magical ability to make money out of nothing. they make notations on their records and they have more money than they had the day before. the federal reserve bank decided that they would assume responsibility for $186 million loan to a hotel chain. the federal reserve became a sucker of last resort and in doing so, the federal reserve made you, you, america, the sucker of last resort. let's move on. after 2008, pretty much nothing happened because nobody knew about it, nobody knew what was inside the maiden lane l.l.c. pot. no one knew it was the red roof inn or anything else. why was that? we don't audit the federal reserve bank. all they had to do was come up with a line and for two years nobody knew what the heck was in it. and then after enormous political pressure from congress, from this entire

country, the federal reserve gave us a list of assets and what they called notional value for those assets, because you know, when you can make money, create it, make it appear, everything's all notional. that's all there is. and so we found out at the beginning of this year that among those things that the taxpayers now have responsibility for through the federal reserve is this wonderful, enormously valuable, at least they want you to think this, chain of hotels called the red roof inn and stretches all the way from california to maine. one of the properties happens to be the red roof inn convention center property right in orlando, right in my district. i'm so proud. i think i'll stop by and ask for a free room. what happened then? what do you think? it went bad. it went sour. because right now it's not a good time for the hotel industry

and leveraged this business to the gills and leveraged it up to here, half a billion dollars from a series of property that barely made any money in great times and not so much great times as you may have noticed. they aren't paying on the debt. what was debt is now equity, because when a company goes bankrupt and can't pay its creditors, the creditors take over. interestingly enough, the "wall street journal" reported two weeks ago that the major creditors of the red roof inn are moving in and saying we aren't getting money so there are two other entities that put up the money to do this leveraged buyout, they are moving in and taking the hotels over. went to city bank and say, what are you doing? we are moving in and taking over the hotels. third entity, we are trying to work it out with them. that's the collateral.

not a single word from the federal reserve. not one single word. . we don't audit the federal reserve. so we can't know. there's no way to know right now. and the federal reserve may be for all we know letting these other sharks, these other wall street sharks, city bank -- citibank and others, move in and take over all these hotels and mare they're doing nothing. we don't know. we just don't know. because we don't audit the federal reserve. so, america, congratulations, you own a hotel change -- chain. in fact, if you keep this up, america, you'll own a whole bunch of hotel chains. because it turned out that the made it maiden lane l.l.c. pot made a lot of money, 86% that have is called the hospitality business. so, america, before long, take a

look, america, you'll have enough to put a hotel on marvin gardens, on park place and probably on boardwalk, too. you'll own all the hotels in america. and isn't that something? isn't that something? you didn't even know it. but, look, that's not all the federal reserve's put up. the federal reserve has put up half a trillion dollars in mortgage-backed securities. what are mortgage-backed securities? they are securities backed by mortgages. securities backed by homes. so, guess what, america? before long, will you not only be owning hotel chains all around this country, but you'll be owning houses, too. maybe your neighbors' houses, maybe your own houses, but not exactly. because when the federal reserve owns these assets you don't exactly hone it. in fact, you don't own it at

all, you have no control over it. what's happening is that when these mortgages go bad, the federal reserve owns your home. and if you can't make the payments, the federal reserve becomes your landlord. so isn't that interesting? for all this time we've been hearing about socialism, communism, creeping government controls of our economy, how we shouldn't have the government owning g.m., how we shouldn't have the government owning major banks and it's been happening by stealth, because we don't audit the federal reserve. how elts could -- else could it possibly be that we could end up owning a hotel chain and not even knowing about it? if you're concerned about socialism in this country, if you're concerned about communist, -- communism, about government control, let's audit the federal reserve. and let's find out once and for all who owns the hotels, to who owns the houses and let's try to put this wild beast that creates money out of nothing and jams it into the pockets of special interests like maiden lane, like

bear stearns, like j.p. morgan, like all their friends, let's put them under some degree of restraint before it all comes crashing down, these hotels, these houses, before it all comes crashing down on us. every time the federal reserve makes that money, every time they do that, every time they create that dollar by their magic, they're taking the dollar that's in your pocket and they're making it cheaper. worth less. mr. ellison: i'm going to reclaim my time now. let me thank the gentleman -- mr. grayson: one last word if the gentleman will yield. audit the federal reserve. mr. ellison: all right. the gentleman's presentation is not part of the progressive hour. i thought we were going to talk about financial reform and i'm not going to yield back to the gentleman right now. but thank you, i'll thank the gentleman for his presentation. and so now we can switch again.

i do want to thank the gentleman for his presentation. i thought that was an informative and certainly it is part and parcel of this whole dialogue, this national debate we're having about financial reform and certainly getting to the bottom of our financial situation in america is important and finding out all we can about what happens with our banking system and the federal reserve is also extremely important. so, i was talking about the importance of the bill. i was talking about, first i talked about consumer financial -- the consumer financial products agency. i moved on to discuss further the regulations that will take place in mortgages. and so we would focus on making sure that mortgages that are poorly underwritten and sold into the secondary market, that's something that the financial reform will stop and

bring that to a close. let me also now move on to the other -- another element of the financial meltdown that will be addressed by this important financial reform. and that is -- and that is irresponsible compensation practices. the fact is that one of the things we've seen in this whole financial meltdown is not only have people -- americans, been losing their homeses, 2.8 million foreclosures last year, at the same time we've been seeing americans losing their homes, week of been seeing some of the most outrageous compensation from the financial services industry itself, many of the financial -- much of the compensation emerging from the very firms that the american people came together to bail out in the first place. so, the financial reform bill addresses perverse pay practices that encourages executives to take excessive risk. if an executive can engage in a practice that is risky and bad for the firm and then get paid a

lot for it and if they end up making money they get the money and if they don't make any money and drive the firm into the ground and hurt the depositors and creditors in the process they still make a lot of money, this st not a good practice. so financial reform talks about executive compensation. to discourage the executives who take excessive risk at the exences -- expense of their company's share hoders and employees and the american taxpayer. for the first time ever, shareholders of publicly traded companies will have an annual nonbinding say on pay vote and compensation packages and golden parachutes for top executives. if you look at the history of merrill lynch, this is a company that basically careened into the ground and ended up being in such a financial state of affairs where it was going under or it was going to be bought. ended up being bought by bank of america. but the executive -- the c.e.o. who was guiding that company ended up leaving with $150

million in compensation. this is an afront to the hardworking american people, but also it sets up perverse incentives, the wrong incentives, for people who are at the head of these firms to make good decisions and do the right thing by american companies. the bill also requires financial firms with at least $1 billion in assets to disclose federal regulators any incentive-based compensation structures, federal regulators will then be authorized to ban any inappropriate or risky compensation practices that pose a threat to the financial system and to the broader economy. the legislation also comes in response to a broad consensus among many leading financial experts including paul volcker and others who believe that compensation structures played a role in the financial crisis of last year.

i also want to talk about investor safeguards. one of the things that financial reform will bring forward is safeguards for people who invest. now some people might think, you know, i don't trade stocks but if you have a 401-k or if you have a pension you actually do so indirectly. as a matter of fact, recent events such as the massive $65 billion, with a b, billion madoff ponzi scheme and $8 billion in the stanford financial investment fraud highlight the need for comprehensive reforms at the regulatory system that fails so many investors. to better safeguard investors in the future, the bill will enhance the s.e.c.'s enforcement powers and funding by doubling its authorized funding over five years. and that means it's going to have more people to do the job, more policing, more cops on the beat, and this will epable the s.e.c. to obtain the tools needed to better protect

investors and police today's markets. the financial reform bill will also create a whistle blower bounty program with incentives to identify wrong doing and -- in a securities market and reward individuals whose tips lead to successful enforcement actions. with a bounty program, we'll effectively have more cops on the beat for security regulations. failures to detect the madoff and the stanford financial fraud demonstrate deep deficiencies in our existing securities regulatory structure and the bill cause for an -- calls for an independent comprehensive study of the entire securities industry to identify reforms and to force the s.e.c. and other entities to improve investor protections. the madoff fraud also revealed that the public company accounting oversight board lacked powers it needed to examine -- and to examine the auditors of brokers and dealers. in addition, it exposed the faults of the security investor

protection act and the law that returns money to customers of insolvent fraudulent broker dealers. the bill closes these loopholes and fixing these shortcomings. so investor protection is an important part of financial regulatory reform, reforming wall street. so whether we're dealing with too big to fail, whether we're dealing with exploitive and abusive predatory lending practices, or whether we're addressing issues with regard to investors or whether we're addressing other markets, consumer protection in general, this financial reform bill is important and it's important for people to know what the good it's going to do them and the difficulties that it will prevent -- present in the future for people who want to keep the status quo. the people who want to keep the status quo, we've already talked about them. massive amounts of money being spent to stop regulatory reform. what we need is real reform. consumer protection, financial

stability, we need a disillusion authority for too big to fail banks. we need executive compensation reform, we need investor protections and we need something called regulation of derivatives. now, when a.i.g. first hit the news, a lot of people were thinking, derivatives? what is a derivative? a.i.g., american insurance group, is a huge insurance company and a unit of this huge insurance company actually was issuing these derivatives known as credit default swap. a credit default swap, in simple language, is like insurance. it's not insurance. but it's kind of like insurance. what it means is that if you can buy it, like an insurance policy, if the value of your -- of interest you expected to receive or the value of the bond is not coming back to you in the way that you thought, so that

you can buy credit default swaps, if the value of this mortgage-backed security drops, then i'm going to collect on an insurance policy that can cover me, if this happens. the only problem i say is like insurance but it's not. if it's insurance you have an insurance regulator who would require that any losses would be -- that the company had enough capital in its books to cover losses in clapes based on losses. but in it particular situation, that kind of reform was not in place, that kind of regulatory control was not in place. mortgage-backed securities began to decline and people who brought credit default swap to hedge the risk against them, those people made claims and a.i.g. did not have the money to meet those obligations, which then put the united states taxpayer on the hook, and now we own essentially

a.i.g. as well. this is not a god thick. the markets are not supposed to operate like that. and derivative reform is an important part of what we need. derivatives are an important financial instrument. they will be traded on an open market. and when ever they are not -- and whenever they are not, they will be required to be reported to authorities so that there is some transparency and some real information about what is going on in the derivatives market. and so that's -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. ellison: thank you. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. gohmert: thank you, madam speaker. i appreciate that.

it's been an interesting week. it's been an interesting time. you know, there are things that we agree about between our parties. i heard my friends across the aisle talking about we need to have an audit of the federal reserve and that is certainly that i agree with and everybody on my side -- i know, agrees with. we ought to have an audit of the federal reserve. as newt gingrich has said repeatedly, if transparency is good for the c.i.a., it ought to be good enough for the federal reserve. we need to know what they're committing us to. we need to know what they're doing. how much trouble they're getting us in. these are things we need to know. i'm delighted to hear my friends across the aisle join us in our cry for an audit of

the federal reserve. the difference between friends on this side and friends across the aisle is my friends on the other side from the numbers, have the power to get an audit done of the federal reserve. there are a number of things that can be done when you control the house and the senate and the white house. and even if the white house doesn't agree, which they very well may not because of all the shenanigans that's been going on in the financial realm. the congress still controls the purse strings. there are things that can be done in this house and down the hall in the senate that would bring this to a head and would have the federal reserve crying uncle, we'll go ahead and allow the audit. enough of the shenanigans

blaming one side or the other. well, the majority party, such a massive majority, it's a real pain to get done. and i would be satellited if we had colleagues across the aisle that would come together with us on this side and require that audit of the federal reserve so we would know what has actually been going on so we could set some goals and go about fixing this economy, ficking this broken -- fixing this broken financial system so we can get it back on a road that makes some sense. now, i heard my friends across the aisle talking down here today and as well yesterday evening about the financial bailout. and i was rather disappointed. i know some like my friend, marcy kaptur, have been adamant about the problems that have been ongoing in the financial system going back to the fall of 2008.

and she and i, there are many things we don't agree on but they were both for complete transparency. she's been there all along. and demanding full responsibility and accountability in the financial sector. and i've been so pleased with the things she said in the last couple of years since the tarp bailout in september, october of 2008. but then hearing other colleagues across the aisle talk about republicans are trying to stop financial reform because republicans are so closely aligned with wall street. i mean, tt thing has been played long and loud for years. and the heritage foundation finally had enough and said, let's see what the truth is. so they did some research, and

the fact is anybody in america can go on huffing post or some of these websites when you find out who contributed to what and they found out the real truth. and the real truth is that wall street donates to the democratic party and to now president obama about 4-1 over the republicans. now, you can go to goldman sachs and find an officer who has donated a max to -- maximum donation to senator obama and a maximum donation to senator mccain, but you do a little more research and you check that address and you find out, well, gee, the wife and all the children, though, made maximum donations to senator obama and

to the democratic party. and you find out, gee, there is a financial link here that has been completely misleading statements about for years. and the truth is now in black and white. let's forget the misleading statements about who's in bed with whom and just follow the money. and that's all you have to do. and you find out some cases, some of the wall street firms it may be 3-1, some may be 5-1, but average about 4-1 donations from wall street firms to the democratic candidates, including senator obama, now president obama. so once you know that is the relationship that exists financially and has for years, then it causes you to wonder to

look at all this talk about financial reform and making these people accountable. we're going to bring them to -- we're going to make them account for all of these things and we're going to make it so they can't do this and they can't do that. but once you mow that the people that are doing this so-called financial reform, what amounts to another bailout bill, once you know that relationship, then you have to look at the -- at the bill being proposed more carefully. now, i know we have friends that come here to the floor and just like they did on the cap and trade bill, made statements on the floor that this bill will not cause one single person to lose their jobs, this is going to be a job creation bill. and they got their talking points and they dutyfully to

the floor and they talked about how -- dutifully to the flor and they talked -- floor and they talked about the cap and trade bill. we didn't get the last 300 pages i think it was around 3:00 in the morning or so and then actually we did not have a complete bill when that bill passed up there at the clerk's desk. i kept asking a copy of the full bill assimilated and then we found out there wasn't one. it was in the process of being assimilated. so nobody on this floor could see a complete bill assimilated and know what it all meant together. and yet that got rammed through. but just on the original -- about 1,000-page cap and trade bill, if you go back to 900-something pages, there was a fund there created in the bill that obviously my colleagues were not aware of because i know they wouldn't

come down here and intentionally mislead people. but the people, whether it was the liberal left-wing groups that wrote that bill, we know that we had a chairman or two that said they didn't know what was in the bill even though it was coming through their committee, somebody knew. so since it wasn't the committee chair, the members of congress that was on the committee. members on e floor were not sure because they were making statements on the floor nobody losing their job because there was a fund created that would pay people who lost their jobs as a result of that bill. so whatever liberal left-wing group or whatever special interest groups wrote that bill for the members of congress

that was rushed in here. so much of it at 3:00 in the morning when people couldn't read the assimilated bill, whoever wrote that bill knew people would be losing their jobs as a result of that bill. pure and simple. they're losing their jobs. there was even a fund in there that would provide something for people who lost their job as a result of the bill and had to move to follow the job. but in that bill, the cap and trade bill, there was no provision to pay for travel to india or china or argentina or the other places that those jobs were likely going to be going so they weren't going to be able to follow the bills. the one good thing for those who voted for that disastrous bill here in the house is that i still feel strongly that once people find out what all was in that bill that they voted for, then they would lose their

jobs. many of them would lose their jobs in here, as a member of the house, as a result of that bill. so it looks like the good news for those that vote for the bill and lost their job as a result of it is there is a built-in provision that may provide them with some compensation and travel expense when they lose their job as a result of people finding out what's in that bill. that's the kind of thing we're dealing with here. people thinking they were really telling the truth, coming in here and passionately proclaiming what was put before them but not reading the bill. that is so important. so when we apply this cynicism once you know that the people pushing this bill are the ones that have benefited 4-1 in contributions from these very firms that will be so-called

reformed, then you take a more skeptical look at what's in the bill and we get to find out a little bit more about what's in it. as obviously as some of my friends have not looked at it thoroughly enough to know what's in it and know it's not really the financial reform bill that they thought it was. it's more like a financial deform bill, more of another bill bailout bill, or i would say perhaps we could rename it as the goldman sachs monopoly bill. a friend across the aisle had a blowup of some of the monopoly pieces. it applies. it's a perfect, perfect display for this financial bailout bill because it's going to allow certain firms to have monopolies.

this bill is going to create some monopolies. so one of the truths about this bill is that there are back door bailouts despite the rhetoric there are backdoor bailouts in this financial deform bill or the goldman sachs monopoly bill. the dodd bill from the senate, it codifies these backdoor bailouts that were used by the federal reserve to pump money into bear stearns. it also was used by the federal reserve to pump money into a.i.g. and to fannie mae, to freddie mac. and then this thing that troubles me so deeply, systemic risk council. it's in the bill. a systemic risk council. i was hoping two years ago as we got into the tarp business

and some of us actually read that disastrous bill and could see that it was just not something that should be done in america, some of us hoped, well, since we've seen that secretary paulson is complotely sold out to goldman sachs -- completely sold out to goldman sachs, it's an effort to bail out the buddies at goldman sachs. we're bailing out a.i.g. he wanted to do that. and low and behold billions of dollars go from a.i.g. to goldman sachs. so it did help his friends, but some of us had helped that mr. bernanke might be the level head in all of this, but having been in meetings with mr. bernanke and having watched him closely on television and read so many of his comments, it appears that he has been caught up as well in this power grab

and this lofty ivory toweress' been placed in with this incredible amount of tower without accountability. it was stalin who said, with power, dizziness. we've seen some of that dizziness in the way these financial markets have been handled by people at the top. but, it appears from the things mr. bernanke has been saying that he has bought in, hook line and sinker, into this systemic risk business because he could get to say, you know what? this is who i'm naming the systemic risk. and when the federal government says, this firm or this bank, this company is too big to fail, that means the federal government will not let them

fail, that means they can go in the red and run their competition out of business knowing the federal government will not let them fail, but their competitors don't have that insurance. that's why you might as well call it a mo normally -- monopoly bill because it's going to allow firms to become monopolies. we saw after the tarp firm, boy, goldman sachs got to be a bank in addition to being everything else to all people. and one of the things that concern me, as i read through the tarp bill, when i got toward the part, toward the end where it said that it was raising the debt ceiling by 1.-- $1.3 trillion, and we knew that it was a $700 billion bill, well, why would you need to raise the debt ceiling $1.3 trillion if it's a $700 billion bill?

and of course we know there was $100 billion added to the bill in order to buy enough votes to get it to pass. so, it's an $800 billion bill and yet it raised the debt ceiling $1.3 trillion. there's a half a trillion dollars there, for some reason, that was built into that. so i went back through and i rewhere'd the bill and i kept pleading and -- reread the bill and i kept pleading and begging with other colleagues, please just read the bill, you'll see, we don't do this in america, we don't give one man $700 billion and say, go play with it and fix this and make us better. we never have done that in america since we've had a constitution. with that qualification, there was a man in american history that had that type of power that was given by the continental congress, by a bill that was passed december 27, 1776.

his name was george washington. this was a man who made the statement, people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove. and so like in the battle of trenton or in that 1755 disastrous ambush that the british walked into and didn't listen to washington, who was in his early 20's, we've seen pictures over and over painted by those there that washington didn't do as i was taught in the army that commanders are supposed to normally stay at the back and command from the back and coordinate things. washington, in some of the worst battles, knew he needed to be out front, so people would see him and do the right thing. there was one soldier after the battle of trenton that wrote home talking about how afraid he was with so many people dying

and he said, but when i saw bullets flying around that priceless head of our great general, encouraging us as he went, sir, i thought not of myself. now, that was a leader. not hank paulson we're talking about, that's not a leader. we're talking george washington. and when the congress was afraid that the people who signed up for six months enlistment around july 4, around the -- around july fourth, they got why these guys may not re-enlist. so they passed a bill giving washington the power, pay whatever he needed to pay, we didn't have a constitution yet. but they knew this man and said, you fix it. and they sent a cover letter that in essence was saying that we know you well enough to know our liberty's not at risk and when you have further need of this power you'll give it back.

and he did. like no man has ever done before since in history. but in 1787 where he got -- we got a constitution. since that constitution we have never allowed one man to do what hank paulson and now tim geithner are being allowed to do. and with bernanke a-- bernanke's assistance. it's a disaster. systemic risk council. we're going to decide who wins and who loses in america? and you want us on this side of the aisle to vote for this bill? and you're calling it a financial reform bill? it isn't. this is not reforming things, this is taking us away from the free market principles from which we have been running for far too long. that tarp bill took us away from

it and some of us pray that we would have a chance to get back on track and we have run farther and farther and it gives no comfort when people on the other side of the aisle say, well, your president started this with a tarp bailout. yes, and it was wrong then and it's become even worse of a nightmare. stop already. return liberty and freedom back to people. and i'm not talking about unregulated financial markets. we have the regulations, just like we have regulations that would have allowed the president, the executive branch, the administration to monitor more carefully what was going on in the gulf of mexico. to monitor more carefully what madoff was doing, what goldman sachs was doing, how the credit default swaps were allowed to be insurance whout putting money

in reserve to ensure -- insure against that insurable event out there they were supposed to be taking premiums for. this is not a financial reform bill and to stand here on the floor and say republicans are is it standing in the way of this, you betchia. i don't want a goldman sachs monopoly bill being passed into law and signed into law simply because they gave four to one more money to the democratic party than they did to the republican. i don't care if they gave four to one to republicans. it is wrong to give them the kind of monopoly that they've been given through tarp and in the year and a half since. it's got to stop and this bill is not the bill that will do that. so don't come to the floor and talk about how this is going to

reform things and create accountability. because it gives unrestricted leeway to give any nonbank financial company too big to fail status. what a disaster for this ciety, for this incredible gift of a country we've been given. now, we are not blessed in this body and in this country because of what we ourselves who stand as elected officials today have done. we are not blessed because what we have done, we have been blessed because of the sacrifices of the founders and those over the years that work so hard to make this country into the greatest nation that's ever existed in the history of mankind. and now we have people that are

peeling back the very principles that made this such an incredible place to get to live in. well, let's look some more at this financial bailout bill, financial deform bill, whatever you want to call it. there is 100% bailout for creditors in this bill. so a failed firm's creditors and counterparties could recoup far more of their investment, to pensionly 100%, than this he would -- potentially 100%, than they would if they went through a normal bankruptcy proceeding. we have -- bankruptcy proceeding. we have he seen enough of the corruption of the bankruptcy system. the provision for the bankruptcy system was put in to the constitution by those people with such incredible foresite --

foresight. unfortunately it was into the early 1800's before they actually passed laws creating the bankruptcy courts that allowed people to avoid debtor's prison, like the financial backer of the revolution, mr. morris. but this bill that's being touted is such a great financial reform bill, will also allow the fdic to guarantee debt obligations of failing wall street firms without limitation and without congressional approval. you want us to vote for a bill that allows debt guarantees for failing wall street firms without this body, approving of them?

and you call that a financial reform bill? also under this so-called financial reform bill, really more of a financial deform bill, the secretary of the treasury is authorized to purchase debt without any limit. washington gave back the power as soon as the revolution was won. four years later we got the constitution and we never allowed this kind of insanity since then. and, yes, secretary paulson under a republican president created this monstrosity and bailed out his buddies effectively. but it's got to stop. it's got to stop. and this bill is just more and

more and more of the same. on may 5, 2010, for people keeping track, that was yesterday, freddie mac requested an additional $10.6 billion in bailout funds. between fannie mae, freddie mac, the taxpayers have already lost $126.9 billion bailing out fannie mae and freddie mac. and now it appears that is just bottomless. it's got to stop. don't ask us to come in here and pass another further power extension to those who are

already dizzy with too much power and no accountability, the got to stop. this fincial so-called reform bill, this wall street future bailout bill is a disaster -- disastrous mistake and we should not, heaven help us, we should not pass this bill. we've lost enough rights and power to wall street already. so, i hope and pray this day of national prayer that those who have been getting the four to one contributions over republicans from wall street firms will say, sorry, guys on wall street, you know, we started playing this game and saying republicans are in bed

with you, oh, yeah, yesterday one of our friends across the aisle said that, gee, these wall street firms are having closed-door meetings with republicans. may have been. and you can imagine what's being said. they've cut their deals with the people that they have been giving four to one to over republicans, they've cut their deal, they know they're going to be sitting so pretty, they're going to have monopolistic ability like never before in history, so they want to meet privately with republicans and say, look, you don't have to worry, we're really getting serious oversight are from these democrats, the ones we give four to one over republicans to. we're really getting serious oversight here in this bill, we just need to you come onboard, and no telling what kind of things they're telling republican senators behind the scenes to try to get them onboard with this terrible

financial deform bill. but let me tell you what i did find. where could that $500 billion, between $800 billion designated in the tarp bill and the amount that the debt limit was raised, what could that possibly -- what loopholes may be in this bill? i went back through it. one of the things i found was this provision. the all caps title of this little section, title 1, section 101 little c public law 110-343, it says the secretary is authorized to take such actions as the secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this act except they should have direct hiring authority with respect to the employment of employees to administer this act.

number 2, entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109. number three, designating financial institutions as financial agents of the federal government. and such institutions shall perform all reasonable duties related to this ack as financial agents of the federal government. in order to provide the secretary with flexibility to manage troubled assets in a manner designed to minimize taxpayers establishing vehicles that is authorized subject to supervision by the secretary, issue obligations. and, five, issuing such regulations and other guidance that may be necessary or appropriate to define authority or purposes of this act. holy cow. what a blank check the secretary of the treasury received. and with president obama

nominated, timothy geithner to be secretary of the treasury, even though he signed and certified he would pay the taxes that were designated four years in a row and he couldn't bring himself to towelly pay those, he's in charge. and we were told at the time, yes, but he worked so closely with paulson on the bailout that -- that's a reason not to confirm the guy. good grief. but he has all this power. well, isn't it a wonder that the company that paid him 4-1 had the biggest profit year in their history last year? that's right. goldman sachs, while the rest of america has been hurting and struggling and trying to get back on its feet, goldman sachs

is on its feet and made a bigger profit than ever, which brings me back to this. so i've been trying to look for things to see, well, they had the biggest profit year in history. could that be because the federal government is paying them all this taxpayer money to do the thention that the federal government told america we will do but actually they farmed it out and paying no telling how much money to goldman sachs to do this stuff? well, i did find one contract here. this amended and restated investment management agreement between the federal reserve bank of new york and goldman sachs asset management. and first whereas is whereas the open market committee has approved the purchase by the system open market account of federal national mortgage association, prent cis, fannie

mae, -- paren think cis, fannie mae, closed parenthesis, fannie mae, closed parenthesis. they approved this deal and they point out this is between the federal reserve bank of new york and goldman sachs, l.p., designated as manager. and they were supposed to manage, supervise, direct investment portion and appointed as the federal reserve bank of new york's agent. in fact it's just amazing what all power they're given on behalf of the federal reserve bank of new york. it does point out that they're going to get some nice fees here and you look at -- and it says that this agent here, this manager can hire firms to help

them carry out their duties but you have to look at attachment see to see who on exhibit c is authorized to act on behalf of this manager, goldman sachs asset management, l.p. so you flip over and you find exhibit c to this agreement. well, my goodness. there's goldman sachs and company is authorized counterparty to act on behalf of goldman sachs asset management, l.p. isn't that wonderful? well, they probably know each other. well, those were good investments they made in this last election, and yet people still come to this floor and talk about how republicans are in the pocket of wall street even though the democrats received 4-1 over the amount that the republicans got.

well, you know there are people in this body. it doesn't matter what kind of contributions they got. they're going to vote what is appropriate under their conscience. unfortunately, we got groups on wall street that are awfully powerful in their persuasiveness and convincing people that giving goldman sachs their biggest profit year in the nation's history, in their history is a thing that needs to be done. that's the kind of stuff that we're talking about. and republicans are getting blamed for this, for trying to stand in the way of more monopolies on wall street? and if you look at the bailout of the automotive industry with tarp funds, and the truth is i signed on to all those letters

where we said we never intended for tarp to be used to bail out the automotive industry, and i signed onto those because i agree that was not the intent. the trouble is i read the bill and so i knew that it could be used for whatever the secretary of the treasury wanted to use it for basically. incredible power given under that bill. and now we're going to follow that up with this new financial deform bill, this new bailout bill and that's why you've seen wall street firms sign on to this business of taking out the $50 billion bailout fund. that's been done in the last few days. why would the wall street firms sign onto that? well, if you look at the bill you find out why. they still got the potential to be named as systemic risk by the systemic risk council, mr.

bernanke leading, and get too big to fail status. and i heard my friends. i couldn't agree more when they said we have to stop this business of creating too big to fail. a.i.g. should have been allowed to file bankruptcy. that's what the bankruptcy laws were for. they should have been allowed an opportunity to reorganize. goldman sachs should have been given a chance to reorganize under the bankruptcy laws. not the way they were perverted and destroyed and turned upside down with regard to the automotive industry but followed the way they're supposed to be. it didn't happen with the automotive industry, and it didn't happen on wall street as it should have. the firm should have been allowed to go through and try to reorganize. the pain would have been so

much more quick low over than when we exacerbated it. but for folks to come in and say, i want to stop this too big to fail business, that's why we got to pass this bill. they got to read the bill. it's in there. it's still going to allow that to be going on. it's got to stop. and it's in the bill. so you wonder why you have republicans standing in the way of the financial deform bill. well, take out the systemic risk council, take out the too big to fail designation, take out the bailout for firms without going through regular bankruptcy proceedings, take that out. the automotive industry should have showed us that this is not what you do. you don't turn the law and the constitution upside down. people might wonder, well, how could that have happened? you got congress, you have the executive branch and you have

the judiciary. these are supposed to be checks and balances, but it didn't happen. the checks and balances didn't work. so you have an auto task force that was appointed by the president, and then the auto task force met in secret and refused to come up here and tell congress exactly what was going on in those meetings. they said later, well, we didn't really pick which dealerships would go out of business. we just told them, you know, basically how many had to go out of business. why? why was it their job? when a firm, a company, an industry goes through bankruptcy, you have to -- in an effort at reorganization, you have to have a plan. and the debtor can propose the plan and you can have creditors come in and propose plans, and you have secured creditors that come in and they get first

choice. that's the law. that's the law as allowed under the constitution. and yet we have an auto task force that put together this plan and they said, now, we're turning the law upside down. we don't care what the law is. we're going to take the secured creditors and we're going to give them pennies on the dollar for secured claims despite them saying we get first shot and unsecured creditors get low or nothing. and it took the unions to say, you know what, you're unsecured, under the law you may get little or nothing. and we made them like secured creditors, the auto task force did. so they own a big hunk of the country -- of the company just like the federal government does. well, how could that be? well, drups judges don't sit for life terms. they depend on the -- well, bankruptcy judges don't sit for

life terms. many of them aspire to be district judges where they have lifetime appointments. who make lifetime appointments of federal judges? the president does. if you're a bankruptcy judge and you want to one day be a federal district judge with a lifetime appointment and somebody from the white house says, here, sign this, it will save you months of hearings even though the law requires them. and it does kind of turn the constitution upside down. but just sign here, things will be good for you in the future. well, that remains to be seen. but it sure wasn't good for the country. despite the head of g.m. going on tv saying we paid back our loans with interest ahead of time, man, i know everybody else in america who has loans would love to have taxpayers

loan you money and then take taxpayer money to repay the loans. but to some of us, that doesn't really feel like a clean payback of this little area because we still own a big interest. you hadn't paid back the federal government for all that was put in there to save this so-called company. now, supreme court was told -- and ruth bader ginsburg, bless her soul, she put a 24-hour hold on one deal, and it gave some of us hope. ok. congress completely failed in its duty as a check and balance on the abuse of power from the executive branch. but maybe the judiciary, that third check and balance, they're coming through. thank goodness justice ginsburg did that.

but then apparently the justices were persuaded that if you extend the stay more than 24 hours the deal will be gone and this will all go away and everybody will lose their job. you can't extend the stay. and i'm betting there are justices who are now saying we should never have allowed them to talk us into just allowing them to turn the law and the constitution upside down just because maybe this deal with fiat may not go through. fiat had no business owning the american company unless they could do it properly without turning our laws upside down. so the third check and balance went away and nothing protected the constitution and nothing protected the laws as they were passed.

it's got to stop. got to stop. and yet, we see a bill brought before the house and senate, and lo and behold, the federal government is going to take over all student loans. we're taking over the student loan business. well, i am so grateful that my youngest daughter is graduating within the next two weegs. and we had to do student -- next two weeks. and we had to do student loans to do it with. my wife and i cashed out everything except our home to run for congress. we had to use student loans to get our girls through college. to think that anybody in this country might have to be beholden to whoever is in the

executive branch, whichever political party is controlling the executive branch is who we have to hope and pray will be kind enough to extend a student loan to us in the future? do democrats really want to have to depend on republicans for their student loans, based on who is in the white house? should republicans have to rely on who is run the executive branch in hopes that their kids will get student loans? it's the wrong way to go. and now with the federal government having taken over freddie and fannie, we've taken over such a big part of the housing, the home mortgages, does either party or independents or tea party or progressive, liberal party, dewpoint to be beholden to

another political party in power? in order for you to get a home loan or student loan? this is where we've come. it's got to stop. and i know that in the minority, we're a voice crying in the wilderness, but it's got to stop. there are people on the other side of the aisle that know that, who say this, and to my friends, mr. speaker, i would hope that they would all go back and read these bills and particularly the financial deform bill and find out that it is not as the -- it is not as the talking points have represented. it does create the too big to fail problem. it's got to stop. i hope we'll have some democratic friends who will help us. it's tragic. but you know, i was in a bible study with a hero of mine,

chuck colson, a little over a year ago. he pointed out that this society is resting on three legs. one is morality, one is economic stability and one is liberty. and throughout history, as long as you have morality, you can have economic stability. but when you lose morality, it always leads to economic chaos. you have too many madoffs out there that think it's ok to just live high and wildlifes off other people's money they've stolen. then you have people get elected who think some people have made too much money. so i want to steal their money, but since i'm in power, i can pass laws that allow me to take

their money and spend it the way i want and it won't be called stealing because we'll legalize the stealing because we have the power and, yes, the power resides in this congress to legalize stealing of people's money. the power rests here, but the moral authority does not. when i hear friends say, well, christians, you know, christians ought to be helping those who can't help themselves, helping widows and orphans, jesus did talk about those things, even as you have done to the least of these, my children, you have done to me. we should be doing those individually. but he never said, use and abuse your taxing authority to legalize theft of other people's money so you can give to your favorite charity. he was saying, you do it yourself. with what you have.

you do it you help. individually. don't go corrupt the governmental system that was put in place -- put in power, as remans 13 talks about, if you do evil, be afraid. god doesn't give the government the sword in vain. the government is not supposed to become part of doing immoral acts. it's supposed to protect those entrusted to its care. we've gotten too far away from that. during the revolution, so many were heard to quote voltaire. some say he said it, some say he didn't. he was quoted as saying, i disagree with what you say but i will defend to the death your right to say it. so manufacture -- so many of us heard that, learned that in school, said yes, what a noble, moral concept. i disagree with what you say,

but i will defend to the death your right to say it. even though it offends me. look how far we've come. to some of us who look at the 10 commandments and say, you know what, conduct outside of those, all of us are going to break the commands because no one but, i believe one, is perfect. but that offends. but people here have the right to, in some cases, lie. in some cases commit adultery. in some cases, some of these things are illegal. but that has been changing. and we changed the society from one in which the founders said, i disagree with what you say but i'll defend to the death

your right to say it and turned it into one where, what you say offends me and not only will i not defend to the death your right to say it, i'm going to force you out of your job. i'm going to do everything i can to cause you to lose all your assets. i am going to do all i can to make your life nothing but misery from now on. how do we get so far from the founding? that we would want to destroy people's lives because what they've said offends? you know, when the pilgrims came over, when so many of the groups that came over to this, what they called the new world, they were fleeing from the kind of persecution that is now started. this was a national day of prayer. and yet, we had franklin graham , what a great, great man, he

was uninvited from speaking to our military. we had tony perkins, not long ago, uninvited from speaking to the military at andrews air force base, even though he served this country's uniformed military services for six years. because there are some who said in the administration, we disagree with what you say and we're going to ruin you and try to do all we can to keep you from speaking. the military is fighting for people's right to say what they want. yet we're denying people the right to come speak to the military? while they're fighting and diing for the right to speak freely under the first amendment? how did that ever happen? from 1800 to 1860 and again intermittently until 1880, there were church services held right down the hall.

nondenominational christian church services. i was asked earlier by a cnn reporter, how do you reconcile the separation of church and state with a group's reading through the entire bible in five days over here on the west side of the capitol? well, reconcile -- i reconcile it because i know where the phrase separation of church and state came from. it came from thomas jefferson in his letter to the danberry baptists. -- danbury baptists. it was nothing about preventing people from having church or praying or speaking to the military. to the contrary, thomas jefferson used to ride down pennsylvania, according to c.r.s., most of the time, the congressional research service they authenticated this, most of the time when he came to the church service, every sunday here in the capitol, he liked

to ride his horse down here, down pennsylvania. he's the one that codified the phrase separation of church and state. it's not in the constitution. it's so unfortunate that so many of our judges over the years have been so poorly educated about our history. then you've got james madison, as president who came to church most every sunday he was in washington, here in the capitol, in the house of representatives. but according to c.r.s., he was different from jefferson. jefferson liked to ride a horse, usually madison liked to ride in a coach drawn by four horses to come to church. jefferson, that coined the phrase separation of church and state, sometimes brought the marine band to play hims for -- hymns for the nondenominational christian worship service here in the capitol. the amendment was never about discriminating against christianity as this administration has done by uninviting people to speak to

the military who are fighting and diing for the very beliefs that people were denied the right to come talk to them about. and yet, we have people who are so politically correct, they're afraid to say that a guy who makes very clear by what he screams before he shoots these other service members, that this is an act of a crazed jihaddist, islamic jihaddist, thank god that the vast majority of muslims are not jihaddists of that type. but you need to recognize the ones that are and that they're out there and they want to destroy our way of life. you can speak to moderate muslims, many of them are afraid to speak out openly because they become targets. but you speak to moderate muslims, they know. they're some of the first to be

killed when the crazed jihaddists take over. they don't like moderate muslims. but the nation was founded on principles such that the church, the christian church was at the heart of the declaration of independence. over 1/3 of those who signed the declaration of independence were not just christian, but ordained christian ministers, they had churches. and the church was behind the effort to abolish slavery because they, just like john quincy adams, knew it was so wrong and as adams, for about a year and a half, took a young, tall, slender, not very handsome man under his wing down the hall, as christians, they became so close in that short time, john quincy adams

affected him so he knew as a christian that slavery had to end because we could not continue to be blessed by god if we were treating brothers and sisters by putting them in chains and bondage and he preached that sermon over and over just down the hall. and the churches were preaching, some weren't, but many were. that was the heart of that movement. what was martin luther king jr., dr. king was an ordained christian minister. the church has been behind the great movements here in america. and now, we're discriminating against it? we're saying what you believe in a christian church so offends us, not only are we not going to fight to the death for your right to believe what you believe and say what you want to say, we're going to destroy you and keep you from doing anything publicly that you want to do in observing your religion. how did we go so wrong? abraham lincoln struggled with

this terrible war that was going on because he believed in a just god and yet this thing was going on and so many brothers and sisters were dying and it was a terrible thing and that's why he said in his second inaugural, how do you reconcile this? both read the same bible and pray to the same god and each invokes his aid against the other. but he goes on and he says, if we shall suppose that american slavery you might substitute in there abortion, american abortion is one of those offenses which in the prove nance of god must needs come but which, having continued through his appointed time he now wills to remove and he gives to the north and south this terrible war as the row due to those through whom the offense came, shall we discern

in that divine attributes which believers in a living god assign to him? fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this scourge of war might speedily pass away, yet if god wills it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondsmen's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and every drop of blood drawn by the lash or the abortion doctor's hand, as was said 3,000 years ago, so must still be said today, lincoln said, the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether, he quoted stripture. . we're told it may not be what jesus taught. they believe the things that jesus taught. and you have others in the last couple of days that have been

uninvited to speak to military. i was given by my aunt, a bible that was given to an uncle in world war ii. got this metal front. may the lord be with you. and inside on the first page, it says at the top, the white house, washington, as commander in chief, i take pleasure in commending the reading of the bible. and that is signed by franklin d. roosevelt. we all need to pray that god will continue to bless america. with that, i yield back the rest of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired.

mr. gohmert: i didn't know if the speaker was looking for a motion. the speaker pro tempore: giving mr. king a few more seconds. request the gentleman to remain for another 30 seconds. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 60 minutes. mr. king: i appreciate the privilege to be recognized on the floor of the house and i appreciate my friend from texas holding the ground until i hold ground with him and i always stand on the aim ground as my friend judge gohmert. from cuba to climbing the mountains in himalayas.

i came tonight, mr. speaker, to talk about a couple of subject matters and one of them is on the front of my mind is the tax situation here in the united states. we are watching and we watched as the two bush cuts were passed over the last eight or so years. twune and then 2003 tax cuts. may 28, 2003 is when the effective ones were passed. a series of things. and the language that's there on the estate taxes that are suspended for this year and go on for full force. and nothing yet has been done. and some thing needs to be done. i'm for complete abolishment of the estate tax, mr. speaker. and i'm for the reinstatement of the bush tax cuts. we watched as the former chairman of the ways and means committee, mr. rangel, traveled

through all of the talk radio circuits and talk television sishts and asked them over and over again, which ones would you like to see preserved or go away. there was never an answer, mr. speaker. but the process of elimination brought people to a conclusion over a period of november, 2006, until about february of 2007 that there wasn't a bush tax cut that soon to be chairman, chairman-elect at the time and eventually was chairman, rangel would support. and so we're watching now the evental sunset of that those tax cuts that went in in may of 2003. capital understands when it gets more understand and less gets invested. when less gets invested, there

is less advances and less competitive as a nation. it is hard to measure that. but what we can see was from that period of time from november, 2006 until mid-february of 2007, we saw industrial investment go down and the decline in industrial investment was precipitated, the economic decline came about at the time that speaker pelosi. we can see the data that indicated there was less capital investment because not in part, not entirely, but in part, chairman rangel signaled to the investment world that taxes were eventually were going to go up, the cost of capital would go up, less capital invested and when less capital invested, it reduces the productivity of the american worker, reduction in productivity, means we are less

productive as a nation and other civilizations and united states would slow or diminish its ascent or decline. and then we saw the economic decline. and with the community reinvestment act and then on the heels of that, with the community reinvestment act, the effort to encourage bankers to make bad loans in bad neighborhoods and then deal them off on the secondary mortgage market, freddie mac, fannie mae. underwriting requirmentse that were too stringent. acorn came to this congress and lobbied. they weren't having a lot of success under ronald reagan, but under president clinton, they got the community reinvestment

act rewritten that put more requirements for lenders to make more bad loans in more bad neighborhoods and prop up recall estate values. that was going on, acorn was lobbying here in this congress by their views successfully to lower the underwriting standards for freddie mac and fannie mae. and they succeeded in doing that. some wanted to tighten the standards and move them towards complete privatization, which they used to be. and some in this congress wanted to move freddie mac and fannie mae to complete nationalization. and there was a debate on this floor. the one that comes to mind is october 26, 2005, when at the time congressman jim leach from iowa had an amendment on the floor to raise the underwriting requirements for fannie and

fredy so that they would become a more viable economic institution and to move them away from to what appeared to becoming, which would be the federal government, the taxpayers eventually having to bail out freddie mac and fannie mae. well, that amendment that was offered by mr. leach and supported by myself and mr. latham failed on the floor in an aggressive rebuttal that came in the form of financial services committee chairman mr. frank and who said during that debate, if you're going to invest in freddie mac and fannie mae, don't count on me. i'll never vote to bail them out. never is not a word that should be used. and i don't bring it up to be critical of the chairman, mr.

frank. never didn't last very long. it lasted maybe four years. moving on five. but when president obama signed the executive order, that finally swallowed up freddie mac and fannie mae, we had to bail them out. executive order before christmas, the federal government, taxpayers of america, took on $5.5 trillion with freddie mac and fannie mae and now they are no longer a quasig.s.c. but and the taxpayers are on the hook for all of it. if they can operate on a profit, that would be is nice. they don't have the right incentive and eventually it can't work. the community reinvestment act was passed in 1970's and refrerd under clinton and made loans in

bad neighborhoods. ache corner lobbied for that and they lobbied to lower the underwriting standards so they could swallow up the secondary market and today the federal government owns more than 50% of all the home mortgages in the united states and the taxpayers are on the hook 69 default of those mortgages in the united states. and we also had marks-to-market accounting that was put in place during that same period of time. it's a system wherebio your balance sheet you have to write down the market on what the actual bids are for that commodity. bl speaker, i would put it this way, i know a bank in the area, in the midwest, that had $60 million worth of commercial paper. commercial paper had always paid and drew a reasonable interest rate. it would be equivalent of a well established company that had an

operating loan that they funded. and they had a market and value to it and the value was $60 million and that was on the balance sheet of the lending institution. when we saw the downward spiral and the threat that could have been a crisis in credit in america, temporarily, it was not a market for that commercial paper. that lending institution, and though the commercial paper always performed, the company was viable and made their loins, the value of that -- the loans. $60 million down to zero. we had lenders that were being pressured by fdic, regulators coming in to turn up the capitalization requirements of the banks and require them to some lidfy their balance sheet

and make up for the temporary situation. and to make sure, mr. speaker, that people can understand what mark-to-market accounting is, i would use this example, whether you are a city person, country person, a farm or some other type of economic -- i come from corn country and so let's just say under mark-to market accounting rules, it would work like this. if a farmer had 100,000 bushels of corn all dried and in good condition, you would look at that and let's say to keep round numbers that i can figure in my head, the market price for that corn was $4 a bushel. in those bins on storage in the position of that farming operation, there would be $400,000 worth of corn.

that quo could go on the farmer's balance sheet and market did you know less shrink and the basis to the marningt place but $400,000 worth of corner corn on the balance sheet stored in the bins in good condition. now that's all real fine, along comes the flood like the tragedy in tennessee, but along comes the flood and washes all the bridges all the way around the farm and washes out the bridges in the area so the grain elevator where the bins were coming in at $4 a bushel were shut down. they are in good shape and got the generators running and no trucks can haul any grain, nothing can move. and so magicically there would be no bids for the corn the day after the flood washed out the

bridges. no bids for corn until there were bids. let's say a couple of months. and in that period of time, the corn would sit there, be in good condition and be worth $400,000 someplace else. can't get it out. so this farmer that had 400,000 worth of asset value has to write that down to zero on his balance sheet. meanwhile, the bridge is still open to go to the bank and need money to operate but he couldn't borrow even though the corn would have some value when the bridges would be put together. it accelerates the downward spiral and distorts them and takes us down into the economic decline or it accelerates the upward spiral and distorts the

markets that way because when you jet uptick value in the market, the assets go up in direct proportion, which increases the borrowing capacity of that balance sheet. we need a better system. and the mark-to-market system was abottle issued and came back during the clinton era and helped set the foundation for the economic crisis we have been in. . now here we are with the president having spent $1 trillion or more, having taken over a majority of the private sector activity in the united states, start at the end of the bush administration, accelerated in the obama administration and we have three large investment banks, a.i.g., fannie mae, freddie mac, got all the student lens swallowed up in america, and

general motors and chrysler, taken over by the federal government with 61% of the shares of general motors owned by the federal government. that's taxpayers' investment. when general motors is running an ad that says they paid off their loans, they did that, all right. they paid off a loan. i don't remember the exact amount of that, but it was in the low few billions of dollars. meanwhile, the taxpayers are still holding 61% of the shafers, the canadian government has 12 1/2%, the unions were gifted 17 1/2% of the shares of general motors and we're watching ads saying that general motors paid us back. well, then, why didn't tim geithner sell those shiferse general motors into the open market? why doesn't he di vest the federal government from owner -- divest the federal government from ownership in general motors. if this administration doesn't

believe they should be in the private sector, why are they running banks, insurance companies, why did they take over fannie and freddie, why did they take over the student loans, why did they nationalize our bodies. mr. speaker, that's not a misstatement. it's one perhaps for those who have not heard of this before, they should pay attention to the description. the most sovereign thing we have, the most valuable thing we have is our health. our physical body. and part of our freedom is to be able to buy a health insurance policy that suit ours needs and make the demands of the insurance companies that there's a market for what they want to buy so they produce a policy that meet ours demands. up until a month ago, there were 1,300 health insurance companies in the united states and approximately 100,000 policy varieties that could be chosen from.

if you're a son -- consumer in the market, you can look at the 1,300 companies and decide which you'd like to do business with, weigh the merits of their policies, settle on the company and between all those company, 100,000 policy varieties, choose your policies. you don't have that kind of -- that many choices in the grocery store but it looks like choices when you walk into the grocery store. health insurance in america is a much, much larger selection, or was, than you find seeing individual items in the grocery store because the markets demanded those kinds of varieties and the markets were seeking to meet the demavends. now under obamacare, in effect, by the year 2014, every health insurance policy in america will be effectively can selled by this government. they will all have to be refreshed and requalified and

there isn't a single policy that exists today that the president of the united states can point to and say, joe, saly, your policy, the one i told you, don't worry you get to keep it. he kvent say you get to keep it. have you netsed that? have you noticed, mr. speaker, there hasn't been a single policy pointed to by this administration, let alone the president of the united states that they can say to any consumer out there, this is your policy and you can keep it. even if they find a policy they tell you you can keep they can't tell you it's not going to cost you any more money. they can't tell you the premium is not going to go up. they say obviously we can't, health care costs go up. that's a natural thing for them to go up double digits when the inflation is going up single digits.

but the other thing that can't be stated by the president's spokesman or the president or speaker pelosi or harry reid or anyone else no one can make the statement that health insurance policies won't be increased because of obamacare's passage. they will be. they certainly will be. we have a rating of seven to one today that means the cheapest policy is 1/7 of the price of the most expensive policy. that means the person paying for a policy, say it's $100 a month, then the most expensive would be $700 by comparison. but by the new rules, the $10000 policy, -- the $100 policy can only have a high of

$300. we saw some numbers, i can only go generalization now because it's far enough back in my memory, these are numbers that had to do with indiana. we saw a 23-year-old, healthy young man's insurance go gow up almost triple. we saw the family of four at age 40, two kids and a mom and dad, we saw their insurance go up significant amount. the only people with a lower premium would be the couple in their early 60's with marginal health that would see their premiums drop off perhaps 11%, that's a number i do have confidence is the correct one. the people with the highest premiums might see an 11% prere-ducks. the people with the lowest premiums might see up to a 300% increase in premiums. that's why the president can't point to anybody's policy and say, we're not going to increase your cost and we're not -- and he can't guarantee that you're not going to lose your policy.

there's a lot of companies going under in there. there will not be 1,300 insurance companies doing business in the united states five years from now or 10 years from now. if the president had his way, there wouldn't be anybody doing business in health insurance in america except the united states federal government. if you wonder if that's a stretch of the imagination, mr. speaker, i can give you two examples. one of them is the federal flood insurance program. in the early 1960's, all the flood insurance in america was private sector. property and casualty, if you want to -- you wanted to insure yourself against a flood, against river waters flooding your basement you went to a private property and casualty company and they wrote you a premium. this congress in its wisdom, they desthide premiums were too high and the varieties of

policies were not great enough so they decided to set up a federal flood insurance program that would provide one more alternative for the consumers to put some competition in the property and casualty business with regard to flood insurance. that sound familiar, mr. speaker? i'll submit it clearly does. and because othe president said he wanted one more health insurance company to provide competition for the other health insurance companies, he said we didn't have enough competition in health insurance. i don't know why he's forgotten about that. i have not and will not system of when the president of the united states says, we want to add one more competitor, we don't have enough competition that competitor will be the federal government. as soon as you inject the federal government into the private sector, or what was the private sector, in this case, then you have an unfair competitor with an advantage. the federal government doesn't have to be profitable. if they run up short, they tap into the pockets of the

taxpayer and run up an i.o.u. that might be raiding the social security trust fund in west virginia where every single dollar has been raided by this congress. it might be borrow the money from the saudis or the chinese, provided they're willing to loan it to us. and jack up the interest rates, they will. but in any case, the federal government doesn't have to be profitable. so they got -- and they wouldn't have to be profitable with health insurance which is an unfair comparative advantage that would drive some of the health insurance companies out, probably lots of them, and take this where the president wants it to go, single payer. the president as a candidate consistently argued there should be one enentity that paid for all health care in america. that would be the federal government, taking over all of those 1,300 health insurance companies and those 100,000 policy varieties and those hundreds of millions of americans that have legitimate health insurance programs,

eventually the president wanted to take it all over. but he had to fall back on an argument of providing some competition because the american people rejected that. so we're supposed to believe that the idea of wanting the federal government to sell insurance was just an innocent thing designed to provide more competition. we rejected that. the united states senate rejected that. so we didn't end up with an obamacare package with a federal health insurance component to it, other than they're regulating every single policy in america, can selling every policy in america, decide chg to renew, setting up community ratings that go from 7-1 to 3-1. what comes of all of this? i take you back to property and casualty insurance, the sector that used to have all flood insurance in america, saw their competitor come in i think it was 1963, plus or minus a year. 1963 is going to hit it, actually. in 1963, the federal government

came in and provide one more flood insurance company to provide a little more competition to level the playing field for people who lived in the floodplain that didn't have enough alternatives. sounds like the argument we have today. the federal government got into that business and over a few years, the property and casualty companies, those private sector insurance companies that reflected the risk in the market, in the premiums they charged, and yes they're in it for a profit. that's -- thank god for profit. it's done more for the world than all the missionaries that went anywhere. as much as i believe in faith and the lord's hand in everything that goes on on this planet, free interprides capitalism has been a contribution to all humanity. it was a contributor in the flood insurance and property-casualty insurance. but the federal government got in the business in 1963 and over time, not a very long period of time, slowly those

private sector companies realized they couldn't compete with uncle sam because they had to make a profit and they had to charge premiums that reflected the risk. so they dropped out and for a long time, certainly today, we cannot, no one in america can go out and buy flood insurance from the private sector. at all -- it all is sold by the federal government. the federal government has taken over the flood insurance program in america, lock, stock, and barrel, root and branch, all of it. every single vess taj of -- vestige of flood insurance is controlled by the federal government today. they set the premiums, not by risk but by whatever bureaucrats think they ought to be. they don't have to be profitable, so that explains why there are $19 nt 2 billion in the red in the federal flood insurance program, $19.2 billion in the red and it would

explain why in my district, fema has a new ruling that broadens the floodplain dramatically. it's just breath taking to look at the map of the floodplain that was in blue that, by the way, national banks making loan os mortgages that go into these floodplains require flood insurance to be paid, premiums to be paid. when they're in the red, $19.2 billion, and they can't figure out how to charge premiums that reflect the risk and get by with it because people probably can't afford the premiums but they expanded and developed their real estate in the floodplains based on those premiums, having trouble raising premiums on people that owe the national banks money that had to buy them so fema puts out a new map a new map that widens the floodplains dramatically, these tiny little areas become wide areas, the whole river valley in one area, just one area within one of my

32 counties, there are 2,200 individual real estate parcels, most of them rural, that are now in a new floodplain created by fema's map and ruling, 1,100 property owners, 2,200 new properties all of them now in a situation where they're going to have trouble expanding and build, a lot of them will have to pay increased premiums for flood insurance that they didn't buy before because they were out of the floodplain. the federal government cashes in and if i take this plan that they're trying to implement in my district and multiply it across the real estate in the united states where it's hard to use it because the model they use is -- it gobacks to the early 1970's. it's nearly 40 years old, the model, the technology they used is nearly 40 years old, so i can only guess if but if i use what they have in one of my counties as a measure, looks like fema will be able to

collect enough premiums to recover their $19.2 billion and more. maybe fema will make so so much money off this, they'll be able to subsidize fannie mae and eddie mac. don't hold your breath, mr. speaker. but 40-year-old technology and anybody who ever filled a sandbag and fought the flood knows the adrenaline rushes up in your blood, as the water is coming up, the adrenaline boils up in you too, and you work harder and more feverishly and many times the sandbags along there are maybe just high enough, an inch or two, because you're stacking them on there as the water comes up, maybe five, maybe a half an inch, maybe five inches or half a foot. . the fema model is so imprecise,

that their accuracy is within plus or minus 10 meters. let's say 30 feet plus or minus. and if they are right on the average and they say the flood might be here or could be 10 meters up, well, the feeling of this chamber would be something that this place could be that far off. they could be off 30 feet from the elevation of the water that they're predicting. and we have the corps of engineers that can tell us whether we can build on a flood plain and what the flow is and so we continue constrict the flood. tell us where the 100-flood event. why can't they get together on this and use modern technology. i'm wondering if they have the will or happens to be that someone decided that they could use this 40-year-old meter and

use flood insurance premiums and people are unable to pay for the premiums. now, i tell this long story to describe what's in store for us if obamacare is not repealed 100%, every single bit of it and done at the will of the american people. before i get to how obamacare will transform or, it is helpful to look at how they swallowed up other privately-held entities. education loans, the education loans were a private sector. you want to go off to college and went off and borrowed. they set up the student loan

program to provide alternatives so private lenders weren't handling all the student loans. they did that at the same time. what is predictable? they get in the business to compete. they have an unfair advantage and illegitimate comparative advantage. they don't have to have profit or be good at it. they have to drive the competition out. they do what a monopoly is doing. they try to underprice and distort it to the point that no one else can stay in the business and then they start the jacking up of the prices. in the dark of the night, in the heat of the owe baum ave care obamacare battle, there was the

neeky piece of legislation that was converted to the student loan plan from the private sector into government itself. and so we have seen in the period of time that i have described, we have seen that transformation of a completely private independent standing property and casualty flood insurance that faced the federal government that wanted to provide one more competitor into the marketplace so people had more choices and swallowed everybody up and the federal government has done the same thing with the student loan program in the united states and had to hitch it on to obamacare to do it, what a bunch of cynics that they couldn't do something like that in broad daylight in front of all of america of the they had to stick it in when they had another tactic of another swallow-up of the

private sector. remember, a month ago or six weeks ago, remember that date was, all of the health insurance in america -- some will say there are exceptions, medicare, medicaid and you could argue whether those are government programs to pick people up to help people when they are in retirement age. and income outside of medicaid, we didn't see a federal health insurance program except for s chip, another effort to try to close this gap. there have been effort after effort for the liberals, the people who deny the liberty of the american people to take over the health care in america. and when bill clinton stood here and i believe the date was september 13 about 1993 and he said -- he gave his health care speech and wanted to take it

over then and turned hillary loose with hillarycare and she had more public meetings than we did this time around, although we were critical of the private meetings she had, too, wrote a bill and that was government takeover of health care. and couldn't get it done and bill clinton said, we can't get this done but we are going to do it incrementally. and the proposal, and i believe in that september 13 speech, he made the proposal and i know i can find it in his speeches where he wanted to lower the medicare eligibility from 65 too 55 and that's where they brought the idea of schip, which is set up to buy the very, very cheem health insurance for kids and they put that out through the

states through in iowa, hawk eye, with a 2 to 1 federal match. if you want to help out with these health insurance preliminary yulls, here's what we'll do, if you put $1, we will put $2 and change down. and i think it's a 70% funding by the federal government, 30% by the state and then the states adopted it because -- you remember the phrase, free money, mr. speaker. nothing is free, we know that. but it was viewed as free money. they adopted sship. in iowa, hawk eye. and at the same time, bill clinton would have liked it down to 55. you can see what is happening. reduce the eligibility for medicare and they are seeking to expand medicaid and have been doing that and lowering the

standards for eligibility to medicaid from the lower income side of the scale and you make these kids eligible for schip, squeezing this, lowering the senior age from 55, make sure you eninsure the kids well into the 20's and had states as high as 66% that were not kids but adults that were on the s chip program. i think it was 87%. so they were using schip to expand because they wanted to have a single-payer plan. and that is what was going on with the strategy in trying to establish the single-payer plan. we fought some of that back. and nancy pelosi was elected as speaker of the house and what

does she bring to us, an schip plan at 200% of poverty, in my state, $52,000, to turn it up to $400% of poverty. and that would have -- and it passed the house at the insistence of the speaker and i was the only member to oppose it, would have gone to $400% of poverty. a family of four, 103,000. and while that was going on, the people that had to pay the rich man's tax, the alternative minimum tax, 70,000 families in america that would be paying the rich man's tax, the alternative minimum tax, 70,000 families,

paying the alternative minimum tax that would still be eligible for the schip funding for their children. you see where this goes? subsidy at the means side of this where lower income people are multiplied from 100% to 200% to 300% and we ratchet down to 300% and fund illegals in the market, but squeezes it into the middle. can you imagine, someone who would be 45 years old, watched the eligibility drop down to 55 and watch somebody who is collecting schip. family of four having a health insurance premium paid while they are paying the alternative

minimum tax and you are looking at this thinking, member 10 years older of me get free health care. i'm working raising my own family and everybody else's, too. why do i try? do i have better quality health care? the people who are responsible should be living better. got to leave incentives in place. squeeze the middle, put a load on the people who are still paying for their own health insurance at their workplace or wherever they might be, that they would just throw up their hands and say, give me the european model. i'm paying it for everybody else. why am i buying my own? that's the strategy. so cynical to crush the spirit of people and take away their constitutional rights and impose upon them a national health care

act that they were rejected during the hill arry-care era. the people in massachusetts rejected obamacare and still their hearts were hardened and they determined to come on down here and impose that will on the american people. i will not let it go for a whole series of reasons but the constitutional reasons are the most important ones. it is unconstitutional to require any american to buy a product that is produced or approved under the penalty of law. it has never happened. it is a violation of a series of components within our constitution and don't think i can come up with them. there are four places, violation of the commerce clause, because there will be and always be babies born in states that didn't advantage themselves of any health care so they knt participate in any commerce when

it come to health care and didn't travel outside of their state so maybe the risk of them being picked up by an ambulance in another state didn't exist so they didn't use health care in the state they lived in. they lived a lifelong or passed awayics never having engaged in interstate commerce that had anything to do with obamacare which means it is a violation of the commerce clause, swift and certain without hard analysis required. if the commerce clause doesn't apply to say that the passage of obamacare is forbidden by the constitution, if the commerce clause doesn't apply, then it doesn't apply whatsoever for anything imaginable and no restraint whatsoever. you would believe that if you are an activist judge.

i reject that. second part, nothing in the enumerated power. nothing in the constitution to impose an obligation by any citizen or any person in the united states to buy a product that is produced by the federal government or approved by the federal government. that's the second thing. third thing, it violates the equal protection clause of the constitution. it says all citizens shall be treated the same, regarding the list. people are treated different list. people are treated differently. the cornhusker kickback is still the legislation treats people differently in louisiana, florida, than the rest of the country. the other jurisdictions are eight to 11 areas in obamacare that treat people differently depending upon the geography of

where they live. that is forbidden unged the equal protection clause -- under the equal protection clause. not only is it in the enumerated powers to impossible this obamacare on americans, but those powers that are not specified are reserved for the states or to the people respectively. and this is a violation of the separation of powers' doctrine which is in the 10th amendment. four places, not in the enumerated powers, violation of the commerce clause and the 10th amendment. this supreme court will see these cases eventually. and when they do, an honest reading of the constitution compels the supreme to overturn the obamacare legislation. and i understand and there is not a severability clause.

i wish we had a provision that would put that paper back in the treaty and give people back their liberty because that's what this bill does, it violates the constitution and takes people's liberty and nationalizes our body. it takes over the most sovereign thing that we have. that's our skin and everything inside it. the federal government determines when we get the test, what policies we buy, they'll regulate the premiums, they'll decide what's offered in the policies and the federal government will impose mandates on the policies. there'll be mandates for contraceptive, drug treatment, probably mandates for physical therapy and we see an effort to tax your pop if it's not diet

pop, tax your soda if it's not diet soda. the next thing they'll be doing in this super uber nanny state is run us across the scales and tax our fat that would be the simplest way. if they're going to tax the diet, i wish they'd run me across the scale and tax me by the pound. i want the freedom to buy what i want to buy, eat what i want to eat and make my own decisions on whether i'm going to exercise or whether i'm going to go to a health club. if my insurance company wants to set up an incentive for that because it's a -- because it's cost effective and they can offer a lower premium, i'll take advantage of that i think many americans will do the same. this federal government cannot be allowed to continue on becoming more of a nanny state than it is. we've got to reject that, mr. speaker. we've got to abolish obamacare, pull it out root and branch so

there's not one vestige of it left behind, not one particle, not one cell, not one d.n.a. particle of obamacare left in this federal code. if we leave it, it's the equivalent of going in and removing a malignant tumor and leaving part of it there. it still has a great risk of metastasizing. when that happens, it's the death nell to freedom and liberty in the united states of america. we are not so other people. we are not the mirror of europe stirring in the later generations of more newly arriving immigrants, legal and illegal. we are unique people, we have a unique character and unique quality about us where we stand alone apart from the rest of the world. for a lot of reasons, mr. speaker. some of those reasons are self-evident and some of those reasons are in the declaration and some of them are in the bill of rights. some of them are in the the

constitution in a broader sense. to enumerate some of those reasons for american exceptionalism. it's not politically correct to talk about this, but we need to do it. we have the rule of law. the foundation is the constitution. the philosophy for the constitution is in the deck arelation of independence. we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. life is the paramount right. it is paramount to liberty, which is more important than the pursuit of happiness. so working from the bottom of the scale up, mr. speaker, it works like this. someone in the pursuit of their happiness cannot infringe on someone else's liberty because liberty trumps pursuit of happiness. and pursuit of happiness, it was understood to go back to the greek meaning, and the

greek word for it in its definition speaks to a search for knowledge a search for truth. it implies both the physical and mental. so to be sound in body and mind in earge is senior -- in a search for truth and search for knowledge, that's pursuit of happiness. they believed that ultimate knowledge would provide the level of ultimate happiness. there's some wisdom in that philosophy. it's godless, but there's wisdom in the philosophy of achieving ultimate knowledge. someone in their search for knowledge -- in their pursuit of happiness/knowledge, cannot trample on someone else's liberty. liberty is more important than the pursuit of happiness. someone in pursuit of their liberty in search for their liberty, cannot use that liberty to take someone else's life.

individual life is too precious. it cannot be take bin someone because they say they have a liberty. neither can someone who is in pursuit of their happiness take someone else's liberty because it makes them happy. our liberties are guaranteed here and the infringement on them is we have to respect life more than liberty and liberty more than pursuit of happiness. those are prioritized rights that are self-evident that come from god. here we sit in the united states with that philosophical basis in the declaration that was the basis for our constitution and the right there is that made america a great country, freedom of speech, religion, press, the right to peaceably assemble and petition government for redress of grievances, the right to keep and bear arms. moving up the line, the right to be free from double yep ar diand be tried by a jury of your peers. the right to property in the fifth amendment which has been amended now by the supreme

court of the united states. they struck the words for public use out of the fifth amendment, which says nor shall private property be taken for public use now the effect of that decision was that fifth amendment has been jew surped by the last nine people that -- been usurped by the last nine people that should be doing that, the supreme court. and not all nine. i commend those who opposed it. it now says now shall private property shall not be taken for -- without good use. property rights are a foundation of this success in america. along the way, free enterprise

capitalism is another foundation for the success in america. you can buy a piece of property, and it's yours. as long as you pay for it and pay the property tax on it, you can keep it. that can be the basis for equity that you engage in starting businesses, building homes, expanding farms. those things that have been the basis of our prosperity are rooted in the rule of law, the right to property, free intervise capitalism. also the moral foundation that came over for freedom of religion, rooted in our judeo christian values. all those are reasons why america is a great country. another reason is because we have skimmed the cream of the crop off of every donor civilization that's sent legal immigrants to the united states. the cream of the crop. the people with the vigor and vitality and dream. they found a way to get onboard a ship, whatever means they could to come here and enter

into the united states through a legal port of entry to chase their dreams. some of them came with a significant amount of capital to give it a go. a lot of them came with the clothes on their back and the possessions in their bag, like my grandmother. as they arrived here they began to carve out their american dreams. with the kind of vision and the kind of vigor that gave them the idea to come here in the first place. this america this land of almost unlimited natural resources, a land that has the very foundation of liberty and freedom as the essenced on core of its being, welcomed legal immigrants here who were called by that clarion call of liberty and freedom and property rights and unlimited natural resources and unlimited opportunity in a moral society rooted in judeo christian values and they came here and built a nation in the bink of a historical eye,

settled the north american continent, expanded manifest destiny from sea to shining sea. all of this has attracted people to come to america. now what we are, we are either the first generation immigrants that came here hopefully legally with that vigor, that dream, or the second, third, fourth, fifth, multiple generations, descendants of that same dream, imbued with an american self-confidence and american can-do spirit and a confidence that we can face any challenge, bear any burden, that's the american spirit. we cannot be capitulating to the european utopia version that's going to have a social program to fix any ill. we can't be trapped into this idea that we can sit down and produce some kind of policy that will solve every problem. all we need to do is have our default system come back to the constitution, come back to free enterprise, come back to

individual responsibility. we do all those things and adhere to the constitution itself, free enterprise capitalism, maintain our moral foundation, nurture the family unit as the means through which we pour all our values we do all of that, america will be just fine. jimmy carter when he was running for president and exploring the first in the nation caucus and establishing that as a viable route to the presidency in iowa, i read in an interview back in those years, in the mid 1970's, that jimmy carter say, the people that work should live better than those that don't. i don't know that jimmy carter ever actually acted on that, but that's what he said. it caught my attention. it's a very simple way of describing this. the people that work should live betterhan those that don't. that's not the prevailing philosophy in this congress any longer. it's that the people who don't work need to live as well as

anybody. we have 72 different welfare programs, according to the heritage foundation. in the mid 1990's when we reformed health care, i wasn't here, but when congress reformed health care, it wasn't the dramatic drop in the cost of welfare, it reduced it a little bit and stayed on a plateau and then climbed again. the welfare has been climbing at a rate comparable to or greater than the rate it was climbing going into the mid 1990's. we accepted this. we accepted -- i don't accept it but this society has. this society has also accepted rampant drug abuse so there's a huge demand for illegal drugs coming out of mexico, from or to mexico, that's the core of the problem we have with the border today and the violence on the border today and whatever we do to help the mexicans and sale our border, we need to do that. we need to stop the bleeding. as long as there's a powerful demand for tens of billions, then in the united states, of

tens of billions of dollars in illegal drugs, then there will always be illegal traffic coming across the border. so, mr. speaker, this is a bit of a rendition on where america is today. a little bit on how we got here, a little bit about the history a fair amount about what's going on with obamacare, this is my statement and my commitment, i will not rest, i will continue to turn the pressure up to get the passage of the repeal for obamacare i have introduced in this congress and now have, let me see, if i'm going to add this up, i should have 66 co-sponsors on this legislation today and mr. speaker, the number of the legislation, should you choose to look it up and sign on, i have to put my glasses on is h.r. 4972, and that's the legislation that will one day, at least the language of it, if not that particular bill number, arive

at the president's desk, where this president would veto it, but with a new majority in 2011, we will have the votes in here to shut off any funding of obamacare so that it cannot be enacted and it doesn't come fully enacted until 2014. so 2011 and 2012, this congress has to start all spend big the constitution. we say no, there won't be any funding for the implementing aof obamacare so we will put it on ice for 2011 and 2012. that's going, we will put the repeal on president obama's desk and make him veto it, when he stree vitos it, we'll look and see if we can override it. that would be hard but it's not impossible. in 2012, we elect a new president and a new congress and that new president and new congress need to take the pledge i've taken, which is plank number one, 100% abolishment of obamacare, all of it, without any hesitation,

without any caveats, and let's put that on the desk of the new president, mr. speaker, that will be sworn in on january 20 of 2013. while he stands on the west portico, we'll gavel in on january 3 of 2013 in here. that's what the constitution says we do. we will be then in a position to pass the repeal of obamacare have it sitting there so -- sitting there so when he takes his oath of office january 20, 2013 and puts his hand down as the president of the united states, his first act, mr. speaker, can be to put his pen to the bill that repeal os because macare and sign that legislation on the spot at the podium on the west portico of this capitol building and give america back our economic freedom and more importantly give us back our humaliberty. that's the goal we have to follow with we are to achieve the greatness that america has

ahead of us, if not, we would be trailing in the dust the golden hopes of men and forever diminishing our opportunities for ever diminish -- forever diminishing our poo ten rble, discouraging individual entrepreneur, people that would never realize their dreams because they would be growing up in a nanny state that's taken over the banks, the investment companies, the insurance companies, the car companies, fannie and freddie, the student loans, nationalize our body, our skin and everything inside it, and by the way, put a 10% tax on the outside if you go into a tanning salon, all this taken every that the financial institution, i want it all back, i want it back for the american people, the american workers and the american entrepreneurs. i want our spirit back and i'm going to work to get it back, mr. speaker. i appreciate your attention and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. does the gentleman have 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 adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.

place. -- trevor ringland is in third place. that is a massive defeat for peter robinson.

22% swing. one can only assume that this is linked to the scandal that he and his wife were involved in earlier. it has real implications for power-sharing in northern ireland. peter robinson was critical in bringing his party into the process of of london. getting the agreement necessary to keep power-sharing going. this will raise real questions about where that goes. >> this could be a very significant result for northern ireland. the first time the alliance party has won a seat. they pride themselves on not rallying themselves -- allying themselves with+

ireland. >> that was the defeated peter robinson. the defeated getting the first seed in westminster. a labour ihold in darlington. a swing of 9%. another labor hold with a similar swing, 8.9%.

david cameron just arriving in whitney having been to the pub and greeting tory friends there with his wife. we have been talking about more than ireland. we have had news from wales. let's talk about scotland. >> to put a map on this modified version, you can see clearly the battle that lies ahead for the conservatives in scotland. dumfries and galloway right next door for the one that have already. they hope to take this from labor. it is a fairly