mr. gohmert: yes. mr. lungren: in other words, the bill anticipates a loss of jobs and creates a specific fund to reimburse people or to subsubsidize people or in some way help those people who lose their -- subsidize people or in some way help those people who lose their jobs on behalf of the bill? mr. gohmert: yes. it will raise costs for everything else in order to create the fund to pay the people that lose the jobs as a result of the bill. and there's other good news in there for members of congress that voted for the bill, and it seemed a little self-serving to be there. and people said that it wouldn't cost jobs didn't read the bill. but whoever staff member wrote that bill knew people would lose their jobs. the fund is created to provide relocation allowances for those who lose their job to try to help them move to where the jobs are going. unfortunately, it will not provide money for you to go to china, india, argentina, the places where the jobs will really be sent if this bill becomes law. but t

mr. gohmert is recognized for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking members met -- i wish it were otherwise. and ranking member issa. i do think the witnesses for being here. this is such an important issue. for a government that wants to take over everybody's health care, where there are estimates of 50% of fraud, it really does same that we ought to be more interested in fraud. i know that there was he went right after the 2000 election issue from the other party? i know that there are democrats they care about fraud and corruption. they are friends of mine. but apparently the leadership has not felt it was worth investing the time and effort on. this is critical. how can we run anything if we can i get this right and eliminate fraud when people have the courage to come forward and address it themselves. so i appreciate this hearing and the efforts that have already gone into this. i appreciate the efforts of the witnesses and i look for during your testimony. and as i looked down at the acorns, we know that from one acorn, many ne

mr. gohmert, for of minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. interesting, following the gentleman from florida. in the spirit of christmas, sounds like accusing previously members of congress and now members of the senate of basically being responsible for deaths and i can't help but address that in this respect. ignorance is a dangerous thing and the fact is, if you examine, mr. speaker, the statistics of those, for example, you take numbers i'm familiar with, of women who find a localized tumor of breast cancer, after the 98% chance of success, of complete elimination of the cancer. that's in the united states with our health care. if we go to what the gentleman from florida is proposing, as we see in other cubtries like england, it's -- in other countries like england, it's about 20 points less. in other words the program the gentleman from florida is advocating would be responsible for killing one out of five women who find those type of tumors. you can run those statistics throughout health care. so the de-spite what some have said, i know

mr. gohmert is recognized for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking members met -- i wish it were otherwise. and ranking member issa. i do think the witnesses for being here. this is such an important issue. for a government that wants to take over everybody's health care, where there are estimates of 50% of fraud, it really does same that we ought to be more interested in fraud. i know that there was he went right after the 2000 election issue from the other party? i know that there are democrats they care about fraud and corruption. they are friends of mine. but apparently the leadership has not felt it was worth investing the time and effort on. this is critical. how can we run anything if we can i get this right and eliminate fraud when people have the courage to come forward and address it themselves. so i appreciate this hearing and the efforts that have already gone into this. i appreciate the efforts of the witnesses and i look for during your testimony. and as i looked down at the acorns, we know that from one acorn, many ne

mr. gohmert: mr. speaker, at this time i would move before we do further damage that we do hereby 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 is agreed to. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 10:30 a.m. on senators agreed to an amendment stating the bill would not cut medicare benefits. live coverage is on c-span2. >> the senate has started debate on the health care bill. they have one senators to see sessions. seat on our companion network. is the only network with commercial free. to watch a video on demand, go to the health care of. >> american icons. the three original documentaries available on dvd. it is a unique journey. see the exquisite detail. go beyond the velvet ropes. go into the rare the scenes faces. america's most famous home. explore the history, art, and architecture of the capital. american icons, a three disk dvd said. it is $24.95. order it online at c-span.org /sto

mr. gohmert. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one and a half minutes. mr. gohmert: we were asked, how can we vote to have troops go to iraq and not be willing to pay for them, the problem is, we keep having things added to the bills that will pay for these things. adding things. like gitmo language, like we're going to move the people from gitmo, spends tens or hundreds of millions of dollars unnecessarily just to make some political point. we hear people across ethis aisle say, gee we can't afford to lose respect around the world if we forfeit on the debt. don't forfeit on the debt. you don't gain respect when you keep calling the credit card company and saying, i know i'm not make anything payments but if you'll just keep increasing my debt limit, i know you'll have more respect for me. that's in the how it works. we're told aross the aisle, we have no solutions. go look at the bills waiting to come to the floor. i've got a zero baseline budget that doesn't allow automatic increases that would make a huge contribution. we could bring down the debt. but the

mr. gohmert. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. i do agree with my friend from colorado. we all should be paying our fair share. however this congress says -- has said in the past, maybe 39% should not pay their fair share. they won't pay any income tax. and this administration apparently has indicated he wants to take that at least to 44% of americans not paying their fair share. but what the death tax does is go after people who have paid at the highest levels of income tax throughout their lives and yet have still been frugal enough to build a business, build a farm, and then when they are dead, come in and take it away from them. they paid their fair share. this, even though the argument is made that this won't affect that many people, that not that many people pay the estate tax, when something is not right, you need to draw the line. that's what the founders did. they said, principle is worth fighting for and we will not give in to these conphysical can torrey practices -- confiscatory practice

mr. gohmert is recognized for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. ranking members met -- i wish it were otherwise. and ranking member issa. i do think the witnesses for being here. this is such an important issue. for a government that wants to take over everybody's health care, where there are estimates of 50% of fraud, it really does same that we ought to be more interested in fraud. i know that there was he went right after the 2000 election right after the 2000 election issue from the other party? i know that there are democrats they care about fraud and corruption. they are friends of mine. but apparently the leadership has not felt it was worth investing the time and effort on. this is critical. how can we run anything if we can i get this right and eliminate fraud when people have the courage to come forward and address it themselves. so i appreciate this hearing and the efforts that have already gone into this. i appreciate the efforts of the witnesses and i look for during your testimony. and as i looked down at the acorns, we know that fro

mr. gohmert: thank you, madam speaker. you know, i needed to dispel some of the misinformation that's been put out about the health care bill that we passed in this house. for one thing, some have said, states require you to have insurance on your car so of course we can mandate people buy health insurance. the bill we passed is not going to provide health insurance. it's going to mandate. it does mandate that you buy it and if you don't, if you're above the poverty line it won't be provided. in fact, you have an extra income tax if you don't buy the cadillac insurance the government mandates. if you want to know about the comparison, first of all, the states requiring car insurance, not one single state in the country requires that a car, your own carb insured. they require that you buy insurance to inensure against hurting another car or -- insurance to ensure against hurting another car or damaging another car. we're mandating that you buy insurance on your own car, your own vehicle, your own body and that's not constit

mr. gohmert, who can use that remaining time and five beyond it. >> i've often advocated that we ought to be given a number of words rather than time. otherwise it's -- >> would that help people with a southern drawl and the slow talk? >> it would be a tremendous help. >> ok. >> but mr. rokita, let me ask you in your report it mentioned that acorn had violated f.e.c. law. did the f.e.c. ever contact you regarding your complaint? >> no. you make allegations that were pretty brazen about violating the law in the federal election commission did not bother to get back with you? >> i don't know of any communication from the federal election commission. and again, we focused a lot on the criminal statutes and put that to the u.s. attorney. and the lake county prosecutor as well. >> what u.s. attorney's offices responded to your request. >> the u.s. attorney's office for the northern district of indiana. and i've had numerous followup in-person meetings where i would travel to lake county in person to meet with him in his office and then now written correspondence. and they do assure that they a

mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker.i was at fort benning when in 1979 the president ordered a rescue mission. but he micromanaged. he dictated they didn't need 12 helicopters, just go in with eight. they knew they didn't get six, they would have to abort. they got there with five and the aborted mission cost us lives. back in the 1960's president johnson tried to micromanage vietnam from washington. what a terrible mistake. and now it appears that the president will need to fire general mcchrystal because it is imperative that the president have generals he can trust. general mcchrystal says the impact of time on our effort in afghanistan has been underappreciated and we require a new way of thinking about it. he said i believe in short-term fight will be decisive. failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term, next 12 months, while afghan security capacity matures risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible. fire him if you don't trust him. should have been act

and i remember congressman gohmert coming to the floor, mr. speaker and raising the question, parliamentary inquiry, is there a bill in the well? is there a copy of the final bill, the one we're debating and will be voting on, is it in the well? there was paper there, but not the bill or the amentse that had been included in it. so the final question that he asked after a series of them was, can we message a bill that doesn't exist to the united states senate? apparently that's what we could do and that is what happened. that bill, cap and trade, sits over there now before the united states senate as does a national health care bill and they are taking it up and debating it up and fitting it around some of the other things and this is the week that the united states senate turns the focus on their national health care act. we have taken this argument, policy by policy, ideology by ideology through this house. but it comes down to this, just as a refresher, mr. speaker, on what brought this all about, increasing costs of health care in the unit