That was the grounds from which Osama Bin Laden engineered the attack on the World Trade Center. Congress supported going into Afghanistan to take out Osama Bin Laden and to deny a safe haven to terrorists. At a certain point, the policy transformed from an effort to protect us against a base of operations into a nation- building mission. That was a grave mistake. Adopting nation-building will be seen through the lens of history as being about as effective as trench warfare in World War I. Our military will do whatever is asked of them. Our job is to make requests of them that are reasonable for them to do. It is not the job of the men and women who serve in the U.S. military to build nation- states in Afghanistan. That policy failed militarily. That policy is unsustainable economically. That policy does not make us more secure. Why? One, it is not the job of the military to build nation-states. It is the job of the military--and it is one they do very well--to protect America from attack. Two, if you are attempting a nation-building strategy, you need an ally that is going to be a partner with you. The Karzai government is corrupt. It is infected with corruption. It has exceeded our wildest and most pessimistic expectations of what corruption can be. We do not have a reliable partner. So the question becomes: At what point do we step back when we have the responsibility to set a policy that protects this Nation, to set a policy that respects our taxpayer, to set a policy that acknowledges the willingness of men and women to serve but that accepts our burden of giving them a policy that is worthy of their unrelenting ability and willingness to sacrifice? As we know, the American people believe it is time to come home from Afghanistan. They understand it. The President of the United States has said that we will bring our troops home by the end of 2014. So the policies have been changed. The war in Afghanistan, in fact, is over. The question for Congress is: Will we end it? We are giving it ever more money for a policy we know doesn't work. We know the Karzai government is incapable and unwilling to be an honest partner. We know that nation-building is a strategy that cannot succeed. We know that the threat of terrorism, as persistent as it is, is not a nation-state-centered threat. It is dispersed, and our military response to that has likewise become dispersed. So why are we pursuing this policy when we have renounced it, acknowledged that it has failed? The American people don't support it. It's inertia. It is the unwillingness of Congress to take a definitive action where our policy should match our deeds. We are bringing our troops home. We should have as a policy that we bring those troops home as quickly--as quickly--as we responsibly can. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WELCH. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, this afternoon the House is going to take up the Sequestration Transparency Act. It's harmless enough, but it doesn't do anything. What is it? A year ago, Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell took this country to the brink of debt default. They demanded that we cut spending by $1.2 trillion to offset the increase in the debt limit. Now, their plan was to have the supercommittee get the job done any way they wanted to balance the cuts and revenues. But if that failed, they had a backup. The backup was automatic cuts that would be half Pentagon and half discretionary. Now the day arrives. January 1, 2013, those cuts go into effect, but they don't want the cuts to go into effect. So this legislation tells the Congressional Budget Office to look at the law we passed and tell us what did we do, why did we do it, what will happen if what we order to be done is allowed to be done. This is a ``Comedy Central'' joke. We have to have a balanced approach to a serious problem, but that means making decisions today about a balanced approach that includes revenues, includes the Pentagon, and includes domestic discretionary.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. So transcripts of the grand jury, transcripts of wiretap applications, which is not only a violation of the U.S. Code, but would jeopardize law enforcement officials if that word got out. That is an irresponsible and overbroad subpoena. So the bottom line is to let the investigation continue, but let's acknowledge that the job that the committee needs to do before it asks for a vote of contempt has not been done.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the investigation that's being conducted by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is a legitimate investigation. But the recommendation to this House to hold the Attorney General in contempt is reckless, irresponsible, unnecessary, and will actually get in the way of the pursuit of truth. Why do I say that? If you're going to do an investigation, you have to begin at the beginning, and the beginning of Fast and Furious and gunwalking began in the Bush administration. There's no evidence that President Bush was aware of it. There's some questions about what his Attorney General knew, what and when. But if you are sincerely interested in trying to find out what happened, how it happened, how in the world do you not begin at the beginning? And despite that fact, the requests of many of us on the committee who support an investigation, who support the use of a subpoena, who support the aggressive right of Congress to get access to documents that it needs, have been denied the opportunity to bring in witnesses about what happened and how it happened during the Bush administration. We've been denied the opportunity to bring in Attorney General Mukasey, despite the fact that there was evidence that he was personally briefed on the botched efforts to coordinate interdiction with Mexican authorities. Then-Attorney General Mukasey was also told that the ATF field office in Phoenix planned to expand these operations during his tenure. So our question really quite simply is, begin at the beginning. That foundation of an open and exhaustive search is what this committee, the Committee on Government Reform, owes to this House of Representatives before it asks the Members of this House to vote on the extraordinary measure of finding a sitting Attorney General in contempt. Secondly, we've got to do our job with care. The original subpoena that went out and was there until the Friday before the Wednesday in which we voted was demanding that the Attorney General turn over documents that would have been illegal for him to turn over--transcripts of the grand jury.