Safe to go back in the water?

Here's an interesting one: A study by PriceWaterhouse Coopers, a major accounting firm, says that it's found most financial fraud is found by whistleblowers, not the SEC or outside auditors.

There's a lot of reasons for this, IMO. Accounting is more art than science. Securities law, ditto. And financial reporting has become monumentally complex, with corporations having teams of accountants and lawyers massaging the SEC filings until they appear, at least, to be on the up and up. Layer on top the Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, and what do you find? The accountants and lawyers increasingly at work into the wee hours of the night tweaking the filings.

These are smart people, and they have gotten very good at rigging things, as a general proposition.

Some suggest that the government completely step away from its fraud-detection function. I hear that, but fraud is essentially theft, and this sort of financial crime is basically impossible to leave to private litigation. To make the case for securities fraud generally requires access to information that investors simply can't get their hands on, and can't even know exists.

Sarbanes-Oxley's been a disaster, a regulatory approach that creates much heat, but little light.

Perhaps beefing up the whistleblower mechanisms this study alludes to would be a better way. Make it REAL easy and REAL confidential for a mid-level accountant, say, to step forward and blow the whistle.

-Robert Capozzi

How to "Lie" with Statistics

All this talk about "price gouging" and a "windfall profits" tax got me to wonder: Just how well did, for instance, Exxon Mobil do in the third quarter.

In my experience, the media simply does not understand financial statements. Ditto for pols. I used to work on Wall Street, and I know, at least, how financial people look at things, which is generally a far better representation of how things are. It's their livelihood, after all, not just a news story to be covered one day, dropped the next.

For instance, we keep hearing about the "outrageous" $9.9B profit that Exxon Mobil made in the third quarter of this year. Apparently, that's the biggest single-quarter profit ever, by any corporation.

Is this somehow surprising? To me it's not. Exxon Mobil is the second largest company in the US. Odds are high that a very large company is going to post the largest profit, at least once in a while.

Then, news reports hammer home that Exxon's profits were up 75% FROM THE PREVIOUS YEAR. While financial reports do report "year over year" results, Wall Street generally disregards those numbers. Instead, they look at more current trends. Over the past 4 quarters, Exxon's profits have been ranging from $7.6B up to $9.9B. Nice increase in the last quarter, but only about 20 to 30% better than the previous 3 quarters.

Katrina hit in late August, so its effects were felt basically for one-third of the third quarter. There was a temporary supply shock. But Exxon was no doubt selling inventory that it had generated in previous months for most of September. Prices went up for inventories that had refined pre-Katrina. Of course profits would spike a bit in the third quarter. If they hadn't, Exxon would have been a terrible manager!

In fact, if you look at the profitability percentages -- net income divided by revenues -- of the last 4 quarters, what do you find?

Exxon's profit rates were right in line in ALL 4 QUARTERS, at about 10%.

Beware "facts," because "facts" are no replacement for truth.

-Robert Capozzi

More Energy Blather

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund offers us his take on the current energy policy debate.

One has a very hard time absorbing this "fact":

"Example: Polls show that the public is now much more willing to consider an expanded role for nuclear power, an environmentally clean way of generating electricity...."

Fund seems to disregard the fact that nuclear power is entirely a creation of government intervention, in the form of the Price Anderson Act, which, by fiat, lowers the liability for operating nuke plants.

Fund also may have a difficult time explaining this sentence to those who lived near Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, allegedly "safe" plants that ruptured.

It's most unfortunate, IMO, that "environmentalism" and "conservationism" have been linked. I'd make the case FOR environmentalism but AGAINST conservationism, at least as appropriate roles for government. So, yes, making it difficult to operate highly polluting oil refineries seems reasonable to me. But doing so to "conserve" oil seems silly and counterproductive. We already HAVE a very effective means to conserve natural resources: it's called the market. And the market seemed to work pretty darned well in the aftermath of Katrina. Supply fell, prices rose, demand abated slightly. Supply came back, prices fell, demand returned to normal.

Fund and the Journal don't seem to see that markets DO work, and that government shouldn't be in the business of subsidizing or enabling polluters as a means to pander to energy interests and to scare and manipulate consumers. It should be beneath them. And I suspect Fund knows better.

-Robert Capozzi

McCain on Torture

Senator John McCain has a tremendous editorial on torture in the current Newsweek. As a former guest of the North Vietnamese, McCain speaks about torture with the perspective of someone who has been on the receiving end.

Simply put, “The mistreatment of prisoners harms us more than our enemies.” He notes that it doesn’t produce quality intelligence as “a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear.” So, the benefits are not what we might hope they would be. And on the cost side, legalized torture erodes the United States’ moral standing when in comes to humanitarian issues, and possibly gives license to other governments which may torture Americans in the future.

McCain addresses “the ticking time-bomb scenario” question. “What do we do if we capture a suspected terrorist who we have sound reasons to believe possesses specific information about an imminent terrorist attack?” He notes the possibility that torture can still be used even with it being illegal.

George Mason University economist Alex Tabarrok has argued, on his blog MarginalRevolution.com, that keeping torture illegal “raises the price of torture” to the government official imposing it. But it “does not raise the price to infinity,” writes Tabarrok, “If the President or the head of the CIA thinks that torture is required to stop the ticking time bomb then they ought to approve it knowing full well that they face possible prosecution.”

McCain echoes Tabarrok’s concept. McCain suggests, “an interrogator might well try extreme measures to extract information that could save lives. Should he do so, and thereby save an American city or prevent another 9/11, authorities and the public would surely take this into account when judging his actions and recognize the extremely dire situation which he confronted.”

This seems like a much better policy than the Jack Bauer-approach of torturing everybody who might know anything that seems to be the modus operandi on Fox’s 24.

-- Kevin D. Rollins

Life After the Oil Crash

About a year ago I was working a booth at an energy fair when I was approached by a young woman who informed me that the free market was not prepared to deal with the problem of "Peak Oil," and that drastic action was needed NOW! She claimed that she had worked at the Cato Institute in the past, and had been in favor of market economics until she learned of the impending crisis.

Since then, the phrase "Peak Oil" has been popping up repeatedly, and I suspect it will reach the popular consciousness as much as global warming is today.

For those who have read the message of the Peak Oil Cassandras, I have an urgent message for you: DON'T PANIC! Things are not as dire as they claim.

For those who haven't been exposed, I will summarize their basic argument here, and then analyze their conclusions in subsequent entries. Before I get into the analysis, let me state from the outset that they could be onto something. Oil production may well peak soon, and there may be some economic hardships ahead. What I will question is how much action is required today, and whether the decline in oil production will result in the end of industrial civilization (their contention).

The Peak Oil thesis runs like this: when an oil field is discovered, initial production is small at first. It takes a while to drill the wells to tap into the field. As holes are drilled production increases. Then, when roughly half of the recoverable oil is extracted, production starts to decline. Pressure drops off. Secondary and then tertiary recovery techniques are required. These things keep production going, but at a lower and lower amount. Over time, the output from a field looks like some type of bell curve.

Each field has its own bell curve. The discovery of new fields is also a bell curve -- one which are on well on the right hand side of. Add up the curves and you get another bell shaped curve, the curve of total oil production. As a result, we can expect a decline in oil production long before we run out of oil. The decline should begin when roughly half of the recoverable oil is used up.

This by itself is good news. It means we will get a reduction in supply and a rise in prices long before we run out of oil. This gives the market time to respond!

Now, the pessimistic view: the initial drop-off could be steep. Further, demand is rising. When production starts dropping it could drop pretty fast at first -- possibly faster than the market could comfortably adjust to.

To makes things more fun yet, this peak could happen at any moment. According to the Peak Oil theorists Saudi Arabia and some of the other OPEC members could be very close to their peaks. This is a far different view than the official view, which has had reserves increasing dramatically during the 1990s. But, these stated reserves were stated by governments which had an incentive to fib: OPEC quotas are based on reserves. If a country ups its stated reserves, it can pump more oil and still comply with the cartel agreement.

This puts me in a peculiar dilemma: do I believe the fearmongers? Or governments which have an incentive to lie? Neither has a good reputation in my book.

In my next entries, I will assume the fearmongers to be correct up to this point. It is the consequences of the oil peak and how we should respond where I will differ. I do not think we are looking at the end of industrial civilization, or that we have to get the population back down to 2 billion or we must experience a die-off. I do not think that cars will be owned only by the rich, or that we must go back to a village lifestyle. (We might anyway, if people find that desireable, but that's another story.)

Until then, I invite you to read www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net. Then, keep an eye on this blog and I will point out the errors on this site, and why things are not as dire as stated. If you want more homework, read "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg. The book is much better than the site, but, being a book, it is longer and you have to buy it.

Makes Sense to Me

Fascinating column over on the WSJ's Opinion Journal. Stephen Moore, formerly of the Cato Institute and the Club for Growth, wrote up an article on John McCain. Moore seems to still be under the sway of supply-side Kool Aid.

He can't for the life of him understand why McCain says: "I just thought it was too tilted to the wealthy and I still do. I want to cut the taxes on the middle class." Moore then says: "Even when I confront him with emphatic evidence that those tax cuts have been an economic triumph and have increased revenues, he is unrepentant and defends his [McCain's] 'no' vote by falling back on class-warfare type thinking: 'We have a wealth gap in this country, and that worries me'."

It's my contention that supply siders just keep missing the forest for the trees. Perhaps they are correct, as Moore says, that marginal rate reductions skewed toward the higher income groups are a "triumph" and "increased revenues." But that's a mere "efficiency" argument, not one of equity and fairness.

The fact is that if the poverty line is roughly $20K a year, and the personal exemption is roughly $3K, the tax BASE and effective marginal tax RATES over poverty are HIGHEST on the least well to do. That's simply unfair, IMO. And we are, in effect, taxing the poorest BACK INTO poverty. Moore, imbued as he seems to be in feel-good supply side-ism, just doesn't seem to see that. So he castigates McCain for talking common sense.

That McCain has been among the best on spending doesn't seem to impress Moore, perhaps because supply siders still don't seem to care about spending. And, while I may have some quibbles about HOW McCain arrives at his "green" positions, the fact remains that pollution is a negative externality that should -- by any free market theory that I know of -- be limited as much as possible.

Supply side is a step away from "let them eat cake." I say "run away from them as fast and as far as you can." Beneath all their effusive "positivism," their "hymnal" has become old, tattered, boring and -- most importantly -- counter productive.

-Robert Capozzi

Testing, 1,2,3...

What are these evil spirits in this box? They confuse and frighten me! Does this actually work?

--The Caveman Blogger

Supreme Court, State Secrets and Justice

On Monday, November 28th 2005, The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not to review a lower court's dismissal of the case of Sibel Edmonds. Mrs. Edmonds is a former FBI translator who was fired in 2002 in retaliation for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the FBI. The lower courts dismissed the case, where she was challenging her retaliatory dismissal, when former Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used "state secrets" privilege.

An IG report made public in 2005 substantiates Mrs. Edmonds allegations which include possible illicit activities involving Turkish nationals and high-level members of Congress. If the Supreme Court is about true justice and not state power, than they will take her case. Not only that, those who are complicit in her retaliatory firing should face criminal penalties along with those who covered it up. She is a true patriot and those like her need to be celebrated not harassed, and silenced.

It is a sad commentary on our state of affairs were those who lie, cheat and abuse their power are protected, given raises and promotions while those who are honest, honorable and patriots get abused by the system.

Short of the Century

I really hope I'm completely wrong about this, but this story that Michael Brown, former FEMA head during the Katrina debacle is starting a disaster-planning firm, has me shaking my head ruefully.

Perhaps Brownie feels deep down that he wants to make amends, to perform a kind of penance, for the poor handling of the Katrina aftermath. I say this because of his quotes at the end of the story about how his family still loves him. My goodness!

Look, I'm quite sure that Brownie learned some things about disaster preparedness. But why would anyone actually hire him to consult on the matter? He's for the foreseeable future the poster child for what NOT to do during and after a disaster. It'd be like hiring Bernie Ebbers for corporate ethics consulting or Martha Stewart for sound and ethical stock trading practices. Maybe Newt Gingrich on how to approach your spouse about a divorce or Bill Clinton on how to conduct extra-marital affairs.

Brownie may want to be thinking about a Plan B, for, to me, Plan A has "disaster" written all over it. But, like I say, I hope I'm wrong.

-Robert Capozzi

Introducing Free For All -- The Free Liberal Blog

Welcome to our new blog. As the name suggests, this will be our place for raucous fun and free-flowing debate. We intend to eventually have 20 to 30 bloggers in this space.

Right now, we are putting the finishing touches on the back-end code, so please excuse our mess for the moment.

Please try out the commenting system and see if you hit any bugs. Please let Leonard Harris, our webmaster, know if you find anything. His e-mail is webmaster [at] freeliberal.com.

Thanks for being a a Free Liberal reader!

Cheers,

Kevin D. Rollins
Editor, The Free Liberal

Austrian Darkness & EU Light

Usually, winter in the Alps makes me think of a sunny ski vacation, but not Rattenberg, Austria, which like parts of Alaska and other places very far north is shrouded by darkness in the winter. Unlike in Alaska, “sun is plentiful less than 10 minutes' walk from the town and from Rat Mountain, the 3,000-foot hill that blocks its sunlight between November and February each year,” reports the AP wire.

The plight of the people of Rattenberg speaks to everyone who has ever walked about in state of depressed misery while everyone else around them was having a great time. Rattenberg is that sad little head that bobs along while being rained on by its personal rain cloud in the Zoloft commercials.

But, enter in a very expensive solution from the EU, and we become less sympathetic. The plan is to put mirrors on the mountain to reflect light into the town. “The European Union is footing half the $2.4 million bill, and the company says it will pay the $600,000 cost of planning the project, gambling that success will attract more business.”

All this, for a town of 440 people, according to the AP story. That’s about $5500/person. So, we ask ourselves, do they get $5500 of benefit? It’s only a 10-minute walk to sunshine after all. And does everyone really want sunshine? If you choose to live in Rattenberg, and NOT the town next door, you probably aren’t bothered that much by it. Apparently, they have a kickass skate park and every Alpine village has good beer. Do drugged-out skaters or hung-over beer drinkers need MORE sunshine? I don’t know, maybe they do. But, why not just give the people of Rattenberg $5500 each?

Imagine the possibilities:

- Juergen could move around the mountain.
- Heinz could buy a tanning bed.
- Lars could go on Zoloft.
- Max could buy some grow lamps and make his own herbal remedy.

I’m not completely opposed to this project, because it tickles my sci-fi funny bone, and I would be interested in seeing it in action. Of course, I’m not paying to build it either.

-- Kevin D. Rollins

Day Pass from the Asylum

This piece on the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal site is such a tiny item in the grand scheme of things, and yet it lends credence to the notion that hope springs eternal. Like the alcoholic who must first admit that his or her drinking’s a problem, Congress has pulled funding for the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” to a remote island in Alaska.

This all reminds me of the film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” a classic with Jack Nicholson. The inmates/patients of an insane asylum all get out of the sanitarium for a day, and are able to function in society, even posing as brilliant intellectuals. With this act of sanity, Congress too has had its day (or, perhaps, moment) of lucidity, amongst the crazy goings on in the Dome.

This baby step, however, should be encouraged. I feel a group hug coming.

-Robert Capozzi

Mad Dog’s Promenade

Bridging on Paul Jacob’s latest excellent column here on TFL, he correctly reminds us that the right to keep and bear arms are guaranteed us in the Constitution. Confiscating arms from peaceful citizens in NO is over the line, no question.

But I wonder: Why are Americans so conflicted on the subject of arms? Strong majorities believe in the right to gun ownership, yet there is also a regulate guns counterforce which is also quite strong.

The easy answer is that high-profile public shootings of widely admired pols and celebs over the past 40 years prompts a desire to not relive those events, if at all possible. The NRA’s mantra “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is certainly true and reasonable from where I sit.

And yet, the Constitution is not so crystal clear on what “keep and bear” really means. “Keep and bear” what and where? What’s an “arm”? Can you take that “arm” anywhere?

No, you can’t, IMO. You certainly can’t take an arm onto someone else’s property if they don’t want you to. Whether you can take an “arm” into public is, I think, an open, hazy constitutional question.

To explore it, I’m reminded of an old Springsteen song, “New York City Serenade,” and the line “It’s a mad dog’s promenade.” Imagine walking down the streets of Manhattan with thousands of people. In an extreme gun culture, anyone could walk around with any sort of arm they wanted, including automatic weapons. I find this vision unimaginable and horrific. Manhattan would be a ghost town, for any crazy person would have the “right” to brandish weapons, high-powered weapons at that. Who’d want to be there with that knowledge? I for one would not.

Perhaps a way to interpret the Constitution is that the words “keep and bear” arms means “on your property.” That’s a nationwide right. The states, however, should be allowed to regulate arms “in public,” that is, off your property. Perhaps seeing a machine gun strapped to someone’s back in Barrow, AK, would be OK. But, I suspect, not OK in NYC.

-Robert Capozzi

Face-Saving "Peace with Honor"

OK, now we hear the trial balloon. Compound W may be finally getting the message, and are making noises that a pull out of Iraq may be the right thing to do.

They don't use the words "peace with honor," but that was the line in the waning days of Vietnam that the Nixon Administration used.

It's sad to me that adults need to engage in such face-saving exercises. It's like when Mom and Dad come home and they find the cookie jar empty. The kids were specifically told "Don't eat any cookies." The jar was full when the parents left. Yet, when they get back, it's almost empty. The kids try to deny that they ate cookies, and come up with myriad cockamamie stories about where the cookies went.

I'm all for "reclaiming your inner child," but this all goes a bit too far. Far better to tell the truth, take your lumps, and move on. Still, however we get there, it's nice to see the Bushies are coming around.

-Robert Capozzi

Ron Paul on Reconciliation

Although some fiscal conservatives supported the Deficit Reduction Act, which will hopefully begin the process of restraining federal spending – especially on entitlements – Ron Paul voted against the bill's final passage. Ron Paul, as Congress's lone defender of the Constitution as it was written and a true fiscal conservative, has some good points to make about the bill and the need to restrain federal spending, no matter what side of you may take in the reconciliation battle.

ABLE DANGER

245 members of the US House of Representatives have written SecDef Rumsfeld demanding an open hearing into the "Able Danger" military intelligence unit. "Able Danger" had been tracking four of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, when it was shut down by higher-ups in 2000. The 9/11 Commission ignored members of Able Danger who tried to give them information, and now the Pentagon has been placing gag orders on members of the team who have been called to testify before Congress.

Click below to read the letter and signatories.

245 members of the US House of Representatives have written SecDef Rumsfeld demanding an open hearing into the "Able Danger" military intelligence unit. "Able Danger" had been tracking four of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, when it was shut down by higher-ups in 2000. The 9/11 Commission ignored members of Able Danger who tried to give them information, and now the Pentagon has been placing gag orders on members of the team who have been called to testify before Congress.

-----------------------

The Honorable Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary
Department of Defense
Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:

We the undersigned are formally requesting that you allow former participants in the intelligence program known as ABLE DANGER to testify in an open hearing before the United States Congress. Until this point, congressional efforts to investigate ABLE DANGER have been obstructed by Department of Defense insistence that certain individuals with knowledge of ABLE DANGER be prevented from freely and frankly testifying in an open hearing. We realize that you do not question Congress’s authority to maintain effective oversight of executive branch agencies, including your department. It is our understanding that your objection instead derives from concern that classified information could be improperly exposed in an open hearing. We of course would never support any activity that might compromise sensitive information involving national security. However, we firmly believe that testimony from the appropriate individuals in an open hearing on ABLE DANGER would not only fail to jeopardize national security, but would in fact enhance it over the long term. This is due to our abiding belief that America can only better prepare itself against future attacks if it understands the full scope of its past failures to do so.

On September 21, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary conducted a hearing on ABLE DANGER which Bill Dugan, Acting Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight, certified did not reveal any classified information. Congressman Curt Weldon’s testimony at that hearing was largely based on the information that has been given to him by ABLE DANGER participants barred from open testimony by DOD. Their testimony would therefore closely mirror that of Congressman Weldon, who did not reveal classified information. Therefore we are at a loss as to how the testimony of ABLE DANGER participants would jeopardize classified information. Much of what they would present has already been revealed. Further refusal to allow ABLE DANGER participants to testify in an open congressional hearing can only lead us to conclude that the Department of Defense is uncomfortable with the prospect of Members of Congress questioning these individuals about the circumstances surrounding ABLE DANGER. This would suggest not a concern for national security, but rather an attempt to prevent potentially embarrassing facts from coming to light. Such a consideration would of course be an unacceptable justification for the refusal of a congressional request.

Sincerely,

Republican (144)
1. Curt Weldon (R-PA)
2. David L. Hobson, (R-OH)
3. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
4. Joel Hefley (R-CO)
5. Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
6. Tom Davis (R-VA)
7. Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
8. Charles W. Dent (R-PA)
9. Jim Ramstad (R-MN)
10. Mark Souder (R-IN)
11. Phil English (R-PA)
12. Michael McCaul (R-TX)
13. Sam Johnson (R-TX)
14. Christopher Shays (R-CT)
15. Walter B. Jones (R-NC)
16. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC)
17. John L. Mica (R-FL)
18. John T. Doolittle (R-CA)
19. Jeff Miller (R-FL)
20. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD)
21. Nathan Deal (R-GA)
22. Joe Wilson (R-SC)
23. Donald A. Manzullo (R-IL)
24. Charles W. Boustany, Jr. (R-LA)
25. Ralph M. Hall (R-TX)
26. John E. Peterson (R-PA)
27. Ron Paul (R-TX)
28. Jerry Weller (R-IL)
29. Michael N. Castle (R-DE)
30. Geoff Davis (R-KY)
31. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ)
32. Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
33. Fred Upton (R-MI)
34. Rob Simmons (R-CT)
35. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)
36. Henry Bonilla (R-TX)
37. Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (R-VA)
38. Howard Coble (R-NC)
39. Jim Gibbons (R-NV)
40. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY)
41. Dan Burton (R-IN)
42. Joseph R.Pitts (R-PA)
43. Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
44. Trent Franks (R-AZ)
45. Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
46. Ellen Gallegly (R-CA)
47. Don Sherwood (R-PA)
48. Zach Wamp (R-TN)
49. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
50. Chris Smith (R-NJ)
51. Frank Wolf (R-VA)
52. Chris Chocola (R-IN)
53. Bobby Jindal (R-LA)
54. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
55. Mark Kirk (R-IL)
56. Ron Lewis (R-KY)
57. Rob Aderholt (R-AL)
58. Randy J. Forbes (R-VA)
59. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA)
60. John Boozman (R-AR)
61. Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ)
62. John E. Sweeney (R-NY)
63. Michael R. Turner (R-OH)
64. Dennis R. Rehberg (R-MT-At Large)
65. Tom Osborne (R-NE)
66. Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
67. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
68. John Linder (R-GA)
69. Todd W. Akin (R-MO)
70. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
71. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
72. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
73. Robin Hayes (R-NC)
74. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN)
75. Bob Inglis (R-SC)
76. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
77. Lee Terry (R-NE)
78. Dave Weldon (R-FL)
79. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT)
80. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL)
81. Melissa Hart (R-PA)
82. John Sullivan (R-OK)
83. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
84. Adam H. Putnam (R-FL)
85. Don Young (R-AK-At Large)
86. Peter King (R-NY)
87. Daniel E. Lungren (R-CA)
88. Michael T. McCaul (R-TX)
89. Katherine Harris (R-FL)
90. John Hostettler (R-IN)
91. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH)
92. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
93. Michael Simpson (R-ID)
94. Tom Price (R-GA)
95. Charlie Norwood (R-GA)
96. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL)
97. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
98. Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R-SC)
99. Thomas G. Tancredo (R-CO)
100. Terry Everett (R-AL)
101. Robert Ney (R-OH)
102. Ed Whitfield (R-KY)
103. Wally Herger (R-CA)
104. Mark Foley (R-FL)
105. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
106. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA)
107. Mike Rogers (R-MI)
108. John J. H. “Joe” Schwarz (R-MI)
109. Jon C. Porter (R-NV)
110. Kay Granger (R-TX)
111. Greg Walden (R-OR)
112. Mary Bono (R-CA)
113. Anne Northup (R-KY)
114. John Kline (R-MN)
115. Frank D. Lucas (R-OK)
116. Candice S. Miller (R-MI)
117. William Jenkins (R-TN)
118. Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
119. Sue W. Kelly (R-NY)
120. Mike Pence (R-IN)
121. Kenny Hulshof (R-MO)
122. Cathy McMorris (R-WA)
123. Ralph Regula (R-OH)
124. John Carter (R-TX)
125. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)
126. James Leach (R-IA)
127. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ)
128. Bill Shuster (R-PA)
129. John McHugh (R-NY)
130. Tim Murphy (R-PA)
131. Barbara Cubin (R-WY-at large)
132. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
133. Chris Cannon (R-UT)
134. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
135. Jim Ryun (R-KS)
136. Jeb Bradley (R-NH)
137. Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH)
138. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)
139. Bill Young (R-FL)
140. Melissa Bean (D-IL)
141. Jack Kingston (R-GA)
142. Ed Royce (R-CA)
143. Tom Cole (R-OK)
144. Patrick Tiberi (R-OH)

Democrats (101)
145. John Murtha, John P. (D-PA)
146. Ike Skelton (D-MO)
147. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
148. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
149. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
150. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX)
151. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
152. Joe Baca (D-CA)
153. Bob Etheridge (D-NC)
154. James R. Langevin (D-RI)
155. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
156. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
157. Ed Pastor (D-AZ)
158. Eliot Engel (D-NY)
159. Loretta T. Sanchez (D-CA)
160. Linda T. Sanchez (D-CA)
161. Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
162. Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-NY)
163. Corrine Brown (D-FL)
164. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
165. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
166. Sam Farr (D-CA)
167. Chet Edwards (D-TX)
168. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)
169. Nita M. Lowey (D-NY)
170. Neil Abercrombie (D –HI)
171. Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD)
172. Gwen Moore (D-WI)
173. Madeline Z. Bordallo (D-GU)
174. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
175. Nick J. Rahall, II (D-WV)
176. Robert Brady (D-PA)
177. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)
178. Mike Doyle (D-PA)
179. Tim Holden (D-PA)
180. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
181. Dale E. Kildee (D-MI)
182. James E. Clyburn (D-SC)
183. Steve Israel (D-NY)
184. Harold Ford (D-TN)
185. John Larson (D-CT)
186. Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS)
187. Ken Meek (D-FL)
188. John Dingell (D-MI)
189. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
190. Rush Holt (D-NJ)
191. Vernon J. Ehlers (D-MI)
192. Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL)
193. Martin Olav Sabo (D-MN)
194. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA)
195. David Wu (D-OR)
196. Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA)
197. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
198. Ruben HinoJosa (D-TX)
199. John M. Spratt, Jr. (D-SC)
200. Norman D. Dicks (D-WA)
201. Edward Markey (D-MA)
202. Jane Harman (D-CA)
203. Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
204. Bart Stupak (D-MI)
205. Susan A. Davis (D-CA)
206. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
207. Hilda Solis (D-CA)
208. Gene Green (D-TX)
209. Martin T. Meehan (D-MA)
210. Marion Berry (D-AR)
211. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
212. James P. Moran (D-VA)
213. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD)
214. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
215. John Lewis (D-GA)
216. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)
217. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
218. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
219. Lane Evans (D-IL)
220. Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
221. Bill Delahunt (D-MA)
222. Rick Larsen (D-WA)
223. Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr. (D-AL)
224. Gene Taylor (D-MS)
225. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-PA)
226. Richard E. Neal (D-MA)
227. Al Green (D-TX)
228. Robert Wexler (D-FL)
229. John T. Salazar (D-CO)
230. Michael Capuano (D-MA)
231. Mike Thompson (D-CA)
232. Collin Peterson (D-MN)
233. Joseph Crowley (D-NY)
234. Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
235. Mark Udall (D-CO)
236. George Miller (D-CA)
237. Adam Smith (D-WA)
238. Michael Honda (D-CA)
239. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)
240. Steven R. Rothman (D-NJ)
241. Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
242. Jerry Costello (D-IL)
243. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)
244. Allen Boyd (D-FL)

Independent (1)
245. Bernard Sanders (VT-at large)

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