so every attorney general in every one of the states you see here and this is a pretty nice cross-section. we got eastern coast, one west coast, whole bunch of southern states, middle eastern states that are in this fight. and they are asking a simple question about the commerce clause. here is some stuff, it's like we wake up every morning and have new things to talk about about this plan. a recent center for medicine and medicare services has come up with new findings on this bill. let's examine these together. i'm glad to have my friend, mr. burton, and we'll talk about some of this stuff. 20 million americans who currently can't afford health insurance will buy a policy under duress from the threat of fine and threat of i.r.s. action. that's what they found.

four million americans will still not be able to buy and will be fined $33 billion a year and still not have health insurance. 14 million americans will lose their employer-sponsored health insurance as a direct result of this new law. 23 million americans will still have no health insurance coverage in 2019 after the bill is fully implemented. and 20% of the gross domestic product of the united states will be spent on health care after the law is implemented, which is higher than if congress had done nothing. so if nothing will happen, we spent this 21% of gross domestic product. so we're sitting here. first thing we were told is the reason we need to pass health care is we plead to get a cheaper product -- is we need to get a cheaper product. we need to save money. we need to reduce the deficit,

reduce the debt. well, we haven't reduced the spending because it's going to be 21% of gross domestic product, which is larger than it is today. and it's estimated it's larger than it would have been if we hadn't done anything. so these are facts that sort of jar you into reality that we've got a product that every american sitting around the coffee shop tomorrow morning ought to be talking about. that everybody in every office building, on every farm and ranch, in every small business in america ought to be asking questions about what has become the new law of the land. i think the attorney general -- the attorneys general of the multiple states in this country, they started asking these questions as the process was going through and as they discovered nightmare after nightmare after nightmare as pertaining to the states, they

started getting to be raddled and they started to say -- rattled and they started to say, this can't be. we can't be imposing this kind of will under the commerce claw -- clause. so i think it's important that we look at the 9th and 10th amendment and the commerce clause and i'm going to start off talking about some constitutional law here with my good friend dan burton and we're going to see how we figure this is. i think i've got -- yeah, here we go. i think everybody out there learned in school, we have a constitution and we have amendments to that constitution which is just part of the constitution, just came at a different time. and the amendments have a lot to do with individual rights to liberty in this country. and when our founding fathers were looking at these projects and what they were doing, they were going from sovereign

states, you know, the people of virginia considered themselves -- virginia was a sovereign state. that meant sovereignty laid in the state. and they were meeting in philadelphia to see how much sovereignty they would surrender and what they would create in the form of a federal republic. and remember what benjamin franklin, when asked as he went out the door, what kind of a government they had created, he said, a republic. if you could keep it. because it depends upon those who are given that gift to keep that republic. which means it had some basic concepts which our founding fathers were ingenious about creating and one of them was the balance of power. that they would be offsetting power between the three banches -- branches of government which would balance out the power so no overwhelming power would lie in any one branch of the government. the three branches, the executive which is the president and all the various executive

agencies of the government, and then the legislative which is the house and senate and then the judiciary which is the entire judicial system of the united states, capped off by the supreme court of the united states. so, when they wrote this, they wrote the ninth and the 10th amendment and the ninth amendment says, the imnume ration in the constitution -- innumeration in the constitution of certain rights should not be construed to deny or disparage others, other rights, retained by the people. because our founding fathers took the position which was -- which learned people of that time were debating and putting for the, that the rights that -- forth, that the rights that are set out in our bill of rights and other rights defined in our constitution are first and foremost the rights of the people. each individual person has those

inalienable rights and so they sat down and started putting this thing together, they said, all right, any rights we didn't talk about still belong to the people. so just because they didn't right it -- write it down in the constitution doesn't mean -- there are more rights, freedom of press and freedom of assembly, all the ones you learn in school. there are more rights than that, because those rights lie with the people. then the 10th amendment says the power is not delegated to the united states by the constitution. the constitution defined the powers of the united states government. nor prohibited to it by the states or reserved to the states and respectively to the people. or to the people. so what they're basically saying is there are powers out there that this constitution doesn't cover. now, i think we all know that the constitution has been an

evolving process because one of the jobs, the big job of the supreme court of the united states is to tell us what things mean when you start applying events to the constitution. there is a clause in the united states constitution which is called a commerce clause. it says the u.s. congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the indian tribes. commerce is the big word. and the question is, what is commerce? and i think if you went to a business school to talk about commerce you'd find out that they're basically talking about the buying and selling and trading and working with goods and services. that would be pretty much what you're talking about. the economic activity, buying

and selling, so forth. now, a court, a more liberal court started expanding the commerce clause slightly and the one that really kind of threw everybody off was the case where some folks were, during the depression, were growing wheat in their own backyard and they were grinding that wheat and they were making it in bread and they were eating the bread. and the question was, is that wheat in commerce? and the court said, because it was competing with other wheat that was being grounded to flower -- flour and made into bread that was being sold, and therefore it was at some point had an affect upon the commerce involving bread and wheat, even though it was only consumed by the family, they expanded it to say that was commerce. and somehow the idea came up and it was cropped up and challenged and failed several times in the

supreme court, it was carried that far, the commerce clause, if you took it that far, would cover everything. and really this bill that we're talking about, this one right here that we just got the report on, this bill is going to be the ultimate decision of whether the commerce clause means commerce covers everything or not. because in this bill the only thing you have to do to be required to buy health insurance by the government is be alive. if you are a human being and breathing you have to buy health insurance. or you have to have it. if you have it and you get to keep it then you've got health insurance. but if you don't have it, now it's no option. you have to buy it. now, the first thing you hear is people say, well, yeah, but you got to have insurance to drive an automobile and you have to

have it. that's true. but that is insurance that is protecting other people from your negligence or your mistakes. as you drive your automobile. and it's an issue for the state, protecting the state, because it makes sure that people are able to protect those that they might injure when they use a dangerous weapon. by the way, it's kind of interesting that the courts have ruled that an automobile can be used to enhance punishment in a criminal case because it is a deadly weapon. so basically they're ensuring against the misuse of the deadly weapon called the automobile. that's not what we're talking about here. we're talking about, you've got to have health insurance whether you're sick or whether you're will well. you got to have it. and if you don't, you got to pay a fine.

and that fine's going to be in the nature of an excess tax. so there's a good place for me to turn and yield such time as mr. burton would like to use to talk about how he sees this and what thoughts come to his mind as we look at this really challenging constitutional issue. mr. burton: i thank the gentleman for yielding. and i want to tell him how much i appreciate him coming down and taking the time to take this special order, took a lot of preparation to explain this to our colleagues and anybody that might be paying attention to this. there's no question in my mind that the 10th amendment of the constitution is being violated by the bill that we passed and that's why we have 22 states that have joined in this suit. and i'm glad that they're doing that. as a matter of fact, on march 29, the attorney general of indiana expressed his intent of having indiana join filing against the, quote, patient protection and affordable care act, which is the obamacare

we're talking about. and here's what he had to say, our attorney general. he said, there are significant constitutional questions regarding the federal government's authority raised by the legislation passed. i believe it's necessary that these ultimately be brought before the united states supreme court and as the attorney general of indiana, i will join in the most appropriate legal actions available to represent the significant interests of our state, the state of indiana, in this matter. and he prepared a 55-page report on this that he gave to our legislators in indiana regarding the patient protection and affordability ability and he believes, as the other attorneys general do, that this is unconstitutional. my colleague just talked about the automobile business and how people have to have car insurance. well, they don't have to drive a car. and if they don't drive a car this they don't have to have car

insurance. this is the first time i can remember this in my life that the federal government is telling people they have to buy something. i've never heard of this and i've never read anything that would lead me to believe that the federal government has the authority to tell people that they have to buy something. now, there have been times in the past when the federal government tried to take over the entire commerce of the united states, back in the 1930's during the roosevelt administration. they passed a law called the national recovery act and the national recovery act gave the federal government control over the entire economy of the united states regarding commerce. and there was one case that came to mind that i read in a book called "the forgotten man," i don't know in my colleagues read it or not, but it involved two people from the middle east that came to the united states and they started selling chickens back in those -- chickens. back in those days they didn't

have frozen chickens in the supermarket. they had them in crates. and they would let the people that came to buy the chickens reach in and pick the chickens they wanted. the national recovery act which was controlling the commerce of the united states had individuals like the i.r.s. will have under this bill, come out and tell people what they could or couldn't do. the representatives told these two gentlemen that they couldn't let the people pick the chickens that they wanted. i know this sounds crazy. they said, because the people that came in and bought the chickens first would pick the fatter ones and they would get the benefit of being there first. and the fellows that owned this company said, well, this is the way we've always done it. we let the people pick the chickens they want. and so they didn't change, they continued to conduct their business that way. and they were indicted under the national recovery act and they were convicted and the case went all the way to the united states supreme court.

and a justice wrote the opinion which was 9-0 against the national recovery act which went out the window. and he sent a message back to the president saying, don't send us any more legislation like this because if you do, we'll find it unconstitutional as well. that was a first time that i know where the federal government started taking over the entire area of the commerce of the united states. but even then, even then i don't believe there was a time when they said somebody had to buy something which would violate the 10th amendment of the constitution. now, the national recovery act was found unconstitutional but the 10th amendment, as far as i can remember, never said you have to buy something. and that's what this bill does and that's why the attorneys general from 22 states are saying, you don't have that power. and as you said, mr. carter, very clearly, the power's not delegated to the united states by the constitution. the -- the powers not delegated

to the united states by the constitution are reserved to the states respectively. so what happened here is the federal government's overstepping its bounds and violating the 10 th amendment and taking away -- 10th amendment and taking away interest the states their right to regulate this industry or to deal with whether or not people should or should not have to buy these things. and the attorneys general are saying very clearly, this is a state's right and we don't think the federal government has the right to do this under the commerce clause. . i would like to add a couple of things and that is the cost to the american people. the deficit that is going to be created is about $385 billion over the next 10 years. but the fact of the matter is, it's going to cost a lot more than that. the estimated costs, according

to c.b.o., based upon the information that was sent to them, it was going to cost about $850 billion over 10 years and the amount that was going to be, as far as the deficit was concerned about 300 some billion. they only have six years of coverage, but 10 years' of taxes. when you take 10 years of coverage and 10 years of taxes, it's going to run up over $2 trillion, money we don't have. the deficit is already out of control. the budget we passed was $3.85 trillion and this year they won't send us a budget because they know it's going to be more than that. and the shortfall that increased the debt to our kids and grandkids is going to be $1.6 trillion this year and going to get worse as the years go by over the next decade or two. in addition to violating the

constitution, as i believe this does and in addition to having 22 states file suit against the government of the united states because of this bill, this is going to cost an arm and a leg that we don't have. we don't have this money. and who's going to pay for it? well, we borrowed money from china? we owe them about $1 billion. $600 billion from japan and we we owe trillions and trillions to the rest of the world. i don't know how we're going to pay for it. the fact of the matter is, because of the cost of this legislation and the other programs and the deficits that are taking place right now, i really believe that the federal government is going to have to print a lot of money. when they print money, they inflate the money supply and we have what is called inflation. and they will try to figure that out by increasing taxes and the administration is talking about

a value-added tax, like they have in europe. and the value-added tax is running about 20% in many countries and if you buy a car for $10,000 and add the value-added tax to it, you are up to $12,000, another 20%. the american people can't afford it. we can't afford the inflation. we can't afford the taxes and what it will do to the economy and jobs is unbelievable, not to mention that it violates the constitution of the united states. so if i were talking to the american people tonight, mr. carter, and we can't talk to the american people, we can only talk to each other and members of congress, there is more than just the violation of the constitution. there is no question that there is this violation, but the cost to us, our kids and it's going to be unbelievable. this country can't afford to spend the money the way we are

doing it. we can't afford to raise taxes. we can't afford a value-added tax and can't afford to see jobs slip away from america and go to other countries and that's what this is leading to. this administration believes in a european-style social is particular approach to government. and we have to stop that. and the states, i want to pat the attorneys general from the 22 states in dealing with this constitution abuse of power and i wish them the very best. and i hope every state in the union, mr. carter, will join in this fight, because the federal government should not usurp the rights and the founding fathers never planned for that and gave it to the states. they said that those powers not delegate todd the united states by the constitution are reserved for the states.

and that's the way it ought to be. and i thank you for taking this special order. you are one of my heroes. mr. carter: i thank my friend and regaining my time. for all the flak we sometimes raise where we -- flack where we disagree with the united states supreme court and great constitutional issues that have come around everywhere and some have said what kind of craziness is that, justice brandeis pointed out that by the very nature of our constitution and the very nature of what we created in the way of a republic, this concept of a centrist-controlled economy, doesn't fit what was founded in

this country. we started down that path in the 190's and brandeis and the court put a stop to it. and it was very ridiculous some of the things they did. the famous kosher meat case and other cases. can you imagine the federal government going into your local butcher shop and telling your local butcher how he could do things? is that the world we want? that is a sent rift--- centrist-controlled economy. and we have in our lifetime seen the rise and collapse of centrally -- central-planned economy. the national social is particular party of germany in second world war, besides

losing, they controlled the economy was the effective way without letting the markets work. the soviet union collapsed, continuing to try to keep a central-controlled economy run by the one big entity in everybody's world, didn't work. didn't work. the chinese have the same thing, even though they still claim communism, they are rapidly rushing towards capitalism, because they are getting rich and prosperous for all levels in their country under the capitalist system, which they never could do with their central wli-controlled economy. why we would think to go in that direction is beyond me. and i think many of our colleagues think that is the solution. i do not think so. i think our founding fathers

intended for us to have things both at the local, city and state, national level. i think they had a concept of the small family all the way up to the big government. and they specifically wrote these provisions into the constitution to make it clear that there were certain things that didn't belong in the federal government and i'm very hopeful that that's the way that this court at this time, with all the history that has passed and the all court cases and tell them that they have to buy health insurance, then what's next? how far will we expand this can the next administration, whoever it may be say you have to buy general motors cars because we own 50% of the stock in this or can it just say, you know, we

got an industry here and you can only buy that computeror that pair of socks. and you want the federal government doing that? nobody in their right mind wants that to happen. but the start, the crack in the dam, the slow drip is going to be what they have proposed, which is going to be a slow drip and going to create massive costs in this country. by the way, mr. burton, wasn't even talking about the costs to the states. those are federal costs. they imposed upon the states costs that states didn't have a say in whatsoever. mr. burton: our governor, who i think is one of the best governors in the country, mr. daniels, he said that passing this would put 500,000 more people on medicaid in the state of indiana. and i wanted to validate the

point you just made. this is going to be a tremendous burden because they are going to shift the burden that's on the federal health care system to the states and in indiana, we are going to spending billions moreover the long haul because they will put 500,000 people more on medicaid and i don't know that's the exception. i think every state in the union is going to suffer like that. mr. carter: we are joined -- reclaiming my time, joined my by fellow classmate and fellow texan, dr. burgess, who has spent most of his life on these issues and certainly his time in congress since the day i met him. he has had the best ideas on health care, but has been a voice crying in the wilderness. and i will be glad to yield to dr. burgess to educate us on

what he sees these issues are and where he sees things going. mr. burgess: i must say it's humbling for a simply country doctor as i to come down here and talk constitutional issues with the great constitutional scholars of our time. mr. carter: yeah, right. mr. burgess: but, judge, you mentioned something that is important. so many people are concerned with what they see happening and i see by one of the possible ters that you have there, almost -- pofters that you have there, almost 45%, or state attorneys general are suing over the constitutionality of these health care mandates and remember all of that has happened within a four-week time span of us passing this very flawed piece of legislation. there's no way to know what the next four weeks will bring, but as more and more people evaluate

this, as more and more people defect through that flawed product that was passed by the senate on christmas eve and we picked up and agreed to it over here in the house, as more people look at that and see the drafting errors and inconsistenties that are contained in that legislation, i believe that number will, in fact, become much higher by the time we get to memorial day and grow in numbers through the month of june and by independence day, i believe that number, there will be a startling percentage of the united states population that is now against this bill. the problem with this bill it never enjoyed popular support. people wanted to criticize, but honestly they didn't knead a republican vote. they have a 40-vote majority. this was an internal argument. and as a consequence of not

having popular support they had to threaten and ma line members on their own side in order to get the votes necessary to pass this. right after it passed, judge carter and i were part of a press conference and our attorney general was one of the first to the attorney generals to say under the commerce clause, i don't think you can do that. he wrote a letter and i wanted to quote a couple of paragraphs from this lengthy letter that greg abbott wrote to our senators. he wrotes the individual mandate is constitutional suspect because it doesn't fall into the normal categories. it attempts toll regulate a nonactivity. attempts toll regulate a nonactivity. are there any other nonactivities that we do during the course of the day that we are willing to give that over to the federal government? the judge made a point.

continuing to quote from the letter. the legislation actually imposes a financial penalty upon americans who choose not to engage in interstate commerce because they choose not to enter into a contract for health insurance. in other words, the proposed mandate would compel nearly every american to engage in commerce by forcing them to purchase insurance and then use that coerced transaction as a basis for claiming authority under the commerce clause. continuing to quote from greg abbott's letter, congress's research agency, congressional research service, expressed doubts about the commerce clause' applicability. in a report issued last july despite the breadth of powers. it is unclear that the clause would provide a solid constitutional foundation for legislation containing a requirement to have health insurance. it may be argued that the mandate goes beyond the bounds of the commerce clause. and finally to conclude from

greg abbott's letter, if there are to be any limitations in the federal government, let me underscore, any limitations on the federal government, then commerce cannot be construed to cover every possible human activity under the sun, including mere human existence. the act of doing absolutely nothing does not constitute an act of commerce that congress is authorized to regulate. a very powerful letter by the attorney general issued last january to our two senators as the senate was working through this health care bill. . i've been so concerned about this bill, i wake up almost every night wondering what the future holds and, judge, you're so right in some ways you get this mental image of this central planner, albeit be a benign and kind and eloquent central planner, moving data

points around on a big spread sheet somewhere. that's what the administration of health care has become in this country. look at the job we have turned over to the department of health and human services and the center for medicaid services, another small federal agency called the office of personnel management and the i.r.s. involved in regulating health care. these federal agencies are now passed with writing the rules and regulations out of this that again passed the senate on christmas eve as a vehicle to allow the senators to get out of town ahead of a snow storm. no one read that darn thing. no one knew what was in that darn thing. they just passed it so they could get out of town. they always intended to come back and make it better in conference or some other secret coords nated meeting with the white house -- coordinated meeting with the white house. but they didn't to it. they didn't -- do it. they didn't follow through. a lot of people don't understand, the senate bill actually has a house number. it's h.r. 3590. now why would a bill passed by

the senate dealing with health care have a house number? well, because it began as a house bill, it began over here, the end of last summer, as a bill to regulate housing. charlie rangel introduced it from the committee on ways and means. it passed the house, i voted against it for the record, when it was a housing bill. it went over to the senate and laid for a period of time until the member of the majority leader of the other body decided they needed a vehicle for this health care reform. they decided not to fix a senate number to it. the house had passed a bill, they chose not to pick up our house bill that dealt with health care, they picked up our housing bill and amended it. one of the first amendments was to take all the language out of it, so now they have an empty bill and literally nothing else. they stuck in that, all of these little special deals that they had to strike, and it wasn't -- the question wasn't, what is the best possible health care policy we could come up with? if fact, if that question had been asked, maybe they would

have let governor daniel's use in his state and how they've held down costs but they didn't do that. they said, what would it take to get your vote? and whatever that answer was was the piece that was inserted in that bill. that's why you have so many disconnected pieces in this 2,700 page monstrosity that is now h.r. 3590. once that thing passed and it was literally a christmas tree that night when they passed it, but once they passed that bill they all expected to come back to some vehicle to amend and improve this bill. but when the senator from massachusetts was elected as a republican it threw a big cink in their plans, they decided the edge -- kink in their plans, they decided the only way to get -- and remember, the goal was to get a bill signed. the goal was the president to

sign the bill during his first term. it's almost like they didn't care what was in it. they didn't care what the health care policy was. it can be as bad as you can possibly imagine, the drafting errors can be rampant throughout the entire bill but we got a signing ceremony, by golly, and no other president of the united states has ever had that achievement before. and now the rest of us are left with this travesty that's called a health care bill. doctors and nurses and hospitals and indeed even insurance companies and of course regular american patients are going to have to deal with this for the next several generations. we have to rip this thing out root and branch. one of the ways to do that is for the attorneys general to proceed with their lawsuit and be successful in their lawsuit which is why i so appreciate the gentleman coming to the floor of the house, making the american people aware of what is going on, why the attorneys general are pursuing this and maybe, maybe we will get some relief for the american people and then we can go back and do the things they were asking us to do in the first place. fix the problems, not destroy the system.

i yield back to the gentleman from texas. mr. carter: and i thank the gentleman for a great description of one of the reasons when they say you don't want to watch people make sausage or legislation is because no telling what goes in it. and that description of the house bill being gutted of language and changed to a health care bill, i think that's going to be a real eye-opener to the civic classes around the country as to how that thing functions. and that's part of the nervousness that we're seeing in the american people and they're concerned about what's going on up here. that kind of overwhelming power play is just -- it's contrary to the old fair play that makes americans great. so i appreciate you describing that. i see mr. burton's ready again. i yield to him. mr. burton: i thank my colleague from texas for yielding. i just want to follow up on what my other colleague from texas just said.

he was quoting the attorney general of texas, mr. gregg be a ot, and -- abbott, and there was one clause in his letter which i thought bared repeating. he said, if there are to be any limitationser, any limitations on the federal government, then commerce cannot be construed to cover every human activity under the sun, including mere human existence. the act of doing absolutely nothing does not constitute an act of commerce that congress is authorized to regulate. this parallels what we were talking about earlier with the national recovery act. because it was designed to cover everything. back in the 1930's, we talked about a couple of examples, and this attorney general is quoting pretty much what the justice was talking about when he wrote the opinions, the 9-0 opinion, that destroyed the national recovery act. saying that the federal federal government didn't have the right to run everything. and i think that's exactly what you're attorney general is talking about.

i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. carter: as he was reading from general abbott's letter and he mentioned that particular thought, i thought -- my thought was, you can let your imagination run wild if we are opening the commerce clause to existing, if existing puts you in commerce, then i think the sky's the limit and more so the sky's the horror because ultimately it can be such an abusive power and i'm not pointing a finger at any administration. but there could be an administration down the road that imposes where you can live. one that is really interesting because there are actually countries in this world that do this. and as we were talking about, it pops in my head, in some european country, western european countries, there's a misconception, i think my colleagues know this, but if

not, i'll put my two cents worth in, a misconception that everybody has the same freedoms week of gone -- got. wrong. just because they got tv shows that we like or something like that doesn't mean they've got the same kind of free society we have. there are plenty of -- plenty of countries that don't have the right of habeas corpus. it's interesting, in european countries after the war, they wanted people to vote so they made it mandatory. the government made it mandatory to vote. and if you don't vote the just like our health care bill. you get fined. now, they don't have a constitution of the united states. that limits the power of their government. i'm not saying it's all bad, but to me if i was a guy that didn't want to vote, ok, pay $50 or you got to vote and then what's the next step? pay $50 or you got to vote for my party.

or, for my leader. where does it stop? things that are done in good conscience, when you open up the power of the federal government like this interpretation of the commerce clause, you can use your imagination and your knowledge of history to see how it could become at some future time more and more and more depriving of the liberties that we enjoy. so, this is about a whole lot of stuff and it's a whole lot of stuff that upsets you. on the issue of medicare, i think texas is $8 billion, isn't that right? i heard that was -- mr. burgess: if the gentleman would yield. mr. carter: yeah. mr. burgess: several of the state senators have written to me and in fact i believe i'm quoting governor perry correctly in that it would be a $23 billion cost over the 10-year --

we do our budget for a two-year time period, so for the next five budgets. now as the gentleman knows texas has not been hit quite as hard as some other states by the recession but it's still been hit. and in the next election the people who are elected for the next state legislature, next state senate, are going to have to deal with a budget or a budgetary environment that's going to be a great deal tighter than any that have -- any since probably 2004 or 2003. as a consequence, governor perry has tasked all of the various interim senate committees and house committees to look for 5% of savings across the board in the state budget. so they're serious about getting their budget into balance. of course by law they have to do this. and they are looking for every state agency to cut its budget by 5%. that's significant when at the same time the central government is now saying, because of the increase in medicare enrollment

that you're going to be required to take, the budgetary expansion brought about by this health care bill will be $23 billion over the next 10 years. at a time when every other state agency is being constricted. so, are we saying that the federally mandated health insurance is more important than education of texas children? apparently we are. are we saying that the federally mandated health care entitlement is now more important than state transportation issues or state security issues? apparently we are. but i know this is a serious problem that is being faced by the state legislators and the state senators and i have heard from several of them over these past several weeks and the weeks leading up to the passage of this bill and i know of course the governor's been quite outspoken about the fact that they are going to have to cut their budget at the state level and i believe every state agency has been asked to come up with 5% savings out of every dollar

that's spent at the state level. it's not a bad idea for us if we were to actually do a budget this year, which i'm not sure we are, for whatever reason the democratic leadership does not seem to think that's important, even though the country's in financial crisis, but squeezing five cents of savings out of every dollar is something most americans understand that run their own business. i certainly had, when i was running my medical practice, i would be faced with budgetary short falls and i understood the concept of saving a penny or two or three or five on every dollar you spent and the governor has asked his state agencies to do that. we don't seem to be quite so -- quite so knowledgeable here at the federal level sometimes. i yield back to the gentleman. mr. carter: i thank the gentleman for yielding back. let me say this, i think it's very interesting because governor perry's saying we have to cut 5%. i say, hoorah for that. i think that's the right way to go about it. but this bill tells us we have to set up something in our state

-- somebody has to help administer this bill and ultimately -- ultimately we have to come up with these regional pools. we create, we are pressuring our states to make this thing work. and our states say, we don't want that thing. and we certainly don't want the expense of doing it at the expense of our taxpayer dollars. because we're trying to tighten our budget. you're right, we are lucky in texas, fortunate, that the economy hasn't hit us as hard. in fact, in my district, in recent times, probably the hardest hit we've received, we received from this chamber right here and across the way when the president signed the nationalization of student loans and wiped out 500 jobs in killeen, texas. 500 jobs in killeen, texas, is a lot of jobs. 500 jobs in central texas is a lot of jobs. and that's just the tip of the

iceberg of what ill conceived ideas can do. this one here is a constitutional challenge to our federal government and our supreme court. i have great confidence that they will accept that challenge and i'm hopeful that they will say you can't expand commerce clause to breathing. it just can't go that far. if it is, then i would argue there are no controls on the federal government's ability to do things to impose burdens upon your life. and i think that's the real underlying issue here and it's of great importance. but even more so than that is, we -- when we came up with the concept of medicaid and congressman burgess, he worked over medicaid as a doctor, he

knows what it is, but medicaid is a contract between the individual states and the federal government to come up with a solution for poor people's health care. it was designed for the poor, the underprivileged. and it was designed that the states and the federal government, the federal government would have the ability to work with the states to put together a contract and the state would provide so much resources and administer the program and the federal government would provide so much resources. . this bill without any input from the republicans and no input from the states, they got their contract renegotiated by the federal government without their say and we have this huge

financial bureaucratic burden being placed upon the states because part of the way they got these solutions for the folks not covered by health care was to take a big chunk of people and stick them in medicaid and say, by the way, states, we decided this is what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. you have to administer the program. i think some of the states and i know in the florida case, they are raising that issue. they are saying, can you impose this upon the states at this level. i don't know. the main issue is the commerce clause. those are burdens not anticipated when the deal was struck. i think that's an important part of everything we are talking about here. you know, people -- there are people that say, that carter and that bunch, bunch of right-wing nuts down on the floor, they are

upset about this and they call them socialists and all this stuff, yeah, but did you look at this map? did you look at this map? i wouldn't call several areas of this country that's marked in red as conservativism by any stretch of the imagination, not that they don't have the right to be. and i'm not cite sizing their beliefs, but this is not some right-wing conspiracy out of central texas, this is a cross-section of the country, east coast, represented by washington state, proud to be a progressive state on the west coast. pennsylvania over here on the east. michigan in the midwest. this area up here is the heart and soul of the declining auto

industry with all their troubles. people ought to say a prayer for the people in michigan and we need to correct that as best we can. but more than that, i would at least submit that the "washington post" is certainly not that rush limbaugh and the boys consider their newspaper, but let's see what the "washington post" said on march 21. individual mandate extends the commerce clause' e's power beyond economic activity to economic inactivity. that is unprecedented. our congress has ued its taxing power to fund social security and medicare. never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engaged in an economic transaction with a

private company. regulating the automobile industry by paying cash for clunkers is one thing. making everyone buy a chevy is quite another. that is in the "washington post." and i would argue and this is a liberal newspaper. this is about freedom and liberty and the structure of our constitution. mr. burgess, i yield to you what time you would like to consume. mr. burgess: i would agree that the "washington post" is not likely to be found in the rush limbaugh stack of stuff that he talks about on his radio program every day but the freedom argument is so important. under the medicaid provisions as i understand the bill that was passed by this house, individuals that earn at or below the 133% of the poverty level, if they aren't covered by any other insurance will be

required to have medicaid. they will not be allowed to purchase insurance in the exchange as other americans will. they will simply be placed into the medicaid program. that is unprecedented in any of the social entitlements that we have had in the past, never have we required someone by virtue of their income level that they have to be within a certain federal aid program. the implications of that are startling and may well go far beyond the boundaries of where they exist today with the passage of this law. it may be a much more startling recession or reseeding of freedom than we have seen in this country and it would be unprecedented and i thank the gentleman for bringing up that point. and i know time is short. but i yield back. that is extremely important point that he just made.

mr. carter: 23 million americans will have no health insurance coverage and 2019 after this bill is fully implemented. with all the big imposition on the privacy of american citizens and a big imposition by government of mandating them that they have to buy a product and if they do everything they are supposed to do and if the states can find the money to run that medicaid problem and get the agencies up and functioning and find the money to pay the salaries to run them and if we create this bigger job bureaucracy, we will have 23 million americans that won't have health care coverage. hmmm. if your goal is to cover everybody, you've failed. i don't think it is the goal to cover everybody. i think the goal is to put control of another part of the american economy and americans'

lives in the hands of the federal government. that's what i think this is about. and that's why the american people are telling us, it's about cost. it costs too much. what can you do to get the cost down? there is no cost savings in this. there is cost impositions. so the one thing i think that we have a great shortage in this town with present company excepted is common sense. but i have great confidence in the average american, in fact, every american, whether it be the wall street fat cat or the guy that is working in the a.t.v. that i shop at every week in texas, they have common sense to know what's good for them and

not good for them and we are seeing people getting up off the couch and making their voices heard. this is not common sense. this is not the kind of world we signed on to. not the kind of world that we fought wars for. so we have an issue that it seems to grow in intensity as the weeks go by. it's the gift that keeps on giving and just more to talk about every week and also more like congressman burgess, i, too, lay awake in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep because i think about what's headed down the road and what we have to do. for everybody to know and my colleagues -- many of them don't believe this, we are about to have a report to come out on this. all the members of congress and all of their office staffs were on page 157 of this bill, taken

out of this health care program and put into the pools. what do they call it -- pooling. but that doesn't exist. a very interesting challenge. time has expired. the speaker pro tempore: time has expired. mr. carter: thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from virgin islands, mrs. christensen is recognized as the designee of the majority leader. mrs. christensen: now that our colleagues have spoke about that long needed hard-fought-for health for those who mad little or nowak cease, praising the a.g.'s who are challenging the law that we provided the

opportunity for every american, we are now going to turn to remembering two individuals who all of their lives worked to ensure that access was available for all. some of my colleagues spoke of the life and legacy of dr. dorothy height when congresswoman fudge, when her resolution was on the floor, but the c.b.c. wanted to continue that tribute and pay tribute to dr. bean gentleman minimum hooks and i -- been hooks and i anchor to two of our trailblazer, two human beings because we mourn because they aren't with us but will be with us in spirit and the rich legacy they have both have left. individually as communities of color and as a nation, we are

far better because they passed this way and touched our lives. the people i'm speaking of are dr. hooks and dr. height. on dr. hooks. although i have had the honor of meeting him, i didn't get to know dr. hooks personally. but everyone ought to know of the little old country preacher that he referred to himself as but was grossly understated the measure of this leader of civil rights and champion for a better america. baptist minister, attorney and judge and first black judge to serve in that position in tennessee and in all of the south after reconstruction, he, like dr. height, has made immeasurable contributions to this country that will continue for generations to come. his life experiences in high school and particularly in world war ii and his conquering of

them all served to fuel his passion and determination to ensure equality and justice for everyone in this country regardless of race, religion, color, creed or nationality. in a different partisan time, he was appointed to the f.c.c., the first african americans commissioner by president richard nixon as was my father to the federal district court in virgin islands. we must continue to raise the same issues today that he championed, the more minority of minority-owned radio and television industries and more positive image for african americans in the media is not reflective of the argument or determination of his efforts but more of the depth of the institutional racism that continues to exist in this

country. an advocate for self-help, he revived the naacp during his tenure of 20 years while strengthening its mission, goals and ideals. he, like dr. dorothy height is the recipient of both the president's medal of freedom and the congressional gold medal. it's not enough that the university of memphis works to carry on his legacy through the foundation of social change, but up to those of us who whose behalf he served to live his life in these words of his that i'm going to quote right now. he said, if anyone thinks we're going to stop agitating, they bet they are think again. if anyone thinks we are going to stop legitimating, they better close up the courts. if anyone thinks we aren't going to demonstrate and protest, they better roll up the squaks. the congressional black caucus and our legislative efforts here

in congress live those words every day and proud to join naacp in taking up the torch he has passed to us with pride. let me say a few words about dr. height. this country is indebted to her for so many rights and privileges that we enjoy today, from her work opening doors at ymca' to her empowering of communities in mississippi and elsewhere, to her leadership in the struggles for women's rights and civil rights, her uplifting of the african-american families and enrichment and advancement of the national council of negro women and ways she shade policy and addressed ills in our community there is no anyone who has not benefited from her life in service. i want to talk about the times and ways in which i was privileged to play what was but

a part in her work. first, it was an honor to be in her presence, but in addition to the invitations, receptions, meetings, social activities, she pulled me into her work with young women and health. i was able to be part of her work on hiv-aids. . a little over a year ago, a town hall on preventing obesity and lead point poisoning in children in poor communities. and i got to be a part of her planning and developing her 12 or so sites for her antiobesity program in the united states. she made sure the u.s. virgin islands was a part of it. but it wasn't always the big national issues. she understood the demands of leadership especially on black women so they brought us together to counsel, support and encourage us from time to time. it's hard to put in words the deep pride and yet humble

gratitude that i had the opportunity in some small way to get to know dr. height, to be one of her countless meantees, to be even a small part of her effort that i was in recent years, to have had her smile on me was a great blessing that will stay with me and continue to encourage me and guide me as long as i live. in a few minutes i'm going to yield to some of my colleagues and our chairwoman, barbara lee. i want to just read a couple of quotes here. first on dr. hooks. and this is a quote from president bush who bestowed on him the presidential medal of freedom. for 15 years, dr. hooks was a calm yet forceful voice for fairness, opportunity and personal responsibility. he never tired or faltered in demanding that our nation live up to its founding ideals of liberty and equality.

the chairman of the naacp praised dr. hooks at the time as well, saying, benjamin hooks had a stellar career, civil rights advocate and leader, minister, businessman, public servant, there are few who are his equal. and another quote on dr. benjamin hooks, from the joint center president -- the president and c.e.o. of the joint center on economic and political -- joint center on economic and political issues, dr. everett. he said, throughout his life and career, the reverend dr. hooks never flinched in the face of enormous challenges and his expansive dreams were always grounded in the concerns ands a separations of the least fortunate -- and as separations of the least fortunate -- and as pirations of the least fortunate.

it affords opportunity to all, we all have dr. benjamin hooks' shining example to keep us on the right path. dr. edleman wrote of dr. height on her passing, she said, she started with a quote from dr. dorothy height which reads, we african-american women seldom do just what we want to do but always what we have to do. i'm grateful to have been in a time and place where i could be a part of what was needed and we are really grateful that she was in a time and a place where she was needed. dr. edleman says, and i quote again, when she passed away on april 20 at age 98 we all lost a treasure, a wise counselor and a rock we could always lean upon or lean against for support in tough times.

at this time i'm joined by the chairwoman of the congressional black caucus, congresswoman barbara lee, and i would like to yield her such time as she may consume, as she joins me in this tributes. ms. lee: thank you very much, and let me thank the gentlelady from the virgin islands for that very moving tribute and for anchoring the congressional black caucus' special order tonight. madam speaker, this month our nation and the world lost two towering giants in the pursuit of freedom and justice for all, dr. dorothy irene height and dr. benjamin hooks. both lived long and fruitful lives and leave legacies that will endure for generations to come. tonight we pay tribute to dr. hooks and dr. height, two trail blazers, two giants who paved

the way and opened the doors of opportunity for countless numbers of americans. this week dr. height will be laid to rest and she will be forever remembered as a bold and brilliant african-american woman who blazed many trails and opened many doors so that we all could lead freer and more prosperous lives. a matriarch of the civil rights movement and a staunch advocate of women's rights, dr. height wore many hats throughout her life, both literally and figuratively, with elegance and with dignity, with excellence and with determination. and i'm going to miss her so much. she showed us that the fight for women's rights and our struggle for civil and human rights were not mutually exclusive. she was a coalition builder in

our work for justice for all. a couple of months ago and i was listening to congresswoman christensen's remarks about her personal involvement with dr. height and how we all -- how she grew to love her and i myself had many, many experiences that brought me very close to dr. height and i can remember one of the last times that we were together. she called and she insisted that i participate and this was a couple of months agoer in the national counsel of kneeing -- ago in the national council of negro women. when dr. height calls, you answer. because you know it's important. there's no way you say no. but dr. height, she knows the schedule here on the hill because she was constantly here helping us with our outside strategy to move the congressional black caucus' agenda forward.

well, she called and she said, you know, she knew how busy i was. she said, but just come on out to maryland for the breakfast. i said, ok, dr. height, i will be there. well, i got there early and may have been like 7:00, 7:15, dragging. but there she was in her beautiful hat sitting at the head table to greet me. and being with dr. height, i tell you, that day i realized that i was in the presence of greatness. and i know as with all of us, especially the women of the congressional black caucus, whenever she introduced us, it was amazing because she knew so much about each of us and she humbled us by the things that she'd say about us and we'd wonder, how could this great woman say these nice things about us? i mean, we look up to her as a

legendary sheroe. but yet she always, always lifted us up and made us feel like we may be part of her. from her legendary stewardship as the national president of delta significant ma theta sorority ink to her unprecedented 41-year tenure at the helm of the national council of negro women, dr. height, she was a woman of courage and strength. her commitment to equality was reflected in so many of her pursuits. in fact, in all of her pursuits. in the 1930's, for example, dr. height traveled across the united states to encourage ywca chapters to implement interracial chapters. after dedicating more than 60 years of her life to the ywca, dr. height remained proudest of her efforts to direct the y's attention to the issues of civil

rights and racial justice. she was so committed to this work. in fact, the y named dr. height the first director of its new center for racial justice in 1965. imagine, in the 1930's, this african-american woman putting up a one-woman resistance movement to segregation of the y and she won. one person made that difference in the 1930's. as a leader of the united christian youth movement of north america, dr. height worked to desegregate the armed forces, to stop lynching, yes, she knew lynching very well in her day. not too many years ago, this country has that stain that we still have to remind ourselves of. she worked to stop lynching. to reform the criminal justice

system, to establish free access to public accusations -- accommodations. at a time when racial segregation was the standard, mind you, and i know dr. christensen remembers that, i remember that very well. that was the standard. resistance to integration was often fierce. dr. height remained forever vigilant. she remained true to her convictions. even when it was not the comfortable thing to do. a life long advocate for peace and equality, dr. height was especially committed to empowering women and girls. she stood toe it toe with our great male civil rights leaders, often times the only woman in the room, only woman on the platform. she was steadfast in her dedication to ensure that black women's issues and concerns were addressed. she was forever dedicated to helping women achieve full and

equal employment, pay and education and dr. height was an internationalist. before many of us began our work on the continent of africa or in the caribbean, dr. height, as the president of national negro -- council of negro women, had chapters and did work in the villages in africa, worked as a visionary, worked to touch the lives of so many women, children and families. she knew that she was a citizen of the world and that she had to work both domestically here in our own country and internationally if in fact she were going to be a leader in our global movement. she is an internationally renowned woman. dr. height led the ncnw in helping women and families combat hunger. she also established the women's

center for education and career advancement in new york city, to prepare women for entry level jobs. during her tenure as the president of the ncnw they were able to buy a beautiful building, a beautiful building right up the street near the capitol, it's a site where slave traders legally operated what was known as the center slave market. to this day it's the only african-american-owned building on this corridor, proving that she was not only a great leader but an astute businesswoman as well. and i'll never forget the evening of the fundraiser where she was able to raise the money to retire the debt, to burn the mortgage. i mean, dr. height was an unbelievably clear woman in terms of financial stability and economic security for the organizations that she was a part of. and now we have a building on

pennsylvania avenue, again, the site of the center slave market and to hear her tell the story of how when she found that this building was on that site and the story about that site, which is too long to talk about tonight, but there's a wonderful story to that and how she ended up purchasing a building on that site. it was really, i think, the hand of god. dr. hithe remained a fighter -- dr. height remained a fighter until her last breath. during my time here in congress i always knew that i could call on dr. height and she would be there to support our efforts. of course last year she attended president barack obama's first signing of a bill into law at the white house. the lilly ledbetter act. she was present for the unveiling of the shirleyy chisholm portrait -- shirley chisholm portrait here in the capitol. she worked diligently on various issues with the black women's round table and the black leadership forum and often

participated in panels here on capitol hill. just recently she joined our efforts to support the 2010 census and she was here in the rayburn building, you know, helping us organize, giving us the message, speaking to the young people and just saying, we have to make sure that everyone is counted because if everyone is not counted they will be counted out. and she knew what she was talking about and we listened to dr. height. many times week of attended many of her fundraisers. i believe they're on common heights. and often times she would talk more maybe 20 minutes or 30 minutes or 40 minutes or 45 minutes and the older she got the more she wanted to tell her story and even with her talking about so much, people did not get antsy or did not want to leave. they wanted to listen to this great woman who knew mary and eleanor roosevelt and we were memorized, every time we were in her presence.

and we wanted to lisp. we did not want to leave. her passion was an inspiration to all of us here in congress. it's hard to imagine that in the 1930's, she provided this resistance movement. we love her and celebrate her life and we mourn her death. last week, an individual that i was privileged to meet and know, dr. benjamin hooks, he was laid to rest. he was born january 31, 1925, in memphis, tennessee, the fifth of seventh children -- of seven children. he was a minister, a leader and a civil rights attorney and forever a champion of the minorities and the poor. while studying prelaw at lemoyne owens college in memphis, he became aware of the realities of racial segregation. in an interview with "u.s. news

& world report"," he once recounted, i wish i could tell you every time i wasn't on a highway and couldn't use a restroom. my bladder is messed up because of that my stomach is messed up from eating cold sandwiches. after graduating law school at depaul university, dr. hooks returned to his native memphis and earned a reputation as one of the few african-american lawyers in town. thoroughly submitted to breaking down the practice of segregation in the united states, dr. hooks fought prejudice at every single turn. he said, at the time you were excluded from white law clerks, and i was lucky to be called ben. usually it was just, boy. but he said the judges were always fair the discrimination of those days has changed, and

today the south is ahead of the north in many respects in civil rights progress, he said. an ordained baptist minister, and he could preach, he joined the southern christian leadership conference, sclc, and became a pioneer in the naacp-sponsored restaurant sit-ins. dr. hooks was the first african-american commissioner of the federal communications commission, a board member of the sclc and first african-american criminal court judge in tennessee history. twice a month he flew to detroit to preach at the greater new mount mariah baptist church. he was a true public servant who committed his life to empowering communities of color. as executive director of the naacp from 1992 -- from 1987 to 1992 he increased membership by several hundred thousand people and raised critical funds for

the association hsm he was instrumental in establishing a program in which 200 corporations agreed to participate in economic development projects in black communities. in 1986, the naacp recognized him for his lifetime commitment to civil rights by awarding him the naacp's highest honor. he also rightfully received the presidential medal of freedom. what a man. what a man. he is going to be missed. we miss him already. i know, though, that the naacp has taken up dr. hooks' mantle and has mounted a very, very active, focused, and committed campaign to the principles and to the work of dr. benjamin hooks. and so with the passing of dr. height and dr. hooks, our nation mourns the loss of a true national treasure.

dr. height's leadership and the struggle for equality in human rights and women's rights served as an inspiration to all. dr. hooks will be remembered as a man who peacefully demanded that america live up to its founding principle of justice, equality, and liberty. they'll be truly missed. and so in the memory of dr. height and dr. hooks, it's the duty of all americans to pick up and carry this baton of freedom and for justice. the world is a better place for everyone, for everyone, because dr. hooks and dr. height lived their lives according to really what they believed that god put them on this earth to do. i think we all have a responsibility to keep their legacy alive. whenever -- and congresswoman

christensen knows, this is a very intense, busy, hard job. we work here day and night, go to our districts day and night. whenever we get weary, or think that we can't go any further, i'm reminded of dr. heights and dr. -- of dr. height and dr. hooks, who exemplify the words of a gospel song many of us sing oftentimes in church on sunday. these words, i've come too far from where i started from. nobody told me that the road would be easy, but i know he didn't bring me this far to leave me. even when the road was very difficult and it was very difficult for these two great human beings, they kept going. they didn't get tired. they kept going because they knew their purpose and they knew that one day they would rest in peace.

that day has come. but their spirit will live forever in the work of the congressional black caucus and in the work of all those that they touched. may they rest in peace. mrs. christensen: thank you, congresswoman lee, and thank you for your leadership of the congressional black caucus. we know you should your leadership, we'll pick up the mantle, pick up the torch they have left for us and carry on their legacy. i would like to say to mrs. frances hook who is -- dr. frances hooks, always at her husband's side, you are an integral part of all that your husband accomplished, we thank you for your contributions. on behalf of the congressional black caucus and on behalf of the people of the virgin islands, we extend condolences to you and the family.

we in the virgin islands have also benefited by the work of dr. hooks. to dr. height's sister, ant wo net height-aldridge, and her family, to the delta sisterhood and to two outstanding women i consider to be dr. height's daughters, the honorable alexis herman and robin skinner we extend condolences on behalf of the congressional black cu caucus again and the vir gin islands family -- virgin islands family. we thank you for letting us into the life of dr. height. dr. hooks and dr. height leave big shoes to fill. their lives continue to speak to us and what i hear them saying is, step right into those shoes, fill them any way you can and keep marching on

until victory is won. with that, madam speaker, i yield back the balance of our yield back the balance of our time.

the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognized the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 60 minutes. mr. king: thank you, madam speaker. i appreciate your indulgence

this evening and the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the house. not having had the opportunity to listen to the dialogue of my previous people, i'll take this up where the front of my mind and conscience happens to be. that is what is happening with and to america, what are our priorities, where are we going to go from here, presuming that we could actually reverse many of the things that have taken place over the last year and a half or longer. madam speaker, i ask your indulgence to cast your mind back into the last year and a half or so. this being april of 2010, in fact, i take us back into august and september of 2008. perhaps a little more than 18 months by now. and what we've seen happen is, we saw concern about the economic -- potential economic collapse of the free world. the fear that global currency

and the confidence that allows us to trade in that currency could be -- could collapse and that we would see the free market economy and the markets within the world including the dow jones stock exchange and a number of other markets, nikkei market, european market, and that list goes on. those lose the confidence of the investors if that happened. if the investors pull their money out if in fact, there was any money to be pulled out, we could have seen a downward spiral that could have been a crash of the economic system that would have potentially, could have potentially eclipsed that of the stock market crash that precipitated the great depression in october of 1929. we saw the secretary of the treasury come to this capital on september 19, 2008, and make a serious request and some might have characterized it as a demand, for $700 billion

taxpayer dollars. $700 billion to inject into this economy in a fashion he saw fit in a fashion that wasn't necessarily laid out for us. we didn't understand particularly his presentation. we heard the words he said, but it wasn't definitive. it wasn't clear. and as we found out after the $700 billion with the tarp -- worth of tarp passed, even those words didn't hold so very accurately when we looked at the actual practice of how the $700 billion was spent. so madam speaker, that started, that was the start of this long saga of what america's free enterprise economy, what's left of it, might look like and how we might manage these finances. it's interesting to me that since that time, i've done some traveling around the world and i recall listening to angela her tell and the leaders in germ -- merkel and the leaders

in germany in february of 2009 say to us, america, you're spending too much money. you should not dump the $700 billion in tarp in. it is a waste of money. it's irresponsible. you need to pull back, their proposal in german, even though that's a social democracy a nation that wants to have as much of it, apparently, within the hands of the government to manage as they can, and a minimum amount in the free enterprise system, they have a different belief in it than we have. they had a $450 billion plan, ours was a $700 billion plan, followed by a $780 billion plan, coupled with one or two dollars dispersed by the treasury that wasn't within the province or guidance of this congress and i think it's hard to track what that might have meant. theirs was $450 billion, part of it in chartered expenditures and the rest in loan

guarantees. one might argue, the german approach to this, the ones who began socialized medicine, they would spend $80 billion on a stimulus plan and and that's $80 billion versus $700 billion and then $780 billion. we have the germans admonishing us for spending too much money to try to stimulate the economy in this robust keynesian approach and since that time, we've heard the president of france lecture us on the dangers of appeasement. what a world we have today. how so much it has changed in the last two or three years, madam speaker, how so much the philosophy that's made america great has been pushed to the sidelines, hasn't emerge voir dire much in the thought process, the decision making of the -- decision making component of this, at least, even though it remains in the hearts and minds of the american people.

so, madam speaker, here we are today, $700 billion in tarp spending, gone. spent. blown. this was initiated under the bush administration, as was the nationalization of several financial institutions and the begin offings the nationalization of a.i.g. however the balance of all these things i'm about to talk about came about under the obama administration and everything that i'm talking about from the $7 hin billion tarp funding all the way -- $700 billion tarp funding all the way through to today was supported by either then senator barack obama, candidate for presidency barack obama or the president of the united states barack obama. that policy's indistinguishble. whether he supported because he was a candidate for the president or whether he supported it as the president-elect or the president of united states -- president of the united states. and george bush gave some deference to barack obama on how he would approach this economy. one day i hope to have that conversation with president

bush. but in any case, there's no component of this appetite for overspending and pushing government into every corner of our private sector lives, there's no aspect of this that wasn't supported by the president of the united states, barack obama. and the american people know that. and they understand it, madam speaker. so what we've seen, we've seen the support for the $700 billion in tarp, and in fact this congress limited the first half of that to $350 billion and that went essentially without strings attached and the balance of that, the other $350 billion had to be approved -- this was in october of 2008, so it had to be approved by a congress to be elected later and by a president to be elected later. and we know what happened. the second $350 billion was approved by the congress elected later and elected in november of 2008 and approved by the president who was elected in 2008, barack obama.

so this entire lexicon of things that happened economically, good or bad, are not the fault of george bush, they're not laid at the feet of the previous president. these are the responsibilities of this congress, the house, the senate under the leadership of speaker pelosi, the leadership of harry reid down that aisle and the leadership of barack obama. whom i have sometimes described as a ruler and that's what i warned america about during that same period of time. if you elect barack obama as the president of the united states and renew the speakership of nancy pelosi, reelect a democrat here in the majority of the house, and you continue to expand the majority of the democrats in the senate, we will have created and this is something i believe is part of the congressional record, a ruling troyka in america. that being the president,

speaker pelosi, harry reid. who could, by my words then, go into a phone booth, figuratively, and decided what they would do to america. their accountability isn't to the american people. it isn't to the will of the american people. their accountability is only to the members of their own caucus as to whether they would not just re-elect them as leaders but decline to unelect them as the leaders of their caucus. that's the only restraint that's on them and then their restraint of pushing policies that they couldn't pull the votes to get past. it came very close here in the house a couple of times and i have respect for political operators that have an ability to get those tough votes through and get them passed. in fact, if it's the right thing to do, it's a hard thing to run a good country, in fact, a great country, if you can't get those tough votes accomplished. but i'll suggest, madam speaker, that many of the things that have happened in this congress, the 11th congress and the 110th

congress that preceded it, are an athima to the american dream, they were contrary to the principles that made america great and i could take us down this path. tarp is one of them. the federal government's business isn't to come in and decide which businesses are too big to be allowed to fail and then put a huge bill against the taxpayers, their children and their grandchildren, borrow the money from the chinese and the saudis and then make decisions on which businesses should be allowed to succeed with government help and which businesses should be allowed to fail. this country's got to be run by free enterprise, by the free markets and if businesses fail, they have to be allowed to fail. and investors need to be able to come in and pick up the pieces at the discount that's available when they go through chapter 11 or seven. their assets are still there. they can be managed by other corporate entities or noncorporate entities for that

matter. it isn't that if a bank went under or if a.i.g. the insurance company went under that all of a sudden all the assets that they had are disappeared or dispushed or sunk into the ocean somewhere. the -- dispersed or sunk into the ocean somewhere. the hard assets are still there, the accounts are still there. they can still be managed by some entity that picks up the pieces. i've seen this happen a number of times, far too close to make me comfortable, within the banks that were closed back during those years in the farm crisis years of the 1980's. it happened over and over again. when they went under they were recapitalized and they got a new board of directors, new investors came in and picked up those shares of stock, they looked at the loan portfolios, they looked at the deposits and they made management decisions to put that bank back on a profitable track and many of those banks, most of those banks, i don't know that i could say all of those banks, actually

got turned back into profit and up and running again. yes, there were banks that were closed. there were those whose doors were shut and didn't open again but many banks came under new ownership because they were sold back into the private sector and even though the fdic found themselves brokering the assets of banks that were no longer solvent, they did not hold onto the assets of those banks and operate those banks as if they were players in the private sector. but what we've seen happen with this obama white house is entirely different than what we saw during the farm crisis years of the 1980's. first, this idea, too big to fail, too big to fail, madam speaker, no one in america's britches should be too big to fail. too big for their britches but they can't fail. i point out a presentation that was made to us about three years ago at an 58 a.m. wednesday morning meeting which -- 8:00 a.m. wednesday morning meeting at a breast fast which i host --

breakfast which i host. one of the smart financial presenters there, whose name, since it was off the record on that meeting, i can address what he said but not his name. he said we were talking about the subprime mortgage crisis and he said, when you're in the business and the investment banking business where he'd been for 30 years, what you do in this business is, he paused for effect and said, pretty much what everybody else does. that way if they're making money, you're making money, but if things melt down and there is a bailout, then you'll be bailed out with everybody else. madam speaker, it's not hard for me to imagine what that does to the investment minds of people that are operating investment banks. if though know impolicity, if not ex policity, that they can -- ex police -- explicitly that they can take a lot of risks and they'll never go under because the federal government is going to bail them out.

that was the implicit guarantee in banks that were too big to be allowed to fail and it was followed through upon by this government, by this president and this administration and this time and approved by him as a united states senator and approvinged by him as a candidate for the presidency. too big to fail became too big to be allowed to fail. that was the implicit component of that. too big to be allowed to fail. the federal government could come in and if we didn't have the money to bail out these businesses, we'd cap into the united states treasury who would borrow it from the chinese and the saudis and anybody else that would invest in u.s. bonds and pick up these businesses. so the federal government nationalized three large investment banks in the aftermath of this september 19 visit to the capitol by henry paulson, then the u.s. treasurer. the secretary of the treasury, to make it more correct. three large investment banks, ownership taken over, ownership

or control taken over by the federal government. a.i.g., the insurance company, 1 -- $180 billion invested in the insurance company which was guaranteeing securities. and then we back this up to the late 1970's when the community reinvestment act was passed because there were lenders that were not willing to make bad loans in bad neighborhoods, they had drawn red lines around those neighborhoods and concluded that the asset value of that real estate was diminishing, not appreciating and that the return on that investment, let's say the collateral value was shrinking, therefore if they loaned against that collateral value, they'd find themselves upside down in those mortgage loans. so they drew lines around these neighborhoods where the value of those assets was going down. now, some argued that it was a racist decision and i don't know that, i wasn't in those rooms and i don't know those people and for all i know i never met the people that were making those decisions.

it's kind of like racial profiling. if that's your only reason that's wrong. but if it's an indicator that makes you look at the totality of the record, ok, then it may not be wrong. but lenders were drawing a red line around these neighborhoods and they refused to make those loans into those neighborhoods and there was a political decision made in this congress that they were going to force lenders to make loans into those neighborhoods that had red lines drawn around them. that was the community reinvestment act. but the problem was that they couldn't get the banks to make enough loans into those neighborhoods because the collateral value was going down and the underwriting requirements for fannie mae and freddie mac prohibited them from picking up on the secondary market some of those bad loans. and so in 1978, i believe was the year when the community reinvestment act was passed, they expected there would be a lot more loans made into these neighborhoods that were red

lined. and there were more loans made but not enough to satisfy the organizations out there in the inner city, the community organizers. we can ask the president about community organizers. what do they do? they advocate for taxpayer dollars and then redistribute those taxpayer dollars into the neighborhoods. they don't contribute to the free enterprise economy, they just tap into the taxpayers, distribute those taxpayer dollars in exchange they trade off for political power. that's what community organizers do. so these community organizers concluded that they weren't going to get enough loans into those neighborhoods so they came back to this congress and lobbied this it congress in the 1990's to make changes in the community reinvestment act and, by the way, because of the community reinvestment act, they also found out that fannie mae and freddie mac had strict enough underwriting requirements that because of those requirements, because of the capital requirements and the underwriting requirements, fannie and freddie, the secondary loan market, the g.s.e.'s in the united states,

could not pick up those loans off of those lending institutions and so they lowered -- they refleshed the -- refreshed the community reinvestment act and made it a little more strict but also into the bargain they lowered the underwriting requirements for fannie mae and freddie mac. now, now they created a scenario for real bad loans in bad neighborhoods, real net loss to the lenders. but the lenders weren't on the hook so much. because as soon as they could make a loan into a neighborhood that was approved by organizations like acorn, they could peddle that loan off into the secondary market and fannie mae and freddie mac would pick up the entire tab on that and the original lender would be off the hook. so there's plenty of incentive for the original lenders to be retail marketing bad loans in bad neighborhoods as long as they could package them up, sell them off into the secondary market under fannie mae and freddie mac. fannie mae and freddie mac then got to this point where they could see that they needed to

divest themselves of some of those loans and they sliced and diced and turned around and spun them back into the market and beyond. so, as this mortgage market was moving along, it was still moving slowly through the 1990's. and we got toward the end of the 1990's and actually to the year 2000 when george bush was elected, we had at the end of the 1990's the bursting of the dot com bubble. when the dot-com bubble was burst and i suspect it was pierced by the class action lawsuits that was brought against microsoft by the states attorney -- by the state attorney general, i actually think that the do the-com bubble would have burst anyway. because what it was was a speculator's bubble. yes there was value in our ability to store and transfer

information more effectively than ever before. the speculators invested in that. they bet that that would return on their investment and these technology companies would blossom and make huge profits and they would cash in on them. but this bubble was created out of that speculation and the thing that wasn't corrected for some time until the bursting or the piercing of the dot-com bubble was the inability for the market to consider that having that technological ability to store and transfer information more effective than ever before didn't necessarily translate -- translate into profits for companies. you have to produce something more efficiently in orderer to that value of that company to be there. and so with the internet, for example, whatever that internet does to improve the productivity of all of our countries -- companies and anybody that's engaged in business will know that it does improve your productivity as a company, you have the value of that productivity is what it's worth, not what you speculate you can store or transfer for information.

the only other thing you get to add to that value was the increase in the productivity and the other thing that you can add is the value that you have for recreation. so people surf the internet and they were willing to pay for that, that was a component of our economy. but the dot com bubble burst, and when it collapsed, we were seeing the end of the clinton administration. as skwlorge bush was elected we saw alan greenspan make an evaluation, i suspect this is accurate, but that we needed to make adjustments in this economy in order to compensate for our declining economy because of the bursting of the dot com bubble. remember, the bubble burst and left a depression within our economy, which -- i don't use that in economic terms, i use that in literal terms system of alan greenspan looked at that and said we need to recover

this economy. how do we do this? unnaturally low interest rates, we're going to create a housing market a housing boom and use that to fill the hole in the dot com bubble. that's the scenario that was playing out system of with unnaturally low interest rates and encouragement for unnatural low interest rates for people to borrow money on terms they hadn't seen in their adult lifetime, you cup that will with -- couple that with low investment and aggressive lobbying on the part of acorn they came to congress and lobbied to lower the underwriting standards for fannie and freddie and acorn finding themselves and putting themselves in a position in the communities whereby they got to approve or disapprove of the effort of the lending institutions to make bad loans

in bad neighborhoods. now you have cooked up the perfect economic witches' brew, madam speaker that resulted in the toxic mortgages that nearly brought down the global economy that's a component that brought down the global economy. and mortgage loans picked up on the secondary economy, they sliced them, diced them and began to sell them up the market. a.i.g., the insurance company, setting a premium risk rate on those bundles and charging a premium whenever they were packaged and bundled and people were taking their profit out and passing the risk on and a.i.g. was passing judgment on that risk with no check and no balance with no one looking

over their shoulder and no one knew the market. they trusted that a.i.g. would know the answer because after all they were the premier insurance company, they'd been grow big leaps and bounds, their agents were taking their proft out for the marketing of the policies and the premiums but there was no continued responsibility and liability. so i'll suggest that when people make investments and they pass those investments up the line and they can take profit out of them at every step along the way, it's like the reverse of the value-added tax, isn't it, madam speaker, where every time you can bundle up mortgage-backed securities, get a guaranteed return rate because a.i.g.'s return is there, you take your margin out of that, like selling the wheat and paying the tax to the federal government and sending the invoice along with that while the guy at the mill takes the invoice from the value-added tax and uses that

for his credit and it goes up the line and he pays his 10% tax he goes to the banker and the banker uses the 10% on the wheat and the value after add -- value-added, it goes to the baker who pays the tax of what's left in the value-added before it becomes the bread. same was going on in the era of the community reinvestment act and fannie mae and freddie mac and the traunched mortgage-backed security and a.i.g. guaranteeing passing that up the rain, it became, yes there's foundational value under the mortgage the market sthreefl real estate but it was also a huge chain letter marketed up through and when the investors in the world lost confidence and they no longer knew the value of the bundles of mortgage backed securities, then we were threatened with an

economic meltdown, madam speaker. that's kind of how we got here. and now, as the economy spirals downward, or more or less the threat of the economy spiraling downward we elected a president who is a keynesian economist on steroids. he believes, i've heard it directly from his lips, in short range, that franklin delano roosevelt back in the great depression of the 1930's lost his nerve on spending, dblet spend enough money. if he spent a lot of money, it's the opinion of the president, the depression would have been over in the 1930's instead of having to wait for the second world war that brought about the most effective stimulus plan ever. but i'll also submit that when the stock market crashed in october of 1929 and we saw my iowa president do some things

that f.d.r. may well have approved of, and f.d.r. went in with the new deal which in my view was a really bad deal, then president obama's view is a pretty ty good deal, would have been better if he'd spent a lot more money, it didn't bring about a recovery from the depression started in october of 1929. what it did, when the federal government borrowed a lot of money, and they borrowed it from the american people in the form of bonds, they created a lot of make-work projects, had to pay interest and principle, had all this going on at the beginning of world war ii, then had to take out a lot more debt. at least in that period of time , had we not spent all that money, the united states economy wouldn't have had to service all the interest and all the debt.

interest and principle. could it be that people in this company forgot with interest and principal is? and if they ever figure out what it's like to be on the other side of, i require a very good neighbor and a wise mentor friend of mine, told me a story about when he's a -- when he had the experience of paying interest at a young age he said to me, i decided early on if i was going to have anything to do with interest, i'd be the one collecting it. this government looks like they're going to have a lot to do with interest and they're going to forever be the ones paying the interest rather than the ones collecting the interest. so this economy has been diminished by the burden put upon it, just like it was diminished in the 1930's.

the stock market crashed in 1929, it didn't recover in world war ii, it was still struggling to get back where it was at the end of world war ii, at the end of the korean war. f.d.r. didn't solve the problem he delayed the recovery by borrowing all that money and spending that money and in the new deal, in the great depression, the stock market didn't come back to where it was until franklin delano roosevelt had been dead for nine years, madam speaker. nine years. 1954 is when the dow jones industrial average recovered to the place where it was when it crashed in october of 1929. all of those years, nine years after franklin delano roosevelt passed away, i want to give him a tip of the hat and a nod and a significant measure of respect for the way he led this country in world war ii. he was solid, he was an anchor, he was stalwart, he was a commander in chief, he had a

vision for full all-out 100% war with demanding total surrender from our enemies and i could take some issue with some of the decisions made along the way but on balance, roosevelt was a very good wartime president. i just don't think he was a very good depression-era president. than president, i have no idea what kind of war-time president he would be, madam speaker. we're not in a depression. some will say we're in a great recession. that's the vernacular that's been adopted most. this great recession we appear to be in has spent a lot more money than was spent in the 1930's. and i believe the result will be similar. let's say you have a small business that generate $100,000 a year in gross receipts and perhaps has a $10,000 mortgage

with a 10% loan on it, i can do the math as siem talking, madam speaker, it needs to pay the proprietor, pay the utility bills and then pay -- all the overhead is here. if you're grossing $100,000 with loan and 10% of the loan is $1,000, you're paying $1,000 in interest, you're going to retire that debt on a 10-year loan, you pay 10% of the principal each year, first year, it's $1,000 in interest and $100,000 in principal. $2,000 goes to service the debt you have. then you've got to take your margins, your expenses out of the remaining 98,000, have enough to feed the proprietor and keep them engaged in the business. let's say we have an economic crisis and the business is

having trouble, gets flooded or burned out or whatever it might be and along comes the small business administration or some other entity and says, we can keep you in business but you can't stay in business unless you borrow $100,000. we'll inject that $100,000 in capital in your business. now you have $900,000. i'm speaking off the cuff here and can do the math as we go. it's now $1,000 interest on the $100,000 you have. and the 10% you were paying on principal of the $10,000, now becomes $10,000. so your business that was servicing with $2,000 a $10,000 debt now has to have $20,000 to serve the $10,000 worth of interest and the $10,000 worth

of principal on your $100,000 debt. you've taken your ability, your ability, gross receipts in the business are similar, or the same, you can only service $2,000 on the old way of financing, $1,000 out of interest, $1,000 out of principal, but when they give you this nice loan you borrowed $100,000, now you have to figure out how to service $10,000 worth of interest and $10,000 worth of principal. instead of being 2%, now it's 20%. i hope this example, madam speaker, is explanatory to the president of the united states, larry somers, to the people that are looking at this economy and believing that joan maynard keynes had answers. he had answers, but they were the wrong ones. we need to reduce the debt, redeuce the spending and only when we do that can we have a free market economy that will work its way out of this and

let us be able to pay the interest and pay down the debt so that this economy can finally get around to the side where it's not constantly burdened servicing interest and debt as opposed to the legitimate functions of government. we did have two or three years where we had a balanced budget. there are some reasons for that i'll give bill clinton a little credit and i i'll give the republican congress a lot of credit. they decided to choke spending down and they did that. i think also, though, the economy outgrew their predictions and so they were a bit surprised when they balanced the budget. i think bill clinton was surprised when the budget came balanced. those are the happenstances of history. we need to be more prudent that than that, even. this debt commission that meets tomorrow, it starts out with former senator allan simpson as

and one other as co-shares -- co-chairs so they figure out how to look at the debt and how to look at the debt and they make a proposal to balance the budget. i think they believe they're going to look at the spending and the income and make some kind of recommendation that would help compensate the calamity that we're in. madam speaker, i would submit that if you want a committee to produce a result, write up that result. tell me the result you'd like and present it to me and i can appoint for you the committee that will produce the result you want. that's how it's been done around this hill since time immemorial. that's how it's done in the real world. how it's done in city council meetings, county advisory committees and with the president of the united states. that's not a criticism of the people that sit on that debt commission, they're good people

by and large, but they don't represent, i don't believe, the creative ideas in the united states. . i don't find a single person that has advocated for the abolishment of the i.r.s. and the federal income tax. smart people there, yes. but their decisions, though, and their positions are not economic positions exclusively. they are practicing matic, economic decisions that are tempered by their reality. if we wanted to provide solutions for america, couldn't we set all of our politics aside and take all away this political pragmat inch sm and sit down and

sit down and ask the question is, what is the smartest thing we could do in this country and how do we fund this government, the necessary come popts of the federal government. and madam speaker, those are the questions that i have been asking about this country for 30 years. and i'm making a recommendation to the debt commission and i trust that they overhear this discussion that you and you are having tonight, but it comes down to this, if we are going to devise a tax policy for the united states starting from scratch, that blank slate, that piece of paper, that tax policy would not be the internal revenue tax or code. we would not generate the i.r.s. we would not look at this as a

tax on income. because here is what ronald reagan once said, what you tax you get less of, what you subsidize, you get more of. what you get tax, the tax is a punishment. we here in america, punish all productivity in the united states. if you have earnings, savings or investment, if you punch the time clock and go to work, if you start a business and put your sweat he canity, package that together and start a little factory or a service company or start marking an invention, whatever it is you might do, the i.r.s. will identify that productivity and tax it, punish it, shrink it, production is what drives this economy, not

spending. that is keysneian. and bonding and putting cash in the hancheds of people, so they -- hands of people so they spend. we need to produce. we need to increase the production in america. in competition with the rest of the world and market more goods and services and drive our domestic product up, we will see prosperity up. producing goods and services that have value. and so when ronald reagan said when you tax you get less of, we were punishing productivity sm the internal revenue service and income tax code is dedicated to taxing all productivity in america, punishing all productivity in america, setting

aside everything that is good and productive that is good about our economy and taxing it. so if you punch a time clock and you go forward and earn wages you are taxed on it, at least the payroll tax,. you will pay your income tax. if you have earnings, savings or invermont, if you are going to cash in your dividend check, your capital gains, your interest check, all of that is taxed by the i.r.s. if you acquire a net worth and perhaps you pay the tax on all of your income as you go along and maybe even your investments, didn't appreciate in value and weren't taxed in that fashion, and you have a nest egg of let's say $10 million, good lifetime work, this year, you could die and pass along to your children because the democrats are asleep

at the switch. they would like to tax your investments. all of your productivity, all of your earnings from your work, all of your earnings from your investments and manage mnlt from whatever business you might start, your dividends, capital gains, interest income, estate income, all of that is taxed, all of that is productivity and pun earned by the federal government. what do we get? less productivity. we get less investment, because the cost of capital goes up and get less savings because the interest income on the savings will be taxed by the i.r.s. companies are avoiding the corporate income tax and dividends are taxed and the board of directors carbs in on the dividends and looging at a tax liability. and they don't want to take that

out. investments in foreign lands, if they are repatrioted in the united states, there will be a capital gains tax against that or income tax against that as well. so there is in the order of $13 billion and private sector capital that is stranded overseas that isn't coming back to the united states because there is a penalty for bringing it in, if we suspend the tax on the capital overseas, we would see trillions come back into the united states, $5 trillion. most if not all of that in the succeeding years. fair tax is the right way to go. but the biggest reason is -- two big reasons. one big reason, fair tax ends the internal revenue code and ends the punishment to productivity in america and stops the punishment of

earnings, savings and save all you want to save, invest all you want to invest and take the proceeds from those investments out and move them around, put them in an invermont rather than paying a tax. we have all of these people involved in tax avoidance, it's the taxes may be avoided, they are delayed, but in effect, they aren't circumvented, and must be paid eventually. my position is this. i'm for h.r. 25, national sales tax, fair tax and what it does, it takes all tax off of productivity and abottlishes the i.r.s. and puts the tax over on consumption where it provides there we need to have an incentive for savings and

investment, when you tax consumption, that encourages people to invest and save and they can build a nest egg and the capital comes back to the united states, $13 trillion and all of these high-rise buildings that have high-paid tax lawyers in it and floors dedicated to tax attorneys, tax advisers, accountants for the purpose of avoiding taxes, all that goes away. that human capital, the very smart people, moral, hard-working, ethical people who have legitimate jobs, they can turn their focus into producing something that has value rather than tax delay or tax avoidance. think what it would be like to take all of those smart brains and turn them loose to figure out how to be more productive. some of those will start

businesses and they will be publicly-traded businesses or go to work for other businesses and add to the value because of their creative ideas, some will be good nuts and bolts accountants. and it might well be their company. some are entrepreneurs, but the creativity is locked up because we are auditing the productivity of the american people. what sense does that make? why do we have a sense of class envy against people that would be productive and make money. i'm not among them. i'm not going to die a rich man. there is no one that is going to pass it along to me. i made a little money in my time, not enough to talk about or brag about, but i have engaged in the free enterprise economy. i started a business in 1975. i went out and bought a bulldozer and out of that

machine was sold it couldn't work to make my first hour until i welded on it for two weeks. and put it to work after three hours i watched the pressure gauge go from high pressure down to zero. and as that happened, i shut the machine off and had to tear the engine down and my wife was standing there four and a half months pregnant with our first child in the rain in september. that's how we got started. i had appreciation for what it makes to start a business, to watch that business grow and pay wages and benefits. certainly have an appreciation for walking into my construction office sometime in the early 1990's and my secretary had taken her christmas tree and

decorated the christmas tree with gold christmas trees, santa in the slay, baby jesus, star of bethlehem, each of those were engraved with the name of either the employee, their spouse or one of their children. and there were enough that were dependent ent on king construction and the decisions that i made affected the lives of all of those families and their family. it gave me great joy during that time to see that that we built something that we were dependent upon, something that was good, honest, and the tax burden on that was one of the anchors we had to drag all the way through. i wanted to eliminate the the speaker pro tempore: r.s.

and -- i.r.s. and let people earn all they could earn and invest, accept the proceeds of their investments and move them around, sell anything you want to sell, take your capital gains, put it in the bank. but when you spend the money, pay the tax. and i understand and madam speaker, i would think anybody at this level of government should understand businesses don't pay taxes. corporations, sole propertyorships. they don't pay taxes. they pass costs through to the consumers. if they didn't pass the costs along, we would be broke. so businesses are effective and efficient collectors of taxes for government, but not taxpayers. so we can get to two principles here and that is taxing

productivity reduces our productivity. increasing our productivity is the solution for our economy. so we should take all the tax off of productivity and put it on consumption. next principle is, businesses don't pay taxes, they collect taxes from consumers. so why wouldn't we allow the 45 states that currently have a sales tax to use the engine they have to collect the sales tax and the same fashion that they are collecting at the retail outlets. no exemptions. and yes, government would have to pay that tax. they are paying it in the costs that they buy. government has to pay tax. tax on sales and service. and it would only be the last stop on the retail dollar so if it's a farmer, for example, rest easy, because if you want to buy a new planter, tractor or

whatever it is that you might need, you wouldn't have to pay sales tax on that he equipment because that is a business input cost. you could put it into your fleet, work it, but you wouldn't have to pay sales tax because it is a business input cost. if you buy a cap to put on your head while you ride around or pull the planter on that new tractor, you pay a sales tax. that's how it comes down. you would have to tax all goods and services so if people are sitting there thinking well, my pharmaceuticals are exempted, sorry. they wouldn't be exempted or any of the products we would call food or preferred items for those organizations or entities we think we would like to untax because as soon as we start

exemptions. and pretty soon it would narrow the tax rate where it would be too high. it has to be no exemptions, all taxes on sales and services must be paid. buy a new house, pay sales tax on the lumber, plumbing and on the labor and that new house then if you sold it the next week, there would be no sales tax on it, because it is a used house, the tax would have been paid on the materials and the labor. . the cost of materials going into our house would be 22% cheaper. that's because there's a tax that averages 22%. here's how it works, madam speaker. the businesses will factor it into their prices and they must. so, that $1 widget has 22 cents

worth of taxes embedded in that price. if you pass the national sales tax, the fair tax, you would see competition drive the price down, and the $1 widget would be 78 cents. the price goes down to 78 cents. yes, you have to add back in a 23% embedded national sales tax in that on the sales and service, and yes that takes that up to just a scoshe over $1 again but people get 56% more in their paycheck. the retail prices don't look a lot different than they do today. the difference is everybody would see how expensive the federal tax is. they would make less demands on government because it makes everyone a taxpayer. so little johnny, or let me tell the story of little michael dix, the son of an

outstanding once and future state legislator in iowa, michael was about 8 years old when this happened, we have 57% sales tax in the state, in many of the regions. we saved up his money he wanted to go in and buy a little box of skittles, little sweets there on the counter. it's 89 cent he went in and got the skittles out and laid it up on the counter he counted out his money, the 89 credibilities, all the way up to the right penny and the lady on the register rang it up and said, that'll be 96 cents. and he looked at her, but they're 89 cents. that's what it says on the box. she said, no, you've got to pay the governor. you've got to pay the tax. and there he is with 89 cents, having saved it to buy his skittles, it's a transaction that's important to michael and

he found out he had to pay the tax and he turned to his dad and said, dad, i have to pay tax on skittles? imagine, madam speaker. imagine what that does. don't think michael dix will be a guy that demands the federal government produce more things for him. i don't think he'll tolerate higher taxes. i think this young man is going to grow up to a personal responsibility, very well aware of how burdensome the federal and state government is and make sure that when government provides a service, it's a good value for that, it's a necessary service, not one that's frivolous. he's going to know always that the money came out of the pact of michael dix, didn't come out necessarily out of the pocket of some noms person. it's personal. the national sales tax, the fair tax, makes that personal, madam speaker. it makes it personal for millions and millions of kids growing up in america, billions of transactions, every time

being reminded that the federal government is expensive and expensive federal government that makes everybody a taxpayer becomes a federal government that those taxpayers demand less of. more freedom, less taxes. that's the equation. the fair tax, h.r. 35 is transformative, it provides an incentive for earnings savings and investments, abolishes the tax on corporate and personalage business income taxes and taxes on capital gains and investment and interest income and all of the components in the state tax included. it does all those things. fair tax does everything good anybody's tax reform does. it does them all. it does them all better.

and the american people are getting closer to understanding what this means. the american people can visualize what happens to a world without the i.r.s. a world without punishment for production, a world that has little kids growing up like michael dix who is now a young man, who understand that paying taxes is a personal experience, it's transformative, madam speaker, nor country to move down the path of a national sales tax and apoll lishing the i.r.s. some say they'll support a national sales tax, h.r. 25, the fair tax, provided that we first repeal the 16th amendment. but that sets up, madam speaker, an impossible bar. can we imagine any piece of legislation that we predicate upon passage of a constitutional amendment? what if we had the flat tax and had to pass the constitutional amendment before we could adopt the flat tax.

what if we had in the constitution of the united states, i'd like to ratchet it down from what he's doing now. the bar is too high. the bar is too high to set the standard of repealing the 16th amendment. here's the reality of it. h.r. 25, the fair tax does this. it starts the process for the repeal of the 16th amendment. abolishes the i.r.s., abolishes the income tax code in its entirety and can we imagine the american people freed of the i.r.s., the fear of audit, the american people that get 56% more in their paycheck and they can make their own decisions on when to pay their taxes and the i.r.s. is a thing of history and the code, the punishment

on, the tax on all productivity is gone. if you think for a minute that this congress of the american people would tolerate the re-establishment of the i.r.s. or the re-establishment of the income tax code? no, they would not. they would be so glad to get 56% more in their paycheck. rather than having the i.r.s. tell them you will pay this, they would never etolerate the establishment of the i.r.s. they would, i believe, chase the 16th amendment down with the great joe joy they're relieved of it. but to set the condition as a bar to pass the far tax, it's too high a bar. it's not an impossibility but it's an extreme difficulty. madam speaker, i'll make this point.

i have never run into in 30 years of making this argument, an argument for some other tax reform that is economically superior to the national sales tax, the fair tax. i have not run into that argument. i've not been in a debate where i thought the other side made a point i had trouble addressing economically. the only point they can make is in their judgment, it's too difficult to pass politically. when you tell the american people the i.r.s. will be gone and we're going to put the i.r.s. people to work in the productive sector of the economy instead of the burdensome sector of the economy, they're going to stand up and applaud. they've done that for me over and over again. we don't have a president who understands this, he's been nationalizing right and left, nationalizing a.i.g.,

nationalizing fannie mae, freddie mac, general motors, chrysler, the student loan program taken over by the federal government osm because macare swallowed up the most solemn thing we have, our skin and everything inside it is taken over by the government this president and congress doesn't begin to understand the sovereign thoif individual and the free market system we have. but the american people understand. the american people already given a choice this november, they'll choose freedom, liberty, constitutional conservatism and i look forward to the transformation and the freedom and liberty that come prs the people who step up to their own personal responsibility. i thank you for your indulgence and attention here this evening. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman have a motion to adjourn in mr. king: madam speaker, i move the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question son the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no.

the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. accordingly the house standsed adjourned until 10:30 a.m. >> later this week, the political status of puerto rico. the house is live always on c- span. meanwhile, in the senate today, a vote to move the financial regulations bill forward failed. senator ben nelson, a democrat of nebraska, and senate majority leader harry reid voted against. tomorrow morning, a look at the role that goldman sachs and other investment banks had in the recent financial downturn. several executives to testify before a senate investigations subcommittee. that is live on our companion network, c-span3, at 10:00 a.m.

eastern. >> c-span. our public affairs content is available on television, radio, and online, and you can also connect with us on twitter, facebook, and youtube, and you can sign up to get emails on c- span.org. >> senate democrats failed to get 60 votes to move their financial regulation bill. then, a conversation on the new arizona immigration legislation. we will hear from prime minister gordon brown later. british elections are next week. and here is something about the financial conversation before the vote took place. >> the senator from new hampshire. >> i want to rise to speak on this bill also. this is such a complex piece of legislation, it is difficult to debate in a sense that is

understandable, because there is so much technical, so much of a technical aspect to this bill, but let's start with the purpose or what i believe our purpose should be. our purpose would be, one, to do as much as we can to build a regulatory regime which will reduce the potential for another event, the type of which we had in the end of 2008 where we had a massive breakdown in the system, financial system of this country, and as a result of huge systemic risks being built into the system which wasn't properly regulated and certainly was not handled correctly by either the financial institutions or by the congress. congress maintains a fairly significant responsibility for the meltdown that occurred at the end of 2008 for the policies that we had running up to that period in the area of housing. that should be our first goal. prospectively, trying to reduce

systemic risk as much as possible in the system through putting in place policies which will do that and accomplish that. the second goal should, however, be that we maintain what is a unique and really rare strength which america has, which is that we have the capacity as a country to create capital and credit in a very aggressive way so that entrepreneurs who are willing to go out and take risks have access to capital and credit, and that creates jobs and that creates the dynamics of our economy. and we shouldn't put in place a regulatory regime that overly reacts and, as a result, significantly dampens our capacity to have the most vibrant capital and credit markets in the world while still having a safe capital and credit -- safe and sound capital credit markets. now, the bill that the senator from connecticut is bringing forward, i presume, is going to

have a lot of different sections in it. i just want to focus on one, because it's become the point of significant attention and that's the derivatives section. derivatives are extraordinarily complex instruments and there are a lot of different variations of derivatives. they're basically insurance policies on underlying product that is occurring somewhere in the economy. and their notional value is almost staggering. $600 trillion of notional value out there in derivatives, which is just a number that nobody can comprehend, but you can understand it's a pretty big issue. notional value means, of course, that if everything were to go wrong at the same time, you'd have $600 trillion of insurance sitting out there that had to but the fact is, it shows the market. and what its implications are. there are all sorts of different elements in the market.

it is not even won market. it is tens of thousands in various things that have derivatives with and against them, although they fall into pretty understandable categories. in the bill that came out of agriculture combat there was, for lack of a better word, and antithesis expressed for the entities. they are the large financial houses. and there was an equal and to the expressed relative to the entities that use these derivatives. including large amounts of manufacturing, people dealing with financial debt instruments in these countries -- in this country. it is almost as if they say that

we dislike the folks, and we will put together a regime that will gratuitously penalize them for the business they do because we just do not like it. it is too big. too complicated. derivatives are basically used for making commerce work. of making it possible for companies to sell overseas in our nation, making it possible for people to put a product in a -- in the stream of commerce and presume that when they enter into an agreement on that product, the price will be not effected by extraneous events such as fluctuations in the currency costs or fluctuations in material cost. so it's really critical that we get the derivatives language right.

now, there needs to be a significant and new look at the regulatory regime of derivatives. and the essence of the exercise should be transparency, maintaining adequate capital for the counterparties and margins, liquidity. that should be where we focus our energy. trying to make sure that the different derivatives that are brought to the market are as transparent as possible and also have behind them the support they need in the form of collateral, capital and margin to, if something goes wrong, be paid off, for lack of a better word. this proposal, however, as it came out of the agriculture committee, doesn't try to accomplish that. rather, it tries to essentially eviscerate the use of derivatives as products amongst

a large segment of our economy. it sets up something called section 106, where it essentially says that the people who are doing derivatives today, which are for the most part large financial houses, must spin those products off from their financial houses. now, that sounds in concept like a reasonable idea, especially if you were in argentina in 1950 and working for the peron government. but as a very practical matter, it's a concept which will do fundamental harm to the vitality of our economy. why? because you won't have a lot of derivative products in this country that will be able to pass the test of being spun off. you don't have to listen to me to believe this. let me just quote from a message that was sent to us by the federal reserve, which is reasonably fair arbiter in this exercise. they -- they really don't have a dog in this fight other than financial stability of our country. section 106 -- this is the fed talking, not me -- "would impair

financial stability and strong prudential regulations of derivatives, would have serious consequences for the competitiveness of the united states financial institutions, and would be highly disruptive and costly, both for banks and their customers." that's about as accurate and succinct statement as to what the affect of this section would be as i could have said. i didn't say it. nobody would probably believe me. the fed said it, the fair arbiter said it. now, why did they say that? well, it's pretty obvious, if you know anything about the way these products work, but essentially if you spin off these products, you're going to have to create entities out there to replicate the entities that they were spun off of. so if a large financial institution is now doing derivatives and you spin the derivatives desk off, the swap desk off from that financial entity, that spun-off event is

going to have to replicate the capital structure of the financial institution which was basically underpinning the derivatives desk. and so that capital structure is estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter of a billion -- a quarter of a trillion dollars to half a trillion dollars. of capital will have to be created. well, what's the affect of that? when you start putting capital like that into the system, that capital comes from somewhere, assuming it comes at all, it comes from somewhere. and where it comes from, quite honestly, is the credit worthiness of other activity. it's not new capital. it's taking capital and recreating an event, a freestanding entity here, which capital isn't around. it also will mean that there will be a contraction -- and this is an estimate not of the

fed but of the group of entities that actually do this business and, therefore, it can be called suspect, but i think it's in the ballpark. it will take a couple hundred billion dollars. it will also cause a contraction of about $700 billion in credit in this country, to say nothing of the fact that if you're looking for a derivatives contract and you can't go to the financial houses that usually do it in the united states and you're a commercial entity or a hedging group, you're going to go overseas and do it because they aren't going to have these types of restrictions. and you're going to be able to buy that contract in singapore. so a large amount of entities, a large amount of business will move offshore almost immediately upon the passage of this bill should this section be kept in. and is it necessary, is the question. is it necessary to make the derivatives market work right in this country?

absolutely not. this is just punitive language put in out of spite because there is a movement in this country and in this congress, unfortunately, which i call partnering populism -- pandering populism, which just simply dislikes anything that has to do with wall street -- sure, they did a lot of things wrong and they caused a lot of problems -- but if you're going to apply the problems that occurred here fairly, we should be looking in the mirror at ourselves for a lot of things that happened in the economy, by forcing things on a housing market that couldn't sustain it. it's just penal. that's the purpose of this, punitive. and in the end it's going to cut off our nose to spite our face because our -- it will be our credit that contracts and it will be our business -- and business can be done and could be done in a very effective way here in the united states overseas. what should be done here, what

should be done rather than this exercise, as the fed has said, in causing a highly disruptive and costly effect on banks and their customers and having serious consequences on the competitiveness of the united states? remember, we are competing in the world. that may have escaped -- escaped the attention of the agriculture committee when they wrote this language, but we are in a world competition on the -- derivatives are not a unique american product. they are a world product. so these are jobs that go overseas, this is credit that goes overseas, this is business that goes overseas, this is main street that will be affected by this language. how should it have been done? well, it should have been done in a rational way, not in a punitive way. we know that the derivatives market was not transparent enough. we know that there was not enough capital, liquidity, margin, whatever you want to call it, behind the products and the counterparties that were exchanging products in the derivatives markets in the

over-the-counter system. we know, because we got a.i.g. as example number one, that a tremendous amount of c.d.s.'s especial remember being written with nothing behind them except a name -- especially being written with nothing behind them except a name. we can fix all that and it can be fixed in a way that almost everybody is comfortable with by, first, making sure that only the exempted products from going to a clearinghouse are products which have a specific commercial use and are customized and are narrow. and that the people doing those products are not large enough in their business so that there are systemic issues. secondly, we put everybody else on a clearinghouse. what's a clearinghouse mean? well, it essentially means there will be a third party insurer, or holder, of the basket of

assets necessary to support the derivatives contracts. so that we are fairly confident that when a trade is made on a clearinghouse, the counterparties have the liquidity and the margin behind their positions to support their trades. at the same time, the clearinghouse itself must be structured in a way that it has adequate capital. and where's that capital going to come from? it can only come from one place, really, it comes from the people who trade in these instruments. they're going to have to put up the capital. and the regulators -- s.e.c., cftc -- will have direct access to controlling and making sure that that capital is adequate in the clearinghouses and making sure that the clearinghouses are adequately monitoring the contracts. and then as the contracts become more standardized -- and they will and they can, we all accept that -- they move over to

exchanges, where they're basically traded like stock and then you've taken -- then you have absolute transparency, price disclosure and you -- you don't have the issue -- issues of the over-the-counter market that caused so much problems for us. and that will happen. that will happen almost naturally, but you could have the regulator stand up and say, well, we think this group of derivatives is standardized enough and you've got to move it to an exchange. we could give that power to the regulators. that makes sense. but it would happen naturally anyway as we moved on to -- as these clearinghouses become more effective and standardizing the products and people become more comfortable with standardized products in these areas. and, of course, there would have to be realtime disclosure to the regulators of what the prices were if they are o.t.c. prices or clearinghouse prices so that they know what's going on.

and then it would be up to the regulators to decide when that information should be disclosed to the markets, depending on how you make these markets. sometimes you can't disclose information immediately, otherwise you wouldn't be able to make a market, otherwise you wouldn't be able to do the contracts and, therefore, you wouldn't be able to do the business which underlies the need for the derivative. so all of that could be done. all of that could be done, and it does not require creating this entity or these series of entities out there which the federal reserve has described as impairing the financial stability and strong prudential regulation of derivatives. in other words, what the federal reserve is saying is that when you go the direction of what is being proposed in the agriculture committee in the area of derivatives and set up this independent swap desk, you're not making things stronger in our financial structure. you're making them weaker. you're significantly reducing

the strength of the regulatory arms that guide the derivatives or oversee derivatives, and you're also, as imansed earlier, creating -- as i mentioned earlier, creating an almost guaranteed-to-fail situation with regard to the need for capital to support these transitions. it's just -- it just makes no sense at all. you know, to begin with, derivatives are, by definition, a bank product, sod idea that they have to be spun out of banks and financial institutions is on its face absurd. really absurd. and just counterproductive to the whole purpose of doing derivatives, which are very important. you know, the congress recognizes that. in gramm-leech-bliley, we call derivatives a bank product. we understand that then. we seem to have forgotton now.

you know, i have real estate been trying to figure out what's behind this type of language, because it's so destructive to our competitiveness as a nation, really. i mean, this is the type of thing, as i said earlier, you would have seen in argentine tha--argentina in the 1950's, an tashing on entities simply because they're large and because obviously there's a populous feeling against them. winds up, by the way, significantly -- which ends up, by the way, significantly affecting mainstream in a negative way. look at a argentina, in 1945 -- 1937, somewhere in that period, they were the seventh-best economy in the world. now they're like 54th or something. it is because of this populous movement which has driven basically their ability to be competitive offshore. so now we have this huge

populous movement here. i'm trying to think, what really is the rationale here other than just rampant pandering populism? a vote occurred in the budget committee last week, which i happen for ranking member on, which crystallized the situation for me. senator sanders from vermont, who i consider a friend and i enjoy immensely, a great guy, a great sense of humor -- but we disagree son a lost thifntle he runs as a social iflt. i run as a conservative. senator sanders offered an amendment which said that the government -- the government would be four or five people down ototreasury or three or four people down oto-- i don't know where they'd be, some new office somewhere -- has the right to break up large corporations. didn't say "break up large corporations which had problems." which had overextended themselves, which everybody agrees should happen.

that's what senator warner was talking about. he's done extraordinary work in this area, and i'm eelly supportive of his -- and i'm rulely support of it of his efforts in resolution thomplet where if a big bank, a big financial house or big entity gets into trouble, they've overextended themselves, they're essentially insolvent, they get broken up. there's no -- the taxpayers do not come in, in any way, shape, or manner, and support that entity. that's what the warner-corker language does. i believe the senator from connecticut has tried to incorporate a lot amount of that. that should be our policy. but what the sanders amendment said was that any bank, any financial house could be broken up simply because it was deemed to be "big." no matter how resilient or strong it is, no matter if it is a major player for our nation and being more competitively

internationally -- remember when an american company goes overseas, they want to use an american bank. they don't want to have to use the credit suisse or the bank of singapore. they want to use it an american bank to follow them around the world. those banks have to be pretty big to do that. this language would have said, no matter how strong and profitable you are and how much -- how robust you are, how much you contribute to the american financial system -- we need large financial institutions that can support very complex, sophisticated international activity and come to stuck economic activity -- that they would be broken up because a group of people here in washington didn't like them for social policy, social justice reasons. they didn't lend enough men to some group that they wanted to lend to. or they lent too much money to

some group they didn't want money lent to. for social reasons we'll break up this company even though this is strong and fiscally responsible. that was the policy proposed in the budget committee. ten people voted for that policy. ten. ten out 2692 people who voted volted for thavoted for that po. where does that stop? where does that stop in where does this section 106 stop? do we break up wail mat because they're not union? do we break up mcdonald's because they sell foods that some people think makes you too fat? do we break up coca-cola because they have too much sugar in their products? is there anything in this country that gets broken up because there is an attitude that big is bad, whether it contributes or not, unless you

happen to be big and union, in which case you get saved, as the u.a.w. was able to work out for g.m. and chrysler. this language isn't about fixing the derivatives market at all. you can fix the derivatives market in a most comprehensive and substantive way that keeps americans the best way to create these types of product peds in the most sound and safe way. you can do that. as i've outlined pretty specifically how you would do it, without this section, which i will close by reading one more time how the fair arbiter has defined it, the federal reserve. this is such a damaging section that it cannot be underestimated the damage that would be done to our economy were it to be approved. section 106 would impair the financial stability and the strong regulations of

derivatives, would have serious consequences for the competitiveness of the united states financial institutions and would be highly disruptive and costly both to the banks and their customers. and, remember, their customers are the people that work on main street for the dhaps use derivatives. and almost every company in this country of any size uses a derivative to hedge their risks. ironically, this is all done in the name of social justice because wall street is bad. so we're just going to go out and cut off our nose despite our face. it is incomprehensible that a nation which has become as strong and as vibrant as we have by promoting a market economy would decide to go down this route. which is the an tinge me of a

market commitment of but that's where we're. that's what's happening. that's the direction we're going. unnecessary, by the way, as i said earlier. unnecessary. because a derivative can be made safer and sounder by simply restructuring the transparency and the manner in which they are put on clearinghouses, limiting the amount of those that are subject to exemption and pushing people towards exchanges to the fullest extent possible and to the extent it will work. all of that can be done without this diploma type of language, s so destructive, and uke, and, ae federal has said, will have the direct opposite effect of what it is alleged to do. mr. dodd: i thank my colleague from new hampshire. and and i are great friends. we've worked on a number of

issues together. in a number of months, both of us will be former members of this institution. let me express my gratitude to him for his service over the years and his commitment to these issues. he has focused his ateption on the if i can matter coming -- he has focused his ategs on the particular matter coming out of the agriculture committee. that proposal was supported by democrats as well as my colleagues know a republican on a committee, my colleague from arkansas will point out, as i'm sure we've heard already, thrfsz at least an appearance of bipartisanship on this bill. he raises some very important issues. there are a number of our colleagues which have strong feelings, different than those of my friend and colleague from new hampshire. as he knows, otherwise it would have have come out of the committee with the vote it did. therefore, the subject of a debate in this chamber. and i should, of course, have begun by thanking him as a

member of the banking committee for his participation and involvement in our product in the banking committee. and the issue before us in the next few minutes as to whether or not we can have this debate on these issues, and again, as my colleague from alabama has pointed out on several occasions, where 80 or 90 percentage are there in terms of agreeing in a major part of what our bill proposals. obviously we're not only there. but you can't ever get all there in one of these debates before you actually have the opportunity to do exactly that, where members have the chance to be heard, to raise their ideas, a different point of view than my friend from new hampshire, who feels as passionately as he does about their point of view. and that is the purpose for having a debate and an institution like this for that debate to occur. and so my hope would be again

that when this motion to proceed occurs, even though you may have -- you may share the views of my friend from new hampshire or you may have an alternative view -- certainly as is the case in major parts of this bill, as i have writton along with my complete -- whitten it along with my committee members, that is the purpose for which this institution exists to have that debate. no one member no one committee no handful of members should even suggest that they have the right to write the legislation without the consideration of others. so there is a difference of opinion on these matters. i see my colleague from vermont. mr. sanders: would my friend yield forea fe for a few minute? mr. dodd: you better take the next three minutes. mr. sanders: i will do what i can in three minutes. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: my good friend from new hampshire, my colleague from across the river, apparently does not have a

problem with the issue that the largest financial institutions in this country that we bailed out because of their recklessness, greed, and illegal behavior have since the bailout become even larger. three out of the four major financial institutions, all of whom were bailed out, have become larger, and no matter what anybody tells you, when one of these institutions is about to tip over and take a good part of the economy with them, despite the rhetoric today, people are going to be bailing them out. they're going to lose millions of jobs if you don't. now, mr. president, the reality is that we have a situation now where the top six banks in this country, despite when the senator from new hampshire has suggested, now have total assets

in excess of 63% of g.d.p. we're talking over $7 trillion. now, when you have six institutions with 63% of total assets compared to g.d.p., i think you've got a problem. and you've got a problem for two reasons. number one, they are -- you have a problem in terms of taxpayer liability and the fact that we will once again have to bail these behemoths out. but, second of all, as teddy roosevelt told us 100-plus years ago, it's time to break these guys up because they have incredible concentration of ownership over our entire economy. it is incomprehensible to me that the senator from new hampshire can be comfortable as

a conservative -- doesn't like big government but apparently doesn't mind huge, huge financial institutions. so i think that anyone who is not worried about the concentration of ownership within our financial institutions is missing an enormously important point not to -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. sanders: not just from too big to fail but economic concentration of ownership. mr. president, with that, i would thank my friend from >> a reporter from the politico joins us. what was the outcome of the bill? >> the outcome was 57-41. they did not have cloture, which means they will not be able to continue the debate on the financial regulatory reform bill. that was the expected outcome. they had reached an agreement

between sheltie and chris dodd, the democratic chairman of the senate banking committee -- between shelby and chris dodd. >> so it did not get the needed 60 votes to get the debate started. why did it not? >> there was a big separation between democrats and republicans, particularly over this idea of bailout. republicans suggest that this bill will allow a taxpayer bailouts to continue -- and banks will pay into it to bail them out should they imploded again. it could put taxpayers on the hook should that fund not work -- should they implode again. they are putting the funds, making banks pay for that, and the taxpayers would never be liable for it. they have never figured out a comp