[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4] [House] [Pages 4741-4747] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4899, DISASTER RELIEF AND SUMMER JOBS ACT OF 2010 Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1204 and ask for its immediate consideration. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 1204 Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 4899) making emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and summer jobs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations; and (2) one motion to recommit. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. I yield myself such time as I may consume. General Leave Mr. PERLMUTTER. I also ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1204. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Colorado? There was no objection. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, House Resolution 1204 provides for consideration of the Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010 under a closed rule. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI. The rule provides that the bill shall be considered as read. And, finally, the rule provides one motion to recommit the bill, with or without instructions. Madam Speaker, we are quickly approaching the beginning of disaster season in the United States. While many natural disasters occur without warning, we can say with certainty that tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding will damage communities across our Nation in the coming 6 months. Just this week, the residents of North Dakota and Minnesota are breathing a sigh of relief as the Red River flood crested. In my own State of Colorado, throughout our history we have suffered our fair share of destruction by wildfire, tornados, hailstorms, and flooding. In the gentlewoman Ms. Foxx's district, for instance, a major disaster was declared just this year due to severe winter storms and flooding. We don't know where and we don't know when natural disasters will occur, but our Federal response and relief officials must prepare nonetheless. And when those disasters do happen, Members of Congress will tour the devastation in their district and tell their constituents hurt by the disaster, ``I will do everything I can to help you recover from this event.'' Today's bill is the most important thing they can do to help in the recovery and relief efforts. There will be emergency response professionals who worked overtime and need to be reimbursed. There are Federal search and rescue teams which will have to be mobilized. FEMA will have to rebuild public infrastructure and remove debris. FEMA will have to provide temporary shelter to families displaced by the disaster. And, under the Stafford Act, these are all responsibilities of FEMA. There is just no getting around it. Already this year there have been 18 disasters and three emergency funds in seven States, and the disaster relief fund is about to be exhausted. Given the domestic and international efforts FEMA has undertaken this year, the disaster relief fund will be exhausted within the next month. So this bill replenishes the disaster relief fund with $5 billion. This funding can only be used for disaster relief; it cannot be shifted into other accounts. And if it is not spent this year, it will be retained for the fund next year. [[Page 4742]] Because relief also requires the Federal Government to assist affected small businesses to resume operations, the bill also provides for $60 million to be funded to the Small Business Administration. And, finally, the bill invests $600 million into job training and employment services. This is a vital investment to build upon the progress we have made in the past year to put America back to work. Because this investment is not an emergency, it is paid for with unobligated Recovery Act dollars. But make no mistake, this bill is about robust emergency response capabilities. Natural disasters don't care about congressional district boundaries. They can happen anywhere in our country. I hope Members see the importance of this bill and make the right vote to ensure FEMA and our Federal disaster relief and recovery officials have the resources they need to help your States save lives and rebuild. I reserve the balance of my time. 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. {time} 1130 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. Mr. PERLMUTTER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I have listened to the gentlelady, and I guess I'm very surprised by her argument that with FEMA's funding running out within the next 2 weeks, that the Republican side of the aisle would argue against any funding for future disasters that we know are going to come. For instance, in Representative Foxx's district just this past month, a disaster was declared because of flooding and severe winter weather. These are the counties that were declared a disaster: Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Caldwell, Haywood, and on and on and on. I looked through the list. We have had 16 or 17 disasters declared already this year across the country. Luckily, none of them were in Colorado. I looked at last year. We had dozens and dozens all across the country, including others in North Carolina. None were in Colorado. But I can tell you, Coloradans understand that [[Page 4743]] this is a national issue. This is something that we take care of as citizens, as Americans across the country, because we're in this together. It isn't just, Let's wait until the whole thing runs out and then scurry around and try to figure out what to do. We are dealing with disasters. When I'm listening to my friend from North Carolina, it's like she wants to have Katrina happen all over again, where we're not prepared, the country is not prepared to deal with a massive emergency. That's what this is all about. It is about funding FEMA so that it can respond to the emergencies that we know are going to arise. And so all of this conversation about procedural tricks and ``You aren't getting this done,'' this is about funding the emergency management of this country. I'm surprised, especially when North Carolina just enjoyed the ability to take advantage of this--well, nobody would enjoy having to draw on the disaster relief. I take that back. That was an improper statement. What they did is they had the disaster relief fund available to them to deal with the troubles they suffered during this past winter. So I can't see any merit to the argument that's being made that the issue is not before us properly. It's a five-page bill. The other side of the aisle, the Republicans, have been complaining about big bills, too hard to read, take too long. This is five pages that says we're going to fund our emergency management administration so that we can deal with the disasters that we know are going to come. With that, I would reserve the balance of my time. 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 than 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. Mr. PERLMUTTER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. A couple of things. I'm very surprised that my friend from North Carolina would hold up the response to Katrina as the model for how we respond to emergencies. There couldn't be anything farther from the truth in that respect. It was a terrible mess, a terrible response. I don't think anybody in this country would say otherwise. The country was not prepared under the Bush administration. This Congress was not prepared. This is about preparing for emergencies. Right now, even though the flood has crested in North Dakota and Minnesota, it still is a state of emergency. Those States near the river are under water. So there is an emergency occurring even as we speak. Now, my good friend from North Carolina has her posters. Of course, we have ours. Now let's take a look at what really is going on in the economy. Under the Bush administration, we had tremendous job loss beginning in 2007, but certainly in the fall of 2008. 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. [[Page 4744]] 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. {time} 1145 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. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, first I would ask how much time remains on both sides. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado has 19\1/2\ minutes. The gentlewoman from North Carolina has 11\1/2\ minutes. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Having no further speakers, I will reserve the balance of my time. Ms. FOXX. I now yield such time as he may consume to our colleague from Arizona (Mr. Flake). Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. Listening to this debate in my office, I just had to come down here because it sounds like this debate is taking place [[Page 4745]] in a vacuum here, like we didn't do anything else this past week. It's been noted that we're providing extra money for FEMA, some for projects that are in the pipeline already, some for disasters that we know will occur. You could put that aside and realize that we're spending I think it's $600 million--$600 million, new money, every dime of which will be borrowed. Because we're running a deficit, every dime will be borrowed. Now you may say, ``All this is being taken from the stimulus.'' We borrowed the stimulus. We borrowed the stimulus money. We are borrowing nearly 40 percent of the money that we're spending here at the Federal level. So they'll say, ``Oh, yes. This is being taken from another program that's already funded.'' But you have to realize we're borrowing that money, too. So $600 million to create temporary jobs for kids in the summertime, apparently, with no notion that we may have put a lot of people out of work with what we just did earlier this week. You know, we pass a lot of laws here. We're good at that. But we aren't very good at suspending the laws of economics. We can't do that. We can pretend that we can, but we can't do it. We can't suspend the laws of economics, and we can't phase them in, either. So when you announce that you're going to tax investment capital, that means there's less investment capital to actually invest in job creating activities. So the job creating sector is smaller than it was before. Whenever you take money into government from the job creating sector, when you tax investment capital, like the health care reform that we did, that means there's going to be less capital for job creation. Also, when you look at this health care bill itself, the President said when he signed the bill into law that the time for overheated rhetoric is over and that the rhetoric will now be confronted with reality. Well, let me tell you what the reality is right now. The reality is higher insurance premiums. So if it's not bad enough out there with a lack of jobs, Americans all over are going to face much higher insurance premiums by virtue of the legislation we just passed. You have to understand that all of the pressures right now are to drive costs upward. There's no downward pressure economically on insurance premiums at the moment because any cost controls either don't exist at all; there's no medical liability reform; and broadening the pool of people who will come into any insurance pool doesn't happen or is not on the mandatory side several years from now. All you have are requirements that preexisting conditions for children now be covered; that individuals, adults up to age 26 can stay on their parents' policy; preventative care now has to be covered with no deductibles or copays. Now those may or may not be good policies. That's not what I'm arguing here. But when you do that, insurance is no longer a hedge against risk. We've just obliterated what insurance is supposed to be, and insurance companies will now be treated like public utilities where government simply regulates them. And all the pressure is upward. There's no downward economic pressure on price. So what we'll see in the next several months is insurance premiums jumping up. I just want to say right now, we shouldn't be surprised when that happens because we can't suspend the laws of economics. We can pass laws, but there are certain laws that are there that we can't change, and those will be slapping us in the face here soon. So when we come to the floor, it's all well and good to talk about FEMA funding. But I wish we would talk a little about $600 million also that's going to be spent--borrowed--whether it's taken from another existing program or not, we're borrowing that money as well. We're borrowing more money, adding to the deficit, adding to the debt. Mr. PERLMUTTER. I yield myself so much time as I might consume. I'm so glad that my friend Arizona was roused from his office because of our conversation about FEMA to come down and talk about health insurance. So I appreciate his statement that higher insurance premiums are going to be the reality. That's the reality today. That was the reality yesterday. That was the reality the day before that. That was the reality in California when they wanted to take the rates up 40 percent, I would say to my friend. That was the reality last year. That was the reality the year before. If we keep doing the same thing, we're going to get the same answers. You have to change things at some point, is what I would say to my friend from Arizona. I would also say to my friend from Arizona, to argue against eliminating discrimination against preexisting conditions, which is what I thought I heard you say, touches pretty much everybody's life in America. Somebody, either a close friend, a family member, a neighbor of everybody in this Chamber today, whether on the floor or in the gallery, has somebody who they know closely has a preexisting condition, and that is something that has to be addressed. Mr. FLAKE. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. PERLMUTTER. Not yet. So I would say to my friend that I appreciate him coming up here to talk to us about health insurance premiums which are constantly on the rise. We've got to deal with folks who suffer from preexisting conditions and can't find assistance otherwise when it comes to their health insurance. Personally--and I have said many times that I think it's a violation of the 14th Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by not allowing people to have equal access to insurance. And part of what was addressed by the historic bill that was signed yesterday by the President is that those people can get insurance. Those folks who have preexisting conditions can get insurance. We can have portability, the ability to go from one job to another, not be locked into a job for fear of losing our insurance. I appreciated the comments. You'll get another chance. I'm sure the gentlewoman has a lot of time, so she'll yield to you. {time} 1200 The other thing I wanted to say to my good friend because he brought up the economics, in the last 18 months of the Bush administration, this country lost about $17 trillion in wealth: in homes; in 401(k)s and pension plans; and in jobs. Since last year, the country, each one of us, in our little way, each one of us has gained about $5 trillion back. Our 401(k)s have improved; our pensions have improved; there has been a stabilizing of home prices; and jobs, as we talked about earlier, are starting to come back after being lost at an unbelievable rate under the Bush administration. So the stock market is up by 4,000 points in the last year. It lost 7,500 points in the last 18 months of the Bush administration. We are not anywhere near where we need to be, but I say to my friend who is complaining about the laws of economics, that those laws seem to be working in a positive sense now. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) who will actually speak about the bill that is before us which is about FEMA funding and job training. Mr. PASCRELL. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in strong support of the rule and the underlying legislation, H.R. 4899, the Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010. I want to commend the Rules Committee, Chairman Obey and the rest of the Appropriations Committee for bringing this legislation to the floor. This legislation further shows the Democratic majority's commitment to supporting jobs for the American people. Jobs for over 300,000 young people this summer are supported and fully offset in this legislation. Last weekend, the 8th Congressional District of New Jersey, along with many other communities throughout the State, were hit with a severe nor'easter that caused near record flooding throughout the Passaic River basin. The rising waters, combined with downed trees and power lines, have led to the closing of many roads and bridges. Over 2,500 residents were forced to evacuate; and State, county [[Page 4746]] and local first responders continued their great work to help safeguard life and property. The flooding has damaged over 3,000 homes. I went back on Monday to see for myself. I took 3 hours and came right back. Over 400 businesses were devastated. A preliminary damage assessment estimates the loss to the public sector alone to be almost $10 million. That is the public sector. On Monday when I briefly returned to my district to see for myself, FEMA was there on schedule, and we hope there will be a very short period between the time they present their information to the Governor of the State of New Jersey and then he will make his appeal to the Federal Government. That is how FEMA should work. We just got notice, in fact, yesterday that the snow disaster that occurred in the southern part of the State is just being responded to, so these are bureaucratic nightmares, particularly to those people forced out of their homes. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. PERLMUTTER. I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds. Mr. PASCRELL. It is critical that we approve the $5.1 billion included in this emergency legislation to allow FEMA to continue its work helping areas of the country like northern New Jersey recover from these natural disasters. I urge an ``aye'' vote on the rule and the underlying bill. Mr. PERLMUTTER. I reserve the balance of my time. Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake). Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. What got me to the floor was not to talk about FEMA, but when the gentleman brought out a chart about the economy and jobs, that is what I wanted to talk about. The gentleman mentioned preexisting conditions. What I said was this may or may not be good public policy to deal with that. I think it is, but we ought to deal with it in a responsible way. The Republican plan was to assist jobs in having high-risk pools for those with preexisting conditions to go into. And that way you simply don't even pretend you are suspending the laws of economics and telling the insurance companies you can't raise your rates because we have suspended the laws of economics. You recognize that is a cost and that is a subsidy that will have to be borne, but you do it honestly, not this way, not the way we did it by saying, hey, we are just going to pass a law, have everybody covered, and assume we have suspended the laws of economics and insurance rates will not go up. The gentleman mentioned that insurance rates have been rising over the years; you bet they have. And part of the reason for which is we have shielded insurance companies from competition. We don't allow them to sell insurance across State lines. And nowhere in this legislation do we allow them to do that. We also don't allow individuals to have the same purchasing power that companies have so you can't as an individual with pretax dollars go out and shop for health insurance. So we have shielded them from competition, and of course rates are going to go up. But they are going to go up rapidly now because we have imposed these costs upon them. Again, when we talk about jobs, this seem to be the mantra now. If we can't allow the job-creating sector to create jobs by having a reasonable tax and regulatory environment out there, then we are just going to create government jobs. So that is what we are doing here. We are going to be borrowing $600 million because even if it is in another program, we are going to be borrowing that money, too. We are going to be borrowing $600 million and saying to people, we are going to create more temporary government jobs throughout the summer. That is not the answer to our economic woes. 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. Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I just would remind my friend from North Carolina and the other Members of her party that when you cut taxes for the wealthiest of Americans, as was [[Page 4747]] done under the Bush administration and the Republican Congress, prosecute two wars without paying for them, and have absolutely no regulation of Wall Street, you get a financial disaster. We are talking about natural disasters, but they created a financial disaster that we saw caused the loss of millions of jobs beginning in 2008. We need to reverse that, and that is precisely what is happening. The job loss has gone from 780,000 jobs lost in January 2009, the last month that George Bush was in office, to 20,000 jobs lost in January 2010. Not good enough, but a lot better. The stock market lost 7,500 points; and in the last year, it has gained 4,000 points back. Not where we want to be, but a heck of a lot better. There was $17 trillion lost by each American in their home, in their pension, in their 401(k)s and in their jobs in the last 18 months of the George Bush administration. We have gained $5 trillion back. Not good enough, but a heck of a lot better. Finally, the fourth quarter of 2008, the last quarter of the Bush administration, the steepest drop in the gross domestic product, what this country produces, really since the Depression, 6 percent drop, gained 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. It hasn't gotten us back to even, but it is a lot better. That is what is going on. And what we want to do on our side of the aisle is get those Americans back to work who lost their jobs. That is what this bill is about, the $600 million for job training, for summer jobs. It is to get people back to work. When we get people back to work, when this country has employment that is better than today, then we can really take a good look at the debt, as they suggest, because that is true, we need to look at the debt that exists in this country; but we have to get people back to work. Now, let's talk about what is the guts of the bill that is before us, and that is to fund disaster relief. The disaster relief fund for FEMA is just about out of money, and we need to fund that so we can deal with the disasters that are existing today in North Dakota, in Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, but also the ones that we know are coming over the course of the next 6 or 8 months. So the bill provides for FEMA funding. It provides for job training and summer jobs. And, Madam Speaker, this bill that is before us is about saving lives. It is about dealing with disasters. We need to be prepared and that is the whole purpose. We can't have any more Katrinas. We need to do our best to try to deal with those disasters that we know are coming. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution. The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it. Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. ____________________