Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 4899, Disaster Relief And Summer Jobs Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, despite what the Democrats may say about this bill, my colleagues could be well served to recognize how this bill represents little more than a continuation of the arrogant approach to governing that has pervaded this body since they took control 3 years ago. Let's start by considering the process for which this rule and bill are coming before us today.

This legislation, which spends $5.7 billion to replenish a FEMA disaster relief account and fund a Department of Labor Summer Jobs program--``jobs'' in quotes--was introduced last Sunday, March 21, and was before the Rules Committee the following day.

In February of 2009, shortly after President Obama assumed office, The Hill newspaper quoted a group of Democrats as saying that, ``Committees must function thoroughly and inclusively, and cooperation must ensue between the parties and the Houses to ensure that our legislative tactics enable rather than impede progress. In general, we must engender an atmosphere that allows partisan games to cease and collaboration to succeed. We are looking forward to working with you to restore this institution.''

So much for good intentions.

Despite their best attempts to divert attention from the simple truth, it is worth remembering the pledge made in 2006 by the then-minority Democrats to ensure regular order for legislation, promising that, ``Bills should be developed following full hearings and open subcommittee and committee markups, with appropriate referrals to other committees. Members should have at least 24 hours to examine a bill prior to consideration at the subcommittee level. Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.''

Oh, how quickly we forget.

You know, $5.7 billion used to be a lot of money. But the ruling Democrats, who have apparently no concept of the value of money, have completely thrown that idea right out of the window.

In fairness to my liberal colleagues, working with such large numbers starts to get confusing. After all, who pays attention to all those zeroes? We hardly ever hear the word ``million'' anymore, and it hasn't been that long ago that Everett Dirksen said, ``A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money.''

I saw an article today in one of the newspapers from my district where they talked about the fact that they thought they weren't going to have money for a summer job program. Now, it looks like they are going to have it. And the article said, ``Last year, 129 businesses that used this program benefited from free labor provided by Uncle Sam.''

We have established in the minds of many Americans that Federal dollars are somehow or another manna from heaven. They are not manna from heaven. Somebody has to pay this bill. It's not free. There is no free lunch. Every dime we are spending has to be borrowed. The American people understand that, and they are sick and tired of it.

Many of our colleagues support PAYGO, which, they argue, forces Congress to ``pay for'' certain spending increases with tax increases. This bill is a perfect example of the sham that is PAYGO.

First off, PAYGO applies only to certain kinds of nondiscretionary spending, so they exhaust themselves spending on social welfare programs without so much as a PAYGO speed bump.

When looking for another reason to increase taxes, they simply look for an excuse to increase automatic spending. That way, they tell their tax-conscious constituents that their hands were tied as the rules forced them to support the tax increases. Never take responsibility for your actions.

What happens when the spending proposals are so much that even liberals can't tax their way out of them? A few of their tricks include budgetary gimmicks, like inserting an exception into the rules, or, my favorite, simply declare the spending to be an emergency.

The bill we have before us today designates, as an emergency, $5.1 billion in spending for a FEMA account that could and should be funded through the regular appropriations process. As I raised in the Rules Committee the other day, we recommend to people that they have 3 months of income in an account in case they have an emergency, but this is funding in anticipation. And it means we're borrowing money and we're paying interest on that borrowed money.

The excuses from my colleagues just are endless. Spending increases are so common that they have become all too predictable. Observers of this debate are likely to hear one of the most tired excuses intended to dodge responsibility for their unconscionable spending binge. When all else fails, they always fall back on the reliable excuses, Well, George Bush did it, or, You did it before.

As a teacher, I never let my students get away with childish excuses like this. This is Congress. People elected us to be responsible for the decisions we make. It is true that Republicans spent far too much while in the majority, but the Democrat response is simply to triple down on the mistakes of the past and return to the same old blame game that's led this government into the budgetary malaise that we're facing today. While they say they're simply responding to the mess made by the previous administration, the Democrats would have you believe that this mess was created because George Bush didn't spend enough.

The American people need strong leadership. They need effective leadership. They need leadership that ends the petty, partisan blame game and accepts responsibility for governance. This bill exemplifies how the ruling Democrats fail to offer any of these fundamental leadership traits. That's why this country desperately needs a change in congressional leadership. We need to vote ``no'' on the rule, and ``no'' on the underlying bill.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. I appreciate my colleague pointing out the fact that we did have some areas in North Carolina. Indeed, two of the counties that he mentioned were in my district, because of the rain that we had recently. But, you know, declaring a disaster and allocating money to those counties are two different things.

I would bet--and I'm sorry I don't have time to do it while we're here on the floor, but I bet it'll be 18 months before any of those people see a dime of the money because the bureaucracy is so incompetent in terms of responding to people. So the money won't be given out for a long, long time from those disasters, unfortunately, because usually when there is a disaster, people need help right away, but it doesn't get done.

We could have gone through regular order on this. There's no reason not to have gone through regular order. But what you wanted to do was get this jobs money out there, is my guess, so that you could declare jobs being created through more government funding.

Madam Speaker, I was in the Congress when Katrina hit, and here's what happened. We were on August break. Katrina hits on Saturday, Sunday, Monday. The Speaker of the House, Mr. Hastert, had a conference call on Wednesday of that week and he said, I either can call everybody back into session and we will allocate the $10 billion that needs to be allocated for Katrina right now, in an emergency, or we can have unanimous consent, no one will come forward and object. I will bring a few people back in. We'll take care of this need immediately. That's exactly what happened. Everybody knew there was an emergency, and we reacted to it.

I don't understand my colleague saying we are not prepared for a massive disaster. If we aren't, with all the money that we spend on things, then we have a major problem. I think we are prepared for major disasters. We showed that on 9/11. We showed it with Katrina. So this is a straw dog. That's all it is.

Now, given the best efforts of the Democrats to create jobs, starting with the stimulus last year, perhaps this bill would be better titled: The Disaster Relief and Summer Government Jobs Act of 2010. As has been so well articulated in a March 3 Washington Times editorial, ``From immigration to clean energy to expanding the social safety net, there's no better way to grease the skids for new government programs in Washington nowadays then to declare them job-producing bills, then watch supporters line up and potential opposition crumble.''

The piece goes on to cite multiple examples of how Democrats claim their proposals will create jobs, but what they never seem to mention is where these jobs are coming from. Ends up, many of the Democrat policies do create jobs after all--government jobs--and they do so by stealing jobs from the private sector. And don't just take my word for it. Let's look at the evidence.

As you can see, this chart shows the net job gains or losses by major sector from February of 2009 to February 2010. It illustrates how the private sector lost 3.9 million jobs over the past year while government grew by a total 293,000 jobs. Again, the American people are understanding this and they're getting sick and tired of it. They don't want to be paying high taxes to be put in debt until infinity in order to create more government jobs, generally paying twice as much as the private sector jobs do.

The Senate health care overhaul, replete with its backroom deals, mandates of dubious constitutional standing, and a dozen tax increases that break the President's tax pledge, is now law. It remains to be seen how this health care overhaul will be implemented, but one White House advisor said it must be implemented ``effectively, efficiently, and with great accountability.'' If that sounds familiar, it's because last year the White House was saying the same thing about the stimulus bill. It turns out the trillion-dollar boondoggle wasn't nearly as stimulative as advertised. Job creation, not so much. This is the proof.

Our colleagues continually say that we don't represent things accurately. I know we can argue about numbers, but these are not Republican numbers. These are numbers that are true.

Madam Speaker, this bill is not going to do anything to create more jobs. It's going to continue to hurt the economy.

With that, I will reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Let me explain my poster and then you and I can debate our posters.

This is private payroll. Drops like a rock until January 2009, which is the greatest loss of jobs. During that month, some 780,000 jobs--780,000 jobs lost in January 2009. Twenty thousand jobs lost one year into the Obama administration in January 2010. It's too many. It's not right, but it's a heck of a lot better than 780,000 jobs lost in the last month of the Bush administration.

So my friend complains about the status of jobs, but this country was in free fall when it came to the economy, the financial system, and jobs. That has turned around. We have so much farther to go, and that's part of what this bill does. It provides for summer jobs and training for many of those people who have been out of work. We have got to get those people back to work. But we turned around. You see this sea of red, jobs being lost again and again, month after month. Still, it has improved dramatically in the last year.

So, I would entertain my friend's question.

Ms. FOXX. Well, my question is: Who was in charge of the Congress beginning in January of 2007, when the economy started going south?

Mr. PERLMUTTER. The Democrats. Well, you say when the economy started going south. The economy started going south, I would say to my friend, in September of 2008, when, because of very lax regulations on Wall Street, the bottom fell out of the financial system and jobs were lost at an ever-increasing number. And so the Bush administration, by its lax regulation, cost thousands and millions of jobs across this country, and that's what we're trying to stop.

We've been able to slow it down, Madam Speaker. Now it's time to start adding jobs. And part of this bill provides for job training. It provides for summer jobs, as well as dealing with the disaster relief that has to be managed for the rest of this season of tornados and fires and floods. And we're in a flood right now in North Dakota and Minnesota. We have to address that and we have to fill that emergency fund so we can address these things promptly and without any delay, as I believe occurred with Katrina down in Louisiana.

With that, I would reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for yielding and answering my questions. I didn't say anything about FEMA and its response to Hurricane Katrina. I think if you will look back at my comments, it was that Congress was able to respond immediately when there was a need, which is what we believe should happen.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Ms. FOXX. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. PERLMUTTER. Well, responding after the hurricane hits isn't fast enough. This is about knowing these things are coming and dealing with them in advance.

With that, I yield back to my friend.

Ms. FOXX. I thank my colleague.

What I don't understand, if this is what the Democrats want to do, why don't we have an emergency reserve fund? Again, we advise families to prepare for emergencies. That's what we should do in the government. We should go through regular order. We should have debate. We should have some idea of where money is going to need to be spent in advance in terms of how we respond at the Federal level.

This is more government knowing the answer to everything and government control from the Federal level. That's exactly what this is. Is it going to create jobs? Well, yes. It's going to create some summer jobs for young people, but it's not going to affect that job picture that my colleague talked about. Neither did the stimulus. The stimulus was passed. We were told by the White House, by the Congress, ``Pass this and unemployment will not exceed 8 percent.'' Unemployment has been right at 10 percent for months and months and months. In fact, again, the only thing that's been stimulated has been the government, and that's not where we need to be going.

The American people don't want more government. They want more jobs. The recent health care overhaul and last year's stimulus bill illustrate the Congress is very good at growing government; not so good at spurring job growth.

The simple truth is that if the Democrats really wanted to stimulate youth employment, there's one sensible, effective policy change that could do so without spending a dime.

As articulated in a March 10 Wall Street Journal editorial:

``The recent act of Congress that has caused the most economic hardship goes to the May 2007 law raising the minimum wage in three stages to $7.25 an hour from $5.15. Rarely has a law hurt more vulnerable people more quickly. A higher minimum wage has the biggest impact on those with the least experience or the fewest skills. That means in particular those looking for entry-level jobs, especially teenagers. And sure enough, as nearly all economic models predict, the higher minimum has wreaked havoc with teenage job seekers, well beyond what you would expect even in a recession.''

The editorial continues by comparing:

``the three-stage increase in the minimum wage with the jobless rate for teens age 16 to 19 since 2007. The first increase, to $5.85 from $5.15, after a decade of no increases and when the overall joblessness rate was below 5 percent and the teen rate was 14.9 percent. The demand for labor was sufficiently strong in many areas that most employers were probably willing to absorb the higher wage.

``But as the minimum wage increased even as the overall job market began to worsen, the damage to teen job seekers became more severe. By the time the third increase to $7.25 from $6.55 took effect in July 2009, the teen jobless rate was 24.3 percent, and by October, it peaked at 27.6 percent before dropping to 26.4 percent in January.

``The story is even worse for black teens, who often have lower than average education levels or live in areas with fewer job prospects. Their jobless rate climbed from 38.5 percent before the third wage hike to 49.8 percent in November 2009, before falling back to 43.8 percent in January. For black male teens, the rate climbed to 52.2 percent in December from 39.2 percent in July. The difference between the jobless rates for black teens and the entire population widened by six percentage points from June 2007 to January 2010. Even assuming those rates fall as the job market improves this year, they will remain destructively high.

``The third increase was especially ill-timed because it hit while the recession was ending but before employers have felt confident to rehire. To raise the cost of unskilled labor precisely when the jobless rate is heading toward 10 percent is an act of almost willful economic stupidity.'' Madam Speaker, I want to remind the Speaker that I am quoting. ``A Congress that has spent $862 billion to create jobs thus managed with its wage increase to harm tens of thousands of entry-level job seekers. And it did so in the name of `compassion' and a `living wage.' In many cases that wage has since become zero.

``The evidence is clear that increasing the minimum wage is an expensive and misguided way to try to move working families out of poverty. According to the Employment Policies Institute, 85 percent of people who earn the minimum wage aren't the primary bread winner in a family.

``Most readers remember the work habits they learned from their first job. Showing up on time, being courteous to customers, learning how to use technology--such habits are often more valuable than the actual paycheck. Studies have confirmed that when teens work during summer months or after school, they have higher lifetime earnings than those who don't work. So raising the minimum wage may inadvertently reduce lifetime earnings.

``Most Democrats won't bend on the minimum wage because it is a core union demand, but free thinkers ought to at least consider the teenage job problem. The long-term danger is that we are building in a higher level of structural unemployment as our least skilled workers find it harder to climb onto the first rung of the job market.''

This will not solve problems. It creates more.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

We keep talking about the economic situation in this country because it is extraordinarily important to all of us, and all of these bills that are being passed are exacerbating the problem. As my colleague from Arizona said and we have said over and over, you cannot repeal the laws of economics. Our colleagues across the aisle think they can.

Right now, just the interest on U.S. debt in FY 2010 is going to be $425 billion. That's like paying interest on a credit card and never ever paying off the principal. The enormous burden of the interest cost on our debt takes money out of the economy for future generations and diverts funds from being used for other more pressing priorities. In addition, the U.S. dependence on borrowing money to fund our budget deficit places our Nation in the precarious situation of being beholden to foreign nations like China to finance our Federal spending. High national debt also diminishes confidence in an economy.

As even President Obama said in November 2009: I think it is important to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that some people can lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that can actually lead to a double-dip recession.

The President and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk a good game, and then they do the opposite. Despite their rhetoric of fiscal responsibility, the President's budget more than doubles the debt, drives spending to a new record of $3.8 trillion in fiscal year 2011, pushing the deficit to a new record of $1.6 trillion in FY 2010, and raises taxes by over $2 trillion through 2020 by the administration's own estimates.

The President's FY 2011 budget doubles the debt in 5 years and triples it by 2019 from FY 2008 levels. It pushes the debt to $9.3 trillion this year, or 63.6 percent of gross domestic product, the largest debt in history and the largest debt as a share of our economy in 59 years. Despite the Senate's passage of a $1.9 trillion increase in the debt limit, Congress would need to increase this limit again before October 1, 2011, under the President's budget. The interest bill on the debt would more than quadruple by the end of the decade, reaching $840 billion in 2020.

The budget boosts the deficit to a record level this year, $1.6 trillion, or 10.6 percent, of GDP. This is the largest deficit as a share of the economy since World War II. Deficits never fall below $700 billion, never below 3.6 percent of GDP, and end the decade at more than $1 trillion.

Even with a decline in spending due to the repayment of most TARP funds and the eventual spend-out of stimulus funds, spending reaches a record level of $3.8 trillion in FY 2011. The budget does not include the spending impact of the administration's cap-and-trade proposal. Even so, spending is still 23.7 percent of the economy at the end of the decade when the historical average has always been 20 percent.

Madam Speaker, we are in a critical time in our country. Economists have told me that unless we stop spending in a very short period of time, we are going to become like a Third World nation. What has set us apart for so long from the rest of the world has been the rule of law and the fact that we have been fiscally conservative. The American people are fiscally conservative; they expect their government to be so. We are putting this country in danger and Republicans are sounding the call. We want to help the American people, but we know the best way we can do that is for the Federal Government to get out of the way and let the entrepreneurial spirit and the freedom that has always characterized this country allow people to do what is the right thing to do for our economy. This direction is wrong. We are going to continue to say that it is wrong, and we know the American people understand that.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule, to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill. We don't need to create more government jobs. We need to let people have control of their lives and of their money. They will bring the economy back.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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