statement he embellished the statement saying his words were clear and calculated. he said i misspoke on friday. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i meant to say if i could vote 20 times that's what i would do. he said let me be very clear i'm not advocating voter fraud but telling you what i would do, end quote. how does one not advocate voter fraud when three times on national broadcast you say that's what you would do. this can only be determined as an incitement to commit voter fraud. it strikes at the democratic traditions and constitutional institutions. in every election, win, lose or draw, it is important that the vote be fair, accurate and have the confidence of every citizen, both those in the majority as well as those in the minority. if we cannot trust the sanctity

of the vote, we have destroyed the legitimacy of that vote and with it, the legitimacy of that government. all of our governing institutions and their acts rest upon a single foundation, fair and free elections which guarantee that those who exercise authority under our constitution do so deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . it is this thought that mr. schultz the means. his statements undermine our form of government. his words deserve, indeed demand, the contempt and condemnation of everyone in america. they deserve immediate action by those who accorded him his broadcast platform and whose silence and inaction thus far can only be described as a disgrace. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the

gentleman yields back his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from missouri, mr. aiken is designated for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. aiken: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. aiken: good afternoon. we once again find ourselves here in the -- on the floor of the u.s. congress and the subject before us, in spite of considerable various events

that have been of great interest to people yesterday, i'm thinking of the election of in massachusetts, there still remains the question of health care. there's discussion with the new political rearraignments that it may be the house will take up and just pass the bill passed by the senate. that is one possibility, which of course would require the bill not to have to go back to the senate. so we come back to the question of health care in america, something that has a lot of people's attention. it's not the top priority. i think for many people, they're worried about unemployment, the economy, they're worried about excessive government spending, they're worried about terrorism and national security, but underneath those perhaps there's still concern about health care but particularly a fear that in an attempt to try to solve a problem we may make a bad situation worse. indeed when goth does too much,

we have found that we sometimes get some very bad side effects. inferior quality, inefficient allocation of goods, bureaucratic rationing and of course excessive expenses. now, if health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free, some have said. we were promised by the president, here's what you need to know. first i will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, neither now or in the future, period. sounds pretty definitive. sounds like he says, hey, i understand about the deficit. i understand about the debt. i understand about excessive spending. and i'm not going to add one dime tour deficit. well, as the bill was being proposed does not add a dime,

so i guess technically this statement is correct. it adds eitherers $1 trillion or several trillion dollars, that may be a whole lot worse than the dime. this particular statement along with some others we have heard is not really precise in terms of what has been proposed, particularly the senate and hughes versions we have seen. in order to try to put a package together, there have been compromises made as tends to happen when you're writing large and complex pieces of legislation. this protects insurance companies in kind of an odd way. the legislation being considered in the senate preserves the legal immunity of large insurance companies in the event of negligence or any other wrongful action, even if their action results in injury or death of a patient. now, this is -- this is the language that's in the bill. what does that really mean? what it means is, something

that i think most americans consider to be very undesirable, and that is, you walk in and you feel sick and you go see your doctor. you trust your doctor. you've known your doctor for some period of time. so you have the doctor take a look. he runs some tests he says, well, now, congressman aiken, this is the news. -- congressman akin, this is the news. you've got this, i recommend we do this, this, and this. you talk about it, say this seems like a good course of action. here's where the train comes off the tracks. your insurance company says, oh, but, we don't think that's necessary or we're not that concerned about you congressman akin. and your doctor, well, he's probably being pretty cautious but he's also being pretty expensive. so we're going to say you really don't need to go to the hospital for this. we're going to recommend you stay home for a while and take some aspirin and see what

develops. that's what we call something or somebody getting in the way of the doctor-patient relationship. in this country, we have gotten spoiled. we have enjoyed contact with our doctors, we have enjoyed the process of getting to know the doctors and trusting them and soliciting their opinion. at times, we get multiple opinions from different doctors, just to make sure. but we don't want some insurance company coming between the patient and the doctor. that's pretty bad when that happens. what's worse is when the government comes between you and your doctor. that's when a full-bore socialized medicine bill will do. this bill says that these insurance companies can basically second-guess the doctors and if things go wrong, they have no liability. is that what we want in health care reform? i don't think so. doctors can be sued, if they

make a bad diagnosis, but not insurance companies. even when they get in between the patient and the doctor. is that something you want in a health care bill? i don't think so. that's one of the reasons why a lot of americans don't want this massive government takeover to pass because it has these little loopholes like this in it. i don't think many of you would have known that that was in the bill, and yet it is. there are also some other problems. we have a bill, when you start to get thousands of pages of legislation, there are a lot of room for mistakes and an awful lot of creation of bureaucracy. we've got here, and i don't know what the latest version is, because a lot of this is negotiated behind closed doors, but we're talking about close to 2,000-page bill, passed with, i don't know how many hours of public review. 72 hours would be nice. i'm not sure we'll have that.

we have not had that on other pieces of new legislation. this particular bill creates 118 new boards, that sounds like some bureaucracy, doesn't it? commissions and programs. and full of new mandates. one of the things in legislation that people who are legislators pay attention to is how many musts and shalls and got tos there are in a bill. this one contains the word shall 3,425 times. obviously somebody has very strong opinions about what other americans ought to do and they're going to mandate it. so you have here quite a large bill, many, many pages, 3,425 shalls, 118 new boards, we tried to draw a picture of what that would look like. now, you know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. i don't know if this picture is worth a thousand or two 2,000

pages, but this is an attempt at drawing a picture of what we've got. and the more you look at it, the more you look at these colored boxes, which are some of the new agencies, it starts to look more and more like some sort of maze you wonder whether what's going on is the consumers, the people who are sick, are somehow trying to get across this maze to find their doctor. it's almost like something you'd be given at a restaurant with a crayon and you're supposed to plot the path if you're a patient to get to see the doctor. this is the kind of complexity being created by what has been proposed over the last seven or eight months by the democrats and the reason this is so complicated is because of the overall strategic approach that health care started. that was the idea that we're going to take what we have and pretty much pitch it and we're going to redesign the whole

thing and put the government in charge of it. so this was not -- we're not going to go in and fix this or that that's broken, we're going to scrap it and start over. consequently, the result is a very complicated piece of legislation for the government to try to take over what is essentially a close to a fifth of the u.s. economy. and so that's one of the things that people are concerned with and one of the reasons why not so much based on political parties but based on good old american common sense, that there is a concern for the complexity and of course the costs associated with that complexity. we don't like mandates a whole lot. americans tend to be a little bit free-wheeling. they're not too much into following all the dots and didles and all the little nuances of laws and rules. americans like to have freedom, elbow room, a little

flexibility. we're talking about the mandate, we're saying here, there's mandates in this bill, all those shalls come into things that restribblingt your freedom. one of the mandates is that employers must offer qualified health care plan to full and part-time employees. so we're saying to companies, we don't care what you think is good for your employees, and we don't really care what your employees think is good for them, what we're going to do is tell you how it's got to be. so we're going to write what your health care plan has to look like and then, mr. employer, you have to offer what we're writing up for you to your employees. that is an interesting approach, we think of it in terms of the idea of a top-down, big-government solution because the government is going to tell you what you need. whether you think you know what you need doesn't make any difference. it's going to be a top down

mandate and pay for 65% to 72% of the cost of the plan. so we're going to tell you what kind of plan you're going to offer and by the way you're going to pay for it and if you don'ting we're going to penalize you and hit you on a pay a tax of up to 8% of your payroll costs. so whoever you are, even the fairly small businesses, you know, in terms of what the cutoff is in this, you're going to get hit with 8% of your payroll taxes. in fact, if you have 100 employees, 99 of them want this qualified plan and one does not, the way the bill is written that you're going to end up paying this 8% because everybody has to agree to what the government has mandated. there's some mandates which from a small business point of view are considered fairly onerous. another thing that makes the bill offensive and not popular.

excuse me just a minute. now the -- one of the concerns is when the government takes something over, then what happens is it tends to cost money. the president said it's not going to cost a dime. i suppose that's true. it's supposed to cost over $1 trillion. but there's a lot of hidden costs. you see you bury the costs of some things that you don't want to show. trying to keep it under $1 trillion was a tough thing to do. yet $1 trillion is a fair amount of money, even for the u.s. federal government, $1 trillion is a lot of money. we spend about $1.4 trillion last year, that was about what our level of debt was, $1.4 trillion. the highest debt that we had before that was under president

bush in 2008, during the pelosi congress here, 2008 we had just south of $500 billion in debt that we had, or deficit spending that year in 2008 so if deficit spending is $450 billion or whatever was a lot, $1.4 trillion in deficit spending was a considerable amount, so our deficit in 2009 tripled from 2008, and a trillion-plus, $1.5 trillion, here it is $1 trillion for this plittle plan. this is not small if you're worried about federal spending. it's going to raise taxes $729 billion. increases the long-term cost of medical care by $289 billion. again, i think those are conservative estimates. creates shortages. higher costs and more regulations and more patients

and a fixed supply of medical professionals. so this is part of the c.m.s. report. the c.m.s. is a group of staffers who are not connected with a political party, and they take a look at legislation and try to come up with what the costs are and how it's going to work and, of course, there's a lot of argument of what they count and what they don't count. creating shortages, also considerable amount of unemployment that's expected to come from this. because if you mandate businesses, spend a lot of money, what happens is it means their employees are going to cost more. if their employees are going to cost more, there's an incentive for them to get rid of some employees and to run the employees they have longer hours. that reduces their costs which, of course, increases unemployment. so this bill will affect unemployment, which is another reason why people are not very pleased with it and disappointed in the bill. but there's an inefficiency and

expense here that's quite considerable. there's another mandate. it's on individuals. it says that individuals must buy acceptable health insurance coverage. now, guess who it is that defines what health insurance is acceptable if you're an individual citizen in the united states? is it the individual citizen? is it the 22-year-old that says i can't afford health insurance right now and i'm very healthy and i'm making the decision not to get health insurance, is he the one that decides what acceptable health insurance coverage is? of course, the answer is no. no, the answer is that the federal government knows what you need better than you do. and so the federal government is going to mandate that you have this coverage, and they're going to tell you what kind of coverage it is and you got to buy it. now, this raises kind of an

interesting legal point, and that is, if the government mandates thaw have something or buy -- that you have something or buy something, isn't that essentially a tax increase? is that when you mandate that somebody has to buy a particular product, is that something that the federal government should be doing in this particular area? is it even constitutional? when it is a mandate, is it essentially a tax increase? or pay 2.5% of income in taxes? so now you are going to have a choice. you can buy the insurance that we know what is best for you, big brother government, or you can pay a fine or face criminal penalties, including jail time and severe fines if you don't get part with what we know who is best for you. who is we? we just saw a picture of the

we, didn't we? here's the we. we know what's best for you, all of this matrix of bureaucracy. this matrix run by the government really knows what's good for you, and so we are going to tell you what it is that you have to buy. you got to buy the insurance we tell you got to buy. otherwise, you'll face criminal penalties, including jail time. how do you think that goes over with a lot of freedom-loving americans? well, not very good. i think some of the election results that we've seen in the last number of months reflect the fact that people are not that comfortable with washington, d.c., big government playing god in everybody's lives. and that's one of the concerns and why this is not particularly popular. i notice that we have joining us this evening a doctor, somebody who has spent years in

the health care profession and has really been in the middle of it providing that doctor-patient relationship. he knows the subject far better than this poor old engineer does, and i'd like to yield some time to my good friend who just joined me a little bit on this health care topic. i was running through some of the reasons why people aren't that excited about this big government takeover of health care and why you're seeing a lot of people voting saying i'm not sure we're on the right track with this. >> thank you, mr. speaker. and thank you for yielding. as congressman akin has said, i spent the last 31 years ago -- 31 years practicing medicine. i practiced medicine in memphis, tennessee. we have to back up and think what the problem was, what

problem we are trying to solve. and in this country, i just saw a poll recently among likely voters that approximately 91% of the folks had some form of health insurance. and what we're getting confused with is there are people out there who do not have access to care. there's no question about that. and we need to address that problem. and what we've been hearing in this particular h.r. 3962, a.k.a., 3200, that we began dealing with, this is the only solution, this very complex health care bill, which i have read. and i read all 2,000 pages of, which -- and you have very adequately stated some of the problems -- what are we trying to fix? well, we have 40 million-plus americans. intela afforded every american,

whether you are legal or not, you could be an illegal citizen in this country, whether you can pay or not, if you go in an emergency room, you can get care. i was the one who got up at 3:00 a.m. to see these patients and care for them. so the care was there. it's just not the most efficient way to provide the care. there's no question about that. there's a system in this country that costs are out of control. and i think that's what this bill doesn't do. it doesn't address the fear that most of us have. and i know i had as a doctor and i have as a consumer of health care is the ever rising cost of the care. we can do several things, and let me point out in the 26 -- 2,600 or 2,700 senate bill, i can show you how simple you can make it. number one, if you signed up the people eligible for the state children's health insurance program and medicaid,

you would cover 10 million to 12 million people. and there's one thing in this bill that i do like a lot and that's to allow adult children -- when they graduate from high school or college who don't have health insurance to stay on their part's plan. their parent's health care plan. you can cover seven million young people. you can get almost 20 million people in this country -- and i don't think either side, the democrats or republicans, would mind doing that. you'd cover 2/3 of what the senate bill is going to do by doing that one thing, and you can do that on one page. mr. akin: could i recover my time, dr. roe? it seems to be a little bit more sane in some ways in that you're saying, look, we're going to define our problem precisely and we're going to tailer a solution to try to improve what we got in order to try to make the system work. and, you're not proposing -- i thought it was 2,000 pages.

you're saying it's coming up to 3,000. you're not proposing a 2,000-page or 3,000-page solution, you're talking about a simple thing. and you take half of the people that don't have insurance and you can get them shushes? and you can do that in one page? mr. row: yes. mr. akin: i think they can fix what's broken but i yield to my good friend from tennessee. rolando mcclain another issue that he -- mr. roe: another issue with a problem like, say, breast cancer, and they lose their insurance coverage, and they have a chronic condition and they don't have insurance coverage, how do you help that patient, how do you help those folks? a very simple problem. pre-existing conditions are a problem not in the large group market. in other words, if you work for a large corporation or, let's say, like we get our insurance here through the federal employee health benefits package, you have nine million

people who get their insurance through that. one person has a chronic condition like breast cancer or diabetes it really doesn't affect feakt our rates because you spread those risks over millions of people. -- affect our rates because you spread those risks over millions of people. if you get rid of state lines you'd solve the pre-existing condition problem. the second thing you can do is subsidize -- mr. akin: i don't mean to interrupt you, don't mean to be rude but i want you to develop that point a little bit more. in other words, am i understanding, doctor, you could buy insurance across state lines, is that the point you're making? rolando mcclain claiming back my time -- mr. roe: claiming back my time. absolutely. you can buy any kind of insurance in the world, but insurance across the state line. why in the world should it make any difference if i'm living near the state line and we're surrounded by multiple states in tennessee, i should be able to buy that insurance across the state line. and let's take realtors, for instance. almost every realtor's business is a small business.

they have six, eight, 10, 20 would be a lot in our area, let them all group together across this nation and then you have 500,000 or a million realtors that can spread their risks and you don't have any government involvement, you don't have any subsidies involved, you don't have any complications. you simply let the free market system work. and by doing that -- mr. akin: so, doctor, reclaiming my time. again, what you're saying is you're combining a couple of ideas but you're saying it fast. i want to make sure people understand it. the first thing you're saying is you can buy insurance across state lines. and particularly, if you live in a place like, for instance, kansas city, missouri, and there's a kansas city, kansas, right across the river, you could be buying insurance out of two markets instead of one. or even possibly from someplace like all the way up in massachusetts. so that's one idea. your other idea, it sounds like what you're saying, you're allowing individuals that work for some small employer to pool

together to create large pools which then gives you the statistical smoothing so that you could apply for insurance because you have a whole lot of buyers, you're a significant player so you can buy aties count price. second of all, you can smooth if somebody does get ill, you can smooth it so it doesn't affect it, am i understanding you correctly? i yield. mr. roe: you're absolutely right. because what you allow to do, you allow a small business to become a large business. like i said, the problem with pre-existing conditions is if you have a small shop of five, 10, 20 employees, which many businesses do. 70% of our employees in this country work for small businesses. they don't -- if you have one very expensive condition that hits, it breaks them. they can't afford insurance. that's why it's not affordable. some other things we can easily do are preventive care, and you can do that where you have different incentives to keep yourself well.

and i can tell you as a physician, i can tell you all day long how to stay well. but it's up to you as a patient to carry that out. i can give you all of the great ideas in the world, but if you don't carry them out it doesn't do anything. mr. akin: about that third helping of french fries. mr. roe: that's right. you want the incentives built in our health insurance. for instance, health savings account, i have one. let me explain this to our audience today, the people watching this. simply what you do is you set up -- before, when you pay a premium in, if you don't use it, who keeps the money? the insurance company does. in my case right here with a health savings account, you put x dollars. in our office it's $3,000. it can be $5,000 that your employer puts in your account for you. you pay everything first dollars. so i am highly motivated to take care of myself because at the end of the year if i don't spend that money i get to keep the money, not the insurance

company. you can roll that money over and use it the following year and the following year. and in our group, we have 350 employees in our medical group at home. and for those that get insurance, over 80% of them choose a health savings account. they manage their own care. so they're motivated not to smoke and to exercise and to lose weight because they save their own money. you can use that money later in your life if you accumulate many thousands of dollars for long-term care, whatever you want to. you're the insurance company. mr. akin: doctor, again, i'd like to cut in for a minute here. you're talking about a medical savings account. what you're saying makes a whole lot of sense. what you do is you put your money aside and you have some tax benefits from setting it aside into not something for your retirement but something to help cover your medical needs. and then as medical expenses come up during the year you can pay for those out of this pre tax money which is in your

medical savings account. if you stay healthy and you have good lifestyle and you didn't have that third helping of french fries, then you may not spend as much money you put in there and you'd be allowed to keep it year in and year out and it will continue to earn interest to cover in case of a medical problem, is that right so far? mr. roe: that is correct. and if something were to happen catastrophic, let's say you have a car accident or heart attack and spend more, you buy catastrophic coverage that covers every bit of it. for instance, in my particular case, anything over $5,000 was paid for 100%. and you had the $5,000 to begin with. it was your money. so you got to keep it. i think that's a very simple thing. it should be encouraging people to do. mr. akin: now, my understanding is we put that into law but there were a lot of limitations on it. and i don't think that's generally available for most people in the public, is it, doctor? mr. roe: it is not and it should be. mr. akin: is it the marketplace

hasn't caught up to what the law says or is there roadblocks that make it so that people don't do it? mr. roe: i think we have not educated our public as much as we should have. i was surprised in my own practice of how many chose to do that. once they understood it and once they understood -- paying $3,000, that's kind of scary to do that when you normally have a small co-pay or deductible, but once you understand how it works, you get to keep the money, not the insurance company. and while we're on insurance companies, i want to -- i got a problem. i know one of the things i did in practice that really frustrated me to no end was to have insurance companies deny needy care for patients. and i think certainly they are culpable. i know i spent as much time on the phone sometimes getting the case approved for a patient to get needy care than i did actually doing the procedure i was trying to get approved. that's very frustrating. the insurance company is culpable out there. we do need some reform.

mr. akin: we talked about that, one of the first slides i brought up, when you talk about health insurance, you want to have that doctor-patient relationship kept -- i don't know if you'd call it sacred, but you want that to be a primary kind of consideration. if an insurance company parks itself between the patient and the doctor, we don't like that idea very well. and this bill that's being proposed, the insurance company can second-guess the doctor and if there's a bad result, they can't be sued. that doesn't make -- that's one more strike why people don't like this bill. that's a great point. we've been joined by another colleague of mine, congressman thompson, g.t. is here, just a stalwart free enterprise guy, somebody with a lot of common sense, i'd like to yield some time if you'd like to comment, we're trying to take an overview of what's happening now after the election yesterday and where we are in this whole thing of health care

and are we still under this model of big brother is going to take it all over? mr. thompson: i thank my good friend from missouri, and my good friend from tennessee, for this special order tonight that you're doing. yesterday was a land mark day. -- a landmark day. i think it established a confident trend of what the american people like and what they dislike. what they dislike, i think is properly captured and framed in that chart you have on the tripod, the bureaucracy of a government-run, government takeover of health care. we need to be approaching health care, we need to be approaching everything we do in this chamber, i believe, from a principled leadership perspective of leading with principles. i have to tell you, i suppose my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would agree with that, it's just their principles are pleatly, 180 degrees from our principles.

i have to imagine that what are the principles behind that health care nightmare that's outlined there? it's really, i liken it to a train going down the mountain with no brakes, it never ends well. what they're trying to shove through is just to get anything, get something, i can imagine how behind closed door discussions are going, which happened again today even after the people -- it has to be something like this. we don't care what it is. just pass something. you know. whatever it might be. the goal is just to get something through, to be able to say they did something. that's wrong. that's not the approach we do. the american people need and deserve better than that. they want principles. the health care principles i believe in in the republican party and some of my democratic colleagues, i think we could work together. there's four principles i've held dear as a health care professional for 30 years,

that's -- my belief is we have a health care system that's pretty good. i would rate it one of the best in the world. not that it couldn't be improved upon and the principles we dedicate ourselves to are decreasing costs, increasing access, improving quality and preserving that relationship that dr. roe talked about, the decision-making relationship between the physician and patient, not allowing a bureaucrat to insert themselves into that relationship. this certainly, i think, is regressive. regressive in terms of all four of those principles. we've talked, my colleague from tennessee talked about the impact on the relationship between -- the decision making between the patient and physician, where the bureaucracy a bureaucrat is inserted between that relationship. but when you look at all of it, you look at costs, the cost of the senate bill which i believe, i don't know, that's what will be shoved at the american people and will be

shoved at this chamber to work on, you know, the congressional budget office showed those costs going up significantly. i believe the individual costs were at least on the average $300 per year, $12,100 per family. i thought the idea behind that is to lower costs for everyone. yet we know what's out there. my colleagues have talked about allowing the purchase of health insurance across state lines, that's greater competition, that's a good thing, it brings costs down. certainly the issue of tort reform, $29 billion a year that is spent in this nation on tort reform premiums. $29 billion. now we talk about waste and fraud, waste within health care spending, i think that's the biggest waste there is. those are resources, those dollars could be going into directly caring for paint you add on that, the cost of the practice of defensive medicine. a physician comes out of

medical school with quarter million dollars of loans, if they're a specialist, maybe half a million in loans, and at the risk of even a frivolous lawsuit can lose their practice, lose their family's homes they order ex-fra tests that may not be -- extra fests that may not be necessary to treat the illness at hand but substantiates that they followed a standard of practice. mr. roe: if the gentleman will yield, let me mention a couple of things. in 1975, all the malpractice companies left the state of tennessee. we had nothing. so the fi cigs there got together and formed what's called the state volunteer mutual insurance company. it was a mutual company that anything not paid out in premiums came back to us. since the inception of that company in 1975, over half the premium dollars have gone to attorneys.

less than 40 cents on the dollars went to injured parties and about 10 cents to run the country. with -- to run the company. we have a system that's broken terribly when you can't compensate injured people. that's the system we have in america. there are events that do occur that need to be compensated. we don't have a system that can do that. mr. akin: gentlemen, what you have been outlining here today is, i think, what the american public is eager for. they're eager for people to define specifically what a problem is and outline a solution that makes common sense, that isn't going to be that expensive, it should save pun money, and they'll increase the amount of freedom consumers have and choices and improve the quality of health care. that's a way to approach health care. that is to say, we're not going to totally destroy it all, we're going to fix the parts of it that are broken. that's usually the way we approach most legislative questions.

now for six to eight months, we've been running down this track, trying to reproduce in america what's never worked in foreign countries very well, i think you could say there's a lot of things we could fix in america, but on the other hand if you're the guy that lives in dubai and you're worth a couple hundred million dollars and you get sick, guess where you want to be treated? you want to come to good old u.s.a. so why do we want to scrap something that has many aspects, in fact i would say if you look at the american health care system if you look at what's being provided in care, we're doing pretty darn well. if you're taking a look at how are we paying for that? we've got problems. so problems tend to be more on the pay-for side than the quality of the care that's coming out. each of you gentlemen have demonstrated, i think very articulately tonight, the fact that there are some certain specific things that could be fixed and yet we seem to be

just on this -- you called it a train wreck. for just trying to replace the whole thing with a big government solution. i think it's ironic, almost amusing, and a month or two would have been unbelievable to say that this whole thing may well have been derailed by massachusetts voting for a republican for the u.s. senate. if you said that two months ago, people would think you needed to be locked up in a little white straitjacket. they'd say, there's no chance something like that could happen. yet people are starting to pay attention to what's being proposed here and this along with a whole series of other incidents and mismanagement has created a political anomaly. i mean, there wasn't one republican congressman in the state of massachusetts and yet

the state looking at this kind of thing along with the tremendous spending that this represents, said, time out. we're not solving our problems. mr. roe: i'm just a country doctor from east tennessee, but when you look at the health care problem in america, it's there. we've had escalating costs and we've got people who don't have health insurance coverage. those are the two problems. how do you solve those problems? let me explain why having more government will never work and will end up cost manager money and from our good friend from pennsylvania, congressman thompson, has hit the nail right on the head. when you take $500 billion, and i've dealt with medicare patients for my entire practice, when you take $500 billion out of a plan that's already underfunded and goes upside down in premiums in about 2017 and beginning next

year, the baby boomers hit, three million to three and a half million every year, you take half a trillion dollars out and add 30 million to 35 million people, three things happen. you have decreased access, two, you're not going to be able to get in to see the doctor, two, you have decreased quality and three, seniors get this their costs are going to get up to get the needed care they need. mr. akin: doctor, you are so eloquent and said it so smoothly, i think you we need to underline what you said. what you're saying is we're going to take $500 billion out of medicare. is this a republican that's going to raid medicare? mr. roe: no, sir. mr. akin: we've been accused of raiding medicare. but it's not us. mr. roe: no, sir, unless you're in florida, of course. mr. akin: if you take $500 billion out of medicare, it's

going to be harder to provide services for people. you're not doing just that, you're add manager people and taking money out. you're double -- you're compounding the problem. the result is you're going to get poorer quality care and you're going to have to pay more money, i suppose. mr. roe: that's correct. you're going to create waste, there's no way around it. that's my biggest fear as a physician, bottom line, end of the day, then you budget for health care and you have more nand for services than you have for health care, it happens in england, france, germany, everywhere, unless you're wealthy and can buy your way around the system tchrk is what happens. but i'm talking for the bulk of the american people, over 90% of the people who have insurance in this country like it and like what they have. they understand, when we pass all of this right here, when a patient comes to me, am i going to be able to provide better

care for that patient? and the answer is no, i can't. let's look at numbers. mr. akin: doctor you said you're just a country doctor from tennessee but if i remember right, there are two states that did the experiment of government-run health care. one was the great state of massachusetts, which has now become my fond friend. mr. roe: mine too. mr. akin: and the second one is tennessee. you've had personal, firsthand of the state government deciding they're going to take over health care, is that correct? mr. roe: we had a 17-year experiment called tenncare and to back up to the beginning of medicare in 1965, a great program that was passed, started as a $3 billion program, the congressional estimates were at that time that by 1990, 25 years later, it would be a $15 billion program. actual number, $90 billion program. it's gone from $90 billion in 1990 to over $400 billion.

we're going to cut this much money out and as our population ages, there's going to be more spending involved. that's one plan. in tennessee, we started with a managed care plan in 1993, to control costs because costs were going up and there wasn't enough access for our citizens. it was a $2.6 bling program in 1993. in 1 budget year, it was an $8 billion program. it took up almost every new dollar the state of tennessee brought and let me go on and fast forward to the senate bill for a moment, this is very important for states. this bill calls for massive expansion, the senate bill, a massive expansion of medicaid. in the state of tennessee we're looking at three quarters of a billion dollars in unfunded liability. that's what nebraska got off the hook for. what you're asking us to do in tennessee is, we, this year, mr. speaker, this year, we have

50 less highway patrolmen in tennessee than the we had in 1978 and we have two million more people. that's the kind of shape the states are getting in and we're getting now another unfunded mandate through the health care bill that i don't know where the money is going to come from. we have no capital projects for our colleges this year in the state of tennessee, we're not building a new dormitory, a new library or anything, and yet we're going to get crammed down this massive expansion of government with an unfunded mandate. that's why people are angry. mr. akin: what i'm hearing you say is the estimate that the c.b.o. has put together of this little treasure here of $1 trillion, part of the deal is -- it's more than $1 trillion because we are doing to do something that makes the states pay a chunk of change too. it's an unfunded mandate that is going to go to the states. the states don't have the

option we do of busting the budget because a lot of them have balance budget amendments. that's going to be tough. i'd like to go back over to congressman thompson from pennsylvania. would you like to join us here? mr. thompson: absolutely. and i believe actually it was the tennessee governor, a democrat who coined the term that the senate bill and the medicaid -- the increasing the medicaid rolls and shifting it over to the states was the mother of all unfunded mandates. mr. roe: that's what he said. mr. thompson: sounds like a very good governor. that's a democratic governor. mr. akin: says it's the mother of all unfunded mandates? it says that trillion may be a pretty conservative number. mr. thompson: the state of pennsylvania, the conservative estimates is the senate bill provision with the huge expansion of the medicaid rolls which is truly just shifting it

to the states without funding, $2.4 billion to the state of pennsylvania. pennsylvania was -- went six months, at least six months without a budget this year, the state government because they couldn't make it balanced. they're required to but they just couldn't get it done. the economics, the revenue and the expenses just did not match up. i think that -- there is so much problems -- so many problems with the proposals that our democratic colleagues are -- have been proposing and i suspect what we'll see as a bill comes out of the closed darkroom to the house floor -- dark room to the house floor it will be flawed. there are solutions that have been introduced. going back to july of this year, seven months ago, and there are some solutions that have received some bipartisan

support but largely republican solutions. the putting patients first act which addresses the issue of tort reform and takes that $329 billion minimum of waste and -- that would allow the cost of everybody's health care to come down. the putting patients first act which allows the bidding of health insurance across state lines which allows the formation of association health plans to give small businesses the opportunity to join together to have a larger voice and more negotiation power. it also addresses key issues and does it in a good market approach addressing pre-existing conditions where there's the -- allow states to create high-risk pools to be able to fund -- just because you're born with a pre-existing condition or during the course of your lifetime you experience or develop a disease or disability, say, breast cancer

or prostrate cancer, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to afford -- i'm not saying purchase -- but be able to afford reasonably priced insurance. the republicans solution does that. it doesn't do it with massive taxes. does it with no taxing, does it with no cuts to medicare, does it with no shifting of tremendous health care costs to the state. it is a win-win and brings down the cost of health care. mr. akin: so we have some solutions. i'm thinking about the voters and all the different states that are frustrated that may be listening to us even here on the floor of the congress and they're thinking, you know, these guys get it or not. why are they talking about these huge big government solutions and spending money we don't have? i'm not sure that they want to declare independence or not. if you want to write a declaration of independence relative to health care, one of the things you say, it's not

going to add a whole lot of money to the national debt. that's one thing you got to pay attention. it's not going to impose mandates to states or employers or individuals, and it's not going to use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions or ill legal immigrants. i think -- illegal immigrants. i think those things have been debated and discussed and people are upset about. it's going to be negotiated i think in a free and open format instead of behind closed doors. we're going to preserve that doctor-patient relationship, and we're going to allow freedom which has worked so well in america tore a couple hundred years to reign, to have people make choices and trust them to make their own choices and do some of these commonsense solutions that you're talking about to not try to reproduce the failed systems of the soviet union or the failed systems of european medicine or canadian medicine

which is inefficient but rather build on the freedoms and the health care that people do or don't want. and particularly allowing people to practice medicine without feeling threatened from lawyers or insurance companies or big brother looking over their shoulder. if you go to med school and spend a quarter of a million bucks on education, i think i'd rather have your opinion as to what you want to do. i don't mean to rant a little bit, but it seems like we need some sort of statement or declaration of some basic principles that americans believe in. i yield to you, doctor. mr. roe: i think one of the problems that you've seen with this plan is the complexity of it. i think the bottom line what you saw in massachusetts yesterday is that the people there do appreciate their own personal freedom. they want the freedom to choose. and also massachusetts was being asked since they've already been mandated to pay for their own policy, which i might add, has added tremendous

costs and i'll also tell you that half of the primary care doctors in that state are not accepting patients. and this is one of the things that isn't understood about the government-run plans is they don't pay for the costs of the care. we haven't discussed that much here, but in our own state, medicaid pays less than 60% of the cost to the providers, hospitals. medicare pays between 80% and 90% of the costs. and the rest of the costs are shifted to private health insurers, meaning people out in private businesses are actually getting taxed again. and what congressman thompson was talking about, another thing that's left out this particular plan that's really unfair is that you're not even putting in the so-called doctor fix. now, let me explain that to the viewing public out there that there is in 1997 there was a plan, a bill passed here called the sustainable growth rate, how medicare pays the physicians. and what happened was that there was supposed to be cuts every year.

and this year there was supposed to be a 21% cut to physicians, which if that happens, nobody's going to be able to see a medicare patient. and that's not even in here. it's over a $200 billion price tag that's not even listed in this current $1 trillion price tag. mr. akin: will the gentleman yield for a question? so that statistic -- mr. thompson: will the gentleman yield for a question? so that statistic, that reimbursement of 80 cents to 90 cents, so for every $1 of costs, the physicians are already losing significant moneys. and that 21% cut you talked about, that's on top of that. mr. roe: that's correct. that's on top of already -- the 80% to 90%. so the patients and what they're concerned with now, i believe what happened and simplified in my own terms, what happened in massachusetts where people saw they were paying very high taxes, they were already paying for coverage and they were going to have to pay for states like

nebraska that opted out of this deal. congressman, itch a -- was very proud to be sworn in to the u.s. congress on the 6th of january, 2009. i woke up on the 23rd -- mr. akin: you didn't know what you were in for, did you? it's been a ride, brother. mr. roe: it's been a ride. i woke up on the 23rd of december and told my wife that i was embarrassed to be here. it really embarrassed me when you saw this deal in louisiana, the different deal in florida. mr. akin: the louisiana purchase. we have a minute or two. we are going to be followed up by another good friend of mine that might stay on this topic. i thought it might be appropriate tonight in the last minute or two to make a tribute to massachusetts. now, who would have thought congressman akin would be making a tribute to massachusetts? if you recall our history, massachusetts used to be the cradle of freedom and innovation in terms of

government. it was massachusetts in 1620 that saw the pilgrims come. they put together the idea of the first concept of a republic. a group of free people under god selecting their open leadership to preserve their god-given rights. that's a powerful idea that came from massachusetts. 150 years later you had the massachusetts provential congress saying, resistance to tyranny is your christian duty. and for the last 50 or 100 years seems like massachusetts has been sending us the king's people, always wanting more taxes, more government, more government spending, bigger government. and yesterday, the people of massachusetts reverted back to that great heritage of patriotism and freedom and said, we're finally tired of big government. it's time we start to look at solving our problems without thinking every solution means more taxes and more of

washington, d.c., control. i thank you, gentlemen, that your states have stood for freedom and your constituents have elected you to join us here to stand up for just plain old basic american principles. and i think we're going to get the job done. and i think that what happened yesterday was about from a political point of view quite a stroke of lightning. and i think it should get people's attention. i think the public has spoken and it's time for us to move on with the ideas that you, dr. roe, have been making very clear here. it's not like these things are too complicated. and same thing, you're from pennsylvania, representing the people with common sense. these things are not complicated. define a problem, craft a limited solution that fixes it instead of trying to scrap everything and go to the big government fixes all kind of model. and i think it's -- i think it's really something that the people of massachusetts kind of came back to their heritage and

to their roots in standing up for the country as they did so many years ago. when i was a little kid, i lived in concord and lexington -- actually in concord, and i saw the north bridge as a little kid and i stood where the minute men stood against the biggest military power in the world. they are flagged april breeze, unfurled. hear once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world. they stood for freedom and they stood for the basic principles that america always stood on, and i'm sure glad they joined us yesterday in making a statement and a statement that's going to affect this chart right here. hopefully it goes in the dust bin before it becomes law. last word. mr. thompson: well, i couldn't agree more. i think yesterday was a statement that the american people, what they want and what

they expect from our leadership is that we do our best to provide safety, prosperity and liberty. the freedoms within this country. and that's the type of public policy that they've been getting from since last january. that has worked against all three of those. mr. akin: and dr. roe. mr. roe: should not be health care, should not be a partisan issue. in 30-plus years i never saw a democratic or republican heart attack. i never saw a democratic or republican cancer. it's a people problem. we need to gather in this body and not have a partisan solution. it needs to be a bipartisan solution that's simple and addresses the problems that we've laid out here today so people, patients, their families and doctors can make health care decisions. mr. akin: and that's certainly what you've been talking about tonight, both of you gentlemen. i understand that my good friend, congressman king, is going to be here in just a jiff, going to be continuing

along the same lipes, talking about freedom, -- lines, talking about freedom, talking about the principles that made this country and how those principles can be applied to solving these very practical problems with health care and would check to see with how we're doing on time. we actually had two minutes, yoopt to cheat anybody, any last comments, anything we haven't covered that you want to catch? dr. roe? g.t.? here's one, we didn't talk about all the features of the policy, but this wheelchair tax stuck in my draw. the idea that you're going to tax a wheelchair, the mental picture of that doesn't seem to be what we want to do. we're looking for places to dig for money to pay for this big government system, so we're going to impose a 2.5% excise tax on medical devices to try

to raise money. mr. thompson: i've seen where these medical devices, not just wheelchairs, but insulin pumps, crutches, cains, it is prosthetic -- canes, it is prosthetic limbs, there are so many things this applies to. this 2.5% excise tax, that's going to get pass aid long to consumers. think about most of the consumers who utilize these medical devices are older adults. they're individuals on very fixed incomes, those who are surviving on maybe $8,000 $1,00 a month of social security. the very things that maximizes their independence, maximizes their quality of life, we're going to tax that? that's a quality of life tax, actually. because people who use those medical devicesing they are medically necessary.

they're not not luxuries. those are twice -- devices that make their life possible. it allows them to live in their community in their own homes, not in an institution. it's a quality of life taxes. mr. akin: if it moves tax it if it doesn't move, tax it anyway, it might be dead. thank you gentlemen for joining us. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker a message from the president of the united states. the secretary: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: madam secretary. the secretary: i'm directed by the president of the united states to deliver to the house of representatives a message in writing. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king. mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. i prishte being recognized here on the fleur of the -- on the floor -- i appreciate being recognized here on the floor of the house of representatives.

i was listening to my colleagues speaking mostly about the national health care act and what this could mean. i'd like to pick this up from the place where todd akin left off and that would be the importance of the state of massachusetts. i do not believe it can be overstated, the impact of the election returns last night, the -- i listened to carl cameron on fox news who is, i believe, very well informed and probably deeply researched individual and he said that this is the most important congressional race in 50 years. i can remember that far back and i agree with him and i suspect it might be the most important congressional race in the history of our country, mr. speaker. the situation in massachusetts, where todd akin said -- laid out the poem, fired the shot heard round the world, well this, in massachusetts last night, was a shot heard around the world. it was the scott heard around

the world. he'll be here tomorrow, straight down that hallway, being sworn in, the information i have says. how did we get to this point, what happened and what's the significance of what took place in massachusetts last night? those are the issues that i think are important to the american people here. i'll make this point that we're a nation that, let's say we have people that are studying every day to be nationalized american citizen. we have skimmed the vigor off every citizen -- every society before us. the mayflower landed at plymouth rock they disembark and came over here for religious liberty and religious freedom and established those religious freedoms right there in the bay state.

this nation was founded on the same principles and liberty that came to us with the pilgrims and were built upon as the years unfolded. it's rooted back, a long ways back, western civilization itself. i would trace it back to the greeks, 3,000 years ago, and the age of enlightenment, especially the english-speaking division of the age of enlightenment, which brought us free enterprise. if there's an immigrant in the united states that's studying to take the test to become a naturalized american citizen, there's a whole stack of flash cards that are there that are put out by the united states citizenship immigration services. glossy flash cards, the government spent a lot of money to make them real nice. you look one side says, who's the found ore of of our country, other side, george washington, who signed the emancipation proclamation, lincoln. what is the economic system of the united states of america? you flip the card over and if

you're going to pass the test to become an american citizen, you have to answer what it says on the back of that card, free enterprise capitalism, mr. speaker. the economic system where we don't have the government setting prices, we have the market setting prices. we have supply and demand setting prices. and we let people invest equity, sweat equity and capital to buy, sell, trade, make gains, invent, we protect the intellectual property through patents and trademarks and we also encourage people make money. so we know that when you generate that wealth in the legitimate private sector that everyone prospers. that a rising tide does lift all boats. that's what people were thinking, i believe, in massachusetts yesterday. i spent three tais there. they were an outstanding three days. it was a fantastic experience. i went to polling places, campaign headquarters, both sides. i went to union halls and i

talked to people across the state of massachusetts as i possibly could. the federal government spent too much money, it's gotten too big, too intrusive, they are imposing too many minnesotadates on the american people. they have their own universal health care in massachusetts. they aren't particularly happy with it. one of the things they have a conscience about is not imposing that on the entire united states. they understood that for them to cast a vote wasn't just how did their ballot for scott brown, how did it affect the destiny of massachusetts, it wasn't a selfish vote. they understood they had a national responsibility, mr. speaker. the national responsibility. and i understand this, i think, as well as most in the country because iowa's first in the nation caucus, we take our job seriously, we generally, every

four years, very, very often, we have at least one presidential candidate from massachusetts that we host. they go around through iowa, sit down have coffee with us, we talk to them, look them eye to eye. we take our retail politics seriously. but when we go to the first of the nation presidential caucus and cast our ballots there, even though it has more impact than probably the single vote of anyone from any other state with regard to who is nominated as president it still is only a recommendation to the rest of the country. iowa gets to go first. we take it seriously. somebody has to be first. i don't have confidence in anybody else to do a better job. but it's still only a recommendation. but what happened in massachusetts last night was not a recommendation that affected the rest of the country like iowa makes when they do the first of the nation presidential caucus. what happened in massachusetts last night was a decision for the rest of the country, a decision that will bind the

destiny of america. they understood that and they stepped up to that cause and their conscience and their sense of responsibility kicked in. so i am very proud of what the citizens of massachusetts have done. they have mobilized the political effort that many of them hadn't seen ever in their lifetime. i talked to a lady that said she's worked in political campaigns for 50 years. 50 years. she said, when the polls closed and they counted the ballots, they cried their eyes out and then they got up and went to work again this time, i imagine there were tears among these groups. they probably did cry their eyes out. but they were tears of joy. a great shout of joy went up all across america that finally, finally, somebody heard and i've asked for reinforcements and prayed if they are cavalry to come and at the last minute they came riding over the hill in the person of scott brown. now we have a chance to save, serve, and protect our liberty

and the debate now begins on an entirely different field, entirely different the rain and i believe an entirely different outcome. i'm completely in awe at how the most improbable sometimes comes along to save us with something that appeared to be inevitable. i see that and the gentleman from tennessee has been willing to stick around and i would like to yield so much time as he may consume to the gentleman from tennessee who happens to be a doctor, who know what is tenncare looks like, know what is america would look like if we adopted tenncare, canada care, united kingdom care, german care, name your country, but this is america and take care of america. the gentleman from tennessee. mr. roe: i think last night, watching what happened in massachusetts was really in the many years i've watched politics was really astounding. the people there, i think it

was more than just health care. we have a country now that is not in trouble. we're american. we know how to avoid trouble in this country. but we have a lot of our citizens who are hurting now. they need jobs and they need employment. certainly in our district and around our area where unemployment is over 10%, that's the talk in the barbershops and restaurants is what is the economy doing? what business are we going to lose overseas next? what manufacturing job is going to be gone? i think the people there looked at more than just health care. i think they looked at a stimulus package of almost $800 billion. i don't believe that's worked, it certainly sas provided one-time jobs but you know and i know as a former mayor that you don't take one-time money an turn it into a long-time job. how you do that is incentivize the people creating jobs in this country, that's small business.

how do you help them? you make the cost of capital, the cost of money, the cost of creating a job less. how do you do that? you cut capital gains taxes. you can cut individual income tax rates. you can accelerate depreciation for equipment they buy. we have a country now that's put itself in debt my great grandchildren will not be able to pay off. we looked last year, it is staggering to me how much a trillion dollars is. i get almost overwhelmed. i made it through calculus in college and i have a tough time getting my arms around how much money that really is. so we have a budget that went up 8% last year. we added 8%. in the state of tennessee where i live, we had to live on less money than the year before. that's what we had to do in our state. that's what california is having to do and every state in this union. i don't know whether the people here in washington get out as i have and talk to governors and our state legislators but our

states are in trouble and we need the economy to pick up. if the economy was going well, i don't think our health care issue would be as big an issue as it is as people lose their jobs, they lose their health benefits. we were talking a minute ago, the people of massachusetts, i think, got their arms around a bigger problem. i think they looked at this entire country, the direction it's going and they said, whoa, wait a minute. we don't like the direction the country is going. they put the brakes on this and said, let's stop and take a slow, measured look at what we're doing. i yield back. mr. king: i thaping the gentleman from tennessee. he mentioned he's taken calculus and still to be able to get your arms around the situation, i would submit this. they put me through calculus, too, a couple of years and never told me at the beginning, middle, or end that there wasn't much purpose in going through the calculations, it was about how to discipline the mind to think logically, rationally and reasonably.

that's also why they send people to law school. our president went to law school and taught in law school. taught constitution law, which is a bit of a surprise to me that he can advocate some of the things he does but the basic logic becomes, isn't rooted in law school and it isn't rooted necessarily in calculus, it isn't rooted in even geometry or algebra. it might be two plus two equals four but the rationale presented us to, consistently and repeatedly by presidential candidate, president-elect, and then president obama, mr. speaker, was health care costs too much money. i've been browbeaten by the europeans. they always say we spent 9.5% of our g.d.p. you spend 14.5% of your g.d.p., that's more money. never mind we make more money than they do and we have better health care than we do, never mind that we're willing to spend it. we don't like to spend it when we're talking at it like this

but when it comes to time to save lives, we want to spend it. we don't know what the threshold is. we spend too much money so therefore we should solve the problem by what? this is just two plus two. what the president proposed to us didn't spend less money, anybody in third grade if you say you have a problem with spending too much money what do you do about that? you could hand them a 50-cent allowance, two quarters if you spend too much, spend a quarter, not all 50 cents, a kid can understand that at age 7, age 6, maybe less than that. we're here listening to being browbeaten and demagogued because we have a health care policy that spends too much money, 9.5% in the other industrialized world, 14.5% here in the united states what does the president propose to do? spend more.

spend at least $1 trillion more. if you look at the real cost involved, look at the first real 10 years, it's $2.5 trillion more. if you look at the contingent liabilities that go along with this and all the other components it may be as high as $6 trillion more. . the problem of spending too much money, by the speaker of the house and all the people that vote to line up for their bills are spending a lot more money. we have forgotten all about the browbeating about spending too much on health insurance. the president has the bully pulpit. but they have yet to invent the saw that will cut off the branch of truth. we can stand on the branch of truth and say, how many insurance companies do you need

in america, mr. president, to have? the president wants one more health insurance company in america. and that's going to fix the problem. i ask a simple question, how many companies are there in america? 1,300. 1,300 health insurance companies. and that is a round number, little more or little less. and so if you have all of these companies competing and 1,300 of them. i never had that much competition. when i got seven or eight or nine people bidding against me, i knew someone was going to lose money and take the chance of profit away tr the rest of us. 1,300 companies and they're competing. throwing one more in there doesn't help that mix.

he just thought we would believe that. his idea was to get government in the business of providing that which the people in the private sector could do well themselves. and these companies offer in different varieties of policies that individuals could shop and buy approximately 100,000 different policy varieties, mr. speaker. so you could multiply 100,000 policies and 1,300 companies brokering them and the federal government getting in the business to compete with those entities. if you want more competition, open up the trade from state to state so people can buy health insurance in tennessee instead of new jersey. the gentleman from tennessee knows what that is like. make sure all companies compete against each other and these varieties would be less because they wouldn't have to accommodate some of the silly mandates that come down from the

states. a young man buying health insurance in new jersey might pay $6,000 a year for a typical policy but go to kentucky where there are fewer mandates and might cost that same individual $1,000. what kind of a smart young person usually on a limited budget would write a check for one grand as opposed to six grand? furthermore, the things we want to fix in here, we want to fix lawsuit abuse. the health insurance under writers produced a number that i trust the most. i see numbers on the cost of lawsuit abuse in america on health care to go as low as 5.5% of the overall cost of health care services provideded. i have seen it go as high as 30%.

8.5% of the cost of health care in america is $203 billion a year and this is included in the additional tests that have to be given because they are done for defensive medicine purposes and the litigation and settlement that don't have a medical reason. we want people to be whole. if they suffered from malpractice, the legitimate system is there, but the abuse has taken us way out of sight. $203 billion going to the trial lawyers, not to the patients, but to the trial lawyers. and you think there is a single democrat in the house of representatives, mr. speaker, a single democrat in the senate that would say this is totally wrong to be funding trial lawyers on the backs of health care patients and acting like we are reforming health care and protecting the trial lawyers completely and not allowing insurance to be sold across state lines and denying full

deductibility. and i would be happy to yield. mr. roe: let me give you a practical example. if i were working in an emergency room and a patient had right-sided pain and i might be concerned they had appendicitis. you do a physical examination, vital signs, pulse and temperature and do a physical capital and you would say i don't think you have it but let's let you go home and if you get worse and start to have more pain, come back. that's not going to happen because part of the legal system if you do that and you don't get a ct scan, a very expensive test on that patient and you go out and happen to have that append icitis, you will be held liable.

all the exace they have had to protect the doctor from a potential lawsuit in the one in 500. that's the problem you get into, the tests that you don't need are -- you don't want to put up everything you earned in that life and the thing you brought up is that people are genuinely injured in the system. and we don't have anyway to adequately compensate injured parties without the parties getting their hands on the significant amount of the funds, settlements. i yield back. mr. king: i had a conversation with an orthopedic surgeon outside the longworth and he said to me, i have a small practice and he said, 95% of the m.r.i.'s that he orders are

completely unnecessary except he has to cover everything because someone might try to hit the jackpot. he has to order those tests. everybody in the business orders all those tests. if you cut out those 95%, it cost patients' insurance companies, $1 million just to fund the unnecessary tests. that gives you an implication and multiply that across the country and come up with $203 billion in additional costs. we can't get them all out of there. there is a bill we introduced that funds a bill over 10 years. we ought to tighten this thing down more. and the argument again that has been made out of the white house and out of the majority party and from the speaker's office itself, too, is that republicans don't have any solutions. they must have sat up in one of

those smoke-filled rooms to come up with an idea like that that is false. republicans have introduced at least 42 separate bills in this congress, this 111th congress that reform health care and i can tell you exactly how many of them were incorporated into this document that was promised to be a bipartisan document. and that is a complete double -aught goose egg. no medical malpractice, no full deductibility, no real transparency, none of the components that give people options and choices have been considered. and why? when you put free market solutions in and give people the liberty and freedom to make their own decisions on their own health care, first, they will take the financial and personal responsibility, if you help out on the lawsuit abuse, more people are going to say, i don't

need that test either, doctor, so let's save the money. but if the bottom line is, republicans have always injected free-market solutions in place. for example, health savings accounts. they are just starting to grow. that was 2003 legislation. wiped out by this proposal that comes from the president, speaker pelosi and harry reid. no more health savings accounts. but imagine this. a young couple engaged in health savings accounts in 2003 and they had invested $5,150. and if they spent $2,000 a year in legitimate expenses and accrued the balance of that account at 4% and compounded it, it would reach retirement age, two of them in reasonably good health, $950,000 in their health

savings account. what's the interest that charlie rangel has in that? tax it. i want to give them an incentive and let them keep the change. that's one of the republican solutions but doesn't fit very well with socialized medicine, you know. this is an effort to try to mix. but the reason it doesn't mix is because it is oil and water, freedom and liberty, market solutions and individual responsibility and doctor-patient relationships and on this side, it is social onized medicine, one size fits all, big brother at the top and mashes this down and tough accept the policy they give you and you have to get in line. mr. roe: if the gentleman would yield. let's just talk about for a minute, we got this very complex over 2,000-page bill which i

have read. the senate bill is over 2,500 pages which i haven't read. 118 new agencies in thr complex graphic that you have down there in front of you. we should, on both sides of the aisle be able to agree on a few things. one we agree that the cost of care is rising too fast and the uninsured out there we need to cover. those are the two basic premises. how can you best solve those problems? it's not that complicated? you can do several things, one, you can look at five things we can do probably on 25 pages of not a complicated 2,000 pages. you can let people buy insurance just like you do your auto insurance or your loif insurance. we see advertisements every night on twation with a cute ad.

let people buy health insurance across the state lines. let young people who don't have health insurance stay on their parents' plan if they don't have a job that provides it until 26 or 27. you can cover seven million people at zero costs to the federal government. you point out liability reform. you save billions of dollars doing that. you sign the people who he are eligible for government programs. you covered 19 million people by doing that. you aren't creating another agency and 118 new bureaucracies. expand the health savings account. i'll give you a personal experience with that. i have had one for two years. it came on late, put $5,000 a year. instead of the insurance kch keeping my $5,000, my wife and i are both healthy and we have

$8,000 in our health savings account that we can use how we choose, now the insurance company. for someone who owned an individual policy, you can treat them like a big corporation, let them deduct their premiums like general motors like the big unions and so forth. and then i think the last thing you have to do is put some individual responsibility for each of us that everybody, no matter what care they get, needs to pay something for the care, it shouldn't be totally free. we saw that in tennessee when our care skyrocketed where there was no costs for the patients and it was overutilized. those are five or six things that every one of us in this room ought to be able to agree on. and it wouldn't be hard to do. it is an easy solution and should be able to pass that and the president ought to listen to that. he really should.

these are simple, real-world solutions and i yield back. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from tennessee. they are free-market solutions and commonsense solutions and there is this other part of human nature. it is helpful when the country that has its leaders that wleeve in the principles that this is a great country. there has to be incentives in place. and i think it was phil graham that said it first and that what is, you take the safety net and then you griffnem the fish and turn the safety net into a hammock. and congress keeps cranking it up higher and higher and becomes more of a cushy ham ock and there is a reason yes

civilizations settled in a temperature operate climate. us didn't have to prepare for a winter. where i live, you have to prepare for winter. from the first of april until the first of december, you have to get all the things you are going to get done outside. that means all the food that has to be put up, our construction work done. because in the winter time, it combets cold and i'm not drawing a comparison between the mason-dixon line but the equator. but the industryousness of people. squir else put away for the winter and grasshoppers freeze to death. if you give people the ham ock, they won't take care of themselves, they will require us to do that because we aren't allowing them to test it.

there is a value to adversity. when i think of the things i have gone through, every one of them put a little more steel in me and caused me to be more industryous and work harder and take away that reward you will have people that don't plan for their future. if you don't plan a woman to not have babies if there is no man in the house, they won't have babies. this has escaped the president of the united states and the majority. . mr. roe: there's a great book out by thomas friedman, he says if you want less of something, tax it, if you want more of it,

subsidize it. if you have programs that are subsidized by the taxpayer, you create more people that use it. i'll give you a brief example before i yield to my colleague from georgia. in this country we talk about, i heard many times -- and we do have failings in our health care system, it's not perfect. but when president clinton had a heart attack, he was take ton an emergency room where he had a heart cat and schovered had blockages in his arteries and needed a bypass operation to save his heart. and in canada, what would have happened -- he got a bypass operation. he was delayed a couple or three days because of a blood thinner they gave him, i don't know that for sure but i think that's probably what happened. let's say you're in small-town johnson, tennessee, and you don't have insurance and come to the emergency room, what's going to happen is you're going to get a heart cat and a by pass operation and then we'll figure out how to pay for it.

in canada, what they'll tell you for -- they'll tell you, there's a list you get in you can get a catheterization where they put in the dye in your hitter. when your name comes up, you get the cath, and when your name comes up, you get the bypass. i've seen it happen, i've known people it happened to in canada. they have wonderful physicians in canada, well-trained, excellent doctors so when you get the care, i think, in can dark it's good care. i believe that. when it's available. i think it's excellent care. because of the experience i've had with canadian-trained physicians. some of my colleagues i worked with every day were well-trained physicians. that's the rationing of care we speak of that we don't want to have happen in our country. we have enough of that, people tell you that insurance companies ration care and they do. i think they are to be held

culpable also. i yield back. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from tennessee. i want to relay a quick story from a doctor out of michigan, practiced in canada. when he first went up there, he's an orthopedic surgeon now, he had a patient come in, torn up his knee playing softball, torn the meniscus, a.c.l., he said, you need surgery, i can schedule you in the morning, he -- he was in can dark he found out he couldn't schedule him first thing in the morning or couldn't even schedule him for a review so he cad had to back up and put him on crutches and six months later this young man was allowed to be examined by the doctor who approved the request for surgery and six months later they actually did the surgery, almost one year to the day the surgery took place in canada that would have taken place the next morning in the

united states. meanwhile, this young man can't go to work, his leg atrophies, he's running around on crutches, his life has been altered because different things happen and what does that cost when you let people do that? that's an example. i know we have experts here tonight so watching that clock tick, i'm interested to hear what the gentleman from georgia has to say whether it be about the jell-o jackets or his field of expertise? -- the yell yo jackets or his field of expertise. mr. gingrey: i'm not going to say one word about the hawkeyes or yellow jackets. congratulates to the hawkeyes, they did a great job. mr. speaker, it's an opportunity to come before our colleagues tonight and join with representative king from iowa and representative roe, dr. roe from tennessee, and later on, you'll hear from michelle bachmann,

representative bachmann from minnesota. talking about the health care bill and health care reform in general, i think, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the election yesterday and the -- in the bay state, massachusetts, maybe my colleagues have already spoken about that. there's a lot of political pundits on every channel, cable, broadcast network, whatever, trying to analyze and say, well, what happened? how did this occur? you no, i, we all have our own opinions, but quite honestly, i think it's a lot about health care. it was kind of instructive that when people were asked, coming out of the voting booths, what they thought about the health care reform bill in the bay state, that the same percentage that were opposed to it is the percentage that senator-elect scott brown received in the

election. it was the same margin system of clearly health care was a significant issue in that race in my opinion. i think the people in massachusetts clearly had about a year and a half, two years to look at the commonwealth care that was enacted and they don't like it. they don't like it because it, instead of lowering the cost of health care, it has driven it up. although more people are insured and are have coverage in the bay state, as my colleagues are talking about in regard to other systems, there's a long queue, there's a long wait, very difficult to get a fi cig to see you, particularly if you are one of those who has a subsidized policy and basically, the state is going broke and they've had to make a number of changes, had to drop dental care as part of the coverage, had to drop many thousands of legal

immigrants who were not citizens but had coverage. they no longer have coverage. i know my colleague, especially, mr. speaker, dr. roe of tennessee, has probably already talked about tenncare and their experiment, 10, 12, 15 years ago and the miserable failure of that. so yes, indeed, health care had a lot to do with the outcome yesterday in massachusetts. but it was not just health care. i think that people are so tired, mr. speaker, of this federal government ignoring them and dissing them, as the expression goes. we had the august recess that lasted five weeks and all these town hall meetings across the country and we come back and you would think that the majority party and the administration would have listened to those people and instead, what they did is they simply changed the number on the house bill.

they took off h.r. 3200 because the people had railed against it so loudly other that five-week period. they just changed the number on the bill. mr. roe: will the gentleman yield? you can call a it a pole cat or a skunk but it's still a pole cat or a skunk. i yield back. mr. gingrey: the gentleman is right. people are sick and tired of being disrespected. they were very disappointed, of course, in the economic stimulus package, $78 boll that was supposed to -- $780 billion that was supposed to reduce unemployment. i think it's a missage to the administration to president obama and the democratic majority speaker pelosi, leader harry reid in the senate, look,

you still have an opportunity, my colleagues. you still have an opportunity to come together in a bipartisan way and do things in an incremental fashion that truly will lower the cost of health insurance for everybody. and make it better. and rein in, yes, the abuses of the health insurance industry as well. what's this big rush, any way? the democratic majority, mr. speaker, insisted on getting it done in 2009. didn't want to face this during an election year. well, look, the american people are saying to us, and especially to the majority and the president, we don't care about the next election. get it right. don't rush to judgment. what's the big hurry? why not get it demone 2011 if it takes that long? but get it done right. the people of massachusetts went to the polls, they knew that their bill was an abject failure and that's basically what they're saying. if the administration and this

majority ignores it, they do it at their own peril. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back to the gentleman from iowa because i know there are others who want to speak tonight. mr. king: before i yield, i want to propose something for consideration, the canadian plan, average time to wait for a knee replacement is 240 days, where i'm from, we don't wait in line. when i went to moscow, they looked around for a line to stand in and when they got to the end of that, they found another line to stand in. it occurred to me that free people don't stand in line. if you're standing in line at kentucky fried chicken, somebody has a free market opportunity to set something up next door and people will go over there and get their service. that's what the free market principle does. people don't stand in line when it's the free market principle.

i submit also that people don't die in line. the gentlelady from minnesota. mrs. bachmann: i thank the gentleman from iowa and i have so much esteem for my colleagues, dr. roe of tennessee and mr. gingrey of georgia. they enlighten all of us who aren't medical professionals. they have been in the game and know what's at stake. they know what's at stake for those who put so much in to becoming physicians, who put their life on the line to be healers. but also people they serve and they see the real cost in human health and in terms of misery that are down the road. if we embrace this system. i come at it a little bit differently. my background is that i'm a former federal tax lawyer and i see how egregious tax costs can be to destroy businesses, destroy families, individual farms, and creativity and also to business owners. my husband and i have started two businesses, we're not a big deal. we've employed 50 people. but we to know what it is to take and start a business from

scratch, using our own equity, our own capital. we have to be disciplined and make a lot of good decisions. we have to get it right. every time. so that we can make a profit. my husband told me he spoke to a number of other small businessmen who have said to him they will have to cut jobs if this health care bill goes through with their small businesses. there's a lot of small business employers who would love to provide health insurance but they can't. because currently, health insurance is so expensive and i think one thing that cannot escape this discussion that we're having tonight among colleagues whether we're health care professionals or tax lures small business owners, is this. president obama's chief economic advisor, christina roemer, said herself that if president obama's plan would go into effect that america would see 5.5 million jobs lost if we adopt his plan. not only would it cost us

trillions of dollars, that we simply don't have, but it would cost us 5.5 million american jobs. it isn't that those jobs wouldn't be done, but they wouldn't be done in america. another 5.5 million jobs that would go offshore. i yield to the gentleman from texas. mr. gohmert: to so what you're saying is the president's health care bill is a jobs bill, but instead of creating them it eliminates them. mrs. bachmann: it eliminates them. one thing we saw a chart or graph recently produced several weeks ago, it plotted all the private sector experience in the presidents from the last 100 years and showed that in president obama's cabinet in his administration he has less private sector experience of real job creation than any other administration. 7% experience.

no wonder every answer that comes out of this administration is more spending, higher taxes, more government. but the last seven smick recessions we've -- every blooming one of them, we have come out of the recession from government, no. from small business creation. we would love in our small business to create more jobs but i will tell you this, from the other small business job creators i know in minnesota, right now they are scared to death they don't want to add more jobs because they know to add more jobs, they're stuck with more costs that they may not be able to take and they don't want to hurt the economisting -- existing people they have now that they hired, they don't want to have to close their doors and fold up, a great business in our state, home values stores, just announced last week that they were closing their doors after over 35 years in business. why? because these job killer, bone crushing debt that's coming out

of washington, d.c. let's reject that, the american people last night rejected poth because ma's decision because if there's one headline that would encapsulate all of 2009 it would have to be this -- the federal government takeover of private industry. that's what last year was all about. . and that's what last night poll numbers reflected. mr. king: i propose that it goes another step. and that is, you talked about the government takeover of the private sector and we talked about 30% of the private sector profits nationalized by this president and this administration. we have seen the government takeover, but the most personal private property we have is our own body. and this is a government nationalization, a government

takeover of our individual persons and bodies managing our health care and seeking to tell us what we can eat and what we can't, what we can drink and what we can't, managing our own personal bodies. what can be a more egregious restriction on freedom. let's see if there is dissent. if they impose a centralized government control health care will it result in economic liberties and is it in violation of the constitution? would you agree with that? mrs. bachmann: i would agree with that. mr. king: if they impose a government-run health care system, would it increase costs toll all taxpayers? mrs. bachmann: it would and that's what i'm worried as a tax

lawyer, this would mean diminished opportunities for americans because we will see increased taxes. mr. king: what kind of harm would that do to the american economy and the businesses and jobs and productivity and quality of life? mrs. bachmann: it would be irreparable harm. very difficult to come back from. mr. roe: what the gentlelady from minnesota has said is true and just in our area, vanderbilt university, the largest employer in the county, 14,000 people, these are not jobs that go overseas these people are doing great work, new innovations and new treatments that may go away. they are afraid to hire anybody. our medical center, 9,000 employees in their system, the ajoining city has a medical system of 6,000. that's 15,000 people that work

in the health care in the towns and two cities. quality care to the people of appalachia. those jobs will dry up and those are great jobs not exported anywhere, jobs americans with health insurance, retirement plans, great benefits and we may be tanking that also. and i want to think back a moment when i graduated from medical school and think back as the gentlelady from minnesota, congresswoman bachmann was talking about, there were five high blood pressure medications. now we have over 50 wonderful medications to provide for people. antibiotics, we had one or two at the time when i graduated, ultrasounds, m.r.r.i.'s,

survival rates of cancer. the research that is going on, we are the leader in the world. the world looks to us. and i'm afraid it will sometimey that innovation. we were talksing did this a moment ago. one of my good friends, a medical colleague, his sister-in-law did live in england and did die from leukemia that americans don't die with any longer. she was treated with a blood transfusion. we could have done that 50 years ago. she got that treatment because she was too late to be treated. we don't do that and i'm afraid we are heading down that path. mr. king: the value of life changes and another point, i think a point john shadegg made well, this policy, whatever number they attach to it will

have mandates in it. it will require certain health insurance policies to have those mandates covered in there and have employers provide them. his case is that they tax. i ask the man who is the judge if he could explain why that is a tax when the government makes someone buy a policy and then takes it out of their taxes if they don't and puts them in debtor's prison. why does that make it a tax? mr. gohmert: if it is mandated by the government then certainly it is a tax because that is all that the government is entitled to do. under our constitution, you can't force somebody to buy a product and i appreciate you directing that question to me because obviously all the prior questions were directed at my friend from louisiana and minnesota because you qualified it by saying this question is for the esteemed members.

now you have included me. but as the unesteemed member, that is what has gotten people upset across the country and what we saw in massachusetts. they have seen what's going on around here. there was a promise that c-span would be covering all the negotiations, because we're talking about peoples' lives, the length of their lives and loved ones, how long they are going to be living in this world, whether they will get the medication or going to be fold you're tool old. so as the president said before he was elected, those negotiations need to be out there. and all we've seen is the nasty sordid deals that were cut after

being behind closed doors so that if you have insurance companies signing onto the president's bill and enyou go through, here are the pages where they deal cut, here's the deal that the plaintiffs' lawyers got and the pharmaceutical industry got and it's a mass of mess the way they cut these deals and forged them together and the ones they are going to suffer are the people in this country when there is no reason to. mr. king: free of political favoritism, mr. gohmert. mrs. bachmann: if i could respond on the tax portion. government can mandate that you must pay a percentage or a fee which is a direct tax. but if government requires you to do something or purchase a health insurance policy in conformity with what government

says must be the items in that policy that is just as much a tax as government saying you must pay a percent or exact amount. the final result is the same because the taxpayers' pockets are picked. it is a tax, pure and simple. that's the point. combomegome along those lines, i appreciate the gentleman yielding. we heard the president saying, states require you to buy insurance for your car. this is very new. we heard the argument that actually, yes, states do require to buy insurance if you buy a car. you don't have to own a car or drive a car to live in a state. but another thing that is lost in the equation, too, is there is no mandate by any state in this country to buy insurance to protect your own car and your

own person. you are required to buy insurance to protect the other person whom you may harm while you're driving. and all of that is based on the privilege of driving. it is not based on just living. and we are supposed to have, under our constitution, as was mentioned in the declaration of independence, this right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, whether you are an unborn child or an old geezer like some of us, you have the right to life and the federal government is saying we are going to snuff yours out a little earlier because you aren't that productive. where is that line drawn once they are allowed to buy a product. mr. king: it occurs to me i believe h.r. 3200 there was ain

amendment a offered that would have required members of congress. that was voted down by democrats. if you had a bad policy, wouldn't you want to exempt yourselves from that and i ask the gentleman from tennessee. mr. roe: do unto others. there is if not one of us standing in this body that wouldn't agree with that, 100%. and to congressman gohmert makes a good point about the mandate. let's give practical experience. the mandate means that you have to purchase something. and in massachusetts, it's health insurance. it also says if you cannot be denied because of pre-existing condition. so the harvard pilgrim health care plan beginning in march of 2008 and until this year, 2009, one year, they found this, that the average person, almost half

the people that got their health insurance through the harvard pilgrim plan kept it for an average of five months. you couldn't turn them down so they indicate waited until they got sick. during that five-month period of time, that plan spent $2,000 a month and for the other folks, $300 a month. they scammed the tax. it was cheaper than buying the health insurance and they kept it until they got well. same thing using congressman gohmert in the car wreck. you have your car wreck and buy the best insurance policy you can and then when you fix the car, you drop it. mr. gohmert: with all the talk about our friends across the aisle concerned about the working poor in america, if you look at the bill that was passed out of this house, it makes it

very clear if you can't afford the great policy that's mandated and you are just above the poverty line where the government is going to pay for it, you have an additional 2.5% income tax on your income. that is outrageous. if they could afford to buy the insurance, they would buy the insurance. and then going to pop them with another 2.5% tax. that's not caring about the working poor or making the engine in this country go. mr. king: the health choices administration commissioner would probably rule that those high deductible, high co-payment, low premium policies wouldn't fit. so the low-income people that can only buy in, the according the way this thing is laid out, they have four different tiers

of policies. those that have the lower premiums pay the lowest and the people that can pay the highest premium would have the best insurance out of that and those who can afford the least would have the highest co-payment because that doesn't fit the socialist model. mrs. bachmann: the one thing that doesn't get talked to about much is the ceiling ole wages that was contained in this bill because if you are a double income couple and $64,000 or more, at that point they lose all federal subsidy. what they have to do is go out and if their employer pays 8% and doesn't provide health insurance, they have to go with after-tax dollars and purchase a health plan which in minnesota will cost $14,000 a year, a couple making $64,000 a year that has to go buy a plan out of

pocket. but if they made $63,000 a year, uncle sam would pay their wage. there is no incentive to make a dollar more because you would be so heavily penalized by going outside out of the subsidy and that kills the american dream. . why would we have a couple people in this chamber make a decision for three hundred million people? let's free up the three hundred million people so they can make decisions for themselves. i yield back. mr. king: i thank the gentlelady from minnesota and the participants from tennessee and texas. i would summarize what's going on here. i think a government-run health care system takes away our liberty. it nationalizes our bodies, it will result in increased cost in taxes and the taxes come in the form of mandates as well, whether we think we're paying taxes or premiums, that it should not add to the crushing national debt or impose mandates

and no tax dollars should go for abortions or for illegal aliens. it should be negotiated publicly out in the daylighted a and it should apply to all members of congress, it should provide equal protection under the law, free market-based and it should protect the vital doctor-patient relationship. that's the summary of what we want to do here and it's what we have the opportunity to do because the cavalry came riding over the hill just in the knick of time in the form of today senator-elect scott brown, tomorrow, massachusetts senator scott brown. thank you, mr. speaker, and we all yield back the balance of our time. mrs. bachmann: mr. speaker, i make a motion to adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the lady lays before the house a communication. the clerk: to the congress of the united states, section 202-d the national emergency provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless prior to the anniversary date of

its declaration the president publishes in the federal register and transmits to the congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. in accordance with this provision i have sent to the federal register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the emergency declared with respect to foreign terrorists, to threaten to disrupt the middle east peace process is to continue in effect beyond january 23, 2010. the crisis with respect to the great acts of violence committed by foreign terrorists is threatened to disrupt the middle east peace process that led to the declaration of a national emergency on january 23, 1995, has not been resolved. terrorist groups continue to engage in activities that have the purpose or effect of threatening the middle east peace process and that are hostile to united states interests in the region. such actions institute an unusual and extraordinary threat

to the national security foreign policy and economy of the united states. for these reasons i have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to foreign terrorists who threaten to disrupt the middle east peace process and to maintain, enforce the economic sanctions against them to respond to this threat. signed barack obama, the white house, january 20, 2009 -- 2010. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the committee on foreign affairs and reported printed. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from minnesota rise? mrs. bachmann: i do make a motion before we do any more damage to our country to adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. accordingly the house stands adjourned

>> the salahis invoked their 5th amendment rights when continually asked about how they slipped through a state dinner. this is about an hour 10 minutes. >> mr. and mrs. salahi, private citizens from the commonwealth of virginia and attended the white house state dinner on november 24, though they were not issued invitations, they are here to provide their account of the events of that night. we would like to welcome both of you to this committee and ask that you summarize your joint statement for five minutes.

>> thank you, mr. chairman and committee, i do have an opening statement for you. to the honorable members of the committee on homeland security. prior to being contacted to invite us to speak, we asked that our attorneys reach out to the committee and meet with various staff members and provide them with key information to assist the committee and review of relevant homeland security issues. we understand the attorneys met with your staff as well as representative king and his staff and provided them with phone records, emails and other relevant documentary evidence. we have continued to provide relevant documentary evidence and be as helpful as we can to the important security concerns you are investigating. we also understand the committee received our attorney's letter, we intend to assert our constitutional right to remain silent if we are subpoenaed to appear before the committee. we find it unfortunate that the

committee required us to appear in person to invoke our fifth amendment rights under the united states constitution to remain silent even though it is against the eggets call rules of the d.c. bar to do so. congressman waxman chastised this will exact conduct in another hearing. on advice of counsel we invoke our right to remain silent and will decline to remain silent regarding the circumstances of november 4, 2009. we appreciate the offer from representative thompson's staff to present ourselves out of the public spectrum. we understand that to do so would afford us no legal protection and would not be sfare to accept the offer knowing that we would invoke our right to remain silent. our counsel offered last week to the committee an opportunity to provide further information and make a full attorney proffer to the full committee or any

interested members of all relevant information. that offer was delinchede by chairman thompson's staff. we again offer the offer for our counsel to meet with the members of the committee and assist in this review of important homeland security issues. finally, my wife and i say we are strong supporters of the men and women here in uniform here and abroad, we have great respect for the presidency and members of the secret service and nothing that transpired on november 24 should take away from the services that the united states secret service performs on a daily basis. >> thank you for your testimony. i remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel. i recognize myself for the first set of questions. and this is to either one of you

mr. or mrs. salahi. did you attend the white house state dinner held on november 24, 2009 as part of a reality tv stunt? >> mr. chairman, i am under a nondisclosure agreement and should not discuss matters related to the television matter. >> well, that is not the answer. let me give you another chance to -- >> mr. chairman, on advice of counsel, i respectfully assert my rights to remain silent and decline to answer your question. >> you have the absolute right. did you receive an invitation in the mail to attend the white house state dinner? >> mr. chairman, on advice of

counsel, i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question. >> can you describe for the committee your inner action with the secret service officer at each check point and how you walked from the street to the white house. >> mr. chairman, on advice of counsel, i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer the question. >> were you on the secret service officers' list to enter the white house grounds? >> i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer the question. >> did the officer at the first check point verify your names on the security list? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your questions. >> what form of identification did you give the officer for

verification? >> on advice of counsel, i decline to answer your questions. >> did the officer ask you probing questions about your biographical information such as your full name, social security numbers, date of birth and citizenship? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully assert my right to decline to answer my questions. >> you are absolutely within your right to assert your constitutional rights to do so. i will now yield five minutes to the gentleman from new york, the ranking member. >> i see no need to ask any further questions. i ask if any members of my side yield? >> i would like to echo the ranking member's earlier comments.

why weren't they on the list, who deals with that. and i can't ask the questions of the people who made the decisions and i think today's procedure is a charade. >> gentleman yield back? i yield to the the gentleman from california. >> mr. chairman, i perfectly understand that your statement that our witnesses are well within their rights to cite their constitutional rights. and that is true. and under normal circumstances, i would object to us even calling them here to have them actually do it personally. but this is an unusual circumstance in which we are talking about the security of the president of the united states. as he said just last week, we are in a war.

because we are in a war, we have to take our responsibilities seriously. that includes the white house. that includes the secret service and that includes everybody in the white house, including the social secretary. it is almost as if we had given the social secretary greater protection than key advisers to the president on policy matters. but i agree with your decision to call them forward because of the unique circumstances that we are talking about, this goes to the question of protecting the president of the united states. and with all due respect to our witnesses, you have the very right that you asserted here. but to have engaged in conduct which undercuts the seriousness of our effort to protect our

president and protect vital elements of this government as some sort of reality show or personal pique is an extraordinary afront to the seriousness of the issues before us today. you say in your last statement that you have great respect for the men and women of the united states secret service. you did not show that. you say that you have -- strong supporters of the men and women in uniform. they put their lives on the line every single day to protect us against any threat to this nation and for people to make a joke of it, to think it's not serious is an af front to those individuals, you have the right to claim protection under the constitution of the united states, but you have shown disrespect here to take the name

of men and women in uniform who are protecting this nation and suggest that somehow suggest that what you do provides support for them. i was going to sit here and remain silent until i heard that last paragraph of your statement. but to suggest that somehow what you're doing shows support for our men and women is an abomination. the constitution protects fools. the constitution protects stupidity. the constitution protects errant thought. thank god it does. i yield back. >> the gentleman from pennsylvania. >> thank you, mr. chairman for yielding. i sat here at this hearing a few

weeks ago in december when i saw that mr. sullivan stand here and basically accept responsibility for everything that happened on that evening. at the time, i said i expect the secret service to take a bullet. i don't expect the secret service to take a bullet for the president's staff. we are unfortunate that a good man like director sullivan who has had to suffer so much public humiliation and embarrassments over this event all because of your actions on that day and i wasn't going to say anything either but the fact that director sullivan had to take all that grief from us and so much from the public was unfortunate and i hold you responsible for it and i yield back. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from district of

columbia, ms. norton, for five minutes. >> i thank you, mr. chairman. i thank you for going forward with your constitutional duty during an investigation of homeland security. i do want to say that there are two constitutional provisions involved in this hearing. one is the constitutional provision known as separation of powers where the president does not and endlessly did not, has not endlessly on most occasions have his personal staff come to the congress. yet there is yet another provision, one that i respect profoundly, that is the fifth amendment, a precious bill of rights amendment. i do want to say, mr. chairman, that no one has a right to invoke the fifth amendment by proxy through their lawyer or by

press release other in secret. so what you did, mr. chairman, you were duty-bound to do. this couple is being investigated by federal authorities on criminal counts, including the u.s. attorney for the district of columbia. therefore, they have every right to invoke their fifth amendment rights not to incriminate themselves. and i want to respect that right and ask no questions of them. >> thank you very much. the gentleman from indiana, mr. souder, for five minutes. the gentlelady from texas, ms. jackson lee. >> thank you very much, and i might add my preeshes as well for your upholding your duty as the chairman of the homeland security committee. over the last couple of months we can see that the focus of the

nation beyond personal economic concerns is to ensure the security of the homeland. over the last couple of months this committee and the crisis of homeland security has been on the peoples' minds. from the incident that involved tragically a military captain in fort hood, texas to the incident that occurred on christmas day, we know that the security of the homeland is not a joke. to the salahis let me say in all respect, the security of the president of the president of the united states is not a joke. your actions or alleged actions on that fateful night made a mock erie of this country, our security and your commitment to this nation and a mock erie to any representation that you are pates of this country.

iminsensed for your dignity for i will never challenge that, but for individuals who can be so reckless to believe they could enter on property of the united states hosting a dignitary from a foreign nation of whom we owe an obligation to secure, the vice president of the united states and the president of the united states with reckless disregard for the perception and the reality of what would be seen as a breach in security for terrorists of all walks of life to be able to make the assessment i can do it, too. i'm saddened and disappointed and i'm outraged and i would ask you to check your patriotism and find out why you had to do something of that level. with that in mind, i do respect your constitutional rights i respect them because i respect this nation and i respect the rights and responsibilities of the of of the congresses and this committee and i will ask

the question that both of you can answer. you had a duty to inform the secret service officer that you were not invited guess. you dressed the part. you did not receive an official invite. your names did not appear on the guess list and your invitation from michelle jones was denied. what more did you need in order to understand that you were not invited? >> on the advice of counsel, i respectfully assert my rights not to answer your question. >> after being told you had not received an invite, you began plotting and discuss a scheme dressing up. this is not the first time as i understand it that you were considered party crashers. this time you provided false information to a government agent secret service officer who borrow the responsibility of protecting the safety of the

safety of the united states. i respect the fact that you respect the secret service. my question is, you did this to forward your own goal. did you falsely provide agents to secret service agents. >> on the advice of counsel i decline to answer your question. >> you knowingly misrepresented your status as invited guess and you tricked them into pleefing you were guests gaining access. makes you trespassers in furtherance of your initial crime in tricking a government agent. after scheming your way into the event you socialized with the president, vice president and various invited guests. then posed for photographs on your facebook page for the world to see. you could have endangered the safety and life of the president of the united states, vice president of the united states and the visiting dignitary.

my question to you is did you have any consideration for the beach of security that you were engaged in at that time. >> i respectfully assert my rights to remain silent. >> let me offer to say that thrur two criminal actions under 18 u.s.c. 1, the intentional misrepresentation to a federal agent which under the present allegations suggests occurred and the intention national trespass on federal real property which apparently it seems to be. to the salahis we are pleased you are here today. i don't believe it is a mock erie or without purpose. i'm saddened that we have to say to the american public there are those who aren't concerned about the security of the homeland. i thank you, mr. chairman. and i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from alabama, mr. rogers.

>> i yield my time to mr. mccaul. >> this was the first white house state dinner of this administration with a dignitary head of state from india who obviously is a target neighboring to pakistan where the terroristsr with the president of the united states who we know is a target as well. this is a very serious matter and advancing this reality tv show agenda and exposing at the same time the vulnerability in our security and in the white house. while i appreciate the two of you showing up today and exercising your constitutional rights, it's important we examine the white house's role in this and what role the social secretary played or didn't play in allowing you access into the white house to get right up to the president of the united states. now in this case, obviously nothing happened but we were lucky. what if we aren't so lucky next

time. i want to ask you a couple of questions. were you invited to the state dinner? >> on the advice of counsel, i respectfully assert my rights to remain silent and decline to answer. >> did you submit names and social security numbers before going to the white house dinner? >> on advice of counsel, i respectfully assert my right to answer your question. >> were you waved in by an official from the white house to get into the state dinner? >> on advice of counsel i remain my right to decline to answer the question. >> i echo the sentments of my colleague from colleague that this is a disgrace to the secret service. we are? a time of war. you say you support the troops,

but they are in harm's way protecting us here at home. and we're going to continue to investigate this matter. with that, i yield back. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania for five minutes. >> you know this has become a real distraction side show in this -- in the history of this country. and i spoke it's what happens when we need to pay closer attention to things and not focus so much on the people among us and that's what is going on. there are three sides to this story. mr. sullivan came and addressed his side. this is another side with no answers and we aren't going to get any answers obviously, but i agree, i agree with mr. king and

my republican colleagues that i think ms. rogers or someone from the white house needs to come and tell the third side and if so doing we can understand what happened and to protect the president. and i want to extend my invitation as the chairman of the oversight subcommittee to the white house to come and have a chat with us. i think that makes a lot of sense. now as far as the salahis go, time is the only thing that we have of value here. and i can't believe how much you are wasting it and the taxpayers' dollars. it's incredible. i'm not going to answer the question because you aren't going to give me an answer. if you are patriotic and americans and truly love this country, think about your actions. that's all i will tell you.

i yield back. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from texas or do you want to pass on your time? the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. deal for five minutes. >> i said most of what i wanted to say. there are very real threats to this nation and we are expending extraordinary amount of resources to mitigate those threats and we know about the christmas day attack and there are other attempts that have occurred in this country that we are all all too familiar with and the fanth that we are expending so much of our time and valuable resources dealing with this shameful stunt i think is truly unfortunate and i want to restate one thing. director sullivan, it still pains me to see me sitting here septembering responsibility and there are a lot of good people in the secret service and a mistake was made and reputations

have been hurt because of this event, career people trying to do their best trying to keep this nation best and here we are today to deal with this issue in this manner. so i have no questions, mr. chairman, because obviously it would be a fruitless effort to ask any questions because we wouldn't get any responses. i want to restate what mr. king has said, we want to have the white house social office here to explain their role in this situation. we need to know what they did and why they did what they did and again perhaps take some of the heat off the secret service and director sullivan who stood up and accepted the responsibility for the entire event. with that, i yield back. >> the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from california, ms. richardson. >> we haven't heard anything from mrs. salahi. have you ever attended an event at the white house? >> on advice of counsel, i

respectfully assert my right tory main silent and answer your question. >> were you advised to attend an event at the white house, one of which is needing approval to attend? >> i assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question. >> did you receive the information confirming your approval to attend the event and from whom? >> i assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question. >> have you not reserved your right and spoken to meet any media outlets about your attendance at the white house? >> i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question. >> when you were advised your name was not on the list why did you continue to attempt to enter when you knew you did not have final confirmation? >> on advice of counsel i assert

my right not to answer your question. >> when the criminal process is evaluated and concluded, will you return to this committee and testify and tell us exactly how you entered the white house? >> yes. >> thank you very much. the chair recognizes, congressman. >> you put this country in an incredible position by crashing that state dinner. terrorists are out there. and they are trying to hurt us. we saw that on christmas day. they are watching, looking, looking for vulnerabilities in

our security system and you presented them with a textbook of how to get access to the president, vice president, foreign minister, the prime minister of india. again, i can't tell you how much you have hurt our country and what you have done to expose us to the dangers that we are facing from the terrorists. they are still out there. we saw that in my home state of texas. saw that on christmas day and again by your actions, you have given a road map that shows the vulnerabilities that you can exploit and done incredible damage to our country. and that's all i got to say. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pascrell. >> i want to break through here and get at the basic issue if i may. who would have thought that two

normal-looking people -- look at them today -- dressed to the t, these beautiful people would have broken through in some manner, shape or form the home of the president of the united states. i want to mention, mr. chairman, to all the proponents of racial and ethnic profiling, that this case involving these two individuals, the salahis, just goes to show that while you're looking for a certain kind of person fitting a certain profile, you're going to miss the real targets. behavioral profiling is in order . and these two people are living proof.

so i don't respect your right to take the fifth amendment. not at all. because it didn't have to be the president of the united states of the it could have been somebody else. it could have been someone not as important of the -- of the president of the united states. did you wear a tuxedo that night? are you going to take the fifth? >> i respectfully assert my rights -- >> were you there? >> on advice of counsel -- >> are you here right now, mr. salahi? you got to get an answer from your attorney on that? your attorney bobbed his head up and down when my good friend from pennsylvania was discussing the possibilities that someone from the white house should be here also here testifying. you can do it all you want. you aren't going to take the

heat of your clients. no one's going to take the fall for them. there may have been something wrong going on and maybe the white house made a mistake, but they're not here to plead the fifth. >> mr. pascrell -- >> i'll continue. mr. and mrs. salahi, i believe the entire committee wsh we can move from the fake nature of this issue and concentrate on the security breach itself because if you two folks sitting here from patterson, new jersey, long robed with those hats on the top of your head, i wonder if you would have gotten through as you swished through in front

of the cameras. your presence is required specifically so you could answer the events of that night to the events of that night. this committee gave you every opportunity to speak behind closed doors, did it not, mr. salahi? did it not? >> you did, but you didn't afford us any legal proiks. you wanted us to speak versus our attorneys. >> we did give you that opportunity? >> without any legal protection. >> and yet, you continued to evade every opportunity to present your side of the story. the fact that you now appear here and are unwilling to speak to any details and i associate myself with the words of mr. lungren who put it very plainly,

simple and to the point the fact of the matter is you used the secret service to say so many nice things about them and what you have done is defy the will of authority. this whole episode has been a stunt and a charade on your part to gain attention and not right so desperately you speak. i want to turn my attention away from you because i don't believe that you have anything to offer this committee and it is my hope that they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. the issue we should be concentrating on is the failures in security. we do not know -- we now know there was at least one other uninvited guest that made it into the white house that night. there was another person. the fact that was never disclosed by the secret service during our first hearing.

that individual was carl oost allen. >> the gentleman's time has expired. for the record, let me indicate that we have sent a request -- we have sent a -- we are getting feedback from the mic. [inaudible] >> somehow we are having technical problems.

the chair recognizes mr. austria for five minutes. >> let me say i will keep my comments brief. i concur with what has been said. this homeland security committee, as we try to focus on homeland security issues that are important to this nation. let me just also re-emphasize what has been said on this side of the aisle. the u.s. secret service has the responsibility to physically screen individuals, its officers have no role in determining whether someone has been inappropriately excluded from or included on that guest list. and i think if we want to get to the bottom of what has been raised in questions, we need to get cooperation from the white house. the fact that the white house social secretary, ms. rogers, declined to testify in front of this committee leaves the

committee out there unanswered as to how we can correct this problem and we need to pursue that and that issue isn't going to go away. and the answers we are getting from our witnesses, i don't think we are going to get additional information. with that, mr. chairman, i don't know if any of our members want to use my time. i would be glad to yield to them, if not, i will yield back the balance of my time. >> i would like to just remind the members that when mr. sullivan was here, he indicated that his office, the secret service had sole responsibility for the vetting and the security of whatever names that were provided to them and that the witnesses here, their name was not on the list according to director sullivan's testimony. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from connecticut.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. and mrs. salahi, i have been deeply ambivolent about these proceedings, i almost voted against the subpoena that brought you here today and i would not have asked the question but because of your ill-advised appeal to patriotism. we have spent 45 minutes and it would have been devoted to the unemployment of this country or the threats we face around the world. but you chose to appeal to patriotism. so i want to talk for a second about the fifth amendment right that you assert here today, which your appeal to patriotism would indicate that you put some value on. you have the absolute right to do so, but let's be very clear. you have no obligation to do so.

you choose to assert your rights under the united states constitution. just as director sullivan when he sat in that seat made a choice. he could have engaged in the age-old celebrated washington game of finger pointing and the blame game of c.y.a., but he chose to be a man of honor and to take responsibility and to take some professional risk to put himself in professional jeopardy. i understand what you are doing and i celebrate your right to do it but let's be clear about the choice you are making. you are making a choice to limit your legal jeopardy which your attorney has rightly advised you to do but you are taking that route rather than help us understand what for its silliness and absurdity was a real threat to the security of the united states. you could choose not to assert

your rights against self-inkrim nation or choose to and let's be clear. you are choosing to limit your legal jeopardy under a right we all celebrate and appreciate as opposed to assist in the open and fair airing of some things that could conceivably save the life of the president of the united states. my question has nothing to do with the events of november 24 and i give you a.m.le time to consult with your attorney in answering this question, given the nature of the choice that you are making today, would you not reconsider and consider airing the information that you have to assist this nation in the protection of the president of the united states rather than asserting your rights under the united states constitution? >> through our counsel, we are ready to tell you all the details, but through only our

counsel. but if you want to know the details, they are ready to tell you. they're ready, but it's not going to come from our voice but from our counsel. but they're ready to tell you. >> mrs. salahi, would you at this point in time reconsider your choice to testify personally or will you continue to assert your rights under the constitution? >> the advice of whatever counsel suggests for me. >> i have no further questions. i yield back my time. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. broun. >> it is right for us to look into the security breach. the protection of the leaders of this country is absolutely critical for the security that they must have.

it is imperative that this committee look into the security overall of this nation, the salahis, undocumented attendees at a christmas party or state dinner and that is a tremendous breach of security that personally i believe the process was put in place by the white house and ms. rogers, to make an environment where the salahis could take advantage. and they took advantage of that process that ms. rogers put in place and the white house put in place. this committee voted pretty much on partisan lines to protect ms. rogers. and i find that did he test tabble. i want to associate myself with mr. king and what he said. but the salahis took advantage of a environment that the white

house themselves in my opinion created. they were undocumented attendees. we have a lot of undocumented attendees in this country that are also security risks. we aren't dealing with illegal aliens in this country but we must because it is of vital interest to this country. i appeal to my colleagues on the democratic side. let's stop protecting these i will legal aliens in this country and let's be serious about national security and go forward in a manner that not only will protect the president and all the leaders of this country but will protect this nation against attacks, not just attacks by going to a state dinner, which is a security breach and a very egregious one. but we have have many at our borders every day that we must

look into, we must attend to because the security of our nation depends upon it. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> the chair recognizes mr. cleaver for five minutes. >> i would like to associate myself with the earlier comments of the the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pascrell, with regard to racial and ethnic profiling and i have no questions of these great americans. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. lungren. the chair recognizes ms. titus for five minutes. >> i understand that the salahis were out in my district this past week at celebrity host at a nightclub in sees ars palace and while you were there, i hope you

were having fun, you were asked by the press what really happened and you responded, dig deeper. while this committee is trying to dig deeper in hopes of strengthening our security, you have chosen not to assist us and i think that is very unfortunate. you have a rereal opportunity to help us with important oversight of our secret service and our ability to secure our homeland and yet you have choicen not to. your activities have activities have exposed a real flaw and i wish your legal counsel had said yes, let's try to fix these problems and make it better. i'll make one more attempt, i would just ask you, are you at all concerned that your actions might inspire other people, either friendly or celebrity seekers or terrorists to try and crash other white house events?

>> on advice of counsel, i respectfully decline to answer my question. >> did you have a good time in las vegas and did you notice at the pier, people had to stand in line and pay to get in and don't allow party crashers there? >> pursuant to section one of your ovene subpoena, i'm only compelled to answer to questions surrounding the white house state dinner on november 24. based on the fact that the question doesn't have to do with the circumstances surroundings these events, i respectfully decline to answer your questions. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. bilirakis. >> i won't ask any questions because we aren't going to get any answers. i would like to associate myself with the comments about the need to invite the white house about this serious security breach and

i yield back. >> ms. kirkpatrick for five minutes. >> i'm disappointed that you did not appear before us when you were invited december 3. the importance of that hearing was for us to understand what happened so we could quickly act to correct that to protect our president. appearing almost two months after the incident is just not acceptable. as we saw on christmas day, we have a very real threat to our citizens, to this nation, to our president. and it is a responsibility of each one of us as a citizen to be vigilant and to report any breaches that we see in our security system that could cause people to come in harm's way. as a former prosecutor, i respect your right to assert your fifth amendment rights.

i do have questions that i hope i wish could have been answered today. but i will submit them to the committee for the record. thank you. >> thank you very much. the chair recognizes gentlelady from michigan, ms. miller, for five minutes. >> i was listening to my esteemed colleague from new jersey, mr. pascrell, when he said look at these beautiful people. they may be beautiful on the outside but as we went through the martin luther king birthday, people will be judged on the context of their character and that's the way they will be judged in what they are doing here today. mr. chairman, i have the great honor and privilege to represent a district in southeast michigan arguably the ground zeroove of the economic challenges facing our nation. we have 15% unemployment in our state and on top of all of the

heartbreak that is happening in my beautiful state, then on christmas day, we had this terrorist attempt over the skies of detroit where the terrorists have now seen the battleground as an assem met try call way and that was in seat 19-a over the skies of detroit. i knew people on that flight and if that flight would have exploded over my area there, would have spent my time going to an awful lot of funerals. so it is almost surreal for me to be sitting here today looking at people who wanted to get on some tv show called "the desperate housewives of washington, d.c." in the light and challenges that we face and i wish this congress was taking up. at that, mr. chairman, i would like to yield the balance of my time to mr. souder. >> part of this concern with

this process and we have held many hearings where people have taken the fifth, we don't isolate one individual or two individuals in the course of a case when there is an ongoing case. we get them together and do it together or we would have done it at the first hearing or waited until we had some more information. the chairman referred to that third person. where is bravo? where is the company that did the contract that apparently may have filmed them getting their hair done, getting their clothes ready and been part of this process? we have talked to nbc. why aren't they here today with any video and other individuals who may have been implicated and maybe some of them wouldn't get fifth amendment protection, why are we just having one couple that clearly is the firestorm center clearly put our nation and everything we have heard

today potentially at risk by exposing things, by showing weaknesses and behaved un patriotly? why if we're after truth why didn't we do this all together and is bravo coming and nbc coming and other potential witnesses as well if this was filmed in advance and there was cooperation in the media to do a scam on the united states government, we need to do more than just pick two individuals who were participants? mr. chairman, are we going after any of them, subpoenaing them? >> just for the record, majority and minority staff has already met with bravo, nbc, all those, everyone has indicated that they would be perfectly willing to provide us any and all tapes, copies of documents relative to this investigation.

>> are we planning to show the tape or any of that or have a discussion with other members, because this has been interesting of them taking the fifth and showing the individuals and they don't want to share. but obviously we have information that would be interest to the public much more than taking the fifth. are we going to do this in public? >> i think the question is relative to the two witnesses here today. they are the persons who perpetrated the breach. the other individuals, nbc, bravo, others, have provided tapes and other information. we would be more than happy from a committee perspective to make the request that they provide it and any member of the committee at their leisure or whatever can review those tapes. >> reclaiming my time. i don't mind them being embarrassed even though i have concerns about the hearing.

the questions that were asked today we already know. if we have the tape of what they look like, where they went by, what they showed, it would have been relevant to show that in this hearing since members were asking questions about information we already have. >> we don't have the tapes. they have been offered. we have met with all those studios and they have offered them. and i will be more than happy to request them. as you know, the salahis have been very up front in their interviews on the different networks so it's no secret what has been said. >> mr. chairman, can i ask a question? >> sure. >> why, if they offer the tapes and some of the answers to questions we are asking today are on the tape, why don't we look at the tape before we ask them snf in other words, some of the questions are asking, how did you get by, what did you

show and so on, they are presumably on the tapes. why couldn't we look at the tapes? >> the information and questions we asked are not on the tapes. clearly we will have to have the witnesses for that. >> mr. chairman, would you yield? >> the gentleman's time has expired. ms. kilroy for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i share many of the sentiments that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have stated here this morning with respect to these witnesses. but i would like to ask these witnesses a few questions despite their apparent unwillingness to cooperate. did you have a public relations agent with respect to any reality or unscripted tv show that you have been involved with in anyway? >> pursuant to section one of your subpoena, i'm only come

peeled to answer surrounding the circumstances of the state dinner on november 24. the question is not relevant to those events, i respectfully decline to answer those questions. >> did you have a public relations agent with respect to any of the actions regarding the preparation or attendance, your attempt to get a ticket to the november 24, 2009 state dinner. >> i respectfully assert my rights to decline answer. >> you think the public relations agent invokes you the right to self-inkrim nation. >> i decline to answer your question. >> do you have a talent agent with respect to your attempt to get a ticket at the state dinner? >> i respectfully assert my right to decline to answer your question. >> has anyone else