John Yarmuth

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentlelady, and I intend to be at the game myself in a most supportive role. I would like now to introduce one of the physicians of the House. Not too long ago, there was an article in the New York Times that talked about the number of physicians here. They make an extraordinary contribution to our efforts in this field and in many others. So it gives me great pleasure to yield to my good friend from Wisconsin, Dr. Kagen.

Mr. YARMUTH. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, it's a great honor for me to be here tonight to lead a discussion about the most pressing and the most significant problem to most Americans, and that is the question of health care. I'm here with Members of the class of 2006. We call ourselves the Majority Makers, and from time to time we are here to address matters of great national import with you. But this is a very special topic for the class of 2006. I remember very well when I began my campaign for Congress back then, in 2006, when many of the headlines of our Nation's newspapers and our television news operations were all about the Iraq war, and people would say to me, Well, I guess everyone's talking about the Iraq war to you. And I said, No, nobody's talking about the Iraq war. It's health care, health care, health care. Everywhere I went, neighborhood picnics, Catholic picnics on Friday night, festivals, businesses, schools, wherever I went, I heard story after story about how Americans were fed up with the health care system that was not serving them. In fact, it was, in many cases, killing them. Well, here we are, 3 years later, and while health care may not have been on the front pages of the newspapers up till now because we have a severe economic decline and many challenges we're dealing with, this Congress is ready to put health care back on the front pages. And President Obama has already indicated that this is his top priority in his first time in office, and the reasons that that is so are not hard to determine. It's pretty easy to look around us, look at the numbers and see why we have to take significant, decisive action to improve, to change our health care system. Just a few weeks ago, Dr. Christine Rohmer, who heads the White House's economic team, testified before the House Budget Committee that if we don't make significant steps to reform health care, to get a handle on cost, to bring prices down, that health care, which now comprises 17 percent of our economy, by 2040, would make up 35 percent of our economy. Well, you don't have to be an economist or a health care expert to know that if health care takes up 35 percent of our economy, it's going to squeeze out most of everything else. In short, it is an unsustainable number. And we can go on and talk about the dramatic impact of Medicare and those types of expenses on the Federal budget as well as on the general economy. But what most people are concerned about is not the big picture, not the macroeconomic picture; it's the kitchen table picture. It's what happens in your household, what happens to individuals, those people that we meet in all segments of our society from one coast to the other who have had significant difficulties with their health care system. They're small business people who have seen their premiums rise 15, 20, 25 percent every year in spite of the fact that they have very low utilization, healthy people. We've seen story after story of individuals who, at 55 years of age, lose their job. They can't get COBRA for a very long period of time. They don't qualify for Medicare. They try to go out in the private market and buy insurance, but at 55, most everybody's going to have some kind of preexisting condition that makes them, under current, the current system, uninsurable. We heard from a couple yesterday in that exact same position. They came to testify to Congress. A woman has had epilepsy since she was 5 years old. Her husband lost his job. Now they go out and try to shop for insurance in the private market, but because she has epilepsy, something totally beyond her control, obviously, the only insurance policy she could get cost $2,600 a month. Now, how many people in this country can afford $2,600 a month for health insurance? $30,000 a year. Well, not very many. But these are stories that are repeated time after time after time. I have to tell one that was a personal experience of mine, and then I'm going to let my colleagues from the class of 2006 contribute not just their stories about where health care needs to be fixed, but also what this Congress is proposing to do to set America on a sounder course for health care. Back during my 2006 campaign, we had a young worker, a young woman in her mid-twenties, was a volunteer in our campaign. She was severely disabled, so severely disabled she was wheelchair-bound. And she told me that if she were not covered by SSI, she would have spent, had to spend $3,000 a month just on her prescription medications, but because of SSI, she was able to manage her health care problems. Now, she had, and I hope she still has, a boyfriend, and they wanted to get married. Her boyfriend worked at a supermarket company. He was making $11 an hour, which, to them, was a great salary. But they couldn't get married, because if they got married, she would lose her disability coverage, and the company where her boyfriend was employed could not, would not put her on the policy because she was so expensive to cover. So what we have here are two people in love, wanting to get married, wanting to start a family, wanting to do what so many Americans want to do, and because of a health care coverage issue, they cannot get married. In this country, there is no excuse for that situation. Time after time, all of us run into situations in which people are having to make important life decisions based on whether there is the availability of health care coverage. There is someone who wants to leave a company and wants to start a small business of his own--not able to do it because of coverage. There is somebody who wants to leave a situation, in which he or she has coverage, in order to go back to school to further his education and advance his prospects--can't do it because of insurance coverage. We all know these scenarios all too well. So this Congress and this President have set out to change the health care system in this country to make sure that every American has peace of mind and security where his or her health care is concerned. That's what we're about, and that's why we're going to put health care back on the front pages and back as the lead story on America's newscasts over the next few weeks, because we are going to do for the American people what we know they want us to do and need us to do. With that, I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to mark the retirement of a man who has been a true institution of my hometown over the last 40 years. In an era where loyalty is fleeting and in an industry that is constantly changing, the people of Louisville are grateful that Tom Wills dedicated his career to serving our community. It was 1969 when Tom came to Louisville to work as WAVE 3 TV's meteorologist. In the decades since, Tom has been there for Louisvillians through it all. Whether it was the 1974 tornado, the snowstorm of 1994, or the ice storm this past winter, Tom's reassuring voice has been a fixture on televisions throughout Louisville. We in Louisville are grateful to have had Tom walk us through every sunny day and every rainy night. After four decades, I am proud to join all of Louisville in thanking him for his service and wishing him the best as he moves on to a well-deserved retirement.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Madam Speaker, the distinguished minority leader has just expressed the desire of his party to engage us in health care reform, and I'm so gratified and happy to hear him say that. Similarly, the distinguished minority leader of the Senate, who is both my Senator and my constituent, has spent the last few days in the Senate talking about that same desire, to help us move forward in addressing what we all know is an unsustainable and dysfunctional health care delivery system. The Senator spoke last Friday, and he said, ``Americans want reform that addresses the high cost of care and gives everyone access to quality care. In America in 2009, doing nothing is simply not an option. We must act and we must act decisively. The question is not whether to reform health care; the question is how best to reform health care.'' None of us in either body on either side of the aisle will argue with that statement. Unfortunately, in the remainder of the distinguished Senate minority leader's statement, there is not the first idea about how to do that. Despite his teasing us that he is going to offer solutions, they're not. In fact, what he does is pretty similar to what the distinguished minority leader of the House just did, which was to echo the themes of a talking point paper provided by Frank Luntz, the Republican message person, which basically said the Republicans cannot afford to allow Democrats to have a victory in health care. They can't allow us to get something done for the American people. And, therefore, they are going to respond by criticizing everything we are doing as a government takeover of health care. In fact, in the distinguished Senate minority leader's statement, some version of government takeover is mentioned 11 times in 1\1/2\ half pages. So we know where they're coming from. But the arguments that are raised are also things that require scrutiny, and as we move forward in this debate, we need to examine all of them. For instance, the Senator says, ``When most companies want to raise money, they have to show they are viable and their products and services are a worthwhile investment.'' Again, nobody can argue with that. That means adding value. ``Apply this model to health care, and the government would be able to create the same kind of uneven playing field that would, in all likelihood, eventually wipe out competition, thus forcing millions of people off the private health plans they already have and which the vast majority of them very much like.'' You know, when insurance companies are forced to compete, they do very well. Senator McConnell and I have a common constituent, the Humana Corporation, a great corporation. When they're forced to compete, they figure out how to add value. And they're doing that right now. They are doing it with the Medicare Advantage program. When insurance companies are forced to compete, they compete well. Right now they're not forced to compete. What many of us are proposing is that we create a public competition for them, make them compete with the public plan. And unlike what Senator McConnell says, if they are unable to compete, it won't be because of an unfair advantage; it will be because they are not providing the kind of coverage at the cost that the American people want. If American people want to stay in their private plans under the proposals that we're advancing, they will be able to do that. We're not forcing anyone out. Right now most Americans don't have a choice, and we are trying to provide that choice through a public plan. In the Senator's statement, he says: ``This is how a government plan would undercut private health care plans, forcing people off the plans they like and replacing those plans with plans they like less.'' They're not going to be in plans they like less. They will choose the plan they like more. ``That is when the worst scenario would take shape, with Americans subjected to bureaucratic hassles, hours spent on hold, waiting for a government service representative to take a call, restrictions on care and, yes, lifesaving treatment and lifesaving surgeries denied or delayed.'' It's a nice scare tactic. Unfortunately, what he is describing is what often happens right now in the private insurance system with doctors spending endless hours trying to argue with bureaucracies about whether certain treatments or certain procedures will be covered. So what we're trying to do is to end that and to provide competition that will end that. Finally, the Senator says, ``The American people want health care reform, but creating a government bureaucracy that denies, delays and rations health care is not the reform they want.'' I agree with that. I agree with that. Then he says, ``They don't want the people who brought us the Department of Motor Vehicles making life-and-death decisions for them, their children, their spouses, and their parents.'' Well, that's a cute line, very clever. Unfortunately, you know, the Federal Government didn't create the Department of Motor Vehicles, but the Federal Government did create Medicare, Medicare which now serves 40 million Americans, disabled and old, and which does a very, very good job of doing that. So I look forward to the debate we're going to continue to have with the other side on how best to create health care reform.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast the recorded vote for rollcall 293, H.J. Res. 40, On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass. Had I been present I would have voted ``yes'' for this measure.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Madam Speaker, the Clean Energy Jobs plan, which recently emerged from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is the next step to create millions of American jobs in clean energy efficiency and modernizing a smart electric grid. Clean energy can provide an engine to drive the Nation out of recession and sustain our economy for years to come. In my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, we are already seeing the dividends from investments made in this country with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the form of new green jobs. Earlier this week General Electric announced it would relocate production of a new energy-efficient water heater from China to Louisville's Appliance Park, which is the location of the Consumer Products Division of GE. Federal dollars allocated to the State energy fund from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and reserved for the manufacture of energy-efficient products are available to support this project and others like it. The addition of 450 new green jobs in Louisville is a sign of the growth we had hoped would come from our major investment in the Nation's economic recovery and our commitment to moving this country toward energy independence.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Josh Miller HEARTS Act so that we may take another step to ensure that all the resources necessary to keep our children safe in their schools are readily available. More than 200,000 Americans die of sudden cardiac arrest each year. Of these, more than 50,000 lives could be saved if automated external defibrillators were easily accessible. The AED is a portable device that can restart the heart after cardiac arrest, and can be safely used by anyone, including children, as the device actually talks users through the lifesaving process and automatically analyzes whether a potentially lifesaving shock is needed. Making defibrillators available in our schools will save lives, and the Josh Miller HEARTS Act will go a long way toward increasing the availability of these emergency lifesaving devices. As we recognize National CPR and AED Awareness Week, this legislation is particularly timely. The bill will require recipients of these grants to train school staff in AED and CPR practices, coordinate with local paramedics and integrate AEDs into existing medical emergency response plans. These provisions will save the lives of students, teachers, parents, staff and community members in U.S. schools. As we have heard, the act bears the name of Josh Miller, 15-year-old from Barberton, Ohio. I had the privilege of meeting with Josh's family, and I was so taken with how they have used his loss to mount a national effort to prevent additional losses like their tragic one. Last fall in my district, a young football player also died on a practice field. I don't know that the existence of an AED might have saved his life, but I do know that we owe our young people every possible resource, including AEDs, to make sure that these tragedies do not recur. I want to congratulate Congresswoman Sutton for her leadership in this effort. She has been tireless and passionate about making sure that our kids are protected. I also want to thank Dr. Terry Gordon who is now Congresswoman Sutton's constituent but is a long-time friend and a native of Louisville, Kentucky. He has also been tireless and passionate in this effort. With that, I urge my colleagues to support the Josh Miller HEARTS Act and take one more step forward to protecting our young Americans.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this Congress is being called on to make some very critical decisions. We are at a crossroads in this country and in the world. You know, we are trying to make bold moves. President Obama has proposed a very bold agenda in the area of health care reform, energy and education, and we have taken up that cause in this Congress, and we are moving very decisively to make significant changes in this country. From the other side, we hear reasonable questions: How much is this going to cost? What about the deficits we will be incurring? What about fiscal responsibility? Well, you know, there are two aspects to fiscal responsibility. One is living within your means. There's no question about that. We need to be able to do that. The other question is: How do you prepare for the future? If we are living within our means and are not willing to make the investments that we need to make, then the future is going to be very bleak, indeed. You heard just a few minutes ago my colleague from California, Mr. Costa, talking about the need to promote infrastructure, to invest in infrastructure and in the water supply in California. Well, this is just one microcosm of the challenge we will face across the country with bridges, roads, airports, air traffic controls, water systems, sewers. We need to make significant investments in all of those areas in order to provide the foundation, the infrastructure, for future growth, and we're going to have to borrow money to do that. Similarly, if we don't make the changes in our health care system and in our energy system and in our education, we will not have the human infrastructure that we need to move into the future. You know, I've heard the minority leader on the other side say: How much is it going to cost to do health care reform? Well, I'm not sure, but we know how much it's going to cost not to do health care reform. We've seen the projections. Tens of trillions of dollars over the next 70 years in additional deficit are forecasted for Medicare. That's if we don't act. So we know what the cost of not acting is. It is time to act. It is the fiscally responsible thing to do to adopt the agenda of the Obama administration, and I look forward to being a part of that historic effort.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman. He makes a very important point, and that is that you started in this way, that we are at a critical juncture in our Nation's history and the history of the world. We, for once, at least in my memory, are starting to look at the long-term needs of this country and this world. We don't do that very well in this country. It's always we look to tomorrow, we look maybe to next year, but we don't look at the next generation and the generation past that. And in the debate we will have in coming weeks on energy and later in the year on health care, we will hear, again, this very distinct difference in opinion. I heard Members this morning and I heard the minority leader on Sunday on television talking about health care, saying the cost of reforming health care is so great, it's going to cost billions and billions of dollars, which we know. We don't know exactly how much it's going to cost to do that, but we know pretty certainly what the cost of not acting is, because the projections just in Medicare alone are that we're facing something like a $70 trillion projected deficit in additional deficit in Medicare over the next 50 years. So we don't have the option of not acting. We don't have that option. Yes, we are going to spend some money in the next few years. But, again, if we don't, we face a certain dismal future. If we act now, we have a chance of turning this country in the right direction and creating a very prosperous and bright future for our country. Now I'd like to yield to another member of the class of 2006, a good friend and colleague from Indiana, Mr. Donnelly.

Mr. YARMUTH. Exactly. And millions of new jobs and essentially a reduction in everyone's utility costs that will amount to a substantial tax cut. So, in my view, and I think the view of most Americans, this is a win-win-win-win-win. Before we yield to another colleague, I'd just like to go through some of these other poll numbers to show where the American people are, because sometimes we sit in this Chamber--and we have equal time with the minority party so we have equal minutes. Sometimes you might get the impression that there's an equal number of people who agree with that position, an equal number of people who agree with our position. But this is a poll actually done by a combination of Democratic and Republican pollsters and also by the Pew Research Group. Seventy-four percent of Republicans, 70 percent of Independents, and 74 percent of Democrats believe jobs that reduce our dependence on foreign oil are very important for helping the economy over the next 5 to 10 years. Sixty-three percent of Republicans, 70 percent of Independents, and 37 percent of Democrats believe jobs that are improving energy efficiency are very important to helping the economy over the next 5 to 10 years. Fifty-nine percent of voters believe efforts to tackle global warming will help create jobs. We heard from the other side earlier this afternoon that, Oh, gosh, efforts to reduce global warming emissions are going to kill jobs--millions and millions of jobs--and result in a huge tax increase. Most Americans don't agree with that. Most Americans agree this is going to be a benefit for the economy. Seventy-seven percent of voters favor action to reduce global warming emissions. Fifty percent of voters say they would view their Member of Congress more favorably if they support a comprehensive plan to create clean energy jobs and fight global warming. Only 22 percent say they would view their Member of Congress less favorably. So it's pretty clear from these numbers and it's pretty clear from the people I talk to that the American people are strongly in favor of our taking dramatic action to set our country on a new path where energy is concerned toward a cleaner energy future, a more affordable energy future, toward an independent energy future. And I think that the moves we are making in this Congress will take us in that direction. I'm very proud that we're doing that. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. YARMUTH. I'm glad the gentleman mentioned those types of innovations, because the Consumer Products Division of General Electric is based in my district, and I'm well aware of the incredible progress that's being made in energy-efficient appliances and in those light bulbs. And this isn't the General Electric Company, but another very large company in my district just went through their plant and replaced all of their bulbs with energy-saving bulbs. It cost them $80,000 to do it. Now, $80,000 is a pretty substantial sum to a business, but they made the calculation that $80,000 would be paid back many, many times over in savings as they went forward. And this is going to happen in business after business, in institution after institution, colleges, schools, you name it, across the country will be making these changes because they recognize the savings. General Electric has, as do other manufacturers--I'm obviously going to plug General Electric--has new appliances which actually are regulated so that they will actually go on. They're timed so that they will be--let's say a dishwasher or a clothing washer or dryer will actually go on during periods of the day when peak utility usage, when it's not peak utility usage, when there's actually low demand on utilities. And they think by doing this, by creating these types of very smart appliances, they call them smart appliances, that they will actually be able to save energy costs systemwide because they won't be draining the utilities at the peak usage hours. So there are all sorts of very, very smart things going on, and the legislation that we're proposing and the government initiatives that we're trying to initiate will go a great distance in seeing that through. One of the things that intrigued me today, and I'm very proud of not just President Obama but also the automobile manufacturers and the various State governments that were involved in this discussion, to raise the mileage standards for automobiles to 35 miles a gallon by 2016, which is far faster than was provided for in legislation we passed in 2007. But what's fascinating to me about this, and I think the gentleman would agree, that technology is going to outstrip even these standards that we're setting. I mean, there's a Ford Fusion right now, 41 miles a gallon in the city, a Ford Fusion hybrid. There are going to be electric cars that are coming out within the next year or two that will essentially get far more mileage than the prescription in this agreement that was reached. So that's just a measure, one more measure of how successful, how innovative our economy can be when given a challenge. And all we're trying to do in this legislation that we're proposing now is to kind of put the challenge out there with the right kind of incentives, with the right kind of government push and funding and let the American spirit and American ingenuity have its way. And I know that this is going to be--again, this is going to be a phenomenal job creator and an economic engine for America as we move forward. And I'll yield to the gentleman again.

Mr. YARMUTH. And I would also mention that this is about jobs. It's about jobs, jobs, jobs, because this is going to be one of the emerging industries of the 21st century. We know that. The American people know that. I mean, the polling on this topic is actually overwhelming. The high percentage, a majority of the American people understand that we need to go in a different direction in energy, that we need to make the investments, we need to stop global warming emissions. Seventy-seven percent of the voters, according to one recent poll, want us to act to reduce global warming emissions, CO2. They know that this is what we need to do. And, you know, this relates to what my colleague has said so well. What we are proposing to do in this legislation, in health care legislation that we're also working on, in the Recovery Act legislation that we've enacted, we're making a bet on America. We're making a big bet on America. And I know that sometimes we hear our colleagues on the other side say, Oh, gosh, nobody borrows money to make money. Well, no. That's exactly what you do. That's what virtually every corporation that's ever succeeded in this country has done. They've borrowed money and they've invested it in ways that enabled them to make enormous future profits. And that's what we're proposing to do here. We're going to increase deficits in this country over the next few years in order to enact those policies. But we're making a bet that American ingenuity, American brilliance, will develop the type of advances that will not only pay back that deficit, will not only create millions of new jobs, will not only create an exploding new industry, but will also lead this country into a great era of prosperity and will make life better for everyone, because if we can cut a person's utility bills from $3,000 or $4,000 a year to $500 a year, that's essentially a tax cut, a substantial tax cut. And I know they like to talk about raising taxes, raising taxes. But again, as I mentioned earlier, what is the cost of not doing something now? What is the cost of reverting to that 20th century economy when gas was $4 a gallon last summer, and where, you know, we know gas in Europe is $9 and $10 in some places. What would that do to the American economy if gasoline were $9 or $10 a gallon? It would come to a screeching halt literally and figuratively. And that's why the types of things we're proposing in this energy legislation are so critical, because we're making the big bet, the big bet that American ingenuity will succeed and we'll once again dominate the world and we'll once again lead the world into a much better era, an era of cleaner skies, cleaner water, and also one of great prosperity. I'm willing to make that bet on America because America's never failed. And I think that's what is so exciting and inspirational about the administration and the White House and the leadership in this Congress, that they're willing to make the big bet that America will succeed. I yield again to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman for his flattery.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, it's been very interesting to have engaged in discussions over the last few months about changing our energy policy, and it's been particularly interesting listening to my colleagues on the other side talk about their vision of where this country goes or, rather, their lack of vision as to where this country will go in energy. This debate began several years ago. It was very prominent during the Presidential campaign in 2008, and there began to emerge a very clear distinction about two very different visions about what we need to do in this country. We heard last summer the mantra coming from the Republicans: ``Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!'' That was, in essence, the sum and substance of the Republican Party's energy policy: continue to drill for oil, continue to emit carbon CO2 into the atmosphere, continue to avoid the tough choices about changing our goals in energy policy in this country, trying to achieve energy independence and, again, relying on the same technologies that we've used in this country for 100 years. Fortunately, we elected a President who has a very different vision of where we go in energy, a very progressive vision of where we go in energy, a policy that he has proposed, that this Congress is proposing to enact, that will end our dependence on oil and carbon-based fuels, will set a new course to where we are actually using the great gifts of the natural world, such as wind and solar energy, creating the kinds of incentives for businesses to create new jobs and new industries, so that we can create a future that is not only clean but prosperous. Now, what's interesting in listening to my colleagues from the other side, all very well-intentioned men and women, and I've listened to some over the last hour, is this constant emphasis on the cost of changing direction, the cost of cleaning the air, the cost of truly creating an alternative energy policy in this country. And I'm glad they do that because, as with any good thing, there is a cost to doing it, but what we would like to emphasize in pursuing a new direction is the cost of not acting and not pursuing that new direction. What have we seen, for instance, in this country over the last decade? We've seen the average citizen's energy costs rise by well over $1,000 a year, and last summer alone, we saw gas prices at $4 a gallon, which certainly is an additional tax on every American citizen who drives a car or who powers anything. As we project onward, we know that diminishing resources in carbon- based fuel, diminishing supplies of petroleum, the price of gas is going to continue to go up. The price of natural gas is going to rise. So the cost of pursuing the same old status quo is significant. On the other hand, we can make an investment now. We can make an investment that will save us money, will continue to save us money toward infinity. We can actually harness the power of the sun, the power of the wind, hydroelectric power, geothermal power, all of the alternative sources which we know are available to us. If we can do that--and this bill that we are contemplating right now sets us in that direction, provides the type of incentives and stimulus that will get us to that era--then we will have an era in which we dramatically cut our energy costs. We will save trillions and trillions of dollars as we move forward. I know just in my own district, I've gone to see some of the new techniques for building homes, for utilizing all of the LEED-certified processes that can cut a 3000-square-foot home's utility costs to under $100 a month. These are the potentials that are out there for us, and these are the potentials that this proposal that we are dealing with now and considering in Congress can bring to reality. So this is a debate that's important for this country. In a very real sense, it represents the future of this country, and there are very real differences between the Democratic Caucus and the administration and our colleagues on the other side who again prefer to pursue a 20th- century energy policy, rather than a 21st-century energy policy. So I'm joined here by someone who has great interest in this subject and many others, who is part of that class of 2006 which changed control of the Congress and set us in a new direction. I'm proud to introduce my good friend and colleague, Ron Klein from Florida.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, this Congress will soon move to reform our health care system, and none too soon. And when we do, I hope there is one prerequisite, one standard that we can all agree on, and that is the essential fact that we need to make sure that every American has health insurance. Yesterday, on television, I saw a commentator arguing against health insurance for everyone saying, I don't want to pay for health insurance for my neighbor. Well, if I were his neighbor, what I would say is, You had better want to, because you, like every other American, is one pink slip, one cancer diagnosis, one serious accident away from being among the 47 to 50 million Americans without insurance and who face financial ruin because of that problem. Yes, we may differ on the details. We may figure out and have a substantial debate about how we get there. But unless we make sure that every American has health insurance, then every neighbor is going to be paying far more than he or she should for their coverage, and we will continue to have a system which is not what the American people deserve.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to an old-fashioned newsman who delivered critical information to the viewers of WHAS-TV in Louisville for the last 22 years. This weekend he retired his microphone and camera to work for the University of Louisville, and his reporting will be greatly missed. As a former journalist who moved on to another field myself, I can hardly begrudge him the change, but I can't help but mourn the void it leaves. At a time when news is adapted to sound bites palatable to texters and twitterers, Mark was never content with what he found on the surface. Time and again, he peeled that proverbial onion until someone cried. I am proud to call Mark my friend and proud, too, that my former newspaper, LEO Weekly, has named him Louisville's best journalist. But if the accolades and friendship had an effect on him personally, you would never have known it professionally. I found myself the subject of his scrutiny on more than one occasion. We would call the stories positive at times and negative at others, but the words that always showed up were thorough, intelligent, and fair. The loss for WHAS and local media is the university's gain, but our entire community is better for his 22 years of reporting and the high standard of journalism set by Mark Hebert.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Robley Rex, an American Hero from my home town of Louisville, KY, who peacefully passed away just days away from his 108th birthday. Mr. Rex always disputed the fact that he was a hero. He said he was only doing his duty, but to the people of Kentucky, we simply can't see it any other way. The area's last surviving World War I era veteran served with the Army in Europe at the end of the Great War. He remained with the Army for four years, but he retained a commitment to serve for the rest of his life. He served as chaplain of the Okolona VFW until his death and logged more than 13 thousand volunteer hours at the Louisville VA hospital--since his 85th birthday. Still, what made Mr. Rex special to us isn't the quantity of hours or years--though there were many of both--but the quality of his time. The veterans who had the good fortune to spend some time with him, during his many visits to the VA Hospital, spoke with a man who not only shared their experience but also helped blaze the trail for their service. For those brave men and women who served their country and received treatment for illness or injury, the ubiquitous smile of Robley Rex made a world of difference when working toward recovery. He tried to cheer them up, he'd say. And if you ask anyone he encountered, you'll hear that he succeeded. Today, it's difficult to imagine a time when America was not yet the most powerful nation in the world, when the military might of United States was in question. Robley Rex served at a time when our states had been reunited for little over five decades and the road ahead lay in question. It was on the will, courage, and determination of soldiers like Robley Rex that the future of the United States was secured. Whether he admitted it or not, Madam Speaker, he was a treasure to our community, a true American Hero, and he will not be forgotten. I am humbled by his life's service, thankful for all he did, and I know my colleagues will join me in honoring the life and legacy of Robley Rex.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, this week more than 100,000 people will gather at Churchill Downs in my district for the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby. They will be placing big bets. And this week, this Democratic Congress is going to be placing a big bet, too. We're going to pass a budget resolution that makes a huge bet on America and the American people. By investing in targeted ways and developing a health care system that provides affordable, quality health care for every American, by creating a new energy system and a new energy direction in this country, and investing in higher education so that every American has the tools necessary to bring us into the 21st century, we will be making a huge bet that the American people can grow us out of the huge hole that we're in now. I am proud that we're willing to make that bet, and I urge all of my colleagues to join us in betting on the American people.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, for the last 2 weeks when I was home in my district, I heard from many of my constituents who were justifiably concerned about the large amounts of deficits that we face, about the borrowing that we will have to do and about the spending that we are proposing to do in the President's budget that he approved recently. You know, those who have sought to, maybe, take advantage of that fear have said, ``Nobody ever borrows their way to prosperity.'' Oh, really? In fact, virtually everyone who has grown wealthy in this country-- every corporation and any individual--has borrowed to make that possible, and that's exactly what we're doing. We face a choice. We face a choice of having a dysfunctional health care system, of having an energy system that makes us insecure and that damages our environment, and of having an education system that relegates our citizens to a dismal future. What we are doing in the budget we passed is to borrow, yes, but to invest in those very important matters that will guarantee a brighter life for our society and for our people, and that is what we are committed to do.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would like to first thank my distinguished colleague from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie) for his leadership in introducing H. Res. 214 and also the entire Kentucky delegation for supporting this important resolution. Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor of the thousands of generous and dedicated Kentuckians who took action in the wake of the catastrophic ice storms that hit the Commonwealth on January 26 of this year. In a week's time, all eyes will turn towards my hometown of Louisville for the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby, sports' most exciting 2 minutes. The mood will be jubilant, and justifiably so, but it could not be so if not for the round-the-clock dedication of thousands of volunteers, first responders and National Guard who spared our region from lasting devastation. The storm created the worst power outages in Kentucky history, and of the 3,000 streets in Louisville, not one was spared from fallen trees, power lines and other wreckage, leaving our city with enough debris to fill Cardinal Stadium. Thousands were displaced, but they were not alone. Neighbors helped neighbors and people from all walks of life rose to the occasion to provide food and shelter to those in need. Tragically, a family of three from my community was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from an enclosed generator, a loss mourned by the entire Commonwealth. But thanks to the efforts of our tireless first responders--police, firefighters and National Guard--untold lives were saved. These men and women walked in freezing temperatures knocking on door after door to ensure that no more families would be subjected to toxic fumes. Thanks to the leadership of Governor Steve Beshear, Mayor Jerry Abramson, Brigadier General John Heltzel, and countless other officials, the damage was minimized and attention has now turned to the massive cleanup. With 220 men and women working 12-hour days, 7 days a week in Louisville alone, more than half a city has been fully restored, and the rest is not far behind. But it is the unbridled spirit of thousands of volunteers who have given us new cause to rejoice in this Derby season, again making our Commonwealth great to visit and a place we love to call home. On behalf of thousands of Kentuckians who suffered in that tragic storm, and the thousands more who helped mitigate that suffering, I urge my colleagues to join me in commending the many outstanding individuals who made that possible. But while we continue to mourn the losses, we must also celebrate a job very well done.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Madam Speaker, this week the House will consider the budget resolution for fiscal year 2010. As with any budget, whether it is a household budget or the U.S. Government, the process involves deciding among priorities. And in the case of the Federal Government, it is deciding among priorities, all of which have legitimate public benefits. Last week, the Budget Committee marked up the resolution. One of the amendments offered by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle proposed one of those decisions. Mr. Hensarling and Mr. McHenry proposed to strip $50 million of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and direct those funds to be spent for veterans' health care facilities. I applaud them very much for their interest in veterans' health care. And I am happy to remind them and everyone else who is watching that over the past 3 years, the Democratic Congress increased funding for veterans' health care by $17 billion. And that is following 6 years under their party's rule where the number of vets actually receiving care declined. Unfortunately, the debate on their amendment the other night left a lot to be desired as it actually became an opportunity for somebody to take cheap shots at arts funding that are not borne out by logic or facts. We just heard a little earlier the gentleman from South Carolina say arts funding is wasteful spending. Well, this day by fortuitous coincidence is Arts Advocacy Day, and I'd like to make the case for NEA funding, because, although that amendment was defeated in the Budget Committee, it may rear its head this week as well. Mr. Hensarling supported his amendment by juxtaposing the health care needs of one of his constituents, a legitimate American military hero from Palestine, Texas, against funding for the arts. He implied that he didn't represent constituents who would benefit from arts funding. Well, I represent some legitimate American heroes as well, but I also represent Actors Theater of Louisville, a world-renowned institution; the Louisville Ballet; the Louisville Orchestra; the Kentucky Opera and dozens of other arts groups; 7,700 employees of arts groups; and 1,500 arts-related businesses. I represent Ken von Roenn, a glass artist whose work decorates Reagan National Airport. He created an institution called Glassworks which has brought hundreds and thousands of people to Louisville, made it a national center for glass art and has provided a great economic generator in Louisville. In total, the arts contribute in my district alone more than $250 million annually, including $100 million on arts-related spending like restaurants and hotels and so forth. All told last year, 5 million people attended arts events and cultural events in my district and they paid $5.6 million in local taxes. Now I don't know a lot about Mr. Hensarling's district or Mr. McHenry's district, but I do know this: I know in Mr. Hensarling's district there are 1,317 arts businesses employing 3,229 people. The economic impact of the arts in Dallas, which he represents part of, was $550 million in 2006. In Mr. McHenry's district there are 947 arts- related business employing 3,043 people. In North Carolina, there are 17,000 businesses employing 159,000 people. Nationally, the impact of the arts is $166 billion, 5.7 million jobs, $104 billion in household income, $7.9 billion in local taxes, $9.1 billion in State taxes and $12.6 billion in Federal taxes. Now somebody may say that that's not an economic benefit, but I believe the facts are contrary to that. And listen to what the Chicago Tribune wrote in an editorial back in February talking about the stimulus funding for the arts: After all, the argument that the labor-intensive arts are not job- creation engines is patently absurd; they just fuel different kinds of struggling workers, workers unaccustomed to bonuses. Their role in generating billions of dollars in ancillary economic activity for stores, restaurants and the travel business has been proven in bucketloads of surveys and analyses. Let's think about the arts funding in another way. Fifty million dollars as a percentage of this year's budget is one seventy- thousandths of the budget. For someone who's trying to decide how to spend $35,000 in annual income, their personal budget, it's 50 cents. That's the equivalent amount. I don't know one American probably who hasn't bought a CD, hasn't gone to a movie, hasn't gone to a concert or gone to a play and spent a lot more than 50 cents. Mr. Hensarling offered the contrast of one piece of sculpture--a selective one at that--to a veterans clinic, but I would offer another picture: a picture of an F-22 jet fighter, $143 million for one jet fighter plane. This is about priorities and the arts are an important priority for this country.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you for yielding. And I want to congratulate my friend, Mr. Boucher and also Mr. Pence for this terrific piece of legislation. Madam Speaker, I rise as a proud member of the Society of Professional Journalists in strong support of the Free Flow of Information Act. As a former journalist, I have seen the assurance of anonymity put a frightened insider at ease and turn a reluctant source into an eye- opening wealth of information. In my hometown of Louisville, we witnessed what happens when a source's identity is not protected. There, Jeffrey Wigand, the famous tobacco whistleblower, was victimized by threats and intimidation, ultimately losing his job, his family and his home. His selfless efforts are largely seen as heroic, but for many, the lesson is: If you have sensitive information that would benefit the American public, keep it to yourself. We also know that if it had not been for the confidence of sources that they wouldn't be revealed that the incident at the Watergate and the more recent scandals at Walter Reed Hospital might never have come to light. In a time when we have seen how the inner workings of corporations and government can have catastrophic effects on our country as a whole, it is as important as ever to protect this conduit to information, the anonymous source. Until we can guarantee that security, good journalists will be jailed, conscience-driven and law-abiding Americans will be silenced, and information that is critical to all of our lives will be locked away from the American people. I would like to respond quickly to two things that were said by my colleague from Iowa (Mr. King). One is that there is no need to give special protection to the media. As Mr. Pence pointed out, the Founding Fathers decided to give special protection to the media. They granted them freedom of the press. And there is no freedom of the press without the ability to protect your sources. And secondly, there was a question raised as to whether there was an abundance of information that would demonstrate a need. We don't know how many thousands of potential sources have been silenced by fear that they might be revealed in the press. It is kind of like saying ``we haven't been attacked since 9/ 11.'' We don't know. But we do know, as in the case of Jeffrey Wigand, what happens when a source is revealed. So once again, as someone who has spent many years as a writer and editor in the United States and who is very grateful for the protections of the first amendment, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, we are in very serious economic times. Unprecedented challenges confront this country. It is a time when we need all hands on deck. Unfortunately, all we've heard from the other side of the aisle is hyperbole: we're spending too much, we're not doing this, we're not doing that. We need ideas. The best in America has always come because of a conflict of ideas, because of ideas converging and taking the best and assimilating them into policies that benefit all Americans. We're not getting the help we need from our Republican colleagues. Again, we need all hands on deck. Just this Sunday, one of the Republican Members was on a national talk show and said our faith in God is going to get us through this. Well, maybe it will, but faith in God, as important as it is, is not an economic policy. We need the best that America has to offer from all sides of America. I invite my Republican colleagues to participate in this debate and help get us out of this economic challenge.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. I thank my colleague. One of the things that we have to continue to do is to remind the American taxpayer of what has happened, what brought us to this point. I know that right now our colleagues on the other side are trying to play political games and, all of a sudden, because of this new revelation about bonuses, they want to make this all a Democratic problem. But, as all of us will recall, and I think the American citizens will recall, we were cruising along last year, knowing that we were in a little bit of financial difficulty. We knew that the foreclosures were up, we knew that the signs of the economy were not where we would like them to be, and that, for many Americans, those of us that had been in the trenches politically since 2006, knew a lot of Americans have been hurting for a long time, particularly middle-class Americans and hardworking families out there. But all of a sudden, last September, out of the blue, seemingly, Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke call us all in and say, The sky is falling, and we are about to go over the cliff, and we need $700 billion to bail out these companies that are in severe difficulty. I think the American people rightly were stunned, saying, Where did this come from? I think all of us were stunned because we didn't know where it came from. And what we have found out subsequently is that in many of these operations like AIG, sometimes the CEOs didn't really know the depths of their problems. I know we had hearings again in the Oversight Committee last Congress where we talked to, for instance, the rating agencies and some of the people who were involved in the measurement of risk and the analysis of risk, and even Chairman Greenspan, who said we had no way of assessing risk that involved declining real estate values. All of the models they had built to assess the risk, whether it was Moody's or any of the rating agencies or, in this case, the Fed, said our computer models wouldn't accept negative growth in real estate. So all of a sudden the American people say, Whoa. Where did this all come from? I think none of us really knew where it came from. And the reason we didn't know is because we had trusted the marketplace to be the salvation of our financial system. And, as we have seen, the marketplace that Chairman Greenspan worshipped, and others, was not capable of accounting for what happened in the real world. So now we are cleaning up. We are trying to pick up the pieces. The American people are rightly dismayed that their government was not on the job. We have an opportunity now to show the American people that they can have confidence, not just in the economy, but also in their government. And that is the charge that I think all of us willingly accept. I am very happy to be here tonight to talk about that and to be part of a Congress that is responding to a crisis that, basically, we didn't build, we didn't create, but we are more than willing to try to fix, because we owe that to the American taxpayer. With that, I'd yield back to my colleague from Florida.