BOEHNER: Good morning, everyone.

QUESTION: Good morning. BOEHNER: All year long, Democrats have made -- here in Washington have made plenty of promises about putting Americans back to work, but I think the question is: Where are the jobs?

We all remember the trillion-dollar stimulus bill Democrats promised would be about jobs, jobs and jobs. And clearly all it's turned into is about spending, spending, and more spending.

Just on the way in here, I saw a report that only 1 percent of the highway construction dollars have left Washington and gone to the states, 1 percent. Remember all the shovel-ready projects that were -- this money was going to go to?

So, really, the question is about -- about jobs. And where are the jobs as a result of all the money that's been spent?

This week, Democrats continued to shut down debate on the House floor for Republican amendments on spending legislation because they just can't spend taxpayer funds fast enough. We've seen plenty of spending this year, but, again, where are the jobs? We've lost 3 million jobs so far this year, and I'm trying to figure out, with all the spending that's gone on, where are the new jobs? They just haven't shown up.

And the fact is, jobs don't come from government. They come from small businesses. And all year long, we've passed policies around here that grow government, but hurt small businesses, the engine of economic growth in our country.

A real stimulus bill is a bill that helps small businesses, and we haven't seen that yet. We have to remember, the Republican plan was -- would cost half as much as the Democrat plan, would have created twice as many jobs. This is on the original estimate. Now it's probably 10 times as many jobs, since they haven't created any jobs.

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But we haven't tried to actually allow American families and small businesses to keep more of what they earn so that they can get this economy going once again.

When it comes to energy, Washington Democrats, I think, are poised to make matters worse by imposing a job-killing energy tax, courtesy of Speaker Pelosi. This is going to force small businesses and their workers and families to pay more for electricity, gasoline, and other products that are made in America that have a high energy content.

This bill will also cost 2.3 million to 2.7 million Americans their jobs. That's because high energy industries, like the steel- making industry, won't be located in the United States anymore. They're going to be shipped to our competitors in China, India, South Korea, who don't even have half of the electricity -- or the EPA guidelines and environmental guidelines that we have here in America.

If you look on this chart, this is how this process will work. With the EPA being in the middle, look at all of these different agencies that are involved.

Now, this is the most elaborate thing that I've seen. You know, I've been here a while, and I've seen some pretty crazy things, but I have never seen anything this ridiculous.

Democrats in rural America are going to have to make a real decision about whether they're going to stand with Speaker Pelosi and liberal special interests or whether they're going to stand with their constituents, who are going to be punished by this ridiculous tax.

Listen, there's a big difference between San Francisco and the heartland. You know, Al Gore stands for higher electricity bills, higher gasoline prices, and -- and shipping millions of jobs overseas.

Some of our members still remember his -- his BTU tax from 1993, where he tried this idea of -- of imposing this tax on all BTUs used in the country. A lot of Democrat members got burnt on that vote, for those of you that might have been around.

So it's no surprise that, as quickly as Al Gore was invited to come to Washington to help lobby on this, it seems that he was disinvited rather quickly.

Mark my words: The American people are going to remember this vote. This will be a defining moment in a defining vote in this Congress. And the real question is: Where are the Democrats going to stand on this?

House Republicans have a better plan that would produce more energy, more green energy, lower energy prices, and actually do more to clean up the air than having this giant government bureaucracy as suggested by our friends across the aisle.

On health care, the president again last night attempted to sell the Democrats' government takeover of our health care system. And even the president's backtracking on his claim that Americans can keep the coverage that they have.

As you all know, the CBO report on the Kennedy bill in the Senate made it clear that 23 million Americans would lose their coverage under his proposal. And we haven't seen yet the CBO score on how many millions of Americans would lose their coverage under the House Democrat bill, but I suggest the number will probably be higher.

And another independent study shows that it could be up to 100 million Americans could lose their coverage if this government option is part of their plan.

Listen, the American people want us to reform health care. They want it done in a bipartisan way, and they want us to do our best to reduce costs in this program.

I don't think Americans want a big government-run program. They don't want their care rationed. And they clearly don't think they should be paying more. And all the proposals we've seen on health care are going to cost somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion of new taxes on the American people to spend more on health care. Most Americans think they're already spending too much on health care, and even the president said, you know, the problem with health care is we're spending too much.

Well, we are spending too much. I think Republicans have a common-sense proposal that will help reduce costs, help ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance, and we ought to be doing these common-sense things, you know, things like lawsuit reform, which we don't see in any Democrat proposal because they worship at the altar of the trial bar, the trial lawyers in America, shouldn't do it.

You know, there are a lot of estimates out there that say we could save $175 billion over the next five years if we have lawsuit reform as part of this. This is what the American people want: find ways to make the system more efficient, to bring down the cost so that it's more affordable for all Americans.

And with that, be happy to take your questions. Yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) is there any doubt that this energy bill will pass when it comes up?

BOEHNER: Well, first, let's not -- I don't know whether it's going to come up or not. Rumors, they're clearly pushing to bring it up, but we'll see. I don't think they have the votes yet.

QUESTION: You don't -- you don't think they have the votes?

BOEHNER: No, I do not.

QUESTION: What are you telling the GOP moderates who've been meeting with them, considering voting for this bill?

BOEHNER: I think most of our members -- frankly, and members on the other side of the aisle -- have been talking about this issue for several years. Clearly, over the last six months, there's been a lot of talk about this bill.

And so, you know, I don't -- members have a pretty good feel as to where they are. I doubt that there's very -- I think there's very few members that are sitting on the fence at this point.

QUESTION: Mr. Leader (OFF-MIKE) health care, immigration and energy (OFF-MIKE) with all of these priorities (OFF-MIKE) Senator Ensign, Governor Sanford, doesn't that distract immensely from the policies (OFF-MIKE) and how does that get in the way?

BOEHNER: Listen, my job is to keep our members focused on the task at hand. You know, the American people sent us here to represent them, and all they've seen this year is an awful lot of spending, an awful lot of debt, and an attempted government takeover of health care, national energy tax. And so we've got our -- we've got a lot of work to do. And my job is to keep our members focused on -- on the work in front of us. And we're going to continue to do that.

QUESTION: But that's (OFF-MIKE) in the past 24 hours. How -- how can you stay focused on that (OFF-MIKE) people are talking about?

BOEHNER: I've -- I've -- if you've noticed in my press conference this morning, I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about the stuff that's at hand, the things that I've got to work on.

QUESTION: Mr. Leader, I'm interested -- I haven't had a chance to hear your response to the CBO estimate (OFF-MIKE) you and the rest of the GOP leadership spent a lot of time focusing on that, $3,000 per household estimate from Boston University (OFF-MIKE) CBO now says I think it was $174 per household, in terms of higher energy bills, an order of magnitude different, actually, more than an order of magnitude. What's your assessment of...

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHNER: Well, if you look at the CBO score and you look at -- read it, it's only on one title of the -- of the bill. But what is clear in the CBO score is that every American household is going to pay more.

Listen, when you create this giant bureaucracy to impose this tax, it's going to cost a lot of money. And at the end of the day, when you look at everything that's happened this year, from the stimulus to the omnibus, with all the earmarks, to -- to the budget, with trillion-dollar deficits, it's the American middle class that gets hit every single day.

And -- and this bill right here is going to hit the American middle class with higher cost and higher taxes.

QUESTION: Why would -- why would a member -- I know you don't answer for him, but just in your -- in your wisdom as a leader, why would a member like Mr. Doyle from Pittsburgh be out stumping for this bill now, if he thought it was going to kill jobs?

BOEHNER: You'll have to ask him.

QUESTION: Well, I mean, do you think he's under some sort of undue pressure of another kind? I mean, he was against this bill when it came out, and he (OFF-MIKE) explain all the (OFF-MIKE) yesterday that this will not hurt jobs in the steel industry.

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHNER: You'll have to ask him. Listen, the import protections, think about this. We've provided tens of billions of dollars to bail out the auto companies. We're telling the auto companies the kind of cars they're going to produce, frankly, I think are cars that most Americans don't want to buy. And for them to succeed, they're going to find -- have to find every way they can to whittle their cost. You know, one of the big costs in producing automobiles is steel.

And so as they're looking for the best price on a pound of steel, what are they going to do? They're going to look at the United States and go, "Well, I'd love to buy that American-made steel, but, you know, it's 30 percent or 40 percent higher than the steel we could get from China, Korea, India," and what's going to happen?

QUESTION: Mr. Doyle says it won't be more expensive.

BOEHNER: Well, it is going to be more expensive. You can't produce steel without releasing carbon dioxide. And it's -- it's going to put them out of business in the United States. We're going to ship those jobs overseas. It's what's fundamentally wrong with this.

This is not just about higher cost. This really is about shipping millions of American jobs overseas. And the idea that we're going to control the amount of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere by ourselves, I think, is ridiculous.

You've got no environmental controls like this, like we have today, in India or China, our two biggest industrial competitors. And so here's what happens.

We impose this tax on high energy use in the United States, we're going to ship jobs overseas. Then when those jobs get shipped overseas, guess what? They're going to impose more American coal. We'll sell more coal. They're going to burn that coal to produce energy. And when they -- when they burn that coal over there, they're going to produce five times the amount of carbon dioxide as they burn that coal than if it were burnt in the United States.

This is the most convoluted idea I've ever seen. This is why our proposal to -- to do more renewables, more American-made oil and gas, more nuclear, take the money from the royalties of the oil and gas and pump it back into renewables, solar, geothermal, wind, and actually speed up the development of these.

This will do more to actually clean up the air and bring down the cost of energy and help reduce the -- the dependence we have on energy from overseas. It's the most common-sense way to approach this issue, rather than this.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) busy week, not only with the energy bill, a couple of (OFF-MIKE) do you feel as though (OFF-MIKE) Republicans have been able to slow them down or (OFF-MIKE) running over you?

BOEHNER: They're running over us. They're in such a rush to spend the American people's money, they won't allow us to offer our cost-cutting amendments to try to reduce spending in these bills.

That's why they've gagged us, they've taken away most of our amendments, because they want to spend this money, they want to spend it as fast as they can before anybody notices, just like moving this -- this crazy idea, this national energy tax, tomorrow, when people -- nobody has probably read this 1,201-page bill yet, nor has anybody really seen the final language from Mr. Peterson on his deal that he kept with Mr. Waxman that's supposedly out there to help American agriculture, except I don't think anybody in American agriculture is buying the deal that was cut.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) you said yesterday something to the effect of, there was no bipartisan health care plan (OFF-MIKE) so how, if you're getting run over on these bills, how do you stop (OFF-MIKE)

BOEHNER: Well, I'm suggesting that, if there isn't a bipartisan plan moving through the Congress, it's not likely to happen this year. And...

(CROSSTALK)

BOEHNER: Because I just don't think in the United States Senate you can -- you can get a bill through there on a partisan basis that Americans will support.

And so I really -- they can run over us here in the House. They have all year. You know, we've reached out, offered our better solutions. But there's been no attempt at bipartisanship.

And, you know, it's unfortunate. The American people want this done in a bipartisan way, in a practical way that reduces cost and gets them better care.

QUESTION: If there was a bill that came to the floor now that looked like what the Democrats are talking about, would any Republican vote for it?

BOEHNER: Well, I'll leave the vote counting to the whip, but I'd have to stretch my imagination to think of one who would vote for the most bizarre plan that I've seen. I can't wait for the cost figures to come out on this one.

STAFF: Thank you.

QUESTION: Mr. Boehner, when the energy bill does come on the floor -- whether it's tomorrow -- will you -- will your side do what it can to close down and (OFF-MIKE)

BOEHNER: Oh, I don't know what -- I don't know what course of action we're going to take. There's a lot of time between now and then for us to do everything we can to try to protect the American people's wallet from these colleagues of mine who want to raise taxes, spend more money, and increase the debt, everything I came here to fight against.