Transcripts For CSPAN Tonight From Washington 20100526

special interests were their priority. well, the turnaround here is an alignment with the american worker, rather than special interests, the democrats have aligned with the american worker. rather than big oil companies, big banks, the democrats have aligned with american families. and certainly when it comes to the interests, the special interests that were held precious by the republican leadership of the past, we hear, as democrats have aligned with small business, seeing that as the springboard to a recovery, seeing that as the backbone of our economy. . there is a change of heart. there's a policy enhancement that finds us moving in a new direction. what has that meant? i believe that one needs merely to look at the statistics out there. let's look at the facts. this chart here will show us in very stark contrast where we were headed with the economy over the last several years. the red lines, the bar graphs of red, will show us that severe drop, that constant loss in jobs, in payroll across this country. and then finally a change in direction with the blue bars, suggesting the turnaround, the investments through policy that enaged us to begin the climb -- enabled to us begin the climb upward. this formation of red and blue will show the sharp contrast, will show the choices, the priority shift, if you will, where we have now begun to climb forward, where we're now experiencing absolute job growth. since december of 2009, this nation has experienced some 573,000 jobs created, 84% of which are in the private sector category. that has been a goal, to enable us to grow the economy, to create and retain jobs and add to that private sector column. this goal is beginning to be achieved. now, one needs to recall that the changes here in our economy are not going to come nearly as quickly as we would like because the problem, the dilemma, the siding with special interests occurred over a number of years and so with the change of leadership, with the obama administration, with the leadership in the house and certainly in the united states senate we've been able to march forward in a way that allows us to speak with dignity, to award the american people. speak with compassion toward the american family. and speak with productivity and growth to order the small business community -- toward the small business community. how do we do that? there are a number of members -- measures that have been proposed and passed here in the house and in both houses and in some cases signed by the president, we're still in the midst of unfinished business but we're continuing to wo on a number of items. what we have currently is in this last bit of recovery where we are seeing that over 1/2 million jobs added to the picture, it is in sharp contrast, again, contrast and change here, eight million jobs lost through the course of the bush recession. that rivals in fact, it surpasses the statistics, the job losses from the great depression. it is a change in thinking where we embrace science and technology, where we look toward the strengths of an innovation economy, one that can use the american intellectual, embrace the intellectual capacity of this nation to not only advance research and development and basic research, which translates into jobs, but to also create new products, new discoveries, innovation that leads to businesses that leads to production at leads to job security and job growth. often times again in the private sector. and so it was this stewardship of our economy, arriving on the scene, inheriting a gross bit of policy, that drove us deep into a recession, that found an in-- impact not only on american workers, on the budgets of american households, but on house sales, on all sorts of investments that need to be part of a robust economy. all of these were dulled, the competitiveness of business was dulled simply by this recession. and so, again, the contrasts and the change. the choices, as we approach an election this november for members of this house and what will be a report card on the progress made to date, the important to note that there is a change order of thinking. the choice should be one of tremendously stark contrast, one that will look at hope inspired simply by the opportunity to land a job. now, there are still millions of people out of work, we know that. we're not happy with the point at which we ha arrived yet. that is not our final destination. but it certainly is a climb in the right direction and a climb out of what was a very low, low pit in the nation's economy. let's look at the contrast. again, there are those who would have chosen and did choose to align with wall street, with big banks, with credit card companies, with big oil, with the insurance industry, with special interests. they had their day and made our day extremely gloomy and dark. made our economy bleak. however, there are those who aligned with american households, with america's families, with the hard working middle class, with small business, with senior populations, most of whom are looking to enjoy those golden years and have been threatened by this crash that hurt us so badly. let's look at some of those opportunities that we've had here in the house. opportunities to work with the president, opportunities to work with the leadership in the house of representatives. we had an opportunity called the american recovery and reinvestment act. many would like to suggest that it should have been avoided. we should not have invested through what our economically difficult -- through what are economically difficult times. well, a cross section of economists from very conservative thinking to more liberal thinking economists, as a panel, advising the president, the white house, his administration, the president's administration, a panel advising both houses, both parties in each of the houses, asked to where and how to recover the economy? advanced the notion that investing in these difficult times was essential. investing in a way that found a growth of some 2.8 million jobs to date with the american recovery and reinvestment act. that includes individuals in the public sector, including our educators, teachers, the school systems and support personnel, it includes public safety, our police officers, our firefighters, essential to the quality of life of communities. educators essential to growing the work force of tomorrow. these were important measures and again equating to some 2.8 million jobs that again are part of that recovery. keeping americans working, keeping services provided. more than 1/3 of the package of the american recovery and reinvestment act came in the form of tax cuts for 98% of america's workers and her small business community. so advancements there of the largest historic tax cut in this nation's history. for that income strata it is a part of this package, that is easily documented and should be touted as a form of relief that again engaged this economy. it allowed for people to circulate the dollars and their regional economies and begin to see the climb out of this difficult and very deep and painful recession. it also allowed as an american recovery and reinvestment act for us to play catchup with investments that were long overdue. investments in the area of clean energy, where this nation looks to advance, needs to advance, the concepts of energy security, enhancement of energy independence and, yes, national security, for as we reach to experts and their opinions, many suggest that our glute news to dependency on fossil-based fuels not only endanger our environment but find us shipping hundreds of billions of dollars per year to unfriendly and unstable governments that will often times then reutilize as we put those dollars, those american consumer dollars, into these foreign treasuries of again unfriendly governments. they are utilizing these dollars against our troops in the mid east. don't take our word for it. take the word of those who are part of the tool of veterans for american power. they recently traveled to new york state, the only stop made by the tour of our veterans, who defend this nation's liberties and per principles. these veterans made a stop in new york state. it was our fortune to host them in new york, part of the 21st congressional district, where we were joined by vintages of veterans, includingur world war ii vets, amongst the oldest in the clustering. the oldest in the clustering. and they listened intently to the message and the message was this, we witness daily, we witnessed daily on the battlefield what was happening. dollars were going -- invested into the treasuries and then spent to train the taliban that would then go to harm and threaten our american troops. and so they said that if we do not resolve this climate change, global warming issue, the battle they see out there is enhanced because with flooding and drought and therefore famine, we have a weaker people around the globe, with lesser and lesser available land. a perfect storm, if you will, that then creates the chances, enhances the situation of terrorist activities as they look for less available land with a weakened people, it enhances that concept. and so they said, we saw the -- we witnessed the destruction, the devastation to our troops funded by our sending dollars into the treasuries of these unfriendly nations. so that the american recovery and reinvestment act allowed us to -- allows us to break away from those concepts that thinking allows for a new mindset. it takes projects backburnered and brought then to the front burner and it allows us to invest as we have in a clean energy economy with the recovery act. enabling us to talk about smart grid, smart thermostat, smart metering, an investment in our distribution system, the artery and veins of how we wheel electrons to the workplace and to the home place. that is part of the recovery act, so as to invest in a way that grows jobs in research and grows jobs and trades over to ph.d.'s. it goes on and on with broadband opportunities for our communities that are economically distressed or rural in nature or remote in location. it allows for us to invest in education with technology in the classroom, to stretch opportunities for our nation's students, it allows us to invest in health care with technology introduced into record keeping imaging and making certain that mistakes and duplication, unnecessary duplication, are avoided. so that is one investment that we made here in the house, had a choice. the president placed it before the house, democrats said yes. republicans said no. and it repeatedly -- the contrast, the choices, the differences that need to be understood by the public out there are what we're talking about here this evening. i am joined by a fellow freshman who has an outstanding record in the state of california. he was a state leader there, knowledgeable, extremely knowledgeable on insurance issues and small business issues and a leader. . this evening we're joined by the gentleman from california, representative garamendi, who is with us this evening and i welcome you, representative, and share with us your thoughts of change and contrast. . mr. garamendi: thank you very much on focusing on what is the most spore national security issues facing this nation, which is our energy situation. we are finding $1 billion of our money is being transferred offshore to people who in countries that aren't our friends at all. and so the american energy policy is crucial to national security. we need to break our addiction to oil and you are bringing out not only the necessity of breaking that dependence on oil and sending money to very dangerous places in the world, but you're talking about creating the jobs in the future. i represented california and i was a lieutenant governor there. and throughout the state of california, we are looking to the green economy as being the next great opportunity. we talk about silicon valley and certainly 30, 40 years ago, the move to computers and silicon chips and all of those things did create a huge industry. now, what's the next step? everyone in silicon valley says the next step is the green economy and vent ture capital -- venture capital community, the scientific community, researchers are moving to the green economy. and so we see in my own district the biggest wind farms in california are in my district. those are the industries of the future. and as we move toward those green economies we free ourselves from oil. it's a huge issue. and you rrectly pointed out that e stimulus program, the american reinvestment and recovery act pushed us in that direction by providing research dollars, the biggest increase in research in the last 12 years has occurred as a result of that stimulus program. we have another piece of legislation that was on this floor last week and it was the competes act, which is the next step in giving us the opportunity in america and in california to compete internationally with science, research and the educational system that we need to have those engineers and scientists and technicians educated. unfortunately right here on this floor, last week, the republicans put forth a reconsideration amendment motion tht gutted that legislation, took away half of the potential money and stopped it cold in its tracks. it was one of the worst situations i have seen when they, every other business group, the american chamber of commerce, all said we have to have that piece of legislation. yet the republican party, for pure political reasons, stalled that legislation, derailed it. we're working hard to put it back on, because this is the future of america. we cannot any longer be held hostage by those countries that control our oil supply in the middle east, in venezuela and even in the gulf of mexico. we now know how risky it is even in our own gulf to rely upon oil. we need these new sources of energy. the next step is going to occur this week when we vote the american jobs and closing corporate tax loopholes legislation. that bill is going to be up on the floor of this house this week. and what it does is provide very significant amount of funding for small businesses, increasing the small business administration loan potential. it provides funding for the research, green technology. it provides tax credits and subsidies so we can advance the green industries that future jobs of this nation are going to be advanced. and i know it's going to happen. the republican party on that side of the room are going to do everything they can to stop this critical piece of legislation, 250,000 summer jobs for youth that are otherwise going to be on the street causing trouble. mr. tonko: representative garamendi, you are citing another contract that is coming in the future. let's talk about the wall street reform. yet another contrast, another choice, that becomes very clear terms of the behavior patterns here to the american public. the wall street reform legislation gave us a golden opportunity to fix what's broken on wall street, to deal with consumer protection when it comes to predatory lending, when it came to addressing executive bonuses and salaries and providing a watchdog. we are joined by another freshman in the house who is yet another powerful voice. it's just a great class to work with. as a fellow freshman, i'm enjoying this first term in congress. we see fresh thinking, soundness of advocacy. and joined by representative driehaus, who has been begging away at reform and speaks to the contrast, the change, the change in thinking that i think aligns up a very sharp choice as we move towards this fall's campaign activity. mr. driehaus: i thank the gentleman's leadership on this issue. when we talk about the economy, obviously clean energy is a critical piece of this. wall street reform is critical to making sure we don't repeat the mistakes that were made. but oftentimes as i'm sitting in that chair and you're sitting in that chair, you hear republican after republican after republican come down to the floor and tell the american people that the sky is falling and this is the worst recession and people can't find jobs and the recovery act isn't working. perhaps i would share with our audience, not what you and i think, and not what the republicans have to say when they come down to the floor, but what other people are saying about the economy today, because there has been a lot of dispute as to the impact of the stimulus. the american recovery act, as we passed -- what was it now, just over a year ago. so let me tell you what's happened in that year. just one year later, the numbers speak for themselves. you ask consumer confidence rose in april reaching its highest level. g.d.p. grew for the third kuwait quarter, 3.2%. consumer spending, surpassing pre-recession levels. manufacturing activity levels, increased for the nine straight months. pending home sales, up for the fifth straight month. largely attributed to the tax credit for first-time home buyers that was included in the stimulus. factory orders increased by the largest amount in more than nine years. and car sales, up by 20%, according to the "wall street journal." according to "market watch," this is what they had to say. hiring has increased for the first four months, reversing nearly two straight years of job losses after the recession began in 2007. according to the "new york times," thiss unambiguously a strong report for growth implications, a chief economist said. it adds that it is a clear pickup in employment. it is very clear there has been a bounce here and momentum has been up. according to cnnmoney.com, another sign of recovery is taking hold. according to the ap, clearly companiehave found a newfound confidence in the future of the economic recovery on the part of their business prospects, saped president of economic advisers. this is an indication that businesses are feeling more comfortable about expanding their work forces. and according to bloomberg, general electric company are boosting sales, leading to income gains that may spur consumer spending and more hiring. there is no doubt that the economy is recovering. there is no doubt tt the stimulus that we voted on, that we infused into the economy, not only shortened the length of the recession, but shortened the severity of the recession. but i think it's worthwhile to explore, because you brought up regulatory reform. the senate passed their version of the bill, a bill we passed last december. but it's important to take people back, take people back to where we were during the bush administration and what was happening. the former congresswoman from northern ohio, stephanie tubbs jones who passed away, representative tubbs jones repeatedly came to this floor and sought predatory legislation to be heard. it was denied her in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. in the meantime, ohio was experiencinghe worst foreclosure crisis that we have seen in generations. due in large part to the predatory lending activity that we were seeing on the part of brokers, on the part of out -of-town financial institutions. what was enabling this? we found out what was enabling this. the mortgage-backed securities on wall street and the default swaps. it was the col rised debt obligations. all of these fancy derivative products, none of which were being regulated. they were being rated by the rating agencies hired by the same financial institutions that put the products together. so investors were purchasing these products, yet they didn't know what the underliing risk was. so what happened? well, i'll tell you what happened. because there was lax regulation and the s.i.c. and the bush administration didn't look at these various derivatives, they were shifting the risk away from the local markets. so whereas in the past, you would have to go to the savings and loan and would have to show proof of employment and proof of income and then the banks would offer you alone and share the risk, the bank would then take that mortgage paper and hold onto it. it would be part of their long term investment portfolio. that didn't happen anymore. as soon as that mortgage was closed, it would be immediately sold under a secondary market. hat would then be bundled into these mortgage-backed securities. so no longer was there any risk at the close of the deal. what does that incentivize? you had people closing as many deals as they possibly could whoever walked in the door at the highest rates they could possibly get. putting people that shouldn't have qualified for loans into bad loans destinned to fail. that's what was contained in those mortgage-backed securities. that's what those credit default swaps were backing up. and that's why it was the house of cards ready to collapse. where were the regulators? where was the republican leadership when so many times democrats came to the floor and said we needed to crack down on this behavior? when the mortgage bankers were supporting the republican leadership. they didn't want to see change. they were making handsome profits on wall street. but finally we have an opportunity, finally we have an opportunity after this crisis, knowing that it led to the greatest recession in our lifetime, finally we have the opportunity to do something about it. that's wall street reform. that's what we passed in the house. that's what we passioned in the senate. that's -- passed in the senate. that's what republicans are standing in the way of. mr. tonko: you are so very right. the gentleman from ohio outlines the greed that was allowed to take over because there was no watchdog in the equation. and tonight in this special order hour, we are sharing with the american public the sharp contrast, the change in direction, the choices that exist out there in terms of do we pursue this course and climb out of this recession and continue along the path of progress or do we go back into the bush recession era and go to those choices where we cater to these special interests? when we talk about these bank outcomes with this investment financial community and all of the woes that accompanied it, we are talking about every day people who perhaps live pay check to pay check and go to work and are proud of the living that they earn. this is the sort of community that got impacted. homeowners who lost their homes, retirees who had relied upon these savings and the growth of these savings upon which to retire, totally evaporating from their surroundings. lookingal -- looking at small businesses, the community banks were impacted. these are in alignment from big banks to big oil, to insurance companies, to the credit card companies. and the gentleman from california is wanting to jump in here. the choice is very clear to me. . mr. garamendi: there are two different views about what america needs to do. the republican view, as articulated by mr. driehaus, is one of hands off, let the big boys do whatever they're going to do, we saw the result of that, the deepest recession since the great depression occurred because of a lack of regulation and the notion that somehow the marketplace would take care of itself. well, it took care of the economy of the world with he need that regulatory system in place and we're going to see it in the next week to two weeks, whether the republicans are going to stand for reining in wall street or letting it rip once more. we know where we came from. we did pass a bill in december, i was fortunate enough to be here. the senate has now acted with just a couple of republican votes in support, now it's going to be backed. we'll see. in this week, however, we have another opportunity to see where we stand. where do the republicans stand? this is the american jobs and corporate -- and closing corporate tax loopholes and bringing jobs back home. i want to go to wal-mart someday and see made in america on the things i buy. i've seen enough made in china, i want to see made in america. and we can do that and this piece of legislation that we're going to be voting on this week, the american jobs and ending corporattax loopholes, for those corporations that have sent the jobs offseas, right now, those corporations have a tax break when they send american jobs offshore. enough of that. we're going to bring that back and we're going to get some of our money back from wall street because we're going to raise the taxes on those wall street barrens that have ripped this country off to a fair thee well. one more fact before i turn it back to you, mr. tonko, is that in the last days of the bush administration, in the very last days of the bush administration, when it was obvious that the entire financial institution of this nation and the world was collapsing, bush came forward with what became known as the tarp program. troubled asset relief program. that turned over some $700 billion to the financial industry, about $40billion of that went directly to wall street. what did they do with that money? i tell you one thing they did not do, with all that money they received they reduced the number of loans and the amount of loanses that they made to small businesses on main street. now, the business banks on main street, the community banks actually increased their loans even though they got less than 18% of the money. 81% of the money went to the big banks, they reduced their lending to small businesses. 18% went to the small banks. they increased. so what we're doing in this bill is to shift the direction. we're shiftg the support to the small banks and we're going to build up small businesses. well, i think -- mr. garamendi: well, i think the contrast is clear. when it came to whether you -- mr. tonko: well, i think the cron draft is clear. democrats in the house say yes, republicans say no. do you want to have consumer protection for the general public out there that invests? the democrats say yes. republicans say no. mr. garamendi: that's in the bill. the consumer protection -- mr. tonko: as the instruments were invented to circumvent regulation, the democrats are -- have said yes, we're concerned about that, we want to fix it, republicans say no. the vote was clear. no to wall street reform. you look at the g.d.p. growth, you look at the changes that have come since the first quarter of 2009. we were hitting a job loss that was incredibly difficult. nearly $750 -- 750,000 jobs lost per month. lately 187,000 jobsncrease. we talked earlier about december, 2009, forward in the last four months. 84% growth of the private sector from those over 1/2 million jobs, 573,000 jobs created. so the g.d.p. is improving, the household income lost $17.5 trillion over the last 18 months of the bush presidency, now 60% recovered. some $6 trillion recovered. and it goes on and on and on. and even with the tax situation, i know that representative driehaus is concerned about the tax situation. the tax cut that was part of the recovery and reinvestment act was a part of it but there are tax cuts galore and the gentleman from ohio, i believe, wants to address that factor. mr. driehaus: and the american recovery and reinvestment act. the largest single tax cut for middle income families in the united states. mr. garamendi: ever. mr. driehaus: and the pretty clear to me that the republican caucus wants to take us back to the failed policies of the bushed a strailings. the exact same failed policies that brought us to the worst recession week of seen since the great depression. and they do it using scare tactics. they go out to the american people and suggest that we're raising their taxes. i was struck, as many people were struck, by the headline in "u.s.a. today"ed on may 11, may 11, tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950. since 1950. now, you might ask, where does this come from? well, it comes from the bureau of economic analysis where they say federal, state and local taxes, including income, property, sales and other taxes, consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009. the lowest rate since 1950. the lowest overall tax rate since 1950. on average, though, the tax rate paid by all americans, rich and poor combined, has fallen 26% since the recession began in 2007. that means a $3,400 annual tax savings for a household paying the average national rate and earning the average national household income of $102,000. every once in a while the facts get in the way of the arguments being made by the republicans. because time and time again they will come down to the floor and talk about how the taxes are going up for middle income americans. but the proof is far different. you know, i know that through the stimulus package we lowered taxes and according to reports all across america, the economists agree with us that these are the lowest tax rates since 1950. so, i think when you talk about the stimulus and the republicans often say, we need to be putting money back in the hands of the american taxpayer, that's exactly what we did. that is exactly what we did in the stimulus and it's reflected in the tax rates. mr. tonko: i think the results here are driven by a number of things. choices, contrasts. the choice here was to put american families, american workers, small business as a high priority. no more alignment with big oil, big banks, insurance companies, credit card companies, let's drive a benefit, let's drive the focus for america's hard working families across this country. 98% of americans were part of that tax cut that was part of the recovery and reinvestment act. 98% of americans and small businesses, a tremendously strong statistic, a contrast to the behavior before, the decade before, which found two wars off budget, let the credit card cover that, i guess, tax cuts for the highest income bracket off budget, a deal with the pharmaceutical company, medicare part d which suggests that medicaid paid for part of the program when we know seniors, often times retirees, dug into their pockets to pay for pharmaceutical costs. and so we come up with a health care reform measure to which republicans said no, contrast again, democrats say yes. we make certain pharmaceutical costs are covered, we make certain that deductibles and co-pays are taken out of the picture for our medicare-eligible population. there are huge contrasts here. siding with people who really make america's economy work. they invest their money on basic core needs, they work paycheck to paycheck and then invest in the community and so when we had an opportunity here to further grow opportunity for this country and for her people we said yes to student loan reform, said yes to communit college investment. republicans said no. all of these activities, all of this legislation, all of these improvements, all of this sensitivity, all of this fairness is equating to a resurgence in the economy. because what is it? the large broad middle class that needs to be fairly treated in public policy terms and budgeting are now being able to have more dollars available. the g.d.p. tells the story. the household income situation, the graph that we had here last week, talked about trillions of dollars, $17.5 trillion worth of household income lost in the last 18 months of the bush presidency. that bush recession drained american households and now since the beginning of 2009 30% of that has been recovered. some $6 trillion has been recovered. we're not stopping there. we're going to continue to go. the choice here is based on the contrast, very clear. do we continue along the path of progress or do we, as the president said a few days ago, give back the keys to the people who drove the car into the ditch and was a painful measure to pull the car out of the ditch? mr. driehaus: it's important to note that we didn't just stabilize the economy, we didn't just keep it from continuing to go into the ditch. we didn't just stop the recession. we also laid the foundation for future growth. and i think our colleague from california was mentioning this earlier. and i think this is really important for all of us to understand. when we talk about the future economy, it's an economy of knowledge and it's an economy where there's investment in new energy technologies, where there's investment in energy efficiency, where there's investment in health care i.t. there are such huge opportunities for all of us in these areas. i know in ohio the governor was just down in cincinnati the other day talking about all of the energy companies wanting to come to ohio and take advantage of the investments being made in new energy technology. much of that coming from the stimulus as well as funding coming from the state of ohio. i know when i went out in cincinnati to a foundry where they used to work with steel and they built steel rolls, they now changed their technology, realizing that that same steel, that same fabrication, those same talents and skills can be used to make the gears for wind mills. they see into the future, they get it. and we are laying the foundation for the future growth of this economy. mr. garamendi: mr. driehaus, you just touched on something that is really a serious issue. and i want to just drive home, because you said something that i want to take back to california. as i said earlier, we have some of the biggest wind farms in the nation. texas has done some that are a little bit bigger but we have -- i was out touring there with a couple of the companies that are building those things, i said, this is interesting, where is it made? turns out that the tower -- the steel tower was made in korea. yet just across the river 20 miles away is a korean company's steel mill that could have been made in california but instead they shipped it in from korea. the big blades and gears in the wind turbines all have been made overseas. and i told the company, enough. you'll have no more support from me for one more wind turbine in this area until you start buyinging america. they said, well, they don't make it america. mr. driehaus, you and i need to get together and i need to know where those gears are because i'm going to go back to california and tell them, i know where you can get a gear. that may be 1/100 of this machine but by god you're going to make it in america and build it in america because one more thing, our tax dollars are subsidizing that industry. and if our tax dollars are going to be used to subsidize any industry, they are going to be made in america. and we're going to help out ohio by making that happen. i've had enough of these jobs being shipped offshore by corporations that get a tax break, get a subsidy from the american taxpayer so they can send our jobs overseas. enough and this week we're going to see the kind of division that you talked about, mr. tonko, because the republicans are going to be held accountable. are they going to stand with the corporations that have been shipping jobs overseas and continuing that tax loophole or are they going to stand with the american public and bring the jobs back to america and close those loopholes? . mr. tonko: it reminds me that the change in direction, i think it was "fortune" magazine said the economy is taking a sharp u-turn applauding what has taken place to date. we see the optimism. we see the confidence growing. so that can't help but grow the economy and get a fresher field, because people were weighted down by this recession which was especially painful and long. what it does also is tap into the pioneer spirit that is always in the d.n.a. of this country. it is part of our fabric as a people and society. we see it time and time again. throughout the course of history. this nation has stories with the sense of courage, determination and optimism. i represent a district in upstate new york that is the host to the erie canal that gave birth to a westward movement, an industrial receive nution that grew the united states and -- revolution that grew the united states and impacted the world. mill towns, they became the center of innovation and invention and intellect of the worker and the pride of producing along that assem bly-line process to enhance the quality of people not just in these united states but around the world. that same magic can be prompted today. and it is the turnaround in policies, fairness, the focus on american job production, american energy independence, innovation. i know that the history of the birth place of electricity was the place that converted a factory that was plusing loco motives and women were changing their agenda and see the rosie the rifter. the transformer came because the intellect and can-do attitude. we have tapped into this resource in a way that is very powerful and not just turning around the economy, but showing respect and enhancing the dignity of the american worker and bringing us together as a people so we can grow this economy. to me, that is the validity here. and tonight, this discussion of contrast, of change, of choices couldn't be more clear. we cannot afford to fall back into those republican recessionary policies. we cannot afford to fall back to the huge deficits inherited by this administration passed on by the bush administration after it inherited a surplus. so the choice, the contrast, the change that should be endorsed becomes very clear to me. mr. driehaus: we have tremendous opportunity and i think we are close to wrapping this up. but i would agree wholeheartedly, this is about innovation and about giving american businesses the tools to move forward. they were in desperate straits in january of 2009 when you took that oath of office, when i took that oath of office, when president obama took the oath of office. we were in the middle of the worst recession in our life times caused by greed and corruption on wall street. we have an opportunity to address that greed and corruption. the republicans have the opportunity to turn things around, to join us in whold holding wall street accountable. more importantly, they have the opportunity to embrace the policies that are making a difference. we know the economy is turning around. we spent the last hour citin the various sources who support that notion. we know the g.d.p. is growing. we know people are going back to work and we are investing in their intellect and their skills and investing in new technology. that's what is so critically important. if we are to see continued growth over time, we have to be making those necessary investments and we are making those investments. but at the same time, we have to have to have the courage to stand up to the oil companies, who would have us dependent on foreign oil for years to come. we have to have the courage to stand up to the wall street investment bankers, who want to control all of the decisions when it comes to the economy, but don't have the best interests of small sinesses in mind. we have to have the courage to stand up to do the right thing and make the right investments in our economy. that's what we're doing. that's what this aagenda ave -- agenda has done as we move forward. mr. tonko: thank you, representative driehaus. and representative garamendi. and i'm sure you have final statements. mr. garamendi: you have been foveringt right in pointing -- forte right in pointing out the differences between the republicans and the democrats. jobs, we talked about it. all house republicans voted no. the business assistance act, 93% of the republicans note voted no. health insurance reform, all house republicans voted know. student aid, republicans voted no. cash for clunkers, 55% of the republicans voted no. the hire act, 97% of republicans voted no. we passed many of those and many of those are law. wall street reform passed this house. every republican voted no. american workers, 93% of republicans voted no. small business infrastructure jobs act, 98% voted no. every effort that has been made to advance the economy has been done by the democratic party and it's working as you so carefully pointed out. thank you for bringing this to our attention and giving us the opportunity to point out the extraordinary contrast. our efforts to move the economy, to take action to do what must be done to move the economy forward, we have done it. the republicans have consistently have voted no or tried to block it. thank you so much for leading us in this discussion, representative tonko. mr. tonko: i would thank my colleagues for joining me. the change is working. the contrast is stark. the choice is clear. and so i appreciate my colleagues sharing some very strong thoughts about what's happening here to the good. it has been a climb out of the toughest times america has known, but we need to continue to pursue and the direction i believe that has been strengthening our economy and therefore the american families, the american worker and american small business community. mr. speaker, i yield back on behalf of my colleagues. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king. mr. king: i appreciate the honor to be recognized and address you here on the floor of the house and appreciate the opportunity to listen to the speakers and do a bit of rebuttal even though i have been more attentive in previous presentations. looking at the decline in the economy that she show in their bar graph, it could be that when president bush was no longer president, things got better a lot faster. as i watched that, the graph doesn't go back quite so far enough to really your honor what happened during the eight years of the bush administration. but i remember what they said. remember what they said when they stood here on this floor night after night, hour after hour, year after year, the 30-something group and others that would stand here and tell america through this microphone and projected through the c-span cameras if they were in the majority they would fix america. if you give them the gavel they would solve the problems of america. and they made that case over and over again. and lo and be hold, what happened? i don't think it was intentional. it was circumstance by circumstance, district by district, that the majority changed from relationship cans to democrats and the problem that you have when you find yourself in the majority, you're responsible for governing. and even though they claim the mantell of responsibility, in all those years, leading up to 2006 election when the majority in this house shifted, they claim the mantle of responsibility, but when it was passed to them by the voters in november of 2006 and when speaker pelosi was passed the gavel here on january 3, 2007, mr. speaker and you can correct me if i'm wrong on that date, then they achieved the goal that they called for for all that time. and i watched what happened. the election returns came dem in november of 2006,t was apparent that they won the majority in 2006 and it was going to be nancy pelosi and the incoming chairman of the ways and means committee would be charlie rangel. and he did the national talk show circuit from november, december, january and february, all the way across every network and they asked him over and over again tell us about the bush tax cuts, which ones do you want to keep, which ones do you want to let expire? the questions came out over and over again. and mr. speaker, i don't want to allege that charlie rangel never ve a straight answer, i just don't remember one. but i do know by february of 2007, the smart money had analyzed the answers and the voids in those answers of charlie rangel and concluded there wasn't a single bush tax cut he would like to keep. and here we are today in this year, may, 2010 and it's obvious that the bush tax cuts will expire. and in november and december of 2006 and january and february of 2007 were ack rate and we saw in the beginning -- accurate and we saw in the beginning of 2007 a dramatic drop, because smart money understood that the cost of capital was going to go up because taxes were going to go up and that burden was going to come down on those who invested on their future profits and those who created jobs. jobs get created by the private sector unless you punish the private sector and drop it into the public sector. so we saw this happen in 2006 and 2007. lo and be hold, the dog that had chased the car for 12 years finally caught it. and what happened? what happed was industrial investment dropped off. the economy began to decline and they pushed the economy down because they were punishing business all those years beginning in 2007 with the pelosi -- speakership of the house of representatives, 2007, 2008 and 2009 and now in 2010. and furthermore, the argument was, we couldn't do enough because we had a president bush who would veto the anti-capitalist ideas. the people who were opposed to free enterprise were in charge of the house of representatives but occasionally the president of the united states, president bush would veto a bad idea and come back here to the house and uphold the veto. so we were restrained. during that period of time, speaker pelosi pushed, promoted and supported 44 votes in the house of represtatives that were designed to underfund or undermine our troops, 44 votes. i'm not pulling that out of my head or hat. i have the data. i have the spreadsheet and lked to all of those issues that were pushed. the effort was to attack president bush and undermine the support for president bush by challenging his position as commander in chief. and in doing so, it undermined our military in a time of war when their lives are on the line. and i asked the question, when someone in this house of representatives, let alone the speaker of the house of representatives speaks against a military operation, when they e that we ought to suck up our bats and go home from iraq and afghanistan, when they make that argument, what happens to an al qaeda terrorist in iraq and afghanistan and has the satellite dish on top. i have flown over those mud huts and i don't remember the exact number, but it was over 50% of those huts had a satellite dish on top of them. and these terrorists are making bombs, i.e.d.'s and planning to set these bombs up to detonate them against americans. and when americans are victims of this, we need to ask this question, what happens in the mind of that al qaeda terrorist that's sitting in that mud hult making that bomb, watching al-jazeera tv and sees the speaker speak up and oppose the war in iraq and afghanistan? what happens when there is a debate on the floor that goes on over and over and over again and the left win, radicals in this congress, the progressives, say we should pull out of those countries without any hesitation and do the best we can to keep from getting shot in the back? do you think, mr. spker, and this is a rhetorical question, do you think that terrorist is likely to plant more bombs or less, detonate more bombs or less, are there more americans lost or fewer because the enemy has been encouraged by 44 votes on the floor of the house of representatives in 2007 and 2008 in that congress? . that's what's happened here, mr. speaker. this country was going to move forward. and even though the president of the united states now, our commander in chief, in the spring of 2008 took the position that he wanted to pull the troops out of iraq immediately, without any hesitation, just simply try to keep from being shot in the back on the way out of iraq, that was his position and i argued that if that was his position, then if he's elected president, the enemy will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on september 11 in 2001. now, we don't know if that turned out to be a ue prediction because now president obama, then candidate and senator obama, changed his position. from the spring of 2008 until election day in novene of 2008 he walked a -- november of 2008 he walked a line of changing his position for being for immediate withdrawal to being for a slower withdrawal from iraq. and what we've seen also happen is, now president obama has adopted the exact position in iraq that president bush negotiated. it's called the status of forces agreement, mr. speaker. the sofa agreement. that was negotiated by the bush administration and it was with the iraqis and it was signed on november 17, 2008, by ambassador to iraq ryan crocker. and just a very impressive public servant who never received his due respect for the job that he did for all of us in that country, for the time that he was there. ryan crocker. i want to say a few more things about ryan crocker. i've met with him very late in the night, i've sat there in those hot and uncomfortable places in iraq, with top officers, with admiral mullen, for example, ryan crocker, general petraeus, a number of other very top leaders in our military and our state department personnel. ryan crocker understands the middle east, ryan crocker served well there. he was as instrumental in the negotiations and the status of forces agreement, he was the one who put his hands to that agreement in 2008 and today the letter of the status of forces agreement is being followed by president obama. good for him. i appreciate that. i support it. it's something i called for. if it were president bush doing that, i would be for that. i just don't think the american people see it the same way because he's not as proud of that decision as perhaps he would be of a different posture that we have in that part of the country. so, mr. speaker, we have a numbe interests in america. our national security interests are paramount. those are constitutional. the responsibility of the president of the united states and the federal government is to defend us, to defend our shores, to defend the american people. and our military and our troops and those people that put on uniforms day after day after day are the ones that deserve our gratitude and our respect -- respect. and we need to do them just duty here on the floor of the house and not back up from those responsibilities just to provide them with the resources that they need. and that means a consistent message from the commander in chief on down and a strategy that we believe that we can win and it means to say to the left wing radicals in the united states of america, don't tell me you're for the troops and tell me you're also against their mission. you have to pour the -- support the troops and their mission. and what's interesting is that when george bush was the commander in chief, you said you supported the troops but not their mission. now that barack obama is the commander in chief, you don't really answer to that at all. except for the most part you left wing radicals -- part, you left wing radicals, you say you support the troops to a level of pandering to the mission of patriotism, but you don't support their mission. we cannot, mr. speaker, ask our military to put their lives on the line on a mission that we don't believe in. no, week of got to ask them to put their lives on the line for the cause of liberty and a mission that we believe in. if we don't believe in the mission we should not send them. they should not go. but it's up to the ll of the commander in chief to do so. after all, he is the commander in chief. until he orders our armed forces, he sets the foreign policy and if we don't like what the president of the united states does when it comes to that, we've got about two choices. one is elect a new president and the other is to look into the constitution for another solution. i'm not ready to do that because i don't believe there's just cause at this point to look in the constitution for another solution. and in fact, i believe that the president of the united states has eclipsed my anticipation for what he might have been doing in iraq and in afghanistan it's relatively stable. it's not been extraordinarily brilliant, he did send only 75% of the minimum number of troops that were requested by general mcchrystal and they have a very difficult task. but the prospects of being successful in that task, i believe, are greater than the prospects of the state department being successful in setting up institutions that never existed before in parts of the country of afghanistan that don't have a history of those institutions of centralized government reaching out. so, with the foreign policy question that's before us, mr. speaker, and we have the question of the united states economy. and we have a bunch of people that are self-professed experts that come here to this floor that never signed a front of a paycheck. they don't have the first idea of what it takes for a free market economy to thrive or prosper. they believe that if you raise taxes it's just taking a little more out of the pot of their greedy capitalists and if you raise regulations they've got blenty of time to fill out the paperwork because after all, what are they going to do with the resources? it creates jobs. why would you want these people to be in charge of our economy? they demagogue republicans and say that we are in support of wall street. it's democrats that are cashing checks from wall street and it's big banking and international banking and investment banking, large interests, that are sending the biggest checks to democrats, all the while they're hedging their bets. and if you're a big business interest and you have a crony relationship with the united states congress, you've got a pretty good deal going because you can have the united states congress raise the regulations and raise the burden of government to keep your competition out. what's the simple solution to that complex problem? raise the regulations. raise the taxes. you're only competing against fewer people. i've seen this happen in my lifetime over and over again. i spent my life in the contracting business as a small contractor. i started out from this tiny little old guy that bought an old beaten up bulldozer and then i worked it for a while and fixed it a lot and then i bought another machine and hired a man and after a while we had enough machines we could go out and do a job. when i looked at building state highways i began to look around and i realized that we're only a handful of contractors that are big enough to bid these projects. so i went to the state and said, i'll break these projects up. i'd like to bid some projects that are under $1 million. he said -- they said, we don't like to do that because it takes a lot of administrative hassle. we'd rather deal with these half a dozen that we've got. so i had to run for the state senate to get that changed and we lohred that standard down, we brought more competition in. it's not enough. it's a small part of the solution. but it illustrates a problem, mr. speaker. big business will always try to promote regulation to keep their competition out. it's how it works. think of it this way. i'll take it down to the lowest common denominator. simple thing that can explain this to everyone who's listening. imagine they hadn't discovered gold in colorado. and so some miner out there with a pan is panning his way up the stream and he finds a nugget of gold and he pans his way in and he goes around and he finds that vain. then he starts to chop out this rock and here's the gold in the rock. son of a gun. gold in colorado. there's no settlements around there. so he breaks out his gold and processes it and takes it down and sells it and pretty soon the rumor goes like wildfire. there's gold in colorado. the gold rushes on. people come rushing in, everybody gets their pick axe and they start to mine for gold. now, you may think that this doesn't connect, mr. speaker, but it does. because the miners then set up their tents and they're there, they're working away and now that they're making money and selling their gold, they need some things. somebody's got to bring them food, somebody will open up a bar, somebody will start a band so they've got some entertainment to draw the stress down at night. and these miners are out there and after a while their hair gets so long they have to climb newspaper a tree to get a hair cut. and sooner or later one of those miners is going to get out a clipper and cut somebody's hair. when that happens, mr. speaker, that somebody else will line up and disease, that's a pretty good hair cut for what i need out here. so he'll get in the line and climb into the chair and there will be a second hair cut, then a third hair cut and after a while, this fellow that's pretty good cutting hair will be so busy being a barber he doesn't have time to pick up his pick axe and mine for gold. then he decides, i'm going to have to charge you guys. you're taking me out of my cash flow endeavor. and so he begins to charge the people that he's cutting their hair, maybe a dime for a hair cut. now he's making a little bit of money. and pretty soon, eventually, somebody else will see that and decide, i can get in this business, that guy's making a dime for every hair cut. he can cut 10 head as day, that's $1 a day, pretty good wages in those days, he'll do it for a nickel. then that first barber is thinking, i would be better to stay out there mining gold. so week of got two barbers that are competing, then a third and a fourth and a fifth. and pretty soon the first barber that got in, he decides that it isn't fair because he has all of this technological equipment, egot the electric clippers and he's got the -- he's got the electric clippers and he's got the nice clean sheet to put around their neck and he's better at taking care of those ingrown hairs and he does a little antiseptic while he's at it and his equipment is clean and well maintained and the other guy has a pair of sisers and comb. so hll go to the -- scissors and aomb. so he'll go to the state legislature and argue that barbers should be licensed so there's a standard quality of care for hair cuts. it isn't because he believes so much in that standard of quality of care. it's because he knows that he can regulate some of his competition out of business. that's what goeon in the barber shops, in the gold mining towns in colorado 150 years ago, but that's also what goes on in big business in the united states of america today. that's what's going on, mr. speaker. big business says, come and regulate me because it's a cost of doing business at big business level, the multimillion-dollar level. and by the way, those people who can only do business down in the few millions, they're not going to be able to compete. so we should not accept big business as the purest form of free enterprise capitalism. we should look at big business as coming here to this capitol to ask us to level the playing field. all the while they're looking to turn onto a playing field that it's often difficult for small business to climb into. so, mr. peaker, that is the status of big businesses remainlation versus small business regulation and it sets the tone for -- it sets the tone for, i think, what we're about to take up next. although i recognize, i recognize that in a moment we will be asked to yield for the esteemed chair of the rules committee as soon as she gets prepared. but in the meantime i see that the gentleman from texas is about prepared to get prepared and so at this point i would suggest that, mr. speaker, we need to take a look at this regulatiothat's coming in from the senate and the regulation of the financial services industry and the credit industry in america. this idea that here in the uned states of america we would establish government entities that would look in on every business in america, anybody that's g a credit transaction, with whether it would be a.i.g. doing business -- whether it would be a.i.g. doing business with a large investment bank or some smaller entity, mr. speaker, i'll pick that up in a moment but i'd be so happy to yield so that the gentlelady it conduct business. ms. slaughter: i'll only take 30 seconds, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from new york rise? ms. slaughter: i send to the sk a privileged report for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: report to accomny house resolution 1392, a resolution waiving a requirement of clause 6-a of rule 13 with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the committee on rules and providing for consideration of motions to suspend the rules. ms. slaughter: thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempe: referred to the house calendar and ordered to be printed. the gentleman from iowa. mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, as i watch this regulation that's coming through in the financial services component of this, that's a regulation that sets up tim geithner, the secretary of the treasury, to decide which businesses are too big to be allowed to fail, which businesses would be deemed to fail and all he needs is the agreement of the fdic and the agreement of the secretary of the chairman of the fed and those things concern me great deal. but this conversation could go in any direction, because i am prepared to yield to my good friend, the gentleman and judge from texas, louie gohmert. mr. gohmert: i want to follow up on that very point. we're told there's going to be a financial reform bill that sounds more like a financial deform bill. all these reforms end up being deformities. but this in particular, financial reform, to get us out of the mess that had been building through the 1990's and through this past decade, the last 20 years? and nonetheless, as i understand, in this bill we're going to take up, it still has the systemic risk council that is going to pick the winners and losers in america. that is so grossly un-american. it has no place in our law coming out of this body. that's kind of thing that the revolution was started over that some king was going to get to tell them who would be the business that would stand and who would fall. because the americans here wanted to be able to let the market decide that. now one thing we've seen, and it's been accentuated, is you do need a government that will ensure that people play fairly and play right. we saw that down on the coast as president obama expressed that we have gotten a relationship too cozy between his administration and the big oil companies. we've had people say on television, the republicans took contribution, the democrats take contributions, but it was the department of interior in 1988, 1998, 1999, some of the clinton administration, people that pulled the language from the offshore leases that would allow the oil companies ultimately to make millions and millions and millions at the expense of the government and the taxpayer getting full value for the leases for those offshore oil and gas developments. when we had the inspector general in front of us in the natural resources hearing a couple of years ago, i asked why he had not talked to the couple of people that the inspector general said were apparently responsible for that language being pulled out of the leases that hurt the revenue of the government and helped the massive oil companies at the time. he said well they're government service, we can't talk to them. certainly you can at least try to talk to them by thptor general indicated they left government service. after i heard the president announce that we had to end the cozy relationship between people in his administration and the big oil company, i wonder whatever happened to those two people? it turns out one of the people that apparently the inspector general did not talk to, but felt probably had the best information on why that language was left out turns out when she was not working for the government, she went and worked for a company called british petroleum. perhaps my friend has heard of british troleum. in fact, after the inspector general said he couldn't talk to her about why that language was pulled that helped the oil company so much during 1998-1999, and why she would pull language that hurt our government, turnsut she has now returned to government service, in fact, did last summer this administration hired her to be the deputy assistant secretary of m.m.s. the minerals management service. it is the agency of this administration that is supposed to ensure that blowout preventers work properly. well, we've got people here in the house that have asked for the results of the test that were done by m.m.s. within two weeks of the blowout preventers failing and apparently, the information has come back from this administration's m.m.s., we're not providing that information to you. maybe a democratic chairman of a committee, but not to you guys. you would think that this was public information that m.m.s. would want to be as transparent as they're demand that the c.i.a. be. but apparently they're not willing to be as transparent as they want the c.i.a. to be. they're more in the nature of on security, like the federal reserve continues to try to be and is. so they won't release the information of how badly bungled the test was. you have to figure it didn't go well or they would have released that information to show that they were exonerated, that they did proper tests. in fact, as a trial judge, back in my days in the courtroom, oftentimes, one side would produce evidence to show that the fact that there is no evidence indicates a fact. and i think here, the fact that they won't produce those test results indicates that the m.m.s., this administration that is too cozy with british petroleum, because of the interactive business that's gone on here, it must not have gone well. certainly, i yield to my friend. mr. king: just reclaiming, i'm standing here thinking, we're drawing a rational conclusion that m.m.s. -- the mineral managements -- minerals management service would not release the information that showed the result of the testing of the blowout preventer. mr. gohmert: if they'd actually done the testing, actually. mr. king: there's reports out there that's -- that there's testing that failed some 10 days or so before the test failed. i don't want to start a rumor. but are we drawing a rational conclusion that we could have a government we have to draw conclusions from based on their response, or lack of response, not the answer to the question? i yield. mr. gohmert: it would certainly appear that's exactly right. if the m.m.s. of this administration will not produce the records to show exactly what testing was done and exactly what the results were, which should be public record, for heaven's sake, they're public waters, controlled by our government, if they're not producing those records, then you've got to pretty well figure it would not make this administration look very good. mr. king: but we've got an open government. this is the most open, the most honest government in history and we're drawing conclusions based upon not getting an answer as opposed to the answer we might get if they would simply give us the information. this really saddens my heart to hear this, i'm not surprised, but it saddens my heart, mr. gohmert. mr. gohmert: and that also brings you can ba -- us back to the problem with the federal reserve and the secretary of the treasury and yes, we had some people saying, we've got to confirm timothy geithner as the secretary of the treasury, because he worked with paulson in the early days of tarp. he knows the plan that tells me he should never have been confirmed if he worked with paulson on the original plan because it was a disaster and it should never have been allowed to have happened as it did. but now we've got these guys, federal reserve, head of the treasury, they're going to pick the winners and losers in the country. yield. mr. king: would we go choose some mainline i.v. drug user off the street to go in and do i.v.'s in the hospital because they happen to have had the kind of experience that they're good at it, even though it's illegal? if somebody was proficient in how they operated turbo tax, was able to avoid their taxes that means they'd be a good person to have as head of the i.r.s., so they could set up a system to prevent other people paying a -- paying taxes? mr. gohmert: it's an interesting issue. secretary geithner had great problems complying with his certification four years in a row where he swore he would pay the tax that was shown on the form and certified that they would just pay him that money, he would pay it, then he didn't pay it. but in answer to t question, i guess an analogy comes to mind, the f.b.i., for example, the gentleman that was -- there was a movie about, shofse good at forging and acting as someone else, he could create a forged document out of anything. the f.b.i. ended up hiring him because he was so good at forging checks and making fraudulent checks, the f.b.i. hired him because he knew more about ways to cheat other people and to cheat the government, they felt like he could be of immense help and apparently was and has helped -- as i understand it, helped prepare more secure documents and more secure institutions because he was so good at cheating those very institutions. mr. kg: so that's not tax cheelts. mr. gohmert: maybe that was the thinking, this guy would be the expert of not paying taxes, maybe that's who we want in charge of the tax entity, the i.r.s. it's an interesting point. but it still cuts to my core to think that the land of the free, home of the brave is being converted into a land of the unfree, where liberties are taken away because people have decided the secretary of treasury, the federal reserve chairman, get to pick and choose what entities, what banks get to stand when the smoke clears. what happened to competition? why not let people play and play fairly and just enforce their rules. that's why -- that's what is needed here. we don't need a federal government telling what companies that they are going to support and never let them fail, because as soon as the federal government says, we're not going to ever let this bank or this company fail, then that's going to be the last one standing because they know they can operate in the red and their competition can't do that. and at the send of the day that government-supported entity or bank will end up being the one left. that is outrageous. it is un-american. and anybody that would stand for that proposition, that we're not going to let these companies compete fairly, we're going to come in and pick the winners and losers. they need to start wearing a name tag that says, king george iii wannabe. i want to pick the winners and losers. i want to tell you who prevails and who doesn't. i will tell you who ends up getting to be the dominant force in america. instead of letting people live in freedom and in liberty and pursue happiness and pursue opportunity. the constitution never guaranteed equality of outcome. it guaranteed equality of opportunity. and that's what ought to be done. anybody that says they support a systemic risk council that gets to pick the winners and losers, these are too big to fail, we can't let them fail, they are enemies of this country, as it was founded. mr. king: reclaiming my time, then i have to pose the question, if you're in business if you're an investment banker, for example, if you have a large credit operation going on, and you've watched the barney frank bi and the chris dodd bill and now your knees have to be knocking on what might be going on in a future conference committee that's going to produce a bill that likely spills out here here to the house for passage, sent to the senate and rammed through there, put on the president's desk we know the president will sign the bill. but what is your business model? say you're providing credit transactions, mr. speaker, to a large portion of america, whether it's credit cards or whether it is the toxic assets of mortgage-baed securities, the subprime loans that might be out there. whatever it might be. now if you're sitting there with billions of dollars in those kinds of assets and you're making your profit off those margins of the assets going through, i'm going to suggest that if you don't already have a lobbyist, you better hire a bunch of them. bring them into this congress and start to convince people like chairman of the financial services committee, barney frank and the majority of the members on that committee, others, perhaps through the ways and means committee, start to work your ankle. because your business mot el, mr. speaker, is no longer that of providing the most competitive, most service oriented, most customer-focused service there is. your business model is, do what you have to do out here on the streets in the business world of america, treat customers fine, come to washington and get that playing field, not level, but tipped in your favor, because you can't do business without so you have the kind of chips when the time comes that the regulators would come in and take a look at your balance sheet and determine, well you weren't quite big enough to be allowed to fail so we're going to shove you into receivership and we'll chop you up and deal you out to our preferred companies. i know the model, i know the papt patern, even though it's done in a pretty good fashion with the fdic when a company has to go under. in the 1980's we had 3,000 banks that went under. they were split up, sometimes, and dealt out and sold to other investors that had a better track record with managing banks. all right. that was good and it works well in the micro version. but when you -- when you get into the macro version of big business and you have tim geithner as the secretary of the treasury making the decision on a business that's too big to be allowed to fail and calling in sheila bare and calling in ben bernanke and saying, don't you agree, they're too big to be alloyd to fail, so -- allowed to fail so let's prop these people up? what would help is if we deal the assets of that company over into the company that's too big to fail. you pick the winners and pick the losers out of government and who wins? the people that pay the lobbyists, t people that have paid for the most political influence. government cannot make rational decisions on business. they make political decisions on business. peter walson spoke today on fannie mae and freddie mac. the american enterprise institute scholar, one of the brightest minds that we haven free enterprise economics in america. a very solid man and many times i've listened to him imlume nate the issue -- illuminate the issue for me. he spoke today about fannie mae and freddie mac. and his sense is that they aren't yet nationalized. that they're still a quasi-government. my position is that they aren't actualized because the government calls all their shots and we've got roughly $50 billion each dumped into each of them and another $50 billion rolled on top that have $100 billion so around $130 billion range peter thinks that thress not $360 billion but $400 billion in losses that will have to be swallowed up by the american taxpayers. and we knew, and we know now that we were looking at $5.5 trillion in contingent liabilities that the federal taxpayers would have to swallow if fannie and freddie were flushed down completely the way the markets might drive them. mr. gohmert: will the ntleman yield? king concluding my statement and yielding, that was -- mr. king: concluding my statement and yielding, fannie mae and freddie mac is an example of how government can't set values, neither can they evaluate risk because they're doing political calculations based on political pressure, not economic calculations based upon the risk of success and failure. i yield to the gentleman from texas. mr. gohmert: just asking will the gentleman yield for a question, if he would? mr. king: i would. mr. gohmert: with regard to the financial deform package that apparently is going to be coming to the house, is the gentleman aware of whether or not these two entities, fannie and freddie, that kicked us into a spiral downward in the fall of 2008, whether they're included in this reform package? is there any reform of these two entities that nearly brought our economic house of cards down? i yield back. mr. king: reclaiming. in scowering the financial reform package in the barney frank bill or the chris dodd bill and setting up the word search and chasing it through there, mr. speaker, i don't find anything in either one of those bills that addresses the necessary form for fannie mae and freddie mac. they are completely insulated and i recall the debate here on the floor of the house in october 26, 2005, that the chairman of the financial services committee, mr. frank, was very much engaged in. he came to the floor to vigorously oppose an amendment that was offered by mr. leech of iowa that would have established higher levels of collateralization for fannie mae and freddie mac, higher stads -- standards for underwriting in the secondary market and higher standards for capitalization for fannie and freddie. the vigorous opposition that mr. frank flowed out on that day and the gentleman from texas remembers the exchange that took place on the thursday before easter in 2009, here on this floor, the gentleman from texas was there. the gentleman from massachusetts there. i think me up there somewhere. as we talked about what had happened with fannie mae and freddie mac and in that debate on october 26, 2005, the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. frank, said, if you're going to invest in shares of fannie and freddie, don't do so believing that he would ever vote to bail out fannie mae and freddie mac. because he would never do that. he would let them go down instead. that's the core and the essence the statement that was headpy -- made by the gentleman from massachusetts who now is the chairman of the financial services committee. well, we know what's happened. fannie and freddie have been bailed out. and on that day the gentleman from massachusetts said that he wasn't biased, in favor of or against fannie or freddie, because the man whom he'd had an intimate relationship was not a senior executive. it's in the congressional record. i don't pull this out of thin air. i suggest, . speaker, that you check the record. for me, that's an astonishing confession, to draw a fine line between the reason for bias and not bias is because this individual was not a senior but more apparently a junior executive for fannie mae. and so that's a little too ins mat -- intimate for me, mr. speaker. i don't choose to go there any further except to point out that a lot of things going on in this united states government that are not what meets the eye. there are undercurrents here that threaten to swallow up the united states of america. there's a driven philosophy on this side of the aisle that wants to swallow up free enterprise capitalism, that abhors the words of capitalism. there's a driven philosophy that's reflected by 77 members of the progressive caucus, who come to this floor with their blue charts and say, come visit our website. well, not that long ago, a few years ago, the progressive website was hosted by, managed by and taken care of by the socialists in america. but when they took a little bit of heat, they decided they would manage their own website, so they didn't have to take the criticism. so the socialists ran the progressives' website. and now the d.s.a. -- dsausa.org. it stands for democratic socialists of america, dsausa.org, mr. speaker, you should go visit that website and understand who your colleagues are. 77 of them are self-professed progressives. the progressives, according to the socialist website, are their legislative arm. they write that they are not communists, they're socialists. that's a step above a communist. they don't want to nationalize everything, they just want to nationalize the fortune 500 companies in america. and they've got a big start on it. and they don't run candidates on the banner or under the political party calls the socialists because there's a stigma attached to being a socialist in america. so what do they could, mr. speaker? -- do, mr. speaker? they push the candidates that are self-professed progressives. progressives are not distinct from socialist, they're one and the same. they're just wearing a little bit different color jersey and they're the people here who have driven the idea that we should national ites the fortune 500 companies, nationalize the oil refinery industry, mr. hinchey of new york, take over the oil industry, maxine watters from los angeles, and operate these fortune 500 companies and i quote, for the benefit of the people affected about i them, closed quote -- by them, closed quote. that's the unions. the speaker is a member. the speaker advocated and said that she would not give, in the case of the car companies, bargaining advantage of the automakers over that of the unions. right off of the web page of the socialists. and shelowed through on it and today 17.5% of general motors is owned by the unions without a cash outlay, without a concession of any kind, the president of the united states, who voted to the left of self-professed senator bernie sanders, crammed that down the throats of the investors, the security investors in general motors and now we have the unions owning 17.5%. the federal government owning 61% and the canadian government owning 12.5% of general motors. exactly off of the playbook of the socialist website, mr. speaker. the american people need to go visit the website, they need to understand the playbook is written. it's being carried out by the progressives in this congress, 77 of them are the core driving force here. when you add to that the congressional black caucus, the hispanic caucus, a whole lot of these people that are self-segregating caucuses instead of integrated caucuses, you understand who's running america today, mr. speaker. i yield to the gentleman from texas. mr. gohmert: if we go back to the day that the wall street bailout passed, that first week in october of 2008, i made the statement that when the federal government buys private assets and holds them in order to try to make money, when the federal government decides it's going to start trying to make money for the taxpayer, it's called socialism. and i was belittled by colleagues that served here in this body for saying that it was socialist. one person even said, well, i only know three socialists in america and they're all against the wall street bailout. well, i was pretty depressed and devastated when the wall street bailout passed. the next morning, saturday morning, i was watching neil cavuto and he had the presidential nominee of the socialist party and the socialist candidate for president being interviewed by neil cavuto, was asked, basically, what's the deal? i thought you guys were against the tarp bailout, the wall street bailout? and now this morning you're saying it was a good thing. and in essence, the presidential nominee of the socialist party said, well, yes, they were against the tarp wall street bailout, in essence they didn't feel like the government should pay anything to take over the assets they were taking over. but once it passed and was signed into law, they realized, this is probably the greatest day for socialists in american history. because the federal government has begun the takeover in a substantial way of private assets. and of course he went on to say now that they've made this wonderful great step of taking over socializing, nationalizing private assets from the financial sector, the government just needs to go in and finish taking over the rest of the financial sector because, as he said, because we know then the government takeover of all of that area would not be done out of greed and so they would do a much better job of spreading the wealth around the country and under the present system greed rules the day and just that great wonderful step of the tarp bailout, socializing america, as he saw it, just needed to be followed by the final step of completing the takeover of the financial sector. so the gentleman from iowa is exactly right according to the presidential candidate of the socialist party in 2008, this is a socialist move to nationalize more and more of the assets just as the presidential nominee of the socialist had hoped would happen. i yield back. mr. king: reclaiming and thanking the gentleman from texas, i'd point out into the record, mr. speaker, that some months ago the secretary of the treasury, tim geithner, came before a couple of committees, financial services and ag. and the question that i posed to him and he was bound to answer that question under oath was, made the point that president obama was elected at least in part because he had declared and effectively made an argument, however it might have been true or untrue, that president bush had gone into iraq without an exit strategy. so i made the point in my question that president obama had engaged in, supported and participated in the nationalization of about half of our private sect. and that is the three large investment banks, a.i.g., fannie mae and freddie mac, general motors, chrysler, i didn't go on into the nationalization of our skin and everything inside it, which is obamacare, but in that letter that he was obligated to answer under oath, two months late irgot a response back. i do want to give secretary geithner credit. there are some members of this cabinet that simply don't answer my letters. they have -- they apparently don't think they're accountable to members of congress and they don't think that we might decide to send them a little less money when they decide to do the budget. geithner did answer the letter. it was seven pages long and took two months to get it back and it's not a particular complaint of mine because i know that it's difficult to make the machinery of government work. but this those seven pages of answering the question, what is your exit strategy for taking over all of these huge chunks of the private sector? his answer was, well, it's not a written strategy and he would know when the time was right and he would execute that when the time is right. in other words, don't you be asking me. i'm secretary of the treasury, i don't answer to you or anybody else. i'm going to submit this. there is no plan. there's no exit strategy. the president of the united states is delighted to have these companies taken over by the federal government, as are most of the members of the cabinet, because it fits in with the website of the democratic socialist of america there used to be some resistance on this side of the aisle when someone applied -- when when someone implied the president is a socialist. but president obama voted to the left of bernie sanders, and when i saw the picture of the president next to hugo chavez and he's doing that double-grip glad-hand handshake, you know what, hugo chavez is a piker when it comes to nationalizing. barack obama has way outdone him. i don't think he would have been a man who could have done that on his own he surrounded himself with people who for ears worked through this vision. had i been assigned the task of writing the screen play, trying to turn america into a socialist state and if they even created for me a charismatic figure that matches that of the president and started me down the path on my imagination and with three years to get ready to do it, could not have unfolded a scenario close to what's reality today for the businesses taken over by the federal government. neither could have anticipated some of the things they're seeking to do now. but when you add these up and you add up the takeover of three large investment banks, bank of america, bear stearns, citigroup, when you see that a.i.g., for $180 billion, swallowed up by the federal government and fannie mae and freddie mac to the tune of $130 billion and perhaps another $400 billion piled on top of that and still remaining at $5.5 trillion in contingent liability and the takeover of general motors and chrysler, both of them now under the control or influence of the federal government being managed now exactly off the socialist website, run for the benefit of the people affected by them, close quote? the unions who made no concession whatsoever except to concede future claims that they think are going to be paid anyway by obamacare. and the student loan program, taken over completely, exactly within the mold of what happened when we had federal flood insurance that came in to provide one more competitor for the private market back in 1963, now there is no private market. now the federal government runs it all. when the federal government steps in to compete on student loans, people said, well, you know, we need to keep these people honest. somebody is making money off these students. now the federal government runs it all. and the president's idea was that he would set up one more insurance company to provide health insurance for americans to compete against these insurance company whoms he demagogued relentlessly, forgetting one more company, correct. but there existed up until obamacare passed, 1,300 health insurance companies in america. 1,300 companies that produced a variety of policies numbering to 100,000 policies. so who could imagine that one more company and a handful more policies was going to provide more options for people that would help with the competition, take some of the profits out of the industry? if these 1,300 companies competing against each other, mr. speaker, could take the profit out of the industry, how could the federal government do that? regulate and subsidize. that's what governments do. they regulate and subsidize their competition out of existence like they did on the flood insurance programs in 1963 and the student loan programs, cullmy nated this year and now here -- culminated this year, and now here we are, obamacare, the law of the land that nationalized not just three large investment banks, fannie and freddie, and student loan, now they've nationalized our body the most sovereign thing we have, the federal government has taken over the management of our skin and everything inside it and decided who will buy what policy and what the premium will be. and now they're trying to decide our diet. and now they're deciding on a mission across the country that the retailers need to cut $1.5 trillion calories out of the products going to these kids because 1/3 of our kids are obese, they want to cut the calories on the bag of do retoes. i think they just take a few calories out of the do retoes. a 150 calorie power bar gets redeuced to 90 calories because some fat kids will eat too many. but what do with we do with the 2/3 of the kid that are too skinny that need measure 150 calories, or what we do with the fat kid who hordes three power barses for 270 calories as opposed to one at 150 calories, but we cannot put a one size fits all regulation and reduce calories going into kids for energy and growth. more kids need more food, rather than all kids need less food. so those kids that are overweight they need more exercise. and maybe they need to watch their diet a little bit, that's education and that's parents, yes. but don't starve the hungry kids to so that those who are eating too much have to work harder to keep getting too much. the super nanny state that -- the recycling of all these components. here, the speaker of the house and the house of representatives has decreed that you can't go to the cafe over here and eat an only let unless the eggs that are broken from are from a free-range hen. i think the chicken is probably not free range, it doesn't taste like free range to me. but the eggs are from a free range hen. the paper, the nains around the capitol, most of them are brown. because they're recycled paper. when i go look at my coffee filters, i wonder why they're running over, they're recycled paper. so we have these decrees that come down from on high and the light bulbs themselveses are regulated by the speaker of the house. how much nanny state does this country need? and how much nanny state can we stand? i want american people making their own decisions. free market econo. i want to be able to exercise all their constitutional rights. i want them to be able to own guns and defend themselves and hunt and target shoot and be in a position to defend against tyranny. if we do not -- there's something about constitutional rights and liberty. it's use it or lose it. if you don't use it, you'll lose it. you've got to use your freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press, second amendment right, you've got to exercise those rights. we must do so. mr. speaker, we have to take this country back. and i yield back the balance of my time. i thank the gentleman from texas for joining me tonight. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced spoil of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from arizona, ms. giffords, for 60 minutes. ms. giffords: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise night to address the border security crisis that's part of daily life in my southern arizona district, in arizona's eighth congressional district. i'm proud to represt one of the most diverse parts of the entire country. i represent a district that's over 9,000 sare miles and is one of 10 u.s.-mexico border districts. the u.s.-mexico -- mexico border has changed a lot over the years. i'm a third generation arizonan. i represent a lot of people who are multigeneration arizonans. after years of building up the word for the california and texas, there's been a systematic funneling of illegal immigration, the flow of traffic, illegally, through southern arizona. this has become the most po rouse part of the u.s.-mexico border. today, together, my constituents live in a situation on the front lines of a national border security crisis. we live and breathe the federal government's failure to secure the board we are mexico and every day, my constituents are subjected to home invasions and to burglaries and to cut water lines and to graffiti, an unbelievable amount of garbage and trash left behind by illegal immigrants who are crossing through the border and by people increasingly who are drug smugglers, people that are human smugglers, the cutting of fences, the threats and intimidation by armed smugglers and the violence they experience on their own land, their own ranches, their own property. in this hour, i'm going to talk about action i and others have taken along the u.s.-mexico border. more importantly, i'm going to talk about the lives of people i represent, the people of cochise county, the ranchers who live on the u.s.-mexico border. it's always been my belief that if the decisionmaker here's in washington if they could hear, the stories, the impact that illegal immigration has on the lives my constituents there would be greater action here in washington. a decision -- that decisionmakers, elected official, people in the administration, they would move to greatly enhance the security along the u.s.-mexico border. so that's what we're going to talk about tonight. i think it's important to begin this hour with the most heart-wrenching story of all. the tragic death of robert trents, a fourth generation rancher, whose family has been on his land for over 100 years. actually, the cents family has had their ranch before arizona achieved statehood. on march 27, rob crants was murdered by assailant, who was tracked to the mexico border. he and his dog were both ruthlessly murdered on his land. they were left to die. they were shot. law enforcement officials belief that rob was killed by a smuggler. next to me is a photograph of rob and his brother phil, the two crents brothers. this was -- cents brothers. this was run of the front page of the "tucson weekly." this tells it all. you see them, the tack room their boots, their hands, their lives represented. reportedly -- a reporter wrote the companion story in which he interviewed the family and neighbors. he wrote, what has to be noted first is the nevittability of what happened. something like the krentz murder was coming and everybody knew it. the stories residents told this newspaper of the frustration they feel in trying keep property and family safe in smuggler-occupied territory were like a freight train in the night. down the tracks you see the faint light coming closer and closer. on march 27 in cochise county, the train arrived. the aftershock has been so powerful because the killing exploded the lie about the secure boarder that washington, d.c. has been working hard to promote. its front page, "the tucson weekly" asked the question will the murder of aespected cochise county rancher change anything on our board her tonight, i ask the same question. will the murder of robert krenz , a respected rancher in my district, will it change anything on the board her it has changed. we know that today. the president announced the deployment of the national guard to the u.s.-mexico border. i knew rob krentz, i knew his family he participated in meetings i convened between ranchers and border patrol. he was a family man. he was a good neighbor. and he was a friend to all who knew him. he was described as a humanitarian who would give water and aid to illegal immigrants who suffered from heat exhaustion and physical injury as they treked from mexico across his land. he was, like fellow ranchers out in cochise county a straight talker and he, like them, saw their lives change by the increased flow of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. tonight i'll share additional stories about the ranchers in this area and call on my colleague in demanding that our government step up and co-more, the responsibility here in washington to help protect the citizens. the safety and security and defense of the citizens should be our primary focus in washington, d.c. mr. speaker, the very first speech i made on this floor, the floor of the house of representatives, in january of 2007, was precisely about securing the border. .rder. in some areas, border security has improved over times and many ways it has worsened. i have supported legislation and appropriations that funded the border patrol and department of homeland security including i.c.e. as well for increases in personnel and technology. democrats and republicans have worked together to give department of homeland security to give them the resources they need. i increased funding for law enforcement programs through the state assistance alien program. when the president's budget eliminated that program, i led the fight to restore the funding and why this is important is communities out in cochise county and pinal county, santaver cruz county, pima county, they carry the brunt of this problem because the law enforcement agents are required to respond when a resident calls for help. they are responsible for a lot of the work t that should be done by the federal government. the federal government is not willing to reimburse the local reim-- law enforcement. we were able to augustment the bget. i funded the catch and release situation that we had. i sted of apprehending illegal immigrants and deporting them back to the border and find them back and forth and back and forth we are charging these individuals and we incarcerate illegal immigrants for 30 days, which is a big deter ant for someone who is trying to pass north. last year, and again this year, i introduced legislation with congressman sam johnson from texas to create an electronic mandatory syem for hiring employees. this would be a hiring system that would protect american citizens from identity theft and hold employers accountable from hiring illegal immigrants. the state of arizona was the first state to authorize e-verify, making it man da tear for employers but we have had a lot of problems, plus the fact that this situation of employee verification should not be a state-by-state situation. congressman johnson and i have introduced legislation. recently, with congressman bilbray i introduced legislation that drug cartels are laudering money. that, mr. speaker, i have an example, this is an example of a stored value card you can buy. they do not require any formal banking agreement. the threat assessment by the u.s. department of justice dubbed the cards an ideal money laundering instrument, citing liberal elements ol value reloading withdrawal and spending on certain types of these cards. go to a store and anyone can buy these cards and we are seeing more valued stored devices where money can be transferred hundreds of millions of dollars through these types of devices. according to a march 7, 2010 in the arizona daily star the average amount of 415 seizures on the southwest border was $89 ,565 more than double the average seizure five years ago. the stored value legislation is so important. this is legislation that will include the cards or the cell phones under the definition of a monetary instrument under title 31 of the united states code. this will require card holders to declare if they are carrying $10,000 on a stored value device to customs officers because currently they have no way of tracking whether or not this money is coming intthe united states because individuals are not required to declare whether or not they have money on a stored valued device. mr. speaker, at 6:20 early sunday morning, the north american defense command detected a low, small-flying aircraft near the border with mexico. they scrambled two f-16's to scramble 9 aircraft. this is just another example of how the drug smugglers are using these small homemade planes. they enter our country illegally. congressman dean heller and i introduced another bill that will increase the penalties for the newest way to smuggle drugs, flying them in by ultralight aircraft. they are capable of flying low and land and take off quickly. we have reports of them thrige up to 200 miles into our country from mexico. they are being used to bring drugs into our communities and represents the latest threat and if they can bring in drugs, they can bring in other materials that will threaten our national security. i learned the illicit use of ultralights by the u.s. border control and told me we need to take action to crack down and that's why i introduced the ultralight anti-smuggling act. they are not categorized as an aircraft by the federal aviation administration. in the 2010 national drug assessment released by the national intelligence drug center they identify them as the new ways that drug cartels are smuggling drugs into our country and according to the air and marine operations center in california, there were 193 suspected incursions into our country and 135 with the incursion two weeks ago by ultralights from october 1 to the present time. in october of 2008, they detected an untidfide low-flying aircraft, 12 miles north of no gales and the low-flying aircraft was identified. the pilot landed with 223 pounds of marijuana where border patrol was waiting to transport the pilot and the marijuana to another location. in november of 2008 near sanluis they discovered a crash and dead pilot and in december of 2008, the pilot of an ultralight crashed southwest of tucson and the pilot was carrying 350 pounds of marijuana when he crashed. it is time for the federal government to get ahead of the drug traffickers. we need to pass this legislation to outmaneuver these individuals who are trying to bring drugs into our country and do us harm and the act will amend the tariff act of 1930 to include ultralight aircraft under smuggling provisions. there is an unintended loophole that needs to be closed. we need to give law enforcement the tools they need and because ultralights are not currently technically considered aircraft, they do not fall under the smuggling provisions. under my legislation, individuals caught smuggling on ultralights can be prosecuted for using the aircraft in addition to being prosecuted for the drugs in their possession. when they are convicted of this new offense, they can receive a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. the bill will establish the same penalties for smuggling drugs and ultralights as for smuggling on airplanes and automobiles. today is a good day for the southwest border and people of arizona and this country. president obama has finally agreed to my repeated requests to deploy the national guard to the u.s.-mexico border. today, the president announced that he will authorize 1,200 national guard troops to be deployed to the southwest border. he will also request that $500 million be included in the supplemental spending legislation for law enforcement activities. just yesterday, i communicate wd my two senators, senator mccain and kyl and i thought it was important for the senate to stand up for border security and include $500 million in the war supplemental making its way through the senate. this is a clear sign that the administration is beginning to take border security seriously. i first called for the immediate deployment of the national guard after the march 27 murder of rob krentz. more boots on the ground, i requested 3,000, but this is a start. and this is our first step and isn't the last step. washington has clearly heard our message. republican congressman ted poe and i sponsored a resolution calling on the president to send the national guard to the border many weeks ago. we did a press conference today to show this isn't a republican or democratic issue, but affects all members of congress. it's an american issue. and i reiterate my request to the house, president and senate to step up and do more. we need to secure our u.s.-mexico border, period. the tucson sector as we see on the map here, this is my district and this includes the tucson sector which goes all the way over by the west part of the state has been an area that has been confronted by narcoterrorists who have killed thousands of people in mexico and bought their violent ways to the united states and in particular, to our area. my district has over 100 miles of border with mexico and the drug smuggling and the traffic has funneled through this area. again as we closed off california and texas, we have been funneling all of this activity through southern arizona. and as you can see, the more urban areas, like tucson and sierra visita are away from the border. along the lines, you see open space and these are where the ranchers in cochise county live. they are not being protected. the tucson sector and i would like to put up a chart here of the tucson sector of the border patrol, because it accounts for almost 50% of all the apprehensions of illegal immigrants and drug seizures across all border patrol sectors in the nation. this is to represent what we are actually dealing with in southern arizona in my district. so as you read the chart from fiscal year 2005 up to year fiscal year 2009, in fiscal year 2005, there were 439, apprehensions in that year and for every individual apprehended we believe one, two, three or maybe more get away. in fiscal year 2006, 392,000 apprehensions. in fiscal year 2007, 378,000 apprehensions. in fiscal year 2008, 318,000 apprehensions and in fiscal year 2w50eu7b, 241,000 apprehensions. so -- 2009, 241,000 apprehensions. we have seen a decrease in the number of people being arrested. the border security measures we have put on the border is working. it's an interesting story when you look at seizures in terms of marijuana. in 2005, 488,000 pounds of marijuana was seized. and then it increases, in 2006, 616,000 pounds. in 2007, 897,000 pounds. in 2008, 816,000 pounds and last year, 2009, 1.2 million pounds of marijuana seized in the tucson sector of the border patrol. when you look at cocaine seizures, fiscal 2009 was an anomaly. had 1,200 pounds seized. and fiscal year 2006, 100 pounds. fiscal year 2007, 177 pounds. up to 2009, 524 pounds of cocaine. so you see, again, decrease in the number of illegal immigrants and increase in the amount of drugs, marijuana and cocaine seized in the tucson sector of the border patrol. personnel, in fiscal year 2005, the united states border patrol had 2,339 border patrol agents in the tucson sector. we have vastly increased that to fiscal year 2009, we are at almost 3,700 border patrol boots on the ground in tucson sector. in prosecution, in fiscal year 2007, 5,447 prosecutions. that number has tripled in 2009, over 17,000 prosecutings that are now taking place in the tucson sector because of the increase in enforcement activities we have there. operation streamline. i talked about this earlier, making sure we are detaining for 30 days, illeg immigrants that are passing into our border illegally and we started it a few years ago because of the work of hard-working individuals, 2008, 96 thourk -- 96,000 and over 15,000 prosecutions. that sounds like a lot until you go back and look at that number that in 2009 we had 241,000 apprehensions. . i'd like to now result in the words of my constituents what we're dealing with on the border. i think my ranchers in cochise county speak out the best. i asked them to submit their stories to me and i've collected their letters over the days and weeks and years i've served. this letter was sent to met a meeting four days after the murder of robert krentz. the author writes, i'm angry. i had been operating at a slow simmer. now, last saturday, rob kcentz was shot, he and his dog were killed. we searched for his killer but they had had a 24-hour head start on them by the time they found the body. we followed the track to the multibillion dollar ineffective fence at the border and then mexico. they returned to their homes and jobs, sick that they could not catch the criminal before he crossed the border. i have known mr. krentz and his family for years. we became acquainted living here. most of us have conservative leanings in this area. we do not have the option of calling for help in emergencies for much of the time because we don't have phones, radios, or cell services when we're out on the landscape or out on the road. you have to be prepared to handle your emergencies yourself. it could be a snake, a broken down car. but for the last four years so, it's illegals carrying semiautomatic weapons, that's you have to prepare for, especially when response time is one to four hours and the person who does respond is alone and only carries a handgun. firefighte were pulled off a fire when it flushed out 17 illegals, all with guns. rob krentz had a gun. it was in his polaris. apparently, from a radio report, the illegals appeared to be injured. just days before, 3,000 pounds of marijuana were seized on the ranch from illegals. was the killer one of those? we'll probably never know. may 14 of this year, a couple of nights ago, a half mile east of airport road in douglas, 10 of the concrete-filled, six-inch steel casings that serve as uprights on the border fence were cut off at the ground with cutting searches -- torches and that piece of fence remove far drive-through. our friend was asked to go down with a boom truck and hoist it back in place. i know how to use a cutting torch. when you cut into something filled with concrete, it's nasty and dangerous and hard work. if the border was being patrolled, one more instance when it is not, this is no laughing matter. what the heck is going on. why did this have to happen? this is a story from may 16 a story from wendy glenn. last summer, our well on the border had a solar panel had a -- stolen from it. the control box, float and wire were taken. it was carried out over a mile on the border road before he went into mexico. the fellow had to climb up and unbolt it and let it down to the ground and then had to carry it off. surely he had to have been seen by some border patrol people as all this happened. other reports coming from susan and louie pope. on may 18, last night, there was a large group that crossed our lower place on the state line between arizona and new mexico. as far as we know, they were on their way north. tonight we had illegals talking on the radio. they're making plans about tomorrow morning. there are at least two groups coming up the west side of the mountain. there are also groups on the south end of the cih -- chirikawas. here's a message from may 19. today, recovered several bundles of dope but the mules got away. as soon as the border patrol left the area, the guide was on the radio getting them back together. they crossed down into new mexico and the hidalgo county sheriff's department caught one and the other got away. we understand the lurnsburg border patrol will get helicopter bus they can't cross into arizona. guess where all the illegals will wind up? yes, in our back yord. we want everyone to know that there's not a road on the border in the mountains. the horse patrol has a vital part in helping stop the crossers but air support is absolutely critical. another email from may 19. it is 9:00 p.m. sunday, may 19. i just found out there are no night scopes available for the area from new mexico, from the new mexico line to douglas, 50 miles, tonight. just one mobile surveillance system in new mexico, another mobile surveillance system five miles north of douglas and one close to the border about 15 miles east of douglas. the border patrol is just about blind tonight. they're supposed -- there are supposed to be four units but not tonight. we need to get these people some help. i'd like to show an illustration of, again, what some of the situation looks like in terms of having illegal immigrants coming into the area. the following email comes from the stoller family, who are winter visitors in my district. given the dangers they face on their land they made the difficult decision not to return to our state. this is from may 18. it is with great regret we decided to leave our little arizona winter retreat. it's with much thought we decided not to return. we worry about you, our friends, and wish you had the opportunity to choose as we do. we worry when hunting this winner or walking next door on our 160 acres, will we be confronted by a pack of illegals? what will we do with a shotgun, a camera and four dogs. i guess what we're trying to say is, we don't want to do this anymore. we'll miss the magnificent views but even more, we'll really miss you. thank you for the wonderful years. another story that i heard at the apache schoolhouse. the ranchers and other residents of the beautiful part of the country have seen terrible changes over the last few years and have been calling on their government to take action to protect them and finally secure the border. their plea plea was well summarized in a letter recently delivered to the governor of arizona and the congressional delegation. in the email he said, over the past eight years, we've had many break ins, burglaries and attempted home invasion. two of the attempted home invasions occurred just last month he said, as someone who lives on the u.s.-mexico border, i'm here to share with you a partial account of my family's experiences living near the mexico border for the past 10 years. we are a fifth generation arizona ranching family. by no means is this account all inclusive but is intended to give you an understanding of the mayhem and trepidation we are going through every single day on the borderlands. my words are offered to you in good faith, they're not intended to be inflammatory toward any culture, nationality, group or agency. i refuse to wave political correctness into their meaning, which has detracted from securing our border for the people of arizona and the united states. border security has been promised so many times without delivering security or safety to the people. the u.s.-mexico boarder is out of control and has been for a very long time. we laugh out loud when we hear politicians claim the border is more secure the uninformed view is a political fairy tale. people in washington making these statements don't live here and if they did, they would have a far different view from the red medial policies that need to be immediately actioned on our and the country's behalf to secure the arizona-mexico international boundary. our ranch is located adjacent to a national wilderness. i'm sitting in my new ranch house which looks more like a fort than a ranch home. daily we suffer fires, break ins, and personal property destruction perpetrated by both illegal aliens and drug smugglers. they break into homes and ranches, steal jewelry, firearms, small, courtable electronics to fence in u.s. cities and mexico. they destroy our property and livestock and so on. in eight years, our home has suffered 15 illegal alien and smuggling burglaries and four attempted home invasions, intolerable when you consider i'm here most of the time. i gave up filing police reports. why bother? the latest attempt at home invasion occurred last saturday when we were invaded in the early morning by an illegal alien and accomplices while my wife was asleep. the perpetrators were about to enter and burglarize our house and who knows what else. ey were later caught by our hardworking border patrol and cochise county sheriff's department. their backpacks were full of stolen items and some, if not all, had prior arrest records. last night, another smuggler entered our home and confronted my wife in our utility room and the border patrol and cochise county sheriffs are on the mountains searching for these illegals. how many people would tolerate the experiences we have every single day? why are we not able to live in safety and security in our own homes like the rest of you in tucson and phoenix and in washington, d.c. many of the homes and ranches in the area stretching to douglas have been burglarized, vandalized and invaded by illegals. no one dare love their homes unprotected for a couple of hours at a time. can you imagine worrying about leaving your home to attend your son's out-of-state weding or fear that it's going to be burglarized and trashed upon your return? not a pretty picture, missing such important parts of your family's live. as i read my statement upon risk of attending this meeting, i wonder what i will find or face on my return to our ranch later this evening. there are hundreds of these people illegally crossing in our valleys 24/7. it's a scary situation when they're kicking in your door and the sheriff is 70 miles away and the border patrol can't respond on a timely basis to your call, when they're pursuing multiple illegal immigrant groups through the mountains every day. from personal experience, illegal immigrants and smugglers have no fear of law enforcement, border patrol or state or federal officials. u.s. citizens seem to be held to a higher enforcement and -- standard than illegals arrested. you appreciate the cynicism when the same illegal aliens and smugglers are caught time and time again after being released back into mexico. if apprehended, one of the first questions they ask the border patrol, which state amend i in? the ninth circuit court or new mexico? they sure hope it's arizona. the large numbers of undetected illegal aliens using our vast, remote desert country are never counted in numbers washington was using. you can't count what you can't catch and border patrol apprehends 300,000 annually in the tucson sector alone or collectively they catch one in four, maybe over 800,000 or 508,000 have entered the country illegally. i must ask if this is really a border which has never been more secure? i don't think so and neither do the majority of the american people. this letter goes on, it talks about what's happening with the border patrol, yes, it's true we've had a lot of press on this, but unfortunately, up until today, we have not had a lot of action. the arizona cattle growers have put together an 18-point border security plan, it's available on my congressional website. it's available on the arizona cattle growers' website and it's -- it mandates that crossing the border illegally the first time is a felony charge preventing someone breaking into the country for any reason from gaining citizenship or residency. the letter ends, for those of you who worry about militarizing the border, i can only say, you are too late. a couple of additional stories. ann and paul palmer. they say, let me give you another perspective from a farming family. .family. our confidence in the sheriff department and porder patrol is at zero percent. the first time they were running from the sheriff's department. the van ran through several fences and way out into a field of growing corn before it got stuck in the mud. the fugitives were on foot. the sheriff's department and border patrol were too scared and felt they were too scared and so they left and this happened 200 yards from our home. explain to me the only protection for our families, this protection comes for my son and i. my son and i had to get the vehicle out of the field. when the sheriff's department came back they gave it an inspection and told us we should check to see there was no dope. needless to say this caused economic damage to us having this vehicle. not only was our crop destroyed in this area but the labor and material to rebuild the fences. the second occasion was after harvest, many of us pass our cattle on corn stocks because there are large number of cattle. our neighbor called us that a van had run through and was coming our way. he had three separate heard -- hevered that could have been mixed up. we got the van stopped before it went through the last fence. by the time the sheriff's deputy who had been lost got there, we had tracked the people and knew which way they were going. the sheriff's department said if we could give them the van, a 1977 chevy, they would pursue them and if not, they would not. i pointed out by that time they got a record of illegals would be gone. the border patrol was coming with the tractor but never showed up. there was no interest at all in apprehending these individuals and labor and material to rebuild the fences were expended by me and my family. i could go on and on. from my standpoint, there no willing to do anything for the problem. what are they doing. the horse patrol comes in after a part of the day because they don't have enough horses to ride all day. a private company or individual cannot operate as efficiently as border patrol and stay in this business. during more money and a poorly laid out plan means you have more expenses. another story by a constituent. this account took about a rancher on tombstone, they run through. june 10, 20 arrests. 20 arrests. june 14, 60 arrests. june 15, fence hit and two runners. and she talks about calls about cattle on the road. perm damage in one day, including three, 150 gates that were run through. losing 10,000 gallons of water in one spot and trying to keep from breaking through and the pump dumping the gates were left open. additional complaints. my travel trailer has been broken into, my truck stolen and the one they couldn't steal i had to get repaired. my insurance rates have gone up. fuel days skilled due to discarded porn, weapons, feminine hygiene products, trash and associated health care issues. we have an image of that. the damage is thousands upon thousands. vegetablestation can't grow. we have images of the debris. my new $2,400 ate a plastic sack and died four days later. disease from my neighbor's cattle resulted in my animals aborting their could yous and i can't get anyone to look at the ranch. invasive weeds have been introduced. one seed pod can produce over 200 seeds and then hang on the clothing and blankets of individuals who are smuggling through. they can fall off vehicles and on state roads. i have been informed i9 is the land owner's responsibility to control these weeds. the deer herds. i have three drug routes splitting routes and sportsmen being angry. and i have attempted to slow the traffic. all the trash left behind, washes downstream into a bird sanctuary. the clean water act directs business owners to decrease nonsource pollution but this pollution i have no control over. i had nine at-risk youth camps to pick up the garbage. within two weeks it was right back there. we have sent our men and women all over the world to protect others and the same government refuses to protect my rights as a u.s. citizen. this is a story from john ladd, a ranching family in southern arizona. john ladd has a ranch along the border right where the new fences has been constructed. he can ride for hours along the fence without seeing a single agent. he has shown where the smugglers have used a ramp to drive their ramps to up and over the fence. he has filmed scores of people crossing over hs land and 49 groups have been visible from his kitchen window. the last group was seen a few days ago. the murder of rob krentz has brought a lot of attention to the border in cochise county but it's important to note that the smugglers' impact on ranchers north of the border and into pima county is a unique situation. couple of additional stories. this was sent to me by the cope family. they purchased a ranch in arizona. in 2005, they proclaimed the ironwood national monument whic surrounds our ranch. we spend six nights a week there just the two of with the remoteness and animals needing daily care. we travel separately. our nearest neighbor to the northeast is eight miles away and to the south, headquartered about 10 miles and queens wells and another 10 miles. this is a part of the district that is not directlon the border but impacted. because we have no cell phone service at our ranch even to our provider verizon advertises we get coverage. i have to get in my truck five miles just to get a call to connect. our neighbor formally attached to our property, his lease surrounds our property but it borders the westbound dry and the fence line is 10 miles west of our house. 1995 to 2003, the biggest problem we had with illegal immigration was plumbing being destroyed and valves being left open so 30,000 gallons of water would be drained. th could be deadly to cattle and drain entire wells. illegal vick crossings to the ironwood monument created havoc. vehicles overloaded with people began par adding past our houses. tremendous environmental damage from cross-country motorized traffic. the cleanup costs are online. with the murder of rob krentz our compassion for illegal immigrants has been compromised by the fear of our own lives. this area is very deadly, he goes on. numerous times riding on horseback i have come across trees with women's underwear hanging on them. the threat to women is not heavily reported but we know it happens. drug smugglers come up north to the reservation and steal horses from twodifferent reservations and travel north of the wash about a mile west of our house and head north cutting a hole in the boundary fence. those were the early days which is now major drug smuggling through the indian reservation through the entire fence line through the ironwood national forest. the smugglers are using stolen vehicles instead of stolen horses. mr. speaker, i bring these stories forward, real stories from real constituents. they live in my district to emphasize to members of congress, members of the administration and general public the real problems we are having down in southern arizona. it is true we have increased the amount of resources in urban areas. we have more fencing and more boots on the ground and more surveillance. but out in the rural parts where the land is vastly wide open, there is still a major problem. before the community meeting we had at apache, i met with a representative group of ranchers and i heard these stories directly told to me. they had commonsense recommendations to us and these are recommendations that i included in two letters to the president of the united states and to the secretary of the department of homeland security. at that time, i called for the immediate deployment of the national guard to the u.s.-mexico border and i asked five additional measures be taken to address the violence and assure the residents we would step up to give them the protection they are entitled to receive from the federal government. i urge d the president and his secretary to deploy more border patrol agents. i looked at the budget that was being proposed by the administration to cut agents and that was wrong. not only do we not need to cut but iran crease. we need to include more horse patrol and the tucson sector graduated another recent class f horse patrol because as you can see from these images, there are no roads, very difficult to access in most parts of the desert and horse patrol is the only way. i urged the president to operate forward-operating bases in the remote part of southern arizona right there on the border. as i was driving to that meeting i was on the phone trying to communicate with people here in washington to find that my cell phone service was completely cut out. miles before i was able to arrive at apache, there was no cell phone service. i urged president and dipt of homeland security to improve cell phone services. we need more towers. we need to know the cost of the cell phone towers and we are working to get that information and make sure we can handle the costs of those cell phone towers and increase mobile surveillance centers. that is a good step, but we need more. i asked the form to joint task force to coordinate border security efforts because what we see happening during an investigation and i talked about some of the criminal activities that's been reported in my area, you will have a local law enforcement agent come out and do the investigation and at that point there is a handoff and so many different entities end up handling that case that we need to have a joint agency task force to coordinate what's happening. i have also since that time submitted a request to increase technology on the border. i was joined by 52 members of the house of representatives republicans and democrats in making that request. i wrote to the two arizona senators asking that they support this request in the united states senate. we know that we must do to secure the border. the people of cochise county and the residents of southern arizona know what they need. the time for talk is over. the people i represent, the people that are american citizens that live on the front lines, they deserve an answer. we need to stop the drug cartels and the violence they brian this will not only help my constituents but everyone across the country. in closing, mr. speaker, i want to talk about another story from another constituent, peggy davis. . she writes, my name is peggy davis, my husband and i live on a ranch. our grandchildren are the fifth generation to live on the ranch. i have lived along the border for 37 years. i moved to southern arizona when fred and i were married in 1972. up until that time i had never encountered an illegal immigrant or heard of the border patrol. on our ranch, we encountered immigrants, but they walked up to the house and asked if we had work or food. i fed them, gave them water, sometimes gave them medicine or a few dollars for a job that day. in the 1990's, something changed. i noticed more of them were traveling in large groups and had an attitude that left me feeling uneasy. she says, today i still provide water when asked, but i don't give them food or medicine, nor do i give them work. that would encourage larger numbers to walk through our land. my husband is away from home for weeks at a time, leaving me home alone. he couldn't be here today because he's gone supplementing ranch income. this is necessary due in large part to the exer by tant cost to repair our land, our water tanks, our fences damaged by illegal immigrants daily. everyone i know faces the same loss to land and livestock. she writes, i used to go for walks for exercise, i no longer do that. i am armed at all times. i can't feed the animals without a gun. most of the ranch women i know know how to use a gun. she said, i don't want to ever have to use it. the mere fact of making me use it gives me anxiety beyond words. but what choice do i have? i can call 911 but by the time they could get to me, it would likely be too late. i know most of the people who live here and literally all the people i know along the border have at least one personal story where they were threatened or their animals or property damage. to go into all of them would take days or weeks. this is time sensitive. we are being invaded now, peggy says, and something has to be done immediately. however, i do feel compelled to briefly tell you, when our daughter marlo was in college, she was home alone. she'd gone to the barn to feed our horses and after coming back to the house and locking our door she heard our dogs barking in a way that alerted her someone was nearby. when she looked out the window, she saw a man outside. she noticed he was holding one arm behind his back so instead of opening the door, she wracked the window a lit so she could ask what he wanted he told her he wanted her to give him a ride into town. he said that he had a friend with him who was hurt and needed medical attention. when my daughter told him that she couldn't give him a ride he got angry. he still kept his arm behind his back he told her to open the door and when she refused, he told her he knew that she was home alone. she replied that she wasn't alone, her dad was on the ranch, he would be back any minute. apparently, he believed her, fortunately, and left. when the sheriff's department arrive 30d minutes later, they did a search and found a large butcher knife missing from the butcher block in our guest house. the man's attitude and words were confrontational and i truly believe he meant her harm but was convinced she really wasn't home alone. the current administration has claimed the border is secure and if all of us here gathered up all the trash, includeding the hypodeterminic needles, the toilet paper, the dirty diapers, countless other items detrimental to our house, if we brought it to washington, d.c. and put it on the lawn at the white house, perhaps the president would conclude the border is not secure. my husband and i talked at length with friends, neighbors, law enforcement agents, congressmen, senators over the years. bob krendz was a personal friend of mine. he was a kind an compassionate man, as evidenced by his final act, he stopped to help someone who he thought was in need he got paid for his kindness by losing his life. don't allow his life to be lost in vain but help us convince the government that we must solve the immigration problem with swift and firm action. i do admit that many of these people are desperate but so are we. when you mix desperation and fear on both sides, you create a volatile situation or violence. mr. speaker, these are stories from the people i represent. they feel their government frankly has abandoned them. they are angry and frustrated. i'm angry and frustrated. we need action and we need it now. becan spend billions of dollars in conflicts in other countries, billions of dollars to secure other borders across the board to protect other citizens from other countries and places in far off lands. but if this congress is truly the people's house, we must listen to the people and they are asking for our attention and they are calling out for help. mr. speaker, i show you a sign here, a photograph of a forest service, a warning sign that cautions the citizens of southern arizona. it's an official sign to warn hikes of the dangers of the smugglers on public lands. when i think about citizens that have to see signs like this on their property, of being warned about the possibility of the violence of the destruction of the threats, it says, caution, smuggling activity is common in this area because of the proximity to the international bo. be aware of your surroundings at all times. then there's information of in case of emergency. i would suggest that the federal government puts up these signs and the federal government should do somhing about the problem. so i ask my colleagues to join with me for once and for all to take the necessary steps that we need to take. i applaud the administration today for taking action. the deployment of the national guard to our u.s.-mexico border is a first start. the $500 million in supplemental funding to the u.s.-mexico border will be greatly welcomed. but we have no greater responsibility than to carry out the duty of protecting our citizens. hence, mr. speaker, i believe we should do more. this duty is embedded in the oath that each one of us took when we were sworn into this great institution. in closing, mr. speaker, again, i'd like to reference rob krentz, his brother phil, the krentz, my constituents, southern arizonans, u.s. citizens. bob krentz is no longer with us, for doing nothing more than than being on his own land. the federal government has to take responsibility for the safety and security of its citizens, first and foremost. this is a great institution, the united states congress can achieve great things. it is important that we focus our national security efforts first and foremost on homeland security. that means border security. and not allowing a situation like the tragic murder of rob kcentz to ever osur again. to not allow the continued stories of the destruction we hear along the u.s.-mexico board tork not allow that to continue. with that, mr. speaker, thank you, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentlelady have a motion to adjourn? >> i move to adjourn the house. the speaker pro tempore: the question son the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. >> right now, watch past years' speeches online at the c-span video library. it's commencement speeches your way work every program since 1987, available free, online. president obama met with reporters on capitol hill. afterwards, party leaders spoke with reporters for 15 minutes. >> good afternoon,ern. -- everyone. as we all know, the president was up here he called last week and asked if he could come up and talk to the republican conference. i said we'd be glad to have him. he came up we had a spirited discussion on a variety of different issues we're all dealing with these days. it was a private meeting, so i'm not going to characterize what he said. but i will mention one issue i raised with him that i thought we could have broad bipartisan agreement on, the sanctions bill against iran that came out of the banking committee and is now in conference. regretfully, the administration seems not to want to get that bill, and i know i've had to answer to my conference and i think the democratic leadership has had to answer to their conference as well, whatever happened to the iran sanctions bill? this is one of those rare bills that could actually make a difference. it's sanctions that really bite. -- that really -- i'm perplexed about why the administration doesn't want to go on and get the bill and have the president sign it. i think it's because he would have to decide whether to use the sanctions or waive them. what we do know is in the in a body, the house and senate where there's been a lot of discussion about bipartisanship this year, there's overwhelming, literally, overwhelming bipartisan support for this iran sanctions bill. i hope the senate and house democratic leadership will wrap it up, send it down to the president and sign it soon. with that, let me turn to senator kyl. >> thank you, leader mcconnell. one of the issues raised was by my colleague john mccain and i added a little bit to it. relative to the immigration issue, particularly as it pertains to our state of arizona. senator mccain made the point that it was not helpful to the debate to have the arizona law mischaracterized. and i tried to make the point that it wasn't a good idea to try to hold hostage the securing of the border in order to get comprehensive immigration reform passed. i know there's some feeling on the other side that if the border is secured, then conservatives would feel less likely to support comprehensive reform but from our perspective, whether that's true or not, and i don't think it is, it's important to secure the border, simply because of all the reasons why that is important. and that ironically, securing the border will make it easier, not more difficult to later on get comprehensive reform. we did make a strong argument that we should try everything we can. it can be done. and one of the things we'll be doing in a few minutes is offering a couple of amendments to the supplemental appropriations bill to provide a modest amount of funding targeted to those things we, -- we think can make a difference in securing the border. >> it was good to see the president back here. we all know him, like him, appreciate his willingness to engage in a spirited exchange of the kind we had today. without characterizing his views, i think it's fair to characterize that most of our comments and statements were about the three issues we believe most americans have up front in their lives, jobs, debt, and terror. and we have fundamental differences of opinion. the health care bill, taxes, job -- taxes job creators and investors, making it harder to create jobs and the so-called financial regulation bill makes credit harder to get and more expensive, making it harder to create jobs. as far as debt go the

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