tv Tonight From Washington CSPAN December 14, 2009 8:00pm-11:00pm EST
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sisters and our brothers and spouses. i encourage all in our community to show solidarity in the fight we must win against alzheimer's. thank you, madam speaker, for the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. mr. massa from new york. mr.ening list of south carolina. mr. inglis: thank you, madam speaker. i would like to address the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. inglis: thank you, madam speaker. the actuary of medicare and as we sought, it shows real problems with the idea of expanding medicare coverage to lower age groups. this summer, i had the opportunity to do a bunch of town hall meetings and in those meetings, we discussed the fact that what we're talking about really is in the public option
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is adding more people to something like the s.s. medicare which is already sinking in the our. but now in the other body there is a proposal to add more people to the sinking s.s. medicare in the harbour. the chief actuary has provided a report that should stop us in our tracks and cause us to realize that is no solution to add people to a program that is already unsustainable. . what that chief actuary of medicare reports is this. several items in his report, obviously, but one is, the report cautions that savings needsed to -- needed to extend the trust fund cannot simultaneously be used to extend over health insurance coverage.
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in other words if you're going to save money you can't simultaneously expand coverage under the program. seems fairly obvious to the folks i have talking to in town hall meetings. unfortunately, here in washington, it seems not to be comprehended. we seem to think that here in washington we can couldn't to add people to a program even though people that are currently on the program have been on a trajectory that can't be sustained. so the actuary also points out that actually the senate bill would increase the cost of health care, would not decrease the cost of health care. in fact, a total of spending on health care would increase by $240 billion between 2010 and 2019. also, total federal expenditures on health care would increase 365.8 billion in that period. the bill would extend coverage
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to 33 million americans by 2019 but would still leave 24 million people uninsured. five million of which may be illegal immigrants. and the number of people with employer-sponsored health care would drop by 2019. what the chief actuary is telling us is the solution that's being proposed is not a solution. in order to solve the challenge of medicare, you have to figure out some way to change the underlying behavior. you have to figure out a way to get the patient invested in their care and caring how much it costs. that's what we've got to do for medicare, medicaid and private insurance. there's some very creative things going on in the private sector that are toward this end, have this objective of changing the underlying behavior. what we're discussing here in congress under the majority here in the house and the apparent majority in the senate
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is not something that will change behavior. what it will do is simply add more people to a program that is already unsustainable. so rather than saving money, as the president suggests it will, actually what will happen, as the chief actuary says is a cost rise. no not everybody gets covered. it's not a solution. what we have to do is scrap the current plan and go back to something that might actually work, by getting a change in behavior, but figuring out how to get people covered, by figuring out how to do medical malpractice reform and by giving competition among private companies. those are the solutions we want to see in this country. we must stop this false solution being offered now. i thank the gentlelady and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back.
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under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from ohio, ms. fudge, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. ms. fudge: thank you very much, madam speaker. it is my pleasure again to be the anchor for the congressional black caucus special order hour. i want to thank our chairwoman, barbara lee, for talking with us the last week or two about jobs and how important jobs are going to be for this nation. i would at this time like to welcome and ask that our chair, the honorable barbara lee of california, would meeze now join me. she has directed us in so many different ways over this year, i am just especially pleased to be part of this caucus. chairwoman? ms. lee: thank you very much. let me take a moment to thank congresswoman fudge for really consistently raising the alarm,
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sending forth -- setting forth what the agenda is, every monday night in the congressional black caucus, which is an agenda that speaks not only to the issues and communities of color in the congressional black caucus, but issues which will allow american dreams to be real for all. i know you come from a state where the unemployment rate is critical. people are suffering, housing foreclosure rates are off the scale, and especial lit in the frame community, communities of color have been hardest hit, i know in ohio. thank you for your leadership. let me just talk a little bit, for a few minutes, about our economy. we all know that the economic security of all americans is extremely fragile. communities of color, especially the african-american community and latino communities, have been disproportionately hit by this recession.
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last week, we released a letter which we forwarded to president obama, speaker pelosi, and chairman miller which outlined our priorities as members of the congressional black caucus. we are continuing to work with house leaders and the administration to ensure that our priorities for job creation and economic growth are included in the jobs package, which should be finalized hopefully before congress adjourns this year. after the release of our letter, it was interesting to read some of the bloggers, some of the pundits, they actually argued that targeted relief was unneeded. and what we proposed is not based on race. i want to be clear on that. it's based on need. we want to ensure that our resources are targeted to areas of greatest hardship. for example, here's some of the facts regarding the african-american community. that are indisputable. the unemployment rate for
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african-americans is nearly twice that of whites. 49.4% of african-americans 16 to 19 years of age were unemployed in november. nearly 28% of african-americans received food aid, compared to 15% of latinos and 8% of whites. recent african-american college graduates are unemployed at higher rates than their white counterparts, and african-american workers remain unemployed five weeks longer than the rest of americans. more than 24% of african-americans are living below the poverty lines and african-americans are 55% more likely to be unemployed than white americans. african-americans have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as non-hispanic whites. they are four times as likely to die as infants, due to complications relating to low birth weight, as opposed to white infants. additionally, african-americans
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have a shorter life span. the house is morally obligated to address these systemic inequalities. moreover, as members who represent so many constituent whors suffering, we have a moral only fwation to address these moral gaps. that's why we develop targeted proposals to address the acutely unemployed, end the crisis in our communities and throughout the country and also to spur job creation for the chronically unemployed who happen to be black and latino, many are white, many are asian pacific islanders this task force is chaired by emanuel cleaver. we must maintain for vital health insurance, as millions of americans face job lost for extended periods of
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unemployment. we also must continue to invest in education and job training programs that fully support housing niche fives -- initiatives like the affordable housing trust fund and the neighborhood stabilization program to bring stability to our hardest-hit communities. we must rain and index the minimum wage so every working person can be assured they'll earn a wage that will lift them up and out of poverty each and every year without having to rely on the legislateture to keep up with increases in the cost of living. we need to ensure access to early education, guarantee a high quality, public education for every american student and make sure that every working family has access to the affordable quality child care that they need so they can get to their jobs. also, we need to reconnect with our disconnected youth and the formerly incarcerated individuals with increased support for job training and education. a second chance we need to
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fully fund. for a new wave of environmentally friendly an economically green jobs, char going to be -- which are going to be competitive and which will require skills and the knowledge and the qualifications to be able to be eligible for these jobs, that's why we suggested a strong training program for these jobs and we must remove federal barriers to provide a second chance. last week, president obama delivered a speech that was another reminder of the important work we must do and we must continue to work to grow our economy and create new jobs. we agree with the president that support for small businesses, infrastructure investment, and green jobs is essential. we also believe that as members of congress must do more. in order to do this, the congressional black caucus has outlined four areas of focus laid out in our letter. direct job creation and training, infrastructure, small
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business, and state and local relief. these are necessary to create real and meaningful economic opportunities and provide pathways out of poverty opportunities for all. and the congressional black caucus remains committed to working with president obama and our congressional leadership, speaker pelosi and chairman miller to address the real economic crisis gripping our nation. we will not shy away from the fight for targeted relief for the chronically unemployee wesmed suggested there be a requirement that the mass appropriated shall allocate no less than 10% for assistance in qualified areas of economic hardship, provided that for the purpose of these sections, qualified areas of economic hardship means any census track or block number wherein 20% of more of the population is at or below the federal poverty line. the poverty line means the official poverty line, defined by the office of management and
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budget. let me be clear. what we propose is not based on race. it is based on need. we are asking for no more or no less than what wall street got. when there's a crisis on wall street, the nation responded with a sense of urgency. we're asking for that same sense of urgency for the economic rye sis that's hitting the hardest-hit communities in america. there was no problem when they money was targeted to wall street. we're asking for the same targeted help for communities under the gun. it would be an economy if the economy recovered and we leave communities of cover co lohr behind. we know money will be spent for jobs. the question is, will where will the money be spent? we want to make sure we leave no community behind. we will certainly become stronger as a nation if we assure that a jobs bill recognizes the huge disparities. i believe strongly that it is
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our moral obligation to tackle poverty and unemployment and that in the richest country in the world we simply have to ex--- have no excuse to do so. in conclusion, i would like to reiterate that the members of the congressional black caucus are committed to working together with our president and congressional leaders to fix our economy and create jobs that address the true depth, mind you, the true depth of this recession. there's no question that by our collective efforts we can make a real difference in the lives of all americans. thank you, and thank you congresswoman fudge for your leadership and giving me a few seconds to speak tonight. ms. fudge: thank you, madam chair. i commend your call to action. i ask that the chair, and all members have five days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material for the record. thank you very much, madam speaker. i would like to yield to my friend and colleague from wisconsin, representative moore.
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ms. moore: thank you for yielding. i can tell you i found the remarks of our chair very, very compelling. i guess i would agree with her, but i want to add that while a couple of the categories of the congressional black caucus include infrastructure jobs, and providing funds for local programs, and while i believe that there is a general call for these types of spending to stimulate our economy. i've heard on both sides of the aisle call for money to be used for infrastructure improvement. i would say with a qualification, that we need to make sure that the funds for
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infrastructure projects go directly to cities and counties and allow those governments the flexibility to determine where the greatest infrastructure needs are for their community. i think that while the recovery act saved or between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs, we ought to learn from some of the mistakes that were made there, and i think that the congressional black caucus in its wisdom pointed out we need to target our initiatives more, not just give the money to those states that don't necessarily target those funds and make sure that it gets to the cities and states to work on infrastructure programs that are needed. .
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we need to make sure that the infrastructure projects include those people that if they target them to those communities that are in need. and with that, i would say that we need to target, we need to create programs for pre-apprenticeship programs so all of the monies don't go to those -- all of it doesn't go to those laborers and those folks who are typically building within our communities, those people who already have some of the skill sets in education that consider transition them into the new energy-related initiatives, but that we ought to look at pre-apprenticeship programs so those individuals with the low skill sets, expose
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them to other families, working alongside with them near by. the pre-apprenticeship participants can learn a pathway on how to develop those skill sets that will move them up to the career ladder and at the same time provide them with sustainable income. to help enforce this, lady from ohio, i believe contractors could be required, required to include a certain percentage of pre-apprenticeships in their federal floor of participation of women and minority workers that is already required by executive order. the reality is that we can't afford to wait while the unemployment rate for minorities continues to rise. unemployment, re-employment is a
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lagging indicator and we can't wait. the unemployment rate among black males is currently 15.6%. and by april of 2009, the gap between black and white men grew to a 13-year high of 7%. the time is now. and i urge my colleagues to consider all proposals. that present the american people with a jobs bill that not only creates jobs but sets up training programs and education programs that will help dislocated workers gain new skills that will lead to sustainable employment. madam chair, lady from ohio, i have, in fact, mentioned that we need to work toward helping women and minorities get into these infrastructure jobs and
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the new energy-related jobs. there has been feedback that we ought not target this specifically towards a particular race or perhaps to a particular gender, but when you look at the framework that the congressional black caucus has laid out that we need to target it where there is a dirth who have these kinds of jobs, we will find that there is a great deal of poverty among minorities and there certainly is a great deal of poverty among women who find themselves increasingly heading households and providing the greatest source of income. i thought it was very interesting that maria shriver recently did a study that really
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showed the fact that women were providing a greater, greater and greater amount of the family income. and so this is something that i think the congressional black caucus is raising in a very timely manner. with that, i yield back to the gentlelady from ohio. ms. fudge: thank you very much. at this time, there are a lot of members here tonight. i thank you all for being here. what i would like to do just briefly have representative jackson lee introduce some points and i would like at that point for representative ellison from minnesota to join us in a brief discussion. representative jackson lee from texas. ms. jackson lee: thank you very much to the distinguished congresswoman from ohio. i'm delighted to join the chair woman of the congressional black caucus who have been superb on
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gathering us together on what is an enormous crisis. i'm going to take the liberty of mixing a number of issues that i think are crucial to the topic that addresses this question dealing with homelessness and hunger and joblessness. so i want to let the american people know that when the congressional black caucus set out its multipoint plan, a letter that was sent to president obama, interestingly enough, the broadness of our concepts dealt with the most deprived and devastated communities. those communities are american indians, native americans, those communities are hispanics, latinos, women, and i evidence this in the "washington post," this was referred in our recent caucus, missing more than a
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meal, and it cites the families since they have been publicly noted of christina cox and talks about another family wright-mitchell and these are children who are suffering because parents don't have work. christina cox is noted. and the quote that is most potent says, this picture is emerging as the problem has become more widespread. with the economy facilitiering, the number of youngsters living in homes without enough food soared to nearly 17 million. if we imagine that 17 million children are going to bed, waking up or going to school hungry because these bread winners, single parents, have no jobs. so my message today is that this is not a, if you will, an
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opportunity to do good legislative work. this is a crisis of insurmountable definition. this is at a pinnacle and there must be nothing that stops us on focusing on the necessities of getting work. let me point out things that are interwould he haven in this circumstance and what calls for immediate action. my focus has been in training and i have a unique perspective to work with those who may be on unemployment. leave them alone? unemployment is at different levels. if you happen to be a person who had part-time jobs, you know the level of your unemployment. what i would like to do, to get those people out of those jobs, one job after another, and put them in training where they keep them in unemployment so food can
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be bought and come out on the other end, one, they have been kept out of the employment lines for a year, and come out as a nurse's aide or technician to get them eligible, this is imperative. this weekend, i met with a nonprofit that has $22 million in weatherization dollars. i gathered small businesses who never heard of the opportunity for weatherization which would create jobs. we have the general services administration and it's important to know it is the complexity of getting jobs. they have lists. i believe the federal government should be the great job maker and therefore, we should make easy the ability for small business to access opportunity. i want to see legislation that demystifies the g.s.a. lists and tells the federal government
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they have a way to present jobs to america, which is on the website. if you have a job fair and federal government there, they don't bring anybody to hire someone on the spot. they tell you to go to the web site. some people who are homeless, people don't have access to the web site. these are simple and add striff -- administrative changes. one of the things in the meeting that i had over the weekend on weatherization and i know they meant well. they came to the meeting and we had a pre-meeting and 50 people were in the room and they said, here is the criteria, your bank account must be secure and flourishing. they said you must have the department of energy experience, congressman payne and already had that experience. d.o.e., they thought was the department of education. no disrespect to them, they
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said, you must have past experience. weatherization, these dollars are to build capacity. these dollars are to get small businesses so they kl build capacity and they can become weatherers in the future. we need to eliminate these barriers of being able to work under federal dollars. don't tell them they have to have department of energy experience. do they have enough money to pay workers. and so this is, i think, a way of simplifying. i yield to the gentleman on these two points, if i might. this idea of giving money to states is an abomination. those of us who have diversity see that money going and never see it again in the hands of our constituents. that is a crisis. and i know we are on jobs, but let me tell you this issue, as i yield to the gentleman, we now
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have a health care bill that is making its way to the senate. in that bill, there is a provision about promoting jobs in the health profession, scholarships for doctors and nurses and physician assistants. i want to ask the question, how much longer do we have to wait for the distinguished senator from connecticut to block health care over and over again and block jobs? and so i'm calling today for reconciliation. if that is a procedure that can get us moving so people can have jobs and good health care, i believe they are intertwined together. this is a time for a fight, a real fight. and i would be happy to engage the gentleman from minnesota on some of the very points that he has raised and i'm delighted to be part of his legislation, which is a magnificent comprehensive jobs effort and i hope he will join me on the training aspect as well. mr. ellison: let me just say.
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i was home this weekend and i was walking along one of the trails that we have in minneapolis. we have a lot of parks in minneapolis. it was cold and i wanted to get my legs stretched from working so hard last week. i was walking along one of our many trails and i decided to sit down at a park bench and looked like a pretty old looking park bench. the rust was there. and i noticed that it was sturdy. and we sat there talking to a few friends. when i got up to leave, there was a plaque and it said on it, w.p.a., 1934. for 75 years, that park bench been sitting there. for 75 years, that thing has been given comfort to people who are just walking by. but 75 years ago, we had a job crisis then.
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and our country, our congress responded to the needs of unemployed americans. you know, we need to respond to the needs of americans today. our people are putting pressure on food shelves and people don't have money for lights, as folks who have two and three jobs that were part-time, now lost them, now they have no lifeline, we have to respond to generation of americans looking for work today and where is there extra work, there has to be extra help. the emcongressional black caucus are focusing on a targeted jobs bill, calling for jobs and calling attention to an appalling condition where people are unemployed at rates of 25%, 30% in some communities. . i want to ask the gentlelady, or i'll ask any of my
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colleagues, because i like the dialogue, i don't want to give a 20-minute speech. what have you heard as you stood in the grocery store line, or when you were walking around your parks in los angeles, milwaukee, ohio, cleveland, what have you heard? what have you gone through? what are your folks telling you in don't give me a bunch of stats, tell me what your people are feeling. i yield back to the gentlelady. ms. fudge: does the gentlelady wish to respond? >> i want to mention to the gentleman from minnesota, we're neighbors in the midwest and you know, there have been hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the midwest over the last 30 years, but since 2009, we have lost more jobs during 2008 than for the last 70 years that these data and
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statistics have been collected. so that, i think is really telling about the attrition of jobs. i hear people often talking about the -- how horrific the 10.4% unemployment rate is. if there were a 10.4% unemployment rate within the confines of the city of milwaukee, we'd be dancing in the street with delight. we have a researcher named mark levine from the university of wisconsin, milwaukee, who has kept data of the discouraged workers, those who are not officially unemployed because they're no longer standing there, discouraged workers. among white men in my community, we have a 17% unemployment rate. we have a 40% to 50% unemployment rate among white men and of course a staggering statistic, about 30% among
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hispanic men. but 17% among white men in our community. so it's really a crisis of gargantuan proportions. mr. ellison: would the gentleman yield? ms. moore: have you ever talked to somebody who's been un employee -- yes. mr. ellison: have you talked to somebody who's been unemployee ffered 16, 18 month what does that do to their self-esteem? ms. jackson lee: the gentleman is right. stastistics -- statistics lay the framework of what we're talking about. what i will tell you is that people are more and more going to places where there are mass feasts and feeding. when you go amongst those
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people, you hear the stories of mothers and fathers who lost work. now more families coming into these open feeding that we've had. i just participated in one yesterday in my district, and you see the families with little children who you know are dependent, and you made a very good point, i heard it on the floor. these people may have had two or three jobs, that's the kind of person we're looking at, when we see these parents whose children are going to bed hungry. 17 million across america. not only can they not make ends meet, but they can't find the ends for the meeting. we have to by pass state government to -- bypass state government to get funds into the hands of these individuals by way of work. we've got to break down attitudes about not building capacity in small business. they could hire these very mothers to do minimal work on
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weatherization, they could be skilled. we have to pass the health care bill that gives us the kind of work that is available for these mothers and i'll conclude on this. do you know, congresswoman fudge, because you're from this area, there's some, i want to call it silliness, i ask deference for any disrespect using the word silly on this floor might suggest. but we put a tax on steel that china is bringing in. ok. that's buy american. then we have black businesses in the business of transporting pipe or giving pipe to various companies, excuse me, giving steel or -- to various countries, and can you believe these small businesses that have workers and truck drivers, minority companies, that transport this steel, cannot buy any steel from american companies.
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what i would say to the gentleman, yes, i hear the pain in our houses of worship, i hear the pain in grocery stores. but i hear the pain when we go to mass feedings that people are coming to now in more numbers than i've ever seen before, it re-emphasizes the fact, are we going to answer the pain, the call that's being made upon us, and i hope the congressional black caucus would be front and center doing that. i yield back. ms. fudge: we have been joined by another of our colleagues, laura richardson of california. i'd like to yield to the congress lady. ms. richardson: i thank the gentlelady for yielding and i especially want to thank congresswoman lee and congresswoman fudge who has been leading this caucus on a weekly basis. i want to talk about small business and the impact of unemployment and really where the jobs are in this country
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and high we must address small business. unemployment crisis is hurting every region of our country, not just one state, east coast, west coast, it's everywhere. in the district that i represent, unemployment is ranging anywhere between 15% to 21%. that's well above the national unemployment rate. clearly, we can no longer stand diidly waiting for someone, even if it's in our other body to act. the american people need jobs now. they've already asked it, they've already helped to fund it, but unfortunately, the jobs have not been seen on main street and on the side streets where many of our constituents live system of let's talk a little bit about small business and why they're so important in this equation. there are 26.8 million small businesses in the united states, accounting for more than 99.7% of all employer firms. those are regular people like you and i who are trying to survive who didn't get a
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bailout six months ago. small businesses employ just over half of all of our private sector employees. likewise in the second largest district in the united states which is california, where i'm from, small businesses are an integral part of our economy, comprising 90% of all the businesses in our state. more than 50% of the employees in california work for small businesses. there's an estimated 3.7 million small businesses in kale. so why would you ask that i would even talk about that? let's talk about women and how women are impacted with small business. privately held, women-owned businesses in california, where i'm from, generates more than $406 billion in sales and employees over 2.8 million people. when you look at those figures and break it down to minorities, minorities even further, own 4.1 million firms and generate $694 billion and
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employ 4.8 million people. what's the problem and what is it i brought to the c.b.c. to contribute in terms of a proposal of what quay we can do to help? we can help small businesses and we have the framework to do so. it's tchailed s.b.a. unfortunately, as with many government agencies, just because something exists, doesn't mean it should stay that way. we can always work to make it better. when we consider the s.b.a., that was established in 1953, there are changes that have to occur. the one i want to talk about is not all the wonderful train, all the counseling, but there's a program today that can change, it can be done now. that's our section 8 services. sekt 8 was established -- section 8 was established to provide access to opportunities to businesses within the financial area. but there's a problem, as far back as 1992, magazines and
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other individuals have highlighted the problems with the s.b.a. section eight programs. the problem is, instead of creating multimillion dollar success story they graduate companies before they're raddy to flourish. it gives them a short period of time, seven year, nine year, begin to utilize contracts then throws them out with an -- without an umbrella or safety net. i say if we can do a safety net for other wall street firms or other industry, why can't are with help small firms this has led that many companies that were able and succeeding with the section eight program, when they were pumped out, twhearp results? in 1991, s.b.a. studied 600 former companies, they were doing fine. prior to that, 42% fell through. we can stop that and we can
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change it today by four simple proposals i have for you. i propose that we reform and modernize the section 8 program to help more small, disadvantaged business enterprises to remain in business and to hire more workers, we were talking about over four million workers, by doing the following. one, extend at least two years the nine-year program in which section 8-a certifies business toss participate. number two, reinstate those who already did their seven or nine years and they're kind of at the brink and with a couple more years of help they could be back on a level ground. we should extend their time as well. thirdly, we should create a new program in the middle ground, not of a major company bringing in billions, but a small business hire 10g people 20 people in your neighborhood we need them to exist. finally, we should consider that under this program, eligible companies who are able to participate, we should really grow that revenue because what was 100 -- what
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was $100,000 yesterday that somebody made is not nearly enough in terms of keeping a viable company going. what i'd like to say to our chair, ms. barbara lee and ms. fudge of ohio, i applaud the efforts we've taken. the american people want to know what we're doing. what we're doing is caucuses like the c.b.c. are coming together, we're meeting, we're talking together, we're talking about direct jobs, talking about keeping police officers and teachers employed. talking about helping small business owners stay alive. that's what we're doing. we're bringing those proposals to our speaker and the president of the united states and we're asking them to act now. we're ready to vote and do our part but we immediate to make sure the dollars go to the american people which is where they started from. i yield back my time. ms. fudge: my good friend and colleague, representative richardson of california, did bring up some very interesting points.
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i can assure you the passion she showed today is the same passion the rest of this this caucus has. that's why our caucus did send a letter to the speaker of the house to talk about our jobs initiative, what we believe should be in a jobs bill and madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that that letter be entered into the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. fudge: thank you. at this point, i'd like to bring up colleague, donald payne of new jersey. he's joined us 34 evenings and it's a pleasure to yield to him this evening. mr. payne: let me certainly begin by thanking the gentlelady from california, the distinguished chair of the congressional black caucus congresswoman barbara lee, for anchoring this special order on job creations. she continues her diligence in addressing issues that confront our nation in general but in particular, the african-american community, which has been a laudable
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effort and let me commend her for her diligence. let me also commend the gentlelady from cleveland who comes to us, representative fudge, as a former mayor and i look at her as the mayor of the c.b.c. why would i call her the mayor of the c.b.c.? because the mayor has to have hands on, the mayor has to deal with all the issues, the mayor has to listen to see what's going on in education and jobs. the mayor is concerned about health care and it's where the rubber meets the road and you need someone who has the understanding and the perseverance and so i'd like to commend you again for the outstanding work that you to to the chair of this important job creations committee, congressman emanuel cleaver from kansas city he does an outstanding job. since the time is relatively
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late, we have several more members, it's a good thing to do when you have too many, there are i will cut my remarks short. let me say in november, we expanded access to affordable call health care for nearly every american. the affordable health care for americans act offers security and stability to all americans, reduces costs, improves our choice, but let me say that you cannot hold a secure job if the fundamentals are not there for everyone to be able to benefit, and one of the great provisions in the jobs bill is -- in the
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health bill, is that there will be an emphasis on job creation because of the expanded health care that will be provided. at the white house jobs summit on december 3, in a trip to pennsylvania to meet with citizens of this country, who have been affected by this economy, on december 8, as you know, president obama nay announced step he is believes should be at the heart of our efforts to put americans back to work, to get businesses hiring again. i commend president's focus on small businesses, infrastructures and clean emergency to provide an influx of jobs in this economy as well as his emphasis to not just create jobs in the short run but to also shift america away from consumption-driven growth to a focus on enhancing the competitiveness of american businesses, encouraging exports. i would, however, say push
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further to expand our focus and address the portion of our population who were already in vulnerable economic positions before the onset of this recession. . it is now 15.6% unemployment. in the great state of new jersey, unemployment has reached 9.7%, however, the largest concentration falls in the cities where a large portion of our state's minority lives and the unemployment surpasses 14%. while new jersey has reached its highest rate, newark has experienced the rate of 14% since 1994. these startling facts call attention to the need to not simply restore our nation to its
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pre-recession, but create a stronger more inclusive plan to address poverty and develop long-term strategies to confront this. mr. speaker, i believe the key to our strategy is education. i urge the development of a multipronged approach not only aimed at creating new jobs, but infused with education and job training. we must work diligently and deliberately to harness the skills of all people. the absence of this particular focus will cause severe and lasting damage to generations of americans, particularly of color. and so therefore, as i just shortened my remarks, i think that education, training and expansion of current programs like the job corps where we have an infrastructure, where we can
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have intensive training, have health care, go on to have g.e.d., would be one way to create and train people. i have much more and i would hope that we would have the remainder put in our record but i'll put the rest in the record. ms. fudge: i want to commend representative payne because he is the historian of our caucus and it is a pleasure to have him put things in perspective. at this time, i yield to our friend and colleague from georgia, david scott, representative scott. mr. scott: i just want to say how proud we all are of you and your leadership that you are providing on the floor for this hour that you have been going solid with all of this year. and i want to single out for special praise, our chairlady of our congressional black caucus.
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the good lord has brought us the right person at the right time to lead this caucus through tur but lent waters. barbara lee, i thank you for that leadership as we go forward. let me start in the very beginning, because i think that we need to understand what we are referencing when we use the words targeting and focus. let me just say clearly, yes, we are the congressional black caucus. but we are talking about targeting and focusing our efforts on the basis of need, no more, no less than what they did for wall street. you all may remember -- and i serve on the financial services committee, and it was secretary paulsen, a republican secretary
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of the treasury, who rushed over here to capitol hill with just two pieces of paper, two pieces of paper and said the sky is falling down on wall street. and we needed to target and focus $800 billion, he said, on wall street. and then he went on to say, not only target it on wall street, but target it to specific 12 to 15 banks and financial houses, target it, because that was where the source of the problem he felt. and he analyzed that source of the problem by saying it's because the credit markets are frozen. there's no lending. and we have to move. well, we sent him back and said we can't do that.
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we have to have something more moving. and he came back and said, well, let's target it to troubled asset relief or tarp. so that we can relieve these troubled assets with these financial institutions. again, target it. the point i'm trying to make is, we know the value of targeting where the problem is. all we are simply saying here is, we have troubled assets. what more troubled asset do we have than our job and the home? and it is more troubled assets than the 12 or 15 houses to unfreeze the credits, which we did and which we moved to. we must do the same here. we are advocating strongly that we take the remaining $200
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billion of tarp money and focus it on where these troubled assets are now, jobs, and to saving our home. this is what the american people want and need. ladies and gentlemen, let me just say, we have a soaring economy, but we must understand that it is targeted. we have roughlyly 300 million people in this country. 80% of those are targeted at the bottom 1/3 of the economic wealth stream of our economy. that means roughly 80%, that is 270 million million people are targeted there. and i bring that point up because simply our economy runs on mass consumption.
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and it means that if you have -- you need as many people going in that store, buying that carton of milk or going into that dealership to buy that car, that's why we have taken $700 billion and need to take the $200 billion and target it for jobs and target it related to housing because they are so interconnected. the most immediate thing we can do is what the congressional black caucus stood firm on the financial services committee said no, no. no more. you are going to have to respond to this. if we did no more than anchor our movement in terms of providing money and target it into those areas that have high foreclosure, high closed buildings and homes, abandoned
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and target money into those if communities to fix up those homes and get them back on the market, that will save the housing prices and stop them from falling but also create jobs in a most meaningful way for the very people we are trying to target them for. we need to target money to help people who are losing their jobs to stay in their homes. and secondly, we've got to target jobs to those people who no matter what you say about tieds -- tides, many people are left behind and no where is that more specific than in the african-american community than african-american males. i just recall in my closing to you this evening, we realize this and we put the manpower
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training act and we targeted that. we realized that point and put forth known as the opportunity industrialization centers into these communities where they are repaid for the salaries and the training and for the individuals that go onto the jobs so they not only are trained for the jobs that are existing, but they are actually placed in those jobs. there are new jobs coming, and they've got to be trained for it. madam chairlady, i thank you again and appreciate this opportunity. and again, i'm proud of my colleagues and what we are doing. ms. fudge: thank you very much, representative scott. we so much appreciate your thoughtfulness and sharing what is happening on wall street and main street. i yield to our chair, chairman rangel to give words of wisdom.
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chairman rangel. mr. rangel: permission to revise and extend. thank you, madam speaker. and once again, i thank judge, congresswoman fudge, for taking the time out as well as barbara lee for showing the depth of commitment that we in the congressional black caucus have not only in our communities that has had the brunt of economic setbacks but for the entire country. because in my experience, it appears as though our great nation's national security is at stake. we can talk about the terrorists. we can talk about those that are out to destroy our way of life, but we can destroy our own way of life, because what made america great is not the bankers, but those people who thought in this great country, they could aspire and work hard and no limits on what they could
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achieve. but unemployment is more than a statistic. loss of a job means more than losing your house and health care. it also means losing your dignity. i cannot foresee how it's possible to have an economic recovery and have a jobless state in the economy. it seems to me that more important than the exchange of stock showing that america's willing to take risk is what does america think about its hope, its future for its children. it seems to me what makes america so great is what we think we can achieve. and whether you talk about current unemployment, you have to consider those people who had no hope before the setback. what happens to a person that's not included in the statistic? what happens to a person who knows there is no job at the
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unemployment office? what happens to a person that has given up hope, even if the so-called economy recovers, where would there be a will to exercise the skill that perhaps has been lost? and how do you regain hope once that is lost? and so, what i hope we understand as a nation, that it's not just those who you are suffering out there, but happens to be something that is going to affect the well off. because the more we expand those people who have no money to spend, the more our small business people have no reason to be in existence. so we can talk about the stock market, but the world is not turning on our stock market, but turning on the will of the american people. and internationally, if we begin to look, as we have in so many communities, as a developing nation, not having the will, not
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having the resources, not being able to feed our children or provide health care, what is the difference in the mother's or father's heart where you are in a developing country, whether it's in the middle east, whether it's in africa, the love for your children has to be the same no matter what country you're in. if you can't feed your child, can't encourage your child, can't educate your child, how great the country is in terms of opportunity, then what makes us different as a great nation from those who are trying to achief economic leverage. and so even though the hour is late and i'm late getting here, make no mistake about it, you will be hearing from the congressional black caucus every day, whether it's on the floor, whether it's going to be in our district, because it's something that brings us here more than just our conscience is that most
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of us know exactly what unemployment and the pain of unemployment, the loss of dignity of unemployment, and then we have our communities and our families. we really believe for those people who believe we don't understand, before this congress ends, the president and this congress truly understand that this is a threat to our national security and as americans and patriots and those who advocate a strong economy and a strong workforce, we will be glad to let you know that we will be doing all and everything that we can and have to get the job done. thank you so much for yielding me the time. . ms. fudge: thank you, mr. chairman. now i'd like to yield to the person who has gotten me through this year, our representative from the virgin
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islands, mrs. christensen. mrs. christensen: thank you for doing what you do every week, pulling us together. we had a special election, we shouldn't have had to call it, when unemployment is over 15%, over 30% for young african-american males. not when our foundation can tell us about the lack of jobs for black males who have not completed high school or who just completed high school, compared to people with similar educational levels. the gaps cry out for remedies, one that responds to those most in need at risk. if no one else will answer tonight, the congressional black caucus is answering and we'll answer every day until we turn the unemployment rates and every other inequity in our communities around. i had the opportunity on a
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small scale to see what can happen with programs like these because we don't have to go through the state and local distribution. we graduated 26 formerly unemployed men and women who before had never heard of solar water heaters, can now build and install them. they have the opportunity to put their training to work in real jobs. what the young men have told us is, please continue these programs and expand them for us. that's what we're here to say on behalf of them and millions of others here today. i want to say the same thing applies to health care jobs. they're needed at all of our communities, on every level,s that jobs industry that is growing and will continue to grow as we pass health care reform. it's a great opportunity for our communities in health care to create jobs. i want to take this opportunity to thank emanuel cleaver and --
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for being oso aggressive and moving the congressional black caucus and moving us toward the creation of jobs. and to thank our president for making job creation a central part of his agenda. we are his strongest allies and supporters and advocates in advocating as we do for our community, we're asking that it be reached for everyone in this nation. we give them time to go home to do sm -- more. our congressional duty to make sure, especially those suffering most, especially those in the african-american community and other communities of color, not just for a few, not just for some but for everyone living in this country. i'll yield back and reply -- and revise and extend my remarks.
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ms. fudge: thank you. mr. speaker we thank you for once again allowing the caucus to come and share with you our views, i want to thank all the members of the caucus who came tonight. i think it was a very, very interesting and dynamic discussion and with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from ohio, mrs. schmidt is recognized as the designee of the minority leader. mrs. schmidt: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise tonight to speak about a very important issue. it's about breast cancer and my express disappointment and disagreement with the recren set of recommendations issued by the united states preventive services task force. this simple little 12-page study that quite frankly has angered millions of women across the united states.
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i highly recommend people to take the 15-minutes that it will take to read this report and see just how flawed it really is. as most americans know, especially women, breast cancer represents a major health threat, both in this country and across the world. breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed forms of -- forms of cancer for women and ranks second only to lung cancer in terms of cancer-related deaths. in 2008, an estimated 250,000 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in the united states. 30,000 women lost their lives to this terrible disease. these deaths represent, however a significant reduction in mortality compared to 20 years ago. in fact, since 1990, the
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mortality rate for breast cancer has decreased approximately 30%. medical experts attribute this dra maltic decrease to both improved treatment methods, and to the widespread and regular use of early dediction techniques such as mammograms. despite these positive gains, and despite the thousands of lives that breast -- the thousands of lives that breast cancer screening has saved in the past two decades, the united states preventive service task force recently issued new recommendations advocating, get this, against routine mammograms for women younger than 50. biannual mammograms for women over 65 and none at all for women over 70 and recommended
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against teaching women the proper and important method of breast self-examination. they don't want medical experts to show them how to do a breast self-exam. in coming these to the these conclusions, the task force -- which did not include a single expert in mammography or oncology -- said that the physical seasoned psychological harm associated with breast cancer screening outweightle -- outweighed the benefits for women younger than 50 years of age. it explained the harms it was concerned about included unnecessary tests an obiopsies and the general inconvenience, stress, and -- get this -- anxiety, caused by false positive screening results. personally, i was appalled and shocked to think we might have a little bit of anxiety, thinking we might have felt something in a self-breast exam
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or that a mammography might have showed a shadow that was a little inconclusive an we might need followup that we might have anxiety with that, and for most of it it will be a false positive we don't really need to have that anxiety. i was appalled because yeah, you have a little anxiety, but think of the joy you have realizing it was a false positive. and think about the relief you have knowing that you now have the ability to fight a disease when you find it at its earliest and most preventable stage. my concern -- what my concern is, what these recommendations will do for women who should be receiving annual breast exams now and in the future, because what the government report is telling women is they should forgo this because in the
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aggregate, screening methods don't save enough lives to outweigh the discomfort, inconvenience, and yes, the report talks about the cost. quite frankly, this is not just bad advice, this is awful advice. i believe it will result in countless unnecessary and preventable deaths for women who do not avail themselveses of screening techniques that could and would detect breast cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages, and yes, save lives. for example, the task force down played the importance of self-breast examinations. in doing sthork task force reasoned that having a medical professional demonstrate the proper method of self-examination is insignificant to the cancer detection and too many women would suffer, again, anxiety, from false positive results. but the report ignored a very
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important question. how many women have had their life saves because of a simple, simple self-breast exam? perhaps the anxiety for those who don't understand what they have -- what they have uncovered is less important than one person who actually finds something and saves his or her own life, because yes, men also get breast cancer. i also oppose the task force's recommendations because they represent an unfortunate and dangerous step back in the fight for health care eequality -- health care equality for women. i was in the state legislature in ohio for four years and i uncovered this. it was through my insistence that insurance companies in ohio paid the true cost for mammograms for women in ohio. recommendations like this task
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force's will serve to weaken state mandates like ohio's and they will ultimately lead to a rationing of preventive care across the country. for example, according to language in the health care bill just passed by the house, the task force is -- the task force's recommendations could give the secretary of health and human services the power to exclude mammograms and other breast cancer screening techniques from any government-run health care plan or exchange. if you read pages 1317 and 1318 of the bill, you'll see that the language in there suggests a slippery slope where this could occur. now, yes, it talks about testing and demonstration projects, but it says, the secretary of health and human services shall ensure that a subsidy or reward is provided only if a government task force
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recommendation is rated as a or b. this task force graded breast cancer screening for women 40 to 49 as a c this may not require the government to cover the cost of preventive care. the federal government may not be required to cover annual screening for women 50 and over and the task force recommends the screenings should be done biannually for this group and not for women over 75 at all. but the senate bill is even more alarming. comparable provisions were also included in the senate proposed health care bill until an amendment was adopted last week. for example, 2713 of the bill requires that private insurers cover only preventive services that receive a rating of a of b from the task force. sections 4105 of the bill
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granted that the -- granted the secretary of health and human services the ability to modify any services if consistent with recommendation os they have task force. there were more than a dozen occasions in the senate bill when recommendations from the task force would influence -- influence the availability of health care. not surprisingly, the obama administration and the secretary of health and human services attempted to deflect the public outroar about this task force's recommendation, stating the task force does not set federal policy. it does not determine what services are covered by the federal government. they also have claimed that the federal government policy concerning breast cancer screening coverage will not change as a result of a task force's recommendations. insurance companies have made similar promises, assuring their customers they'll continue to pay for annual mammograms as well. it begs the question -- for how
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long. sn the language contained in the house and senate bill speaks for itself and speaks loud and clear. there is simply no guarantee that the administration, that the secretary of health and human services and the insurance company won't change their positions in the future and there's no guarantee that mammograms will continue to be covered. this is on trare to positions take bin the medical association, the american college of obstetric and gynecology and the national institutes of health. i have some publications here and i'll read from them. but right now i'm hopeful that women ignore this task force's recommendation.
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it is for their health and for their safety and it's also for the health and the safety of their family. i would also hope that we as debate this health care bill -- that as we debate this health care bill, we ensure that we do not look at costs and then look at treatment and decide that cost outweigh treatment. yes there's a limited amount of money out there but nobody's health should be put on the line because of the dollars that are involved. and so i hope that women continue to listen to their doctors, not the government, not the insurance companies, and certainly not this task force, and make the right decisions for all of their health care. there simply is no room for a government bureaucrat and a woman's decision to screen for breast cancer and right now i have my good friend from pennsylvania's fifth,
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congressman thompson, who wants to weight in on this. mr. thompson: i thank the gentlelady from ohio for yielding and for hosting this special order this evening on what is truly a so important topic. i don't think there's anyone here in this chamber or anyone across the united states who through family or friends haven't been touched by breast cancer in their families or within the networks of fremmeds they have. and -- friends they have. and i -- my -- i came here in january, i was -- prior to that had worked in health care for 28 years, rehabilitation services as a rehabilitation professional , working actually as a rehab services manager for most of that time. and during that time i had both myself and my staff, the wonderful caring, compassionate individuals i worked with, who
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were true professionals, worked with just a tremendous number of women who were breast cancer survivors. and post mastectomy, developing innovative techniques, exercises and really tried to touch the lives of people who were facing this devastating disease. and you had mentioned you had talked about these recommendations that were put out and i'm sure you're going to go into detail on this. i pulled from a document from one of those that you referenced that truly when i think of cancer i think of organizations such as the american cancer society that just offer their expertise, their researchers do a tremendous job on awareness and prevention and intrigue -- and treatment all across the
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board and their 2009 cancer and prevention early detection facts and figures, you just go to page 37, actually i'm sorry it's page 35 and it talked about what their recommendations are and it's very specifically, mammographies begin at age 40 annually and those are not dated recommendations, those are not dated screening guidelines, those are 2009. breast cancer is, as the gentlelady had mentioned, is the second leading cause of death from cancer in american women. in 2008 over 40,000 deaths in this country. and certainly breast cancer also touches the lives of men. much smaller numbers but it is -- it does have a presence although certainly it's much smaller numbers. and women in the united states
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get breast cancer more than any other type of cancer except for skin cancer and breast cancer's only second to lung cancer as a cause of death in women. and breast cancer occurs in men but the numbers as i said before, the cases are certainly small. now, age and health history certainly has -- can have an effect in the risk of developing breast cancer. anything increases your chance of getting the disease is called a risk factor and having a risk factor does not mean you'll get the cancer, but not having risk factors doesn't mean that you'll not get the cancer. people who think they may be at risk certainly need to talk to their doctors and that relationship between the patient and the physician is just so important. we've talked about that relationship so many times in this health care debate. one of my biggest fears isn't the cost of what health care -- it really -- my biggest fear is that wendell when the government
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-- wedge when the government or a bureaucrat becomes a wedge between the patient and the physicianment and certainly when it comes to risk factors -- patient. and certainly when it comes to risk factors, communicating with physicians is so important. and people who think they may be at risk should discuss this with their doctor. risk factors and all the risk factors that are present. cancer prevention is certainly, certainly very important. and cancer prevention is an action taken to prevent -- lower the chance of getting cancer. hopefully this will lower the number of deaths caused by cancer. prevent new cancers from starting, scientists look at risk factors and potential factors and that's where the value of these screenings come in and regular screenings. anything that increases your
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chance of developing cancer is called a cancer risk factor and anything that decreases your chance to develop cancer is called a cancer protective factor. some factors for cancer can be avoided but many cannot. for example, smoking, inheriting certain jeans are risk factors for certain type -- genes are risk factors for certain types of cancer but smoking can be avoided. a healthy diet, exrersicing, neither of those really fit well into lifestyle working in congress i found since january. either a healthy diet or exercise. but both of those can be protective factors for some types of cancers. and avoiding risk factors to increase and protective factors may lower your risk but it doesn't mean you'll not get cancer, that you will not get cancer. cancers being studied, including the change in lifestyle and eating habits, avoiding things that cause cancer, taking medications to treat precancerous conditions or keep
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cancer from starting. certainly breast cancer screenings have been shown to reduce breast cancer mortality. the united states, death rates from breast cancer in women have been declining since 1990. i think that's a track record we can be very proud of. that's a trend line that is just so important. most of it has been due in a large part to early detection by mammography screening and improvements in treatment. when you look at those trends i find -- that's why i find appalling the recommendations we've recently seen come out to move up just the age of when mammographies would start and begin but the fact that we'd would go to every two years versus an annual by a sills. currently 61% of breast cancer cancers are diagnosed -- breast cancers are diagnosed at a stage where the survival rate is 98%. i think that within the united states that's a statistic we can be very proud of. further reductions of breast
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cancer deaths are possible by increasing, not spreading out, but increasing, mammography screening rates and providing timely access to high quality follow-up treatment. despite the relatively high prevalence of mammography screening in the united states and within the document it made reference to previously -- if i can find it here -- it has -- this is dated -- now this is from 2006 and i think that we've seen actual improvements from there in terms of access to these -- to screenings. nationwide those women 40 years and older, 61.2% have had mammography and clinical breast exams. 59.7%, 65 years in age and older, 64.6%.
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those are good numbers, they can be better. we can improve upon them. i don't think we'll improve upon them, though, by following those recommendations that were just recently put out. recent studies suggest that more women are initiating mammographies later than recommended or not having a mammography at all. that's a recommend -- we're not receiving appropriate and timely follow-up of positive screening results and these indicators of inadequate screening are associated with more advanced tumor size and stage at diagnosis. in accordance with the american cancer society, screening guidelines it is important for women age 40 and older to receive a mammography screening on an on a annual basis at an accredited mammography screening facility and for women with increased risk of breast cancer, the society recommended annual screening using m.r.i.'s in addition to the mammograms. very appreciative of my good
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friend from ohio for once again taking the leadership on this very important topic and for allowing me to join in with you tonight and i yield back. mrs. schmidt: i thank you very much and this whole report concerns me on a multitude of levels. a few weeks ago a group of women, we got together and held a press conference, and at the press conference when it was my turn to speak i actually had a reporter that questioned what we were saying because we were not, quote, professionals in the field. and i held up the report and i said, you have read it? well, he hadn't read it. so i handed it to him and suggested that he read it. but, you know, i'm not a professional. i don't have a medical background. i'm just a woman. and i'm a woman concerned about my friends that have had to undergo the fear of having breast cancer but the realization that with treatment
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and especially early diagnosis they're living very, very normal lives. i could go on and on. i have a friend, she was 41, she had missed her first mammography at the age of 40 and she went and it was a very, very small little tumor and she had it out. that was four years ago. she's got a little girl, she's going to to -- going to live to be a ripe old age. thank god she was able to have that mammography because there's no breast cancer in her family so according to this report she shouldn't have it until 50 because she's not at risk. but indeed 75% of people that get breast cancer do not have it, a risk factor for breast cancer. only 25% do. but i want to read right now the american college of roadology's report. it's dated november 24, 2009, and i want to read it because there's a scientific, there's a professional -- they're the scientists, they're the professionals, i'm not. i think what you'll see in this
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is an unraveling of the inconsistencies of this report. and it says that several sections of the senate house reform legislation contained language stipulating that insurance entities such as private insurers, medicare and medicaid, would only be required to cover services receiving a specific grade from the united states preventative service task force. presently this would ex clues mammography services for the majority of women 40 to 49, would only require coverage of biannual, that's every other year, coverage for women 50 to 74 and exclude coverage for those women 74 years of age and older. while the uspstf recommends that will result in cost savings, a great many women will die unnecessarily from breast cancer as a result. this is not my words, this is the word of the american college of road yoling. it goes on to say, this is not
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-- roadology. this goes on to say, this is a matter of life and death. congress needs to act to specifically protect annual mammography coverage for women ages 40 and older and for high-risk women under 40 as recommended by their physicians. said jains peepwall, mdfacr chairman of the college of radioology board of chancellors. if the cost cutting uspftf mammography recommendations are not excluded from health care reform legislation, the government or private insurers will be permitted to refuse women coverage for this life-saving exam, turning back the clock on two decades of advances against the nation's second leadinging cancer killer. these aren't my words, this is the american college of radioology.
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they go on. the federally funded and staffed task force includes representatives from major health insurers but does not include a single radioologist, oncologist, breast surgeon or any other person with expertise in breast cancer diagnosis or treatment. despite demonstrations by their own analysis that screening annually beginning at age 40 saves most lives and most years of life, the task force recommended against mammography screening for women 40 to 49 years of age, annual mammograms for women between 50 and 74, in favor of only every other year, and all breast cancer screening in women over 74. these recommendations were on counter to even the task force's own data. i have to digress for a minute because my very dear friend, her mother is 90.
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her mother did a self-breast exam and noticed a lump. had a mammography. they did a lump ectmy. that was a few months ago. my friend lost her father a couple of years ago. all she had is her mother and her brothers and sisters. she's delighted to know her mother has a long life ahead of her and isn't at risk nor disease. but again, according to what these recommendations are are, she wouldn't have gotten the ma manage -- mammography and lumpectomy. i'll go back to the report. i strongly urge those in congress to exclude the uspsps guidelines and make changes to the membership to guard against such unacceptable recommendations moving forward.
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sate w. phil evans, president of the society of breast imaging. since the onset of regular mammography screening in 1990, the mortality rate for breast cancer, which had been unchanged for the preceding 50 years, decreased by -- decreased by 30%, ignoring direct evidence from largecrine clal -- clinical trials, the board based their ideas on conflicting computer models and that the parameters for breast cancer change at the age of 50. in truth there no data to support this premise. let me continue. allowing a small number of people with no demonstrative expertise to make recommendations regarding diagnosis of a disease which kills more than 40,000 women a year makes no scientific sense
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and is a mistake many women will pay for with their lives. not my words, this is the american college of radiology's words. lawmakers need to require that the task force includes experts from the field on which they are making recommendations and that its recommendations be submitted for comment and review to outside stake holders in similar fashion to rules enacted by the senate for medicare and medicaid services. before i continue with this, i want to say that if we're going too base health care on any task force -- if we're going to base health care on any task force grading a system on an a or a d, what kind of experts will be doing the grading and what kind of outcomes will be there? clearly, according to the american college of radiology this report is not true science. let me continue.
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it is well known that mammography reduced the breast cancer death rate in the united states by 30% since 1990,heartedly a small benefit. based on data from on the performance of screening mammography as it's currently practiced in the united states, one invasive cancer is found for every 500 -- for every 556 mammograms performed in women in their 40's. let me repeat that. this report says that for women under the age of 50, they're going to have anxiety and fear, oh, my gosh, i might have breast cancer, so why put them through it? for 556 people, that's true, but that one in 556 does have breast cancer and that one in 556 has the right to know it, know it at its earliest stages and get treated appropriately. but let me continue. mammography only every other year in women 50 to 74 would miss 19 focht 33% of cancers
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that could be detected by annual screening. let me digress. that's my age group, i'm in my 50's. so i'm not supposed to have this every year this mammography? i'm supposed to have it every other year? but that mean mischances for finding early detection and living a long time would be decreased instead of helped? then it continues. starting at age 50, it would sacrifice 33 years of life per 1,000 women screened that could have been saved had screening started at the age of 40. ok, i don't want to be that one life in 1,000. neither does any other woman in america. but let me continue. 85% of all abnormal mammograms would require only additional images to clarify whether cancer may be present or not. only 2% of women who receive
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screening mammograms eventually require a biopsy. but the task force data showed that the rate of biopsy is actual twal -- is actually lower among younger women. the issue of overdiagnosis is controversial. by the task force's own admission, it's difficult to quantify and is less of a factor along younger women who have had many years of life expectancy. weighing the significance, documented benefits of annual mammography against possible anxiety and the need for additional imaging or biopsy, it's difficult to understand how the task force reached its recommendation. again, these aren't my words, these are the american college of radiology. these new recommendations have created a great deal of confusion among women. a situation that might have been avoided by consulting those of us in the field who actually care for women who are
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seeking detection, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer. the unfortunate result may be decreased utilization of this life-saving tool. i urge snufferers and congress not to compound the problem by allowing the possibility of denying doverpblg women who seek routine annual ma nothing fi starting at the age of 40 and continue for as long as they're in good health, said carol h. lee, chair of the a.c.r. breast imaging commission. the task force is a panel funded and staffed by the health and human services agency for health care research and quality. the medicare improvement for patients and providers act of 2008 gave the u.s. department of health and human services the authority to consider the uspspf recommendations in medicare coverage
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determination. private insurers may also incorporate the measures as a cost-saving measure. i79 to repeat that. i think that's the most chilling revelation i've uncovered in this whole breast cancer debate. the medicare improvement for patients and providers act of 2008 gave the u.s. department of health and human services the authority to consider this task force's recommendation and medicare coverage to termings, private insurance may also -- to termination, private insurance may also incorporate the recommendations as a cost-saving measure. i'm quite alarmed. and i think most americans are as well. i've been joined by my colleague from wyoming, ms. cynthia lummis. mrs. lummis: i'd like to thank the gentlelady from ohio for bringing this issue to our
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attention this evening. many of us have anecdotal information about friends, relatives, colleagues who have experienced a diagnosis of breast cancer in their 40's because they went in to receive a routine mammogram. that was certainly the case with my sister-in-law who in her 40's went in for a routine mammogram, had none of the genetic or typical markers that reveal the need to have mammograms, but of course, since they were regularly recommended for women in their 30's and 40's, she went in for her annual mammogram and was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer. she was diagnosed, had her mastectomy and began her chemotherapy all within a period of 30 days. without that routine mammogram, that aggressive breast cancer
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would have had an opportunity to spread in a way that would have caused or exacerbated the chance that that cancer would not have been treatable and would not have saved her life. we learned in the health care debate in the house that in the united states, both men and women have better rates of survivability for cancer in the united states than they do in canada or in europe. and that is because cancer is routinely screened for and it is rapidly addressed following diagnosis. the opportunity in the united states to receive treatment quickly following diagnosis is directly related to the current health care system in the united states. and if the gentlelady from ohio -- as the gentlelady from ohio indicated, there are opportunities, due to the findings of this panel, for
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insurers to use it as a basis to decide not to provide covered health insurance for breast cancer mammography, screening for women in their 40's. i believe that that is an indicator of how serious this issue is and i want to particularly thank the gentlelady from ohio for calling it to our attention this evening and i yield back. mrs. schmidt: thank you very much. i hope your sister is doing well. mrs. lummis: she is doing very well, she is cancer free and i would indicate that it is also, of course, just another example, but i'm from wyoming, one of our senators' wives, bobby barasso, was also diagnosed with breast cancer, in her 40's, as a result of a
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mammogram and is also doing well. so you look at our tiny little congressional delegation that consists of one member of the house and two senators and of those three people, two have examples of breast cancer within their own families that were -- that was diagnosed in women in their 40's due to a routine mammogram. that gives -- even though anecdotal -- a couple of examples that are repeated all over the country by people who may be tuning in tonight on c-span. many of you know women who have been digenopesnosed -- diagnosed and successfully treated for breast cancer in the united states. part of the reason the prognosis has improve sod dramatically in the united states for this very serious and unfortunately very common form of cancer is the fact
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following routine screening, we have the opportunity to receive aggressive treatment in a health care system that while in need of reform, is not in need of the kind of reform that would increase the period of time between when we are diagnosed and when we are treated. we know, from around the world, from systems of government in europe and canada, that have the form of health care that was being advocated in this body by the majority party and a form which in fact passed this body and is now being debated in the senate, that indeed, when you add more government to the health care system, you do add time lags between treatment -- ex-dudes me. between diagnosis and treatment. that is something that we should be trying to encourage
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our colleagues to prevent and prevent especially because of the united states' superior record when compared to other nations around the world with regard to breast cancer and i want to again yield back to the gentlelady from ohio. mrs. schmidt: thank you so much. i want to continue to show that , while i'm not a medical professional, and my dear colleague from wyoming is not a medical professional, we are not just speaking from the heart and from our soul, we're also speaking from an intelligent position. "the washington post" had an article by otis brawley who is he? he's the writer, chief medical officer of the american cancer society. i'm not going to read this whole article, it was in "the washington post" on november 19, but let me read you some of the things from it. studying cancer deaths aamong women in their 40's are reveals
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some important trends. death rates for dropping slightly in the 1970's, thanks to better awareness and better treatment. in 1983, the american cancer society began recommending that all women get screened, beginning at the age of 40678 by 1990, death rates began a steep decline that continues today. while some of that drop is good for improvements in treatment, conservative estimates are that about half is due to mammography. without mammography, many women would not be candidates for breast-conserving therapy. you cannot treat a tumor until you find it. and we know that mammography has led to finding tumors when they're smaller and far more treatable. we think that the task force may underestimate mammography's life-saving value. and it goes on, in the end he wraps up by saying nrk the
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meantime the american cancer society continues to recommend annual screenings. using mammography and clinical breast examination for all women beginning at the age of 40. the test is far from perfect but it's the best way we have to find tumors early. how many lives are enough to make routine screening worth it? how many mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, daughters and friends are we willing to lose to breast cancer while the debate goes on about the limitations of mammography? turning back the clock will add up too many lives lost and too many women finding their tumors later when treatment options are limited. our medical staff and volunteers overwhelmingly believe that the benefits of screening women ages 40 to 49 outweighs its limitations. let's not behave as though we lack a tool with proven benefits
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to women. again, these are not my words, these are the words of a medical professional as written in "the washington post." i could go on because the american medical news, i pulled this offline, and i want to read some of the things that it says in here. it says taking concern a step forward, the american college of radiology asks that the recommendations be rescinded to prevent the possibility of new guidelines influencing policymakers as they shape health system reform legislation. now, this was printed on november 30. this article goes on to say that washington, d.c., radiology rachel brem dismissed potential harm when compared to the value of detecting cancer. quote, virtually all my patients would prefer the small anxiety of a false positive with the possibility to diagnose an early breast cancer. oh, yes, mr. speaker, we women
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would prefer to have a little anxiety and find it early, find it, treat it appropriately and live to a ripe old age. it goes on to say that researchers of one study found that annual mammography screenings for women ages 50 to 79 resulted in an 8% medium increase in breast cancer mortality reduction. we're screening every two years -- for screening every two years it was 7%. we lose a percent if we wait every two years. for screening that beginning at age 40 and continues to age 69 researchers found a 3% median breast cancer mortality reduction with either annual or biannual screening. researchers concluded that the greater mortality reductions could be achieved by stopping screening at an older age than by initiating screening at an earlier age no recommendations were made for women aged 75 and older because the task force said there was insufficient evidence to assess additional
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benefits and harms but early detection is partially credited for the steadily falling breast cancer rates among women younger than 50 according to the american cancer society. and it goes on to say that they, too, debunk the findings of this study. i also went through and looked at some of what was being said in my own hometown and on the editorial page on november 18, crystal ram did i -- ram i ask, i -- ramsey, i want to read this because it has the sentiment of my heart, tell us why we shouldn't feel betrayed. after decades of memorizing breast cancer's warning signs, training ourselves to do monthly self-examines and guiding ourselves into annual mammograms, we women are now being told the exms are useless and mammogram -- exams are useless and mammograms unreliable. a federal task force has reversed a decade's long campaign that trained women to make screenings a cornerstone of
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their self-care. it now recommends against routine mammograms for women in their 40's, longer intervools between them for older -- intervals between them for older women and ditching self-exams. intended or not, yanking away the tools we relied on to keep ourselves safe from this disease shakes the confidence that we can keep ourselves safe and fear and confusion have always been breast cancer's best friend. now we are left to reconcile two utterly conflicting messages. the task force cautioning against the tests, the american cancer society still calls life saving. as so often happens with debates over medical care, women can't happy but feel like pawns -- can't help but feel like pawns. experts told us to get smart about this disease and we did sour homework.
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they told to us face it straight on, have the test, entertain the thought it could happen to us and we didn't flinch. for decades we have walked against breast cancer, won against it, shopped and marched against it. we devoted a whole month to raising our awareness, begging our females we loved to schedule mammograms, we pinned on looped ribbons, we donned hot pink and nobody looked good in hot pink but now it seems like the message is don't worry, wait. the medical experts are going to be the ones to feel the pinch if they think they can just like that back women off of mammograms and they should be very careful about wanting -- warning against screenings because the results to make us worry our pretty little heads.
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it's not that we shouldn't be disbased of reasoning but faulty medical device --ed a advice, it's not that women have had a long history of being talked down to and all around when it comes to matters of their own health, still our skepticism can kill us. it's well known that we women take better care of others than ourselves, it doesn't take much for us to rationalize resetting our priorities. i'll get that tooth fixed after we pay off some bills, i'll schedule that test after we finish soccer season. leaving work for a mammogram has always been a hassle. now we can justify waiting another year and then as our busy lives barrel on, that one year becomes five. for many women that five-year gamble will do no harm. for some it's a fatal bet. and nobody can say which one of us can afford to wait and which
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cannot. how much less painful this world would be if we all couldn't name women who needed a mammogram earlier than she got it. how many children wish their mom could have been diagnosed in time so she could see them graduate from high school? do we suspect this whole debacle is more about saving on health care costs than sparing us anxiety? you bet we do. are we concerned that tightening the recommendations well down the road means limiting our care? we're not stupid. we're sophisticated enough to understand cancer is a whiley opponent that doesn't follow anybody's rules. but we're savvy enough to know that when it comes to our health we only get the care we demand. tell us the truth. tell us what you don't know. put our lives before cost savings. bring us fully into this discussion and imagine that
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women who will be undiagnosed or wrongly diagnosed by your miscalculations is your daughter, your mother or your wife. i've now been -- i've now been joined by my very good friend, dr. burgess from texas. and i yield you as much time as you need. mr. burgess: i thank the gentlelady for yielding. i thank you so much for taking the initiative to do this hour tonight. i think it is extremely an important, extremely a timely last month when the united states preventive task force came up with their guidelines. i went home to congress to my desk and there was a copy of ob-gyn news. so this was the current state of the art, the current state of thinking prior to -- just prior to these task force recommendations being made. and in the article, and i'm
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quoting here, the most effective method for women to avoid death from breast cancer is to have regular ma'am graphic screening, -- ma'am graph screenings, said a doctor in the american society of clinical oncology. in their article lay sites and statistics. these are statistics that i knew but i had forgotten. the rates of cancer deaths in the current study, 25% of them occurred in women who had regular screenings. 75% occurred in women who did not. that's a three to one risk ration yo of diing from breast cancer -- ratio of dying from breast cancer between those who were screened and those who were not screened. in fact they go on to say that amongst women who were unscreened, 56% mortality is the same overall mortality we used to see in breast cancer up until
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1970 prior to the onset of widespread mammographic screening. another piece of information i wanted to share tonight is from the american college of obstetrics and gynecology, from their president, gerald f. joseph, who wrote to me december 4 of this year, as you know, the american college of ob-gyn expressed concern about the new breast cancer screening guidelines. in a letter to the united states preventive service task force in may where we raised concerns that the c recommendation against routine screening mammography in women age 40 to 49 would be misunderstood by clinicians, by patients, misunderstood by policymakers and insurers and ultimately this could prevent women in that age group from receiving important services. immediately following the release of the new guidelines the american college of ob-gyn would continue to recommend
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routine screening for women in this age group. theers probably the most critical point of dr. joseph's letter. his last paragraph, this is especially critical right now as we caution congress against giving the united states prehe ventive service task force authority over women's health in health care reform. now, today these guidelines are simply that, they're just guidelines. any doctor or patient who is free to take them or disregard them, however it is their wish. once this bill, as the gentlelady correctly pointed out, once this bill becomes law, no longer will that be an optional exercise. those will be the mandated screening guidelines that will be established in law and i will tell you, as a physician, if an insurance company decides they're not going to cover something, the patient isn't going to get it done. it's as simple as that. this is a step backward. it is going back to prior to
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19730 when we had that 56 mortality. we don't need to do that. we don't need to do that as a country. we have the information, we need to act on the information, we need to keep patients involved in their own health care. i cannot tell you the number of people who came to me ultimately who had a diagnosis of breast cancer who found the cancer themselves. i didn't find it. they found it on a breast self-exam. it wasn't dedetected on a mammogram. but the patient found it herself. the earlier diagnosis was made possible by the patient's involvement in her own care. and to say that we're unnecessarily alarming patients by teach -- teaching them to be involved in their own care, i think does women a great disservice. so i thank the gentlelady for bringing this to the floor of the congress tonight. i'm going to submit the letter from the american college of ob-gyn president to the -- for the congressional record and i thank you for providing this
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very valuable service for women tonight on the house floor. mrs. schmidt: thank you so much. are you the medical expert in the field and i'm so glad you came here to share your testimony this evening. my good friend from texas. because as we continue with this health care debate the one underlining theme that i think the american public has is, will this interfere with their health? and i think what we're seeing from this task force's recommendations, that when the government takes over the health care it has the potential ability to do just that. interfere with our health. this task force had a flawed document, it was driven to say that the risks for women were anxiety but it also said in the report that cost outweighed -- were looked at in looking at when you should have the mammographies and when you shouldn't have the mammographies. this report clearly was driven by the fact that it costs money to have good health care no
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matter where you are. and so it shows, if you eliminate mammographies for women under the age of 50 you eliminate a whole lot of cost. and for 556 women that's ok. but that unlucky won that's after 556, she's the one that's going to be missed. and so as we debate health care in this country, we should never put a price on it and we should never allow government to interfere with our lives, especially when it comes to the care of our health and our family. and so i hope that we take what's out there in the bills in the house and the senate and we delete them and we start over with a commonsense approach to solving the problems with health care in this country because quite frankly we have the best health care in the world. it needs tweaking but what we're
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doing right now potentially will change it and change it in a fashion that i don't think any american wants. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king. mr. king: it's my privilege to address you here on the floor of the house to pick up transition from the discussion that has taken place in the previous hour . the breast cancer issue with the larger health care debate is what will's try to do and that is this, that the question about
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how breast cancer is treated and how it's tested fits back into the broader question of what happens if we end up with a national health care act or socialized medicine. do we get more of this or less of this. more government agencies laying out guidelines as i believe and i agree with the gentlelady from i ohio and gentlelady from wyoming and doctor from texas, do we get more government guidelines and raise the cost in lives. do we get that on breast cancer and do we get that on nearly every other aspect on health care. this debate has gone on and on on health care and reached the peak in august in the aftermath of the cap and trade bill, the bill that no one read, not one single person read, not one member of congress read and i
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know no one read the bill because the bill was not available and the bill was passed and not available in a form that resembled final form. and i remember congressman gohmert coming to the floor, mr. speaker and raising the question, parliamentary inquiry, is there a bill in the well? is there a copy of the final bill, the one we're debating and will be voting on, is it in the well? there was paper there, but not the bill or the amentse that had been included in it. so the final question that he asked after a series of them was, can we message a bill that doesn't exist to the united states senate? apparently that's what we could do and that is what happened. that bill, cap and trade, sits over there now before the united states senate as does a national health care bill and they are taking it up and debating it up and fitting it around some of
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the other things and this is the week that the united states senate turns the focus on their national health care act. we have taken this argument, policy by policy, ideology by ideology through this house. but it comes down to this, just as a refresher, mr. speaker, on what brought this all about, increasing costs of health care in the united states and around the world, a growing focus on health care, but, i think that a lot of it emerged during the democrat primary for president when hillary clinton looked at one point when she would win the nomination. she's the won -- one that led the meetings for what people remember as hillarycare in 1993, 1994, in that era. and since that hillary clinton knew about health care and that was the centerpiece, she brought
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that to the debate and useed in the primary care campaign and shook down to one of two people, barack obama or hillary clinton. the pressure that she brought into that campaign to raise the issue of health care made it a central issue in the democrat primary and forced, in my opinion, barack obama, then senator obama to run a health care agenda of his own to counteract with and seek to win the debate on the democrat side of the primary voting aisle. and i believe that the urgency that america has is not reflected exactly after the data that's out there, the economics and the need, but more reflected because there was a political gain to be had in the nomination process for president, especially on the democrat side. and as that debate emerged and barack obama was successful in
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winning the nomination and ultimately the presidency, he carried that mantle of health care reform throughout the entire process, inspired by hillary clinton, i believe, and pushed to a high level of a priority which i'm convinced, mr. speaker, that they believe is the highest priority in america. and i'm not challenging that approach but because it was the primary issue in the nomination process for president on the democrat side, it gained some momentum that it wouldn't have had if we were going to step back and look at the health care issue. so it became something that the president, when he was elected, so as a mandate, a mandate to go in and pass some kind of a national health care act. well, you would think you go through the logic line and flip the to gole switches and get to something that makes sense and the principles that were laid
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out by barack obama as a candidate and later as a president, came down to this, health care costs too much money. the economy is in a mess and in a downward spiral. we have to fix the economy. this is the president's philosophy. and you can't fix the economy unless we first fix health care that costs too much money. that is the rationale. it is threaded through his speeches. it never seemed rationale to me and i couldn't follow the logic, the economy's in a mess and have to fix health care to straighten out the economy and spend too much money on health care and therefore, we have to fix it. i can get that far, but then the rationale on my side of the i'll would be, if we are spending it too much on health care, where are we spending it too much where we don't need to. in medicare, that would punish
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many of the senior citizens in america led by aarp. so they have come out to support this bill. but the president said we are spending too much money, let's spend more. and he wants to keep the bill down under $900,000 but it throws $243 billion as the original number and takes it over $1 trillion. and if you look at some of the other numbers and look at how senator judd gregg did from new hampshire, they are doing the math on this bill in this fashion. 5 1/2 so years of expenses, 10 years of tax increase and income. so it shows up to only be a number that is someplace around or little bit under $1 trillion, mr. speaker, and extra costs. judd gregg says it is $2.5
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trillion once you look at the math and at the accounting. if you look at actually 10 years of expenses and 10 years of revenue, about $2.5 trillion bill. so if the president, his statement is, we spend too much money on health care, 14.5% to 16%. we spend too much money, therefore we have to spend a lot more. this or wellian logic is something that the american people are breathlessly amazed that a president and leaders in this country can get by with in this country. we will spend maybe $3 trillion more and that will solve the problem. we spend too much money, let's spend a lot more. another one of the points, there are too many uninsured in america. over the last three or so years,
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there has been an intentional effort to confuse the words of health care and health insurance and the effort has been on the part of the people on the left to blur the subject matter, the difference between health care and health insurance. they will say we have too many people who don't have health care in america, but don't take into account is, do you get treated by hospitals, doctors and emergency rooms. if you get sick or injured, can you get treatment? the answer is yes. that is what the law says. so according to statute and practice, the health care providers provide everyone access to health care. what we don't have, everybody in america that has their own personal insurance policy. and a lot of people on this side of the aisle have confused the two terms and said people don't
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have health care, when they really mean people don't have their own health insurance policy. somehow there is a right and some would argue within the constitution, there is a right that everybody would own their own health insurance policy. so they set about to grant or provide a health insurance policy to every american, legal or illegal, lawfully present or not and impose a health insurance policy on them all. and if they're not willing to write a check and pay for the premium or go to work for someone who will do that or sign up for medicaid or medicare, the i.r.s. will come in and audit them and levy a fine. and if this gets bad enough, you could end up in jail for the first time in the history of this country, the federal
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government putting together a product called health insurance exchange or the public option, government-run health insurance plan and if you fail to buy a policy within the statutory guidelines, those that are approved by the health choices commissioner, the i.r.s. can come in and levy a fee against you and eventually one could go to jail for tax evasion for not buying a government-imposed health insurance policy. it will be the first time that the government has produced a product, compelled its citizens to buy the product and if they refuse or fail, levy a fine, eventually lock them up in jail, debtor's prison not buying the government-approved version of insurance. and the president has said and this is out of the house version, mr. speaker, and i
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understand the senate has tweaked it a little bit and now they'll put a lean on your house and -- lien on your house and sell the house. the government has their fingers in everything. this has been one giant leap into socialism that we have had ever since the preparations for the transition that began on the 20 of january of this year. and the president has said, we have too many uninsured. and when you go through the list, they use 47 mill cron uninsured. from that 47 million, i subtract the numbers of people who are eligible under their own employer, but just don't opt in or opt out and those who are eligible under a government program like medicaid and subtract from that number those who are unlawfully present in the united states where if i.c.e. or department of homeland security had to develop their
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insurance policy, they would be compelled to deport them or those who are barred from having public benefits. and we keep subtracting out of that list, those who make over $75,000 a year and don't have their own health insurance and with that list, we take the 47 million and subtract all of those on that list that i talked about, those eligible under their employer, those eligible for the government, those who make over $75,000 and those who are ineligible because they are illegal aliens or immigrants, now that 47 million number becomes 12.1 million, mr. speaker. and this 12.1, americans without affordable health insurance, there is a massive number that tells us there is a massive problem. less than 4% of the american
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population and we're down to 4% of the american population and the proposal is to change 100% of america's health insurance program and america's health care delivery, all of that to try to reduce this number of less than 4% down to something that may approach 2% after it takes over 100% of the program. and with the insurance competition that the president has called for, he said, insurance companies are greedy. he has to have a straw man. the insurance companies are greedy. he said the fat cat bankers and sat down and had a meeting with them today. somebody has to be demonized and can't have people with different interests that can be brought together who want to engage in the economy and help people. we have 1,300 health insurance companies in america and about 100,000 different policy varieties that can be purchased in the various 50 states and
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there isn't that many different companies and policies available to every american because we don't allow americans at this point to buy health insurance across state lines. easy fix. we tweak that here. john shadegg's bill that has been out here to allow people to buy insurance across state lines and then 1,300 health insurance companies competing against each other and the 100,000 policy varieties become available to everybody in the united states. and so the idea that the president proposes is that creating a government-run health insurance company and government-approved health insurance policies to produce more competition for the health insurance companies. if you want more competition, let people buy insurance across state lines. you have 1,300 companies competing, 100,000 policies to
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choose from and far more competition than the government regulating and controlling every health insurance policy in america. . when the president says, don't worry if you like your insurance policy you get to keep it, notice he hasn't said that for a long time. it's been weeks and week since the president has reiterated, if you like your insurance policy you get to keep it. the truth is, get ready to lose it, if you have a policy today under the house version of the bill or anything that i understand under the senate version of the bill, that policy would have to be canceled sometime between -- some time between 2011 or 2013, it will be canceled and there will be a new policy that would have to be issued that met the federal guidelines. there's no policy in america that the president of the united states, with confidence, can look at and point to and say, you, joe the plumber or you,
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sali doctor, are going to be able to keep the health insurance that you have, that you love, that you paid for, because the government may decide that it doesn't have the right benefits to it, it doesn't have the right mandates and maybe it doesn't cover all the things that they think government should cover. so that's just some of the basis for this, mr. speaker. there's so much more. and as this debate ensues down on the senate side of the aisle, right down those doors, straight across through the capitol, we are watching a dramatic and i think a titanic colossal clash taking place in the senate right now. and i mean, in this period this week, and as this unfolds we need, the -- we need the american people to rise up, we need the american people to speak up, we need the american people to pick up their telephones, we need them to cup to this -- come to this capitol building, we need them to surround this place and stand here and call out for freedom,
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call out for liberty, call out for you the ryes that are in the constitution -- rights that are in the constitution and not somebody else's idea of transferring wealth across america and putting it into the pockets of others and taking away the benefits of the people that have been industryous and have been personally responsible. take care of everybody in america. jimmy carter once said that the people that work should live better than those that don't. i caught that when he said that. it seemed a little odd to hear from thank from him and i don't know that he efforted to live by it but he said that and i believe that as well. this bill is another class leveler. it's another take from the rich and give to the poor. it's a class envy bill. it's born out of spite and born out of class envy and it's driven by ideology and it's driven by the idea of social medicine. and today i was asked a question to answer a series of questions that were requested by a publication here on the hill and it was, what is the biggest
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problem republicans have? mr. speaker, my answer is fighting off marxists and socialists that masquerade as liberalists and democrats. this is a socialist eath and that's one of the reason why the blue dogs have gone underground and become ground hogs. the shadow of socialism has pushed them underground and they're not out here fighting for truth, justice and the american way and balanced budget and personal responsibility and constitutionalism. they seem to have disappeared from the scene. but some of them will get a pass from the speaker of the house and be able to vote no on this bill if it comes back to this house because there are enough votes stacked up on the democrat side that about that many will get a pass. and i think as i watch what's going on here on the floor and i identify that my good friend, dr. burgess, who took a small height friss the other special orders, is here with a brainful
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of information, mr. speaker, for to you absorb and pass along to our colleagues. i'd be very happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from texas, dr. burgess. mr. burgess: i thank the gentleman for yielding and the gentleman has done an excellent job at delineating where we've been, what's been happening and perhaps where we're going. you know, this summer was truly a remarkable tinal in drn time in this country when the people -- time in this country when the people, the beauty of anticipatory democracy was on dispray literally from sea to shining sea from border to border and i certainly felt it in my district. i know it was felt in a number of congressional districts. we've seen the results of that. the gentleman's quite correct, the blue dogs who were so active during the summer months leading up to the august recess have really been under enormous pressure by their leadership on
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their side and now we've seen in the past several days, i think by my count, four retirements from that group. i don't know whether we'll be seeing more but it certainly is something that you cannot fail to notice. now, the gentleman from iowa has correctly identified this as -- to be a fight about ideology. you'll notice through the discussions going on in the other body right now, there's really very little that's going on about health care per se. there's very little talked about as far as health care policy. it is all a question about, well, let's get the numbers right. let's get -- let's get the congressional budget office, let's get the act wears over at the center for medicare and medicaid services, let's get these numbers right so we can present this to the american people and stay within the president's prescription of delivering health care for all for under $1 trillion. now we know that to be a fantasy. the gentleman outlined the
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reasons why that is a fantasy. there are a number of things that have been taken out of this bill that will have to be added back at some point in the future. but this has become a fight about ideology. just as the energy bill has been a fight about ideology, cap and trade is no longer about the number of molecules of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this is about ideology. this is about holding the united states to $3 trillion in ransom to the rest of the world and, oh, by the way you've got to give up your ability to be in charge of your own future. you've got to give up your sovereignty along the way to copenhagen. this is a fight about ideology. the financial services bill that we passed on the floor of this house last week had nothing to do to prevent future problems with meltdowns in the financial industry. it had had been, why, we would have seen some actual -- something sing that would have made a difference. instead we got big car buzz for big companies, the smaller community banks are still going to have to pay fu into a fund to bail out the big guys if they
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get in trouble again in the future. in fact, we've constitutionalized the failure of those constitutions who are too big to fail. but, again, it's not about what you know about financial policy. it is about ideology. and that's where we are today over in the ordinary body with this health care debate. nobody's interested in whether or not there's the right vaccine policy involved. no one's really interested if there's -- what the united states preventive services task force does. it's all about control of every facet of your life and if we can control your health care we can control more about you than we've ever been able to control in the past. and that's why it's so important that this be stopped. it's not because we want to prevent anyone from having health insurance, it's not that we want to prevent anyone from having health care, but we want to prevent this type of power grab that is going on at the level of the federal government over the lives of honest american citizens and if we
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lose, if we're not successful in stopping this ultimately it's not a democratic win or a republican loss, ultimately it's the american people who will lose in this transaction. and it is transactional politics at its worst and we've all seen that on display. a year ago we were faced on our side with the very stark realization that we had lost the white house, lost 20 seats in the house, lost a number of seats in the senate and in fact when the eventual senator from minnesota was seated, the democrats had a proverbial unstoppable majority of 60 votes over on the senate side. and this all happened very early in the calendar year of 2009. i would have thought facing that kind of harsh reality that many of these things that we've talked about tonight, energy policy, health care policy, financial services policy, many of those things that have already been done, after all, what was to stop them?
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were we republicans going to be able to stop much of anything? no. we didn't have the leadership, the money or the ideas to put a stop to much of anything. in fact, i still believe to this day had the president put health care ahead of the pork barrel spending that was present in the stimulus bill that they passed in february, if the president pushed health care to the front of that agenda, that would have been done in february, it would be the law of the land today, there would have been nothing, there would have been nothing that anyone could have done to stop it. but they didn't. they didn't. and in fact i still puzzle over why cap and trade was suddenly thrown into the mix in -- at the end of june, sort of all at once. we passed it out of committee a month before and it languished there, everyone was uncomfortable about it. but it was never coming to the floor after the house didn't have to worry about it, then the last week of june, boom, here it is and it's going to pass and democrats' arms were twisted and hairs were pulled and eyes were
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gouged in order to get this thing passed. i don't know if the gentleman from iowa recalls but there was an instance where a democratic member from florida sold his vote for $30 million here on the floor of the house. the democrats were going to usher in a new era of transparency. there was as transparently transactional as i've seen on the floor of the house but they got the bill passed and we went home for the fourth of july recess, marched in that fourth of july parade behind the american liegeon, just in front of the cub scouts and from both sides of the parade route, people were yelling at their member of congress, what in the world were you thinking? next time read the bill. on and on it went along the parade route. by the end of the parade, members of congress, both sides, republicans and democrats, oh, my god, what have we done? what are we up against? so we came back and weren't so anxious to pass this health care bill and the blue dogs did grind things to a halt. we got this thousand-page bill
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and we were supposed to pass it before the august are he sess and go home and deal with the consequences but not so fast. the blue dogs did slow things down. we did not have a bill passed by the august recess and then, and then, it was almost a beautiful thing to watch, the anticipatory democracy that we saw again across this country came to bear, brought pressure to every member of congress, whether conservative, liberal, republican, democrat, every member of congress heard from their constituents. now, to be sure, the speaker of the house labeled these individuals as astroturf or rent-a-bob but i had 2,000 people show up for a town hall in denton, texas, on a saturday morning in texas and these were my friends and neighbors. i know he most of the people in the town and it was not an important crowd to give grief to the poor member of congress. these were people who were legitimately concerned just as the gentleman from iowa accurately points out, we're trying to fix the problem for less than 5% of the american
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population and disrupt what 65%, 70% or 73% of the american population sees as something that is working relatively well for them. sure, they're earn concerned about costs for the future -- they're concerned about the costs for the future, but by and large, those that have insurance do want to keep it. that's why we don't hear that brought up anymore. i thought we'd come back in september, we'd hit the reset button, the pause, the replay. no. we hit the fast forward button and we pushed this thing through, don't check the weather, we're going to fly anyway. and the speaker pushed it through in the early part of november, again, purely on a party line vote, and now it's over in the senate. the people are asking, well, what are you going to do -- what are you going to do to fix this? 60% of the people do not want this to happen. so, mr. member of congress, what are you going to do to stop this? and i do have to say that i ambition once again going to ask -- am once again going to ask, going to plead with americans across the country who are looking at this happening right
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now, it's not hard to figure out who your senator is, every state's got two. and most of the time if you go to a search engine of choice and type in, who is my united states senator, for the state of iowa or texas, will come back and tell you or you can go to senate.gov and put the name of your state in and it will tell who you your senator is and how to contact them. it will give you their washington telephone number and their phone numbers back home in the state and your senator needs to hear from you in these coming weeks or days that are immediately ahead of us. . you think back to may of 2005 and there were a few senators who were trying to solve problems around immigration. american people said not so fast. we have a say. and they stopped the senate cold
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in its tracks. but the senate, true to form, decided, maybe that was a miss nomer and maybe they didn't mean not so fast. their switch boards were shut down, their servers were crashed because of the volume of information that was coming in telling them not so fast. well, i would submit to the the gentleman from iowa that we, he and i are going to be hardpressed to stop this in the senate. it is going to require the level of democracy that we saw this summer in order to bring this back and deal with the problems that we're required to deal with. it is all about ideology right now. it's about a hard left turn that has been taken by the democratic leadership in the house and senate. if that's ok with you, stay solid, have a nice christmas, well's see you next year.
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if that's not ok, if you feel like the gentleman from iowa and i feel, your senator needs to hear from you, your member in the other body needs to hear from you. i have some other ideas, but i have taken up enough of his time and i yield back to the the gentleman from iowa. mr. king: from that standpoint on the immigration debate and that's one i have been engaged in for a long time, the effort that went out across this nation to shut down the switch board and the servers in the united states senate sent a message but as snasm texas said about three months later, they decided to try it again. they didn't believe what the american people had told them and made another run at it. this was, on the immigration side, this was a bipartisan effort. it had the president of the united states, then president
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bush and the significant numbers in the republican and the democrat side of the aisle, more democrats than republicans, but bipartisan effort. and that was something that was driven by the white house and it still failed in the face of that effort because the american people rose up. and there isn't any reason, mr. speaker, for anybody to believe that the american people can't kill this socialized medicine bill. if they kl kill comprehensive amnesty and do so twice in one year and do so in the united states senate, as determined as the president seems to be, this is doable. but they have learned a few things down there in the u.s. senate. they have shut their phones off and shut down their fax machines and essentially plug their ears and wait for the noise of the american people to settle down
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and then try to pass something. and i'm suggesting this, that the senators need to have a personal experience. they and their staff need to have a personal experience, a respectful, polite and nonthreatening personal experience, but there are two ways politicians and if you are a senator especially, you have your finger on what the public's mood is. you can hire a pollster and make a lot of phone culls and send out emails and letters and listen to people and put the data together. but you also have to measure the intensity. the intensity is the other part. if we have an issue out there and i haven't found that issue yet, but if i'm one hand for it and the other hand against it
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and if the public would come out and say half of them are for it and half are against it, how would one decide which side of the issue you have to come down on. you have to pay attention to the people who have intensity. i pay attention to people like dr. burgess, people who have been elected to this congress that are vocal and aggressive and know what they believe because they have lived it. i have paid attention to that level and intensity. and that level has to come to the american people. this is the week for that intensity. if you care, you can make a phone call. if you care more, go down to the senator's district office. and if you care more yet, come to washington, d.c. at 1:30 tomorrow there will be a large
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gathering in the park just north of the senate chame beers and from there, they have been called to rally and defend their liberty. we saw it on april 15 in a big way, on september 12 in a big way, we saw it here on november -- let's see, november 7 and on november 5, november 5 there were 20,000 to 50,000 or more people here and said, don't take my liberty. don't tell me the standards by which i can buy it. let me have my own freedom and liberty. i don't need a government-run health care in america. that was the message. and that whole group of people that were there, tens of thousands, any one of them would have fit perfectly at my church picnic, fiscally responsible, family people from across america, people that are this
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american family and don't want to see a socialized america. we are a unique people. we aren't social democracy europe. the socialists, they stayed in europe. freedom-loving people came here. there is a certain vitality in americans that is unique to the rest of the world. it was hard to get here. you had to take a chance and maybe be a servant but earn your way across the ocean and as one of migrate-grad parents did worked as a servant in baltimore before he got his passage worked off. people with a dream because we had economic opportunity, liberty, and they could shape their own lives. we got the vitality from every donor civilization in the world. every country, whatever would be the particular characters of
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their culture, there always is that cream off the top that is the vitality of the culture and vitality of the civilization. we skim the cream and they came here and they arrived in america with almost unlimited natural resources, little or no taxation, no regulation, a prot test tant work ethic and catholics got with it pretty good and a foundation rooted in christian morality and work ethic and that giant dish created this teaming america that created this continent in the blink of a historic ally. we live in the unchallenged greatest nation on earth that the earth has ever seen. and we are seeing it being torn apart. people look around and see these
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beautiful marble pillars of american exceptionalism and chisel away at the foundation that this made a great nation. now we have seen eight huge entities nationalized, most of it under this administration, not all of it. three large investment banks, fannie mae, freddie mac, general motors, chrysler, a.i.g. according to a "wall street journal" article, 1/3 of the private sector profits have been nationalized without an exit strategy and they set up the payroll czar to tell the banks and other institutions that they are paying too much to their executives and barney frank financial services bill which is about ideology, as much as socialized medicine is about an
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ideology. in that bill, looks like they will be able to regulate all the financial institutions and tell those institutions what they're going to pay their people probably right on down to the person who scrubs the floor at night. this freedom in this country has been by the pelosi congress and obama administration. this is being quashed by the socialization and nationalization of our economy and the intentional creation of a dependency class of people that are designed to be the political base that will support those who will continue to do class-envy politics, share the wealth. that share the wealth phrase that came out of president obama's mouth is in the mission statement of acorn. mr. burgess: i think the gentleman has summed things up very well. and i cannot be nearly as
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eloquent as he is delineating the history and what created greatness in this country. all i know is the people who seem to be making the decisions today are the people who never held a job in the private sector. it is a startling thing to watch as we see once again the administration is going to lunch forward with a jobs creation strategy when the jobs creation strategy exists right before our eyes. it's the small businessman and woman in america who has the capability of creating those jobs. but they are scared to death of the 8% payroll tax. they don't know what we will do in energy. the financial services committee, they will try to figure that one out. is it any wonder why small businesses across this country
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are holding back. they know about taking risks. that's what brought them to where they are now, but when so many things are in flux, tax policy, health care, energy, financial service regulation, when so many things are in flux, what's in it for them to go out and higher that one or two extra people they might hire? and the problem is not that one or two jobs, but the vast number of jobs across the greater and broader economy that that one or two job holdback that will small business is making right now, that's where the jobs are and that's why this has been a jobless recovery and why it will remain a jobless recovery until congress and the administration stop making the environment and the prospects for the future seem so threatening that small businesses again feel comfortable and taking on the role of being the leader of job creation.
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we don't need another federal program to stimulate jobs. we just need to get out of the way. i just had an exchange with the secretary of treasury a few weeks ago when i asked him the question, instead of making it a more challenging economic environment, brought stability for small businesses in america and allow them the freedom to do what they have done in the past, just create the jobs which provides prosperity and allows us to get out of the recession? and the secretary of the treasury looked at me and said that is the same broad economic philosophy that brought this country to the brink of ruin. i just described market capitalism to you and i'm a simple capital doctor. you are supposed to know this stuff. i was dumbfounded the secretary not understanding what made this country great in the first place has no clue about how to set the
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tone and set the environment so this country can indeed recover from this economic downturn. and of course, very famously in that exchange, the other the gentleman from texas, mr. brady encouraged the secretary to resign. i didn't think he should resign. he shouldn't have been hired in the first place. not only does he not know how to fill out his tax returns, he doesn't know what makes this country great. i appreciate the gentleman letting me be here. i appreciate you being here. these next couple of days are going to be extremely important. and the american people do need to be engaged and do need to be paying attention and do need to be responding to the clues -- cues being given to them by the gentlemen in the other body. mr. king: i thank the gentleman
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from texas and reclaiming my time. it strikes me that the secretary of treasury is a natural-born citizen and not naturalized citizen. there are flash cards made available by the united states citizenship immigration services. the stack of these cards to train with so you can learn to pass the naturalization test. and these flash cards will say, when was the declaration of independence signed? flip it over to the other side. july 4, 1776. who's the father of our country? joorge washington. what is the economic system of the united states? free enterprise capitalism? you can't be national tralized as a citizen unless you can pass that test. and he says that is what brought us to the brink of ruin.
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no wonder we can't get this economy sorted out. i sent a letter to the secretary of the treasury after a hearing we had between financial services and the department of agriculture to deal with derivatives and credit default swaps and the question was this. president obama has been elected at least in part because he criticized president bush for not having an exit strategy in iraq. here are the list of the companies been nationalized by the president and i would like to know what is your exit strategy? how do you go about divesting the taxpayers' investment in these companies that were formerly private and get them that are now managed and controlled, if not majority controlled, how do you get them back into the private sector so they can be allowed to succeed
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and fail? . it was a long time getting the answer back and it took a long time to analyze the answer but it boiled down to, well, there really isn't a plan but the secretary will know when the time is right and take those steps when it's appropriate. that i think, mr. speaker, tells us what's going on here. there's a real desire, if the secretary of the treasury believes free enterprise capitalism brought us to the brink of ruin, i can't believe that he would be willing then to divest the federal government from the private sector, of their shares of investment in these formerly private sector companies, and that is -- it is the socialization of our economy. the 33% or so of the "wall street journal" said of the private sector profits and if they take on this health care industry, that's going to be another 1/6 of our economy and if that goes on that's going to
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take us up to or greater than half of the private sector than we had in the past. and so there's a couple of different sectors to the economy. one of them is the private second quarter. it's the gross sector. it's where people produce goods and services that have fal -- that have value. there are three different levels of the value that an economy needs to produce. first the economy needs to produce things that people must have for survival. that things that are necessary for the survival of mankind, they have to have food and clothing and shelter. they come from generally out of the earth. one way or another. and so that's the number-one level of our economy. those necessities for survival. second level -- that's private sector. government produces hardly anything that's necessary for
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survival. they regulate and they slow down the actual efficient production of those things that we need for survival. second level, those things that improve our efficiency, technology, for example, information technology and industrial technology, that cause us to be more efficient. those efficiencies help us produce more of the necessities of life so the second part of the economy that's gotten the most important value is the second level that produces the efficiencies in our economy. the third level of the private sector economy is the disposable income. that's the income we use to do the things that we enjoy, to give our life relaxation and travel on vacation, do those things, or we buy the things that we like that we don't have to have. not necessities but the extras in life. those three levels, all private sector, all rooted back in, if you chase them back, you cannot go on vacation and you can pass up buying a fancy pair of shoes or that nice car or the cabin at
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the lake or the boat or whatever it might be, and those are eliminating the things that are not necessities of life. and you can actually sacrifice some of the things out of the second level of our economy that help with our efficientsy, but when you get down to the necessities, -- efficiency, but when you get down to necessities, it's life itself. the other side of this economy, the public sector of the economy is where government comes in and they decide that they're going redistribute wealth and they're going to provide services that they think that the people need and for some degree people have decided they would like to have government provide some of those services. but government regulates, government slows down and intimidates private sector commerce and once you get to a certain place over the things that are necessary for government, for example, we build roads with user fees and less so with general fund tax fees. so if you drive on the road you pay the tax for your gallon of gas that goes in the tank and you help build the road.
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the public sector, the parasitic sector is growing and it's growing leaps and bounds by the trillions of thrars and are less and less decisions made by capital which always is rational and more and more decisions made by government. we had a car czar that neither made a car nor sold one. i don't even know that he owned one. he's not with us anymore. but we have a government of people that haven't written out paychecks that have not started a business, not operated a business, if they've operated in the private sector they started in up near the top of a department and never saw the interworkings of the bottom of what small business is like that we've got to have to grow use in the larger businesses. we need to have -- we need to have the underpinnings of american exceptionalism put back underneath us again.
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we've got to refurbish those beautiful marble pillars of american exceptionalism. we've got to promote liberty and encourage the freedom that's necessary and people have to be willing to take risks, capital has got to be able to make a rational decision, but capital also has to know, that's investors' money, mr. speaker, has to know that they will also, if they fail, they're going to lose their investment and someone else will pick up a bargain and build it on what was left of the company that went under. i've staired that in the air -- eye -- stared that in the eye. we had our ups and downs. know what it's like to live with a not in my gut for -- knot in my gut for 3 1/2 years, to hold my company together, we succeeded. others around me did not. some people got drug down in the -- and the load was hesky and others succeeded -- heavy and others succeeded significantly beyond the level which are did and i'm glad everybody had the opportunity to do that. and if the government comes in and then points a -- an
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overseaer which is what the barney frank financial services bill does and they go in and look at capital investments and business management and they decide who's going to make how much money with another regulator for our financial institutions, we have given up a big piece of our liberty, a big piece of our freedom. but what we're focused on, mr. speaker, we're focused on this week, this national health care act, this socialized medicine act that barrel passed out of the house of represent -- barely passed out of the house of representatives, that's down in the senate and the issues that set before the senate seem to be a couple of big once -- ones. one of them is the pro-life amendment. here it is the stupak amendment where 64 democrats had the opportunity to vote to put up a pro-life vote that they didn't believe that the taxpayers of america should be compelled to fund abortions through money that is extracted from them
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unwillingly and so therefore the stupak amendment came up, of 4 -- 64 democrats voted for it. 64 democrats and i believe every republican are on record saying i am pro-life and i don't believe that we should have -- at least we should not compel american taxpayers to fund abortion when they're funding a socialized medicine program. that was what the stew tack peamed -- stupak amendment was, even though it made exceptions for rape and insist and doesn't fit with the tenants of the catholic church, it was a subject that was raised and pushed through here. now with the stupak amendment passing, now these 64 democrats have cover. now if a bill comes back down this hallway through the center of the capital, it's had that language not necessarily stripped out when senator ben nelson offered similar and some said identical language to the stupak pro-life amendment, it was defeated in the senate and so the senate bill doesn't have a pro-life amendment in it. and if it comes back to this
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house, we will see, i think, a conference committee that is appointed and stacked by speaker pelosi and harry reid and i think they're likely to strip the stupak amendment out and drop it back in here to the house and what i think will happen will be some of those 64 democrats that said, i'm pro-life, here's my vote for the stupak amendment, i think they'll roll over and they'll say, oh, i voted for the stupak amendment, on balance i think it bill is good even though we're going to compel americans to fund abortions in the united states. that's what they're set up to do and that's the dynamics and we need people in the senate to kill this bill so that this scenario doesn't play out here in the house. another piece is this public option, the public option that seems to be -- the government option seemed to be rejected by the senate but they want it -- the liberals in the house insist that there be a government health care option. so they're trying to con figure
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a way that they can define something that isn't necessarily a government option that can come to conference and be merged together and right now the staff in the house and the staff in the senate are merging these two bills, trying to get ready to drop something on and give america a christmas that will be the least measurey of anything in my lifetime. it will be -- merry of anything in my lifetime. it will dramatically erode liberties in america. those are the two big issues. is it going to be a pro-life bill and is it going to have in it a government option. i suggest that they will put together and construct a scenario by which they will be trying to compel taxpayers to fund abortions and compel taxpayers to buy government insurance because, as the gentleman from texas said, it is about ideology, it's not about policy, it's not about producing the best result because if they did that, if they were for that, they would be for reforming
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medical malpractice abuse in america, lawsuit abuse reform, they would be for selling insurance across state lines, providing full deductibility for everybody's health insurance, transparency in billing, the list of things that we can do that are constructive that don't cost money is long indeed. but tomorrow, mr. speaker, and every day this week until somebody loses their nerve the united states senate needs to be jammed, it needs to be filled up with people that come here respectfully and plightly and follow the rules and -- politely and follow the rules and follow the law but give the senators and their staff in washington, d.c., in their district offices at home, in their offices here, a personal experience. give them -- give them a sense of how strong they -- it needs to happen this way, mr. speaker, the american people need to let these senators know that there will be a reckoning if their liberty is taken from them and this socialized medicine bill is
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imposed upon them. i don't want to see it, i don't want to see it for my children, i don't want to see it for my grandchildren, i don't want to see it for america's destiny. i don't want to see america's destiny, the vitality of america's destiny, stripped away piece by piece as we leap off the abyss into socialism and embrace the european version of a social democracy and more, a managed economy, managed health care, very limited freedom, the only budget that they didn't grow was the department of defense budget. everything else has to have a 10% or more up. the idea that you can borrow from your grandchildren that have not yet been born and compel them to pay debts today and spend money without any sense of responsibility, believing that that grows the economy when we've established that even the secretary of the treasury believes that free enterprise capitalism is what brought this economy to the brink of ruin. mr. ke
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