House Proceeding on Jan 13th, 2009 :: 0:00:00 to 0:20:00
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and the development experts, but really it's all hands on deck. we have a lot of work to -- >> we are going to from hearing now for live house coverage. we'll send it over to c-span2 as the senate is about to take a break. reminder you can watch continuous uninterrupted live coverage of the hearing on c-span.org. we'll also open our phone lines later for your thoughts.

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now live house coverage on c-span.e the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rm, washington, d.c., january 13, 2009. i hereby appoint the honorable donna f. edwards to act as speaker pro tempore on this day . signed nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore:

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Donna Edwards: pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2009, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to 30 minutes and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip

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Speech By: Donna Edwards

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Speech By: Peter A. DeFazio

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Peter A. DeFazio: limited to five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from -- i apologize. the chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon for five minutes. mr. defazio: i thank the c i congratulate the president -elect on being in touch with

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Peter A. DeFazio: the american people and understanding the pain on wall street of job loss and foreclosures and the sense of urgency. i share the sense of urgency he brings to this issue and the idea that we need a significant new investment, stimulus, whatever you want to call it, in america to turn things around. that's the good news. the bad news is i don't believe

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Peter A. DeFazio: he's well served by his economic advisors. these are your typical pointy headed, academic economists who think is we need to return to a speculative consumer-driven society, not a well-oriented production-driven society with a strong foundation.

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Peter A. DeFazio: they want instant gratification with five times as much in tax cuts as investment in infrastructure in this country, a country with a .6 trillion,

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Peter A. DeFazio: 1,600,000,000 deficit. 160,000 bridges on the national highway system, let alone local are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. our transit systems are operating with obsolete equipment. investments in these areas --

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Peter A. DeFazio: now, they're not all shovel ready. we're in deep trouble in this country, andebuilding the foundation and the under pinnings of this economy is critical to a long-term recovery effort. and when you invest in these things you put people to work. these are much better than tax cuts. now, you don't have to take it

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Peter A. DeFazio: from me. yes, he has his economic advisors, mr. sommers and others, but i'd rather take advice from paul crudman. he said, bear in mind that even a project that delivers its main ponchency can provide significt economic support in earlier years.

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Peter A. DeFazio: if mr. obama accepts the reality that we need a multiyear program rather than a short bursof activity he can create a lot more jobs through government investment even in the near term. he goes on to say that scrap the tax cuts and -- tax credits

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Peter A. DeFazio: and the threat of doing too little by doing more. and stop talking about jump-starts and look more broadly about the possibilities of government investment. how about the national high speed rail network? that will take decades. it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but it will build a future for america. the engines will be built here.

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Peter A. DeFazio: the cars would be built here. the tracks would beuilt here. it's so much more fuel efficient than our current modes of transportation. how about our existing transit system, e 12,000 obsolete buses, or the need for new streetcar systems? these projects can't be gone in 60 or 90 days.

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Peter A. DeFazio: we have a list on the transportation and infrastructure committee from both local and state and national groups that totals a couple hundred billion dollars and yet mr. sommers pooh-poohs the idea that there is equipment amount of investment that can be done and made in the short term and they'd rather send it per pay

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Peter A. DeFazio: period. if they get an extra take home that they'll be given confidence in the future of this economy. and i don't believe that banks should be able to recapture taxes they paid in the past because they've speculated themselves to the verge of insolve vensy, taking money

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Peter A. DeFazio: away from the taxpayers. and now they want to get a look back on their taxes. that's not goi to put one single person to work. it might give some c.e.o. yet another bonus but is not going to put anybody to work. let's have a much more realistic, concrete, if you will, investment in america's future rather than more of the same.

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Peter A. DeFazio: the huge amount of tax cuts in this proposal sound a little bit too much like the george bush trickled down economy. it's time for a new dirtion

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Frank R. Wolf: to rebuild the foundations of this country, and i urge the president-elect to bring in his economic advisors for a little chat and perhaps reorient their thinking. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia, mr. wolf, for five minutes. lady.

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Speech By: Frank R. Wolf

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Frank R. Wolf: madam speaker, i -- i thank the gentlelady. madam speaker, i come to the floor to talk about the dire financial system facing our country. we must come together to face the reality that america's living on borrowed dollars to the tune of 1 trillion in debt and 4 trillion, soon to go higher, in unfunded liabilities with entitlements. we must offer a bipartisan solution to these long-term

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Frank R. Wolf: financial challenges. in recent days, there called to have an economic stimulus package offer. the respected heritage foundation released a report friday with a title "stimulus legislation must include budget reforms to address long-term challenges."

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Frank R. Wolf: the budget controlled mechanisms that would be set up by the cooper-wolf commission in the house and a bipartisan task force for responsible fiscal effort proposed by kent conrad and judd gregg in the senate. the heritage publication, which i submit for the report, it

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Frank R. Wolf: would ve the advantage of a two-step process. the first phase would be a series of nationwide public hearings to talk frankly about the long-term fiscal problems and the tough optionsor fixing it and to build public support for congressional action on a broad plane of action. as the colleagues may recall the safe process would culminate in legislative

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Frank R. Wolf: recommendations to congress like the base closing process. congress would be then required to vote up or down. i know incorporating long-term budget controls in a short-term stimulus and primarily a job creation, but i would argue, many argue the time is now to confront the underlining

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Frank R. Wolf: problem of autopilot spending. i don't know about other members, but my constituents and i'm sure theirs continue to share their frustration with congress seeming to know how to spend money with regard to the future. we must show the people we can lead and make the difficult choices. the longer we may and the more

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Frank R. Wolf: consumer entitlement spending it comes the more draconian our choices will be. where mortgages of our future children and grandchildren, we can't deal with a short-term financial problems without thinking about and dealing with the long-term solutions. the safe commission is not a new idea. over 110 members of congress co-sponsored the legislation

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Frank R. Wolf: last year. the heritage foundation, the brookings institution and others helped draft the bill. jim cooper and i joined bipartisan force and have continued to garner support from other leading voices, including the business community, the virginia and tennessee chambers of commerce, the national federation of

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Frank R. Wolf: independent businesses. we all know that it will take political courage that we can muster to reject the partisan of special interest demands and do what is best for the country. if other members have a better bipartisan idea that can pass the house, they should be introducing it and it should be included in the stimulus package. but not acting on this issue is

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Frank R. Wolf: effectively supporting either the do nothing plan or the -- maybe this problem will fix itself plan or let's just bury our heads in the sand plan. but the numbers don't lie. the nation's future outlook is sobering. just in the short term, c.b.o. projects that the federal budget deficit for this fitcal year alone, which started in october, will balloon to .2

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Frank R. Wolf: trillion and perhaps higher. we offer the safe idea as an amendment to the f.y. 2009 financial services spending bill. unfortunately we came one vote short of passage. congressman alan boyd, a founding member of the blue dog coalition, spoke eloquently from his heart asking us to

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Frank R. Wolf: envision o from now sitting on the front porch and telling our grandchildren about the days we served in congress. what will we tell our grandchildren? that we looked the other way knowing that out-of-control entitlement spending would threaten the living standards of future generations? the stakes for the country's future has never been so high. this clearly is an economic

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Frank R. Wolf: issue but it would also, madam chair, a moral and generational issue. abraham lincoln said you cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. i believe the moral component of this issue goes to the heart of who we are as americans. this is not a republican issue nor a democratic issue. it's an american issue, and if we can't find a way to come

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Frank R. Wolf: together on this fundamental issue, i have serious questions about our ability to find bipartisan solutions that will work for the good of the country. i'm asking my colleagues today to come together to know that while we served in congress we did everything we could in our power to provide the kind of security and way of life for our children and grandchildren and our parents and grandparents that our

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Frank R. Wolf: grandparents and parents worked so hard to provide for us.

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Stephen Cohen: this challenge goes to the leadership in congress and soon to the obama administration to make this truly a bipartisan effort. put the safe commission in the stimulus package. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes mr. cohen from tennessee for five minutes. mr. cohen: thank you, madam speaker.

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Speech By: Stephen Cohen

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Stephen Cohen: last week the 110th congress was convened and we started by electing our speaker, the honorable nancy pelosi for second term as speaker of the house. the 110th congress has much potential. much of it because the 107th, 108th, 109th congress failed as

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Stephen Cohen: republican majority and a republican president let the free market dictate how our economy responded to economic pressures, and as a result we have the greatest economic catastrophe since the great depression. those congresses, the 107th, 108th, 109th allowed the

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Stephen Cohen: republican president on faith toake us into a war that's cost us 4,000 american lives, over 30,000 casualties and over half trillion dollars. a half trillion dollars that's robbed our citizens and our cities, madam speaker, of moneys needed for health care, education and infrastructure. the 111th congress saw a

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Stephen Cohen: democratic majority -- the 110th congress saw the democratic majority come here. some legislation was signed by the president. the president did veto several of our bills, including a children's health care plan, which we will work on this week. we were unable to stop the hemorrhaging of our economy and

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Stephen Cohen: our young people's lives in the middle east. t with the election of a new president and the 110th congress' -- and the hent 111th congress' congress ability to work with president-elect barack obama, i believe this will be viewed as one of the most historic congresses in our history. we have the opportunity to restore america'proper place

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Stephen Cohen: in the world community. as a nation that others see as a good and giving and intelligent country that shares the power of its ideas rather than an idea of its power, as president clinton said, and works in a multinational fashion to work with countries to solve the problems around the globe. i have great confidence in

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Stephen Cohen: secretary of state clinton will see to it that women's issues and children's issues and health care issues will be dealt with by the united states as a leader, around the globe, and people will see us as a friend and not a foe, someone to be respected and not feared. nevertheless, the military is always necessary for those that are incapable of seeing peace

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Stephen Cohen: as the ultimate purpose and our time on earth, and we will see to it that our military is effectively maintained. climate change threatens the very earth which we inhabit. and the transportation committee under the leadership of representative chairman james oberstar will see to it

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Stephen Cohen: that we address issues of importance that maintain the earth as we know it, the floor and fawn as god as given to us and see that the future generations aren't impacted as great as they would be. the past congresses did not deal with global warming, did not sign the kyoto chord, the president did not, and we have

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Stephen Cohen: a problem with the world community, a problem with the economy, a problem with the environmental standards that we need to adopt. much to be done. it's all begun, but most of it won't really get into full swing until after the inauguration ofanuary 20. madam speaker, i urge every

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Stephen Cohen: school system and every citizen to watch the inauguration of our next president january 20, to allow students to watch that inauguration and hopefully will inview in them the same spirit about government and the same hope that i had on january 20, 1961, when i watched john

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Stephen Cohen: kennedy take the oath of office. john kennedy gave my generation the belief that politics can be an honorable profession and that government can be a useful tool in seeing that our country and our world is a better place. i think we lost that hope the new frontier brought some 40 some odd years ago.

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Stephen Cohen: with the election of barack obama, hope, again, exists in the american people's hearts and minds. i expect his oratory a spirit of change that's for the betterment of this country and the world. i hope everybody watches. please encourage your children to watch and allow them to be inspired.

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Stephen Cohen: for if they are we'll have a generation that will participate, that will vote and will see to it that we wl have a better tomorrow.

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Chet Edwards: madam speaker, i am proud to serve in this congress, very proud to serve with speaker pelosi and blessed to have the opportunity to serve with the new frontier of the 21st century barack obama. thank you ve much. .

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Speech By: Chet Edwards

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Chet Edwards: the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. sherman, for five minutes. the chair will do that as a matter of recognition. the gentleman from texas may pro-- proceed for five minutes. mr. edwards: madam speaker, today i rise to honor the

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Chet Edwards: memory of zachary cook, a 20-year-old army officer and a 2008 graduate of texas a&m university in the corps of cadets. zachary died tragically yesterday in a helicopter crash on an a&m campus in college station, texas, in myistrict.

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Chet Edwards: it was during the annual winter field training. his loss brings a great sadness to his family and friends, the extended texas a&m family and the army and to all of us deprived of thisatriotic citizen who was dedicated to serving our great nation in uniform. zachary dreamed of flying army

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Chet Edwards: helicopters and was thrilled to receive his recent army commission. he was revered as a true friend to others, someone who truly inired and mentored his friends. madam speaker, i believe the families and loved ones of our service men and women are truly the unsung heroes in our nation's defense, and that is

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Chet Edwards: why i want to express my regret and respect to the cook family. our nation owes them with a deep gret of -- regret. i hope they know that the service demonstrated by their loved one will touch and infire

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Chet Edwards: the -- inspire others after we are gone from this earth. our thoughts and prayers are with the four texas national guard members who were seriously injured in the crash. we pray for their speedy recovery. we humbly recognize that we can never repay fully zachary or his family for their loss.

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Chet Edwards: but i hope that his family will

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Brad Sherman: know our nation will never forget their sacrifice. may god bless the spirit of zachary cook lovingly in his arms. . the speaker pro tempore: the

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Speech By: Brad Sherman

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Brad Sherman: chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. sherman, for five minutes. mr. sherman: well, the 00 billion bankers bailout bill is back. many of my colleagues did not enjoy on voting on it twice

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Brad Sherman: last year but it is back. it is back with two votes. one vote this week, one vote next week. this week we will vote on chairman frank's bill to improve the tarp lislation, the 00 billion bill. i believe that chairman frank's bill is a step in the right direction but insufficient.