it will come to order members will take their seat members will take their conversations off the floor which will take their seats recommit the bill h r thirty five twenty one to the committee on financial services with instructions to report the same back to the house promptly with the following instructions page two after line seventeen insert the following the secretary of housing development shall not accept as reasonable any fees for in for thing any provision of a drawling lease agreement or other similar agreement that requires the registration of or prohibits the possession of any firearm that an individual for his or her personal protection or forcible or for support the possession of which is not prohibited or the registration of which is not required by  council come to order members will take their seats or remove their conversations from the floor the gentleman from minnesota is recognized for five minutes madam speaker our founding fathers wrote our nation's fundamental values of freedom and representative government into our constitution this includes the well second amendment right to keep and bear arms citizens who are in compliance with the law should not have those rights taken away including those who live in public housing yet public housing authorities including the one right here in our nation's capital are telling residents that in order to be a resident of public housing you must give up your second amendment rights you must give up your general sense members will please take their seats or remove their conversations from the floor jelen from minnesota you must give up your right to own a firearm for sport or for hunting or most importantly to protect yourself or your family let me quote from the january two thousand and eight dwelling lease agreement for d c lessee and all others are required to comply with the following use restrictions and requirements to refrain from storing maintaining using distributing purchasing or selling any type of firearms or ammunition on the least premises or the development where they are registered or unregistered in other words madam speaker even if you comply with all the laws of the district of columbia related to gun ownership you are prohibited from owning a gun if you are a resident of public housing we are talking about law abiding citizens not criminals criminals are already largely prohibited from residing in public housing residents of public housing share the same legal rights to possess lawful property and to take measures to defend their lives as do homeowners who can should control their estates the d d c policy clearly discriminates against the poorest members of our society simply because they are residents of public housing less than two weeks ago madam speaker two hundred fifty members of this house of representatives including sixty five members of the majority who said there shouldn't be any gun ban here in the district of columbia signed a bipartisan amica skeery a brief it district of columbia versus heller which said it is a case that currently is before the united states supreme court which questions the constitutionality of the d ban the amica spree supports the ruling by a lower federal appeals court which up held the constitutional rights of individual citizens to keep and bear arms just to refresh my colleagues one more time one notable line from the brief states and i quote had americans in seventeen eighty seven been told that the federal government could ban the frontiers man in his log cabin or the city merchant living above his store from keeping firearms to provide for and protect himself and his family it is hard to imagine that the constitution would have been ratified the d c public housing restriction goes even further than the d c gun ban in question in this case madam speaker we must assure that americans living in public housing have their personal right to possess firearms for hunting or self defense this motion to recommit madam speaker is simple it clarifies that public housing authorities that participate in the asset management program cannot prohibit their law abiding tenants from possession firearms and ammunition recognized for five minutes thank you very much or madam speaker i rise almost in disbelief that my friends on the opposite side of the are led by ms bachmann would dare bring to this floor a motion that basically would say to us that the federal government cannot direct this issue on federal property we own these public housing authorities the people who are here live under the rules that we develop for living in public housing we are confronted with a problem in america and that problem is an parchin atlee and painfully we have poor people who are isolated and they find their power and their strength in the gun there are far too many guns raging every night in america and public housing authorities whether it is los angeles or new york are down south what you find young jobless men and gangs who shoot throughout the night where people are ducking under their beds are fred to open their doors many of these public housing authorities  on main thoroughfares next to a shopping centers on your way to the airport base bullets don't limit themselves to inside these public housing authorities they can end up shooting people who are passing through the area i understand perhaps the argument that one would make about constitutional rights and while i disagree with that i think it is foo hardy and polish to talk about we don't have the authority to determine what happens on our property there are those in this room who would shut down public housing authorities and not give people a place to live at all because they said there's too much violence there's too much joblessness there's too much violence are those of us who have worked for years not only to clean up these public housing authorities but to make sure that the people who live there are abiding by the laws i am in disbelief that anyone  believe it's all right to continue what is happening in america today and many of these public housing authority where young people died and of course we don't like it of course we are paul dead we are paying with that but give yes i thank the gentleman the wood the gentle lady agreed to a unanimous consent request to make your amendment a fourth with amendment so that it could be voted upon my presumption is the gentle lady wants to be a member adopted men speaker and majority leader i appreciate their classroom the majority leader however the answered b no we are aware of this problem and it's very important that we send this back to the committee so that it will be fixed reclaiming my time so it's more important to delay it than to adopt madam speaker and majority leader actually know the report and point is that the committee has a chance to look at this measure they did not have a chance to do so we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to fix the bill madam speaker i as are majority leader just put before us a motion that i think we should all support it is unreasonable are for us to think that somehow we are going to not give our our this house all the opportunity to provide leadership on crime there are members on the opposite side of the aisle who would identify themselves as being a lot of people of wanting to get rid of guns and crime well this is an opportunity to show where you stand do you stand with us to keep americans safe proceedings on h r thirty five twenty one are postpone the chair will now entertain one minute special requests quote purposes gentleman from south carolina arise that objection house will be in order house will be in order please take your conversations off the floor give your attention to the gentleman mr speaker anthony tony eubanks professional basketball player collegiate basketball record holder and two time all american during black history month i would like to recognize his efforts as a mentor our christian youth in south carolina who is professional basketball career tony was able to travel to the middle east europe in argentina the travel led him to work with youth as a volunteer for young life f c a and other ministries currently now serves as chaplain of the clinton football tiger teen and volunteers with f c a on the compass and campus south carolina's proud to have this citizen who is so truly dedicated to strengthening youth face each day contribute contributes to a pre game chappell's coaches bible study graduate assistants bible studies and other ministries that continue to make a difference in the lives of athletes coaches and the community tony is not of the only a leader for our youth but also a strong role model for athletes he is a true athlete for christian ministr objection thank you mr speaker the men and women in our intelligence agencies are facing uncertainty they're telling us this and that is posing a very real national security risk to us and our homeland today i rise to encourage this house to close the terrorist loophole for good by passing a bill that would recommend that we update the foreign intelligence surveillance act the senate passed this bipartisan bill with sixty eight votes the house leadership will not bring it to the floor they've had another opportunity today and they passed on that opportunity but mr speaker time has run out their protect america act has expired the democratic leadership of the house has had more than six months to tackle this problem they continue to delay let's not delay another day let's bring our intelligence capabilities into the twenty first century let's pass the protect america act now and thank you i yell back are there for the woman or requests what purpose does the gentleman from texas arise mr speaker i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business in any special orders heretofore entered into the following members might be permitted to address the house revise and extend their remarks in include there an extraneous material to revise and extend their remarks and include berry and extraneous material serial mr deposit help a five minute mrs captive for five minutes ms waters for five minutes miss jackson leaper five minutes missed israel for five minutes without objection under the speaker's announced policy of generating two thousand and seven and under a previous order of the house the following members are recognized for five minutes each mr jones of north carolina without objection gentlemen for five minutes mr speaker this week the house will vote to reinvest taxpayer subsidies from the most profitable or oil companies in the world to the american people in the form of lower gas prices lower home heating oil costs new jobs in clean renewable technologies for six years under republican management we attempted a strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to lower gas prices the strategy was to provide fourteen billion dollars industry subsidies to the largest oil companies in the world the most profitable or oil companies in the world fourteen billion dollars to them and at the same time the bush administration submitted budgets to this congress that actually reduced funding for renewable energies for energy efficiency for weather is a sion for solar for hydrogen for other renewable technologies and what was the result mr speaker the result was this gas prices doubled prices tripled oil company profits quadrupled but the average american was now faced with an additional fifteen hundred dollars and gas prices and at the same time as oil companies profits went up and as pocketbooks got lower and lower the pocketbooks of the american people the loss of the american people lost more and more value we actually increased our dependence on foreign oil this year we are actually importing one point six million barrels of oil a day more than we were before the energy policy that the prior congress passed and that the president signed so we're actually more dependent on foreign oil and the american people are less well off oil companies did very very well but we did nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and the american people lost fifteen hundred dollars in the process well we're going to change that we have the opportunity to change that this week we're going to pass i hope on a bipartisan basis a new approach a new strategy a fundamental change in energy policy and we're going to redirect those subsidies from oil companies to the pocketbooks of the american people we're going to create as many as three million jobs in renewable technologies we're going to invest those those subsidies in the creation of new green jobs in solar and hydrogen in wind in geothermal we're going to create those new jobs and regain our manufacturing capacity and capabilities mr speaker troubles me that here we are the country that defeated the most and the most money mental threat of the twentieth century in nazi germany and japan and we're now behind germany and japan and solar technologies of the top ten when companies on earth only one is american iceland denmark now making great strides in geothermal and wind where not seven out of every ten cars in brazil  fuel flexible where not we can regain our capacities we can regain our skills we can regain our competitive edge in the world we can regain our manufacturing strength in the world by leapfrogging ahead of them in renewable technologies to do that we've got to make investments in the american people not the bottom line profits of oil companies when we gave those oil companies the opportunity to make those investments in the american people what did they do they made those investments in the coil company c e o s one cashed out with about sixty million dollars we believe that it's time to make those investments in the american people and american jobs in renewable energy and by doing so we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil we have created a paradigm mr speaker where with a nine trillion dollar debt we are borrowing money from china to fund our defense budgets to buy oil from the persian gulf to fuel our military to protect us from shine in the persian gulf it makes no sense this week we have the opportunity to take a giant leap for common sense reinvest in the american people reinvest in american jobs reinvest in our defense reinvest in our competitive edge reinvest in our human capital reduce our dependence on foreign oil and that's precisely what we will do by texas quest mission to address the house five minutes that objection mr speaker i want to talk about one of the novel concepts that congress has come up with over the years it goes back to the re administration and a bipartisan bill signed by president reagan the bokeh act was established it is called the victims of crime act it's a novel idea in that convicted felons in federal court who are assessed fees and fines must pay those fees and fines into a fund that fund then is saved and reserved for victims of crime for restitution it also  care of domestic violence shelters where spouses can hide away from those abusers it establishes right crisis coalition centers it promotes and sends money to the victim advocate advocates throughout the united states who go to court with victims of crime especially in violent crime it does many good things and over the years because our federal judges have continued to find and assess greater penalties to criminals of fun as of today is one point seven billion dollars money contributed by criminals that goes to crime victims what a wonderful idea and let me make it clear this is not taxpayer money taxpayers didn't fund this criminals did criminals pay in the rent on the courthouse paying for the system that they have created so what is the problem the problem is mr speaker that that  every year that's administered by the federal government continues to be robbed by other bureaucrats and ten used to be less money that's available for crime victims this year we have point seven billion dollars in the fun last year six hundred and six six hundred thirty five million of that was used for crime victims but this year the fund is being cut by the bureaucrats to five hundred ninety million dollars it's not a lot of money but it means that victims shelters throughout the country will be closed that these right crisis coalition centers will be closed because they're barely keeping the lights known so why is that happening mr speaker i do not know i do know that the justice department now is going to charge a service chart surcharge on the victim spawn of five point five percent to administer the funds they are doing so without the approval of congress they have no right to take thirty million dollars to pay for their own bureaucracy that's not authorized by congress we also know that the administration wants to take parts of that money and apply it to other programs out there once again this is not taxpayer money it's money that belongs to victims and the federal government and specifically the justice department and the federal bureaucrats need to keep their hands off that money because it's not their money  belongs to victims of crime mr speaker victims of crime do not have a lobbyist up here in washington d c a high dollar law b s advocating on their behalf they expect us members of congress to be their lobbyist and it's important that we do not let the bureaucrats the robber barons take money out of that bulk of fun and apply it to other programs find that money somewhere else this money belongs to crime victims it should be not should not be robbed by the bureaucrats it should be left alone and if anything we ought to raise how much money we take out of that fund for victims of crime it's one point evan billion this year next year it's going to be one point nine billion dollars criminals contribute to that fun and yet that our government continues to let less and less money be applied to victims we have more crime victims in this country than we did last year and we need victims assistance the victims of crime act is a good idea let's leave it alone and quit robin it to pay for other federal programs and if the that rule government needs money from to pay for these other programs take money out of foreign aid or something but leave victims alone victims are a unique part breed of people in our country mr speaker and it's our responsibility to take care of them and make sure that they get the compensation they need paid for by criminals who commit crimes against them and that's just the way it is i yield back  i rise today to share with this body the unbelievable circumstances surrounding the victims of the rita hurricanes rita and katrina i thought the american people had been shocked at the lack of response by our government to the victims of these hurricanes i thought the american people could hardly ever get over the fact that they witnessed victims of a natural disaster held up in the convention center in new orleans for days without food without water begging for help it was unbelievable when we discovered that the head of thema mr brown at the time said that he did not know that those victims were out in front of the convention center waving white flags and side the convention center sick and even dying it was unbelievable to witness one of the richest if not they richest country in the world with a lack of adequate response to its citizens at a time when they were needed most when we were needed most and so we have tried to work through this we have been working to try and get money to the gulf coast to new orleans to mississippi we have tried to work to save public housing so that residents could return who had been evacuated and told that the housing would be rehabilitated and they could return many of us have been pushing not only on famous as our government but working with the state and local government trying to correct  the injustices that we have now come to know that have taken place in the gulf coast and now we are confronted with another unbelievable situation how is famous has admitted what people living in trailers have known for several years that these trailers contain high levels of formaldehyde that post serious health risks for residents almost after moving in trailer residents started to complain about respiratory and other formaldehyde related health problems the first private study on the unacceptable levels of formaldehyde and these trailers was in two thousand and six a few months later the occupational health and safety administration conducted its own testing and found formaldehyde concentration as high as five part per million are fifty times higher the level the environmental protection agency considers elevated but fame didn't stop the sale or diplomat of trailers until july of two thousand and seven and here it is two thousand and eight and it still has no plan to move pamela's out of these environmental health hazard and to say permanent and a portable housing mrs speakon members with got to force famous to rise to the challenge of getting these thirty eight thousand families out of these toxic trailers as soon as possible and move them and to save permanent and a portable housing unfortunately because of portable housing creation has not been a priority of this bush administration i know this is going to be a difficult task the bush administration has failed to ensure that the gulf coast region has an adequate supply of a portable housing for is displa persons including those in trailers the administration approved redevelopment plans in mississippi and louisiana that provide less affordable housing than was available before hurricane katrina it even allowed bullied this the state of mississippi to move six hundred million dollars away from housing assistance to the redevelopment of the port of gulfport now mind you there are still people who are out of state who want to come home there are still people who live in n trailers there are still people doubled up with family members and this administration this housing secretary said to the state of mississippi go ahead and take six hundred million from housing assistance and you can go ahead and use it for the redevelopment of the port in new orleans the administration has approved the demolition of four thousand five hundred units a public housing would not regard to the fact that there are twelve thousand homeless persons who could have benefited from having a roof over their heads the demolition of new orleans public housing during an affordable housing crisis is a prime example of this administration shot cited as a lack of concern for our country's lowest income renters misspeak and members are simply close by saying here we are same again mismanagement lives at stake they have no answers you'll back the balance of my t mr jones north carolina mr speaker i stand once again before this body with yet another sunset memorial it is february twenty sixth two thousand and eight in the land of the free in the home of the brave and before the sun set today in america almost four thousand more defenseless unborn children were killed by abortion on demand that's just today mr speaker and that is more than the number of innocent americans that we lost on september eleventh only it happens every day it is now been exactly twelve thousand eight hundred and eighteen days these since the travesty called roe versus wade was handed down since then the very foundation of this nation has been stained by the blood of almost fifty million of its own children some of them mr speaker cried and screamed as they died but because it was amniotic fluid passing over the vocal chords instead of air we could not hear them in this chamber all of them had at least four things in common first they reached this little babies who had done nothing wrong to any one second each one of them died a nameless and lonely death and each of their mothers whether she  not will never be quite to seyn and all of us these children might have brought to humanity are now lost to us forever yet even in the full glare of such tragedy this generation clings to blind invincible ignorance while history repeats itself in our own silent genocide mercilessly annihilates the most helpless of all victims to date those yet unborn mr speaker perhaps it's important for those of us in this chamber to remind ourselves again of why we are really all here thomas jefferson said the care of human life and its happiness and not its destruction is the chief and only object of good government the phrase in the fourteenth amendment capsulizes our entire constitution it says no state shall deprive any person of life liberty or property without due process of law mr speaker protecting the lives of our citizens and their constitutional rights is why we are all here it is our sworn oath the bedrock foundation of this republic is that clarion declaration of the self evident truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by their creator with the un a noble rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness every conflict and battle our nation has ever faced can the trace to our commitment to this core self evident truth it has made us the beacon of hope for the entire world it is who we are and yet mr speaker another day has passed and we in this body have failed again to honor that foundational commitment we fail our sworn luther our sworn oath and our god given responsibility as we broke faith with nearly four thousand more innocent american babies who died today without the protection we should have given them but perhaps today mr speaker maybe someone new who hears this sunset memorial will finally realize that abortion really does kill little babies that it hurts from others in ways that we can never express and that twelve thousand eight hundred eighteen days spent killing nearly fifty million children is enough and that america the same america that rejected human slavery and marched into europe to arrest the nazi holocaust is still courageous enough and compassion enough to find a better way than abortion on demand so tonight mr speaker may we each remind ourselves that our own days in this chamber and in this sunshine of life are numbered and that all too soon each one of us will walk from this place for the very last time and if it should be that this congress is allowed to convene on yet another day to come may that be the day when we finally hear the cries of the innocent unborn may that be the day when we finally find the humanity the courage and the will to embrace together our human and our constitutional duty to protect the least of these our tiny american brothers and sisters from this murderous scourge upon our nation called abortion on demand is feb twenty sixth two thousand and eight mr speaker twelve thousand eight hundred eighteen days since roe versus wade first gained the foundation of this nation with the blood of its own children this in the land of the free and the home of the thank you mr speaker the gentleman from indiana mr burton the gentle lady from texas ms jackson lee under the speaker's announce policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from tennessee miss blackburne is recognized for sixty minutes as the designee of the minority leader thank you madam speaker we are looking forward to spending some time on the floor over the next several months and several weeks and spending some time talking with our colleagues and talking with the american people about the budget everybody hears a lot about the budget and about this budget document that is several hundred pages thick that it is what directs the spending and i think that most americans know that the house of representatives is basically the keeper of the purse if you will for the american public now some of my colleagues from the republican study committee and i want to make certain event we all understand how this money is spent because we fully believe that the american people have the right to know they have the right to know and they should know how their budget gets spent how those tax dollars gets spent because we know madam speaker this is not government's money it is the taxpayers money and we want to shine the light on how those dollars are being spent we want to break down this process because we want to demystify the process an invite the american people to join us and follow us we believe government spends too much money we believe that government never gets enough of your money they never get enough of the taxpayers dollars and in date one of my favorite analogies is from one of my favorite place little shop haros and i think that we have many americans who fully believe that the u s house of representatives that congress that's the federal government that there's a big enormous bureaucracy that liberals have built as a monument to themselves the bureaucracy never gets enough of the taxpayers money it's like audrey two in little shop of horace never can get enough to eat and what that bureaucracy wants to just chop away on every day is your money it is the taxpayers money so we want to make certain that we spend some time going through this budget process spelling out where those dollars gets spent how the dollars get spa actually basically holding a classroom for our colleagues spending some time talking about the budget document talking about the consequences that come with the baseline budgeting talking about what would happen if we went to  based budgeting talking about performance based budgeting dissecting the appropriations bills how lighting the rest of growing entitlements and also addressing the waste that we find in earmarks so today as our first session we thought it would be a good idea to review how washington spends the taxpayers money last year we have it broken down by household and we always find that when we speak in terms of billions and trillions in washington speak that we are talking about numbers that are really bad so we went in here and said how much is it perhaps whole that was spent in two thousand and seven in the name of government what did weigh appropriate and spend of your money came out to be twenty four thousand one hundred six dollars per household that's the highest total sense world war  two the federal government collected about twenty one thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars per household in taxes so what did that give us if you're spending twenty four thousand one hundred six dollars per household and then you are taking in twenty one thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars per household madam speaker think about that that is each household share of taxes twenty one thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars but it wasn't enough that wasn't enough oh audrey two wanted a little bit more of the bureaucracy wanted more the bureaucracy couldn't curb their spending so they spent that twenty four thousand one hundred six dollars so that leaves the taxpayer and future generations a deficit each year that becomes a debt and the deficit last year came out to two thousand one hundred fourteen dollars per household all of that is going to land in the laps of our children and in my case a grandchild that is going to arrive in may welcome because there's going to be a debt from the u s government on that child's head when he arrives madam speaker i want to yield at this time to the gentleman from california mr campbell who chairs our republican study committee budget committee and is doing great work on this issue he's going to take the lead on many of these issues and at this time i yield to the gentleman from california can i thank my colleague the lady from tennessee as blackburn very much for you all doing on this important issue of the budget now you know in the next couple of weeks we'll vote on a budget here madam speaker in this house and that budget will undoubtedly have a deficit somewhere over four hundred billion dollars let me say that again we'll vote on a budget the next few weeks which will have a deficit of somewhere over four hundred billion dollars now as ms blackburn indicated a lot of people at all madam speaker don't these are big numbers and they're hard to relate to i understand that till i was elected to congress they are pretty hard for me to relate to to let me put it this way after nine when nine eleven happened we had a big deficit economy dropped off as you recall a lot of spend a lot of money going after al qaida and so forth at that time but since then we've had three straight years of declining deficits it's been coming down and in fact this last year it looks like finally perhaps a balanced budget was in sight but now this year this year for the first time in four years the deficit is going to go up and it's not just going to go up a little it's almost certainly going to more than double more than double this deficit and that's just this year but if we look at the future it gets even worse if we look here at what's going to happen and if you just look at this this shows what will happen to the deficit to spending in this government over time if we don't change where we're headed you see the problem we've got is not that the american people are taxed too little it's that this congress spends too much there were tax cuts back in the night in two thousand and three and in two thousand and one but since two thousand and three revenue the federal government has risen risen almost fifty percent and we get that make sure people understand that we reduced tax rates but because economic activity was generated by that revenue the federal government actually went up and it went up every year but spending keeps going up faster than that and that's what's got to stop and where is it going up it's going up in just about every category the interest as we pile deficits on deficits the interest we pay goes up defense spending is continuing to rise other spending is continuing to rise but we also have medicare medicaid and social security three things which currently take up over fifty percent of the taxes that everyone pays madam speaker and if we leave them alone if we don't reform them if we don't change them you will have to literally double tax rates on every single american in order to have social security medicare medicaid and keep anything else like a military like national parks like anything else nearly double tax rates that is unsustainable but what are we doing in this budget to deal with that nothing not a single thing now this isn't just me saying this or just republicans saying this every single analyst liberal conservative right left republican democrat agree s that are headed towards these numbers that we are headed towards a situation that's unsustainable either medicare asked medicare goes away so security goes away medicaid goes away defense department all military goes away parks go away or and pick two or three or four of those or we more than doubled taxes on the american people now we can wait what we always seem to do we just wait let time go on a little bit let the next generation deal with it l the next congress deal with it but the longer we wait the worse it gets and we're not making this whole any smaller right now or more than doubling the deficit or will be proposed to more than double the deficit in what we're about to vote on in the next couple of weeks so we're actually making this chart much worse the problem is spending you can't tax the american people enough to spend everything that all of this is that all of this that we're headed for that all everybody in this congress seems to want to spend so we've got to control the spending now have a suggestion for that madam speaker because if you look since one thousand nine hundred sixty over the last i think it's forty eight years now i think i believe this is right it may be off by one but in since the one nine hundred sixty i believe we have had only four years in which there was a surplus only four years in the last forty eight in which the government did not spend more money than it took in so that shows you that deficits aren't new and they're not a sign frankly the other party there's been deficits under republican congresses democratic congresses republican presidents democratic presidents and every combination thereof death does that seem to be a fundamental problem with this institution our democratic colleagues came into power last year and when they came in they said these are these deficits are terrible this debt we're putting our children's terrible we're going to solve these deficit what did they do they set up a few rules which they within a year decided they would waive and ignore and now they are about to propose doubling last year's deficit you see the spending goes on and there are people out there now talking about socialized medicine they're saying gee we have to cover everyone with some government plan on health insurance where's the money going to come from where's it going to come from you can't pay now for medicare and medicaid the people that are currently under government function programs you don't have enough money to pay for them for the next twenty years where you're going to get it to pay for everybody else madam speaker that's why one of the suggestions that the lady from tennessee and i have and various other people is that we're going to need a spending limit you know average americans understand madam speaker that they should save for their retirement but you know it's tough sometimes because there's things you'd like to spend things maybe you need to spend money on now and it will eat up all the money you have if you let it so you set up a next turn of discipline like a four hundred one k or something where people take more money comes out of your paycheck so i don't have the opportunity to spend it and i'm saving for the future congress can do the same thing as american taxpayers do which is set up an external discipline that keeps us spending more money than is coming in we need a spending limit we need something that keeps congress from spending money faster than the american taxpayer is earning it because you see if government grows faster than the incomes of the average american the only way to get that money is to take more of the average americans money and that means you're giving the average american less of their own money to spend on their priorities so we here in washington can spend more of their money on ours and that's just wrong spending in this place should not be allowed to grow faster than americans incomes and we will make some proposals to put that kind of limit on this congress so that the limits are here and americans have limits and restrict and removed off of them so they can earn more money and keep it because that's what everyone wants to do i yield back to the lady from tennessee i thank the gentleman from california and he will if he will you know for a moment of colloquy i want to go back to the issue of the deficit because you mentioned this the deficit had gone down over the past few years and this year the deficit is going to more than double and of course we know that much of that is because of increase spending and i would like for you to go back in touch on that point one more time sure i appreciate the lady from tennessee yielding for this yes we have had increased tax revenues every year in fact all but one year out of the last four years it has been double digits in other words ten percent or more that's pretty good i think a lot of americans out there would love to see their paycheck rise by ten percent a year well the federal government's paycheck has been rising by the that amount over the last four years but we've continued to spend money and so now as pending now revenue is dropping off a little bit the increases aren't quite as big as they were the last four years and but government spending is proposed to keep on truckin keep on going up and that's why you're going to see this deficit nearly double the probably more than double if the gentleman will yield what we saw from the zero one and zero three tax reductions was that the federal government's revenue the money the tax payers are sending in for us to appropriate inspan on behalf of them at the federal level that money has been increasing in double digits every year since we started the tax reductions which allows our taxpayers to keep more money in their pocket so what we saw was we made those reductions and then the federal treasury is bringing in more money from the taxpayers but what we also saw was that congress continued to increase the percentage and increase their spending that's absolutely that's absolutely right and and again as i pointed out the democrats who came into power many of them campaigned and made a big deal about their issues were that they would want a balance budget learn to move towards a balanced budget but now we're doubling the deficit and if the gentleman will you know what we also saw was that the deficit was down both as a percentage of the g d p and also in the amount that we were spinning the amount of the deficit the dollar amount much of that due to the deficit reduction act that we passed that was the zero six budget and then what has happened last year and what we will see this year is that that deficit is going to double because of increased spending that's that's that increase spending and the fact that revenue has dropped off some i mean the growth in revenue has in fact dropped off the economy is down and so people are not making as much money and paying as much taxes so there's that too but that's the point of all of this is that the government can't keep on spending when times are good increase spending a lot and when times are bad increase spending a lot too that's what we can't do and that's what's gotten us in this mess that's what's gotten us this big national debt and that's what's gotten us into these deficits and now we're having a little drop off in revenue would still be probably going to increase but just not at a ten percent rate like it has before and so i'm looking to see where you know where is the proposals on the part of the majority party here to reduce spending so that we can try and if we don't balance the budget this year so that at least we don't double it at least we try and control it a little bit try and get it back on track towards balance but that's not what we're seeing in that's not what we're seeing well and if the gentleman will you know one of the things that we have long supported is that balancing the budget and making certain that we do have a balanced budget like many of our states have unlike many of our counties and cities operate under a balanced budget but we don't and we do have our entitlement spending with the chart in front of you twenty fifty i think it's abigale back to the gentleman from california to show where we get to the point there at twenty fifteen when it takes all of our tax revenue to pay  our medicare medicaid and social security and i healed sure thank you if you look at this little red line here that's the taxes that people pay that's the thirty year average tax revenue in this isn't in in dollar terms this is in terms of the of the percent of the economy so it's not like this year you're paying the same dollars taxes that you would in two thousand and eighty it's that you're going to pay the same percentage of your overall income of the overall economy in taxes so if you look at that that's the tax rates and if you see right here two thousand two thousand and ten now we've been running deficits during all this period but you still see that this line here is the total spending it's a little bit over and you know we don't like the deficits we have now i mean i've talked about it people on either side i'll talk better to talk about you don't like the deficit you got now well look at the difference between this red line and the spending now and what happens in two thousand and thirty or two thousand and forty or two thousand and fifty it's huge and when you get out here to two thousand and sixty ish you see that you have to just about double taxes to pay for everything at that point which and if you double taxes people can't and won't make if that's money because it will all become in here and nobody will have money to invest and so you it's really worse this chart actually makes it look scary but it almost actually makes it look better than it really and so we really have to tackle some of these things that really have to take this long as you say two thousand and fifty that's a long time you know i may be dead by then but whatever but that's not what in this house we're supposed to be thinking we're not supposed to be thinking about us we're supposed to be thinking about the american people now and in the future and if we're going to be thing about the american people now in the future it's going to be a whole lot tougher to deal with this problem in two thousand and twenty than it's going to be to deal with that in two thousand and ten and that's why ms blackburn we should be we should be dealing with this now in the budget now but no it's just kick the can down the road except that double doubling of the budget deficit and just kick the can and down the road now yield back well i appreciate that and especially when you consider the fact that seventy seven million baby boomers are going to retire between now and twenty twenty nine you were just pointing to twenty thirty and where we are with getting to that budget in twenty thirty you would be able to pay for medicare medicaid social security and defense when you get to the line on twenty thirty and i think also as we look at our entitlements and we look at social security we know that in one nine hundred sixty we had a five to one worker ratio five workers for every one retiree in two thousand and seven this past year we've had three workers for every one retiree and by the time we get to twenty thirty we're going to have two workers for every one retiree so you're going to have a married couple with children supporting their family plus supporting a retiree and i think that that adds to the push that we fail and the see that we feel you're exactly right and i thank the gentleman from california for all the leadership that he brings to this issue because beginning to deal with the long term structural issues that exist in this budget are vitally important to us it is something that has to be dealt with and it's something we can't kick the can down the road in ideals and if the lady will yield for one one last parting common as you look at this chart if you look at this chart because you will hear some people in the majority party talk about that the whole problem is the war in iraq and its defense spending if you look at this chart over time that the will of this green defense bar doesn't change that much over time now who knows what will happen but projections are that defense spending as a percentage of the economy which is historically not that high right now but that it would change over time the big problems the ones that are small here and get really fat there are to the if you take the two biggest one is medicare and the other is interest on the debt interest on the debt gets big because we keep throwing deficit after deficit after deficit the way to get that down is simple balance the budget stop running deficits but we haven't as i mentioned except for four years i think over the last forty something we haven't had the will here to do that the other thing is medicare and what's so interesting is that that is government paid for medical insurance for older americans for seniors but you have people out there now advocating that we should have medicare for everyone which we have got a problem with medicare as it is a huge problem in that it would take it would almost take up all your tax money you know by twenty eight almost take up all your tax money all by itself so i think the lady from tennessee of very much and you'll back i thank the gentleman from california and i look forward to hearing him talk a bit more as we go through the coming weeks about what we should do about entitlements how we should address this issue how we should make the budget process more transparent and how we need to go about reforming things processes and changing how we spend the taxpayers money because we do fully believe madam speaker that the taxpayers do have the right to know when should know how this body spends their money at this time i want to get all to mr garrett from new jersey who is a member of the budget committee and has been an advocate for reforming the budget processes and reforming the way we go through this and it's this time i yield to the gentleman from new jersey for his comments on how we make certain that the tax payers know how we spend their money and i you know and i thank the general lady from tennessee for yielding this time and also very much thank her for organizing this special order to be able the opportunity to come to the floor tonight as we said the bottom line up front how much it takes how much we take in how much we spend it's you know the american public must sit home and watch this and read the papers and live in a frustrated state realizing that so much of their hard earned money comes to washington and what we have here is a byzantine byzantine system of archaic rules and what have you wrapped around policy statements what have you that the american public don't oftentimes get a clear picture of to understand just where their dollars go to and that's what the purpose is here tonight in subsequent weeks i believe as well to try to remove that show shroud of mystery behind the system that we have here to shine the light of day as we often times saying on the budgetary process to give the american public a clearer picture of exactly where their dollars go to and we do this with not just an educational point in mind or a goal but also allow them to be in a better position while the american public and the voter and the taxpayer to be in a better posture to decide among themselves just where they want their government to go in this election and future elections and of course over their lifetime as well you know it was just this past week when we were back at home and district work period and i was able to sit at my dining room table where i do  around this time and time of year you know april fifteenth is coming up tax time and then my wife said well now's the time to start getting the paperwork out scott and begin to look at it and getting all the stuff you need to send to the accountant to do our taxes because i had given up quite candidly years ago trying to fight try to figure out myself with a measure most members of congress try and figure out the byzantine tax code that we have created for the american public as well so i begin the process of collecting all my documents and of course some of those are some of the basic ones like your w two to show you how much you've earned over the last twelve months over the last year and in one of those little boxes i think it's box eight or nine and they're all sort of begins to show you just how much money has been taken out of your paycheck week after week know see it so much socially if you have nowadays so many people have direct deposit goes right in the checking account a bank account you don't see how much is actually taken out at the end of the year you sure do at the end of the year you get that w two when you look in that box and i say oh my gosh that's how much money in payroll taxes and income taxes you put them out altogether it's in the five digits for a lot of middle class americans you know i come from the great state of them of new jersey and for middle class america  lives in the works hard to make a paycheck and pay their bills they would be astounded if they looked at their w two s as i did and maybe you should as well to see how much taxes are taken out and sent down here to washington you know the government took in twenty one point nine nine to twenty one thousand was twenty two thousand dollars and household taxes now mind you those twenty two thousand are all household taxes i believe that also includes payroll taxes alike so your income taxes and payroll taxes twenty two thousand dollars in payroll taxes the government spends twenty four thousand dollars per household so that's a very easy math and it was basically telling us that we are in fault in deficit spending and engagement but look at that number twenty two thousand dollars taken out of the average middle class americans paycheck you know when the average household income in some parts of the country around forty seven thousand dollars half of that money they are figuratively speaking is going in taxes i know doesn't come out of that person's that that tax rate for that particular family but that's enough for some americans to live on entirely certain parts of this country with a little bit of assistance on the side and that's how much is being paid per household and us taxes some of us we think that's just too much you know the numbers have been projected a little bit of varying degree of certainty on this but on average the american household american family middle class american works starting on january just a month or so ago and works all the way to sometime in mid net just to pay their government federal taxes state local taxes as well and then if you want to add on to that all the burden and the cost of all the federal regulations and everything that also is a burden on us as well you have to work almost all the way until sometime in the summertime beginning of july so think about that if you're working most your entire half of the year just to pay your taxes and the burden of the federal and state and local governments and where do those dollars go well that's something that we're talking about here on average first of all let's say the burden falls around eighteen point three percent of was that mean a story call average of all the revenue coming into the federal government over from the one nine hundred sixty s all the way up until the present time varies up and down somewhat some years more some years less but on average as a percentage of g it's around eighteen point three percent and what this means is that certain times of tax rates in the burden on american family is greater than others sometimes it's less or another's but we are here to now to point out that is where do those dollars go and what can we do to make sure that that tax burden does not continue to creep up higher and higher and higher so that the american family sees even more of their tax dollars go to that level and to purposes that they can only fathom i guess that you know if you listen to the debate on this floor in past times you've heard talk about earmarks and wasteful fraud and abuse you know those things earmarks are part of the problem but there are only a small small percentage of it where our tax dollars go gentlemen who are just speaking before spoke a little bit about the spoke a little bit about the entitlements medicare and medicaid a much larger percentage let me fall some place in between i sat there at by could dining room table looking at the double digit numbers as far as that where my family has to pay in fell's access i realize as most americans do that we have an obligation to pay taxes into a federal government to provide for such things as are national defense and homeland security and we don't begrudge the federal government for any of those things but as i also sat back and be a member of congress knowing about the waste fraud and abuse and the unnecessary expenditures that's when i in middle class america begins to take concern for example who has to remind think back too far about all the dollars that we spent misspeaking really mistakenly in the area of hurricane katrina and the waste in portions of those spending i had folks sitting in my office who did independent investigations on katrina to seeing where those dollars were going from granted there is a lot of necessary cost down there but the waste fraud and abuse there is telling fraud related to hurricane katrina spending is estimated to top two billion dollars one of the areas that the investigators who spoke to me about were talking about the debit cards debit cards that were issued repeatedly to the same people that means over and over again even though they only up should apply to qualify for one in some cases cards debit and checks being sent out to people regardless of need in other cases card sending out to people even though they did not live in the area to be used for all sorts of things from caribbean vacation n f l take its and so on and so forth likewise investigators found out about this and they told fema about it fema continued to issue those cards at the other side of the aisle sometimes make the case with regard to corporate welfare and i agree with the federal government spends too much of waste money with regard to corporate welfare as well according to some statistics washington spends sixty billion dollars annually on corporate welfare versus forty three billion dollars on homeland security so note that we're spending more money on corporate will welfare some of the largest corporations in this country in the world and we are on homeland security likewise i corporate welfare the advanced technology program sounds like an admirable program spends one hundred fifty million dollars annualized annually subsidizing private businesses forty percent of that money goes to fortune five hundred companies so as a middle class america sits at home saying where are my tax dollars going that is some of the places are going and i will yield back and maybe speak again a little moment  overview and i've had the opportunity to do this now for five years and during that time many of these examples come before us and during that time we have let's call it partisan differences on that other side of the aisle on ours on what we should be it but mark mind you in the five years that i've served on this committee in the five years that i've served in this house not one time do i recall anyone from the other side of the aisle suggesting that the solution to taking the burden off of middle class america is to  reduce their tax rate and to do so by actually reducing tax expenditures on the contrary everything that i've seen over the last five years and as pointed out by the jonah from california right now has been in the opposite direction an increase in federal spending and as we've seen now with the mother of all tax increases and increase of the tax burden on middle class americans well those are the points that i believe that the american public has got to understand as they pay their taxes april fifteenth where their tax dollars going it's going to if the other side has its way increased federal spending on programs like these and other programs as well and an increase burden on middle class america things that from those on this side of the aisle we've obviously oppose and do our best  and with that i'll yield back and i thank the gentleman from new jersey for his leadership in its guidance on so many of our budgetary issues and for his desire madam speaker it is a true desire that he has to be certain that we provide trains appearances to the american people and that we become good stewards of the tax dollars that we exercise good stewardship because these are dollars that the taxpayer send to us and then trust us to use as i said earlier and as the gentleman from new jersey pointed out so well twenty one thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars per household in taxes and even that is not enough to meet the twenty four thousand one hundred six dollars that the federal government spent per household and this is where some of that money goes social security and medicare eight thousand three hundred one dollars of that twenty one thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars went to social security and medicare defense saw four thousand nine hundred fifty one dollars the anti poverty programs which are our tanev program supplemental security income things of that nature thirty five hundred dollars interest on the federal debt two thousand seventy one dollars federal retiree benefits nine hundred dollars this is all out of that per family per household health research and regulation six hundred and sixty four dollars veterans benefits six hundred twenty seven education five hundred eighty four dollars highways and mass transit four hundred eighteen dollars justice administration three hundred ninety two dollars natural resources in the environment three hundred and five dollars and certainly we know that much of that money is going into bureaucracy much of it is going into weisel spending and this time i want yield to the gentleman from pennsylvania mr murphy who has been a later on the energy and commerce committee and on the energy subcommittee to talk a little bit about energy and environment spending and some of the ways that we need to put the focus on how the taxpayers dollars are being spent on those issues and i yield to the gentleman from pennsylvania i think my friend from tennessee for yielding you know when we look at the economy that our nation is facing and what we should be doing about it quite frankly in the area of energy what we need to see is our nation take on the issue of energy as a scientific challenge of our time really it should be nothing less than the apollo project of our time where our resources for research and development our education institutions look to answer the question how do we make our country energy secure in a way that is respectful of the environment and our public health as noticing today that oil is trading at one hundred dollars a barrel this will probably continue to climb continue to climb as long as we continue to embargo our own oil resources on the atlantic coast the gulf coast the pacific coast the western states and alaska and yes we need to do a great deal to improve the efficiency of automobiles we do a great deal to improve the efficiencies of our highways which wastes mass amounts of fuel but in terms of our economy we cannot continue to have our famil suffer the high prices that come when we say we will continue to be more and more dependent upon the importation of foreign oil sources we also are more and more dependent upon the marketplace with regard to natural gas when we see  our chemical companies shutting down plants in america and instead saying they'll build plants in the mideast because the cost of natural gas is so much cheaper there perhaps twenty five cents to a dollar for million b t u s whereas here it may fluctuate to six or eight or ten or twelve dollars it is something that's costing jobs and costing our economy it is difficult to see our present united states go and talk to saudi leaders and ask them to increase production of oil recognizing that we are at their mercy as opec continues to set prices we can change that by saying we will explore in environmentally responsible ways americans oil resources let's look for example the shale oil in colorado estimates are two trillion barrels of oil there two trillion barrels of shale oil we cut that off in our omnibus spending bill this is forcing us to continue to import oil some sixty percent within the development of natural gas we also have situations where we're hurting o coal development our energy bills that we're facing this week and have faced for a while have not done much to improve our use of coal but we have some three hundred years worth of coal what we ought to be doing is focusing our research and development dollars into using coal and cleaning it up so it does not have emissions so it does not have a large levels of c o two so it does not pollute that is a scientific challenge of our time that is something we should be telling our students as they go through school to think about how they can solve these issues how they can create clean energy from our abundant resources of coal how could they can continue to find ways of using oil resourcefully and with environmental respect this is not something we're doing enough and so what happens is costs families more to go to work it costs families more to feed their families look at what's happened with wheat prices yes there are problems with wheat production other parts of world but a big part of those costs has to do with the costs of transporting things last summer flour sold at about sixteen dollars per hundred weight now it's forty or so probably climate is sixty how we handle it if a loaf of bread doubles on top of the increased price that people also have to pay driving their cars to get to the grocery store it is too much of a burden if we if we treat our energy needs as our apollo project of this twenty first century of this decade we will find jobs and more jobs and more jobs come out of this the best economic stimulus package is a job that's where we should be focusing what can we do to build our infrastructure there what kind of jobs come from building energy power plants what happens when we start to put all our laborers and carpenters and iron workers and boilermakers and electoral workers together to build these plants let me tell you how big this demand is we have four hundred old coal fired power plants with inefficient or no pollution controls and many of them we need to replace those four hundred coal power plants and because our energy demand  this country are going to double by two thousand and fifty we have to build an additional four hundred we need to replace one hundred nuclear plants and build an additional one hundred what that means is starting in two thousand and ten a ribbon cutting ceremony to open up a new coal fired power plant every two weeks and a new nuclear plant every two and a half months these are massive jobs for america we should be making those investments so we have those jobs and then when the best thing we can be doing is finding a way to clean up our resource why the pittsburgh coal seam alone as my friend from tennessee knows  overlaps my state of pennsylvania ohio west virginia tennessee kentucky and alabama and that's just one of our vast resources let's focus our energy on doing what's right for the long term for america for america's jobs america's economy and stop saying energy security and with that you'll back to the generator from tennessee and thank you for your time and i thank the gentleman from pennsylvania for continuing the conversation about how we should be good stewards with the taxpayers dollars and looking at how we spend those environment dollars three hundred five dollars per family spent on the environment in energy programs last year unemployment benefits as he said the best economic stimulus is a job unemployment benefits two hundred ninety nine dollars per family as you talk about developing energy resources community and regional development two hundred eighty two dollars per family but his point is that it is imperative that regardless of what the sector regardless of what we're talking about whether it is social security defense the anti poverty programs community development or unemployment it is imperative that we exercise good judgment and we use wisdom as we make these decisions because the taxpayers do need to know how we are spending their money and how it relates to each and every family and what their share of that pie as really the leading expert on the family budget and the house is the gentleman from texas mr hensarling who is chairman of the republican study committee which is embarking on this project to demystify the budget and to make certain that our constituents and our colleagues all understand how we bring the budget together and it's this time i would like to yield to the gentleman from texas for his comments well i think the gentle lady for and i certainly appreciate her leadership and helping illuminates for families all across america exactly how this process of the federal budget works it's very porton madam speaker that people pay attention to this federal budget because at the end of the day it is the family budget that pays for the federal budget unfortunately there is no free lunch somebody has to pay for this and all of government will be paid for and it's paid for out of the family budget and it's especially important today madam speaker as families all across america are struggling to fill up their gas tanks they're struggling to pay their health care premiums  they're struggling to send their kids to college and every single dollar that is used to plus up a federal budget has to come out of some family budget if you're going to plus up the federal budget you're going to decrease the family budget and so it's important that families pay attention to how their money is spent and so i applaud the gentle lady from tennessee for organizing a series of special orders on the floor of the united states house in order to help educate and in line the american people about this budget the first thing that the american people need to know about the budget is that contrary to almost every single thing we do in this body the budget doesn't even have the force of law that's right madam speaker at best it's a mere suggestion now it takes an act of congress to change the name of a post office but somehow the united states budget the united states budget doesn't bear the force of law it's a suggestion now many republicans have come to this floor to try to say at a bare minimum the budget ought to be honest in when we set a budget it's supposed to be a ceiling on how much money we take away from american families how much bread we take off of their table how many opportunities we take away from the to give the government their least at some point has to be a ceiling where we say no more we're not going to take any more away from american families but instead it's just a suggestion and so if we look in our rearview mirror madam speaker we unfortunately discover just look for the last five years ten years every time there's been a federal budget ultimately congress spent more money than what that budget provided and so legislation has been brought by members of the republican study committee the conservative caucus of the house to change that but unfortunately we have yet to meet with success but we will continue to ensure that there is a limit to how much money is taken away from american families well today how much money is taken over twenty four thousand dollars per family is what the federal government is spending now whether it's paid for by cash or credit card ultimately all government will be paid for and this is madam speaker only the first time since world war two that the federal government has spent so much of the people's money and that's an inflation adjusted number over twenty four thousand dollars and madam speaker i just wonder how many people who are listening to this debate this afternoon really think they're getting their twenty four thousand dollars worth out of the federal government now clearly there are many good things that the federal government does but there has been an explosion of government an explosion of government that again ultimately has to be paid for by the family budget over the last ten years madam speaker the federal budget has grown by sixty six percent yet the family budget as measured by median family income has only grown thirty point two percent less than half that so families who have to pay for it are having to take a bigger bite out of their paycheck in order to ride out that r s check well madam speaker how long can this go on how long can the federal budget exceed the spending of the family budget american families need to know that and that's why it's important that these special orders have been organized by the republican study committee to let the american people know just how much money is being spent of theirs and how that money is being spent now some will say in we often hear it that this budgets  cutting had budgets being cut i wish for once it was true but there's this thing in washington and it's a little bit of inside baseball called baseline budgeting which is this series continues we'll speak about more madam speaker baseline budgeting is an accounting concept that would make an enron accountant blush it automatically inflates all the numbers of the federal budget now people all across america believe that if you spend the same amount of money on something next year as you did this year that that's not a cut but under this concept known as baseline budgeting and something called the current services budget government automatically inflates all of these government accounts and then say for example if you don't increase the housing in urban development budget by two point seven percent say you only increase it two percent that's a cut that's what baseline budgeting means again republicans representing the republican study committee have come to the house floor to try to introduce honest accounting and transparency on this house floor unfortunately we have not had any cooperation by our friends on the other side of the aisle who want to continue with this thing called baseline budgeting that inflates the government budget at the hence the family budget and just listen to some of these budgets madam speaker over the last ten years the international affairs budget has grown one hundred twenty eight percent the energy budget what we call budget function number two seventy has grown two hundred twenty nine percent the transportation budget federal transportation budget has grown eighty eight percent community and regional development one hundred thirty two percent and the list goes on and on and again over the last ten years the family budget which has to pay for it has only grown a little over thirty percent so government the federal budget is growing at a huge multiple of the family budget and yet the family budget has to pay for it and it's that family budget that family paycheck that is getting stressed and so it's another reason why the american people need to be very close attention now how is all of this government paid for we have the single largest budget that's about to be proposed by the democrats in the history of america it's going to weigh in at over three trillion dollars continuing the exponential growth of government at the expense of the family budget well how is it paid for well two different ways cash and credit and the cash taxes now many of my friends on the other side of the i will say well all we need to do to balance the budget is raise taxes while i hadn't balanced it yet but they certainly certainly have done an excellent job of raising taxes already in madam speaker is very important that the american people know this but there are huge automatic tax increases that are scheduled courtesy of our friends on the other side of the aisle the democrats right now the single largest tax increase in american history is due to be imposed upon the american people over the next three years this is written into all in the american people need to know what kind of bite is going to come out of their paycheck to inflate the federal budget at the expense of the family budget already with the schedule democrat tax increases due to take place over the next three years the average family in america is going to be socked with an additional tax burden of over three thousand dollars per family that's right madam speaker over three thousand dollars per american family courtesy of our friends on the other side of the aisle what's going to happen well at the bracket are narry income the top bracket will go from thirty five percent to thirty nine point six percent which is an increase of thirteen percent now some say well you know that's the wealthy let's go tax the wealthy well madam speaker how many people in america when i hear that really believe it any time you hear that phrase it's time for middle income people to grab their wallets because it means that washington is going to go on another money grab and also madam speaker it's important to note that approximately over seventy percent of those people who fall at that right are small businesses the backbone of the american economy we on this side of the aisle want to help ensure paychecks paychecks are more important than welfare checks and so here it is the democrat party is getting ready in their budget to once again increase taxes on small business the capital gains tax the capital of capitalism the fuel of free enterprise that tax is due to increased thirty three point three percent over the next three years  are due to increase one hundred sixty four percent tax increase on dividends courtesy of our friends on the other side of the aisle the democrats the death tax you've already paid taxes on the income  but yet under the death tax american people madam speaker are compelled to visit both the undertaker in the i r s on the very same day i mean that's just an outrage that tax is due to go from zero to up to fifty five percent people in the fifth district a texas man and speaker can work their entire lives trying to build a ranch trying to build a farm trying to build a small business having that american dream of thinking maybe won my children are my grandchildren only to see uncle sam come in take fifty five percent the democrats budget proposals will gut the american dream they will just take away any opportunity to leave that farm that ranch that small business i mean i talked to a rancher in my district who said congressman once uncle sam takes his piece there's not enough left for the family that just shouldn't happen in america and i'd be happy to yield back to the gentle lady from tennessee i thank the gentleman from texas and i want to go back to a point that you made the tax burden on the average family already they're turning over twenty one thousand nine hundred ninety two dollars  the federal government is spending twenty four thousand one hundred six dollars so they've got this debt this deficit in there that is being passed on to their children and grandchildren but you said that tax burden is getting ready to go up three thousand dollars that's why if the gentle lady will yield i would entail three years on average the average american family will see their tax burden increase by three thousand dollars per family to pay for the spending spree of big government by our friends on the other side of the aisle the democrats and i thank the gentleman for yielding so we've got the twenty one thousand nine hundred ninety two that the average household paid in and i was seven and then they had on top of that their twenty one hundred dollar debt and our deficit for the year in the federal government was spending twenty four thousand one hundred  but what you're saying is the current budget policies are going to push that even another three thousand dollars per family over the next three years and i just highlight that to my colleagues and then we've talked a good bit today about the overall budget process and why we think the tax payer has the right to know how this but but this body spend your money the taxpayer has the right to know what is going to be there in the form of a deficit and a debt that their children are going to have to pick up the burden on and carry that burden the taxpayer has the right to know what is looming with medicare and medicaid and social security and the entitlement that are they are that are put on automatic pilot they have the right to know what the budget how the budget committee goes through the process of setting the parameters on this budget and certainly they have the right to know what takes place in the appropriations process they have the right to know  wasteful spending and what is earmarks and what is in front of us with this entire document madam speaker i thank you for the time and that you have yielded to us we're going to be back next week we're going to continue to talk hear from dan and that we bring an element of transparency and therefore accountability to the budgeting process and with that i  chairman our madam speaker i come to the floor tonight with a heavy heart the nature of the allegations i make speak poorly of this administration and in my heart of hearts i always wanted this administration to succeed but the issue at hand is of such magnitude that the american people need to know what is being done and what presidents are being set in my tenure as a senior member of the house foreign affairs committee both as chairman and ranking member of an investigative subcommittee i have witnessed firsthand behavior by the bush administration which i find deeply troubling the distain and uncooperative nature of this is ministration that this is ministration has shown toward congress including republican members is sword regis that i can no longer assume that it is simply bureaucratic incompetence or isolated mistakes rather i've come to the sad conclusion this administration has and intentionally obstructed congress's rightful and constitutional duties tonight i will discuss some serious examples of this administration's contemptuous disregard for authority delegated to congress by the constitution this bad attitude has consistently manifested itself in a soft more resentment toward congress's constitutional role as an equal branch of government the result has been an executive branch too insecure to let congress do its job and executive branch that sees congress even when republicans held a majority as a reviled as a rival and a spoiler rather than as elected representatives of the american people playing a rightful role in establishing policy for our great country unfortunately when the president had states rejects the legitimacy of congressional prerogatives there are serious consequences tonight i will provide examples of how this administration for the past seven years has undercut congressional investigators has lied to members of congress and has forged ahead with secret deals in spite of efforts and pleased by congress to be informed if not involved in the last congress i was chairman of the oversight investigation subcommittee of the house foreign affairs committee and in that capacity i learned that in the time immediately leading up to the bombing of the federal building in oklahoma city convicted oklahoma city bomber and murderer terry nichols had been in fabulous city in the philippines his stay inside his city coincided with another visitor to that city al qaeda is terrorist leader ramsey use of interesting late both nichols and use of used similar bombs and methods just two years apart five by the way i would like to acknowledge that today happens to be the fifteen year anniversary of that first devastating attack on the world trade center these individuals one american were responsible for planning two of the most lethal terrorist attacks on our countrymen in our history we are to believe that by coincidence they ended up in an off the beaten track city in the southern philippines one doesn't have to be a conspiracy nut to understand that this coincidence is certainly worth looking into i started an official congressional investigation sanctioned by henry hyde then the chairman of the international relations committee to see whether terry nichols or his accomplice timothy mcveigh had foreign help in their murderous terrorist bombing of the alfred mirror building in oklahoma city in light of the fact that terry nichols and ramzi use of were both in at the same time prior to hauntingly similar terrorist attacks it was no stretch for a congressional investigative committee to be looking into this matter however the bush administration felt quite differently to those i had to deal with it was case closed don't bother us they had looked into the matter and congress had simply and blindly accept their conclusion that there was no nichols use of connection don't bother us this was at times bureaucratic laziness and other times it was clearly based on a distain for congressional investigations and  during my investigation i secured ramsey use of cell ramsey use of cell phone records the records were part of the phone calls that he made when he was in new york city in that new york city area in the months just prior  to the bombing of the world trade center in one thousand nine hundred three the phone records show ramsey yousef made at least two phone calls to a row house in queens new york that row house was occupied by the cousin of terry nichols filipino wife let me repeat that the terrorist bomber of the first world trade center attack the nephew of al qaeda nine eleven mastermind khalid shaikh mohammed made phone calls to the same row house that was occupied by terry nichols cousins in law just two months before it exploded the bomb in the garage of the world trade center fifteen years ago another coincidence i gave this information to the department of justice and since that time have been have repeatedly sought their help in investigating this matter time after time my requests have gone unanswered or have just been flatly denied i also asked the department of justice on numerous occasions to help me investigate the name should america hill this name is on the list of unindicted coconspirators of the one nine hundred ninety three world trade center bombing again in connection with ramsey use of it also is the name by the way of an iraqi man in oklahoma city who at the time of the oklahoma city bombing employed an arab immigrant who fits the description originally made by numerous witnesses as to john doe two this oklahoma based iraqi lied meaning that john doe to look like lied to investigators about his whereabouts at the time of the oklahoma city bombing yet there was little if any follow up on this john doe to look like in fact the f b i simply declared that john doe two never existed the existence of john doe to let it be remembered was based on a sketch and sketches derived from witnesses on the scene of the oklahoma city bombing and the truck rental company in which bomb was the bomb was placed on a truck from that truck rental company those witnesses described a man who is the same should america hill who employed a man originally identified as john doe two the number the bomber the number two bomber in the oklahoma city bombing the justice department's answer it would be too burdensome to find out if it was the same man further we asked help in finding the arab immigrant who looked like john doe two he was employed and the man who was employed by sheer miracle hill we traced him to boston but we had no support or cooperation in finding this very possible terrorist or at least terrorist suspect he may well have been working at boston's logan airport on nine eleven zero one that day that a plane took off from that airport  and was hijacked and crashed into the world trade center another weird coincidence to the oklahoma city bombing another coincidence yes if you don't you know you don't have to be a conspiracy you know not to believe that these things should be investigated instead there have been no follow through has no interest the case is closed forget it both in terms of  iraqi employer and employee that then both of these people of course reside in the united states right now that is just a small taste of the deplorable lack of cooperation for a legitimate congressional investigation and it was no fluke i didn't just happen to snag some un cooperative federal employee no this is the level of non cooperation congress learned to expect from this administration and yes departments and agencies do have limited resources and no i understand that i used to work in the executive branch so there may and yes there may be some better uses for and some good uses for those limited resources and better uses for their time and investigators rather than just following up on leads that are provided by members of congress and you can hear someone explaining that but the lack of cooperation that we've had goes far beyond the fact that they're not going to give their limited resources or  even use some of their investigators to track down what most of us would consider a very worthwhile lead especially considering that the terrorist that we're asking to look into currently resides in the united states and may well have had something to do with the time and effort on the part of the executive branch and i've still been stonewalled for the past year for example i have repeatedly requested to interview the i'm president terrorist ramzi yousef he's in colorado and  strict lock up he's been there for ten years this would have taken no time and no resources from any executive branch or federal employee not this request is well within my committee's jurisdiction as ranking member of the investigative subcommittee of the house foreign affairs committee this request has been supported by chairman of the investigative subcommittee the chairman of the full foreign affairs committee the chairman of the judiciary committee and the chairman of the intelligence comm such attention by congress should be welcomed by this administration and every administration the legislative branch can help bring new information delight and inform the public nevertheless the department of justice consistent with its treatment of and crash congressional inquiries during the tenure of this president has dismissed this valid request and as and this request has been treated with what can only be described as contempt and cond dissention the point is unfortunately that this rejection is attitude is typical it is not that they don't have enough resources to help out to look into an easy matter to look into it's just that they do not want to cooperate with congress even when it's a republican in congress even when the congress was controlled by a republican majority so why would this in a stray ssion obstruct congressional inquiry inquiry such as this remember ramzi use of was the mastermind behind several devastating terrorist attacks and a plot against america he led the first murderous attack on the world trade center in one nine hundred ninety three as i say after fleeing to the philippines he and two other terrorists plotted to kill thousands of americans by blowing up twelve commercial airliners over the pacific at the same time it was known as the it was within two weeks of being executed when it was discovered and thwarted by philippine police interestingly the terrorist operation the budget the plot was to take place about the same time as the oklahoma city federal building bombing perhaps on the same day we don't know perhaps we should know perhaps we should ask ramzi yousef about that ramzi use of has been in federal prison for over a decade he is a prisoner with a unique understanding of al qaeda of the al qaeda terrorist structure he is the nephew of kalak shaikh mohammed the mastermind of nine eleven attack on the world trade center in two thousand and six when i was the chairman of the house oversight investigation subcommittee on the foreign affairs committee i was investigating use of some movement and activities not only in the united states but in the philippines i even traveled to the philippines to question authorit information about use of phone calls right here in the united states and new information about his associates while he was in the united states the department of justice still dismisses the effort and more than that they are obstructing a legitimate congressional investigation refusing to permit this elected member of congress a ranking member of a congressional investigating committee to interview a federal prisoner they refuse access to use of claiming that there is a quote ongoing investigation and of quote this prisoner has been in jail for over ten years it is more likely that what we have here is an ongoing coverup and not an ongoing investigation in fact i've been told recently by a former member of the justice department that they were told routinely simply to give answers that there is a ongoing investigation even if no ongoing investigation was underway but you simply using it as a phrase to dismiss a request from congress well this is outrageous but it's typical of this administration and this is a lot more than just a hurtful pride on my part of being turned down this administration is setting a terrible president what people have to and when i am turned down like this when there is a liberal democrat in the white house the president will have been set that members of congress can simply be dismissed and that when they are trying to and congressional investigation need not be cooperated with in fact can be obstructed is that the type of president that we want is that acceptable it shouldn't be ric's up double to democrats and it shouldn't be acceptable to republicans doesn't congress have a right to talk to federal prisoners is that the rules of engagement is that really executive authority the right to deny congressional investigators access to federal prisoners the danger of this should be easy to understand both on my side of the aisle the republican side and the democratic side of the aisle again the attitude apparent in the treatment of this request is not an aberration nor or is it a some sort of situation where the president is this is not really a representative the way the president as acted with his authority no i'm afraid that's not the case this request was first made and denied when the republicans controlled the congress and i was the chairman of the investigative subcommittee now congress has a democrat majority in my position as ranking member of the international organizations human rights and oversight subcommittee of the house foreign affairs committee i have seen it time and again  subcommittee chairman bill daley hunt for massachusetts read in the newspaper that our president is negotiating a security agreement with the iraqi prime minister that will govern the future relationship of countries well let me say that again the chairman of the oversight subcommittee on foreign affairs committee is getting the information about i usually important foreign bilateral security agreement by reading the newspaper so  status of such an agreement and invited the administration to send a witness to testify before congress how did the administration respond they ignored the request so the hearing was held with a private panel of witnesses and yes the public has a right and an obligation to fully understand such commitments that are being made by the president in our name in a democratic society policy is made after having an open dialogue george bush was elected president not king in another attempt last month our subcommittee held another hearing on the iraqi security agreement and again our panel invited and pleaded with the administration to provide a witness their response silence our subcommittee held another of thirty hearing on this topic again our subcommittee invited the administration to attend and explain to congress what kind of commitment our government has agreed to with the government of iraq even our full committee chairman wrote letters asking for the administration to participate in this subcommittee hearing all the requests to the administration by our committee and by the superiors by and in the full committee were ignored except for one and in one instance where the contact was made and i am sad to say that once again that this administration was less than honest on the matter on a matter of national importance chairman delahunt subcommittee was told by a white house staffer that the administration's unwillingness to participate in hearings was because quote there's nothing to talk about because we haven't put pen  paper end of quote on a security detail and put the pen to paper on the security agreement supposedly well when confronted with the fact that the new york times had written a story saying that a seventeen page agreement was being passed around this white house staffer backtracked and quibbled this mr speaker is unacceptable it's dishonest and it's typical it's like saying there's an ongoing investigation don't discuss this city thing anymore with me oh there's nothing going on here now there is something going on just just and instead of talking and trying to negotiate about what type of spokesman we could have a hearing instead what we get is an undermining of the congressional right to oversee the foreign policy decisions of this administration this only lolling prevailed until a few weeks ago when secretary of state condi lisa rice a person and a leader who i deeply admire testified at a hearing of the full international relations committee when asked about this issue about witnesses not showing up from the state department of this administration to explain to us in public and to discuss in public these very important agreements that are being negotiated with iraq she pledged at that time that there would be future witnesses dealing with this iraqi agreement at least congolese to rice the secretary of state field secure enough in this administration to do what's right and to talk directly to congress and to send her people over to talk to us unfortunately we had to go all the way to the secretary of state before we could get anybody in this demonstration to participate and let me note i am a supporter of the president's iraqi polic of since day one i supported the surge and i am not in favor of some of the propositions made by my friends on the other side of the aisle which i consider would be a perception is leaving a of iraq and would cause damage i believe but that's not the point the point is congress has a legitimate oversight responsibility and at the present united states should be discussing in public so that the public can understand why policy is being made rather than trying to secretly arrange a policy agreement and then surprise everybody you know as a done deal sadly this administration's antipathy to the constitutional responsibilities of the legislative branch of government does not stop and end with my efforts and those of my subcommittee on investigations in october last year twenty two of my colleagues and i wrote to the acting attorney general peter keisler regarding the pending lie detector test for former clinton national security adviser sandy berger at this time i submit  pled guilty to the mishandling and destruction of classified documents he admitted that he unlawfully removed and subsequent subsequently destroyed classified documents from the national archives these documents dealt with the failure of our intelligence agencies during the clinton administration to prevent the horrendous attacks of nine eleven as part of his plea mr berger agreed to a lie detector test which was to be given by the department of justice this would determine what documents had been stolen by mr berger we are still waiting for that to asked to be administered as a member as a senior member of the house foreign affairs committee i was and still am rightly concerned about the length of time between his crime and the dream then the administration of his lie detector test and so on oct tenth two thousand and seven i sent a letter that letter signed by twenty two of my colleagues asking the department of justice why the tested not been administered on october twenty second two thousand and seven my office received a form letter acknowledging the d o j receipt of our inquiry it was signed with an intellig eligible illegible that is eligible signature we have no idea who signed it all we know is that he or she penned it for next to a printed name brian  principly and he is the principal deputy assistant secretary general we were also given a tracking number so that we could track any future correspondence in spite of that fact we received a computer generated response and a tracking number t an official congressional inquiry ok signed by twenty three members of congress we had hoped that we would actually have an answer to our request and that would actually be a human being rather than a tracking number that we could look to well we got our wish and we did get a letter back on january twenty fourth two thousand and eight ninety four days later after this letter we received a response which i  again submit this response to the record ok the short letter was dismissive and said that the d o j found no reason to issue a polygraph test to sandy berger attached was an old letter the waxman of the house oversight and government reform committee almost a year before our correspondence the letter this time was signed by brian dennis ross key if i can pronounce his name correctly  mr speaker i've been a member of congress now for nineteen years i have never seen such a pattern of blatant disregard and outright disdain for members of congress if sandy berger is not to be  polygraphed to verify the documents that were stolen from the archives we need no do we need to know why such verification is not being done this administration wouldn't even give a respectable answer to the rightful inquiry of members of congress of why we are not verifying through a polygraph test of what documents were stolen from the national archives by the former national security advisor on the one hand this president believes he has a right to make demands on us the president said in his state of the union address that congress must act on certain issues we must do as he wishes we must pass legislation he deems necessary yet while twenty three members of congress write his justice department a serious letter of inquiry about a national security issue we get a computer generated form letter and a copy of an old response to a different inquiry the bad attitude i am detailing is pervasive the handling of a proposed totalization agreement with mexico is again yet another example the totalization agreements and totalization agreements are not necessarily a bad thing they can serve a useful function large corporations both the united states and abroad often assign personnel to work in an overseas office for several years during these years employers are double taxed they pay both social security and the equivalent tax in their native countries allowing the social security administration and foreign agencies to have credit under one system toward a retirement make sense if there is a limited number of people involved and the people who are involved in this are working here legally and temporarily the concept is not itself alarming however this is emphatically not the case with mexico we have millions of mexican citizens living illegally in the united states this is not a limited number of swedish or japanese executives who will only work here for several years and then go home not only are mexicans not going to return to mexico the mexican government encourages them to stay in the united states after all if the us is going to pay for their health care their education and now their retirement why should mexico be bothered knowing the volatility of the american people on both on both the social security and illegal immigration issue the totalization to go she ations with mexico  kept totally under wraps now remember these negotiations with mexico started in two thousand and two with a republican controlled congress one would think that a republican administration would at the very least advise congress perhaps giving a status report concerning such diplomatic efforts as the totalization negotiations with mexico well congress did not know the details until it hit the press worse the press release on the agreement these press releases put out by the administration were misleading and it appears that congress was being misled as to just what the administration had agreed to concerning social security benefits for mexican nationals illegally working in the united states now i've proposed legislation to ensure that no work done while someone is in this country illegally should be counted toward a social security benefit the administration apparently agreed and the totalization agreement negotiations that illegal aliens from mexico will be eligible for the same treatment under social security as a u s citizens without ever becoming a legal resident or citizen it took a long drawn out legal battle in the form of a freedom of information lawsuit to get the details of disagreement from the administration again stonewalling and concealment whether it deals with iraq or whether it deals with a totalization agreement deal with social security right for the people who from mexico come to our country illegally now in both cases are you feel about the rack policies our social security for illegal immigrants into our country the point is we should not be keeping this debate secret we should not having secret agreements congress has a right to oversee such agreements and we should have a public dialogue about these type of decisions this is ministration has as i'm pointing out a history of concealment and in some cases  distorting and and actually not telling us the truth about what's going on with these negotiations and agreements that are happening behind closed doors once congress in the public found out about the agreement in the total on agreement a firestorm broke out not just about giving the illegals social security but about it keeping it secret from congress and yes as i say congress as well as america's seniors have every right to  if the president i had states is in the process of signing an agreement to give social security benefits to illegal immigrants it's something we should discuss it is not something that the president should try to make an agreement behind closed doors in this case the administration is undermining the public's right to know and congress is being left in the dark and please remember the danger from this agreement has not passed and while the public due to the public outrage as been put on the back burner or the president at any time can submit this agreement to congress even if he has not detailed it for us now so we can discuss it what i'm describing is a pattern of arrogance and contempt that is especially true that is especially true not just with social security but with the broader issues relating to illegal immigration and on issues dealing with mexico the tragic case of wrongly imprisoned border patrol agents ignacio ramos and jose camp exemplifies the worst aspects of this is ministrations attitude problem and will for ever leave a black mark on this administration president bush has himself made decisions that directly lead to ongoing tragedy which sees these two border patrol agents languishing in solitary confinement and that's where they are today in solitary confinement being treated worse than we treat the terrorist in guantanamo that is where we are now that is what they have had to endure in that solitary confinement for over a year now this is clearly a questionable case but president bush has deliberately dug in his heels to protect his good friend and young protege the prosecutor u s attorney johnny sutton rather than entertain the probability that a terrible injustice was in progress and instruct the justice department and the department of homeland security to cooperate so congress could get to the bottom of this nightmare this president as thumbed his nose at the congressional concerns and initiated a policy of obstruction and denial in terms of have been joined by several other members of congress in this effort including congressman poe culberson and mccall these three members of congress in fact attended a briefing on ramos and company owns prosecution by the department of homeland security inspector general office on september twenty sixth two thousand and six in that briefing serious questions were raised by these three members about the fundamental justification for this prosecution to begin with the president and his lapdog prosecutors would like us to believe that they had no discretion but these members of god rous who have long histories in in the law and in prosecutions they know they could see that would do something wrong we know that the actual charges being brought against ramos and campeon and they were fully aware of this because these members of congress as they say have a big background in law they knew that what charges were being brought were totally at the  the prosecutors this wasn't something that the prosecutor's hands were tied what were the grounds for charging these men with crimes like attempted murder assault with a deadly weapon the unlawful discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence and  federal civil rights violation these charges that could have put ramos and campeon in prison for ten to twenty years were totally at the discretion of the prosecution did this fit the crime if there was any crime at all that was committed why would they be charged with this overwhelming you know just attack by the prosecution knowing that by making these charges these men are going to end up being put away for one or two decades of their life they had these two border patrol agents had wounded a fleeing illegal alien drug smuggler who was scaping after of salt ing one of the officers who had intercepted the drug dealer during an attempt to bring in a million dollars worth of drugs into this country and although they were never intended to by congress to be applied in this way the gun laws which applied by the prosecutors this is ministrations prosecutors the gun laws of mandatory prison sentence was applied to the law enforcement officers in this case and these law enforcement officers had made a split second decision to discharge their weapons is that we believe that should has that right isn't there some question about that considering they threw the book at these guys the prosecutors knew that it was not the intent of congress that they should be charging law enforcement officers but fact second decisions and the discharge of a weapon but they threw the book at the agents including the charges that required tens of years of mandatory imprisonment again it was at their discretion that they made these charges when congressman poe and culberson and mccall ask why the most serious charges that could be leveled against the border patrol agent porter border patrol agents were initiated by the prosecutors and why the prosecutors took the word of the drug dealer that he had no weapon rather than the word of the law enforcement officers the d h officials briefing these congressmen assured them that there was a law that this was a legitimate and  actually confessed that they knew that the drug smuggler was unarmed and that the agents didn't really feel threatened and the biggest lie of all the department of homeland security  jose campian are themselves mexican americans married to mexican american wives with mexican american children sure they just go out and intentionally shoot some mexicans that day sure this is what members of congress were told in an official briefing asking for proof the three congressmen who are being briefed were told that the charges were documented in the reports of the investigative officers the department of homeland security briefer promised to provide this proof that ramos and campeon it actually intended to go out that day and quote kill a mexican course the proof never came the congressman kept asking calls weren't returned the department of stones of homeland security stalled for five months members asked for copies of the completed report of investigation which should have backed up the alleged facts that were told members during the twenty six september twenty sixth briefing to the members of congress months passed and nothing more just months passed nothing from the department of homeland security several letters in public pressure arose the day and they department of homeland security finally redacted version of the official report of investigation in february of two thousand and seven and surprise surprise the alleged confession of ramos and copy own were nowhere to be found in that document the documentation  charge that they had brazenly proclaimed their intent to kill a mexican was not there but that charge was repeated over and over again how could this be how could the department of homeland security officials  how could they assure members that this was a solid prosecution and that evidence existed that ramos and campeon were guilty and that they wanted to shoot a mexican these are flat out lies told to members of congress who are being officially briefed by this administration during department during a department of homeland security subcommittee hearing on february sixth of two thousand and seven the day the h s inspector general richard skinner was questioned by congressman culberson about this issue under oath skinner acknowledged the information given to the texas congressman was in fact false but he smugly justified this blatant and willful lying by calling it quote mischaracterization unfortunately repeated at the briefing end of quote now mr skinner it was a lot i no matter how colorful you've been as i'm ollie north was prosecuted for charges on a charge far less egregious than what we're talking about now ollie north gave or so it was alleged in misinformation to a congressional to congressional staffers who are not part of an official briefing of members of congress yet he was prosecuted this is ministration and up lying in a briefing to congress and trogs it off to this day absolutely nothing has done been done about this crime and yes lying to congress especially about an issue of this magnitude is a crime administration officials deliberately misled members of congress in order to discourage them from pursuing from pursuing the ramos and campeon case and no one has been held accountable for this crime r campeon case has stunk since day one the president instead of looking into the matter which he should have done has dug in his heels permitting his appointees to slander these two agents even worse the president personally made cision zz that have resulted in these two agents languishing in follow terry confinement they are in solitary confinement because of decisions made directly by the president ited states u s attorney johnny sutton publicly label and copy own as corrupt yet again when asked for some sort of justification on this what corruption charges were brought against these people there were no corrupt trudges of corruption to say that this is a mean spirited and vic dictate prosecution is to put it mildly this case demonstrates why hearings are an intricate part of the check and balance system created by our founding fathers it is in this venue that the executive branch is held accountable for their actions under oath it was only when it administration official was under oath that the lies about ramos and campeon were admittedly but this administration has decided to thumb its nose at that obligation and to make its case under oath and it's decided not to make its case under oath at a public hearing and instead it has actually said as i say calling ramos and campeon corrupt in the end all of our radio interviews and such chairman william delahunt graciously approved my request to hold hearings on the ramos and campeon case in doing so an official subcommittee investigation into the case in preparation for the hearing was authorized during the course of this investigation the resistance from the department of justice on land security and state was consistent with the arrogance and obfuscation that flows through this administration from the top down our hearing had to postponed for months because the administration's refusal to provide requested documents or to send the necessary witnesses to testify before the subcommittee citing that the committee did not have proper jurisdiction therefore the u s attorney johnny sutton department of homeland security inspector general skinner or any other investigator or any of his other investigators need not appear that decision was clearly made by the white house our government provided a flawed immunity agreement free healthcare unconditional border crossing cards to an illegal alien criminal drug smuggler in exchange for his testimony that sent border patrol agents ramos and c on to prison our government kept secrets from the jury that the drug dealer intercepted by ramos and campeon had hauled another shipment of drugs across the border this while on a government issued border crossing pass clearly this is well within the jurisdiction of an oversight investigative committee responsible for overseeing relations with other countries including mexico and including international drug smuggling clearly the public has a right to know about these things this administration apparently believes there is no obligation to answer questions in public and under oath about the actions or policies of the administration and in preparation for that hearing we made a request and crushed after requests countless phone calls and even a freedom of information lawsuit by a watchdog group judicial watch and the administration still refuses to release copies of the border crossing cards that were issued to the drug smuggler in this case of course they are claiming when we make this request about the these cards issued to the drug smuggler that permitted them to freely go across the border they say that the drug smuggler is protected under get into this quote the privacy act this is what the just smartened tells us i was instructed by the justice department to obtain a privacy waiver in order that that information to be released a privacy waiver for any live alien criminal this is absurd and just another example of a condescending dismissive attitude this type of obstructionism however is the rule not the exception of this administration by the way due to a bureaucratic fluke the border crossing cards we actually got a hold of them and when i was and this is while we have learned that this  person that was involved in ramos and campeon event actually took a second shipment of drugs i'd like to submit to the record of the letters and copies of these exchanges with the administration there as one doesn't in total i would like to submit this for the record at the present consent at the base is in order under the calendar when the rule be dispensed with tomorrow without objection and madam speaker i sent to the desk a previous report from the committee on rules of filing under the rule the clerk will report the title report to accompany house resolution one zero zero one resolution providing for consideration of the bill it talked to fifty three fifty one to amend the internal revenue code of nine hundred eighty six to provide tax incentives record copies of letters that i've sent to this administration over a dozen in total concerning the ramos and campeon case well play after play from members of congress i might add that even a majority of members of congress have voted pardoning or commuting their sentences these requests have been ignored over and over again this and last year i personally reached out to the president to take the pressure and confrontation out of this issue i suggested that the president direct the department of justice to request that ramos and campeon be permitted to remain free on bond pending their appeal even common criminals in our society are able to stay out  pending appeal of a decision and what was the response the white house released a press a press release the next day it was issued the very next day proclaiming that the administration opposes letting and company own out pending appeal and that no special consideration would be granted to anyone that's a lot of holier than thou rhetoric ok but and so no special consideration was going to be given to anyone much less these two border patrol agents now that sounds right is a position not making any exceptions except of course for the fact that a short time later white house aide scooter libby had his sentence commuted by the president in a heartbeat for the record i found out and let me just note i believe that the community commuting souse scooter libby's sentence was justified putte it's totally inconsistent with what we had been told of why ramos and campeon couldn't even be considered to let them out even waiting pending appeal yeah scooter libby got a raw deal but the fact is that the only what's happening what we see is only the member only members of the president's personal click get such consideration it's clear that's evident and it's disgraceful it is truly with a heavy heart madam speaker that i stand here reciting example after example of the maliciousness and condescending attitude exhibited by this administration it is a problem that's flowing from the top when i hear my friends on the other side of the aisle accusing this administration of stonewalling of cover ups or fourteen investigations i sadly must concur with them even though i may disagree with what the policy policy issue of the day is i have to agree that congress is not being treated with respect and that the president is engaged in obfuscating and stonewalling rightful requests by this body this white house exemplifie needless hostility turf jealousy and obstructionism the american people should know what and should know that these charges come not from a partisan democrat but from a lifelong conservative republican i have worked in the white house i worked for seven years as a special assistant to president ronald reagan ronald reagan as much as people can disagree or agree with the policies that he espoused was a person who never acted arrogant towards others he never you when he was giving state of the union messages never used the word must never made demands and i think that president reagan would not feel comfortable  with the type of attitude that is exemplified in this administration he instead wanted to reach out to people and cooperate this is ministration seems to want to just bulldoze whoever gets in their way and does not have the human concern for other people especially for people like ramos and campeon the little guys that we saw in iraq reagan which made him so popular and successful with that i would ask that the rest of my remarks to be put into the record tax and i thank you very much for permitting me this hour and to the american people i say carefully consider who our leaders are going to be and carefully consider the issue  day we have a wonderful democratic society as a balance of power here set up by our founding fathers and it's important whether republican or democrat that we maintain this balance of authority legislative executive and judicial in this country and we should not be setting presidents that the president united states has the lion's share of the power in this great democracy of ours it's it's the power is real it rested in these three branches and