[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 114 (Monday, July 27, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H8865-H8871]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FAULTS IN THE DEMOCRATS' HEALTH PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Maffei). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege of being 
recognized to address you here on the floor of the House.
  Having been able to listen to some of the dialogue in the previous 
hour, I think it is quite curious that there would be a chart that went 
up with question marks on it that would be described as the 
Republicans' health care plan. There are all kinds of question marks in 
this Democrat health care plan that we have.
  This is the censored flowchart, Mr. Speaker. This is the chart that 
the Franking Commission, I think after having been leveraged by House 
leadership, decided that it couldn't be mailed to the constituents of 
the Members of the House of Representatives because they didn't want 
this to say ``government-run health care,'' because that is pejorative, 
or ``the Democrat health care plan,'' because that is pejorative. So, 
instead, the Democrats put up question marks on the floor of the House 
and they say Republicans don't have a plan. They don't know.

[[Page H8866]]

  Well, there are all kinds of questions about the Democrat plan. First 
of all, why is it so sensitive that you have to censor the truth? 
Secondly, let's see, we can go through a whole list of questions about 
the Democrat plan, great big question marks.
  How much does it cost? Oh, we don't know, someplace between $1 
trillion and maybe $2 trillion, or a little more than $2 trillion 
dollars. We don't know. We are not even within a trillion dollars on 
how much we think that is going to cost. That is the Democrat response.
  How much deficit will it create? Well, maybe a minimum of $239.1 
billion, but it could be well over that. It could run into $600 billion 
or $700 billion. Some answers there.
  Who will get to keep their health care? Who can you actually 
guarantee and point to them and say you can keep your, more correctly, 
health insurance program? And no one can be actually promised that, 
even though the President has said so. He can't guarantee that promise.
  So, as the questions go on and on and on, what insurance companies 
would survive after we have this plan? And looking at this scary 
flowchart, this schematic, Mr. Speaker, there are 31 different new 
government agencies that are created in this plan.
  First I am going to take us back to 1993. I think it is instructive. 
This is the 1993 HillaryCare plan, and this is the chart that hung in 
my office in my construction company during those years, hung in my 
office all the way through the nineties. I didn't take it down. I think 
this chart, that showed this great growth in government, all of these 
configurations here, government agencies, programs, this whole list, a 
lot of these acronyms I don't recognize anymore, all of these little 
flows in the drug pricing, they actually call this a scheme, ``drug 
pricing scheme.'' I just called it a schematic, but they actually 
called it a scheme, drug pricing scheme.
  How about the global budget? That is in here. As you read this 
through, the configuration between the President, the National Health 
Board, the State governments, the Regional Health Alliance, the 
Corporate Health Alliance, the ombudsman, who is there to smooth out 
all the things and make sure when you have trouble dealing with 
government, Mr. Speaker, that there is an ombudsman there who will take 
care of that for you, because we know how difficult it is to find your 
way through the maze of paperwork that is created when government is 
involved.
  This chart, Mr. Speaker, was enough to scare the Americans off of the 
Clinton health care plan, commonly known as HillaryCare. This chart 
came in black and white, it didn't come in Technicolor, but it showed 
you all of these agencies and this creation. And people understood that 
they were being offered in place of their own health insurance program, 
they were being offered a government maze that swallowed up all of the 
things that were private and completely took it over for government.
  The American people loved their freedom in 1993, and they rejected 
giving up their freedom to purchase a health insurance plan of their 
choice, to control their health care decisions themselves. They 
rejected it. This is an HMO provider plan. That is another piece that 
is not so popular today.
  But the American people were scared away from the Clinton plan by 
simply looking at this chart and listening to Harry and Louise. Some of 
them, that is all the further they went. But they knew they didn't want 
a government option when it was going to be the only option. They 
didn't want to have their options taken away and put in the control of 
a government bureaucrat, a government-run plan, a Democrat health care 
plan. That is what it was then, that is what it is now.
  The difference is, this is in full color, Mr. Speaker, as opposed to 
the black-and-white chart from 1993. This chart is flat-out accurate, 
and it does describe 31 new agencies created by the bill. Anything you 
see in white are existing agencies, and the things you see in color, in 
green and yellow and orange and red and blue, those are all new 
agencies. If you count these dots that are colored, there are 31 of 
them, Mr. Speaker.
  One can get animated about having to wade through that massive 
government red tape, but when you wade through it down to the bottom is 
where I get the most concern, and that is, I go down to this little 
square right here, Mr. Speaker, traditional health insurance plans. 
That is those plans that insure the majority of the American people 
today, any private health insurance plan. There are over 1,300 
companies that provide health insurance plans, and generally they have 
multiple plans out there, so we don't know how many plans there are to 
choose from.

                              {time}  2200

  But a reasonable estimate might well be 100,000 separate plans by the 
time you figure the options on the deductibles and the different things 
that are there so that people can get a health insurance plan that 
serves them at a price that they can best settle to. All of those, 
100,000 plans, roughly, 1,300 companies, all dumped into this little 
box right here. And that's how our health insurance is provided for and 
paid for and administered and funded is all right here in the 
traditional plans.
  But under--I don't know exactly how to describe this--the Democrat 
government proposal, all of these health insurance plans, if they were 
going to stay in business after that, would have to qualify. They'd 
have to become qualified health benefits plans. That's this little 
purple circle here closest to me. There are two identical circles in 
size, but the qualified health benefits plan would be where all the 
private health insurance companies go if the bill is passed and the 
President signs it, which he'll sign anything that says ``national 
health care'' on it.
  And I suspect that's the case. He wants a bill, and they want to 
start this down the path because they believe that this will morph into 
a single-payer plan. That's what he really wants. That's what the 
Speaker wants. That's what the liberals in the Congress want. They want 
to take away the American people's 100,000 policies and roll them 
eventually into one government, one-size-fits-all plan over here.
  So these 1,300 companies, 100,000 policies in this square box, if 
they were going to do business after the bill was signed, they have to 
get qualified. They would be qualified if they met the new government 
standards. The government would tell them, You have to cover maternity. 
You have to cover mental health. You have to cover abortion, Mr. 
Speaker. That's the standard that is coming out of the White House 
these days.
  If the White House doesn't tell you that they're opposed to forcing 
Americans to pay premiums to fund abortions, then you know that if it 
comes the way they plan it, there will be abortions funded by the 
American people through the dollars they would pay to these premiums. 
There isn't any history in this country of this government not funding 
abortions unless there was an explicit exemption written into the 
language of the bill. There is no explicit exemption written into the 
language of any of the bills that are working here before this Congress 
now, which should tell anybody that's studied this and watched this 
issue since Roe v. Wade in 1973, that they plan to take the tax money 
and the premium money from the American people and use it to kill 
babies. That's going to be in this plan.
  And all of these health insurance policies here will have to pay for 
it the same way the government intends to pay for it over here in the 
public health plan, and many Americans are going to object to that. But 
what they do is, when they require that these health insurance policies 
have to cover everything they think it should cover and they write so 
many mandates into it that the health insurance premiums will go up, 
and so will the copayments and so will the deductibles go up, and as 
they go up, then it will be easier for the public health plan, the 
Obama health insurance plan, to compete with the private sector.
  And they will do two things with these two purple circles here. One 
of them is they will regulate the traditional private providers to 
where they become mirrors of the government plan and then have to 
compete with the premiums that the government plan will charge. And the 
other thing that they will do is they will subsidize the government 
plan so that they can keep

[[Page H8867]]

those premiums down long enough to compete with the private plan, and 
that will squeeze out the private plans.
  And you can expect, Mr. Speaker, that there will not be private 
health insurance in America in a relatively short period of time, 
whether that be--probably not 5 years. By 10 years, we'll see the 
picture. By 15 to 20 years, it should be settled in if this happens. We 
can look around the world and see where they have made these mistakes.
  In Great Britain, they have a completely socialized medicine program 
that was implemented into law in 1948. In Germany, they have the 
world's oldest socialized medicine plan that went in under Otto von 
Bismarck in the late 1800s. That plan provides for private health 
insurance, and today, about 90 percent of Germans are under the public 
plan and about 10 percent are under the private plan, and those that 
are on the private plan are generally self-employed people that have 
some means to try to provide a plan that they think gives them a little 
better access and maybe even a little better quality health care than 
the 90 percent of Germans that are under the public plan.
  But one thing that they have in common in the United Kingdom and in 
Germany is they wait in line. Their care is rationed, and the quality 
isn't what it is in this country. The survival rates for cancer in the 
United States versus that of United Kingdom or the European Union are 
some four times greater here in the United States than they are in 
those countries that have socialized medicine. And now, Mr. Speaker, we 
can also look to the north to Canada, and understand what went on up in 
Canada.
  When Canada passed their socialized medicine program, it was set up 
to compete with the existing privates, and eventually they were all 
squeezed out. And today there exists a law in Canada that prohibits 
anyone from jumping ahead of the line or going to create a new line. 
One size fits all. Everyone, all Canadians have to comply with the same 
health care programs. Government-run socialized medicine in Canada.
  And now, thinking about what that means, the Canadians lost their 
freedom when they decided to go for a little security and still try to 
keep some freedom. They lost their freedoms on their health insurance, 
and maybe they are a little bit more secure, but the quality of their 
health care doesn't match up to the quality here in the United States.
  And so what we know is that, let's just say the cancer survivors in 
Canada, their numbers look better than the people in the United Kingdom 
or the European Union that have been diagnosed with cancer. More 
Canadians survive with cancer than do the other countries that have a 
socialized medicine program. And I don't know the numbers, and I 
probably won't get time in this debate over the next week or maybe a 
little more to drill back into this and be able to compare the 
statistics.

  Mr. Speaker, I'm going to suggest that a factor involved is the 
Canadian proximity to American health care has helped Canadians live 
longer. It's helped their survival rate. It's helped in such that when 
people get diagnosed with cancer and can't get treatment in places like 
the United Kingdom, Germany, across Europe, they die sooner than they 
do in Canada, and they die sooner in Canada than they do in the United 
States.
  People live longer here after they've been diagnosed with a cancer 
than any of those countries that I have mentioned, and I've seen no 
data for any others. And I'm going to suggest that the Canadians' 
access to American health care helps their life expectancy because at 
least they can sneak across the border and get in line down here, even 
if they have to pay for it out of their pocket. Those would be the 
factual circumstances involved.
  And so we have Democrats asking the question, what's the Republican 
health care plan? I'll ask the question, what do we know about the 
Democrat plan? We know it'll cost a lot. We can guess within 1 
trillion, maybe 1 trillion or $2 trillion. We know it's going to create 
a deficit; 239.1 billion on up to 600, 700, $800 billion in deficit. We 
know it's going to create lines. Lines are rationing. People do die in 
line.
  We know it's going to discourage doctors and specialists for taking 
the years necessary to be trained so that they can be proficient enough 
to provide the quality of health care that we have. So we'll have fewer 
doctors. We'll have fewer nurses. Fewer people will want to go into the 
industry because the government will be telling them how they are going 
to treat patients. There isn't going to be any way that the Democrats 
in this Congress will agree to pull the government out of the 
relationship between the doctor and the patient.
  There was an amendment that was offered in the Energy and Commerce 
markup that specifically said that the government would not interfere 
with the doctor-patient relationship, and that's a short summary, and 
it was voted down except for one, all on a party line, all but one 
Democrat voted no. Every Republican voted yes. We want the doctor-
patient relationship to be maintained. Democrats do not.
  We also have the rules that will be squeezing out these private 
carriers, these 1,300 companies. There will not be 1,300 that will 
qualify. There will be substantially less, and they'll be squeezed out 
by the public option here, this public health plan, this government-run 
health insurance plan, but the regulations will be written by the 
Health Choices Administration.

                              {time}  2210

  It has got a nice little acronym--HCA, Health Choices Administration. 
You know that the people who wrote this are for choice, right?
  So they have named that there will be a commissioner of the Health 
Choices Administration. That commissioner is the modern, fancy name for 
``czar.'' We have 32 czars. The American people are fed up with czars, 
so now we're going to start calling them ``commissioners.'' Some said, 
well, ``commissars,'' but the commissioner--not commissar--will be 
calling the shots on what these health insurance plans are, and he will 
decide what they will cover and what they will not. He will also be the 
one who probably makes a lot of the decisions on how much health care 
is rationed in America. The results, again, will be long lines. How do 
we know this? They exist in every country that has socialized medicine.
  I ran into an individual at a home improvement place in my district, 
oh, about a year ago. He was a legal immigrant from Germany who'd had a 
hip replacement over there. In order to get his hip replacement, he had 
to travel to Italy because the lines were too long in Germany. They 
were a little shorter in Italy, so he got himself in the line in Italy. 
He traveled down there and got a hip replacement. He didn't think a lot 
of the system that they have in Europe. That was just a little 
anecdotal discussion that took place in a home improvement center.
  I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, a week ago Thursday night, we had a 
doctor who practiced medicine in Michigan and in Canada. He has written 
a book, at least one that I know of. He was our guest speaker at the 
Policy Committee a week ago Thursday night. He told a story. He was 
working in the emergency room in Canada. It must have been the first 
he'd been up there to work, is my guess, and he probably hadn't 
anticipated what kind of a bureaucracy they have. They brought a 
patient in who had a knee joint that was all torn up, I believe from a 
sports injury, but I don't know. He had a torn meniscus and a torn ACL, 
an anterior cruciate ligament. That knee was all swollen up. It was 
wrecked. He examined it; x rayed it.
  He told the young man, You need surgery and you need it right away. 
I'll schedule you for surgery in the morning.
  Well, he didn't realize how difficult it was. This is an American 
doctor working in Canada. He began to schedule the surgery the next 
morning, and he found out that there had to be a specialist who 
evaluated the knee and then that they had to file the forms. Then they 
had to get him in line. Then they had to get him approved so he could 
go ahead and have the surgery. Well, the examination, the secondary 
examination that had to take place by the doctor who does the approving 
for the surgery, in order to hold down costs, mind you, wasn't able to 
see this patient right away, so they put a brace on this patient's knee 
that was blown up like a cantaloupe, and they put him on crutches. 
After a while, he left the

[[Page H8868]]

hospital, waiting for his examination by the doctor who works for the 
bureaucracy and who decides who goes into the line.
  Well, that examination didn't take place the next day, Mr. Speaker, 
or the next week or the next month. The examination that if he passed 
would approve him for surgery took place 6 months later. In America, he 
would have had surgery the next day, and he would have been in rehab. 
In a couple of months or even less than that, he'd have been back to 
work. He spent 6 months on crutches, 6 months with a leg brace, 6 
months with a torn meniscus and a torn ACL. Then he went in for the 
examination, Mr. Speaker.
  After the examination, one might think that the examining doctor came 
to the same conclusion that the ER doctor from Michigan did, which is 
that he should have surgery the next day. Well, maybe that doctor did 
come to that conclusion, but they didn't have room for him, not for a 
day or two or a week or a month, Mr. Speaker, but for 6 months.
  No, I didn't say 6 months from the injury to the surgery. I said 6 
months from the injury to the examination and another 6 months from the 
examination to the surgery. We know, if you have a patient who is 
hobbling around on crutches for a year, his unused leg atrophies, and 
the rehab takes longer. It takes a long, long time to get a patient 
back to speed after surgery, when and if the surgery is successful, 
which I guess I don't know.
  This is the circumstance right here across the border into Canada. 
Many Americans live along the border, and they see the Canadians come 
down to the United States for their health care. It happens in Maine; 
it happens in Michigan; it happens in Minnesota. The Mayo Clinic at 
Rochester takes a lot of patients from Canada. Some companies in Canada 
will write into their employment contracts with their employees that 
they have extra good health insurance programs for them. If they are 
hurt or if they need emergency surgery, heart surgery, for example, in 
the employment contracts, they will have policies set up that will 
actually fly a Canadian employee to Houston for heart surgery.
  Now, if you have a health insurance and health care program that is 
in such a condition that employers write it into their employment 
contracts that they will export their employees out of State to come to 
America, to come to the United States to access high-quality health 
care, that should tell us something about what we should not design. I 
would think it would be very clear.
  So the White House and the liberals in Congress--maybe they don't 
want to say, House Democrats' health plan. Maybe I should say, liberal 
House Democrats' health plan. This plan is very similar to the plan 
that was unrolled in Canada where they had private health insurance for 
a while before it was squeezed out by the public health plan, which 
swallowed up everything.
  In Canada, they passed a law that prohibited anyone from starting a 
new line or from jumping in front. Some provinces in Canada enforce it 
more than others, but the Federal law in Canada is that you are stuck 
with the same health care as everybody else. There's no jumping ahead 
in line. There's no creating a new line. You can't open up a clinic if 
you're a doctor and serve patients unless you're approved by the 
government. The government will require you to strap on their harness 
and pull in exactly the patient load in exactly the way they describe 
it; whereas, in America, if you license yourself as a physician, you 
can open up a clinic and can start taking care of patients wherever the 
demand is.

  Now think about the difference between that where you have individual 
entrepreneurs who are seeking to serve a marketplace. Maybe they're 
working for hospitals, and they look around and decide that there need 
to be other services in that they're not able to take care of the 
patients who are there. Maybe they see a population demographic or an 
age demographic that needs to be better served, so they'll open up 
clinics or hospitals or surgery centers or they might go out and pick 
up some medical technical equipment and deploy that to locations where 
it's needed or they'll go out to the rural hospitals and go ride the 
circuit, so to speak, and stop in and maybe once a week do the 
scheduled orthopaedic surgery that's there.
  It happens with OB as well. They'll schedule some of that as best 
they can, at least the examinations. The births come along on their own 
unless they're by Caesarean.
  Remember, HillaryCare actually called this schematic, or at least one 
component of it, a scheme. This color-coded schematic should scare the 
daylights out of the American people, and they should be worried about 
all of the question marks in the Democrat plan, that plan that will 
give us socialized medicine in America. We can understand that, Mr. 
Speaker.
  That's where it's going, and it will bust the budget, and it will 
take away our freedoms, and it will prohibit a doctor from opening up a 
clinic where he sees the demand. It will prohibit a doctor from 
charging more or less--I suppose there may be some opportunity to 
charge less, but that wouldn't last very long--because they're going to 
squeeze these resources down.
  Today, Medicare is only reimbursing at 80 percent of the cost that it 
takes to deliver it. In my State, in Iowa, we are the lowest out of the 
50 States. We have the lowest Medicare reimbursement rate of all of the 
States in the Union.

                              {time}  2220

  And yet, the proposal here in this flow chart is to squeeze maybe as 
much as half a trillion dollars out of Medicare. And now all for what? 
What is the purpose of all of this, Mr. Speaker? Why would America, why 
would this Congress consider upsetting, destroying, wrapping up 
packaging and throwing away the best health care system in the world? 
Why? What would be the purpose?
  And I will submit, Mr. Speaker, that the argument is that there are 
the uninsured. Now, they continue to blur the words between ``health 
care'' and ``health insurance.'' They don't seem to know there is a 
difference between the two.
  Everybody in America has health care. Everyone in America can walk 
into the emergency room and be treated for an injury or an illness. 
Everyone has that opportunity. We don't have people in America that are 
denied health care. Everybody in America doesn't have health insurance. 
And before I go down that path a little, I want to point out that we do 
spend a lot of money on health care in America between health insurance 
and providing that health care. And it's about 14\1/2\ percent of GDP. 
And in some of the European Union countries, socialized medicine 
countries, it's around 9\1/2\ percent of GDP. So maybe 5 percent more, 
half again more.
  So our health care here costs us 3 bucks. It costs them 2. Is our 
health care that's provided in this country worth half again more? 
Maybe. We're willing to pay it today. But perhaps not in the long run, 
Mr. Speaker, and we can do a lot of things to reduce the cost of health 
insurance and health care in America. And there is a difference
  A number of those things would be: Address the medical malpractice, 
the irresponsible litigation that's taking place, the suing of doctors 
and clinics and hospitals and providers all for an opportunity to try 
to cash something in rather than correct something that's wrong. And 
perhaps the word ``all'' is not the right one, because there are cases 
where someone has had the misfortune of being a victim of medical 
malpractice.
  We pushed legislation and passed it through the Judiciary Committee a 
few years ago and off the floor of the House of Representatives that 
limited the medical malpractice settlement and capped the noneconomic 
damages at $250,000 and still took care of the patients who had 
unfortunately been subject to medical malpractice. Paid the patient's 
doctor bills, paid them loss of income. Paid them pain and suffering. 
Just didn't pay punitive damages, that $7 million for the cup of coffee 
that the lady spilled in her lap. That's the punitive damages that we 
call it out in the layman's world. It's called noneconomic damages in 
that bill. Those are capped at $250,000. That's the model that 
California has that has been relatively successful. That's one of the 
things we can do to hold down the cost.
  Another one would be provide for 100 percent deductibility for 
everybody's

[[Page H8869]]

health insurance premium, for a corporation to purchase health 
insurance and pay the premiums and fully deduct those premiums, but if 
someone goes and buys that same policy, they can't deduct it from their 
taxes. A self-employed person can't deduct their health insurance 
premiums fully like say an employer can for their employees. So if you 
are a sole proprietorship and you have high health insurance premiums 
and you haven't formed a corporation, you might be paying $11,000, 
$15,000 a year in high health insurance premiums. Let's say it's 
$15,000 a year. You can get around that lack of deductibility by 
forming a corporation and paying yourself a salary, and part of the 
salary package would be the health insurance premiums. Then you can 
deduct them.
  Those are a lot of hoops to jump through to try to meet a government 
regulation when there should be no particular advantage for one company 
over another, one individual over another. If we have someone who is 
self-employed or someone who is independently wealthy and they are 
responsible enough to go out and buy their health insurance and pay the 
premium, every dollar that's deductible by a corporation should be 
deductible by an individual. All of those health insurance premiums 
should be deductible.
  We should raise the maximum amount for health savings accounts so we 
can be sure that people that are young today, when they arrive at 
Social Security age, will have enough money in their health insurance, 
in their health savings account, to be able to purchase a paid-up 
Medicare replacement policy and take the difference, the hundreds of 
thousands or perhaps more than a million dollars, take the cash in the 
difference on their HSA tax-free if they're willing to take themselves 
off of the entitlement rolls of Medicare by buying replacement policy. 
That's something else we can do in the long term.
  So expand our HSAs, provide for full deductibility on our health 
insurance, limit the liability for these doctors so we can hold down 
the costs of medical malpractice premiums and the cost of the extra 
tests that are there in order to protect themselves from the litigation 
that's bound to come when you ambulance-chasing lawyers are chasing 
doctors around. What percentage of this 17 percent of our economy is 
going to the trial lawyers in America? I say, Mr. Speaker, it is 
significant.
  So there really aren't questions about what Republicans are for. 
There are a lot of questions about what comes out with this chart, but 
the idea that the Franking Commission, which appears to be controlled 
by the Democrat majority in this Congress, would censure this document 
and tell Members of Congress they can't send this off to their 
constituents, they can't package it up and put it in an envelope and 
mail it to their constituents because the Democrats didn't like the 
idea that it says ``House Democrat Health Plan.'' And they don't like 
the idea that it says ``government run.''
  Well, it is government run, and it is the House Democrats' health 
plan. There are bipartisan programs here when it comes to health care 
in this Congress. The bipartisanship is in opposition to this kind of a 
government-run plan, and that's what Democrats and Republicans that 
oppose this today--I cannot find a single Republican that supports this 
plan, and I don't think that individual exists in the United States 
Congress.
  So that would be my component of the speech here that has to do with 
this schematic that should scare the living daylights out of the 
American people, and they should rise up. And, Mr. Speaker, the 
American people should rise up. And in August when their Members of 
Congress come home and they start doing parades and townhall meetings 
and corn boils and whatever else is going on, crab fries or whatever 
they do in the East Coast, this chart should be out in front and the 
American people should go see them and say, Vote ``no,'' be a ``no,'' 
oppose this plan, oppose this plan. Give people their freedom, and we 
can do so in the fashion that I've described.
  Now, there is another huge entity that's taking away our freedom. 
Right here, Mr. Speaker, this is a picture that I took of the 
headquarters of ACORN, and this is down in New Orleans, Louisiana, at 
2609 Canal Street, New Orleans. This is a fortified building. I mean, 
these bars are heavier the lower you go. This is up on the second or 
third floor of the building.
  And I just zoomed in on this window because something caught my eye. 
ACORN's national--maybe even international--headquarters, where they 
have 174 or more corporations running out of this single building, four 
or five stories, glass, with bars, the most fortified building in the 
whole neighborhood.
  But inside that window you can see at least two posters there. This 
one says ``Obama '08.'' ACORN is to be, and is registered as, a 
501(c)(3) corporation, a not-for-profit corporation, a nonpolitical, 
nonpartisan organization organized as a corporation. If this is their 
headquarters and they have ``Obama'' posters inside--it's clearly 
displayed in the window so people can go by on the street and look and 
see that. And in the State where I come from, we call that 
electioneering. If you are a not-for-profit, nonpartisan corporation, 
501(c)(3), you don't do any electioneering. You certainly don't post an 
``Obama'' sign in the front window of the national headquarters of the 
Association For Community Organization Reform Now, ACORN.

                              {time}  2230

  And if anybody wonders about where this picture came from--and I've 
got the pictures of the address and everything, but over here is the 
flag that hangs outside. It is kind of a faded red flag. It is clearly, 
and you can read it, that is the ACORN logo.
  So the ACORN logo on this flag hanging outside the window at the 
national headquarters of ACORN, and the Obama sign in the middle of the 
window displayed so people can see it, is it intentional? Either that, 
or stupid. Is it okay to say that something happened that was stupid in 
America, Mr. Speaker? I'm a little concerned about that. It seemed to 
be not a very good tactic for the President, but I see his name inside 
this window at ACORN at their headquarters and I see the ACORN logo, 
and here is where it is, 2609 Canal Street.
  Now, this is an interesting turn of events. I took this picture just 
before the 4th of July. And last week, on Thursday, about the close of 
business, there was released a report, and this is a nonpartisan report 
from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and 
Government Reform. The ranking member is Congressman Darrell Issa, 
California's 49th District. The subject of this report--and Mr. 
Speaker, I hold this up. It is what the cover of it looks like. The 
United States House of Representatives.
  The subject of this report is this question: ``Is ACORN Intentionally 
Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?'' This report is dated July 23, 
2009. And if anyone should like to look this report up and read it, I 
believe if they googled, ``Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a 
Criminal Enterprise,'' they will be able to find it, or if they go to 
the Government Reform Web site--I know that it is on Mr. Issa's Web 
site and it soon will be on mine.
  I have here the executive summary. It is 88 pages long. I have read 
carefully through the first two-thirds of it. It has in it a list of 
361 affiliated corporations. I have listed 174 in the amendments I have 
offered that were designed to eliminate Federal funding to ACORN. ACORN 
has received at least $53 million in taxpayer funds to operate their 
criminal enterprise. And I have the executive summary here.
  And just to go into it a little ways, Mr. Speaker, this executive 
summary of this report out of the Government Reform House of 
Representatives that asks the question, ``Is ACORN intentionally 
structured as a criminal enterprise?'' July 23, 2009, the executive 
summary reads, in part, like this:
  ``The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN, 
has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic fraud. Both 
structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a wall of paper, of 
nonprofit corporation protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on 
the part of its directors to launder Federal money in order to pursue a 
partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate.''
  Corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of 
its directors and launder money. That is the first paragraph.

[[Page H8870]]

  Then it reads, ``Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and 
corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN. By 
intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax exempt 
and nonexempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies 
into partisan political activities.
  ``Since 1994, more than $53 million in Federal funds have been pumped 
into ACORN, and under the Obama administration, ACORN stands to receive 
a whopping $8.5 billion in available stimulus funds.
  ``Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 
States, and the District of Columbia through a complex structure 
designed to conceal illegal activities to use taxpayer and tax-exempt 
dollars for partisan political purposes and to distract investigators. 
Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is 
shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and 
compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad 
act. The report that follows presents evidence obtained from former 
ACORN insiders that completes the picture of a criminal enterprise.''
  So they describe them as a criminal enterprise, and they describe 
them as to conceal a criminal conspiracy. A criminal enterprise, a 
criminal conspiracy. And these are some of the headings under the 
executive summary.
  ``First, ACORN has evaded taxes. ACORN has obstructed justice, 
engaged in self-dealing, and aided and abetted a coverup of the 
embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade 
Rathke.''
  And that embezzlement was $948,607.50, Dale Rathke embezzlement 
covered up by his brother, the founder, Wade Rathke, whom it appears 
provided misinformation to the counsel for ACORN and redirected--and it 
appears to be willful--to string it out and delay any kind of punitive 
action that would come to visit his brother, his brother Dale, who did 
embezzle the $948,607.50. And it seems to be beyond question that that 
happened, that some of the money was misappropriated to fill the hole 
in their accounting system. That is the first point.
  The second point is, ``ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived 
the public of its right to honor services, and engaged in a 
racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.'' Committed 
investment fraud. That is the second point.
  Third point, ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the United 
States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities by 
having the equivalent of a slush fund, where dollars were moved around 
from corporation to corporation, affiliate to affiliate, resulting in 
get-out-the-vote efforts that may have had--and likely did have--
501(c)(3) not-for-profit taxpayer dollars invested in them, but used 
for political and partisan purposes, Mr. Speaker.
  It says, ACORN forged both formal and informal connections with 
former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, also formal and informal 
connections with Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, and formal and informal 
connections with President Barack Obama, among others. ``Each of these 
campaigns received financial and personnel resource contributions from 
ACORN and its affiliates as part of a scheme to use taxpayer monies to 
support a partisan political agenda.'' A scheme to use taxpayer monies 
to support a partisan political agenda, Mr. Speaker. ``These actions 
are a clear violation of numerous tax and election laws.''
  Another point, the fourth point, ``ACORN has submitted false filings 
to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor, in 
addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA. Committee 
investigators have tracked ACORN's numerous failures to comply with 
Federal laws that required the payment of excise taxes on excess 
benefits to Dale Rathke. SEIU Local 100--the Service Employees 
International Union--under the direction of ACORN founder Wade Rathke--
filed bogus reports with the Labor Department in order to conceal 
embezzlement.''
  Now, all of this off of this report, this nonpartisan House of 
Representatives report that asked the question, ``Is ACORN 
intentionally structured as a criminal enterprise?'' dated July 23, Mr. 
Speaker.
  And fifth, ``ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an 
illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the 
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).'' ACORN 
falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between 
related parties in violation of ERISA.
  Findings go on. They should pierce the corporate veil and do an 
investigation. Justice needs to do an investigation. And something that 
they point out is that, when ACORN crosses the line--which I don't 
think anyone questions they do--the individuals harmed are the low to 
moderate income workers whom ACORN was founded to protect. They hurt 
the very people that they were founded to protect. Dale Rathke's, the 
brother of the brother, embezzlement and the cover up are violations of 
ACORN's corporate duties, and they are fraud. The identities and roles 
of those involved must be disclosed.
  This goes on, Mr. Speaker. I have poked through this report. I have 
spent hours and hours over the last 4 to 5 years tracking ACORN. This 
report lists the 361 affiliates, and in there will be information on 
campaign contributions, who received what money. It will be easier to 
take that information and cross-reference it back to the FEC documents 
and follow the money. It will tell us a lot about what is going on.

                              {time}  2240

  I think there's an indicator here that is pretty interesting. I have 
in my hand the ACORN celebration of 39 years. ACORN was founded in 
1970. They held a celebration on June 17 of this year. And the 
celebration takes place at the National Education Association Atrium, 
probably birds of a feather. That is at 1201 16th Street Northwest, 
Washington, D.C. This is a celebration of 39 years of ACORN. And it is 
interesting that some of the people that are less than enthusiastic 
about doing the investigation of ACORN are invited to be headliners 
there at the ACORN celebration of 39 years. Now, I remember 39 years 
might be Jack Benny's year to celebrate, but 39 years is not a year 
ending in a zero or a five; so this must be the annual celebration of 
ACORN's founding.
  Who is there in the headline? Who is honored? Well, let's see, 
Senator Charles Schumer, New York, the number one headliner for the 
ACORN celebration, their annual celebration. I don't know that Charles 
Schumer has demonstrated a lot of enthusiasm to investigate ACORN. I 
can't imagine that would happen.
  The next one on the headline is Representative Luis Gutierrez, 
Chicago. Chicago politics. Chicago ACORN. Let me see, President Obama 
made his first political reputation in Chicago as an employee of 
Project Vote. He also represented ACORN in court a couple of times, 
some said pro bono. But in any case Project Vote, according to this 
report, this U.S. House of Representatives nonpartisan Government 
Reform Committee Congressman Darrell Issa report, dated July 23, 2009--
according to this report, it's indistinguishable between Project Vote 
and ACORN. They commingled their funds. They had dozens of accounts, 
and one affiliate that managed all the funds of all the affiliates, 
according to the report. But President Obama, according to all reports, 
Democrats and Republicans, made his political reputation working for 
Project Vote in Chicago. Project Vote, inseparable from ACORN, thought 
of as ACORN, and the head of Project Vote was also a top officer of 
ACORN in Chicago.
  Chicago politics. Remember Rod Blagojevich? He's listed in this 
report. Well, Chicago politics are listed in this annual celebration 
that ACORN held in this city in Washington, D.C., June 17, this summer, 
headlined by Senator Charles Schumer; Representative Luis Gutierrez; 
Representative Maxine Waters, who stood before an ACORN celebration and 
told them all that they were all going to get together and vote the 
Republicans, some certain part of their anatomy, out of office. So she 
has, in a partisan way, spoken before that supposedly nonpartisan 
organization. Now, of course, we know they are a partisan organization.
  ACORN is a get-out-the-vote machine. It's a fund-raising machine. It

[[Page H8871]]

writes campaign checks by its affiliates to candidates, and the three 
people who headlined this, on the top of the list, Charles Schumer, 
Senator; Representative Luis Gutierrez; and Representative Maxine 
Waters, all tightly affiliated with ACORN, none of whom are very 
interested in investigating ACORN.
  And if we go down through the list, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. 
Interesting. A number of interesting names. John Podesta, Henry 
Cisneros of the Clinton administration, recognized and patted on the 
back for their affiliation with ACORN.
  It is a sad day, indeed, when we see the corruption of our election 
politics, Mr. Speaker, and we see it done by an organization that is 
set up now with 361 affiliates. And, strangely, the Congress doesn't 
have enough curiosity in order to do an investigation, and the Justice 
Department doesn't have enough curiosity to do an investigation, and 
ACORN themselves admit that they produced over 400,000 fraudulent voter 
registrations in the last election cycle.
  Their goal was to register, they said, I believe, 1.3 million, and 
they admitted to producing and turning in over 400,000 fraudulent voter 
registrations. ACORN is under investigation in 12 to 14 States. Across 
those States, there have been at least 70 ACORN employees that have 
been convicted of some type of fraudulent activity. Most of it is voter 
registration fraud. ACORN itself in Nevada is under investigation/
indictment for election fraud.
  This isn't something that is an anomaly; this is a pattern. This is 
the MO, the mode of operations, of a criminal enterprise that is 
corrupting our election process. And we know it's for political gain. 
We know it's for the money machine that gets churned. They are linked 
together with the SEIU. I read that part.
  There is more to that as well. Those dollars pour into the coffers of 
Democrat candidates, not Republican candidates. ACORN then hires people 
and gets volunteers to go to the streets to turn out the vote, turn out 
the vote for Democrats, not for Republicans. I don't know of a case 
where we have ACORN out supporting a Republican unless it would be--let 
me just say for tonight I don't know of a case, although I've got 
something in mind.
  This is the headquarters, ACORN's headquarters, 2609 Canal Street, an 
Obama sign in the window, an ACORN sign on the outside.
  President Obama got his start in politics, in Chicago-style politics, 
with Project Vote, an arm of ACORN, that was registering people and 
turning out the vote. And he has since hired ACORN to turn out the 
vote. It was an ACORN affiliate to the tune of $800,000. And that 
fungible money, some of it was commingled into the same accounts and 
distributed out as if it's their own personal slush fund, Rathke's own 
personal slush fund, to build power in a power-based width.
  We have also the White House having reached out and signed an 
agreement with ACORN to help with the consensus.
  Now, any organization that can produce 400,000 fraudulent voter 
registrations can't be trusted to count the American people, not when 
there is political gain involved. This can be done without ACORN.
  There has since been a statement issued by the Census Bureau that 
they were not going to use ACORN. I have to see that to believe it. Are 
they not going to use any one of the 361 affiliates that are listed in 
this Government Reform report? I think it's going to be hard to see, 
no, they aren't. Are they not going to use any of the employees that 
work for them, Mr. Speaker?
  So let's not forget President Obama has been tied to ACORN since the 
first days of his political life in Chicago. He has worked for them; 
they have worked for him. He has hired them with campaign money, and 
they have contributed campaign money to him. President Obama is part 
and parcel ACORN.
  When the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, took 
interest in investigating ACORN and made such remarks in a Judiciary 
Committee meeting a couple of months ago, I was given heart that 
perhaps we would start to investigate ACORN. But 3 weeks later, the 
chairman came back in a public statement and he said the powers that be 
decided that there isn't enough evidence there to investigate ACORN.
  Now, who would the powers that be be that are more powerful than the 
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee? Would it be Speaker Pelosi 
or President Obama?
  Mr. Speaker, I am not convinced that it's necessarily Speaker Pelosi. 
But I point this image out. This is the cover of National Review 
magazine from March 23, 2009, this year. They put this image out here, 
Mr. Speaker, and I have just removed the letters so that it doesn't 
blur the image. It just says National Review on top, the date on the 
bottom, and whatever their headline story was. I take note to the logo 
on the shirt pocket of the polo shirt. That says it all, I think, Mr. 
Speaker.
  This is what we have going: we have a criminal enterprise that is 
being hired by the White House to help run the census that helped put 
the President in the White House, a massive organization that reaches 
into 43 States and the District of Columbia, that has engaged in a 
number that approaches a million dollars in embezzlement and covered it 
up for 8 years, 400,000 fraudulent voter registration forms, Federal 
tax violations, and violations of not-for-profit conditions on 
501(c)(3) corporations that are being used for partisan purposes.
  And, Mr. Speaker, we have the image, we have the logo, and we have 
the national headquarters here at 2609 Canal Street, New Orleans, 
Louisiana, with the Obama sign in the window and the ACORN flag out on 
that side.

                              {time}  2250

  Mr. Speaker, we have to investigate this organization. We have to 
bring the Judiciary Committee to bear and the Government Reform 
Committee to bear. We need the Justice Department to drill into this. 
No one single entity can unravel this spider web of 361 corporations. 
It must happen, or it will corrode and destroy this great 
constitutional Republic, the United States of America.

                          ____________________