thereby lowering their risk either artificially and then they went to the rating agency and said now, how is it that you rate these particular things? they found out. and it was a rating that went out by looking at f.i.c.o. scores. the mortgages weren't looked at based on whether they were no-doc loans, but rated on the homeowner's mortgage f.i.c.o. score. if you could somehow bum up the f.i.c.o. score on these mortgages, you could turn a bbb into a aaaa and that's what they did. they went out and sold the one we heard about last week when

john paulson said he wanted to short all of them so he put together the worst of the worst and goldman made $50 million for actually servicing that particular instrument, and then goldman went out and sold garbage to an unsuspecting american public. oh, but they were sophisticated buyers, so therefore they knew what they were getting into. and that's the creativity of goldman sachs. . mr. garamendi: so what goldman zack was doing was a dishonest and possibly fraudulent scheme to rip off some investor somewhere. they may have been sophisticated, they may not have. but they were told this was not a b-rated product but an a-rated product, because standard and poors, perhaps playing the game and part of the game with goldman had

re-evaluated that particular traunch, that package of mortgages, and said, oh, now they're an a because we've taken a look at the fie coe score of some of the -- at the fico score of some of the underlying mortgages of the people who had taken out the loan. so from the whole thing, here's the honesty -- where is the honesty in the business, where's the element of good faith to the customer? was paulson the customer on one side of the deal? or was it the investor on the other side of the deal? and where's the good-faith obligation that goldman surely must have had. >> and you know who bought a lot of abcus, who was on the other side, you won't be surprised to hear a.i.g., will you? mr. garamendi: a.i.g. they

received $200 billion of taxpayer money. ms. speier: that's right. mr. garamendi: when a.i.g. got the money from the taxpayers in the tarp money, the wall street bailout what did they do with that money? did they give it to the homeowner that was going to lose their home, or did they give it to goldman? ms. speier: interestingly enough, goldman had purchased credit default swaps from a.i.g. and of course they were repaid in full by the taxpayers of this country, $12 billion worth, the highest recipient of money from those c.d.s.'s. mr. garamendi: i think that book is misnamed, you know "the great short," i think "the great fraud" would be the better name. ms. speier: i want to show you one last chart. this is the creativity of

goldman sachs. creating these products, knowing they were bad, selling them off. many were what are called synthetic c.e.o.'s, they didn't have the mortgages on them, it was like a side bet on that tower we saw in that earlier chart. look what happened to all of them. they were all at one pint or another percent of the tower that was in fact a.a.a., 71%, 77%, 72%, 70%, 80%. but look what happened to them in the end. they all turned to junk. so they were rated improperly. you can ding the rating agency. they were manipulated by goldman sachs. this is the kind of creativity on wall street that makes us proud. mr. garamendi: there certainly ought to be a law. we're going to spend a few moments talking about the law.

but first, we'll turn to our colleague from the great state of ohio. please. >> i'm pleased to join my colleagues on the floor this evening, of course i work with congresswoman spears on the financial services committee and she very aptly and -- aptly talked about what was going on at goldman and the effect it's had on our economy. but -- this is not a case of one bad company. we unfortunately had a culture across wall street that allowed things like this to happen. recently, i asked chairman frank if we could look at some of the practices of lehman brothers. and we did. we had a hearing on lehman brothers. we both participated in that hearing because lehman brothers gambled with the hard-earned money, the pension funds, of countless americans. ms. kilroy: certainly people from ohio, people from california's pensions, people from colorado's pensions, have

been invested in lehman products. and lehman brothers did not tell those investors or other investors that they were so over-leveraged that their financial picture was pretty bleak. instead, they tried to disguise what was really going on atleeman by the tricky accounting practice, where they moved some of the problems off the balance sheet at the time when their quarterly report was due. look at the -- a look at the quarterly report would not get the real story from lehman. this practice called repoe 105. they did this deliberatery. they had become, like goldman, very leveraged into the subprime mortgage market, the alt-a mortgage market and came up with this product called an alt-b. lehman brothers which is an investment house, did not have the same level of regulation that, say, a community bank in

one of our localities would have if they were engaging in mortgage practices. nobody was watching them. s.e.c. wasn't watching enough. and investors and advisors who maybe would be sophisticated investors could look at the balance sheet. they weren't getting the right picture either because this on and off balance sheet practice of disguising a true financial picture. when lehman did this, when they gambled on the subprime market. when they increased, bought more, bought more, bought more to try to make up for the losses and tried to hide what was going on, they heard not just the sophisticated invest -- they hurt not just the sophisticated investor, they hurt hardworking americans. one of our pension funds, i asked for some public records. one of our pension funds told us they took a loss of $100 million as a result of this

between december of 2007 and september of 2008. over $100 million. that's just one. i'm getting information from the other public pension funds in ohio. this isn't right that they are allowed to gamble and not listen to the alarms sounded in their own company by the risk managers or the fixed asset managers. instead, those people who were trying to tell the truth were forced out. that same story, everything is just fine, don't look over here at what's on the off balance accounting tricks and give a different picture to the world. we need to hold the lehman brothers and goldmans to account. it is time to really talk about real financial reform, real wall street reform. but they're not allowed to hurt hardworking americans and put

their life savings in jeopardy again. mr. garamendi: i know that the two of you are both on the financial services committee, spent most of last year, 2009, working on a major reform that actually passed the house in december. now, i had the good fortune of being elected in november, arriving here just in time to vote for the health care bill and to take some credit by voting for the reform that the two of you and the other members of the committee brought to the house floor. it was a very, very significant reform and dealt with many of the underlying issues that both of you have discussed. let's spend a few moments talking about the critical elements of that reform bill. as i recall, there was a consumer protection agency in the reform bill and there was also some definitions about the kinds of things that the banks could engage in. and in most recent days, we've

seen the senate wrestling with this issue, seen the republicans trying to stop the senate from enacting a reform bill by senator dodd and that now has, well, they tried for a few days, a couple of weeks, ultimately the american public following the goldman sachs hearing in the senate snade enough and the republican effort to stop the bill collapsed. now that's moving along. we're in the final stages, i believe, of passing a very significant reform of wall street. so that we can focus on main street rather than on the excesses of wall street, bringing the money back to main street, local banks making loans and wall street getting its comeupance. would you share with us some of your thoughts about reforms? ms. speier: the interesting thing about the consumer protection agency which now is being billed as a bureau within

the fed was the brain child of professor elizabeth warren of harvard law school. she likened it to the consumer product safety commission, which we have. you buy a toaster, it's warranted to operate, not to electrocute you, yet we have nothing of the same nature to protect us as consumers from fraudulent techniques that are being used by credit card companies, by mortgage brokers. this one chart that shows this c.d.o., this was $38 million. it was actually sold and resold 30 times, 30 times. and created losses of over $280 million. now, derivatives haven't been regulated in this country because congress passed a law in 2000 prohibited congress

from regulating derivatives. it was part of the financial services industry wish list and we -- none of us were there at the time. mr. garamendi: the two of us won't take credit for that, we were not in congress when they passed that legislation. ms. speier: but imagine how this allowed, to be in the marketplace and not be regulated. that's what will be regulated as we move forward with financial reform. there'll be a -- there will be a protection agency for consumers that will help us understand, hopefully, you know, as i understand it, a credit card statement form, contract, was about -- was one page, 700 words in 1985. today it's something like 30 pages. the consumer financial protection bureau will provide greater assistance to main street.

ms. kilroy: i think it's important when you look at what happened on wall street, after bear stearns collapsed, s.e.c., and the new york fed, went into these major wall street investment houses and were there trying to look things over. but either didn't have the statutory authority or the expertise to really take a look at these mortgages instruments or -- these mortgage instruments or take the kind of action that would have protected the consumer and not waited until you got to a situation with bear stearns but gone in much sooner and looked at it from the eyes of the consumer, not how it's doing for wall street traders, but what's its impact on consumers? the subprime mortgage so listations and all the things that -- solicitations and all the things that went on around this. i think it's so important we do have a consumer protection agency as part of wall street reform.

mr. garamendi: and part of that consumer protection agency focuses directly on the mortgage market out there and deals with those mortgage companies selling subprime mortgage opportunities to people that had really no about to pay it back. so those people may have invested whatever money they had in a home and when it became time for the re-authorization or the resetting of the interest rates, they couldn't afford it. they lost their investment, they lost their home. they may have also lost their job because of the collapse of the mortgage industry and the housing industry and so eight million americans were out of work and as both of you very, very well described, the situation in which those americans that may still have a job may have lost a good portion of their pension. either directly through lehman

brothers collapse or through the crash of the stock market. the combination wiped out 401k's, the word around was there were no longer 401k's, they'd become 201k's. we need to have that consumer protection agency in place to monitor wall street to monitor the mortgage lending marks out there, to make sure that those products are appropriate for individuals. without it, we're going to go right back into the same kind of problem that nearly took down this country's economy and the world economy. ms. speier, it looks as though you want to add another element to this discussion about what the law should be. . ms. speier: those who were selling the product, the originateors of the loans weren't holding onto the instrument, had no skin in the

game, sold off to wall street and sold them off again and again. one of the things that's required in this new bill is that you will have to have some skin in the game, that you will have to have reserves, that you cannot leverage like we have seen happen over the last couple of the years. but the interesting thing about the subprime market that just came to light, the industry also realized that these people weren't equipped. if you were a $14,000 a year gardner in east l.a., you couldn't afford a $700,000 home. since there was no document tation and it was going to be sold and the teaser rate was no longer available, you were going to come back and refinance that loan again. and so the fees to the originator, to the bank, would be generated again. so there was a huge churning in

the industry as well. mr. garamendi: we wound up with a situation in which the financial industry had set up a scheme to sell mortgages to people who couldn't possibly pay those mortgages over time. they were often sold with teaser rates, low interest rates for a year or two and reset to a much higher rate so the payments would be impossible to make at that point. and then they took those products, those individual mortgages, put them all together and repackaged them into this magnificent tower -- ms. speier: tower of shame. mr. garamendi: tower of shame. and then took individual pieces of those products, took them out and repackaged them -- ms. speier: as a side bet. as a side bet. they stayed in this tower, but they took them out in a manner

that allowed you to just bet for and against them. and as long as there was someone on the sell side and someone on the buy side, it was ok with wall street. mr. garamendi: on the buy side, they would be giving information that was inaccurate. the standard and poors, the rated agencies of the world would go out and use some -- i don't know -- gym milk, to rerate -- gimmick. rerate it as though it was more valuable and more secure. so we had a cabal here and the regulation of wall street is so critically important to us in our ordinary life, in our ability to keep a job. it's important for the financial system of america. banking is crucial to the economy. and when you get a banking industry that's playing financial games rather than

making loans, we're going to find ourselves in trouble. the creativity of goldman sachs, we now know from the hearings, we also know that other major banks and mortgage lending companies were playing similar games. that's what we try to do as democrats is to rein in wall street and put new rules in place to force banks to be banks, not to play risky financial games but do the every day lending, taking deposits and making a loan that is sound and making those loans on wall street. what's happening in ohio? what do you see from your constituents in ohio about main street? is main street a place where the banks are making loans? ms. kilroy: i hear from my constituents, people who are developers, the ability to obtain capital and expand their

business to hire more people isn't there. they aren't able to get the loans. it's important to get that moving again to get our main street economy, our real economy going again. and too much of the money is somewhere else in the pipeline. we need to get it out there to main street. and i know several of us are working on a number of bills and issues to help expand small business administration loans and others but we need to get the banks in a position where they are doing the kind of lending that helps small business and mortgages that make sense because it's the right kind of documentation, down payment and other finances are in order. mr. garamendi: the statistics are really frightening and what's happened with wall street. if you look at what is happening, they aren't making loans. wall street isn't making loans. and many of the community banks

don't have the capital to make the loans. the capital is being tied up in these huge banks. what we are looking to do as part of this reform is to push the capital down to the local banks, down to the main street banks so they can make loans to people. however, if you take a look at the large banks, the medium-sized banks in 2009, they have reduced the number of loans they made by 7.4%. it was the steepest drop in lending by the large banks since 1942 and that was the beginning of world war ii. the 22 firms that received the most bailout money, wall street bailout money, cut small business loans by $12 billion in 2009. meanwhile, and this is the point you were making a moment ago. meanwhile, the top 38 largest financial firms gave out $145

billion in record pay to their employees in 2009. that was an 18% increase from 2008, which was also a very high year. so what's happening here is that wall street's philosophy seems to be all about greed for them and poverty for the rest of the nation. that's got to end. and so what we need this reform of wall street. we need to put in place very clear rules. no more games with derivatives. if you're a banker, you're a banker. you're not a loan shark on the street selling a bad loan. you are a banker and take deposits and make loans that are sound, secure and make those loans on main street, not to another wall street shark. so what we want to do is to take the derivatives out of the banking business. if somebody wants to play the games of a gambler, they aren't

going to gamble with taxpayers' money or depositors' money, but separate and apart from banking. the senate bill seems to be moving in that direction. when it passes the senate and comes back to the house in a conference committee, i want to see derivatives out of the banking business and let them be handled by wall street firms that aren't banks. if they want to play the game, let them play the game. that will make the difference back in concord and walnut creek in my district. ms. kilroy: will the gentleman yield? mr. garamendi: of course. ms. kilroy: we need stronger regulation of derivatives and make them much more transparent. but the point you have made just now about the wall street pay is interesting. and one of the things that i think that infuriates people when they see they are being

hurt, jobs have been lost, shops have closed up, and yet they see the people that are responsible for taking our economy to the brink of disaster are getting that kind of a reward. and also, we need to see the corporate boards and the corporate shareholders take some more responsibility for what their corporations are doing. and i think some of them want to do that. and one of the things i would like to see happen is that shareholders get some kind of a say, some kind of an up or down vote on this kind of compensation. and not only do they get to vote, but when you have shareholders that are maybe hedge funds or pension funds or mutual funds, that they need to disclose also how their proxies are being exercised in these decisions about pay. mr. garamendi: you mentioned the issue of wall street pay.

the numbers are really astounding. in 2007 before the collapse, wall street paid out $137 billion to its employees. in 2008 in the midst of the great collapse, they actually reduced it. they went down to $123 billion. but in 2009 while unemployment in america was hovering well over 10% and in california, 12%. in 2009, the wall street fat cats paid themselves $145 billion. i believe a lot of that money was our taxpayer money that we put in wall street to shore up the banks. and instead of making loans to main street, to the contractor to the fellow who wanted to manufacture more ladders, that wanted to do and improve his business and hire people, instead of making loans to them, it appears to me that they took

the money that was used to bail out wall street to stablize the economy and stablize the banks, they took that money and they put it in their own pockets. that's reprehensible. there was a bill here circulating. it hasn't passed, but i think it ought to pass, these wall street bonuses, $145 billion is part of, i think it ought to be taxed, 80%, 90% tax in which they used our taxpayer money, we ought to get that money back, take that money back and put it into the local banks so that their financial situation is shored up, so they can make loans to the businesses in our communities and tell wall street, folks, the big rip-off is over, the big crowd is over. there's going to be a law. there's going to be a tough law regulating wall street, reining

the excesses of fat cats on wall street who came to the u.s. senate with such arrogance that somehow they were the kings of the world and financial managers of the world and they could create out of nothing -- wasn't there an aesop's fable about spinning gold from wool? maybe that's what those characters were doing. they were creating something that had the appear answer of value but had no value and nearly cost the american and the world economy. it also cost some 10%, almost 11% of every working man and woman in this country their job. that's reprehensible. and it's time for congress, time for the senate -- excuse me, congress did it back in

december. time for the senate to pass a strong bill. send it back. let's get this thing done. let's rein in wall street. ms. kilroy: i voted for the house bill. i supported the house bill. i would welcome an even stronger bill from the senate if they would pass something along those lines to make sure that the excesses of wall street are reined in. there's appropriate regulation. these exotic products don't bring our economy down again. there's accountability. and if some big house gets in economic difficulty, that's not in the position for taxpayers to bail them out. we need to make very clear that there's not going to be a taxpayer-funded bailout. and there needs to be the kind of resolution authority or some kind of orderly method to protect the rest of the economy from a company that has gotten

into trouble. mr. garamendi: you know, there's -- and it's something i learned way long ago at the university of california and i had taken an economics class and that was the american private system of the economy was dependent upon competition and that laws were put in place more than a century ago to eliminate concentration so that there are many, many players in the marketplace. it seems as though we have forgotten or the republican sfration in the 2000-2008 -- republican administration in the 2000-2008 that one of the key ingredients is many, many competitors. but what happened during the 1990's and 2000-2008 was a concentration in the banking industry so that now just a handful of companies, huge meg aver banks -- mega banks control

a huge proportion of the american economy. there is a proposal made by the senator from delaware to limit all financial institutions to no more than 10% of the financial market, so when they get to 10%, they can no longer grow, they would have to shed the business and in that way, keep many, many players in the business so there would be good competition and simultaneously, create a situation that not one bank is too big to fail therefore eliminating the need for a taxpayer bailout. i like that when i learned that many years ago in the role of competition in the marketplace. but the financial regulation law in its final form has to deal with this issue of too big to

fail. i don't want, you don't want, i don't believe the american public wants to see another financial bailout with our taxpayer money going to wall street so they can faten their wallets on our hard-earned money. we know things are coming back. but let's not end this discussion in a down mood. . if we look at where the american economy is going, these lines in the red are the bush years. this is the unemployment rate actually growing in the final years of the bush period, we were losing about 800,000 jobs a month in the -- in the quarter in the final quarter of the bush period. now when obama came in, we see the beginning of the turn-around with the unemployment, monthly unemployment statistics changing so, yes, the first

month of the obama administration in january, february, it was the same as the last month of the bush administration. but now, we see a steady decrease in the number of people losing their jobs. this is the result of three things happening. the first is the wall street turn-around, the obama administration getting control of wall street in the early months of 2009, followed by a very courageous action taken by congress to -- which was called the american recovery act. the stimulus bill. and that began to put people back to work, keep people employed, i know that in california, it was an extremely important piece of the puzzle of keeping our schools open, keeping teachers in place, then preventing further erosion of the economy. so that began to take hold we began to see the number of people losing their jobs on a

month-to-month basis declining so in the last month, we're seeing the numb of people employed rising, getting jobs rising. we still have an extraordinarily high unemployment rate, we're not close to being home yet. we've got a lot of work to do. part of that work is to make sure that wall street doesn't ever again put at risk the job of a family, put at risk a home mortgage, put at risk the american economy and indeed the international economy. so that's where we're headed. we've got some more work to do. i'm going to wrap this up from the perspective of ohio, one of the states hardest hit for many, many years now but a state that's coming back with leadership such as yours. ms. kilroy: you're correct that things are improving but that

we're not back yet. we were able to keep teachers, police, cadets were able to have another clats in the city of ohio, keep firefighters on the job, keep teachers in school. we put money in the pockets of hardworking americans with the biggest tax cuts in america. people on food stamps or who were unemployed got a raise, not the kind of raise wall street gets, and we know that money goes directly back into the local economies and that helps build the path to economic recovery. we'll continue to focus, on jobs, on our economy, and holding wall street accountable and passing a strong wall street regulation bill. i look forward to working with you on that. mr. garamendi: there's been some good work done, but the

job is not finish. the stabilization of the american economy has a long, long way to go. one piece of that is the work going on in the u.s. senate and i beg them to send us back here to the congress, a very strong, regulatory bill on wall street. reen in the excesses, -- rein in the excesses, provide transparency so people can see what the problem is how the game is being played. push the derivatives out of the banking business so that's all separate, collateralized debt oobligations, regulate the derivatives and make sure that we never get back into this again. maybe in the next month or so, we'll finish this critical piece of work and it's hopefully going to be done with the support of the republicans. we know that for a long time, they tried to staal it here in congress but fortunately the democrats were able to put our

bill out, send it over to the senate, now with the republicans in the senate backing away from their support of wall street, hopefully we'll get that bill over here, finish this job and do what is absolutely necessary for the american economy and indeed for the world's economy. with that, let's let this night pass and we'll get back to work tomorrow morning. thank you. madam speaker, i yield back my remaining time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from texas, mr. burgess is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

mr. burgess: i thank the speaker for the recognitionism come to the floor tonight for the leadership hour on our side to talk more about this health care bill that we passed six weeks ago because it was a pretty sweeping piece of legislation, we passed it kind of quickly a lot of people may not have understood everything contained therein or the implications of the things contained therein. so from time to time, it is worthwhile to study a little bit about what we did and how we got there and maybe why it was done and if anything, a look at what's over and ahead, over the horizon for people of this country as they begin to adjust to life with this bill. let me just say at the outset that i did not vote for this bill. i do not approve of this bill. the process was flawed. in fact the process was absolutely toxic to this house,

to the united states congress, in fact, to the country at large. never before has a piece of legislation this sweeping been -- this sweeping in scope and its impact on the lives, the daily lives of the american people, never before has a bill this large passed with only the support of one side of the aisle. in fact, never has a bill like this passed that did not at least have some measure of popular support. but the bill passed with a great deal of difficulty because it did lack popular support from the american people and now, six weeks after the passage of this bill and the bill signing ceremony down in the east wing of the white house, now six weeks later, if anything, opposition to this bill has hardened, and for that reason, i believe this bill ultimately will have to be repealed, ripped out root and branch, and then get on about doing the things people told us they wanted us to do. had we bothered to listen

during the summer town halls of august of 2009, perhaps we could have delivered something meaningful for the american people, but instead we decided to push again with a partisan agenda, and let's be honest, madam speaker, the only thing that was bipartisan about this bill was the opposition. because indeed, at the end of that evening when we passed this bill, you had 35 or 36 democrats join 178 republicans in voting against this bill. there was no bipartisan support for this bill either in the house or over in the other body. in fact, the bipartisan nature of this bill was the opposition. the american people are now subscribed to that notion as well, what's ahead for us? well, there are some court challenges, attorneys general in various states, i think at last count, 20 or 21 states, have said they're going to register challenges to this

bill. that's a significant number. i suspect there will be more over time. the concept of negating the bill through a supreme court challenge is one that is far from certain, but it is certainly worth the effort that the attorneys general across the country are putting forward because again, the bill at its very heart is so flawed and so taxic -- so toxic. if you go back and look at the things that led up to the passage of this bill six weeks ago, you have to go into last year, and deep into last year, to find where the roots of the problem lay. and you know, it almost goes back to a year ago last february with the passage of the stimulus bill. stimulus bill famously passed without any republican support. all the pundits and commentators around the town were absolutely astounded that not a single republican would vote for the stimulus package.

but it was in those negotiations, such as they were, the meetings that occurred down in the cabinet room in the white house where the minority whip, eric cantor, tried to bring some ideas to the table about what this stimulus ought to look like and what the republican position was on the stimulus bill and it was, well, wait, not so fast. we want -- we won, we won the election. what you all say here doesn't matter. it was really that comment that set the tone for the balance of 2009. now there were opportunities where both sides could have come together on some aspect of what ultimately was included in the health care reform bill. i will admit those opportunities were few and for between, but they did exist. indeed, even individuals such as myself, so-called back bencher, reached out to the other side, both to the

transition team and the democratic leadership of my committee and said, look, health care is important to me. i didn't give up a 25-year medical career to sit on the sidelines while you guys did this. let's talk about the areas where there can perhaps be common ground. but those offers were never seriously entertained by the other side. they knew what they wanted in their health care bills and they wrote them exactly as they wanted them. now, we finally got a chance to see the health care bill about the middle of july of last year. it came over the transom late one night with a note attached to it that said, read fast, we'll mark it up in committee in a day or two. indeed, that's exactly what happened. madam speaker, i ask you to think back to a piece of legislation, not that many years ago, the clean air act, which passed in the early 1990's. sweeping legislation, changed things for a lot of people in this country.

arguably, there were good things in the bill, arguably there were things that were contentious in the bill. but there was, i'm told, in our committee, committee on energy and commerce, there was an eight-month markup on the bill. legitimately, members of the committee hated each other at the end of that, but it was important. it was important for people to see the process and for people to understand that both sides did play a role in crafting this very, very complex piece of legislation. and the proof has been that over time, the bill has delivered on what it was intended to do. indeed, arguably, the clean air act has improved the quality of air in many locations around the country. and the effects were significant as far as businesses were concerned, but not crippling and people were able to make adjustments to the legislation after it was passed and arguably, it has been a

difficult but good process for the american people. now, that's an example of how things can work. it wasn't easy. it took months and months and months to do it. but ultimately it did have support from both sides of the aisle. contrast that with the health care bill. the three committees that worked on this bill, my committee on energy and commerce, theals committee on ways and means and the committee on education and labor, those three house committees worked on this bill. we actually had, by comparison a lengthy markup in energy and commerce. we had eight days of markup. four of those we were in recess subject to the call of the chair because the chairman of the committee was trying to get his blue dogs back in line after the he lost an amendment early in the process, but nevertheless, we had eight days to work on the bill. the other committees had 24 hours to work on this bill. at the time, it seemed like a big bill.

it was 1,000 pages long. that is a big bill. it got bigger in the house in the fall and bigger still after it left the senate. last july, the bill was 1,000 pages long and to work through and mark up a 1,000 page bill probably was going to take longer than four working day, which is what we got in our committee. but it darn sure was going to take longer than 24 hours, which it was allotted in the other committees. the bill was amended in the committee work this summer by all three committees. interestingly enough, some of those amendments were republican amendments. interestingly enough after the bill was wrapped up, after the work was wrapped up on the committee process, the bill left the committee and went over to the speaker's office. there it grew from 1,000 panges to 2,000 pages but significantly, while the bill was doubling in size, it was shedding pages that were the

passed amendments that were bipartisan at the committee level. most of the amendments passed in the committee never saw the light of day when the bill came to the full house floor last fall, even though the bill was substantially larger, largely because of input from folks down at the white house who worked hard with the speaker's office for several mt.s to get a compromise package they could bring to the floor to get passed. . most of them were deemed in excess and they lost out along the way. one of the things that was really striking during the course of the year and several months that we worked on this bill was just about a year ago, there were six groups that met down at the white house along with the members of the administration to talk about things that they might do to get a health care bill passed. so in an effort to show goodwill

towards the new administration, the america's health insurance plans, the pharmaceutical management association, my a.m.a., american medical association, american medical device association, employees unions met down at the white house and decided there were things they could bring to the table and give up as far as financing of this complex health care bill. and i'll never forget, they went out into the rose garden and had a huge press conference where they described $2 trillion savings that were described, that's over 10 years in things that were going to be given up and this was going to allow the house to pass or congress to pass the health care bill because now everyone was on the

same page and everyone was working together. there's just one problem. no one from the administration ever communicated to at least those of us in the rank and file on the legislative end what was contained within those bargains, what was contained within those deals. and in fact, beginning in september, when i began to question and ask, can we see what those deals were? can we see the copies of the emails that were exchanged? can we see the notes or the minutes that were transcribed during those meetings when all of these agreements were made to produce this $2 trillion in savings? and we didn't write anything down. madam speaker, i ask you, $2 trillion in savings, which was on the table, at least according to the president and white house in may of last year and no one wrote a single word down as to what the deals were?

it kept surfacing, while they would deal with the bill in the senate, something would come out and they would say, you can't tax the hospitals for this because that wasn't part of the deal. well, what was part of the deal? and why can't we know what was agreed to down at the white house so we can to, if nothing else, even if we don't agree with what happened, we can work around the deals that were crafted down at the white house. one night it was particular stunning. senator mccain wanted to introduce an amendment that would have allowed for re-importation of prescription drugs. that is not a concept i support. there are real safety issues surrounding re-importation, but the senator should have the right to offer his amendment and argue the merits of his amendment as well as people should have the ability to argue the merits of their case and have the vote and make the

decisions. but to stop senator mccain in the middle of his discussion and say, wait a minute, you can't do that, because we had a deal, well people recognize that. that's just not right. that's not the way things should be done. and it was particularly galling because the president when he was running and campaigning for the highest office of the land repeatedly said that this was going to be a different process. his would be a different presidency. he would bring people together. the age of post heist partisanship and people with good ideas would be welcomed and transparent and covered on c-span so everyone would be aware of who was on the side of the american people and who was on the side of the special interests. this was the promise made to the american people during the course of a presidential campaign and i recognize things are said on the campaign trail

and i recognize that sometimes promises are made that become very problem matic or difficult to deliver. but this was a central part of the argument. let me quote to you what the president said when he was a candidate for office. quoting now, that's what i will do bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors but bringing all parties together and broadcasting those negotiations on c-span so that the american people can see what the choices are because part of what we have to do is enlist the american people in this process, closed quote. well, that's exactly right. remember a few minutes ago, part of the difficulty in passing this bill it never enjoyed popular support. it's a tough bill and tough concepts. it's not something that people are going to embrace unless you bring them along and educate them as part of the process.

about although it was promised, that unfortunately never came into being. in fact, after being frustrated with being stonewalled by the white house. in december i introduced a resolution of inquiry. the resolution of inquiry means that the committee is required to -- after it's filed, the committee after a certain number of days is required to have a legislative hearing on the resolution and if it passes, obviously, the requests go down to the white house. now, chairman waxman felt that in fairness, some of the things for which i was asking would be protected by executive privilege and not wanting to be in a protracted fight that might well have resulted in an affirmation of executive privilege, but still recognized as a member of the committee and legislative branch of government, i should

have access, that other committee members should have access on to some of the things we were requesting. six of the 11 things i was requested, the chairman said that's reasonable, you should have those things. and he and ranking member barton sent a letter down to white house counsel and said we would like for you to produce this information for the committee and for the inquiry because it's information that should be available. while the white house may argue that they complied with that request, all we have ever gotten have been press releases and reprints of web pages, never the depth of the documents that were asked for in the resolution of inquiry. we are continuing to push that. but here we are in the early part of may. the meetings were held a year ago in may and june of 2009. the initial requests went out in

september. the resolution of inquiry was filed in december. brought up in committee at the independent of end of january and this is moving with glable speed. tonight, i want to reassure you and in fact the white house that i'm going to be tenacious on this and relntless. we need that information and should be made available. my beef here is not with the american hospital association, the american medical association, phrma, the insurance companies or anyone else. certainly they have the right and the obligation to go down and negotiate and make argument in favor of their clients they represent. i have no problem with that. where i have the problem is that this is all being done in secret and being done behind closed doors, no paper trail to trace and hold accountable and yet

when we get to the work of writing the legislation, not so fast, we have a deal, you can't do that, members of the legislative body should have access to the same information that members of the administration to which they had access. now, this bill passed in march, but it was the bill that passed the senate on christmas eastbound, not the bill we passed out -- eve, not the bill we passed out of committee and came back to the house and passed in early november. those aren't the bills we talked about. there were interesting things in those bills, a little bit of good, because when the senate took up its health care bill, it decided to do something different from what the house had done. that's ok. the senate is a legislative body in its own right and they

certainly have the obligation and it is correct for them to do their work the way they see fit and under normal circumstances, the house bill and the senate bill, if they are different, would be joined to go together in some type of conference process and that's what everyone on the senate side thought would happen. but in reality what occurred is the senate picked up a bill that had already been passed by the house, h.r. 3590. if you remember, that was the health care bill number. that was a bill that the house passed a year ago in the late summer or early fall of 2009. it was a housing bill when we passed it on this side. we passed it and sent it over to the senate to await further work on a housing bill. but it was picked up on the senate side. the housing language was all stripped out of the bill.

the empty shell then became the vehicle for inserting the health care language and that's exactly what occurred between thanksgiving and christmas of 2009. but the important part of this is, it was a bill that had already passed the house. and when it passed the senate, all that was necessary to do, it didn't have to come back to conference committee or iron out any difference. you could bring it back to the floor of the house of representatives, ask the question, as was asked here late in the night of march 20, ask the question, will the house concur with the senate amendment to h.r. 3590? and that amendment, of course, switched it from a housing bill to a major-sweeping piece of health care legislation. over 2,700 pages long. but the house did agree to the senate amendment. and as a consequence, that bill left the house of

representatives late that sunday night. zipped the quick trip down pennsylvania avenue and signed into law on tuesday and could move just that quickly because of the nature of how the bill was constructed and how the bill came to be in the senate and how it was passed in the senate. this became important because i don't think deep down inside, i don't think members of the other body as they put this health care bill together on christmas eve, i don't know they had in their mind how do we get the very best health care policy written and included in this bill? they were more thinking about a math problem that faced them. how do we get a bill that will get a yes vote from 60 senators so we can cut off debate and pass this bill and get out of town before christmas and oh, by

the way, a big snowstorm was bearing down on washington on christmas eve and there was a lot of anxiety in the other body, a lot of reason to want to get things down and get things wrapped up for the end of year and come back and smooth out any rough edges. because after all, we always go to conference on these things and even if we decided not to go to conference, there is something called pre-conference where things would be decided and the two bills put together and the finished product could be passed by both bodies. but when massachusetts held a special election and the senate seat that had been held for years and years and years by a democrat and won by a republican, the 60-vote majority thing was called into question and it was not certain that the senate would have the 60 votes necessary to cut off debate because the person who won that

race on the republican side in the special senate election had campaigned on the notion that he would not be the 60th vote to push this health care bill across the finish line and this health care bill that many americans had looked at and rejected. so a senate race was held and won by someone who said, don't count on me to be your 60th vote to get this thing passed. now, we have an entirely different equation and entirely different math problem here on capitol hill. you have a senate-passed bill. you have a house-passed bill. they are vastly different, but the leaders on both sides said, you know, i just didn't know we can get this done in conference committee. . it was also a big uphill climb to get democrats on the house side to vote in favor of the

senate health care bill. with good reason. the house had worked long and hard on its health care product, and although i didn't agree with the policy and i didn't agree with the legislation as written, it was still a far better product, it had nowhere near the number of drafting errors, outright mistakes, and earmarks that the senate bill did. the senate bill was thrown together quickly and on top of that, it was riddled with errors. who wants to put their name next to a yes vote for a product like that when we've got a health care bill on the house side that while it might not be perfect and certainly i didn't support it, still the product itself could, you could argue, was a much more evolved product than what had come out of the other body. but the arithmetic problem was what it was.

it was felt the only way to get a health care bill passed in this first session of the first term of president obama was to pick up and pass the senate bill. i will always remember being on a radio show the wednesday morning after that special election in massachusetts where the question was posed, do you think the democrats have enough votes on their side to pass the senate bill? i said, no i do not. someone broke into the radio show and said the speaker of the house asserted she does not have enough vote to pass this bill on the ho house side. i said, i think that's exactly right. this bill contains so many errors, no one is going to be willing to put their name to it. but over the six weeks that ensued since that time, there were multiple discussions and

-- well, multiple discussions that resulted in a number of people on the democratic side of the aisle who had originally been a firm no on the senate bill beginning to waver and say, well, maybe. ultimately they ended up being a yes vote for the bill and just by the barest of margins, they did get an affirmative answer to the question, will the house now concur with the senate amendment to h.r. 3590? now, drafting errors, the bill h.r. 3590 is replete with drafting errors. we are likely going to be encountering problems in the drafting of this now law for years and years and years to come. members of congress were surprised to find in some of the published reports in the little newspapers that circulate up here on the hill that in the days following passage of the bill we had can

selled our own health insurance and the health insurance for our staff because the way the bill was drawn, the way the bill was drafted, was that members of congress will, and their staff, will be required to buy their insurance in one of the state exchanges. the problem is, the state exchanges are not actually set up until 2014, so as it stands right now, though health insurance premium is still deducted every month, right now it's not clear if, indeed, with the bill having been signed into law and that being one of the things that was going to take effect immediately, just what the practical effect of that is. and oh, by the way in an ironic twist to that, members of the committee staff are exempt from that. members of leadership staff are exempt from that requirement that they buy insurance in the state exchanges. members and staff at the -- at

the administration, down at the white house, are exempt from that requirement, as are the political appointees at the federal agencies. so, again, it does seem somewhat ironic that the principal people involved in drafting this legislation that would be committee staff, leadership staff, staff from the white house, and staff from the political appointee side of the federal agencies, all those groups, which were essentially the ones that wrote this legislation, exempted themselves from this requirement that they buy insurance in the state exchanges. members of congress and their personal staff are going to be required to do that. again, this is something that is certainly fixable at some point. it's simply going to require the will to do so. you do hope that no one gets into trouble before that fix can occur and of course it's very difficult to generate much sympathy with the american

people who feel that congress probably shouldn't be covered by insurance when so many people are uninsured in the country anyway and as a consequence, that now is a talking point mens of congress do have, because we did say if it's good enough for the american people, it's good enough for us as well. the -- another part of the bill that's not widely known but it is significant, there's been a phenomena in recent years of what are known as physician-owned hospitals and there are some members of congress who do not like the concept of a physician-owned hospital because they feel it's an inherent conflict of interest. on the other hand, no one knows better how a hospital ought to run and what a well-run hospital looks like than the physician who uses the hospital every day of his or her working life. and i will also tell you there's nothing quite like the pride of ownership in wanting to deliver a first class

product for your patients and physicians who are in an ownership position of facilities, as long as there are some parameters that are followed, physician whors owners of those facilities want their facilities to be the best in the area because that's the way doctors generally are. we're intensely competitive and we always want to be first and we always want to do things for our patients that are first class. but written into the bill is language that, although it will allow the continued existence of physician-owned hospitals that were inin existence on the day the bill was signed into law, it does not allow for the expansion of these facilities, so no new beds after march 20. but you have some situation, i have one back in the district i represent in north texas, in fact, i just went to the ribbon cutting on friday for this beautiful new medical facility for the people in flower mound,

texas, and they are justifiably proud of this new facility that was inaugurated at the end of last week. but here's the problem. although the hospital, because it was far enough long in the development process at the beginning of the year, when all the bills were being written and passed, because it was far enough along, it is allowed to be licensed. but because of the very explicit language in the bill, it can be licensed for no more beds than those that were in operation on march 20 the day the bill was signed into law. well, as the hospital was still just shy of completion on that date, and had no operating beds, they are now stuck with a situation where they have a hospital, which has a license and a medicare number, but has -- is licensed for zero beds. because no beds were in operation on the day the bill was signed into law. again, that's one of those

problems that can be fixed. it's a technical correction. but it does require recognition by federal agency, health and human services, the center for medicare and medicaid services, as well as tying up good deal of staff time and a good deal of time on the staff of the medical company that operates the hospital to try to get everyone on the same page with this and get this problem ironed out because at least for right now, they feel like they've been left with a fairly difficult position in that they are open and generating bills to pay, but they have no way of generating the income to pay those bills. the actuary for the center for medicare and medicaid services produced a report just after the health care bill was signed into law. we're all familiar with the argument that -- arguments going on as the bill was being debated. the congressional budget office said the bill was going to cost

just under $1 trillion over 10 years' time and in fact, the very often-repeated line that the bill was going to save over $100 billion in the first 10 years of its existence because of savings that were going to occur from medicare. now, the congressional budget office does work for the congress of the united states. the actuary for the center for medicare and medicaid services works for the federal agency. the actuary over at the center for medicare and medicaid services actually had a different read on the cost of this bill and the likely savings generated from this bill. according to some news accounts, the health care report generated by the actuaries at health and human services was given to secretary sebelius more than a week before the health care vote. if that's true, then officials within the obama administration, perhaps even

the president himself, continued to sell their plan as a cost-reducer when they knew that costs would actually rise under the plan. according to the report, quoting here, the reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote, close quote, said an h.h.s. sort, again quoting, which is actually the point of having a review like this, wouldn't you think? close quote. that's exactly right. if you've got information that significantly impacts the cost or savings of a piece of legislation like this, yes, it does seem reasonable to make that information available prior to the vote because it might influence whether or not the vote actually was in favor or opposed because many people were concerned about the cost of this bill, but were reassured by statements by the speaker of the house and the president and the majority leader that the bill's costs were under control and in fact

the bill was delivering a cost savings. imagine the surprise when the actuary produced a report that said the -- in actuality the bill cost significantly more than what the congressional budget office outlined and in fact the reported savings in the bill in fact did not materialize. we've had a lot of discussion on the effective of this -- on the effect of this bill on businesses both large and small. small businesses are obviously concerned about the effects of the fines they might be required to pay if they either do not provide health insurance or too many of their employees seek subsidies in the state exchanges than the federal government -- then the federal government will come in with a fine for those businesses. you think of entry-level type positions that may be affected by the additional cost burden placed by putting the -- by

putting the fines on these relatively small employers. i have heard from a number of small employers in my district, primarily these are people who employ individuals at small restaurants, fast food franchises, and again, we're talking about entry-level type jobs that may now be reduced in number because of the overall increased cost that's going to come about as a result of the fines that might be levied if too many of their employees seek subsidies under the state exchanges. additionally, you have the effect on large businesses and large businesses may in fact look at this through an entirely different lens. ok, we are providing health benefits to our employees now. it costs a lot. the costs are going up every year. the senate and house of representatives just passed this large health care bill,

but it did nothing to contain costs but added additional requirements onto what type of insurance i'm to provide my employees. so looking at the balance sheet , cost of insurance, many, many millions, perhaps billions of dollars for a large employer, cost of the fine, significantly, significantly less than that cost of insurance. now, you hope that employers will do the right thing and say, well, but it's still important for my employees to have this employer-sponsored insurance, but, but if not everyone feels that way, then in order to maintain whatever sort of competitive edge or margin that a business is required to maintain, if one company says, look, i can offload a lot of cost and just simply pay the fine for not having insurance for my employees, and that is a significant shift in dollars, and a significant savings to

the, in fairness, it's a significant savings to the employer, to the bottom line, by offloading the cost of relatively expensive employer-sponsored insurance and now just paying the fine and letting their employees compete for insurance policies in the state exchanges as those are set up. it's not going to happen overnight. a lot of these things won't be occurring in 2013 or 2014. but it is important for people to be aware of the types of changes that are pending out there, perhaps there will be some room for modifying some of these things, perhaps there will be a way to -- to remove some of the more onerous things facing us in this bill or perhaps even remove the bill itself and get back to fixing those things that needed to be fixed in the first place. but you also had members of the business community, large employers, telling members of

congress,ing members of congress and the leadership on my committee, that, look, be careful because we are going to encourage -- incur some significant costs from what you're doing in this bill and it may be necessary, it may affect our bottom line. so you did have companies restate projected earnings -- earnings shortly after the bill was passed and the chairman of my committee was upset by this and said, these companies are just doing this to embarrass the president at the time of the bill signing and so sent out the word that all of these c.e.o.'s from these companies that had restated their earnings would get the opportunity to come to our committee and tell us all about why they thought it was necessary to restate earnings on what should have been a national day of exulltation when the president signed the health care bill and instead they were putting out press releases about the fact that they were going to have to restate earnings. but it turns out that the restatement of earnings was because of requirements from the

securities exchange commission primarily that said if a company is going to have a significant change from what it has previously published as their earnings projections, that they are obligated to be public with those and tell people what the restated earnings are and why they're restated. so in fact, the heads of these companies were simply doing what they were required to do under federal law with the securities and exchange commission and as a consequence, when that was explained to the committee, this hearing that was to occur on april 2 1, in fact was postponed and postponed indefinitely. but not before, not before the word sort of went out, don't you dare cross this administration because if you do you may get to come to our committee on oversight and investigations on a committee on energy and commerce and explain your actions to members of the

committee and to the american people at large because, of course, these proceedings are transparent and they are covered on c-span. the health care costs are likely to go up significantly for large employers, a medical device maker warned that new taxes on its products, remember, there's a separate new tax on medical devices, new taxes on its products could result in layoffs of 1,000 workers. their accounting also estimated there would be thousands of other layoffs and consumer cost increases in the businesses, perhaps in the hospitals, perhaps in the centers that provide those types of devices. those taxes are going to be levied but, you know, it's not likely that those taxes are going to come out of the c.e.o. 's salaries, not likely they're going to come out of lobbyists'

salaries. it's more likely they're going to come out of the cost to the consumer of those medical devices. many of those costs will just simply have to be borne by the hospital or doctor's office because -- doctors' office because the way things work in the medical world, if you have a contract with an insurance company to provide a type of service that will not be -- you will not be able to go back and apend, oh, by the way, i've been asked to pay this 2.8% tax on every syringe i use, every other class two or class three medical device that i use in my office, surgery center or hospital, that tax will likely just simply cut come out of the bottom line of that physician's office or that hospital or that surgery center. a couple of things that i think are just worth talking about because there are some statements, some ampleations that have been made about the -- affirmations that have been made

about the health care law that was signed in march of this year, over and over again we heard the assertion, if you like your plan, you can keep it. but i think every day, as more and more is found out about what this bill actually means as it is implemented, that statement becomes less and less and less true and i rather suspect by 2014, when the full implementation of this bill is occurring, that statement will be nothing more than a distant memory. because we hear it over and over again, to avoid additional costs and regulations, employers may consider exiting the employer health market and send employees to the exchange. just as i was discussing sta few minutes ago. larger company -- discussing a few minutes ago. larger companies are looking at this and saying, there are going to be significant costs if we continue to provide this insurance. when congress passed the law they did nothing to hold down the cost of health care, nothing to hold down the cost of

insurance and what they have done instead is complicate things and we can now get out of it by paying a fine which in the long run may be a great deal cheaper to pay that fine or tax or whatever you want to call it and let our employees find their insurance in the state exchanges. the other affirmation that's been made, that again is being found to be less and less accurate, is that this health care law will lower costs. and i think we've already talked about this and i think we see it over and over again, that employers are already likely to pass new costs on to their employees. health care coverage may go up in cost due to shifting of increased taxes and fees from the provider insurance industries to the employers' employees. so that is again another one of the cost shifts that is likely to occur under this law and

giving light to the statement that this law will lower health care costs. in fact, the only place where this law others will costs is by law lowers costs is by rationing care and as a consequence, people are going to be less satisfied with cost containment measures than have been put forth -- that have been put forth. there is an unelected, unaccountable body, the independent payment advisory board, which was created in this law that is going to be convened to give recommendations to congress as to how to hold down the costs of medicare. and, again, these are likely to come in the form of pure cuts to medicare. congress will then have the responsibility to put those packages up or down. we will not be able to modify, amend or apend those discussions. it will simply be an up or down vote. historically congress has, when given those opportunities, has

declined to cut costs in those areas. witness the physician fee schedule that comes up -- used to be every year or two, now comes up every few months and congress invariably stays those cuts that were to be enacted and as a consequence there is no holding down of health care costs. nothing was intrinsically built into the bill itself or the law itself that would intrinsically work to lower costs or than cuts that will be forthcoming through this -- forth coming through this medicare -- forthcoming through this independent advisory board and it's extremely problematic, number one, if any of those cuts will be ratified by congress and if they are i think people will find that that is something that they really didn't count on and really didn't plan on. and then the third area where the information that was put

forward as the bill was being discussed, that this health care law would improve coverage, in fact, the increased taxes and regulation will lead to dropped coverage and benefits and again we've already discussed that in some detail. but those are some of the things that were mark marketed as truths. i don't know -- marketed as truths. i don't know how many times i heard, if you like it you can keep it, but i think that phrase will be found to be inoperative as this bill, the affects of this bill, are -- become more and more apparent. well, what's ahead? what's down the road? this was a very long bill, a very complicated bill. is the work finished now that congress has taken its final vote and sent it down to the white house for the signing ceremony? is the work finished on this bill or is there still parts

that have to be worked snout the answer is, the work is -- out? the answer is, the work is just beginning on the second chapter of this bill. i would encourage people who have an interest in this, a website that i maintain that just simply deals with health care policy, healthcaucus.org. we had had a forum today on talking about what's -- we had a forum today on talking about what's ahead with the rule making and the proposed rules that are going to be coming out of the center for medicaid and medicare services and although today we were talking about those rules as it affects the health information technology sector, the same concepts are important as we begin to get further and further down the road at the agency level with this health care bill. a year ago, over a year ago, when we passed the stimulus bill the information technology language was included in the stimulus bill, they've spent the last year writing the policy and

the rules and regulations that will cover the rollout of the health information technology funding as it becomes available and what we found in january was the rule that was proposed by the center for medicare and medicaid services in many ways was so inflexible, all 23 benchmarks had to be met simultaneously and it's just not the way the world works. very few people were willing to be able to do that. so for the bill to function as intended, that is provide additional funding for hospitals and doctors' offices to get this newer technology up and running sooner, to sort of jumpstart it, if you will, the net effect of the rule making that was released by the center in january was that in fact it was so draconian that very few hospitals and providers were going to be able to take advantage of it. so the intent of the bill that was passed as part of the stimulus bill to get this

information technology up and running and reward early adopters and encourage people to come along and get these things set up in their offices, it became so -- it's going to be so difficult to comply with the rule that many people will look at that and say, it's just not worth the effort. you can keep the additional funding that you were offering, but i simply cannot go there with my practice or my business. well, we are getting some -- at least the center for medicare and medicaid services is willing to listen to what we have to say, 248 members of this house, both republicans and democrats, signed a letter to the secretary of health and human services that said, please, let's try to work on this and get a more flexible and workable product out there into the hands of people and the reason this is important is because this is one simple little rule and perhaps the first one to come out of -- really not the health care bill because it came out of the

stimulus bill, but there is a flood of regulations, i mean a flood of regulations and rule making that is going to happen over at the levels of the federal agency. health and human services, to be sure, it's subset, the center for medicare and medicaid services which only just recently announced their designated head of that agency has been without -- has been without a political appointee at its head since inauguration day. so, now we have a name that has been offered up by the administration, but that individual still has to go through the senate confirmation process and it's anyone's guess as to how soon the doctor will be seated at -- seated as the new head and in the meantime, in the meantime, deadlines are coming literally at the speed of light over at the federal agency. let me just give you an example of that. part of the bill, part of the law that was signed by the

president, was that the secretary of health and human services was required to publish on its website by last friday a list of all of the authorities provided to the secretary under the overhaul of the law and that's section 1552. and what the agency did, rather than go through the bill and compile that list as they were required to do by law, what it appears that they have he done is just simply reprinted -- have done is just simply reprinted the table of contents from the bill, h.r. 3590, they just simply reprecipitationed the table of con departments from the bill -- reprinted the table of contents from the bill. you can go to the website of health and human services and look at this document for yourself. it's 18 pages of relatively small type of all of the

requirements of the secretary that are to be performed under this law. and although at this point it does appear to be simply a reprint of the table of contents, it does give you a sense of how daunting this task is ahead for the secretary of health and human services. section 1003, ensuring consumers get value for their dollars. section 1002, ensuring consumers receive care, information that allows consumers to identify affordable coverage options this thing goes on for 17 or 18 pages. if anyone is interested, i encourage you to go to the website for the department of health and human services and have a look at this for yourself. don't just take my word for it.

an even larger and more daunting document is that prepared by the minority staff on the committee on energy and commerce and this is available on the committee on energy and commerce up on the website, you have to click on the minority side to see this but it's the health law implementation timeline. this document, again, relatively small font, but it's 53 pages in length and goes through in painstaking detail what is going to happen sequentially as a consequence of passing this bill and signing it into law six weeks ago. they start out in 2009 that if events were to occur prior to the date of enactment, things that affect medicare, medicaid, indian health service and concludes way down the road in 2020, january 21, 2020, date

for states to pay for people newly eligible under the bill, the federal taxpayer pays the remainder of the cost. a lot of information contained therein and for people who have an interest in what the implementation of this bill is going to look like, people who have an interest of what the timeline looks like, people who have special concerns about, i think there's something in the bill to help me, i'm not sure when it kicks in, when it starts, i encourage you to go to the website and look at the bill. if you decide to print it out, bear in mind it's over 50 pages that's going to turn out of your printer after you click the print selection on the -- on the file. but i think it's important that people become familiar with this. this, again is going to be we passed that bill six weeks ago.

that does not end our par sis pation, the agencies' participation, the white house's participation and certainly doesn't end the impact on literally every american alive today and those who will be born in the generation to come. they will all be affected by things that are going to be happening, particularly things that are going to be happening at the agency level, health and human services, center of medicare and medicaid services, office of personnel management, it's a small agency that very few people have ever heard about but the office of personnel management is going to set up the public insurance which is going to become the de facto public option which many people thought wasn't included in the senate bill, except it turns out it probably was and it won't be called a public option, it will be called a nonprofit set up at the federal level but nevertheless, the intent and effect is the same as what was being talked about

last summer as the public option. that will be administered through a small federal agency, the office of personnel management and the internal revenue service, for crying out laud, -- loud is going to have a role to play in the implementation of this legislation. how are people going to be made to buy insurance? how is a mandate going to be enforced? well, it will be up to the tender mercies of the internal revenue service to figure that out. it may not be as draconian as putting someone in jail for nonnamente of taxes but it could be garnishment of a refound check that someone thought they were getting because they'd overpaid their federal income taxes during the year. but if they don't have proof of insurance that may be something that the i.r.s. will not be returning to them but will be using to offset the cost of providing them insurance in the exchange because we will have the individual mandate unless the supreme court agrees with the 20 or 21 attorneys general across the country and says

that provision is unconstitutional. one of the, i think one of the big travesties in the passage of this bill we already have a problem in medicare. we have a problem funding medicare. we have unfunded liability. one of the big problems we have in medicare is that patients arriving into medicare, patients who are on medicare and change location and try to find a physician who takes medicare are finding it increasingly difficult to get a physician to take on their care or their case. the problem has been, historically over the years, we have decided that one of the ways we can save money in the medicare system is to ratchet down reimbursement rates for providers and that's happened and there's an automatic formula that requires that happen every year. right now, doctors are facing what's called a funding cliff of a little over 20% reduction in reimbursement rate.

that will kick in the end of may. we've done stopgap things, we go to the edge or a little bit beyond and do something at the last minute to keep them from going over the fall into the abyss. right now the abyss does exist, it's the end of may. there's another bill out there that would fix things for a little bit longer until the end of october. that's right before election day, who wants their doctor to take a 20% reduction right before election day? these are things that we have historically punted and we did it when our side was in control as well. there was a real opportunity to fix this in this bill and for whatever reason, for whatever reason, democratic leadership and indeed the american medical association decided to take a pass on that. there's a lot more contained in this bill. i'll be back to the floor from time to time to talk about it over the coming year or two or three, or four or five, however long it takes. remember the principle -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. burgess: the principle is

to rip it out, root it out and get on to fixing the things we should have fippingsed in the first place. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 60 minutes. mr. king: thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, i appreciate the privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor. i appreciate the gentleman from texas' previous hour and his discussion on health care. and by the way, the gentleman from texas, congressman and dr. burgess' contribution on this health care debate that has gone on now for months and months and months. his intensity doesn't let up. he understands the issue. he's here on a cause, this cause is to do what we can to salvage the system that america has had and improve that system and not capitulate to this system of obamacare.

madam speaker, i take us to that. i'll cross a number of line into different subjects here this evening but with regard to the obamacare we've heard about for the last hour and the last nine or so months, we have -- we've seen a congress that's passed legislation that on the day it passed the house, it couldn't have passed the senate. on the day it passed the house we don't know what kind of bargains came in that brought about just barely the votes to get it passed. we knew the president would sign it. he wanted anything to put his name on that, by the way, the president of the united states is the one who gave the moniker to this legislation, a because macare he called it that on february 25 at the blair house at that conference that seemed to have given obamacare its legs. i'm for 100% repeal of obamacare. there isn't any part of that i want to keep or hold or sustain or expand or continue into the next year or generation.

most of it is not enacted until the year 2014. there are some small pieces enacted right away and slowly, other time, the tax increases, by the way, are enacted pretty soon so they can collect this money for the first four or more years and then charge only six years of expenses against 10 years of revenue and argue it saves $132 billion and now we find out that high-ranking people within the administration and possibly the president himself understood that the numbers that came in were not accurate, that obamacare is going to cost a lot more than they represented it to cost on the day that the legislation was passed. i don't think that's the reason to repeal obamacare. i've always thought it was going to cost a lot more than they said it would. the reasons to repeal obamacare are great in number and more varied than that. we're not going to get down to

a financial calculation. in the end, there are number of -- enough people in america that think they're going to get a free lunch, they're not going to end supporting obamacare for that. but they understand when the government runs things, there are lines. there are lines to at the t.s.a. to get into the airport, there are lines of citizens that want to come in and watch their government function. free people don't stand in line. free people, madam speaker, will go to the next place of business, if the line is too long at mcdonald's, they'll go to burger king. but when they're dealing with government, it's a monopoly. that's why the line is there the government doesn't have any incentive to expedite the passage of people through that service except to turn down the noise of the squeaky wheel because government doesn't have to compete for its customers. the government has a monopoly.

free people they don't stand in line, they go someplace else. our freedom is diminished every time the government takes up a task the private sector can do. health care is one of those. so, madam speaker, here's what i'm watching happen. this has taken place over the last year and a half and a little bit of it began under the bush administration. i start with this. $700 billion in tarp spending, half of that approved under the bush administration, essentially down to the lame duck era of his term. the other half of it. right before the election if i remember right. the other half of it was approved by a congress elected in november of 2008 and signed in by a president who was elected in november of 2008. that was president obama. at the direction of speaker pelosi and majority leader in the senate harry reid, $700 billion in tarp spending, most of it, in my view, wasted. while this is going on we had three large investment banks that were nationalized, taken

over by the froth that means federal ownership or control. management, influence, control. three large investment banks, a.i.g. to the tune of about $180 billion and then we watched fannie mae and freddie mac swallow up billions of taxpayer dollars to recapitalize them for their losses and then we saw right before christmas the president issue an executive order that takes on all the contingent liabilities of fannie and freddie and nationalizes fannie mae and freddie mac. all the markets that are the secondary loan market of fannie mae and freddie mac taken over by the federal government. then we saw general moto tores and chrysler taken over by the federal government. general motors, the federal government bought up 61% of the shares, canadian government 21 1/2%, the unions got 17 1/2%s even though the secured bondholders got iced out.

they had the secured collateral and still were iced out in the leverage negotiations that took place. so we've seen 1/3 of the private sector activity taken over by the federal government and along came a $787 billion economic stimulus plan and then along came the resurrection of the dead obamacare and the dead obamacare was brought to life, barely squeezed out of it on life support, limped through this congress, put on the president's desk in a fashion it could not have passed this congress on the day because the senate would not have approved it, madam speaker, so we saw 1/3 of the private sector profits swallowed up in the bank the a.i.g., fannie, freddie, general motors and chrysler. another 1/6 of the economy swallowed up in obamacare where the most sovereign and private thing we have, our own bodies, our skin and everything inside it, taken over by the federal

government, called obamacare. the our skin and everything inside it. we manage our lives and our bodies and now the federal government tells us what we can and can't have for tests, what we can and can't have for insurance policies what insurance policies will be approved and what won't be approved. every single insurance policy in america under obamacare will be can selled by 2014. yes, many will be reissued. some will be similar@ones they have. but there isn't a single policy that the president of the united states can point to and say, this one will be a live, viable policy in 2015 and won't have to change. every one gets can selled. they've nationalized our bodies, and they've done so the very people that stood here and since before 1973, but at least since 1973, said that because of rowe vs. wade they said that

government has no business telling a woman what she can or can't do with her body? remember that argument? remember that debate? you'll make those arguments again, you'll make them again until the end of the evert. that's the bumper sticker discussion. but that's not rational thought, doesn't substitute for rational thought. a woman should have unlimited right to elective abortion because government has no right to tell her what she can and can't do with her body. while now the same time, men and women who have argued since 1973 that government has no business telling a woman what she can or can't do with her body, now are arguing that the federal government has every business and every right to tell everyone america what we can and can't do with our bodies and have taken over and nationalized the most sovereign thing we have our own learnhood. our skin and everything inside it, managed now by the federal government, by the people who

said, that government had no business telling a woman what she can or can't do with her body, the men and women, most of you sitting on this side of the aisle, have made the argument and you don't have a rebuttal for this argument, not one of you has risen to rebut the argument i've made. i've put up the contrakixes, pointed out the hypocrisy, i made it clear on the dichotomy, i'll recognize you, i'll yield time to you, but you don't you sit there and won't respond because you know you're wrong. reminds me of the statement made by art laffer on economics, when he said, they are rebutting arguments they know to be wrong in order to curry favor with political benefactors. madam speaker that's what's going on. you have people realizing where their power base is, in order to curry favor, they're making arguments that are completely irrational and when they're caught in irrational argument they shrink away out of the chamber with their hands in the

pockets afraid to face the rationality of it, knowing all the while i'm happy to yield to you, but no, you're gone you won't stick around, won't dom a microphone because you're rebutting arguments you know to be wrong because that's what gravitates toward your political power base and it's disingenuous to make those illegitimate acts in that fashion. we've come through this continuum of the private sector activities and you add about 17% or 18% of health care on top of that, now we've gone over 50% of our private sector economy, taken over by the federal government, including 100% of the student loans and where are we next? the financial services industry. why didn't i see that coming? if someone had given me the job to, in an orwellian way, write the screenplay to a movie of how america could be taken over by its socialist agenda, i could not have imagined some of the things that have happened so

far. i might have gotten half of these things, i don't think i could have gotten the scenario down. i might have been able to envision that the banks could be taken over, that was kind of an obvious one. i'd have been able to envision the takeover of the car companies because that's actually on the socialist website, it's actually supported by the progressives, 77 of whom serve in the united states congress. and they are the arm and the voice of the socialists in america. if you just google socialists in america, will you go to the website called dsausa.org. the democratic socialists of america, madam speaker. and they're proud to be socialists. they start out and they say, we're not communists, there's a difference. well, that's -- to start out with your advertisement, you're not a communist and there's a difference, socialists aren't as bad as communityists is what they're saying. they'll argue that they don't

want to nationalize all the real estate, all the real property in america, they don't really even have to nationalize real estate in america, they just want to take over the fortune 500 companies. that's on their website. it's not a manufactured thing, it's there, it's on the website. then they say, we don't have to do this all at once, we can do it incrementally. we can take over the fortune 500 companies and these other companies that are profitable, we can take them over incrementally, we don't have to do it all at once. look what's happened. bank of america, citigroup, altogether three large investment banks, a.i.g., fannie mae, freddie mac, general motors, chrysler. those were all -- all of them at one time were all private sector entities. all now swallowed up and managed by the federal government. and fannie and freddie, $5.5 trillion in contingent liability, swallowed all that up. they can control then a large seblingter of the economy and i

wondered -- sector of the economy and i wondered, why would you want to take over fortune 500 companies and manage them for the benefit of the people affected by them, what would be the motive to do that? what would this be? it's power, for one thing. and it creates a dependency class for another. and it expands the dependency class and the democrats in this congress believe that if they expand the dependency class they will also at the same time be expanding the constituent base that will get them reelected over and over again -- re-elected over and over again. never mind that it's a direct call the on our constitution and direct assault on our liberty. it saps us as a people and makes us more dependent. european socialism, something worse than that, the argument that comes from the progressives in this congress that want to nationalize the oil refinery industry in america, they want to nationalize the petroleum industry in america, 75 other progressives, the socialists on the website, their website say,

we don't run people on the setionist ticket, we don't have socialist candidates on the ballot. we have democrats on the ballot who are progressives. they are our legislative arm, madam speaker. and, so i continue to read through the socialist website, progressive website. and we will see the gentleman from minnesota, mr. ellison, come to this floor pretty regularly, maybe not every week, at least every other week, and he puts up a blue post that are says, progressive.com or whatever that particularly website might be, and he's proud of the progressive agenda. but the progressive agenda, if you go read it, you find it on the socialist website, they're proud of it, too, and they're proud of the progressives claiming the agenda that the socialists strive. those are facts. they are not refuteble and i can flip the pages out here and put them on posters of the floor of the house without too much differy. now, bernie sanders who served

in this house -- difficulty. now, bernie sanders who served in this house argued many times that these microphones, and i debated with him occasionally, was elected to the united states senate a few years ago and became the first socialist in the united states senate. bernie sanders. progressive. he's the only progressive in the united states senate that's listed at least on the progressive's website, he's proud that have, he's proud of being a socialist and the argument about where the president stands, not an argument about whether the president is a socialist because the president voted to the left of bernie sanders. the self-avowed socialist. the argument, if it was going to be made, should have been made by the president. he should have made the argument that bernie sanders isn't a socialist, he's just masquerading as a socialist. maybe a true socialist does something different. maybe a true socialist nationalizes even fewer businesses. when i sigh the president do his -- see the president do his handshake with hugo chavez and

that same week hugo chavez had nationalized a rights -- rice processing plant that belonged to a proud minnesota company that was taken over by hugo chavez, well, that was going on, general motors and chrysler were being taken over by president obama and i thought when i saw those two together with the big grins on their face that hugo chavez is a pike when are it comes to the nationalization of business. and the question isn't is the president a socialist, the question is, he vote he's to the left of bernie sappeders -- he votes to the left of bernie sanders, so what's a better description than the one bernie sanders uses that when he uses on himself as a socialist? i think that's a matter worth note. it's a matter of fact. it's not a matter for debate. it is a matter for consideration, madam speaker. and i think it tells us something about america and about where america is being dragged and about where america will go if we don't turn back

around and take this country up to the heights that are destined for us that are based on individual liberties, rights that come from god, free enterprise capitalism, the religious found dane -- foundation and religious faith, not just the freedom to worship freely, but the values that diminish the need for law enforcement to be looking over our shoulder and sapping our energy. and i've seen a lot of energy sapped out of this country in the last year and a half of this obama presidency, madam speaker. and i don't know how much more this country can sustain. but i do believe that we have a chance and we're going to step forward on that chance to turn this around and take this country back to the heights where she was intended to be and that's going to mean an election result in november that's entirely different than the one we had the last couple of novembers and it's going to mean this republican party in this congress, by golly, better get the planks down on where do we want to go?

we better be unified behind them, we better step this nation forward so that when the election comes people will know what they're voting for and they'll be able to get behind those things that we say we're going to do and i'll submit, madam speaker, the number one plank in the republican agenda has got to be 100% repeal of obamacare. not 99.9% or 99.8% or 98%, 100% repeal of obamacare. if there are republicans that equivocate on that, if they're afraid that they don't want to take on the debate, that they don't want to put a federal mandate in to provide for and require all insurance to be extended to age 26 for college kids, for example, i want my kids to grow up, i don't want to keep them dependent. i don't want to make their bed when their 26. the law has dealt with it this way. that you're responsible for that child until you're 18 years old unless you've been divorced in

which case you might be responsible for that child until they graduate from college. i think that's a bit of an inequity. but to go to age 26 and put a federal mandate in, i'd turn this question back the other way. where in the constitution does it grant the authority for the federal government to establish a mandate that would require that insurance companies offer health insurance to the age of 26 as part of every policy which certainly raises the premium and means that health insurance is less affordable rather than more affordable? many of these things will take place and unfold in the upcoming next two years to three years, but here's the timing in the sequence of the repeal of obamacare. first, a maximum number of co-signatures on my legislation, on that of michele bachmann's and others. we're somewhere around 60, early 60's, 63 or 64 co-sponsors, madam speaker. and there isn't a good reason why anybody that voted no on obamacare can't step up and vote for repeal of obamacare and

co-sponsor legislation for repeal of obamacare. when we get enough signatures on that, we'll put a discharge petition down here at the well, a discharge petition with 218 signatures on it, requires the bill to come to the floor for debate and vote without amendment. if we could do that we could pass out of the house and if the senate could do that we could pass out of the senate a repeal of obamacare that could then go to the president's desk and president obama would certainly, almost certainly, veto the bill. all right. so the not -- some will argue it's an exercise in futility. but i put on my website and the website, thekingforcongress dwo.com website, a polling question that asks this question, do you believe that obamacare, 100% of obamacare, is more likely to be repealed or do you think that the cubs are more likely to win the world series?

cubs fan. and, do you know, 2-1 of people answering the poll were predicting that it was more likely that obamacare would be more likely to be repealed than the cubs to win the world series. i'd be happy to see the once win the world series and i'm not coming here to stirrup any cubs fans. i'm just pointing out that the cubs went to spring training this year, they're playing ball. they're throwing, catching, hitting, running, they're practicing, they're in shape, they're getting their pitching up. they're focused. and why? because they believe that their position to win the world series this year -- that they're positioned to win the world series this year. they didn't skip spring training, they went to the field. even though, now they know that most americans think it's more likely we will repeal obamacare than the cubs will win the world series, they're still playing ball. and they're not out of this at

all, it's early. they're not even out of it when it's late. until it's mathematically impossible, the cubs are always in it. but it tells you the degree of difficulty here. if the cubs are only one out of three likely to went world series, we can do this. it's not that hard. it's not as hard as winning the world series. we can accomplish this, we can repeal obamacare and by the way, if the president vetoes the discharge petition or we come back after the elections and republicans have the majority, we can perhaps then pass a repeal of obamacare and maybe the senate will get that done, too. and a senator is working on this over on the senate side. we set it on the president's desk and he vetoes it and we wouldn't have the votes to override a presidential veto. fair enough, that's a reality. but all spending bills start in the house. republican majority in the house with a deep conviction to repeal obamacare in its entirety can

shut off all funding to obamacare. so they that it cannot be implemented. no part of it could be implemented or enforced if we say so on appropriations bills here in the house. and if we do that in 2011 and 2012 we'll elect a president in 2012 whose number one plank in the platform needs to be that the first bill he will sign as president is full repeal of obamacare. . the inauguration of the president of the united states standing there taking the oath of office and once he's sworn in as president of the united states by chief justice john roberts, take his hand down and first act, he can get out his pen because we will gavel in in january of 2013, we can set up the repeal, not on the

president's desk, so when he swears in, he can have the pen, put it down, sign the repeal of obamacare and gone from history, lock, stock and barrel, with not one parallel of d.n.a. left behind because that toxic stew has become a malignant tumor and need to pull it out from the roots before it spreads. that's our duty to the american people. and that's one of the things i will work on. and i will challenge anybody who can make an argument that we've got to repeal obamacare before we move forward because there is an agenda that you can find at democratic socialists of america. and find it at the progressive website that is advertised so many times by those 77 by the ones on the ticket.

that's what it is, madam speaker. and i wanted to get it out and get it off my chest and ask the judge from texas if he has anything on his mind. and he has never been without anything on his mind. he was born with things on his mind. i yield to the the gentleman from texas, judge gohmert. mr. gohmert: i thank my friend for yielding. steve forbes was up here on the hill a couple of weeks ago and one of his comments was that we could do a complete repeal and at the same time, we could put some fixes in there that republicans have been proposing that we have had out there as alternatives at the same time. just one fell swoop so people would realize we have not been been the party of no. we have fantastic ideas that would have receive lutionniesed

health care and -- revolutionized health care and gotten it out of the management business and into the health care business where you insure against an illness or catastrophe down the road and put patients back in charge of their health care. and i had a proposal along that line that we never could get c.b.o. to score. nearly a year later. and i guess about nine months to be fair, that they have sat on that to help work for the democrats to help make sure that any of the good alternative plans could not get scored so we couldn't come in and say here's the plan that saves money, gives more freedom and does all these things. so anyway, it has been a bit of a tough year.

but the problems didn't just start with this president. and my friend from iowa knows as well, i mean, we have been heading on the wrong path for some time. of course, republicans lost the majority rightfully in november of 2006 because republicans had gotten giddy after 2001 and it started spending too much money. and the voters held them accountable. and we hope they'll continue that trend this november. but i recall my favorite president from texas that is, george bush. i think the world of him. he's smarter than most people give him credit for, but he got sold a bill of goods by a bad secretary of the treasury and told a good way to stimulate the economy in january of 2008 was to have a stimulus bill and have

$160 billion, $40 billion of which would be given to people as a rebate who didn't pay income tax. get an income tax rebate even though they didn't pay income tax. as president bush came down the aisle here, he shook hands with everybody and made his speech and then on the way back up, i didn't realize there was a mike opened that picked me up asking, mr. president, how do you give a rebate to people that didn't pay in? and that's still a problem. and then you come up, and bless his heart, hank paulsen saved his firm, goldman sachs, saved the people he worked with and chaired over and had great personal interest in. he was able to save the great american way of life to the free

market system. this created a real disaster. you can't set aside free market principles to save the free market. but it all led up to desense advertising people to just how much $787 billion is. it is an enormous amount of money. and so here we came into january of 2009, and right off the bat have a $787 billion stimulus, most of which has not been spent, even though we were told people didn't have time to read it. you got to just pass it. $787 billion will be thrown out there and we'll get the economy going. had to be passed so fast before people could read it. and yet the president took and yet the president took several days, kind of like he has getting fired up to do anything comb the gulf coast.

so he -- about the gulf coast. you can't raise taxes and think you are going to help the economy in the long run. it's not going to happen. and then we find out, we have moved from the overrulely high 39% of americans -- overly high 39 of americans not pay-go income tax to the projection of 53% of american adults will be paying all of the income tax. i think historians all pretty well knowledge that in a democracy, including this republican form of government where people can vote for candidates based on what they promise to give them in the way of benefits, once you get past

one more than 50% of those who are voting, receive benefits and not pay income tax or not pay the federal taxes, you've lost it. you head to the dust bin of history. you're done. there's no recovery from that. absent a miracle from god. of course, some of the people that are creating the problem don't believe in god, so they're really in trouble because they can't expect a miracle from god like some of us could. but 53% of americans to pay all of the income tax. and then i've heard grate dispeargement as my -- great disparragement as my friend has, the one at the washington monument and you see all these

peaceful, law-abiding people and you talk to them and find out these are people paying income tax. and we have seen the latest survey that indicated 28% of americans, up from 20%, 28% of americans identify with the tea party. well, what that means is, since those 28% pay income tax, it means that over half of the 53% projected to pay all the income tax this year, those that are really carrying the load for the country, pulling the wagon for everybody else, over half of them are tea party members identified with the tea party. quite interesting, not the marginal group. we are talking about rank and file americans who are pulling

the way with income tax. now, one of the things that would help a lot is if all the president's promises about jobs were to come true, then we would have more people able to pay income tax. and i know an awful lot of folks who would welcome the chance to pay income tax, but they can't find a job. this health care bill is a real jobs killer. i'm sure my friend from iowa, like i have, has had people come up and say, i lost my job. mit sister lost her job. these folks lost their jobs. after the health care bill passed, they had to be let go. i understand we have had our salaries cut. been told it's coming. these are economy killers and these are robbing -- these things in the health care bill are robbing america of people who would be able to have to

help with that income tax burden. it's tragic and breaks my heart to hear these people have lost their jobs because they had to ram this health care did he formed bill -- deformed bill instead of doing what's right for america. we didn't have to have people lose their jobs. and i want to mention one other thing about the tea party folks before i yield back to my friend from iowa. we heard that people were rowdy at the tea party back that weekend that health care got rammed down america's throat. and is of some of us went out and walked and saw the folks, walked down the street, people lining the sidewalks pretty thick, yelling and cheering when some of us came out who were so

opposed to health care. but as i was going back to my office from a vote over here that weekend and people had just crowded on the sidewalks and most of my friends in congress were walking into the street, i decided to get up on the sidewalk and walk through the middle of the crowd and thank them, because this was not a group for which s.e.i.u. paid their way, acorn paid their way or the federal government, these are people that had to come on their own money. nobody else's. they had to come up with their own money. they took off time from work, family, made sacrifices to let their voices be heard. i wanted to make sure i personally went through the crowd and shook as many hands as i could and thanked as many people as coy. and as i was going down the

sidewalk, people were patting on the back and i was saying thank you for coming, thank you for letting your voice be heard and about 10 people into the sidewalk, i started to reach for this lady's hand and probably 40, 50 years old, pleasant-looking enough, and she said, i'm for health care. and i thought i misunderstood. and i said i am, too, but not just this disaster. she said no, i support this bill. she wouldn't shake my hand. i thought that was strange, part of a party killer person right here in the middle of the crowd. i thought that's america. i was shaking peoples' e's hands and it was really moving at times. they were some of the sfregses we got.

-- expressions we got. 15 feet, i met a guy who said i'm not shaking your hand. every 10 to 15 people as i shook hands with people on both sides, i ran into somebody who wouldn't shake my hand because they were for the health care bill. and when i got to independents, i had a guy yell, are you gohmert? yes. and he wanted to know why i hated home skals and i explained i don't. and i try very much to do that but doesn't mean i have to embrace lifestyles that the bible says are inappropriate. and anyway, he used the s words and things i won't use. i know it's appropriate for senators like senator levin, but i'm not going to use those words down here. i don't think they are appropriate down here.

but i had them used on me. this was obviously a -- not a supporter of the tea party of me and those walking through. after i got back to my office, i realized, those people were placed about every 10, 15 feet in the middle of the crowd. i don't know what they did after they refused to shake my hand, but there were certainly people placed regularly throughout the crowd who were just that, they were placements. they were people who were put in there and they were observers. hopefully they aren't the people who yelled to try to make their conservative folks around them look bad. but i can verify and i can testify that those people were out there and they were amidst the tea party folks and they

were most assuredly not tea party people. . mr. king: this phrase comes to mind, birds of a feather. birds of a feather flock together. and that's why the unusual to see some of those birds that are not of a feather there in the flock of the tea party faithful. why would that be? i think we've seen it here on the floor of the house of representatives occasionally when we generally sit segregated fashions, democrats on one side, republicans on the other side, yes, we walk through and we talk to each other and we do business, but generally speaking, democrats there, republicans here. but on occasion, and especially the occasions of the state of union address or the address to the joint session of congress by president obama, then we'll have democrats that will come over to this side of the aisle and sit in a scattered fashion throughout over here so that when the standing ovations begin or when they don't happen it's

blended and integrated in a different way. that's by order of the speaker of the house. it's clearly by order of the speaker of the house. they didn't just spontaneously decide to go over and sit over here and try to start standing ovations and more or less change the image of the state of union address. and also we know that the left has infiltrated or at least announced that they were seeking to infiltrate the tea party crews. and some of the subversive tactics, it comes to me that especially in the times that we've had these rallies and they're really press conferences, over on the west side of the capitol, we went out and took pictures of the lawn and i know that on one occasion i asked people to be careful and pick up their litter, but i don't know of anybody else that's ever made that request and i'm thinking of three occasions when the lawn was spotless and we took pictures trying to find some litter, trying to find a cigarette butt,

anything out there on the grass, all picked up and carried away. the cleanest group of people are the tea party groups that come here that have their constitution in their shirt pocket or on their heart and they love this country and they wouldn't desecrate any of the symbols of our liberty or symbols of our freedom. but if you look at the other folks, the people on the other side of the aisle, people who make common cause with the folks that generally sit over here, on the same day that that major gathering of opponents to obamacare, there was a pro-amnesty rally, the difference is that they were wearing same t-shirts, carrying signs that came off the printing press one after another and they left litter all over this city and while the tea party groups and the antiobamacare groups were here, they had homegrown signs, they didn't have any commonality dress, they had what they owned, red, white and blue out there, plenty of flags, but not at all an army that was

uniformed or bused in. they came in on their own transportation, they made their own signs, they made up chance on the -- chants on the way and they were making signs on the fly and when it was all over, it was clean as a whistle as if it was a park that they owned. because they believe and they do own that park. i'm proud of the peaceful people that came here and i don't have respect for the folks that try to infiltrate that and cause trouble. but when i saw the rallies against the arizona immigration law and i see the bottle bouncing off of the head of a police officer and we hear the stories about refried beans being smeared on the state buildings in arizona and a swastika was painted there, those things, those are the kind of activities you would never see happen on the other side, on the tea party groups. and it's not violence there, the violence is perpetrated by people on the other side and the allegation that the n word or the f word or that spitting took place could not be

substantiated, i'm coming close to a conclusion that it was fabricated, not substantiated. i'd yield to the gentleman from texas now that i feel better having vented myself on that subject. mr. gohmert: thank you. one of the other things that comes to mind is, we talk about our freedoms -- is we talk about our freedoms and the ability to assemble, the freedom of speech, to say what's on your heart. we come to what happened last week in england where a man who was not intentionally out being a nuance but he was asked -- nuisance but he was asked by an officer, according to the article i read, who looks for violations of this type of law, ethics-types law, and this person apparently was homosexual

in practice and asked the individual about the bible, about sin. he mentioned drunkenness and a number things that would be sins as addressed in the bible and was asked about homosexuality and said, yes, in the bible it's a sin. it's hard to look at romans i and think otherwise, but anyway, this man was arrested, he was put in jail and now is out awaiting trial on his charges and it was one of the things that concerned us greatly about the hate crimes act. because we knew that bill was based on two lies. and there are publications like "texas monthly" that didn't bother to look into the facts, that many publications around the country that just ran off and jumped on the train of those

who refused to read it, laws, to read the facts, to look at facts that were being cited as basis and find that they were lies. but the two things on which that bill were based were both lies. number one, that there was an epidemic of hate crimes in america, number, two, -- number two, that it would somehow have changed for the better the outcome in the james bird case in texas, the matthew shepherd case, and the fact is that those are lies. the james bird case had two of the three -- the two most culpable defendants got the death penalty. the only affect the hate crimes bill would have had if it had been in place back then would be that those guys that got the death penalty would have gotten life in prison instead of death.

i felt like from the evidence that i read and heard about that they deserved the death penalty. in the matthew shepherd case they got multiple life sentences, so it wouldn't have affected those cases. the f.b.i. statistics show there's been no surge, uptick in hate crimes, alleged hate crimes , and those include yelling of things inappropriate. i don't think my friend from iowa or any of our friends and those that i met at tea parties would condone nasty name calling , none of the people i met. but we get into a very dangerous area. you know, there were founders that fought and died for this

country and for that thing that would later become the first amendment, it didn't exist during the revolution, but they believed the concept in freedom of speech. and they often cited voluntary as the source, some disagreed -- voltaire as the source, some disagreed, but he was often given the source for the saying, idy you -- disagree with what you say but i will defend to the death your right to say it. that helped form a basis for this country. and yet now we have evolved into this -- in this country to where the thought police have a slogan that is more apt to be, i disagree with what you say and i'm going to destroy your life because of it. i'm going to see you're fired, i'm going to see that you lose as much of your assets, hopefully all of them, as i can,

i am going to destroy your life. so we've come a long way from those days when the founders were willing to fight and die so people could say things they thought reprehensible but at least they had the liberty to say them. one of the things that gets very dangerous, when you start putting a lid on people's freedom of speech as the p.c. police around here, as the thought police have begun to do, when you prevent people from being able to say what's on their heart and vent a bit, then you build up steam. if you don't allow people to vent, they build up steam and then you have an explosion. so i know there are those that say, well, there's talk radio that's hateful and what not and actually talk radio, most of it,

is not hateful at all. but you go back to the president's own statement that we're not a christian nation. well, i'm not going to debate that. i know that we were founded by people who profess to be, although history has often rewritten -- is often rewritten nowadays and including the early 1800's, an early biography of washington that was a complete fraud, but if my gentleman friend from iowa would allow me, this is just -- this has just been on my heart because i go up time to time to the lincoln memorial and i stand there and read those profound words from that selfless man. and on the north inside wall is his second inaugural speech. and it brings me to tears every time i read it because this is a man who is wrestling with how a

just god could allow the pain and suffering to go on that he did. and it is a beautiful theological discussion, would it be all right with the gentleman from iowa? this is abraham lincoln's words in his second inaugural, it's there, carved into the marble. he said, and he was talking about the north and the south, trying to make sense of how you could have friends and family fighting on two sides of an issue. he said, both read the same bible and pray to the same god and each invokes his aid against the other. it may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just god's assistance in ringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not

that we be not judged. the prayers of both could not be answered. that of neither has been fully answered. the almighty has his own purposes. then he quotes scripture and he says, woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offensives come but word of that man by whom the offense comeeth. if we shall suppose that american slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of god must needs come but which having continued there is appointed time he now wills to remove and that he gives to both, north and south, -- south this terrible war, as the road due to those by whom the offense came, shall we disdiscern any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living god always ascribe to him. finally do we hope, fervently do

we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. yet if god wills that it continue until all the wealth, piled by the bondsmen's 250 years of unrequited toil, shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so it still must be said, the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether. with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as god gives us to see the right, let us striving on to finish the work we are, in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all

nations. powerful, powerful words. and having lost my brother a couple of weeks ago, sometimes it is a struggle when you believe in god to know the kind of hurt and suffering that goes on, but as lincoln said, and so it must still be said, the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether. and i do believe, and i don't try to push my religious beliefs on anyone else, that god normally allows us to suffer the consequences of terrible decisions. . and you do what is told, nour nation gets blessed. you do things that causes your nation to be cursed, that's what

usually happens. this is an important time. we have people who would gladly destroy everything we believe in. all the liberties we have, and yet we have people who at the same time striking our freedoms of speech, striking at our liberties to assemble as we wish, and those things need to stop. we need to stop those who by terror and by warfare would take away those things that the founders and all those who fought and died since have put at our feet and given to us as a gift. and we need to fight those from within who attempt to take them away through misrepresentations of what are truly the facts in order to pass bills that actually are based on lies and hurt the country. but i appreciate my friend yielding to me. and i yield back.

mr. king: i thank the gentleman from texas. and i was deeply engaged in that presentation. and much of it i reflect upon having stood many times at the lincoln memorial and read the second inaugural address. i need to go back. if the gentleman from texas talked about voltair, even though he was a bit of a you topist and one whose beliefs i wouldn't follow, one of his quotes stands in mind for me and i think it's appropriate here in the united states. i watched us turn from a nation of rugged can-do highly spirited people to a nation that is slowly -- dramatically turning into a nanny state where i grew up in a society where we understood we had freedom and we exercised that freedom and the prohibitions were within the

laws that prohibited us. the gentleman from texas and i have exercised that american freedom. that american freedom pretty interestingly in the country of tibet, when it was the idea of judge gohmert we should climb the mountain in the himalayas. the chinese minders job was to make sure we didn't get out of line and do things we didn't want to do and we didn't hear chinese tell us things we didn't want us to hear. and so when we said we're going to climb a mountain here and they say no, you can't. you aren't authorized to go up there. china and tibet is a society where it has to be permissive for you to act.

america has been a society where you have permission to do everything that's not proper prohibited. we ask -- prohibitted. and so we ask the chinese minders, you say we can't go, but we're going. and that's what we did because we are in a country because you don't have to have permission because we have the american spirit. we went to the top of that mountain and i will never forget that experience going up, being there, looking at that visita of snow-capped peaks, the huge lake down below, that spot on the globe, i'm glad we stepped forward and did that and i don't know if there is any other people that would have gone up to the top of the mountain. we don't wait for permission. well, this can-do america that we are has been an america that came in and by the sweat of our

brow, we built a nation for hundreds of years, the can-do entrepreneurial spirit and liberties that are laid out in the declaration, most of them, voltair said back during that period of time, he said history is hob boots going up the stairs. that describes what is going on. the history or the people that work marred, that produce, that are competitive and sometimes, madam speaker, combative. and when people get a little too soft and sitting on the pillows and have the waiters bringing the grapes to them and popping a grape in their mouth like ahab the arab, that is what happens when a person lays back. and what has happened with the

voltair statement is hob knife nail boots going up the stairs and slippers coming down. and they came down the stairs, because they got too lazy and they got too much -- too laid back without being competitive. they lost their sense of where they were going and why. i don't want to be that as a nation. i don't want to watch the hob-nobodied boots go up the sfares or stairs coming down. i want freedom, liberty, strong national defense, tax policy that stops punishing productivity and can tax consumption because that's an incentive for more consumption. i want school choice so children can be raised with free choice with real american values, if we can do all of those things we can take this nation to the next level of destiny, and if we

trail, we hold back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa for a motion. mr. king: i move the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. accordingly the house stands accordingly the house stands other bills that could come up later this week dealing with energy-efficient home innovation and earthquake recovery. live coverage of the house is hear on c-span. this weekend, the book "the

business of happiness." this documentary on the nanking massacre and more on q&a." attorney general eric holder says that the attempted car bombing in new york city was clearly a terrorist plot, and a naturalized citizen of pakistani descent have been arrested. this justice department briefing as a little less than a half-hour. >> good afternoon. as many of you know, faisal shahzad was arrested late last night in connection with his alleged role in the attempted car bombing in times square last saturday. shahzad a naturalized citizen born in pakistan is in federal custody today.

he has been and continues to be questioned by federal agents. as a result of those communications, shahzad has provided useful information to authorities. we anticipate charging him with inactive terrorism transcending national borders, 10 duties of a weapon of mass destruction, use of a destructive device during the commission of another crime, as follows assorted explosive charges. i want to emphasize that this investigation is ongoing and we continue to pursue a number of leads as we gather useful intelligence related to the terrorist attack. based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering americans in one of the busiest places in our country. we believe that the suspected terrorist sectioned a bomb from rudimentary ingredients, placed it in a rusty suv and drove it

into times square, with the intent to kill as many innocent tourists and theatergoers as possible. make no mistake, although this car bomb failed to properly detonate, this plot was a very serious attempt. if successful, that resulted in a lethal terrorist attack, causing death and destruction in the heart of new york city. it is a stark reminder of the reality that we face today in this country. the reality that there is a constant threat from those who wish to do us harm simply because of our way of life. they are organized terrorist networks that are targeting a. there are lone terrorists here at home and abroad who are targeting us. as months, even years go by, without a successful terrorist attack, the most dangerous lesson that we can draw is a false impression that this red no longer exists. it does. and the department of justice

and our partners in the national security community have no higher priority in disrupting those attempts and bringing those who plot them to justice. in this case, that is exactly what the dedicated agents and prosecutors from the department of very fun person agencies have achieved through exemplary investigative effort. over the last two days, men and women from the fbi, the department of national security division and u.s. attorneys offices worked with nypd, dhs and state and local partners to doggedly tracked the evidence in this case. the quick action from fbi agents was critical to alerting customs and border patrol agents of alternately arrested him last night at jfk airport as he was attempting to flee the country. fbi agents have been able to link additional evidence from searching shahzad's current home. they work with their state and local counterparts in new york, connecticut and other jurisdictions to gather evidence and intelligence related to this

case. we are also coordinating with other members of the president's national security team to ensure that we use every resource available to bring everyone responsible to justice or these agents and prosecutors or the back one of our national security affairs. any of them doing their jobs outside the spotlight of the media. i want to commend them for their results in this case and their unwavering commitment to their jobs. we owe them our gratitude and our respect. finally, i want to take this opportunity to remind all americans how important it is to remain vigilant. the suv and time scare was first outed by an alert bystander who reported it to authorities. by being aware of his surroundings and by thinking quickly, he helped save lives and forwarded a potentially devastating attack here at as always, anyone who notices any suspicious site tbd should report it to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. i would like to turn it over to secretary napolitano.

>> welcome to thank you, attorney general holder. as you know, late last night u.s. customs and border patrol agents at new york's jfk airport apprehended and detained faisal shahzad, a naturalized united a citizen in connection with saturday night failed bombing attempt in times square. due to the vigilance of the cbp officers working with all of our law enforcement partners and relying on enhanced dhs security measures, cbp was able to quickly identify, apprehend the subject. i want to express my gratitude to all of the federal, state, local law enforcement personnel whose cooperation and hard work on this case led to the swift identification and apprehension of shahzad. this was a great team effort and one person at work in this case was truly exemplary. in particular, i'd like to thank

the dedicated men and women at the department of homeland security whose work on the case was instrumental in apprehending the suspect. customs and border protection successfully apprehended the suspect after its agents and analysts have been tracking outbound flights for potential suspect for the past three days. immigration and customs enforcement agent served an important role in the joint terrorism task worse in new york, as the levon forstmann agency on the international aspects of the investigation interviewing witnesses and running down leads. the transportation security administration was contacting targeted operations at regional and international airports designed to identify and apprehend the potential for it. i would also like to give special thanks to the alert citizens in new york city whose crucial tips helped authorities prevent what could have been a deadly explosion.

what happened on saturday shows the critical role that the american people play in the security of our country. if anybody ever had any doubt about it, this failed bombing attempt barely shows the value of the same, if you see something, say something. thank you and i'd like to turn it over to the director john pistole. >> thank you and the secretary and good afternoon. i also want to commend the men and women who worked around the clock literally sent saturday to find those responsible for what could have been a deadly attack. a host of agencies, departments and individuals working together toward a single goal, a collective success under ivan s. comes down to using traditional law enforcement techniques such as federal court authorized search warrant along with intelligence-based authority to maximize our evidence and intelligence gathering. using these techniques, we were collectively able to identify

mr. shahzad as the person who purchased the 1993 pathfinder depicted in the back of the room. cbp identified his extensive overseas travel which lead to expanded investigative steps, enabling us to fully identify and locate and eventually arrest shahzad. a key step in this process occurred yesterday when shahzad was played on the no-fly list and as the secretary mentioned, cbp did enough to any job identifying him as a jfk flight last night. georgie's and house for its agents agents with nypd interviewed mr. should start last night and early this morning under the public safety to the miranda rule. he was as the attorney general not a cooperative and provided valuable intelligence and evidence. he was eventually transported in another location for memory and burning dyson continue talking. so we in the fbi, without one forstmann and intelligence partners here at home and around

the world continue to investigate this matter. we are correcting a forensic examination collected by nypd at the scene. much of this evidence has been transferred to the fbi laboratory in quantico, virginia 17 test the individual debacle composition of material in the explosive device. we also want to test the potential impact of the device to ascertain what would've happened had it worked as intended good and we are close similar to what the one forstmann intelligence partners to cover all possible ties, this particular individual has or may have had to radical extremism or terrorist organizations come up oath at home and overseas. and were pursuing every every lead in that regard. and that's always, we are seeking out those who would orchestrate these kind of attacks. prevention will continue to be our endgame yet so i too would like to add or thanks to the said offense like the vendors who first noted suspicious

vehicle. this investigation like others rekindled in the past year once again reminds us that our work is not finished and we will continue to work with our partners and our citizens across the country to find and stop those who would do us harm. thank you an alternate over to the commissioner. >> thank you, john. at the new yorkers can rest a little easier today and that's due in no small measure to the investigative muscle of fbi agents in new york city, police detect this, not to mention the eagle at work of the custom officials on duty last evening at jfk airport. particularly also want to commend paris barajas, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york and although he's a very able assistance, would look very closely with the u.s. attorney and of course not just on this case, but every day tunic certain criminals in the southern district. now this nissan pathfinder in

times square had a license plate from another vehicle. that the number on the dashboard had been removed. the break in this place took place on the new york city detective was able to go under the deal call and get the hidden bit number. this identified the owner of records who in turn has been able to sell it to the suspect who drove it right into the heart of times square. now this is déjà vu because the world trade center attack in night t. 93 had similar set of facts, where a detect it was able to get the venom number off the ryder truck that had exploded there. and if you recall, the bombers were arrested when they returned to get their deposit. but they would've been no engine block to examine if it wasn't for the heroic work of the new york city bomb squad days. it was a very hot evening.

he suited up in a very oppressive keyer, which i'm sure everyone saw and they worked tirelessly through that evening, all through the next day. so if you look at the component, the timer, the gasoline can, at the end pda, the propane tank, the gun box, put all of that together, that lethal assembly really made a very big hurt locker. and it wasn't until all of the part of the bomb were taken down so we were able to tow their field-goal to a forensic garage. now by my calculation, from the time faisal shahzad drove into and of course the broadway and park that vehicle, the one he was apprehended last evening at the jfk airport, it was 53 hours and 20 minutes. now we know that jack auer can do it in 24 minutes.

but in the real world, 53 is a pretty good number. so i want to congratulate everyone who had a role in this very important investigation and really the fact that it was done in record time. and true, we can breathe easier, but we always have two be vigilant because in the eyes of the terrorists, new york is america and they want to come back to kill us. thank you. >> i'll take any questions you might have. >> attorney general cummings said the suspect provided useful information. teenage love others provided any clarity to whether he acted alone or in concert with others? >> the investigation is ongoing and i would want to reveal any of the information we cleaned other than to say she has been talking to us and providing us with useful information. >> is there any involvement in

this? >> he has done that. >> there are reports that there have been arrests and packet and related to this in event. is that correct? if so, how many? and you anticipate further rest in this country? >> well as i said, the investigation is ongoing and our aim is to determine who exactly was involved in this matter to bring all those people who are involved to justice. i'm not aware of what the exact situation is with regard to the facts he talked about in pakistan. >> you're not aware of any rest in pakistan at this point? or mac i've heard reports about it, but i'm not in it positioned to comment on it. [inaudible] >> the investigation is ongoing. i would want to talk about what we have been provided. >> how did he get on this plane and had the plane departed from the gates when he was faced from the no-fly list?

>> i don't want to get into details of timing and no flies, but the way she was apprehended was that since, particularly since christmas, cbp has been instituting a number of rules that enable us to further check against new data or information that is provided, even very recent information against passenger manifest on planes. and they have been working, as you might imagine, around-the-clock on this one. and so as new data was supplied, over the course of the investigation yesterday, they were able to match it once the plane manifest was complete, go on the plane and arrest them. >> undersecretary, he sang at if this had happened before christmas, that plane may have taken off? >> no, i'm not saying that. what i'm saying is in this particular case, the news entre

new rules were particularly useful in allowing us to rest in before it took off. [inaudible] [inaudible] have you found any of that and there was talk about 26 and the travel overseas? league is looking into whether he may know about some military training for contacts with [inaudible] >> were examining a whole variety of things in connection with the questions being put to him in the questions he's answering. we want to know as much as we can about his background, where is gone, what he's done. so although things are being explored. >> no comment on that. i believe at this point there is no connection. >> do you believe the suspect came to the u.s. with the intent of doing this? >> i would want to comment on that. as i said, the investigation is ongoing and we will need to continue our interaction.

>> was the suspect under surveillance and did there come a point when he smacked off the radar yesterday? >> a number of individuals have not been this investigation and mr. shahzad is one we identified as someone who would like to find out more information about. so during the course of the investigation from saturday night we identified him as a person we would like to talk to. we were able to locate and, away from his house, which you saw on the news, richburg, connecticut there. and that we were able to provide that information as the secretary mentioned the cbp for proper handling and other agencies in case he was stopped in another context. the bottom line was we were able to identify, locate and then detain mr. shahzad. >> one quick follow-up. in terms of the travel of people

to other areas were known terrorists are known to congregate, can someone talk about the u.s. government is consent to track though, the types of people and what more can be done in that regard when they turn to the united states? >> i can comment from the fps perspective and part of the agency there a number of steps taken to identify potential terrorists, whether that's the country from which they originate in terms of terrorist training camps or the individuals they associate with. and obviously to go into detail, which make it into a source of the methods of how those individuals might be identified would not be appropriate. >> when you returned from pakistan he went under some secretary screening and the last of the mass continued in some way to his arrest? why was he screamed when he came back and what was learned? >> without getting into a lot of detail, he was screamed when he came back because some of the

targeting rules apply. he was subject to secondary screening. she is a naturalized u.s. citizen and i'm just going to leave it at that. >> can you give us a diagram of the bonded cells. looking at this, what is your professional assessment? is this an example of somebody's who's had lawmaking training or is this kind of winging it? >> there are a number of opinions on that. it does not appear from our opinion to be the most sophisticated device. there are a number of opportunities for the device to fail. they're actually 33 different components that could have been operational, but as was noted, certain portions such as the and 88 ignited, but not the main gasoline or the propane tank. >> is that not as operational as

someone once that? >> welcome equally have the intent to do harm. it's a question of whether his training and knowledge of material that he had to the initial assessment is that it was probably not efficient great to cause a type of explosion such as we saw the ammonium nitrate fuel in oklahoma city. >> how one with the question under the public safety to miranda and if somebody could walk us through the decision to determine that and who made that decision and why. >> from the fbi perspective, we'll go into detail in terms of how long. that's on the significant issue right now. suffice to say that t. provided valuable information and evidence during that time and then as attorney general noted, he was verandas later and continue to cooperate and provided a label information. >> how close were you to losing them? >> well, i think there's high

confidence in cbp and their ability to the job. they went beyond what i think most people would expect in terms of just checking -- is that what you're asking? [inaudible] >> i think you mentioned earlier you had identified by saturday night you're saying, correct? >> no. >> could you answer the question about how close you were to losing them? >> i'm not sure to what you were referring to. >> how close we to losing him when he was on that flight? >> yeah, they pulled him off -- they pulled the flight back, as you know, to decay. they also have the authority of the flight actually taken afterward at the plane plane to turn around and come back. >> attorney general, yesterday and through much of last night. and was aware of the track and i was going on. and i was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him. >> could you tell us w