looking at terrible choices they never thought they would have to make about health care. mr. tonko: n: -- mr. tonko: and real life stories that should impact all of us in our process here in the house. representative pingree, i know you have a lot to add. both of you are very strong voice force reform, intelligent reform, and representative pingree. ms. pingree: the good news is we have a lot of of colleagues with voices for reform. most of us have gotten to the point every time we go out to a supermarket, we hold a local meeting, somebody's birthday party, the first 24i7k our friends and neighbors and constituents say to us, when are you going to get that health care bill passed? what's standing in the way? there is so much hard work going on here of dealing with many of these very complicated details. this is a major overhaul of our health care system and i commend my colleagues in congress. we are really putting in a tremendous number of hours to get this right. it's not easy to figure out what it takes to bring down costs, how to make it affordable for americans, the stories that you

talked about earlier are exactly what we hear everywhere we go. . what we're trying to do now is put the finishing touches on a bill that will get us back to that place. i visit with a lot of businesses in my district, many of whom are self-insured, they're big enough to take on the challenges of health care themselves. i'm so impressed at the number of companies who are self-insured who have said, wellness has to be a critical component. what they found is a business decision is the more you can emphasize wellness, good nutrition, smoking cessation, regular checkups and physicals, some have fitness trainers on site if they're a big enough company, things we wouldn't have considered, but they realized the more you can do to keep people healthy, to make sure their workers and families get those test, stay out of the

hospital, that's where we can cut significant costs. that's one of the challenges people are spending a tremendous number of hours trying to sort out. how do you make sure we don't have unnecessary testing and pay our practitioners for keeping people well, not for hospital admissions in just the times we get sick. it's a major change we're talking about here. there's been a lot of thoughtful dialogue and debate, not the kind of crazy talk people put out there on the crazy news shows. real, serious dialogue about how to do this right, how to get real competition in with the insurance companies, thousand help small businesses increase the number of people who are covered. in spite of the difficulties of making major change and crafting a big piece of legislation, i get excited when i think about it. i think about, what would it be like to end this year and go back home to our constituents and say we did it. we took a major step forward. we will no longer be the only western nation that doesn't

have civilized health care insurance that hasn't worked to bring down costs that doesn't make sure it's affordable. it would be wonderful to really be able to say that to people. i want to say to my good colleagues here, i unfortunately have to leave the floor, but i want to say in closing about my own district that we've talked a lot about the economic issues. as you have both mentioned, when we talk about individual constituents, there's a part of me that believes this is a moral issue, it's a patriotic issue, it's a way of making sure we understand that in america, we're all in this together. if my small business fails because i struggle under the cost of health insurance or one of your constituents go into personal bankruptcy because of cancer or another illness that wasn't covered, that's not the kind of america i want to live in we want to do this because it's right for the economy but also because we believe it's right for america. mr. tonko: it expresses the society, the nation, and we are

determined to deal with the facts and go forward and understand that we can't fix this system with slogans or sound bites or banners flown at various events. it needs to get into the weeds of detail and make certain that people are protected you make mention of small business, representative pingree. some 13 million people, 13 million, nearly one third of this nation's uninsured, are employed by small and medium-sized businesses, of fewer than 100 employees. that's a huge number. people say to me, if we're going to do this insurance benefit, shouldn't people be working. i said, they are working. they're not getting insurance coverage. about 15 years ago, 61% of our small businesses and medium-sized businesses offered employer-based health care coverage. today that's dropped to 38%. so the signs are there. the evidence is there. the patterns are being developed. we can not continue with the

status quo. it's unaffordable. it's not sustainable. i would say to my friend -- representative pingree, we appreciate your input here this evening. and representative connolly? mr. connolly: adding to what you just said, mr. tonko, if we do nothing over the next 10 year the cost to small business for health care in america will climb to $2.4 trillion. that means that 38% that currently provide health care coverage will drop to something like 30% or below. mr. tonko: i'm reminded with that statistic that the $13,385 on average for a policy will grow to something greater than $29,000. unacceptable outcomes. it will drive business into unprofitable situations and it will wreak damage and pain and suffering onto our nation, onto its families. so there has to be reform here.

absolutely there has to be reform. when you look at it from our senior citizens' perspective, knowing there have been injustices allowed, the creation of a doughnut hole, where constantly, i'm certain you hear, we've talked about this, you hear from senior citizens, as constituents, where they reach in a matter of a few months in any calendar year, the threshold where they're in that doughnut hole and they're paying out of pocket for necessary pharmaceuticals. it's unacceptable. mr. connolly: it is unacceptable. and an awful lot of fear was engendered by misinformation spread over the summer about what would and would not happen to medicare. no medicare benefits, current medicare benefits will be in any way negatively affected by any of the legislation we're looking at. those benefits will be enhanced by the closing of the doughnut

hole you just referred to, mr. tonko. that's the hole that doesn't cover the price of prescription drugs at a certain price range for, or expense range, for senior citizens, meaning that their out of pocket costs for prescription drugs goes through the roof. and they often have to make very difficult choices between, you know, food and drugs at the end of the month. we want to close that doughnut hole. mr. tonko: wouldn't you have expected the voice of advocacy out in the streets to scream about that outcome when it happened five or six years ago? mr. connolly: you would. mr. tonko: no one brought to the attention or carried anger or expressed concern to the level you hear today and here's a situation where we're attempting to correct a wrong that was allowed to occur and close that doughnut hole to allow for more freedom and have a sensible outcome. i, at one of my health care

forums in my district this august recess, heard from people who are not taking medications simply because of that doughnut hole. there are situations where i heard that, you know, from a couple again who testified at our -- one of our forum, that indicated for cardiopulmonary purposes, the husband needed to take medication, pre-existing condition, denied them insurance coverage and they could not afford out of pocket to pay for the medications system of she tearfully shared with us that he simply doesn't take it. it has put undue stress onto the family, it's caused economic hardship, and they're without insurance. and for those who would argue that that system should be maintained, that i have my insurance, you go find yours, we're all pay, as representative pingree indicated, we're paying for that uncompensated care. i believe it's to the tune of $56 billion to $57 billion in

this country. that's a huge savings that automatically flips over to a benefit if we do wise health care policy reform. mr. connolly: in addition if you actually enumerated the benefit enhancement for our senior, medicare not only stays intact, it gets better. we close toe the doughnut hole, making it easier for seniors to access the medication they need. we eliminate co-payments for routine preventive medical care, saving seniors hundreds of dollars a year. we improve and increase payments, reimbursements, to doctors who serve medicare patients which is a complaint we often here from our senior -- often hear from our senior citizens, because of reimbursement rates being inadequate, doctors put a cap on how many medicare patients they'll see or refuse to see

them altogether this bill addresses all three of those reforms, making medicare benefits more generous to our senior citizens prork tecting the benefit base they've got and augmenting it. unfortunately, some of the mis information spread in the summer would suggest otherwise, creating, i think, needless fear and stress on our senior population that relies so heavily on a medicare system. mr. tonko: i think the sensitivities we need to show to these various audiences are hamplered when people are including in discussion items that are not in the bill or fabricating them in a way where they suggest that there are outcomes that would be very destructive. so this has been a very unique effort because you're trying to share information exchange with your constituents, ching is valuable. they can constructively build

this package with us. at the same time, you have to dispel the myths and rumors and misinformation so we can stay on that page of fact, not fiction, and really do what's best for america, for all categories of rate payers and all sectors of our economy. we earlier talked about small business. when you think of the benefits that come if they can have better bargaining leverage as small business, there's a benefit there. our larger companies and industries haven't seen the growth in premiums that our small businesses have. they're 18% greater than the largest community. what we need to do here is provide that benefit by pooling these resources, allowing for better leverage in bargaining for health care premiums to stay lower. just with the report today that was issued, we had growth in new york state alone they did a state by state measure, a 105%

growth in prix yums and a 45% growth in wages over a 10-year period. representative connolly, i think we can agree, that's not a pattern we can allow to continue. eventually the well runs dry, people become sicker and the profit column is swelling for an industry that is standing between choices that should be made between a doctor and a patient. mr. connolly: absolutely. i think the numbers you cited for new york state are higher than the national average and there are regional disparities here in terms of the growth of cost. what we do know, based on the kaiser family foundation study just released last week, is that the average increase in insurance premiums over the last decades was 138%. far outstripping the rate of inflation and far outstripping as you point out the growth in wages and income. that was negative. so there is no lodestone to

measure what's happening in health care, but we do know it's fast outstripping the ability of people's income to support and it is far and away above the rate of any inflation index and is going to be pushing itself beyond the index of affordability if we don't do something about health care reform. i need to leave the floor myself, but i want to thank my colleague for his leadership and providing us a forum for a civil discussion about such an important topic. mr. tonko: thank you for being a strong vis in -- voice in this chamber to move us all along the path of progressive reform for an industry that is representative of every one of six dollars in the american economy. if it goes unchecked in a short span of 30 years, it will be one in three dollars. that just does not make strong

sense. it is a situation that will be a train wreck just waiting to happen. mr. connolly: not sustainable. i thank my colleague. mr. tonko: as we look at the progress we can make here, it is important, madam speaker, for us to move forward with fact, not fiction. for us to instill reforms in the insurance area that allows for catastrophic illness to be addressed so it does not prejudice against american families that require health care insurance. we need to move forward so as to provide portability for our american families, especially at a time when we profess that there will be career changes, job changes, many times over in the -- many times over in the work life of people in this country, where if you lose your job, you shouldn't be denied

health care because of that. some 14,000 americans per day are losing their health care. that's unacceptable in this nation of plenty. we can have a better plan. we need to make certain that wellness and prevention are underscored as very valuable, important dynamics, tools in the kit that speak to the soundness of holding down costs. we do that by not allowing for co-payments in that regard, we need to cap those situations with that could be catastrophic by making certain that no more than $5,000 in individual or $10,000 per family, some reasonable measure, be there to restrict the payments that are demanded because so many families face bankruptcy. i know that if our health care measure were approved as represented before the house here, some 1,200 families in my congressional district alone would escape the woes of bankruptcy because of medical expenses. these are issues that face america each and every day, the business community has been paying stiffly for this sort of

lack of reform, some 40% of our business community is reported spending more than 10% of their payroll on health care costs. . that's a pattern that's growing worse with time. our seniors have been treated unfairly with concepts like a medicare part d doughnut hole. situations that find them in a very few weeks into any calendar year paying dearly for pharmaceutical needs that are life and death choice for them. they shouldn't limit or fractionalize what they are taking. they shouldn't avoid the pharmaceutical needs that have been required of them by the medical community. those are situations that need to be responded through in this debate that hopefully will be factual, that will be fair, that will be based on soundness rather than fear tactics. those that might divide this nation unnecessarily. that may impact the chance to

really reform a situation that for decades has been talked about. i applaud the president when he said he wants to be the last president to attempt this effort and fail. he wants to achieve success for the nation. for decades we have had many add mcmorris rodgers push for reform, but it has failed because, i think there are those who resist change simply to resist it rather than open up to the discussion and the dialogue and the debate in honest measure that needs to be had so as to move forward in progressive format. madam speaker, we have the preshmen class thank you this evening for the time athe lotted. i now yield back the remainder of my time and appreciate the opportunity to discuss what i believe is a crittably important issue that of -- critically important issue that of health care and insurance reform here in america. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the

gentleman from texas, mr. carter, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

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 do appreciate the time. there's so much going on and we have heard so much about community organizations in the last -- actually the last year

as we heard then candidate and senator obama talking about community organizations being the way to go. and i think it's wonderful. community organizations, i'm a member of a number of community organizations. none of them pay me, though. we do the things we do in the community organizations i have ever been a part of because we care about the community. we have jobs, we work, and then in our own time without being compensated we try to help others. we do it through church, we do it through all kinds of civic organizations. so this whole thing of community organizations has been a bit of an anathema to me. an enigma, a riddle within a

riddle, a community organization of volunteers who get paid to do some kind of organization. it's a strange thing. so as we have heard more and more about this group acorn and the vast amount of money that it has been receiving from taxpayers, it becomes even more of an interesting enigma. getting taxpayer dollars from the government over $50 million from people who are working and also being part of of community organizations and churches and charitable institutions and helping their communities, they are working and they are paying taxes and they are also organizing and doing charitable work, and then come to find out their tax dollars are paying a

group which has many, many other aspects to it to go around and basically try to undo the type of things they have been doing. it's really a strange phenomenon . acorn. and from one acorn we know that many nuts can grow. now, as we think about and anticipate the work being done by acorn, we find out, well, they go out and help people to know what their rights are and sign up for different benefits. and as i have seen my good friend from iowa, mr. king, show the photograph he took down in new orleans that had a big 2008 obama sign in there. wait, charitable organizations,

they are not supposed to be involved in politics. in fact any other group seems to have the federal government come down rather strongly against them if they start engaging in politics. but apparently that applies to others and not acorn. i'm also amazed, madam speaker, the responses of some within acorn saying you set us up. you came -- yeah, they came in with a camera and began to ask could they get help to set up a prostitution ring for underaged children with illegal immigrants coming in. at some point you would think people of morality, people of ethics who are organizing communities for the good and the upright -- the righteousness,

the goodness, the morality, the really growth within the community would have immediately said, do you not understand what prostitution does to children? do you not understand that it robs them of their childhood? do you not understand how abusive that is to female children? and how that destroys their adulthood as women? do you not understand that you're a parasite if you are living off of young children in a prostitution ring. or women for that matter,er' -matter, you're a pimp you ought to be disgusted with yourself. we certainly are. we saw none of that in the videos. the reaction seemed to be the same, how can we help you get over and make money as a parasite. it's like this was a pair sitic organization trying to help

someone else also be a parasite. the outrage should not have been to anyone who exposed that kind of mentality within all these different organizations that are part of acorn. but the outrage should have been how could this be? how could a group like this be getting hard earned tax dollars? i'm pretty sure that most people around the country are struggling who have jobs and who would like to have their own money back. i imagine they would like to have that $53 million back if they had known it was going to be for folks who helped other groups and other individuals conduct illegal activity, but there was no remothers -- remorse. you see the video and you wonder, where's the outrage?

you're community organizers and you got no outrage? do you have no soul? of course they do, but they don't show it. is there no still small voice that speaks and said, this is wrong, they are talking about prostitution among children. they are talking about things that are completely against what we believe in in america. everyone fulfilling their great potential. and becoming all that they possibly could be. they tragic, very tragic. but then again we have seen lots of slings and arrows hurled at one member who is sitting right back here in the house who yelled, you lie, that was inappropriate. that violates the rules. but when you take it in context, the individual that came into this house as an invited guest into the people's house, had

just said that critics of the president's plan were not engaged in, quote, honest debate that. we were using, quote, scare tactics, unquote. he said that many of those who were hosting him here were making, quote, bogus claims, unquote. we were making wild claims. we were engaged in, quote, demagoguery, unquote. engaged in distortion. acrimony. the president said we were cynical and irresponsible in the manner in which we were criticizing his plan. he said that facts and reason were thrown overboard. said we were robbing the country of opportunity. we were killing the president's good bill. and he actually used the l word right here on the floor just a couple sentences before l word was used by our friend, joe

wilson. the president said, it's a lie, plain and simple. well, when you set that tone, you come into somebody else's house as an invited guest, and you set that tone, what does that tell the people around you? you think it's ok to talk like that. to accuse your critics of being like that. you set the groundwork of making it ok to say those kind of things about people who happen to disagree with you. and so we have seen the footage of the president telling members of acorn, you're going to have a place in my administration. you're going to have -- you're going to get to participate. there have been plenty of involvement with acorn. it was not like it was a new entity to the president as it was to many of us.

and so you have to wonder a bit about judgment. if that's the judgment of whom you want to be the stakeholder, whom you want to give you advice and help you in the administration, then you have to wonder, well, is that the same kind of judgment being used to pick people who are czars who have no accountability to anyone but you? because that seems to be kind of where acorn was. so we got over 30 czars and they fall into the same category of this lack of accountability. i don't care what group you are, madam speaker, i don't care where it is, what's involved when there is no accountability. we know from the old testament

the only man in the entire possible to have said to have a heart after god's own was king david. when he had no accountability, the man who had the heart after god's own could commit horrible offenses. . you have an organization like acorn, there's complete unaccountability, not only unaccountability, we're going to give you all kinds of power, we're going to give you -- make you the stake holder in this administration, we're going to let you organize america to fit your own image. that's a little scary. but when there's no accountability, that's where all of this goes. so i'm -- i'm pleased to see friends who are also wishing to

address this topic. i'll recognize them in a moment, but -- i see a sign, acorn goes nuts. as i just pointed out, from one acorn we know many nuts can grow. and with that, i would like to yield to my friend from texas, mr. carter. judge carter. mr. carter: i thank my fellow judge and friend from texas for -- first off, for being here to start this because i was across town and fighting the traffic to get back and i apologize for not being here on time, but sometimes things don't cooperate around here like they should. we're talking -- we're starting off, we're talking about, i think you've probably told people, again, we're addressing what we've been addressing every week now for probably 12 or 14 weeks. it's very simple, that the rule of law must prevail in this

country. that means we have to have rules, both of this house and of this nation and of our states and we have to abide by those rules, and failure to abide by those rules has to have consequences. and so we've been talking a lot about internal things that go on with the ethics committee and so forth here in the congress, but now we're going to -- tonight we're going to talk about some things in the news that once again are the subject of the rule of law that, it's -- it puts a bright light on an issue we need to be concerned about. that is the issue with acorn. what we have right here, and i think probably an awful lot of people have seen this video, i know if they watch fox news we've seen the video, now i think it's being shown on other statements. of these actors who pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute, and went to acorn and asked for

their advice on housing and advice on taxes and rather than -- and they were basically given a hand on how to do things and do fraudulent activities and not get caught. and how to beat the system, how to be able to run a child prostitute ring and not let people, don't claim those people as dependents because you don't want people to know about them, all kinds of things like that, things that just from an agency that is supposed to be there to help people and it's supposed to be law-abiding and has received $50 million worth of american taxpayer money to help fund that organization and stand in line right now based upon bills that

have been passed through this house to stand in line to pick up another $8 billion, with a b, as a potential to go into acorn's hands as community organizers. this shocking event that happened not just at one place, but baltimore, washington, d.c., new york, san bernardino, san diego, all have videos showing this. mr. gohmert: with regard to the $8 billion that is discussed for which acorn may be eligible , actually if you look at h.r. 3200, the health care bill that's out here in the house, there is a provision that requires that the secretary

provide information about the federal plan and also sign people up for the federal health care plan, and that provision is in there. and i haven't been able to find any kind of limit on how much may be available, because it's typical acorn-type language, because it says, basically, that the secretary may hire other entities to assist in providing information and signing people up. of course we know in the house version, there was no enforcement mechanism requiring, it's acorn that's paid, you know, it could be $100 billion, we don't know how much would be allocated under that provision to hire people to go out and spread information and sign people up. but we know there was no provision for them to check on whether the people they were

signing up were actually lawfully here but for what amounts could be spent under h.r. 3200, for, or two, acorn to get them to go out and provide information and sign people up without checking their legal status, it could make $8 billion pale. mr. carter: the $8 billion right now, reclaiming my time, was in the stimulus bill and smofert other bills and it's available to be played with right now, whereas $3,-- whereas 3,200 hasn't yet passed this house we anticipate it might if there's a party line vote, it might pass this house, and you're right, there's additional funding in that bill. and i think we should be embarrassed to think that organizations, as we talk about this scandal which is the scandal that's broken on national news, we point out

that the committee on oversight and government reform of this house found acorn had committed the following offenses. voter fraud, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting embezzlement, investment fraud, use of taxpayer funding for partisan political activity, department of labor violations. these are all things that have been raised by the oversight committee, the named oversight committee of this congress. so we -- as we've been talking about, as we have talked about these various issues that involve the rule of law, what we want to do and what i think it's necessary for this -- for this nation to do is, a lot goes on in the dark. when you put sunshine, sunlight on an issue, you get to see a clear picture. that's what we're about here.

we're about putting sunshine on the issue so you can see a clear picture. and this clear picture is awful. if anyone stands up for this group of people, should be -- i think they should be taking second thoughts. here's some other issues here, listed up here. but i see my friend virginia foxx is here, would the lady like to claim a little bit of our time? ms. foxx: i would. i want to thank my two colleagues from texas for beginning this hour. i am glad to talk a little bit about this. i think what you're bringing up in terms of the committee on oversight is extremely important in terms of what it has found out. i have found that people have been a little bit fooled in the

last week about actions having been taken in the congress and i thought i might highlight that issue a little bit. i know i'd heard on the news last week several times, the house has voted not to continue to fund aconch. the senate has voted not to continue to fund acorn. congress has voted not to continue to funding -- to continue funding acorn. i think it's important to explain what happened last week because people don't have the full picture. what really happened last week was our friend over in the senate, senator coburn from oklahoma, put an amendment on the transportation and h.u.d. appropriations bill, that's what i understand. if i don't get this exactly straight, i hope you two will help me get it straight if my memory isn't as good as i'd like it to be. he put an amendment on that bill, an appropriations bill,

that said that acorn would get no more funding through the h.u.d. appropriations bill. what happened in the house, we were dealing with a bill which i found extremely offensive, the bill that would do away with banks being able to make loans to students who are going to college and setting up the department of education as a banker for students who want to borrow money and what we did was we put an amendment on that bill to say, funding would no longer go to acorn. that bill passed with a large vote, so there are people out there thinking, ok, great, we're defunding acorn. but what is actually happening is, defunding acorn in one particular category in the senate, defunding acorn period out of the house.

now what has to happen is we have to have language that's exactly the same in both houses. so what i explained to people on the radio show i was on was, yes, it's an easy thing for members of the house to vote to defund acorn. they know that bill is going to go over to the senate. they know that's probably not going to be in the senate version of that bill. if the senate were to pass a bill related to loans for college students, it would most likely be very different from the bill that passed the house, the two bills would go to conference, and in the conference, very conveniently, the section on acorn would simply disappear. and as i explained to people that happens all the time. the folks in charge over here let something pass knowing full well it's never going to become law.

so those who thought that acorn was going to be cut out of its continued funding from the congress think that based on the news accounts from last week, but i think it's important that people know that isn't the case. and if they're interested in stopping funding to acorn, what they need to do is write their members of congress and say, i want you to vote to defund acorn and i want you to find a vehicle to do that because we can pass lots of bills over here that people can go home and brag about and say, i voted to defund acorn and then it never happens and they'll be given credit for it. they, knowing full well it's never going to pass in a bill that would go to the president for his signature. so i think it's important. i also want to say that i think acorn is a symptom of the problems with the way congress is now operating. the congress -- the federal

government was established to provide for the defense of this nation. and that's what we are here for. what has happened, particularly since the mid 1960's, is, i guess many members of congress, to justify their being here, thought that the federal taxpayers were providing a giant piggy bank to the members of congress and so we could take their money and spend it any way we want to. we've gotten way off target. one of the reasons that acorn could do what it's been doing for the last 15 years is because there's such inadequate oversight because we're simply funding too many different kinds of projects. we need to pull this congress back from where it is now, funding lots of things we have no business funding, to the essential job of the congress, which is to focus on national

defense. and i'm hoping that -- i know it won't be done in this session of congress because there are too many people of a different philosophy than of the three of us, but i'm hoping that after the 2010 election, that we will find more people of like mind with us who understand the reason we have a congress and will say to their members, you need to focus on national defense. if there are programs like acorn, community organizations -- community organizations that need to be funded, let's let the local and state governments do that and with that, i yield back to my colleague from texas. mr. carter: i thank the gentlelady for giving a good explanation and leader boehner, leader john boehner, the minority leader of the house, has asked nancy pelosi for a stand-alone bill that will clearly define no funds go to

acorn from any source. and that's going to be difficult because -- ms. foxx: would the gentleman yield? it's my understanding there is a stand-alone bill. it's up to the speaker now to call that bill up through committee and up for a vote. is that correct? mr. carter: that's correct. there is a stand-alone bill. he's calling on the speaker to call it up. if the speaker doesn't call it up, he'll ask for a discharge petition to call it up for a vote. we maintain the vote we got before, we'll have evidence that this congress overwhelmingly says, acorn is through. i think you've given an adequate description of the politics that may be involved in this issue. let's go back to right and wrong, unfortunately, you can vote to make things sound like they look right, when in reality the results come out wrong. i think that's a perfect point. ms. foxx: would the gentleman explain a discharge petition?

people need to know. mr. carter: if you get enough votes to pass the bill that says i want this bill voted on, that -- any member can file a discharge peties asking that that bill be voted on if he gets enough opeople to sign his discharge petition, it would pass on the -- by the signatures on the discharge petition, it will be called up against the ruling of the majority party. ms. foxx: would it be safe to say that the true measure of whether somebody wants to defund acorn is whether he or she signs that discharge petition, not whether he or she voted for the republican motion last week, isn't that true? mr. carter: that's absolutely correct, that's a good point. . mr. gohmert: it would be typical here in washington also to hear public outcry and say we just fixed the problem.

we are not going to let acorn be funded with your hard-earned tax dollars anymore where they go spend it as we have been finding out it's been spent. when apparently there may be a couple hundred related agencies or groups to acorn. it's not enough. if you're treating ants that are just killing everything in your yard, it's not enough to just go take care of the ants in one aira. they move right over to another area. and that's what you got with acorn. there are so many fingers reaching out into so many other pots, it's going to take a full oversight and lots of investigation to get to the bottom of just how many organizations are tied to this and where all the money is going. it's one thing to say, oh, no, we'll do an internal audit which now they have come around to

finally saying they'll do, but that's not good enough when you're using taxpayer dollars. it's never a good time to do that, but especiallyp now when taxpayers need their tax money more than at any time in decades. so it's not enough to just say we are going to defund acorn, they can just go right into another entity that they are already related to, still continue to get billions or tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. it's going to take a full investigation into all the different fingers that reach out there. what are they doing? we have seen video on a number of acorn offices. we have seen the charges brought of a criminal nature against -- the gentleman from texas says, voter fraud, obstruction of justice, embezzling, use of

taxpayer funding for partisan political activity, department of labor violations. we know about those with acorn. but what about all the groups they are related to? what have they done? how much money have they gotten? those are all things that need to be investigated. we need to get to the bottom of it. before my friends came in i was pointing out, i have been a community organizer. i have been a part of community organizations that help to organize community and take people food and help them take them voter registration. do all kinds of things to reach out and help to visit in the hospital, to just do ministering stuff, but we never had the government pay us to do that. it was all voluntary stuff because we deeply cared about the community. there's something to be said when the motivation is a paycheck from somebody that's out there working and helping the community and yet their tax dollars are being taken away

from them. it would be called theft except we passed a law to legalize that theft of taking their money away from them even though they don't want to give it up and giving it to groups like acorn that are going in an entirely different direction and working at great odds with the very things that people are volunteering to do with their own time. i yield back to my friend. mr. carter: i thank my friend. just look at this displaywright here. colorado, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. florida, vote fraud, case pending. michigan, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. minnesota, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. missouri, vote mail fraud identity theft, multiple counts with convictions. nevada, vote fraud, multiple counts pending. ohio, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. pennsylvania, vote fraud,

multiple count with convictions. washington, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. so not only are there allegations of fraud, identity theft and other things, there are people who have been convicted by a court of those offenses. that to realize that american taxpayer dollars goes to fund every one of those organizations and there are by the stimulus package and other things we have created, there are multiple grant applications out there in this spider web that congressman gohmert is so adequately described where there's all these offshoots, 501-c-3's out there that are nonprofits with nonprofit status yet they can push up the money to the mothership, if you will, and so

it's a real issue. it's an issue that quite frankly a team of very capable people at the justice department should be looking into busting up as much of it as they can. but the part our job, from what we are trying to do here tonight s. let people see what's there. and it's bad. it's awful. and i yield back. ms. foxx: if the gentleman yields. mr. carter: mr. gohmert controls the time. ms. foxx: i wanted to point out one more way that the public could hold their member accountable. we have heard a lot about the issue of accountability, particularly from the president, and yet we have seen almost nothing in terms of real accountability measures being put out there. but as our colleague from texas

pointed out, leader boehner has said if the speaker does not bring up the stand alone bill that he has introduced, he's going to file a discharge petition. well, getting to the point of filing a discharge petition takes a long time, and again many people will go home and say to their constituents, well, i voted to defund acorn, but they know full well that that provision in that bill will be dropped out in the senate or in the conference. but leader boehner has introduced h.r. 3571, it's entitled the defund acorn act. if people want to know how their member really feels about this, then they should ask that member to sign on as a co-sponsor to h.r. 3571.

then if h.r. 3571 doesn't get taken up to vote on it on the floor, then they should sign the discharge petition. many people have the understanding that all you have to do is have 218 people sign on to a bill and then it automatically comes up for a vote. i have had to explain that to a lot of people that it's completely in the control of the speaker whether a bill comes to a committee or comes to the floor for a vote. and i have been on lots of bills that have had over 300 people as co-sponsors and the bill's never come up for a vote. so i would say to any of the public who are watching us tonight that if you want to know, again, how your member really feels about acorn, then do that. of course we understand that much of the -- i don't want to call them mainstream media anymore because i don't think

they are the mainstream media. i think the three dominant networks plus one of the cable networks, they -- many people who watch that, those channels, don't know anything about acorn because those media outlets have not been talking about acorn. we have a real problem in this country with selective reporting of things that are transgressions by our colleagues across the aisle. i know that we have lots of data on that. we want everybody to be treated fairly, and we know that many times when there are shortcomings on the part of our colleagues, that it never gets reported in the national media except for one or two newspapers or one or two tv stations or radio stations. thankfully more and more people are paying attention to those. so we are getting the news out.

i just wanted to point that out. if somebody's watching and they want to know if their member wants -- is serious about doing something about acorn and they voted for the bill the other day, then they should ask them to sign on to h.r. 3571, introduced by john boehner, and already co-sponsored by i think most of us and also if a discharge petition comes up to sign the discharge petition. i yield back to my colleague. mr. gohmert: yes -- mr. carter: let me point out one thing. you made a very good point, congressman gohmert, when you said this internal audit thing ain't going to get it done. that's right. let's just look at what government reform has discovered with the discovery they have done. acorn has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self-dealing, and aid and abet thed the cover-up of an

embezzlement by the brother of the acorn founder. second, acorn has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honor its services and engage in racketeering enterprises affecting interstate commerce. third, acorn has committed conspiracy to defraud the united states by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities. fourth, acorn has submitted false filings to the internal revenue service, the i.r.s., and the department of labor, in addition to violating the fair labor standards act, flsa. acorn falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the retirement income security act, erisa. all those things in addition to what we have discussed and, and an internal audit has already been done once with no information released and

basically they look at their own books and say we are just fine. we should have a full external audit of the books at acorn and quite frankly i think the justice department or this house should be involved in subpoenaing of all the records of all these entities involved in this. we should lay this picture out on the table. which brings us to another issue that i want to talk about tonight. acorn, we can talk all day. and all night. but there's a new thing out there that our colleague from texas, ron paul, congressman ron paul, has brought out. and that is the holding the federal reserve accountable. h.r. 1207, congressman ron paul's bill, is spending -- pending before the congress and trying to get the federal reserve audited. congress has given $700 billion

in the bush tarp, $787 billion in the obama stimulus funds to the fed. congress and the taxpayers have no way to independently verify how those funds have been used. the american public wants to know what's happening with that money and we don't want -- american public doesn't want anymore double standards. quite frankly this is a bipartisan bill. because quite frankly ron paul points out that 1207 is sponsored by congressman paul but has 290 co-sponsors already. so obviously there are democrats and republicans on this bill. there's going to be a full hearing on this on friday. i think people back home want to know, in fact i got asked that the whole time i was home in august, which i, if you will recall, have said that on the floor of this house more than once, where's our money?