hands. i yield back, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: mr. grayson of florida. mrs. schmidt of ohio. mr. mcclintock of california. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from ohio, mr. ryan, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. ryan: thank you, madam speaker. it's an honor, again, to be on the floor of the house of representatives to talk about the issues of the day that are here and talk about changes that have happened in our country over the course of the last year due to the leadership of president obama and the democratic congress. and i know in today's world and today's media-driven world where

we like to talk about and have fights about different issues and let those fights kind of permeate society, sometimes it's very difficult for us to, as leaders in the country, to talk directly to our constituents and to the american people about some of the changes that have been in place. if we look at just a little over a year ago when, in the fall of last year, october of 2008, i guess it would be, the difficulties facing our country. on the economic side, the collapse of the stock market, the collapse of the job market, wall street run amok, no regulations, no rules, fancy packaging of different

accounting skeems and creative financial -- schemes and creative financial packages that ultimately led our country to one of the greatest crises we've had since the great depression and were it not for the programs that were started during the great depression it would have been the great depression. and if it weren't for extraordinary acts on behalf of the federal government to support the banking industry and i remember getting calls from local businesses, local banks, community banks, saying that we need to do something, things are collapsing, we had a vote here on the floor to pass billions of dollars worth of aid to the banks and the vote failed and the stock market dropped 800 to 900 points. subsequently we came back and passed it. and it took a lot of -- and took a lot of political heat for it.

months later under the leadership of president obama after he was sworn in we passed the stimulus package. in january of last year we had 700,000 jobs-plus that were lost in january of last year. and every economist was saying, mccain's presidential candidate, mccain's top economist, top democratic economists, were all saying there's a $2 trillion to $3 trillion hole in the economy, we've got to fill that hole. and the only entity left to put some money into the economy is the federal government. thus the stimulus package, which quite frankly i didn't think was big enough. put the stimulus package in place, now let's fast forward a year.

nobody's happy. of course i represent youngstown, ohio, they have the worst unemployment rate in the entire state. that has to do with the manufacturing base and losing manufacturing jobs. but the bottom line is this, in november we've lost thousands of job as opposed to 750,000 jobs and i think in december the numbers are complete -- aren't completely official, i guess, but 70,000 or 80,000 jobs were lost in december. so from 750,000 jobs in the month of january to only losing 80,000 in december, nobody's happy with that, but we are clearly moving in the right direction. when you look at the fact that the stock market is up 55% to 60% since it bottomed out, we are clearly moving in the right

direction. now, a lot more has to be done and i think we've got to make some tremendous investments but one of the things that's strangling the economy right now is health care costs on businesses and health care costs on families. and so the health care reform proposal is here to say that even if you don't morally believe that we should cover every american, let's -- we could all make those arguments from a religious perspective or values arguments or ethical arguments that we may be need to do that, let's set that -- maybe need to do that, let's set that aside and let's talk economics and let's talk about the fact that if we do nothing, that health care costs will continue to strangle small businesses in the united states, will continue to further increase their grip around the throats of families in the united states and all we

hear when we go back to our districts is about the cost of health care. and this is president obama's attempt and the attempt of the democrats to try to fix this problem. by doing absolutely nothing we're going to see an $1,800 a year increase in the average family of four's health care costs next year. and then another $1,800 the following year and another $2,000 and it will just keep escalating to the point where it eats up the whole family budget and you're paying more and getting less in coverage, really. so it's eating up the whole family budget, less money to spend on tuition, less money to go on a vacation, less money to increase your family's quality of life. maybe move into a better neighborhood, a better school district. and all of these things are not available to families because of the increased cost in health

care. and so doing nothing allows that to continue because we're afraid to make tough political decisions. we didn't get elected to come to this body, madam speaker, to make the easy decisions. we didn't run just to make sure we got elected in two more years. we got hired by the american people to solve very difficult, very complex problems and we are attacking them because that's the mission that they gave us. and we set out to do it with energy and we set out to do it now with health care reform. an let me just say this finally before i kick it to my friend, many people now know because of his heroic works in haiti, but if we do nothing, in 10 years one of every $5 in the united states of america will be spent on health care. and in 30 years one of every $3

will be spent on health care in the united states of america. that is unsustainable. that is an unsustainable road for us to go down and people will then look 10 years from now and 20 years from now and 30 years from now and they'll ask, who was representing western pennsylvania when they had a chance to tackle health care reform? who was representing connecticut? who was representing northeast ohio? when the bell rang to step up and make these changes. i yield to my friend from western p.a. >> i thank the gentleman and i thank him for his kind words as well. he hit the nail right on the head, madam speaker. that we, i think it's appropriate today to take a look at what was happening one year ago today. a year ago today the budget deficit was forecast by the congressional budget office for the fiscal year ending september

30, 2009, to be $1.8 trillion. the jobs that were lost in the month of january were more than 700,000 jobs one year ago in january. the stock market was trending straight down. and it bottomed out in march as 6,500. we had just had a loss of six percentage points for the quarter in g.d.p. one of the largest in recent memory. dropped in the gross domestic product. that's what we were facing one year ago today. and as the gentleman from ohio said, this congress was elected to make difficult decisions. this congress was elected to work together and do give and take and, look, every bill that you pass is going to have some things in there that you like and some things in there you don't like but when the country is staring into the abyss,

literally facing economic clamify if we fail to act, one year ago, moving into the spring of 2009 this congress did act, in fact february of 2009, and what has happened since then? compared to one year ago today? i talked about the budget forecast was expected to be $1.8 trillion in deficit. well, we ended at about $1.2 trillion in deficit. now, i'm not going to have a big party here because that's the largest deficit we've ever faced because of some of the circumstances the gentleman described that were beyond the control and unforeseen because of the economic catastrophe, but we saved a lot of $600 billion from the deficit because the economy was starting to rebound in a way that c.b.o. did not foresee. the gross domestic product instead of losing 6.5 -- 6 1/2 percentage points a year ago,

we're now on the verge of announcing back to back quarters of positive growth in g.d.p. and we expect a very strong number for the last half of 2009. we talked about all of these factors relating to our economy and things are starting it to improve. we are certainly not out of the woods yet but it was the actions of this congress, instead of sitting on our hands and say, well, let's just let -- saying, well, let's just let everything solve itself, that's how we got here in the first place, that's how we found ourselves in the hole that we're in the process of digging ourselves out of and what i would say to the gentleman as i turn it over to the gentleman from ohio is, you cannot solve our long-term budget circumstance, our deficit, as the gentleman eloquently said, without addressing the cost of health care. health care affects everybody in this country, every business, every family, every level of government, federal, state,

municipal. we're at a competitive disadvantage to all the nations that we have to do business with. the gentleman represents a district similar to mine. he's in the youngstown area, i have southwestern pennsylvania, very hard-hit by losses in manufacturing, a lot of that has to do with health care costs. a lot of the competitive disadvantage that america has with foreign nations are because of the cost of health care. but businesses every day struggle to make that decision, are they going to be able to continue to offer coverage to their employees for one more year, facing another 20% rate increase? senior citizens in my district on average saw a 45% increase in their medicare advantage plans. 45% one year increase. that's simply unsustainable and the government certainly is never going to balance its budget without addressing the cost of health care. the gentleman from ohio. mr. ryan: i'd like to say that this happened. we didn't end up here, you know, a couple of octobers ago and all

of a sudden things were just -- happened. our government was controlled by a conservative, neoconservative ideology for most of the first decade in this country. or of this century. from 2000 to 2008 they controlled the white house and from 2000 to 2006 they controlled the congress. implemented their economic philosophy. hook, line and sinker. it got implemented, they controlled all the levers of government, passed their supply side economics, cut taxes for the wealthiest, that will stimulate the economy and, you know, everything will take care of itself, deregulate wall street, everyone will be honest with each other, no one would possibly do anything wrong if we just weren't watching them, you know, they'll behave themselves. and they forget the fact -- to factor in that people get greedy

when you don't watch them and that's what happened on wall street. so my point on top of what the gentleman just said is, this just didn't happen. we had leaders in washington, d.c., who implemented an extreme ideology, that ideology got implemented here in the united states congress, it was their ideology that was governing or not governing wall street, it was the lack of investment in jobs, education, health care, that needed to be made, and all of a sudden fast forward a few years, the ponzi scheme ends, the house of cards collapses and it's not just wall street that has problems, it ripples throughout the economy and now we have in some cities 15%, 20% unemployment. we have health care costs zooming out of control, energy costs zooming out of control. we continue to be dependent on foreign sources for our energy which is a national security issue, because these problems

weren't addressed and the initiatives that we have put forth over the last year have begun to shift the trends at least away from losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month to, you know, only losing 80,000, from 700,000 to 80,000, from the stock market ending up at 6,500 a year ago now up to over 10,000. up 55%. so, things aren't perfect, but they certainly are moving in the right direction and if we can get the health care plan implemented, start reducing costs for businesses so they have money to free up to invest into their small businesses, into their capital, into their machinery, into their work force, into their technology, then i think we can begin to really drive the economy forward and put the middle class back front and center where they belong. i yield to my friend. >> thank you. let's talk about health care in

that six-year period in which republicans controlled every piece of the apparatus here in washington. by allowing them to set a health care agenda for the country which made a good deal with the insurance companies and a lot of for-profit health care entities what we saw over that period of time was for businesses in my district and your district, 120% increase in the amount of money they were paying for health care. now it would have been nice if revenues for those same companies were going up by the same percentage, but they weren't. revenues couldn't keep pace with the health care inflation that businesses, many of them, small mom and pop shops, that maybe only employed 10 or 20 people, couldn't keep up with the rising costs of health care system of businesses went under. we lost manufacturing and industrial capacity to countries overseas that spend half as much

as we do and approach it in a different way. workers in that same period of time saw their wages remain largely flat because every bit of extra money that the company they worked for made went straight into health care. for small businesses it was even worse. during the same time as insurance companies gathered and gathered more power by virtue of the, i think, very bad decisions made here in washington, small businesses ended up paying about 20% more than large businesses. forcing more of them to go out of business. our health care system got worse and worse and worse and it contributed in a bigger and bigger way to the recession that we find ourselves in today. we got to wake up to the fact that when you hand a health care system over to the insurance companies and drug companies, when you write a medicare drug benefit bill that essentially guarantees lifetime profits for the insurance and drug companies

while passing down the bill to regular americans, you ignore the festering problems in medicare. so that you push more and more of the problem ultimately back onto businesses who are going to have to front the cost for an increased medicare budget. you're crippling our economy. the republican health care agenda, here in this house over the course of the last decade, and what continues to be their ayen da, is part and parcel of got us into this -- of what got us into this mess. we can tell from the handing the reins of power of the republicans handing control over to the banking community and the prices crippling our economy as we handed over power to the big energy companies. but you can tell where we are with respect to our economy through the lens of the health care policies the republicans per petch waited on this congress and this country for

almost a decade and would like to bring us back to if they were to get control of this place again. that's part of the story, mr. ryan. mr. ryan: there's no question about it. one of the important issues that we need to talk about as a country, too, along with the health care, along with a lot of the decisions that our friends on the other side made to put us here we need to remember this in context, not only of the last year but i think of the last couple of decades because the arguments we're hearing today about socialism and here comes big government and all these other things were the same arguments that they made against president clinton in his initial budget that he passed in 1993 when he first got in, it was the same claims. and i think they passed it without any republican votes in the house and democrats had to carry water and look what happened in the 1990's. that's what i say even though my

republican friends we like to tease each other back home in the district, i said, how is your 401k doing now since president obama got in? is it better than when bush was in? i think it is. and the same with president clinton, 20 million new jobs created because of the democratic economic proposals. you had the bottom 20% of people's wages grow for the first time in a long, long time prior to that. you saw budget deficits turn into budget surpluses. what we're saying here is there's always going to be a neoconservative republican extreme faction that's going to say whatever we are doing is somehow going to make the sky fall, but the reality is these are sound economic principles, these are sound investments, sound reforms on health care, energy, and the like.

i yield to my friend. mr. altmire: the gentleman talks about the brand new day here. the decade past, the first time they kept a statistic on job keeping, the first time we went through an entire decade when we didn't have a statistically significant increase in jobs, when it basically flatlined. when we talk about the clinton budget in 1993, sometimes when i'm researching different members' positions on issues, i will look at some of the things said on this floor in 1993 saying if we passed the clinton plan to balance the budget, we were going cause the greatest recession in american history and collapse the economy and some of the arguments that were made, i think it's fair to say,

were proven false when the last four years of the clinton administration we had four consecutive budget surpluses. the last four budget surpluses we've had in this country. i don't want to go back and battle old battleles or rehash old fights but past isst prologue. you can look at the fights we're having today and the same people who predicted dastfer we passed those policies are the same people trying to flevpbt congress from addressing the system -- the systemic issues we face right now. mr. murphy: would the yement yield? mr. altmire: certainly. mr. murphy: we could have ideological differences over issues like health care or energy policy, but what's most remark to believe me over the course of the last year was to see the divide between democrats an republicans on financial reform. i have people on both sides of

the energy debate and health care debate but almost everybody i run into, with maybe the exception of a few people commuting back and forth to high-priced jobs in new york say, you've got to step up to the plate and stop these wall street investment banks from going back and doing the same things that they did to us regular, average, everyday joes over the course of the last decade. you've got to fix the problem of derivatives. you have to go in and stop these institutions from becoming so highly leveraged that they cause catastrophic failure of themselves and the entire system. go back and fix this for us. and so, when i got sworn in, maybe i was naive this year, i thought, yeah, we're going to have some knock down, drack out fights on some issues, but i bet the congress will come together and rmbingt ein in the abuses and excesses of wall street, well, we're even fighting over that. the republicans don't want to join us to try to curb the real

abuses on wall street. if they do, they want to do it with a patch here or a band-aid there. president obama said, to the extent we're sending money to the banks to keep the economy afloat, we should ask them to pay it back. the republicans opposed that as well. i -- we represent similar differences, we've got a lot of republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals, but i understand there's going to be differences but there must be some fairness about how we stick up for the little guy against the big wall street banks that cause so much trouble. there's got to be places we can agree on. as you talk about, past is prologue. i think we're in for a lot of fights when it comes to sticking up for the little guy, it seem there's only one group here, mr. altmire, fighting those fights. mr. altmire: that's right. as we continued to talk about the key issues to balancing our

budget have to be paying for any increase in expenditures or decrease in revenue. and the gentleman talks about his surprise to hear that people would oppose taking a look at the way wall street firms do business and taking a look at the way things have been run over the last several years and what that led to a year and a half ago, i was just as surprised as the gentleman to learn there was opposition to the concept that we should have to pay for things that we pass in this house. because i mentioned the four straight budget surpluses president clinton had in the last four years of his administration. that was due largely to pay as you go budget scoring, which to give credit where credit is due, was instituted by president bush's father in 1990. was it -- it was in effect throughout the 1990's, wildly successful time in our economy and as i said, four straight budget surpluses. so this congress, before myself

planned ryan became members, allowed it to expire. allowed pay as you go budget scoring to expire and now what have we had? instead of four straight budget surpluses, we're approach 10g straight budget deficits. deficits extended as far as the eye can see. so in this house we had a debate on whether or not to require any piece of legislation that comes through this house that raises revenue -- or that raises expenditures or decreases revenue, very simple concept, you would have to have an offset for that. find somewhere else in the budget to make a cut. find somewhere else in the fwouget come up with the money to pay for whatever the policy idea is that you're putting forward. it's what every family, every business has to do, every day in this country. do you want to spend more money on one side of the ledger? you have to find it on the other side of the ledger. this congress over the past 10 years has no operated under that

common sense accounting rule. it's led to these enormous deaf deficits and in the long-term the debt facing the country. i was surprised to hear some of my colleagues on the other side oppose the concept. it's pretty simple, pay for what you want to spend. pay for revenue decreases. we don't even find agreement on that in this congress. doesn't bode well for having an informed debate on how to solve these key problems of our economy at this important time. mr. ryan: we've got to make the investments we have to make as a country. our infrastructure around the country needs a huge shot in the arm, trillions of dollars needs to be informsed in roads, bridges, high speed rail, all across the united states, airports, this all needs to be done. our port, water ways, those kinds of investments have been neglected for years and years and years an we need to continue

to make those investments here as well and we have to ask those people who end up making tremendous profits from those enterprises to step up and help and who have been very successful over the course of the last few years and i don't think we should run from the fact that we need to ask them, there's been a shift toward the middle class, paying more and more of the share of revenue that's coming into the federal government. we need to reduce that for the middle class and ask those people who are benefiting in a very big way. i want to make one more final point as we begin the close here and have a few minutes left. on the issue of -- on the issue of energy, i think it is important as we talk about health care and health care costs, we need to also address the issue of how we are going to produce and generate energy here in the united states. this is our number one national

security issue that we have in this country. we send $1 billion a day out of this country through our gas pumps into foreign countries, oil producing countries who don't like us all that much and cause us tremendous geopolitical strife day in and day out and distract us from what we need to be doing. we need to make sure that we create an energy system in the united states that takes that money and keeps it here in the united states of america to refurbish our homes, our businesses, our commercial buildings here in the united states, to make sure that we pump that money into battery technology, smart cars, smart grids, energy efficiency homes, energy management systems, this is the future of the united states of america. and last week we had a conference here where we met with several c.e.o.'s and these

energy management systems, now walking for wal-mart, home depot, costco, saving them 20% to 25% on their energy costs. those are savings that companies like those can reinvest back into their business, but if you ask the c.i.a., talk to the joint chiefs of staff, a national security issue. and why would we want to depend on foreign sources of energy to supply our own military here in the united states? we address the national security issue we create jobs here in the united states and we help to address the carbon issue here causing global climate change. these are the issues we need to tackle as a country and we can't be afraid to do it. we can't be afraid, madam speaker to make the tough decisions, to push the tough policies, to make sure that 10, 20, 30 years from now, when people look back and say, what did they do in 2010, 2009, in the united states congress, to try to address some of these

problem we can say we answered the call, made the tough decisions and the country was bet off for it. with that, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from new jersey, mr. garrett, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. garrett: you know, i can tell by looking at the clock on the wall at 8:30 that an important election was just held today with the voting booths now closed just one half hour ago and the balance all -- and the ballots all being collected in their boxes and brought to the appropriate places for counting and we will see probably during -- or potentially, i should say,

during the course of the next 60 minutes just how that election shall turn out. and just as an aside for those who are with us here this evening taking part in this discussion on the constitutionality or the lack thereof, the unconstitutionality of the health care legislation that's about to come before this house again, we will be talking about the election results so we can keep everyone apprised of how those elections are turning out. but i mentioned the fact that that election was held today and i'm sure there will be pundits on the air tonight talking about what exactly does the election results mean up in the state of massachusetts, not just for the state of massachusetts but for the country as a whole and a number of them will be saying what i've said before, that it's not so much just looking at those two individual candidates but what their respective parties stand for and more specifically, what the president of the united states and this

administration has stood for over these last 12 months and what his seminal program, his major issue has been and that, of course, is this health care, so-called, reform, the imposition of new mandates and taxes and totally changing the health care configuration and how the delivery of it is done in this country. and so really some would make the case that what that election that just closed now 32 minutes ago in massachusetts is about is whether or not the american public agrees with what the obama administration has put forth as their major proposal as changing the health care delivery system in the united states or not. and we will see the results in the next 60 minutes or sometime tonight. more importantly, though, than what the outcome of that one election will be is what congress will be doing with that legislation here in the house and in the senate this week or next week or whenever they decide to bring back that issue

for a vote. and we know or we anticipate that they will. the fundamental issue, though, this is the one that we'll be discussing in here, is not that health care legislation, not some of the small language that's buried within first in the thousand pages that came before this house that i would hazard a guess that probably just about no one on the other side of the aisle read thoroughly and had a complete comprehension of what they were voting on when they voted yes, nor clearly in the 2,000 pages that came forth in the senate variation and version of that health care bill, it's not some of the small language and small details that should be the first question that any member of congress should be asking themselves when they are about to vote on that bill, but it's rather the fundamental issue of whether that piece of legislation is constitutional at all. you know, in my pocket here is

my wallet and in my wallet, if i dig down for my wallet, is my voting card, actually i have it here because we finished voting a little while ago, is my voting card and as you know, madam speaker, every time we vote we put it in one of these little slots here before we vote red or green or yellow. i always suggest to my colleagues that before they vote on whatever the legislation is they should be asking themselves one fundamental question, is the bill that they are about to vote on constitutional or not? does the constitution of the united states give us as members of this body the authority to pass that law that we're about to vote on? we are all required when we become new congress people every two years to raise our hands and

say that we support and defend the constitution of the united states. as a matter of fact i was just in new jersey earlier today where now governor chris christi did the same thing, raised his hand and said that he is supporting and defending not only the constitution of new jersey but also the constitution of the united states as well. we as members of this body of the house of representatives do that every two years when we are -- have the honor and privilege of being elected by our constituents at home, we come to washington and said we support and defend that constitution. you know, as an aside there is one member of our delegation from texas who has suggested that there should be a requirement that every member of congress and their staffs should at least read the constitution at least once each term. well, i'm not going to say that we have to mandate that, i think it would not be a bad thing for them -- for each member to do it each term. i go through the constitution on

a regular basis and i hope that other members would as well, but we have all held up our arms, our hands and said we're going to uphold it so that's why i suggest each member that before they vote on any bill that they ask themselves, is that the bill constitutional? -- is that bill constitutional? now the health care bill we're talking about here is far more sweeping than just about any other piece of legislation that i have ever dealt with in my short-term here in congress and i think it is far more -- short term here in congress and think it is far more sweeping than any other legislation we've seen in generations. it would impact up to 1/6 of our economic activity of this country. far more important than that it would impact upon our very fundamental liberties that our founding fathers intended that our constitution was designed for to protect. and so that is what our discussion is going to be tonight and we will eagerly await the outcome of the

election in the state of massachusetts to see what the voters of that state would like to have their voices come in on. but i think the voices that have state will say whether they support the nature or some aspects of this health care bill or not, i think all those citizens of massachusetts, as with the citizens of the great state of new jersey, would also agree with me that whatever we do on health care in this country should at the very least be constitutional. now, one of the primary aspects of this bill that i would suggest has a flaw in it with regard to the constitutionality of it is the health care mandate. now what is that? in the bill for the first time ever, i would suggest, in the

history of the united states congress is going to suggest that we are not going to try to be regulating activity but we are going to try to regulate inactivity. for a long time now, well, basically you can go back to around 1930 -- the 1930's and the new deal courts and f.d.r. and the like, congress has grown -- grown in its authority and has the federal government grown in its size as far as reach and taxation on economic activity in this country. now you can see just about every aspect of your life in one way, shape or form having a little bit of reach of the federal government into it as the federal government tries to regulate in one way, shape or form. but that is always in the area of activity. if you're an inner state commerce or you're a trucking firm, the federal government's going to reach out and regulate your activity. if you're selling some sort of product eekter in your state or outside of your state, the federal government's going to try to come in and regulate that

form of activity. if you're in any other form of business, in of state or out of state, the federal government's going to try to step in in some way or form and try to regulate that activity. but never before since our constitution was first created, 1787, has the federal government said, we are now going to regulate inactivity. we're going to start regulating you even if you do absolutely nothing. even if you just stay at home, don't buy anything, don't do anything, we are now going to regulate your activity and we're going to do that regulation in a most personal and profound nature than any other aspect that beeve been talking about here on the floor in the last several months or years and that is your health care and your health insurance. so in this legislation that the administration has proposed that has passed out of this house, that has passed in the senate is and is now in some area of compromise on the other side of the aisle, the federal

government, this administration says, can regulate inactivity. they can step into your house and say, because you are not doing something that the federal government believes you should be doing, what is that? buying insurance, we're going to penalize you and we're going to do that with a tax. we've never seen this before and i would suggest that that is an overreach, a far overreach of what the founding fathers ever intended for this government, this federal government, to be able to do and is therefore a fundamental flaw and unconstitutional flaw in this legislation. it is one of the main reasons why i voted against it when it came in this house and it will be a continuing reason while i will vote against it if it ever comes back on the floor of this house again. i see i've been joined by some of my colleagues from the floor who have spoken on the difficulties or the problems or the demerits of the health care bill in the past. as i said in my opening

comments, there are a number of those areas that we can talk about with regard to the taxation aspect or with regard to the fact that you're putting, the government, between you and your doctor, other problems with this bill as well. there are a whole host of reasons why this legislation is bad as it impacts upon us as individuals in our health quality in this country. but one -- as i said at the beginning, of the most profound aspect of it is it's unconstitutional and it's unconstitutional because of this mandate. and with that i'm pleased to be joined by ms. foxx who would like to speak on this topic as well. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. garrett. i appreciate your taking the lead and organizing this special order tonight to give us an opportunity to talk about the health care bill that has been proposed by president obama and speaker pelosi. it has certainly gotten a good bit of news in the last few

months and the news that i watch on a regular basis, in particular in the last few days, we've heard a lot about the health care bill and as you indicated, the impact or possible impact on the election that's being held in massachusetts today to fill a vacant senate seat. and i think it's very important that we continue this debate even though there may not be many people watching this because generally people who are watching c-span, i think, are very interested in what's going on politically in the country and probably most people are watching what's happening with the outcome of the election in massachusetts. it's been about 45 minutes now since the polls closed and i know when i was watching just before i came to the floor the comment was made that it probably won't take long to get the results of the election,

that massachusetts is a rather small state and they have good reporting mechanisms so we will probably hear and i think for months we'll continue to debate whether this very, very ill-advised bill that's been proposed has had an impact. i speak often to groups, school groups, and i always like to talk about the constitution because it is so important to our country and to why we are the country that we are. no other country in the world has had such an endearing and an enduring constitution as we have had. if you type out the constitution on 8 1/2 by 11 paper, double spaced, like you would a term paper, it only turns out to be about 18 pages long.

rather short as constitutions go. many countries have constitutions that are thousands and thousands of pages. i think one of the geniuses of our founders was that they were able to write a very short constitution that has stood us in good stead for over 200 years and it continues to stand us in good stead and one of the things -- i always point out to the students when i talk to them is the first three words of the constitution and i wish i had a poster but i don't but even in the orange document these three words were written larger than the other words, we the people. the founders wanted the people of this country to be in charge of our government. they knew about the tyranny of a king.

they knew about the tyranny of a parliament. and they never wanted those tyrannies to be visited on the american people again. so they wrote a preamble that started that way, we, the people of the united states. and that's what we need to focus on here in the congress all the time and i agree with my distinguished colleague from new jersey, mr. garrett, that every time we vote, we should ask ourselves, is this bill -- is my vote going to be a vote that supports the constitution as i swore an oath to do? and i think that's very, very important. i also think that the 10th amendment to the constitution doesn't get nearly the kind of attention that it deserves.

the first amendment gets a tremendous amount of attention, as it should, but all of our amendments are extremely important and i think it's worthy to point out that in the over 200 years since the constitution was adopted, that we've only had 27 amendments to the constitution and we haven't needed a lot of amendments to the constitution. we've had opportunities to adopt other amendments, and we haven't done. so but i want to point out the 10th amendment and read it because i think, again, it's so important to this discussion that we're having on why the proposed health care bill is unconstitutional. the 10th amendment says, the powers not delegated to the united states by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to

the states respectively or to the people. the founders did enumerate certain things that the house should do, that the senate should do, that the president should do, and those things that are not enumerated by the constitution are left to the people and left to the states. and nowhere in the constitution do we read the words, the government shall provide for health care. nowhere. in fact, the words health care are nowhere in the constitution. in fact, the constitution says that -- in the preamble -- that the united states -- that the people are to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare.

well the main goal, the main job of the federal government is to provide for the common defense. unfortunately, we've gotten far, far away from that notion. some of the things that have been done, most of the things that have been done by the federal government that are unconstitutional in my opinion have been done for good reasons, they're not malevolent reasons, but they're wrong. we should not be funding education, for example, and some of us here tonight have talked about that in the past and we certainly, i don't think, should be mandating that individuals in this country purchase health insurance on penalty of being put in prison. it is ridiculous that we have people contemplating that in this country. it is a tremendous overreach of power. i want to point out something

that my good colleague has pointed out on the issue of our being penalized for the absence of something. as opposed to actions. not buying health insurance will get a citizen in trouble in this country. never before has that happened. but i want to point out something that the president has said and that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle pushing this terrible bill have said. they said, oh, when the american people understand what's in this bill, then they will like it. well, that in itself, to me is a condemnation of the bill. the bill that has been voted on in the senate, they didn't have a chance to read. and what's being negotiated now between the house and senate is being done behind closed doors by a very small group of people, all in secret.

well, if the bill were put out there now, the american people could decide do, they like the bill or not like the bill? they're saying from what they know and what we know from what had been proposed in the bills in the house, we know that the bills have bad elements in them. that's what the american people are reacting to. the elements that we know that are bad. the additional sad situation that we face is there's a lot that's been agreed to by four, five, or six people that nobody knows anything about. that is not the way to operate in a republic. that is not the way this congress should be operating, nor should our president be a part of that. we have ample evidence from good constitutional scholars that this is not good and madam

speaker, i would like to enter into the record this evening an article from "the wall street journal" from january 2, 2010, why the health care bills are unconstitutional. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. foxx: thank you, madam speaker. the article was written by senator orrin hatch, the honorable jay kenneth blackwell and kenneth a. klakosky. it will be in the record and it is a matter of record in the "wall street journal" from january 2, 2010. and with that, i would like to yield back to my colleague from new jersey, mr. garrett. mr. garrett: i thank the gentlelady for joining us on the floor this evening and her remarks for the last several minutes on this very important issue and as a gentlelady who has come to the floor on numerous occasions in the past to speak to this most profound

and fundamental issue, protecting our constitutional rights, i once again thank her. with that, i turn to a gentleman from georgia who is familiar, i'm sure, with the james madison -- with james madison and "the federalist papers" where mr. madison said, in the first place, it is pob remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated powers. congress, in other words, was not set forth free by our funding fathers to have total unlimited grants of authority, but rather certain prescribed ones. with that, perhaps you could help enumerate and share on that point that madison was so eloquently quoted 200 years ago. the gentleman from georgia. mr. broun: thank you, mr. garrett. in hosea 4:6, it tells us, my

people were destroyed for lack of knowledge. unfortunately, people all over this country have a tremendous lack of knowledge about how much liberty and freedom we've lost in this country. i differentiate between freedom and liberty. i talk more about liberty than freedom. a wild dog is free. but let me define for the american people what liberty is. liberty is freedom bridled by morality. we have things going on here in this congress and we've had things going on in congress after congress under both democratic as well as republican leadership, we've had things going on with the executive branch under both republican a and democratic presidents and we even have things going on in the federal court system up to the u.s. supreme court where rulings are handed down, where the american people are losing their liberty.

i'm a strict original intent constitutionalist. in fact, i carry a copy of the constitution in my pocket at all times, it's in every one of my suits. on my desk there's a tremendous document, it's call "the federalist papers in modern language" a translit ration of the federalist papers, which is difficult to read because it's in old-style english, into modern english. it's not a translation, it's just a translit ration. i urge the american people to get these documents. i give copies of the constitution who to the anyone who walk into my office here in washington, d.c. and i give my kits copies of the constitution out of our district offices. every congressman can do the same. the american people need to become knowledgeable about how much liberty we've lost. one of the greatest attacks upon

liberty is what's going on here in congress today where the leadership in this house, the leadership in the senate, and the leadership down pennsylvania avenue in the white house wants to take away your liberty to see your doctor. and for that doctor and you to make the decisions that you need to have made so that you have the best quality health care. now, ms. foxx was talking about the 10th amendment and in the 10th amendment, i'll go back and read it, just to help educate the people, because you may not have listened to ms. foxx. but listen up, please, madam speaker, what the 10th amendment says. it says the power is not delegated -- the powers not delegated to the united states by the constitution, in other words those powers given specifically to congress, the president, or the court, nor

prohibited by it to the states, things such as minting money and having armies and things like that, those things that are not delegated to the united states by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. so we in congress always can technically constitutionally pass laws that are specifically given to us by the powers of this document. article 1, section 8 lists the things that congress can pass laws about. madam speaker, in this little booklet which contains the constitution, the declaration of independence and every single amendment, this little, bitity -- little bitty booklet, not the thousands of obama care and

pelosicare, it just goes to it start here's, goes to here. it says congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the united states. madison was very specific, mr. gare wet us -- mr. garrett was speaking about that, the general welfare, one of the clauses perverted by democrats and republicans, courts, presidents, and congress alike. it means the general welfare, not the direct welfare but the general welfare of the nation. we have the ability to collect taxes and pay debts, borrow money on the credit of the united states to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the indian tribes. mr. garrett was just talking about the -- just a few minutes ago about this commerce clause being utilized to make folks do something because the leadership

here thinks that we have to mandate every person in this country to buy health care insurance, whether you want to or not. that's never been done. it's totally unconstitutional, as mr. garrett was saying this commerce clause is one of the three that have been perverted also. the original intent was that we don't lockbox trade within state borders. we've done that on health insurance. which is unconstitutional in itself. republicans over and over again have suggested, in fact in my comprehensive health care reform bill, i introduced, h.r. 3889, it would allow people in georgia to wise health insurance in alabama which is cheaper, for the same blue cross-blue shield policy. why shouldn't we be able to do that? this commerce clause should allow us to do so. republicans have proposed that, democrats have fought against it. going on to establish a uniform

rule of naturalization of the united states. we have nationalization and -- naturalization and bankruptcy laws. to fix the standards of weights and measures to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting of the securities and coin of the united states. this is one of the few constitutional criminal justice things the federal government is supposed to be doing. most laws the federal government has on its books are unconstitutional because we don't have the authority to do them. to establish post offices and post roads. post roads in the founders' time were the highway system so we do have constitutional authority for federal roads. to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times exclusive right to the respective writings and discoveries that means patent laws. we have constitutional authority for patents.

to constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court. folks, there's only one federal court established in this document, the supreme court. every single federal court, every federal judge serves at the pleasure of the congress. we need to start putting checks on these dudes. and ladies. around this country who have actually broken their oath of office when they swear to uphold the constitution. in fact every one of us when we're sworn in swear to uphold the constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic. madam speaker, we have a lot of enemies that are domestic. enemies of the constitution, this house is overrun by many domestic enemies of the constitution. the senate is full of a bunch of them also, and the courts are full of a bunch of them likewise. to define and punish policies

and felonies against the law of nations, that's another one of the few criminal defense laws of the federal government to. declare war and reprisal, make rules concerning captures on lands and water. to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, to make rules for the government and regulation land and naval forces, that's for the army and navy and marine corps. i'm a marine, by the way. semper fi. to call forth the militia, to provide organizing army and disciplining the militia, to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases. over the district of columbia. who is when the district of columbia decides they want to have homosexual marriage recognized in the district of columbia, we in congress are supposed to tell them no. in fact, i've got a house resolution that says that. to make laws that should be necessary and proper for

careying the execution of foregoing powers. that's it, folks. that's it. the 18 things that we have the authority here in congress to pass laws about. there is absolutely nothing in this document that gives congress the authority to take over the health care system in this country. none. and when we see pelosi care on this floor or when we see reidcare, obamacare on this floor, there's absolutely zero constitutional authority. now, if god says in his word with a multitude of counselors and his safety and make a challenge to democrats, one democrat in this house, if one democrat in this house or one democrat in the u.s. senate were to show me in this document where congress has the authority to pass the bill that takes over the health care system in america and sends socialized

medicine as they're trying to do under obamacare, i'll vote for it. one person in this house or in the senate show me where in this document that we have the constitutional authority to do that, i'll vote for it. and i make a pledge and my lord jesus christ up above to the people of the united states, i pledge to vote for it if one, just one, house member or senate member will show me in this document where we have the authority to do so. i'm not worried about that pledge because there is none. pelosicare, reidcare, obamacare, secret -- well, they're all secret bills. i mean, they're all in secret with no transparency we've been promised by the speaker as well as by the president. there's nothing in this document to give the federal government the authority and mr. garrett was talking about that one

mandate on individuals which in itself is unconstitutional. there are so many things in this things, in fact, in the senate bill, mr. garrett, madam speaker, they say the next congress can't pass laws regarding that bill to overturn it. to amend it. or to withdraw it, appeal it. that in itself is unconstitutional. we in this congress can't make a law that sub jew gates the next congress to -- sub ju gates the next congress to what we pass. the american people, madam speaker, are being destroyed, a tremendous lack of knowledge in this document and how much liberty we're losing. madam speaker, it's up to the american people to rise up and

say no to obamacare. say no to whatever bill, understand that the majority leader, mr. hoyer, today, said that the senate bill is better than nothing, so i'm expecting with that comment that they're going to try to force down the throats of this house, the senate bill, i pray and hope to god, lord jesus christ, please help to us not pass that bill. in the name of jesus i pray that. but i just hope and pray that we don't pass any bill that is being presented here. i've challenged democrats, many of them individually, to introduce a bill, i'll give them the legislative language and it's totally constitutional, mr. garrett, mr. speaker. gone from madam speaker to mr. speaker, welcome. we're glad you have to. to do four things.

one is have cross-state purchasing of insurance for individuals and businesses which is constitutional under the commerce clause and we should be doing that under the commerce clause. to have associations so that associations can be developed, i'm a rotarian, we could have a rotary in a national pool, i'm a graduate of the university of georgia, medical college of georgia, we could have a georgia university pool, we could have any kind of pool, we could have a college graduate pool, we have all these pools that anybody in the country could join and have multiple options to buy many different kinds of policies and it would put a whole lot of market forces into the system to lower the cost. third thing is to stimulate the states to set up high risk pools for those who can't buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions and, forth, to have 100% tax deductibility for every single person in this country for all

health care expenses. there are a lot of people that are left out and you can't deduct your health care expenses. four simple thing, all constitutional. i've had many democrats, mr. speaker, tell me he they've love to introduce this bill. i'll be the first co-sponsor. and we could pass that, i believe, in this house. that would put some market forces in the system and would literally lower the cost of health care. mr. speaker, i'm a medical doctor. and my medical practice as a family practitioner, i've seen how government intrusion in the health care system has marketedly run up the cost of health care. couple a quick examples, i don't want to hog your time, mr. garrett, but let me give this story real quick like. i was in a solo practice down in southwest georgia and i had a small automated lab. it was quality controlled to make sure that the results were correct for my patients. most doctors, if not all, almost all doctors, want to have good lab results.

many doctors across the country had these small automated labs with quality control. congress passed a bill called clia, the clinical laboratory improvement act, sign snood law, it shut down my lab and every single doctor's lab in this country. prior to clia, a patient came in with soar throat, running a fever -- sore throat, running a fever, i'd see if they had a bacterial infection or a viral infection, they don't need to spend their money or even be exposed to antibiotic. i charged $12 for that test. it took five minutes to do it. clia shut my lab down. had to send patients across the way to the hospital, took two to three hours, cost $75. for one test. mr. speaker, what do you think that did to the cost of health care across this country? what do you think a did to the cost of health insurance across the country? it ran it up for everybody. congress a few years ago passed

hipaa. that has cost the health care industry billions with a b, billions of dollars and has not paid for the first aspirin to treat the headaches that it's created, it was totally unneeded. it's government regulation in the health care system, mr. speaker, that has run the cost up so that it's just outrageous. the federal government has no business regulating what i do with my patients, it has no constitutional authority to do so. we have to go back to the drawing boards and work on a constitutional basis and present in a step by step approach, in a constitutional approach, ways of getting the federal government out of regulating the health care system, let the marketplace regulate it, because i know without a question that the marketplace unencombureaued by taxes and regulations is the best control of quality, quantity of all goods and services including my services as a medical doctor.

but again i challenge one democrat, in this house or in the senate, to show me where it's constitutional for to us pass pelosicare, reidcare, obamacare, and i'll vote for the bill. they can't do it because it's unconstitutional. thank you, mr. garrett. i yield back. mr. garrett: i thank the gentleman from georgia for his passion, statements, litany of facts, with regard to the unconstitutionality of this underlying bill. and within all that, you know, there's the question of, what does that mean to me? the unconstitutionality? and i think what it comes right down to is this, the founders were profound and wise in their thinking in establishing the constitution and to do so not for their generation but for posterity as well so our rights and liberties would be protected and i think that is what the case that you were making.

broun would you yield? mr. garrett: i'll yield. mr. broun: for about 30 seconds. i thank you, sir, for doing so, because we have some other speakers. i apologize for taking so long. but, you're right. what does it mean to the american citizen about this bill? not only that it's unconstitutional, which it is, but if you have private insurance, the cost is going to go up. we've been told by our president if you like your health insurance you can keep it. it's going to be more expensive if this is passed than it is today and it's going to go up a lot faster higher. your doctor and you can't make decisions, some government brewer contract in washington is going to be making those decisions for you -- bureaucrat in washington is going to be making those decisions for you. medicare people are going to have the medicare money cut, the pot that's available for medicare is being cut marketedly so there's going to be more rationing of care. it's going to be worse. i as a doctor am already regulated and told whoky put in the hospital and how long they can stay there. that's going to get a whole lot

worse. so the going to affect the quality of care. so the american people need to understand the cost of your health insurance is going up. the quality of care that your doctor is give you is going down. marketedly going down. and you're going to be mandated -- markedly going down. so it's going to be disastrous for everybody. i yield back. mr. garrett: i thank the gentleman for laying it out so clearly to us. you know, i will yield in just one moment to the gentleman from utah, but before that i think i'll be yielding to the gentleman from texas, will had i be yielding to the gentleman from texas? yes. because at the beginning of this hour i promised that we would bring periodic updates as to how this very important vote is occurring in the state of massachusetts. the gentleman from texas. mr. gohmert: in hearing your discussion about what the constitution -- about what's

constitution allege and what isn't, the american people are not stupid. in massachusetts with over 68% of the precincts reporting, the republican brown has about 100 ,000 votes more, 53% to 46%. massachusetts was not fooled. they looked at the candidates, they looked at what the people -- the candidates themselves were saying to the people in massachusetts and brown made clear he wasn't voting for the health care bill. and he's doing the unthinkable. he's running away with it at this point and it's not even close. it's not even close enough that legal action and all those type of things that have been tried

in other places were going to help. the people have made clear and i couldn't help but think about a comment of one of our democratic colleagues down the hall when he said, you know, the further we go the more difficult it is to pass laws that the american people don't want passed. . . this body isn't supposed to pass laws that the american people do not want passed. that's the way it was designed. and justice scalia said, when someone asked is the bill of rights really what has made this country the greatest country of liberty in history? and he said, no, the soviet union has a better bill of rights than we do. it's because the founders did

not trust government and wanted to make it as difficult as they could to pass a law to put upon the people. so they created not one body, but two bodies and created it to where either body could cancel out the other body. and that wasn't good enough and they said we need an executive, but we don't want a prime minister that is elected by the legislature, oh, no. we want a legislature elected separately and he can cancel each other out. and that's not good enough. we want a judicial branch that will make it even more difficult to create laws that are crammed down the throats of the american people. he said that is what has done more to preserve the rights of america because it was so difficult to get laws passed and what we have seen the last year in here is just the complete

usurpation of the checks and balances of the founding fathers, the complete elimination as we saw the white house have an auto task force in secret, cram down laws that were in violation of what were passed here regarding bankruptcy. we had a bankruptcy judge willing to just sign an order that was given to them that was in clear violation of the laws that were passed and the supreme court didn't do anything about it. justice ginsburg put a 24-hour hold and the laws were turned upside down and now the american people have had enough and we are seeing it in massachusetts. who would have thought that a senator in california would have a close race much less a senator in massachusetts have a close race. and now it's turned out it was

haven't even close. you have a republican in massachusetts that appears well on his way to being sworn in as the next senator from massachusetts. and i know that those in power in massachusetts would not be exceedingly hypocritical and delay swearing senator brown in, surely they would not be that hypothetical that they would delay -- he ought to be sworn in just as quickly as the interim senator was sworn in to avoid being labeled as the hypocrites of the decade. i'm sure they will swear in senator brown as quickly as they can do that and this should spell the end of what we're told of health care. we have people in the house and senate that say forget what the american people want and what

the constitution says. and it should be pointed out, as my friends have been talking about the constitution, delay it out, i don't know see how this can be held constitutional and so we have had try tried to get a fast track to go to the supreme court. i appreciate my friend for yielding, but it appears that massachusetts is speaking very loudly. mr. garrett: i appreciate the gentleman from texas for the update, for your comments and just as you're ail hoping as we are that they will move quickly with the appointment so, too, we hope that the massachusetts congressional delegation will listen to the voters from the state of massachusetts and do the right thing when the votes come here in the house. with that, i'm pleased to turn the floor over to the gentleman from utah, gentleman who was on the floor speaking about

constitutional issues, gentleman who helped found the constitutional caucus, the gentleman from utah. mr. bishop: we are talking about a potential health care bill, which whether it is the senate or the house version, is an enormous expansion of the government. not only is it an enormous expansion of government in the cost, but also enormous expansion in the amount of power. now both bills are based on the commerce clause of giving them their authority to implement this program. and commerce clause as we know over the last 70 years has been expanded that its shape has been lost. even when the courts have ruled, they have two thresholds that must be maintained before something has usually been declared constitutional for them. one is the activity has to have a significant impact on interstate commerce. and i think you can argue this

bill would, but the second is the willing participant threshold, which means the commerce clause has said congress can do that which will stop an activity, but never, never have they said the commerce clause can be used to forbid inactivity or force individuals to pay a fine not only for doing nothing but doing the wrong kind of thing according to the federal government. that's the problem that this piece of legislation has because if it can force people to go through this to have a certain kind of health insurance, they can force americans to do anything at any given time. like the constitution was simply -- says that congress can regulate commercial activities in which people choose to engage but cannot require that they engage in those commercial activities. it's one of those simple concepts. we passed a cash for clumpinger bill which gave incentives to

people. we allowed people that choice and option. if you use that same program with the principles within this health care bill, we don't have a cash for clumpinger program, we simply have a clunker program, which will then have the government establish a bureaucracy not only to tell you what to buy and when to buy it and give you the opportunity to pay for it yourself or else be fined. that is not the way it used to be. in mack versus united states, the constitution protects us against our better instincts because it helps us so we do not succumb to concentrating power to one government. and that is what this particular bill would do. mr. garrett: i will have an update from the cloakroom on the massachusetts race that the

republican candidate brown has won and the democrat has conceded with 5% to 46% votes. thank you. mr. bishop: that is, if i can -- get the time from the the gentleman from new jersey, that is amazing as the potential harm could be to all americans. we have spoken many times about the concept of the general welfare clause which was not an expansion of opportunity for congress but a limitation and i did at one time -- we spoke once on what was the interpretation of the general welfare clause and i got a call saying it was eloquent, but i like all these things the government is doing. and i said you missed our intent. it was not that government can do these things, but which level of government should do these things, not every issue has to rise to the importance that congress needs to do it, which

would lead to another element of the constitution that i think this obama health care whatever you want to call it is violating federalism. i yield back to the the gentleman from new jersey to give some comments upon this particular issue and if we want to go back into federalism, i will be more than happy to pick that up at some later date. but i would like to yield back and give you a shot at this thing. mr. garrett: to be able to bring this issue to the floor and to the american public and members of congress as well, as my opening comments were, the importance of looking at the constitutionality of any legislation, in particular this legislation. i was the first one to bring this issue up. reporters brought this up to our leadership here in the house and to the white house as well. and i wasn't there when it happened. when the issue of the constitutionality, whether it

was the mandate provision that we're talking about or the other aspects, my understanding what i read in the press is when the reporter asked speaker pelosi about did you consider the constitutionality of this legislation, she just laughed it off and said, of course not. we aren't looking at that. and my understanding is that likewise when that question was posed to the administration, did you consider the constitutionality of the health care bill, their answer was no, we didn't look at that at all. that is so profound of an answer the things that the administration would not look at the constitutionality of the piece of legislation that is going to impact upon the personal choices of the health choices of the americans, 1/6 of the americans as welling. the founders as far as protecting our liberties in that you need an document in order to

do so. chief justice marshall observed that the powers of the legislature are defined and limited as the gentleman from georgia just enumerated the 18 powers that are in it and those limits may not be forgotten and the constitution is written. he said that the constitution is written because we want to put down the limitation on the power of the government to go and exercise authority over the public to a limited factor. the public still has freedom and liberty at the end of the day. he continued on by saying, should congress, under the pretext of executing its powers pass laws to the accomplishments of objects not entrusted, perhaps some of those lists of requirements or ideas this lady that called you from alabama was it she would like to care care

of, pass laws to the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the national government, it would become the painful duty of this tribunal, the u.s. supreme court, should a case requiring such a decision come before it do say such an act was not the law of the land. what does that mean? congress doesn't have the ability to say that something is constitutional. congress doesn't have the ability of saying something is necessary and proper just because we say it is. congress doesn't have the ability to say it is providing for the general good and welfare for the country and therefore it is constitutional just because we say it is. we have a constitution that is contract entered into by the people of this country with their government defining what the authority is on the various levels of government and we here as members of congress must live

within the terms of that contract. we cannot go outside of the terms of the contract any more than any one of us can go outside the terms of the contract when we buy a house or car or a store. we are limited by what the constitution does and says and that's what we are trying to ask this administration keep in mind and we are asking that the speaker keep in mind as well when they bring a bill to the floor trying to do something, and that is to reform the health care delivery system in this country. we would suggest it would be done in a way that is constitutional and protects the freedoms and liberties of the american public. with that, i yield back to whatever time remains. i think we are just about -- mr. bishop: i appreciate yielding again on this.

let me just say that there are several concepts we have talked about here. one, does it meet the threshold of the commerce clause according to the court. i don't think it does. you mentioned several other concepts that just because congress says this is a necessary and proper act doesn't necessarily mean it is a proper and necessary act. it bothers me that we forget the essence of federalism upon which this country is founded which means it is not essential for the federal government to have to solve every problem. in fact, sometimes it is better if the federal government does not. you said many times before about if i wanted to buy a record, now there is an i-pod where my son wants to download the song. every part of our lives is based on the concept of choice and options for the american people except the federal government. the federal government is the

last one of one size fits all where we tell people what they ought to be doing rather than choice and options. some people have said if we don't do this, we have nothing forward. my state has implemented a process that gives people 66 options based on the demographics of my state and everything we are doing in utah is step dead if this federal bill passes, they succeed, they now dictate everything that will happen. massachusetts has a program they seem to like. it would not be work in utah. but that's why there is the brillyeans of federalism so there can be 50 different flow vafe ideas and people can find different things that work. this destroys the concept of federalism and i yield back to the the gentleman from new jersey. .

mr. garrett: states were created as the laboratory of democracy. mr. bishop: laboratory of democracy. mr. garrett: so all those experiments could go on. instead what we have is the states becoming the guinea pigs for the democracy because the states are being controlled by the federal government in a way that is not the way the plern public would like to see it. i thank the gentleman from utah for joining us on the floor in an eloquent and educational format as you always do and i appreciate that in a commonsense way we can all understand as well. i thank the gentleman from utah and with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 60 minutes. mr. garrett: i think he's in the back room.

there we go. mr. king: mr. speaker. i ask to be recognized for 60 minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. you know, i apologize for the delay in getting down here to answer the call of the gavel. there were some distractions daking place around america as we speak. and a lot of america has been transfixed by what has happened this year. and i can go back and recap some of the events but we pretty well know what they are. $700 billion in tarp spending, we watched three large investment banks be nationalized by the federal government, we watched a.i.g. be nationalized,

taken over by the federal government. we watched fannie mae and freddie mac be taken over by the federal government and then by an executive order right before christmas have them open up the debt ceiling on fannie and freddie where every american is a guarantee-or of the debt which can be as many as $-- 5.5 trillion. we watched negotiations take place behind the scenes which told the bankruptcy court how to push our automakers through there and both of them nationalized, taken over by the federal government. then we watched the $787 billion economic stimulus plan be passed in an urgency that hasn't produced a product and a result except the debt that's going to drag down this economy for the american people. and then behind that out of this house came hurry up and rush cap and trade, cap and tax, pass it, and it passed out of the house and went over there on the docket of the senate. and the american people began to realize what was happening.

they couldn't first believe it. they didn't think at first the $700 billion tarp was really real. somehow they trusted that we knew what we were doing here as a majority. the majority knew what they were doing. and so they sat back and something else happened and something else happened. that's the list that i've given you, mr. speaker. the american people have risen up and in the month of august they filled up town hall meetings all across america, over and over again, hundreds and thousands of people came out so that their voice could be heard. some of them stayed up all night long just to craft their questions and do the research so they -- if they got a chance to ask a member a question could you tell there was a tremendous amount of american intensity going on all over america. and into september and after labor day, came back here and the grind began. the effort to pass a national health care act began. socialized medicine, an effort, wound up again, and it began

pushing this through, mr. speaker. and speaker pelosi's agenda and harry reid's agenda and president obama's agenda. the idea of nationalizing proud private sector companies and taking over 1/3 of the private sector profits and doing so in a little more than a year in the united states and then taxing all of our energy and putting the restrictions on america's economy where it ends up the result is to send jobs to yeas and nays are ordered and china. the american people watched that and they thought, surely these people know what they're doing. but the more mistakes they saw and the list of misguided liberal ideas that had been passed out of the house and sent to the senate and some passed out of the senate was stacking up higher and higher and higher, mr. speaker. and the american people in groups incrementally began to realize they knew better than the people who were in charge in congress. and they lost their trust and their faith in the government

judgment of the people they elected in this constitutional republic. especially when they saw that there was a determination on the part of the president of the united states, the speaker of the house and the majority leader of the united states senate to nationalize our bodies, to take over the management and the control of the most personal and private thing we have. that's this thing inside our skin, our bodies. and the federal government deciding what we were going to have for insurance and who was going to pay for it and what the premiums would be and what kind of mandates would be on it and what the coverage would be. and the decisions we would have and then on top of that an effort to start to tax all that, let's say transfats or food they think we shouldn't eat or sin taxes so they can manage our lives, regulate everything that we do, nationalize and take over the control of our very private bodies and then tell us what we can eat and probably when we can

sleep. it's way, way too much government intrusion on a proud and independent people. and so when we look across america, we looked around for -- from whence cometh our help? we have help all over american. tea party patriots came up all over america, they came to this capitol on 9/12 and they finish -- filled this city up with people with flags and they cried out for relief from the overspending that's been taking place. and they held up their constitutions and tears went down the cheeks of men and women that love this country. and it happened all over in every state. and it really packed people in here in washington, d.c., and still their hearts were hardened and still they were determined to force socialized medicine down the throats of the american people. and then, and then more people came to this capitol and as they

came closer to a vote on health care here and in the house of representatives, a call went out one day and 3 1/2 days later someplace between 10,000 and 50,000 americans showed up here in the united states capitol -- capital so their voices could be heard and they filled up here on the west side of the capitol and then packed people out there with their american flags and their yellow don't tread on me flags and they cried out for relief from this oppressive government that was taking their liberties away. and my liberties away. and still their hearts were hardened, mr. speaker. and two days later we called people back to town and over here on this side of the capitol thousands came again and again they pleaded with the legislators in the congress here, give us some relief, we just want fiscal responsibility, we want our liberties. they told us, we're not europes, we're -- europeans, we're americans, we're a different people. we didn't come here for dependency.

we -- a lot of people came here as the new hampshire motto, live free or die in the united states of america. have a chance to succeed, take the risk of failure, take your own personal responsibilities, and all of that that they ask for was a chance to succeed, taken away, taken away by a president of the united states, a speaker of the house, and a majority leader of the united states senate, three people. the american people began to understand that when it got to be the house bill passed here by a vote of 220 to 215, if three people changed their mind that bill goes down in defeat on the house floor. and the rest of this saga doesn't happen, mr. speaker. but it went over to the senate where they grounded out and churned it out and cut deals in back rooms. they're no longer smoke-filled rooms, at least not on the house side because by order of the speaker that's another freedom you've lost. if you want to eat an omelet

here in the cafeteria, it should be out of an egg from a free range hen. that's another liberty we have lost. and so the health care bill went to the senate and they cut deals and we heard things like louisiana purchase too, how do you buy off the center in louisiana? and then we heard things like, the florida purchase of the senator down there so they could be exempted from losing their medicare advantage. then we saw the corn husband for kickback, that other senator nelson, i can say their names now, we changed the rule. why? because he lost the amendment which was a pro-life amendment, the stupak amendment in the senate by a vote of 45 to 54. crafted some new language that would still leave the united states government in the business of brokering abortions through mandated health insurance premiums. and got a special exemption for medicaid increases in np, the corn husband er kickback and the american people saw this with revulls and still they came back and ened the fill buster in the

senate on christmas eve, mr. speaker. on christmas eve. and about that time i had a conversation with my senior senator in iowa, senator grassley, who is engaged in this debate in a serious way, with the full intention of trying to find the best policy that could be put together in the legislative body. they had to walk away from it at a point because they didn't need his vote, they were going to go for the most liberal, the most left wing, the most leaning into socialism policy that they could pass and it wasn't going to be with republican votes. and so that's what they did. and they put the votes together to end the filibuster and the deal was made on the 23rd of december and the vote for the end of filibuster came up in the morning of the 24th, christmas eve. christmas eve morning. and i talked to my senior senator and i said, what can we do now, senator? how do we kill this bill?

and he said, we have to pray and we have to pray for victory in massachusetts and the special election in the united states senate, mr. speaker. that didn't seem very plausible at the same time and i started to take a look at this and followed the senator's advice, put a little work in myself, just came back from massachusetts a few hours agoer and a few minutes ago they've announced that martha cokely has conceded to scott brown. mr. speaker, i want to tell you, there was a shot heard around the world up there in lexington. 200-plus years ago, another shot heard around the world tonight. in fact, the scott heard around the world tonight and the american people rejecting socialized medicine. it's the american people rejecting overspending and fiscal irresponsibility and living for the now and passing out the government dole and making sure that nobody has to

worry about anything except how their children and grandchildren are going to pay this massive debt that's been created in the trillions of dollars. and it's voting here on the floor to increase the national debt by smaller increments, $300 billion, the next time it will be a big ol chunk and there's no restraint whatsoever in spending, the blue dogs are more ground haugs. they've gone underground, mr. speaker. they used to come down here and what range republicans about spending too much money because we've have a deficit at the end of the year. i've always been about a balanced budget. but blue dogs, demagogue -- blue dogs demagogued republicans for a long time and now they're groundhogs because they saw their shadow and they went underground because people on their side of the aisle are spending money like crazy. how could you possibly take away spend -- spend enough money and take away enough liberty that the 3 1/2 to one democrats to republicans in massachusetts would elect a republican to come to the united states senate and

vote against the closure so that the harry reid bill could be killed in the senate. how could you ever spend that you much money? i didn't believe it was possible, mr. speaker. but some would say a miracle has taken place tonight and i wouldn't disagree with that. i believe there has been intervention. and i'm grateful for it. and it's what i asked for, it's what i worked for and i spent three days up there and experienced a lot of good people in massachusetts. mr. speaker, i want to say into the record that, you know, working with the very liberal agenda of the massachusetts delegation doesn't always give a person the most positive attitude about the people they represent. and i come from iowa where we have the privilege of making a recommendation to america on who would be the next president of the united states -- who should be, we think, the next president of the united states. we take it seriously and we have to lot to say about it and we're grateful for that privilege and that honor. but it's only a recommendation, mr. speaker.

tonight, today and tonight, the people of massachusetts not only made a recommendation, they made a decision, not just for the people of massachusetts, they made a decision for the united states of america and that decision is, no socialized medicine in this country, keep our liberty, get the budget under control, let people take care of themselves and each other. the government is not a nanny, that's the message that comes from the place where liberty began. . massachusetts of all improbable places has brought us back to that rock of liberty and i could not be happier tonight. this is all i could ask for and i'm looking forward now to the battle we have ahead to preserve the liberty we have left and restore some of that that we lost. i would be happy to yield to the

gentlelady from wyoming so much time as she may consume. mrs. lummis: i thank the gentleman from iowa. it is a tribute to you that over these many months of the last year, you have been stalwart in your support of the liberties of this country, the first principles of this country. mr. king, the gentleman from iowa, was so committed to the american people in the vote on health care that he missed his own son's wedding because the vote was taken on a saturday and we needed every single vote not knowing that it would go our way or the way of socialized medicine. and this gentleman sacrificed seeing his middle child's wedding in order to cast his vote for the american people. so you are a true patriot and i applaud you in participating in massachusetts' election. and i would like to ask the gentleman before i begin to

discuss budget issues, did you talk to people in massachusetts? what was on their mind? what was guiding their decision in deciding to make a change in party after that seat had been held by democrats since 1953. what was on your -- their minds? >> the first thing that i hear, mr. speaker, is that some would say it's all about health care, all about socialized med sin. -- medicine. they are telling people on our side of the aisle, don't spend too much money. that's definitely a core in the center of this. and underneath it lays that list of things that i gave at the beginning, the tarp funding, nationalization of eight private

entities, they see that spending and see government trying to manage everything and as liberal as massachusetts is, they said enough. so the first version and the vision of it would be, it is all about health care. if nothing else, it's all about health care. it is health care and too much spending. health care, too much spending and the government taking over private businesses. they understand that they don't want to have a social democracy here in the united states. they understand we are not europe. when the first people arrived here in the united states down in jamestown in 1607, and then 1620, the pilgrims landed. what did they come for? religious, liberty, economic freedom. i think it is the sweetest in history to think that the

mayflower larneded at preliminary outh rock in 1620, massachusetts has said, we are going to sent you someone to defend our freedom in america. we need reinforcements. we are outgunned and fighting a scrappy fight. but we need reinforcements and we are getting it tonight. mrs. lummis: john adams died 50 years to the day that the declaration of independence was signed. and as he died, he said jefferson lives. and ironically thomas jefferson died that very same day, 50 years to the day that the declaration of independence was signed. these are people whose founding principles and founding beliefs carried them until the day they died. although during the years they

were political rivals, they respected and admired each other so much that they wanted to nurture it and guide it and see that it survived. and i believe today, in fact tonight, we are seeing that same nurturing and guidance and seeing the founding principles verified in massachusetts. so it is indeed an exciting day for our country. among the things that you mentioned that the people of massachusetts chose to be concerned about in casting their ballots today is the deficit. and i would like to take a minute to show you a chart that explains how this deficit has grown over the last year and that the debt that our majority party here in congress today says they inheritted actually has grown to unprecedented levels while they are in control. and the fact that when they espouse the fact that during the

clinton years, the deficit was rejected and that there were budget surpluses actually happened when there was a republican congress. but the gentleman from iowa has given me the opportunity to bring this chart and show it to you. the federal deficit tripled in one fiscal year. as tax revenues fell and congress pumped out large sums to stablize financial institutions and stimulate the economy, this top line shows you where the federal budget deficit was, well that's neutral. down here on this dotted line is the debt that the majority party inheritted one here ago, a $459 billion budget deficit. that is the difference in money collected from the taxpayers in this country and the money spent during that year.

now look at 2009. below this dotted line is the amount of deficit spending that has occurred during the last year. and as the gentleman from iowa just went through, these are the elements that have stepped that deficit to unprecedented levels, $950 billion increase from 2008 in our deficit. our deficit is $1.4 trillion, almost $1 trillion more than the democrats inheritted one year ago and here's how it goes. first of all, lower tax receipts due to the recession, something they didn't factor in. then the stimulus money, which at $787 billion, was about twice what the republicans proposed to spend on stimulus and our bill would have created twice as many

jobs. and in fact, the democrats' bill that they said would keep unemployment below 8% ended up blossoming into double-digit unemployment. they are worried whether they are going to have a job or their children are going to have a job, whether they are going to default on their mortgage and whether their health care benefits are going to be taxed or be penalized because the government hasn't approved of the health care plan they have now. but let's go to the bailouts. er bailouts for freddie mac and fannie mae, an area where the federal government in its wisdom decided where people who may not financially qualify for loans. and this is the result ant deficit.

and finally, unemployment been fits due to the recession. and you add other spending and here wer $1.4 trillion in deficit spending in decision to the debt that has accumulated over the years. would the gentleman from iowa indulge? when you hear the term structural deficit, this is the structural deficit, the difference between spending and taxes. this chart runs from the 1970's through 2019. and if you look at the -- thr dotted line is today. well, look at how the gap between spending and taxes ap and grows and separates going forward. and here's where we are today at a massive point in terms of the difference between spending and taxes. but over the years, regardless

of who was president, regardless of who was in congress, we didn't have those abrupt, wild and dramatic swings. and in fact, when the republicans controlled congress under a democrat president, you actually had tax receipts higher than spending. these are the years that that the gentleman from iowa talked about that you are most proud and i'm most proud as a nonmember of congress during those years. and one more chart. this chart shows you where spending went over the last period of time, 1969 to 2008. this very high number for defense, when over 40% of the federal budget was going to defense, was at the height of the vietnam war. look at its abrupt decline after

the vietnam war and then back up for a little bounce during the period of 1980's when we were ending the cold war and should see it decline after the fall of the berlin wall and this is the peace dividend and back up only slightly during the war after 9/11. but the real kicker on this chart is the bottom line, the red line, medicare and medicaid, because before we were a welfare state, the amount of the federal budget and in terms of the use of the federal budget, only about 5% went to entitlement programs, medicare, medicaid. that number has been dramatically increasing. and of course with no end in sight because people in my age are going to move into retirement, meaning that medicare will be more expensive, there will be more of us on it

and medicaid benefits have increased over time. consequently this is going to be eating more and more of our budget, nondefense discretionary spending is actually down. and social security, at about 20% of the federal budget. but there again, that number is going to go up unless we get a handle on entitlements. these are the areas which we need to grapple. these are the areas that i believe were on the minds of americans in massachusetts as they went to the polls today. and i yield back. mr. king: i thank the gentlelady from -- for yielding. these trends have changed dramatically, dramatically under this administration. and i think the american people now realize that republicans' majority disappeared here in november of 2006.

and democrats have been in control of this congress ever since then. and the previous years, they all said if you just let them have control of this congress, things would be better. they would give us the majority over and over again. the 30-something group is in the 40-something night after night made the same case. the economy will be a lot better off if you had democrats in charge. they came into control in november of 2006 and immediately what we saw was a significant decline in industrial investment. that was the first indicator of what was happening with our economy and it happened this way. charlie rangel became the likely, and not formally named, but he did become the chairman of the ways and means committee andp went on the talk show circuit. he was a very busy guy. and the pundits were asking chairman rangel, which one of these bush tax cuts don't you

like or do you like them all? and charlie never answered back on which ones he didn't like. but because of his answers and the process of elimination from november through february, it became clear to the investors in america that there wasn't any bush tax cuts that charlie rangel liked and liked spending better and he was going to let them expire so the government could select more money and start more programs and grow government programs. business figured it out. and capital investment went down and industrial investment went down in direct proportion to the appearances of charlie rangel on national tv because capital is always smart money. it wouldn't be capital if it weren't smart. if the cost goes higher because there is a tax increase, what do you do? invest less? the margin isn't as good.

america and the world was promised that there was a bush tax cut was going to be -- they would say it this way, allowed to expire, which is willfully kill them and raise taxes. industrial investment dropped off. when it dropped off, of course, when you invest in capital investment, you get return in productivity. if you stop investing in industrial investment, then you start losing efficiency. . there was a professor that served under lenin in soviet union, he did a study, and nobody knew about that study until m.i. timplet did a computer study 25 years ago, looking at how the cycles of economy went and somebody remembered they'd read this sold study by the russian that -- who

was asked by he min to -- lenin to prove that capitalism would self-defeating and expire he showed that there was a decline that unemployment would go up, capital investment would go down he showed a psych that will showed that when the capitalism economy peaked out, it would then drop back down over the course of about 26 years and then it would -- but then -- that showed capitalism's decline. then it would go back up again in another 26 years. it's a 52-year cycle. the professor's 52-year cycle. he was commissioned to prove capitalism was self-defeating and found auto, it defeats itself for a while but at the bottom, entrepreneurs come up with good ideas and invest in research and development and

implement new ideas and new ideas improve technology, improves productive to -- productivity and improves profitability, and your productivity gos up as the capital investment goes up and then the profit goes up and 26 years later to the peak, you realize, this is pretty good, i'm making money, i'll coast a while. they stop making capital investments, like they stopped under the beginnings of the rangel time, and you're not quite in free fall, you're coasting. i remember seeing a post for the someone's office, a little kid on a tricycle, his feet are off the pedals, he's going, the wind

in his hair, but underneath it said, if you're coasting, you're going downhill. you can pick your cycles within cycles, but it's the nature of capitalism to invest in productivity and your equipment gets old and then you still get profits because you've got the return back on your capital investment and own your equipment but the profits get narrower and narrower, the harder it is to get that competitive production out of the older equipment you peak out and start to slide and you think, what are we going to do now? let's go invent some things, get our productivity back and compete with the rest of the world. that's what needs to happen. it has to happen in a competitive environment with low regulations and low taxation and you can't be punishing business and we can't have a president that is demagoguing the capital

investment in america and telling investment bankers they're greedy, bankers will pull back. this is a lesson out of franklin delano roosevelt he punished capital in the 30's, he had his new deal, he said it was a good deal, i said it was a horrible deal, the president said it would have been a better deal but he didn't spend enough money. f.d.r. new deal president on steroids, obecause marx he went to copenhagen, wanted to get the world fair in chicago, then he went to copen hague ton get a deal were cap and trade got a fig leaf but not a deal. then he went to virginia to try to win the governorship around there, about three stops over, we got govern -- governor mcdonald. then he went to new jersey and

instead of governor corzine, we have governor christie, then he went to massachusetts, a place where you would never have to call the president of the united states to massachusetts for reinforcements, they couldn't imagine a situation like that. the president's reputation on the line, he was in a situation where he couldn't win, the race was already too close, this is worse than taking a black eye. this is a thumping. s that real thumping. it is a movement along the east coast. if i it can move like this on the east coast it can really move across the rest of the country. it's a dynamic change. and the american people rejection some other things. i said earlier, the most personal thing you have is your body. the government comes in and nationalizes general motors, that's like nationalizing the dallas cowboys. but your body, the most private thing you have, to have the

government decide they're going to manage it and tell you what you'll pay for insurance and set up a health choices administration czar to write the rules after the fact, to pass legislation that would appoint someone that has power over life and death, someone to be appointed later, maybe by, let me see, confirmed by some senators to be elected later. they have gone way too far. the wisdom of the founding fathers has been, i think, ratified and established and while i'm here talking about how things have to change, mr. speaker, i, not by accident, have an acorn in my pocket. we know what acorn has been doing to try to redirect america's testny. they have admitted to over 400,000 fraudulent voter registration forms. they have said they've gone to swing states and turned up their organization. they've said they're a 501c3 not

for profit organization and i went to their headquarters at 2609 canal street in new orleans and there, where they run most of their operations out of, there was a huge obama for president sign smack-dab in the front window of the national headquarters of not-for-profit, tax exempt, acorn. campaigning for the president of the united states, he was elected about eight months earlier, nine months earlier, they still had the sign in the window. the president wrote the book "the audacity of hope," this is a lot of audacity to see what acorn is doing. they've got to be pulled out by the roots, mr. speaker. the american people have to make sure that our elections are legitimate, that they're not stolen. that every american citizen registered to vote that counts a ballot -- that casts a ballot has their vote counted, but the

rest of those people don't have any business voting, and once is enough. and the threats that came and the stories we heard, we'll pick up more about massachusetts. i suspect they won't look for very -- very far. on a victory you don't examine closely. but in close races, those that can produce fraudulent registration forms, those corrupt enterprises will take and steal our liberty and freedom. we've seen it happen in several states, thank god it didn't happen in massachusetts tonight. i yield to the gentlelady from wyoming. mrs. lummis: i have -- i appreciate the remarks of the gentleman from iowa, i have a couple more questions for you. when you look at the fact that in the health care bill, the senator from nebraska sought an exemption from the impacts of medicare expenditures, or rather medicaid expenditures in his state, the amish sought an exemption because their religious freedom requires them not to be mandated to have a

certain health insurance program placed upon them. there were other exemptions. the unions went to the white house recently because they wanted to be exempted from the cadillac insurance plan tax that was going to help pay for the senate bill to create socialized medicine. and then there was the citizen who asked, if this was such a great bill, why do so many people need exemptions? could that be part of the reason, the very simple question, this was such a great bill, why does everybody want to be exempted from it? could that have anything to do with tonight's election results in massachusetts and i yield back. mr. king: you know, i thank the gentlelady, i think there are a lot of things that had to do with the election in massachusetts tonight. i think a lot of it was that the

american people are fed up and have had enough. and you know, people will rise to their responsibility. i don't know how many times i've seen that there's a town that needs a mayor, small town, nobody wants to bother. somebody else can do that. if the wrong person steps forward, says, i'll be mayor, we've got a syndrome, i won't say the person's name, but it's a syndrome that says if somebody who's going to do a lowsji job steps up, somebody who will do a good job will step up to protect them from the damage that's caused, i think that's part of what happened in massachusetts. i think when it was announced the coakley candidate would support the bill, whatever came out from behind closed doors that would mobilize a lot of people. we need to think about what's happening here. in this house, a bill was passed. there were amendments that were offered in committee. but there wasn't much of a

process here. i offered something like 13 amendments in the rules committee at 1:30 in the morning. there's nobody there to hear that. but the rules committee chastised me for wasting their time for asking them if they'd give me permission to come down here to the floor and argue for the liberty of the american people. they had the audacity to chastise me for using up paper. it was a waste of painer to print these amendments. surely i should have known that speaker pelosi wasn't going to let these amendments come to the floor. what was the point of putting them on record? my advice to them was, take that 2,000-page bill and put the paper back in the tree. the world would be bet you are off if we had a few more trees and a few less 4,000-page bills. something else to think about, we're not going to break the filibuster on the united states senate on this bill anymore. what kind of shenanigans do we

have to guard against? are they going to delay the certification of the votes in massachusetts to try to delay the swear-in of senator-elect scott brown? i like the soubd of that. are they going to try to keep him off the floor? are they going to try to push a bill through with the 60 votes they have and defy the will of the american people? is speaker pelosi going to try to take a senate version of the bill now, something the house is lined up to reject and bill it -- bring it to the floor of the house before people understand what's going on and end it@president even though the american people have not just at every opportunity, and the election today was an opportunity for the voice of the people in massachusetts and america to be heard, thank you, massachusetts. but not only that, but people have stepped up to do everything they could and created opportunities that their voice be heard and still their hearts are hardened. if they circumvent the will of the american people if there's a

bill from the senate that gets brought to the floor and sent to the president because everybody over here just sucks it up and decides they'll go ahead and lose those seats, there will be holy thunder to pay in the ballot box in november and i pray the streets will be peaceful until then and i'm not sure they will be, mr. speaker. this is a rejection, it's a referendum on socialized medicine in massachusetts today. this is poth because ma's socialized medicine agenda, rejected in massachusetts, this is heavy-handed legislation and back room dealing rejected in massachusetts. this is special deals for different states, exemptions, carve outs for florida, louisiana, nebraska and others rejected by the people in massachusetts. no secret deals. that's all reject wid the people in massachusetts. and a situation we have now, and i said this going into the

election a year ago november, excuse me, well it was last november, actually, going into the election, i said if you elect barack obama as president of the united states, and you return majorities to the house of representatives for democrats and to the united states senate, and i didn't anticipate it was going to be 60, and i think if you went back and did a recount in minnesota it wouldn't have been 60, but that's what i turned out to be, i predicted this that then those majorities and a president obama, the three of them, president obama, speaker pelosi, and speaker reed would dictate to america what they wanted to do to this country. i put that in an op-ed a couple of days ago or at least a press release, there is no formal function that's taken place in the house of representatives all year long, or in the united states senate all year long, that controls the negotiations

on the part of the ruling troy ka in america, obama, pelosi, and reid. they plan to and strategize to draft a whole new bill, one not guided by anything except their judgment on whether they can get the votes to pass it and bring it to the floor of the house of representatives, bypass the committee process, not allow any committee amendments, just write a draconian bill like king george would write and the vetoed the woifl the colonists and now the colonists have vetoed the will of the president today. mrs. lummis: will the gentleman yield? interestingly, over the august recess when we were all at home having town hall meetings and the american people had their opportunity to step forward and express their opinions about this bill, one of the leaders of the majority party in the senate was quoted as saying, it's getting harder and harder to pass legislation that the american people don't want.

.+ american people don't want. they acknowledge that the american people don't want this. they acknowledge that it is the judgment of the leadership of the democratic party that this is good for the american people whether the american people know it or not. that's what king george was doing. king george was deciding that he knew what was best for the american colonies whether they knew it or not, but they rose up and they told king george otherwise that they knew what was best for them and they formed a more perfect union and that's what this election was about. that's what the elections and discussions may be about throughout this calendar year unless there is some recognition by the majority party and our president that change means moving more towards the center. you and i want what is best for our country and we don't want to bash the other party.

we want to work with them to come up with solutions. i come from a state where we have frequently a boom and bus economy. and i served in the wyoming legislature when we were in boom years and when we were in bust years. we know how to ramp up an economy and know how to ramp a government down in response to a declined economy. and we could work with the president and with the mascrort party now if they were willing to do so. but as you and i know we see no indication. and you expressed an example of it. the night you were there 1:30 a.m. in the rules committee to try to get an amendment. i had three amendments to that bill. i was there an hour before you were here and i was told there were going to be two amendments allowed on the floor tomorrow to that 2,000-page bill. one would be minority leader john boehner's substitute bill,

which they already knew was going to go down and it would get the votes of the republican party and none of the members of the democrat party. the other one was the stupak amendment because that was demanded by every republican and enough democrats that they had to allow it to go to the floor in order to get the bill passed. but every other bill that was sponsored in good faith by democrats and republicans alike, rank and file, were rejected and not allowed to go to the floor and were essentially blown off in the rules committee. that's not government of the people. that's government the way that king george ran it. that's government that the people of massachusetts rejected. and i yield back.

mr. king: this is an ex exhilirating day and many of us have powered our hearts and souls in this. even when you vouppeded, there's no time to give up because you don't know when they will come over the hill. they came over the hill in massachusetts. there was a fellow that gave up and this is important to put this into the congressional record. one fellow gave up and his name is paddy power, lead booky from ireland. and this is in "the "washington times"." you can guess he capitulated sometimes during the night. he started to pay out the bets that brown would be elected over coakley today and he said the polls are far enough apart that he didn't have to wait until the polls closed. so paddy paid out somewhere

around -- mr. brown had gone from 5-4 odds to 4-5. if you paid $5 and so coakley went to 3-1. i believe as i read this right, mr. power paid out more than $1 million to betters who wagered. he paid out the bets. he just decided he didn't nt have to wait for the polls to close. from my view, mr. speaker, i think when we have a public policy that is completely wrong that violates the constitution and it violates the spirit of the american people, in fact, diminishes and damages the american people should never give up, should never give up

until if it's all over, then you figure out. i had a poster in my construction company office and i found it as i cleaned out my office during the christmas break and it is this tall long-legged bird and he is a swallowing a bird and the frog has his arms out and holding the bird by the throat and not going to let up and if he does, he will be swallowed and the message is, don't ever give up. we have a lot of battles ahead of us but the cavalry has arrived. we have reinforcements and people won't be sleeping tonight trying to figure out how to pass a bill the american people don't want. this vote and this election, and special election in massachusetts represents the most significant congressional race in my lifetime and maybe in

the history of the united states and time will tell. time will tell on that. but i'm ex exhilirated to see the freedom emerge. i yield to the gentlelady and i come back with any closing comments. mrs. lummis: i look forward to the day when you are in the majority party, next year on this floor when we are in the majority party and we can work together with president obama to solve the problems of this country so we can go back as happened in the 1990's when you have a member of the democratic party as president and republican congress and they worked together to balance the budget. that is what the american people i believe are yes or noing for. and i look forward to working with the president in a way that we can balance the budget and bring the american people back to have safe and confidence in its government.

there is an old saying, when all else fails read the directions. the constitution of the united states is the direction. and at a time like this when we have record deficits, we have soaring interest payments like you see on this chart when we have americans concerned about their health care, about their jobs, about the ability to earn an income, when people are concerned about the growth in china and what they see in some cases as the decline in jobs in the united states that's when you return to founding principles. let's look at our constitution more often. let's return with our president next year as a majority party and hopefully will be serving with you in the majority party with you at that time and get back to those founding principles. read the directions, what made america great and restore the confidence in the american people and this institution and

in our ability to self-govern and i yield back. mr. king: i thank the gentlelady for joining me tonight in this special order. you have heard, mr. speaker, my enthusiasm to put an end to this socialized medicine bill. i haven't heard what has been refleshed at least in things that republicans would like to do. and republicans have introduced 42 different health care bills here in this congress. we passed good pieces of legislation in the past when we were in the majority and sent them over to the senate where the trial lawyers blocked reform and one of those is to reform lawsuit abuse in medical malpractice. the number i get is 8.5% of all of our health care costs are wrapped up in lawsuit abuse for litigation, the defensive medicine and premiums that are unnecessary because of the lawsuit abuse. that 8.5% represents $20

billion a year going off on health care. and this 4,000-page bill and we don't know how many pages -- i don't know if they are burning more pages to ball answer carbon footprint, but there's not anything in there that reduces one penny in unnecessary health care costs. that is number one. we want to fix that. we have introduced legislation on that. and passed it out of the house in 2005. sent it over to the senate where the trial lawyers blocked it. john shadegg for years has been pushing legislation to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines. today in governor cristy's state, someone who would pay a premium about $6,000 a year can

go to kentucky a similar policy for $5,000. why wouldn't we adopt the shadegg language and let the emof new jersey pay $5,000? buying insurance across state lines does a lot to lower the cost of health care. and the president has said there isn't enough competition in the health insurance industry. he demagogged the health insurance industry for a long time. not enough competition so he wanted to create a new federal health insurance company that would offer a handful or a dozen health insurance policies. here are the real numbers, mr. speaker. there are 1,300 health insurance companies in america. 1,300 companies. that's a lot of competition. president's idea is we need 1,301 and that will be the deciding factor.

of those 1,3,000 factors and if one wanted to go shopping, you could buy 100,000 different policies. that is a lot of policies, lot of 07 shons and companies. they aren't allowed to compete. some of them want to protect their company and some of them are trying to establish a defack toe monopoly. 9 shad egg -- the shadegg bill fixes that. i want 100%. if a corporation or company, sole propertyorship, if they can deduct health insurance premiums for their employees why can't the employee deduct 100% of their premium. it is completely unjust and when i bring that up, they say it costs too much money.

well, let's level the tax a little bit. it's $32 billion. that's not too much money to give people equity and justice. let's have full deductibility of everyone's health insurance premium and buy health insurance across state lines and make all insurance companies compete. let's end the lawsuit abuse. let's have transparency in billing so we can reduce the cost shifting that is taking place because some have to underpay and others overpay. cutting medicare by half a trillion dollars and alleging there is waste, fraud, abuse and corruption and they will be able to find that if we let them cut medicare by half a trillion how is it the president can make an allege to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and not point one finger at the people that are corrupted or doing it? and how is it that the president

of the united states can hold a right hostage to an utility my mate umh. we have a right tower legitimate government. if there is waste, fraud and abuse and corruption in medicare, we shouldn't have to be held hostage to find out where it is so the government can go fix it. that should happen every time by due diligent public servants. half a trillion dollar cut. wiping out medicare advantage. the american people are full up to here and tired of special arrangements. they don't like the idea that everybody's cadillac insurance health plan is going to be taxed at 40% except the unions. give those an exemption because they helped the president get elected. this is like a huge right out in the open shine the spotlight on a political payoff. this is america and this is what

the people in massachusetts revolted against today. a peaceful revolution, people that came up and said i'm going to exercise my right at the ballot box and if they exercise their good judgment and their right at the ballot box then you don't have to go to the other form of changing government which gets bloody. the french had it rough. we don't want that in this country. we like it when people go to the polls with good energy and in spirit and for me, i get to pack three days of good memories of massachusetts into my mind and i can carry that with me forever and that is something that will never change and i look forward to going back up there as massachusetts that dipe, deep blue state turned a little purple today, mr. speaker. i appreciate your indulgence and

i appreciate the opportunity to address you here on the house of the floor of representatives. i look forward as with shape this policy and move back to sanity. and look forward to elections in november of 2010 and new faces that will come, the freshman class, that will be a large freshman class, class of vigor full of energy that really do come to change this country and i intend to team up with them, bring us a balanced budget and bring us back more liberty, strengthen our families and foreign policy and while that's going on, we need to shape the new president for 2012. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does gentleman rise? mr. king: i move the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those opposed, no. those in

qu>> i have your readable. >> same here. hopefully this will continue to work as we go on through. if you are ready to go, i plekhanov on this and. -- i will kick off on this and.

remarks army pager daniel b. allyn is currently the deputy commander of joint task force unified response and previous to assuming this position in haiti, he was the deputy commanding general for the 18th airborne at fort bragg. and the opening comments you would like to make? >> good morning. ladies and gentlemen. thank you for the opportunity to join your today and update you on efforts under way by the international community here in haiti. i know you join me in extending our condolences to the haitian people. our hearts and prayers continue to be with haiti citizens during

this tragic time. all of us here in haiti and across the globe partnered in this recovery effort been share and on, and -- sharon on common passion and commitment to do everything we can to help the haitian people recover from this tragedy. we are employing all of our resources as fast as we can and we continue to make progress every day. we cannot underestimate the scope of the challenge in front of us. we are here at the request of the government of haiti and we are barking in partnership with the international community and the united nations. we enjoyed incredible team work and support with and for all contributing parties and the people of haiti. as i stated, we are making progress daily and building our capacity to deliver more each

day to those most in need. the key developments are on the immediate horizon. the 20s his rigid the 22nd unit will move 800 marines ashore today. the second brigade combat team of the 82nd airborne division nearly 1000 strong continued to flow into country to support relief efforts in the vicinity of port-au-prince. the hospital ship, the u.s.s. comfort, will arrive tomorrow morning increasing medical support available to the people of haiti. in addition, yesterday afternoon, the united states air force flew airplanes from north

carolina and delivered nearly 15,000 males and over 50,000 liters of water to citizens in port-au-prince. but this augments our on going to the efforts and continues to extend our reach to the stricken. we currently have over 2000 troops on the ground and over 5000 afloat. we anticipate we will have an aggregate strength of over 10,000 within the coming weeks with about 50% sign of those forces involved in delivering humanitarian assistance on shore. as of this morning, and support of humanitarian assistance efforts, we have delivered over 400,000 bottles of water and 300,000 russians to the people of haiti -- 300,000 rations to the people of haiti. we will have more than one dozen

water purification units operational. we are producing 40,000 gallons of water per day for distribution and support of humanitarian assistance efforts. within days, we will approach a self sustaining water production capacity. in south-central haiti, we delivered approximately 4,000 pounds of food and water by air to the stricken community. we provided helicopter support to the world food program to complete this critical distribution. the security situation remains relatively calm. our efforts have yielded

positive feedback. you and security forces continued to address the emerging security requirements with great agility and responsiveness. we are aggressively employing forces to maintain a secure environment that enables us to continue our primary focus on humanitarian assistance distribution. medical reduce capacity continues to grow with the arrival of several international field hospitals and surgical teams. portable hospitals from five nations are supporting our efforts on the ground and the port-au-prince area. our medical capability will continue to expand with the arrival of the hospital ship, comfort. we are making steady progress but we have a lot of work ahead of us.

with an international team that did stronger every day. thank you for the opportunity to provide opening remarks and i welcome your questions. >> why were airdrops not done any sooner? >> the capacity has been a part of our arsenal from the outset. it takes forces on the ground to secure the areas where these must go back and to organize the people to avoid a chaotic distribution when those supplies, and. we needed to wait until we have adequate forces to enable that

to happen. what -- with that capacity building, we will continue to use this and every other means available to us to increase the reach of our efforts to the people of haiti. >> people who are familiar with logistics' say that since there is a single runway at port-au- prince runway, it would make sense to improve the runway with heavy equipment and create a third step and start moving in more c-1300. is there any talk about improving that runway? >> there are several existing runways that are being assessed and those that are immediately capable of being integrated into

the air flow plan. we will begin to use to aerial ports of entry with the the next 24 to 48 hours to relieve some of the pressure on port-au- prince. as you know, the team of airforce units have been doing herculean work. we have increased to over 200 sorties per day, a capacity which prior to the earthquake was 13. an extraordinary amount of work and it will remain critical to us at the port-au-prince airfield. we are getting a lot of great help to enable us to distribute

help to the areas most in need outside of the nerve centers. >> can you say or these other airfields are? >> the first runway and reheat proper will go into operation in the vicinity of a town within the next 48 hours. food and supplies were delivered into their yesterday that enable us to do the air filled assessment that is critical. we will begin to reduce that airfield for c-130 deliveries

and the buildup of the canadian humanitarian assistance efforts that will be centered their and integrating the eight necessary for the international community to continue to deliver food and supplies to the people in the southern provinces of haiti. the other aerial port of entry that is being brought into service to enable overland delivery of supplies is in the dominican republic. we are very conscious of the need to have multiple ports of entry. we are also close to an initial operating capabilities in port- au-prince and doing assessments of the other ports to rapidly

support joint logistics brought to shore. >> i have two quick questions. we are told there are no plans to do another c-17 dropped to date that was successful yesterday. why not do this again? is there still an active search for american survivors which you the -- for american survivors? >> in terms of the c-17 droppe,t is the commander's assessment of the needs on the ground. these are a component of determining where subsequent deliveries will happen with the search and delivery of the 87

airborne element overnight. we are moving resources to their distribution points. our intent is within the next 24 hours to conduct future aerial deliveries of supplies to those priority locations identified by the government of haiti and the international relief effort. >> on the americans? >> usaid is heading up the searching and rescue effort. we fully expect that we will transition very soon from the search phase to the recovery phase and we obviously continue to be in prayer but one week after the initiation of the earthquake, we have not found any survivors in the last two

days. we are doubtful that we will be fortunate but we will remain hopeful. >> you said the second brigade combat team is in haiti 1000 strong. the original timeline had the entire brigade being in haiti by this weekend. what is holding up the deployment of the full brigade? if you concur drop supplies, what can you not airdrop troops themselves? >> that is a great question. the delivery capabilities in haiti or a balancing act that requires troops on the ground to distribute any military

assistance. this applies for them to distribute and the mobility necessary for them to be able to reach the communities that are most stricken. quite frankly, the earthquake did not take into account the location of drop zones when it achieved the defects that it did. if we were to air drop the 82nd, we then have other challenges inherent in that and our focus becomes distribution from their dispersed locations to where they need to help. suffice to say that ground commanders are in the view that we are reducing the best method possible to get the most forces on the ground as quickly as possible. the insertion of the marine expeditionary unit demonstrates one of those examples where

there reach areas we have been unable to get to that. we expect the last load ofç the second brigade combat team to land here within the next 36 hours. the adjustment in the air flow was in order to get higher priority capability on the ground so that when those troops arrived there will be fully capable of reversing the critical supplies that are needed. our credibility as building daily and we are making significant progress. >> how you characterize the mission of forces on the ground? it is generally orderly now you said. what are your concerns about where that could potentially breakdown and were that mission

might have to change? >> as in any military operation, security is inherent and is a foundation of your ability to do anything but particularly when you are trying to reach people that are stricken by this earthquake. the united nations, as you know, has been here for the security in haiti and have been here for over five years. they have been doing extraordinary work in securing stability to the people and government of haiti. they are working very agilely and responsibly to meet those needs as they emerge. in addition, it is obviously necessary for the security forces of the government of

haiti, the haitian national police, to increase their capacity. the day after the earthquake, they're broadly 500 haitian national police available -- there were only 500 haitian national police available to address the tragedy that had struck. as of last night, there were 2000 haitian national police on the job, courageously working within their communities to ensure a stable environment for the ongoing recovery efforts. we're watching for signs of instability. at present, there are pockets in areas of haiti where the u.n. security forces are working with the haitian national police to a trace those pockets as they arrive. they've been able to effectively deal with them and we are

confident that they will continue to do so. >> walker the ingredients that create those pockets of instability? what do you see that makes that occur? >> we have people that need food, need water, need life sustaining support. in some cases, the instability that occurs and is generated by that challenge. some of the activity is criminal in nature than. you are quite aware of the presence here being destroyed by the earthquake and those prisoners are now in the populous and obviously we are working with the government of haiti to ensure that we retain

order and that we cannot allow security affect our ability to get emergency relief to the people of haiti. >> you mentioned in your opening comments that marines were scheduled to go on short today. did you talk about whether that force has begun to make beachhead? also, when the transition occurs from search and rescue to recovery and rebuilding. you mentioned no new americans, there are reports of haitians being pulled out. can you inform us on any discussion you having fun when transition happens?

-- have you had any discussions about when that transition happens? >> in response to your first question, the insertion of marine forces began this morning. based on their coordination with sri lankan forces in that area, they will expand their support for ongoing relief efforts. we expect within 24 to 48 hours the 800 marines that are available to go on to sure -- onto shore will be in the western regions in the stricken zone. your second question, frankly, i cannot speak for the usaid.

it is their mission to lead the search and recovery mission. i will not put words into their area of responsibility just as they would not speak for how we are employing the military forces. i would ask you to direct your question to them. >> you said in your opening statements that you anticipate 10,000 troops in the next several weeks. how long have you determined that the u.s. military should stay? >> as i also stated, we are here at the invitation of the government of haiti. as president obama has made a very clear, we are here to give all of the support we can to the government of haiti for as long

as we can to assist them and recovering from this tragedy. >> how long have you told your supervisors that the united states military can stay given the challenges that you face and given the demand for equipment and other areas? >> that is a question that you can likely kid a better answer for in the pentagon. we have the ability to sustain our forces. we are leveraging all the capabilities of the joint military and supporting forces and we will be able to sustain the effort in haiti as long as it is needed. we are reassured by our senior leaders that all available

resources that are needed by the general and by the government of haiti will be made available will be brought to bear as rapidly as possible. we are inspired by the speed with which the capabilities have been brought in and the speed with which they have been able to adjust priorities to the changing situation on the ground. we are a very capable department of defense and we are confident that the capabilities that are needed by the government of haiti will be provided and can be provided and sustained for as long as needed. >> the comfort arrive tomorrow

and there and number of filled hospitals from other countries on the ground. reports from various news organizations on the ground are showing a lot of haitians desperately still needing medical attention on the ground sometimes hours. is there a way to listen that logjam on medical supplies, facilities and doctors on the ground? increasing the medical capabilities on the ground and a wider part of haiti in port-au- prince? >> that is a great question. that effort is ongoing.

we have grown each and every day that we're here. as is our understanding of where the response is needed most. we are adjusting the delivery of subsequent medical capabilities that enters the and theater to address the emerging requirements that are not being met. there is an inter-agency effort led by the world health organization that is moving rapidly to increase the distribution of the central medical aid and we are confident that an understanding where need is most, we will push them in that direction very quickly. there is -- >> there is also