Congressional Record, Volume 156 Issue 5 (Tuesday, January 19, 2010)

[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 19, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H183-H190]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

YEAR IN REVIEW

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Murphy of New York). 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. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I apologize for the delay
in getting down here to answer the call of the gavel.
There are some distractions taking place around America as we speak.
A lot of America has been transfixed by

[[Page H184]]

what has happened this year. I could go back and recap some of the
events, but we pretty well know what they are: $700 billion in TARP
spending. We've watched three large investment banks be nationalized by
the Federal Government. We've watched AIG be nationalized, taken over
by the Federal Government. We've watched Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be
taken over by the Federal Government and then by an Executive order
right before Christmas, have them open up the debt ceiling on Fannie
and Freddie to where every American is a guarantor of the national
debt, which could be $5.5 trillion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We
watched negotiations take place behind the scenes that told the
bankruptcy court how to push our automakers through there, and both of
them were nationalized, taken over by the Federal Government. Then we
watched the $787 billion economic stimulus plan be passed in an urgency
that hasn't produced a product and a resolve, except a debt that is
going to drag down the economy for the American people. Then behind
that, out of this House came hurry up and rush cap-and-trade, cap-and-
tax. Pass it. It passed out of the House, and it went over there on the
docket of the Senate.
The American people began to realize what was happening. They
couldn't believe it. They didn't think, first, the $700 billion TARP
was really real. Somehow they trusted that we knew what we were doing
here, as a majority. The majority knew what they were doing. So they
sat back, and something else happened, and something else happened.
That's the list that I have given you, Mr. Speaker.
The American people have risen up. In the month of August, they
filled up town hall meetings all across America over and over again.
Hundreds and thousands of people came out so that their voice could be
heard. Some of them stayed up all night long just to craft their
question and do the research so that if they got a chance to ask a
Member a question--you could tell there was a tremendous amount of
American intensity going on all across America.

Into September and after Labor Day, we came back here and the grind
began. The effort to pass a national health care act began. The
socialized medicine effort wound up again, and they began pushing this
through, Mr. Speaker. Speaker Pelosi's agenda, Harry Reid's agenda, and
President Obama's agenda, the idea of nationalizing proud, private
sector companies and taking over one-third of the private sector
profits and doing so in a little more than a year in the United States.
Then taxing all of our energy and putting restrictions on America's
economy, where the end result is to send jobs to India and jobs to
China. The American people watched that, and they thought, Well, surely
these people know what they're doing. But the more mistakes they saw
and the list of misguided liberal ideas that had been passed out of the
House and sent to the Senate--and some passed out of the Senate--was
stacking up higher and higher and higher, Mr. Speaker. And the American
people, in groups, incrementally began to realize that they knew better
than the people that were in charge of Congress, and they lost their
trust and their faith in the good judgment of the people that they
elected in this constitutional Republic, especially when they saw that
there was a determination on the part of the President of the United
States, the Speaker of the House and the majority leader of the United
States Senate to nationalize our bodies, to take over the management
and the control of the most personal and private thing we have, that is
this thing inside our skin, our bodies, and the Federal Government
deciding what we were going to have for insurance and who was going to
pay for it and what the premiums would be and what kind of mandates
would be on it and what kind the coverage would be and the decisions
that we would have.
And then on top of that, an effort to start to tax, oh, let's say,
trans fats or foods that they think we shouldn't eat, or sin taxes so
that they could manage our lives, regulate everything that we do,
nationalize and take over the control of our very private bodies and
then tell us what we can eat and probably when we can sleep. It's way,
way too much government intrusion on a proud and independent people.
So when we looked across America, we looked around for, ``from whence
cometh our help?'' Well, we had help from all over America. The Tea
Party Patriots came up from all over America, and they had huge
rallies. They came to this Capitol on 9/12, and they filled this city
up with people with American flags and yellow ``Don't Tread on Me''
flags, and they cried out for relief from the overspending that's been
taking place. They held up their Constitutions, and tears went down the
cheeks of men and women who love this country. It happened all over, in
every State, and it really packed people in here in Washington, D.C.
Still their hearts were hardened, and still they were determined to
force socialized medicine down the throats of the American people. And
then more people came to this Capitol, and as they came closer to a
vote on health care here in the House of Representatives, a call went
out one day, and 3\1/2\ days later somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000
Americans showed up here in the United States Capitol so their voices
could be heard. They filled up over here on the west side of the
Capitol and packed people out there with their American flags and their
yellow ``Don't Tread on Me'' flags. They cried out for relief from this
oppressive government that was taking their liberties away and my
liberties away.
And still their hearts were hardened, Mr. Speaker. Two days later, we
called people back to town. Over here on this side of the Capitol,
thousands came again, and again they pleaded with the legislature and
the Congress here, Give us some relief. We just want fiscal
responsibility. We want our liberties. They told us, We're not
Europeans. We're Americans. We're a different people. We didn't come
here for dependency. A lot of people came here under the New Hampshire
motto, ``Live free or die'' in the United States of America, have a
chance to succeed, take the risk of failure, take your own personal
responsibilities. All that they asked for was a chance to succeed, and
that was taken away, taken away by a President of the United States, a
Speaker of the House, and a majority leader in the United States
Senate, three people.
The American people began to understand that when the House bill
passed here by a vote of 220-215, that if three people changed their
minds, that bill goes down in defeat on the House floor, and the rest
of that saga doesn't happen, Mr. Speaker. But it went over to the
Senate where they ground it out and churned it out and cut deals in
back rooms. There are no longer smoke-filled rooms, I don't think. At
least there are not on the House side, because by order of the Speaker,
that's another freedom that you lost. And if you want to eat an omelet
over here in the cafeteria, it shall be made out of the eggs of a free-
range hen. Don't forget that, Mr. Speaker. That's another liberty that
we've lost.

So the health care bill went to the Senate, and they cut deals. And
we heard things like, Louisiana Purchase II. How do you buy off the
Senator in Louisiana? And then we heard things like the Florida
purchase of the Senator down there so they could be exempted from
losing their Medicare Advantage. Then we saw the ``cornhusker
kickback,'' Senator Nelson. I can say that now. We changed the rule.
Why? Because he lost the amendment, which was the pro-life amendment,
the Stupak amendment, in the Senate by a vote of 45-54, so crafted some
new language that would still leave the United States Government in the
business of brokering abortions through mandated health insurance
premiums and got a special exemption for Medicaid increases in
Nebraska, the ``cornhusker kickback.''
The American people saw this with revulsion, and still they came
forward and produced 60 votes to end the filibuster in the Senate on
Christmas Eve, Mr. Speaker. And about that time, I had a conversation
with my senior Senator in Iowa, Senator Chuck Grassley, who is engaged
in this debate in a serious way with the full intention of trying to
find the best policy that could be put together in the legislative
body, but he had to walk away from it at a point because they didn't
need his vote. They were going to go for the most liberal, the most
left-wing, the most leaning into socialism policy that they could pass,
and it wasn't going to be

[[Page H185]]

with Republican votes. So that's what they did. They put the votes
together to end the filibuster, and the deal was made on the 23rd of
December. The vote for the end of the filibuster came up on the morning
of the 24th, Christmas Eve morning.
I talked to my senior Senator, and I said, What can we do now,
Senator? How do we kill this bill? And he said, We have to pray, and we
have to pray for a victory in Massachusetts in the special election in
the United States Senate. Mr. Speaker, you know, that didn't seem very
plausible at the time. I started to take a look at this, and I followed
the Senator's advice. I put a little work in up there myself. I just
came back from Massachusetts a few hours ago. A few minutes ago they've
announced that Martha Coakley has conceded to Scott Brown.
Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you, there was a shot heard around the
world up there in Lexington 200-plus years ago. There is another shot
heard around the world tonight. In fact, it's the Scott heard around
the world tonight, and it's the American people rejecting socialized
medicine. It's the American people rejecting overspending and fiscal
irresponsibility and living for the now and passing out the government
dole and making sure that nobody has to worry about anything except how
their children and grandchildren are going to pay this massive debt
that's been created in the trillions of dollars.

{time} 2145

Voting here on the floor to increase the national debt by smaller
increments, $300 billion, and next time it will be a big old chunk, and
there is no restraint whatsoever in spending. The Blue Dogs are more
groundhogs. They have gone underground, Mr. Speaker. They used to come
down here and harangue Republicans about spending too much money
because we would have a little deficit at the end of the year. Now, I
have always been for a balanced budget, and I will vote to balance it
every time I get the chance. But the Blue Dogs demagogued Republicans
for a long time. Now they are groundhogs. They went out and saw their
shadow and they went underground because the people on their side of
the aisle are spending money irresponsibly, like crazy.
How could you possibly take away, spend enough money and take away
enough liberty that the three-and-a-half to one Democrats to
Republicans in Massachusetts would elect a Republican to come down to
the United States Senate and vote against cloture so that the Harry
Reid bill could be killed in the Senate? How could you ever spend that
much money? I didn't believe it was possible, Mr. Speaker.
Some would say a miracle has taken place tonight, and I wouldn't
disagree with that. I believe there has been intervention. And I am
grateful for it. It is what I asked for and what I worked for.
I spent 3 days up there and experienced a lot of good people in
Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to say into the Record that working
with the very liberal agenda of the Massachusetts delegation doesn't
always give a person the most positive attitude about the people that
they represent. I come from Iowa, where we have the privilege of making
a recommendation to America on who we think should be the next
President of the United States. We take it seriously, and we have a lot
to say about it, and we are grateful for that privilege and that honor,
but it is only a recommendation, Mr. Speaker.
Tonight, today and tonight the people of Massachusetts not only made
a recommendation, they made a decision, not just for the people of
Massachusetts, they made a decision for the United States of America.
And that decision is no socialized medicine in this country. Keep our
liberty. Get the budget under control. Let people take care of
themselves and each other. The government is not a nanny. That is the
message that comes from the place where liberty began.
Yesterday I was standing at Plymouth Rock. Three hundred and ninety
years ago the Pilgrims landed there. And here we are, 390 years later,
Massachusetts, of all improbable places, has brought us back to that
rock of liberty. I could not be happier tonight. This is all I could
ask for. I am looking forward now to the battle we have ahead to
preserve the liberty that we have left and restore some of that we have
lost.
I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).
Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman from Iowa. I think it is a tribute
to you that over these many months of the last year, you have been
stalwart in your support of the liberties of this country and the first
principles of this country. The gentleman from New York (Mr. King) was
so committed to the American people and the vote on health care that he
missed his own son's wedding because the vote was taken on a Saturday,
and we needed every single vote, not knowing if it would go our way or
the vote of socialized medicine. And this gentleman sacrificed seeing
his middle child's wedding in order to cast his vote for the American
people that day. I applaud you for going up and participating in
Massachusetts' election observing.
I would like to ask the gentleman before I begin to discuss budget
issues. Did you talk to people in Massachusetts today and yesterday?
What was on their mind? What was guiding their decisions in deciding to
make a change in party after that seat had been held by Democrats since
1953. What was on their mind in casting their ballots today?
Mr. KING of Iowa. Some would say it is all about health care and
socialized medicine. In fact, quite a few did say that.
But if you listened a little more closely, they are also telling
people on our side of the aisle, Don't you spend too much money,
either. We are tired of you being irresponsible with our tax dollars
and with our children and grandchildren's future. That is definitely a
core in the center of this. And underneath it is that list of things
that I gave at the beginning: The TARP funding, the stimulus plan, the
nationalization of eight formerly private entities. They see all of
that spending, and they see government trying to manage everything. And
as liberal as Massachusetts is, they said, Enough.
The first version of it is, and some have said it is all about health
care. And for them it was. For others it was health care and too much
spending. For others, it was health care, too much spending, and the
government injecting themselves in and taking over private businesses.
They don't want to have a social democracy here in the United States.
They understand we are not Europe. I mean when the first people arrived
here in the United States it was down at Jamestown in 1607. And then
1620, the Pilgrims landed up at Plymouth Rock. They came for freedom
and liberty, for religious freedom and economic freedom. I think it is
the sweetest of symmetry in history to think that the Mayflower landed
at Plymouth Rock in 1620, and 390 years later in 2010, their
descendants in Massachusetts said, We are going to send you somebody to
defend our freedom for America.

I was asking for reinforcements. We are outmanned and we are
outgunned. We are fighting a scrappy fight. We need reinforcements, and
we get some reinforcements tonight.
Mrs. LUMMIS. The father of the Massachusetts Constitution, John
Adams, died 50 years to the day that the Declaration of Independence
was signed. And as he died, he said ``Jefferson lives.'' And
ironically, Thomas Jefferson died that very same day, 50 years to the
day after the Declaration of Independence was signed. These are people
whose founding principles and founding beliefs carried them until the
day they died. Although during the years they were political rivals,
they respected and admired each other so much because of the work they
had both done to help found this country, that they wanted to nurture
it and guide it and see that it survived.
I believe tonight we are seeing that same nurturing and guidance and
seeing the founding principles verified in Massachusetts. So it is
indeed an exciting day for our country.
Among the things that you mentioned that the people of Massachusetts
chose to be concerned about in casting their ballots today is the
deficit. I would like to take a minute to show you a chart that
explains how this deficit has grown over the last year and that the
debt that our majority party here in Congress today says they inherited
actually has grown to

[[Page H186]]

unprecedented levels while they were in control. When they espouse the
fact that during the Clinton years, the deficit was rejected and that
there were budget surpluses, it actually happened when there was a
Republican Congress.
But the gentleman from Iowa has given me the opportunity to bring
this chart and show it to you. The Federal deficit tripled in one
fiscal year as tax revenues fell and Congress pumped out large sums to
stabilize financial institutions and stimulate the economy. This top
line shows you where the Federal budget deficit was. Well, that is
neutral. That is neutral ground. That is a balanced budget. Down here
on this dotted line is the debt that the majority party inherited 1
year ago, a $459 billion budget deficit. That is the difference in
money collected from the taxpayers of this country and the money spent
during that year.
Now look at 2009. Below this dotted line is the amount of deficit
spending that has occurred during the last year. And as the gentleman
from Iowa just went through, these are the elements that have stepped
that deficit to unprecedented levels: $950 billion increase from 2008,
and our deficit is $1.4 trillion, almost a trillion dollars more than
the Democrats inherited 1 year ago, and here is how it goes. First of
all, lower tax receipts due to the recession, something that they
didn't factor in. Then the stimulus money, which at $787 billion was
about twice what the Republicans proposed to spend on stimulus, and our
bill would have created twice as many jobs. And in fact the Democrats'
bill that they said would keep unemployment below 8 percent ended up
blossoming into double digit unemployment.
That is what people are worried about. They are worried about whether
they will have a job tomorrow, and whether their children will have a
job and whether they will be able to pay their bills and whether they
will default on their mortgage. And on top of that, whether their
health care benefits will be taxed or whether they will be penalized
because the government hasn't approved of the health care plan they
have now. But I digress.
Now let's go on to the bailouts for financial institutions and auto
industries, taking it to even lower levels. Bailouts for Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, an area where the government in its wisdom decided that
people who may not financially qualify for loans to own a home should
have them, and this is the resultant deficit. And finally, unemployment
benefits due to the recession. Plus you add other spending and here we
are, $1.4 trillion in deficit spending in addition to the debt that has
accumulated over the years.
Now if the gentleman from Iowa would indulge one more chart. When you
hear the term structural deficit, this is the structural deficit, the
difference between spending and taxes. This chart runs from the 1970s
through 2019. And if you look, this dotted line is today. Look at how
the gap between spending and taxes grows and separates going forward,
and here is where we are today at a massive point in terms of the
difference between spending and taxes.

But over the years, regardless of who was President, regardless of
who was in Congress, we didn't have those abrupt and wild and dramatic
swings. In fact, when the Republicans controlled Congress under a
Democrat President, you actually had tax receipts higher than spending.
These are the years that the gentleman from Iowa talked about, about
which he is most proud and about which I am most proud as a person who
was observing as a non-Member of Congress during those years.
This chart here shows you where spending went over the last period of
time, 1969 to 2008. This very high number for defense, when over 40
percent of the Federal budget was going to defense, was at the height
of the Vietnam War. Look at its abrupt decline after the Vietnam War
into the 1970s, then back up for a little bounce during the period of
the 1980s while we were ending the Cold War, and then you see it
declined after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and this is the area of the
so-called peace dividend, and then back up only slightly during the war
after 9/11.
But the real kicker on this chart is the bottom line, the red line,
Medicare and Medicaid, because before we were a welfare state, the
amount of the Federal budget and in terms of the use of the Federal
budget, only about 5 percent went to entitlement programs, Medicare and
Medicaid. That number has been dramatically increasing with no end in
sight because people of your and my age are going to move into
retirement, meaning that Medicare will be more expensive. There will be
more of us on it, and Medicaid benefits have increased over time.
Consequently, this is going to be eating more and more of our budget.
Nondefense discretionary spending is actually down, and Social
Security, more level than you would think at about 20 percent of the
Federal budget. But there again, that number is going to go up unless
we get a handle on entitlements. So these are the areas with which we
need to grapple. These are the areas which I believe were on the minds
of Americans in Massachusetts as they went to the polls today.

{time} 2200

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming for the
interesting charts. I think it's important for us to refresh ourselves
with these trends consistently. They have changed dramatically under
this administration.
I think the American people now realize that Republicans in the
majority disappeared here in November of 2006, and Democrats have been
in control of this Congress ever since then. In the previous years,
they all said that if you would just let them have control of this
Congress, things would be better. Give us the majority, they said over
and over again. The 30-something Group, which now I think is in the 40-
somethings, just consistently, night after night, made the same case:
the economy would be a lot better off if you had Democrats in charge.
Well, they came into control in November of 2006 and immediately what
we saw was a significant decline in industrial investment. That was the
first indicator of what was happening with our economy, and it happened
this way: Charlie Rangel became the likely, and not yet formally named,
but he did become the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. And he
went on the talk show circuit all over America; he was a very busy guy.
And the pundits were asking Chairman Rangel, Which one of these Bush
tax cuts don't you like, or do you like them all? And Charlie would
never be able to say that he liked any of them, but he never really
answered back on which ones he didn't like.
But because of his answers and the process of elimination, from
November through February it became clear to the investors in America
that there wasn't any Bush tax cut that Charlie Rangel liked and that
he liked spending better, and he was going to do what he could do to
let them expire so that the government could collect more money so they
could start more programs and grow government spending.
Investment knew that; business figured it out. And as they did, the
capital investment went down; the industrial investment went down
almost in direct proportion to the appearances of Charlie Rangel on
national TV. Because capital is always smart money--it wouldn't be
capital if it weren't smart--and so if the cost of investing in a
business goes higher because there's a tax increase, what do you do?
You invest less in business because the return isn't as likely or the
margin isn't as good.
So when America and the world were promised that the Bush tax cuts
were going to be, let me just say that they would say it this way,
``allowed to expire,'' which is willfully kill them and raise taxes,
industrial investment dropped off. When industrial investment dropped
off, of course when you invest in capital investment, you get a return
in productivity. If you stop investing in industrial investment, then
you start losing efficiencies.
There was a professor--actually, he was a professor that served
underneath Lenin in Russia, his name was Professor Khodnev. He did a
study, it's called the Khodnev study. Nobody really knew about this
study until MIT University did a computer study some 25-or-so years ago
analyzing what happened with capital investment and returns and how the
cycles of the economy went. Somebody remembered that they read this old
study from Professor

[[Page H187]]

Khodnev, a Russian who was commissioned by Lenin to prove that
capitalism would be self-defeating and expire.
So he went through their data and he showed that there was a decline,
that unemployment would go up and gross receipts would go down, profits
would go down and capital investment would go down. He showed a cycle
that showed that when the capitalism of the economy peaked out, it
would then drop back down over the course of about 26 years. That
showed capitalism's decline. Then it would go back up again to peak out
again in another 26 years. It's a 52-year cycle, Professor Khodnev's
52-year cycle.
And so he was commissioned to prove capitalism was self-defeating,
but he found out that, well, it defeats itself for a while, but then
when you get down to the bottom, entrepreneurs start to come up with
good ideas. They all figure out what they're going to do, and they
invest in research and development. They implement new ideas, new ideas
improve technology, technology improves productivity, improved
productivity improves profitability. And when you're down at the bottom
of this trough where you're making these investments, your productivity
then goes up because of the capital investment at the trough. And as it
goes up, your profits go up.
Then you get up there 26 years later to the peak and you realize,
this is pretty good, I'm making money, I think I'll coast awhile. They
stop making capital investments like they stopped under the beginning
of the Rangel term and then your productivity drops off. And you don't
realize it for a while. You're not quite in a free fall, but you're
coasting. I remember seeing a poster on a fellow's wall years ago of a
little kid sitting on a tricycle. He's got his hands on the handlebar
and his hair is flying a little bit, he's got his feet off the pedal
and a great big grin on his face. He's having fun, but the bottom of
the poster says, If you're coasting, you're going downhill.

And we went downhill, Mr. Speaker. We went downhill because taxes
were too high and because the wrong message got sent to capital
investment, apparently because of Khodnev's theory that was matched by
the computer study at MIT, by the way, and you can pick your cycles
within the cycles too.
But it's the nature of capitalism to invest money, improve your
productivity, and then have that equipment get old. Then you can't
compete so much anymore and your productivity then diminishes in the
face of this competition. You still get profits because you've got the
return back on your capital investment and you own your equipment, but
if the profits get narrower and narrower and the harder it is to get
that competitive production out of the older equipment, then you peak
out and you start to slide. And then you think, what are we going to do
now? Well, let's go invent some things. Let's get our productivity
back, and let's compete with the rest of the world.
That's what needs to happen, but it has to happen in a competitive
environment, Mr. Speaker. It needs to happen with low regulations and
low taxation. And you can't be punishing business. And we can't have a
President that is demagoging the capital investment in America and
telling the bankers that they're greedy. Bankers will pull back.
I think this is a lesson out of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: he went
around and punished capital throughout the thirties. And then he had
his New Deal that he said was a good deal; I said it was a horrible
deal. The President said it would have been a better deal only FDR
didn't spend enough money. Well, now we're finding out what America
thinks of the FDR-New Deal-President-on-steroids Obama who went to
Copenhagen twice and went 0 for 2. He wanted to get the World's Fair in
Chicago; that was a goose egg. Then he went to Copenhagen to get a deal
for cap-and-trade. He got a fig leaf, but not a deal. So that's 0 for 2
in Copenhagen.
Then he went to Virginia to try to win the governorship down there,
about three stops across the river. Well, we've got Governor McDonnell.
Then he went to New Jersey to save that for the very rich and, as of
yesterday, former-Governor Corzine. We have Governor Chris Christie.
Then he went to Massachusetts, a place where you would never have to
call the President of the United States to Massachusetts for
reinforcements, never. No one could imagine a scenario like that and
have the President's political capital on the line. He has a situation
where he couldn't win because the race was already too close.
But this is worse than taking a black eye, this is a thumping. This
is a real thumping. It is a movement along the east coast. And if it
can move like this on the east coast, it can really move across the
rest of the country as a dynamic sea change.
The American people reject some other things, as I said earlier. The
most personal thing you have is your body. And the government comes in
and nationalizes General Motors; that's like nationalizing the Dallas
Cowboys. But your body? The most private thing you have, to have the
government decide they're going to manage it and tell you what you're
going to pay for insurance and set up a health choices administration
czar to write the rules after the fact? To pass legislation that would
appoint someone to have power over life and death, someone to be
appointed later--maybe by, let me see, and confirmed by some Senators
to be elected later. Well, they have gone way too far. And the wisdom
of the Founding Fathers has been, I think, ratified and established.
While I'm here talking about how things have to change, Mr. Speaker,
I, not by accident, have an acorn here in my pocket. We know what ACORN
has been doing to try to redirect America's destiny. They have admitted
to over 400,000 fraudulent voter registration forms. They have said
that they've gone to swing States and turned up their organization.
They said they're a 501(3)(C), not-for-profit, nonpartisan
organization.
I went down to their headquarters at 2609 Canal Street in New
Orleans. And there, where they run most of their operations out of,
there was a huge ``Obama for President'' sign right smack dab in the
front window of the national headquarters of not-for-profit, tax
exempt, 501(C)(3) ACORN campaigning for the President of the United
States. He was elected about 8 months earlier, 9 months earlier; they
still had a sign in the window. The President wrote the book ``The
Audacity of Hope.'' This is a lot of audacity to see what ACORN is
doing. They've got to be pulled out by the roots, Mr. Speaker.
That is the next piece that comes along. The American people have to
step up and make sure that our elections are legitimate, that they're
not stolen, that every American citizen registered to vote that counts
a ballot has their vote counted. But the rest of those people don't
have any business voting, and once is enough. And the threats that came
and the stories that we've heard--we will pick up more about
Massachusetts; but I suspect that they're not going to look very far
because on a victory you don't go examine very deeply.

{time} 2210

Yet, in the close races, those that can scramble things and those
that can produce fraudulent voter registration forms, those corrupt
criminal enterprises will take and steal our liberty and our freedom,
and I think we've seen it happen in several States. Thank God it didn't
happen in Massachusetts tonight.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Wyoming.
Mrs. LUMMIS. I have a couple more questions for you.
We look at the fact that, in the health care bill, the Senator from
Nebraska sought an exemption from the impacts of Medicaid expenditures
in his State and at the fact that the Amish sought an exemption because
their religious freedom requires them not to be mandated to have a
certain health insurance program placed upon them. There were other
exemptions. The unions went to the White House recently because they
wanted to be exempted from the Cadillac insurance plan tax that was
going to help pay for the Senate bill to create socialized medicine.
Then there was the citizen who asked: If this is such a great bill,
why do so many people need exemptions? Could that be part of the
reason, the very simple question: If this is such a great bill, why
does everybody want to

[[Page H188]]

be exempted from it? Could that have anything to do with tonight's
election results in Massachusetts?
I yield back.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady.
I think there are lots of things that had to do with the election in
Massachusetts tonight. I think a lot of it was that the American people
are fed up and that they've had enough. You know, people will rise to
their responsibility. I don't know how many times I've seen a town that
needs a mayor, a small town, but nobody wants to bother. Somebody else
can do that. If the wrong person steps forward and says, Well, I'll be
mayor, well, we've got a little syndrome--and I won't say the person's
name--but it's a syndrome that says, if somebody who's going to do a
lousy job steps up, somebody who'll do a good job will step up to
protect them from the damage that will be caused. I think that's part
of what happened in Massachusetts. I think, when this announcement was
made that the Coakley candidate would support the bill, whatever it was
that came out behind closed doors, that that really mobilized a lot of
people.
We need to be thinking about what actually has happened here. In this
House, a bill was passed, and there were amendments that were offered
in committee, but there wasn't much of a process here. I offered
something like 13 amendments in the Rules Committee at 1:30 in the
morning, and there was nobody there to hear that. It's like if a tree
falls in the forest. The Rules Committee sat there and chastised me for
wasting their time for asking them if they'd give me permission to come
down here to the floor and argue for the liberty of the American
people. They had the audacity to chastise me for using up paper. It was
a waste of paper to print these amendments because, surely, I should
have known that Speaker Pelosi wasn't going to let these amendments
come to the floor. So what was the point of putting them on record?
My advice to them was take that 2,000-page bill and put the paper
back in the tree. The world would have been a lot better off if we'd
had a few more trees and a few less 2,000- or now 4,000-page bills.
I think something else we need to talk about, Mr. Speaker, is they're
not going to break the filibuster in the United States Senate on this
bill anymore. So what kind of shenanigans do we have to guard against?
Are they going to delay the certification of the votes in
Massachusetts to try to delay the swear-in of Senator-elect Scott
Brown? I like the sound of that. I haven't said that before. Senator-
elect Scott Brown. Are they going to delay that? Are they going to try
to keep him off the floor?
Are they going to try to push a bill through with the 60 votes they
have and defy the will of the American people?
Is Speaker Pelosi going to try to take the Senate version of the bill
now, which is something that the House has lined up to reject, and
bring it to the floor of the House before people figure out what's
going on and send it to the President even though the American people
have not just at every opportunity--and the election today was an
opportunity today for the voices of the people in Massachusetts and
America to be heard. Thank you, Massachusetts. Not only that, the
people have stepped up to do everything they can, and they have created
opportunities that their voices be heard, and I say still their hearts
are hardened.
If they circumvent the will of the American people, if there's a bill
from the Senate that gets brought to the floor and sent to the
President because everybody over here just sucks it up and decides
they're going to go ahead and lose those seats, there will be holy
thunder to pay in the ballot box in November. I pray the streets will
be peaceful until then, and I'm not sure they will be, Mr. Speaker.

This is a rejection. This is a referendum on socialized medicine in
Massachusetts today. This is President Obama's socialized medicine
agenda rejected in Massachusetts. This is heavy-handed legislation and
backroom dealing rejected in Massachusetts. This is special deals for
different States, exemptions, carve-outs for Florida, Louisiana and
Nebraska and others rejected by the people in Massachusetts. No secret
deals. That's all rejected by people in Massachusetts.
A situation that we have now is--and I said this going into the
election a year ago November--excuse me. Well, it was last November
actually. Going into the election, I said, If you elect Barack Obama as
President of the United States and if you return majorities to the
House of Representatives for Democrats and to the United States
Senate--and I didn't anticipate it was going to be 60. I think, if you
went back and did a recount in Minnesota, it wouldn't have been 60, but
that's what it turned out to be--I predicted then that those majorities
and a President Obama, the three of them--President Obama, Speaker
Pelosi, and Harry Reid--could go in a phone booth and dictate to
America what they wanted to do to this country. I put that in an op-ed
here a couple of days ago, or at least in a press release, because I
wanted to make sure it was down in print.
There is no formal function that has taken place in the House of
Representatives all year long or in the United States Senate all year
long that controls the negotiations on the part of the ruling troika in
America--Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. They plan to and strategize to draft
a whole new bill, one that's not guided by anything except their
judgment on whether they can get the votes to pass it and bring it
directly to the floor of the House of Representatives--bypass the
committee process, not allow any amendments, just write a draconian
bill like King George would write. You know, he vetoed the will of the
colonists, and now the colonists have vetoed the will of the President
today.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield on that point?
Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Interestingly, over the August recess, when we were all
at home having town hall meetings and the people had their
opportunities to step forward and express their opinions about this
bill, one of the leaders of the majority party in the Senate was quoted
as saying, It's getting harder and harder to pass legislation that the
American people don't want.
So they even acknowledge that the American people don't want this.
They even acknowledge that it is the judgment of the leadership of the
Democratic Party that this is good for the American people whether the
American people know it or not.
That's what King George was doing. King George was deciding that he
knew what was best for the American colonies whether they knew it or
not, but they rose up, and they told King George otherwise--that they
knew what was best for them, and they formed a more perfect union.
That's what, in part, tonight's election was about. That's what the
elections and the discussions may be about throughout this calendar
year unless there is some recognition by the majority party and by our
President that ``change'' means moving more towards the center.
You and I want what's best for our country. We don't want to stand up
here and bash the other party. We want to work with them to come up
with solutions for our country. I come from a State where we have
frequently a boom-and-bust economy. I served in the Wyoming Legislature
when we were in boom years and when we were in bust years. We know how
to ramp up an economy, and we know how to ramp a government down in
response to a declined economy. We could work with a President and with
a majority party now if they were willing to do so; but as you and I
know, we've seen no indication that they're willing to do so, and you
expressed an example of it.
It was the night that you were there at 1:30 a.m. in the Rules
Committee to try and get an amendment. I had three amendments to that
bill. I was there an hour before you were, and I was told that there
were going to be two amendments allowed on the floor tomorrow to that
2,000-page bill. One would be Minority Leader John Boehner's substitute
bill, which they already knew was going to go down and that it would
get the votes of all of the members of the Republican Party and none of
the members of the Democrat Party. That was one of the amendments.

{time} 2220

The other one was the Stupak amendment, because that was demanded by
of course every Republican

[[Page H189]]

and enough Democrats that they had to allow it to go to the floor in
order to get that bill passed. But every other bill that was sponsored
in good faith by Democrats and Republicans alike, rank-and-file
Democrats and Republicans, were rejected, was not allowed to go to the
floor and in fact was essentially blown off in the Rules Committee.
That is not government of the people. That is government the way that
King George ran it. That is government that the people tonight rejected
in Massachusetts.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady. This is an exhilarating day
for a lot of reasons, and many of us have poured our hearts and souls
into this. I have argued that even when you are surrounded and there
isn't hope, it is no time to give up because you never know when the
cavalry is going to come over the hill. Well, they came over the hill
in Massachusetts today.
There was a fellow that gave up, though, and I think it is important
to put this into the Congressional Record.

[From the Washington Times]

Bookie Pays Off Early, Predicts Brown Win

(By Joseph Curl)

Boston On Monday, an Irish bookie paid off bettors who had
wagered that state Sen. Scott Brown, a conservative
Republican, would win the special election for the
Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat held for nearly 50 years by
liberal Democratic icon Edward M. Kennedy.
``Enough is enough. It seems that Senator Brown just has to
get out of bed tomorrow to win convincingly. As far as we're
concerned, this race is well and truly over,'' said Paddy
Power, Ireland's largest bookmaker, 24 hours before the
actual election.
Before shutting down the betting, Mr. Brown had gone from
5-4 odds to 1-5 (meaning if a bettor put down $5, they only
stood to make $1 if Mr. Brown wins). The odds against his
opponent--Democrat Martha Coakley, the state's attorney
general--soared from 4-7 to win to 3-1 to lose.
``Paddy Power has also cut the odds on the Republicans
winning the 2012 presidential election from 11-10 to evens
and have installed Senator Scott Brown at odds of 20-1 to win
the Republican presidential nomination in 2012,'' the
bookmaker said.
Mr. Brown, Mrs. Coakley and Joseph Kennedy, a Libertarian
who is running as an independent, entered the final day of
campaigning before Tuesday's special election to fill the
U.S. Senate seat left empty by the death of Edward M.
Kennedy.
The Irish bookie also paid off early on the 2008
presidential election. About a week before Election Day, Mr.
Power paid out more than $1 million to all bettors who
wagered on then-Sen. Barack Obama, saying Sen. John McCain
was too far behind in the polls to win.

One fellow gave up, and his name is Paddy Power. He is the lead
bookie from Ireland. This is in the Washington Times printed today, so
you can guess he capitulated sometime in the night, and it made the
Washington Times. Paddy Power started to pay out the bets to the people
that bet that Brown would be elected over Coakley today. And he said
the polls were far enough apart that he didn't need to wait until the
polls closed and they counted the votes. It was over. So Paddy paid out
somewhere around--here we go. Mr. Brown had gone from 5-4 odds to 1-5.
Meaning that if you bet $5 that he would win, you would pay out $1. And
so Coakley went from 4-7 odds to 3-1.
Now, the people from Nevada would understand all that instinctively,
but I believe that, if I read this right, Mr. Power paid out more than
$1 million to all betters who wagered on the Obama race. So he paid out
the bets. He just decided that he didn't need to wait for the polls to
be counted. He gave up, but he predicted it right.
From my view, Mr. Speaker, I think when we have a public policy that
is completely wrong, that violates the Constitution and it violates the
spirit of the American people, in fact diminishes and damages, the
American people should never give up, should never give up until it is
all over. Then, you figure out how to start it all over again.
I had a poster in my construction company office for years, and I
just found it as I cleaned out my office over the Christmas break and I
was snowed in. It was of this shore bird, a tall, long-legged bird, and
he was swallowing a frog. And the frog is going down the throat of this
bird, but the frog has his arms out and he is holding that bird by the
throat. He is not going to be let up, or if he does he will be
swallowed. The message is, Never give up.
We didn't give up in this House. A lot of us stood and we fought. And
we have got a lot of battles ahead of us, but the cavalry has arrived,
we have got reinforcements. And now, there are people who will not be
sleeping tonight trying to figure out how to pass a bill the American
people don't want.
I think that this time in history, this vote and this election and
this special election in Massachusetts represents the most significant
congressional race in my lifetime and maybe in the history of the
United States. Time will tell. Time will tell on that. But I am
exhilarated to see the spirit of freedom and liberty that has emerged
in a place where we didn't see a lot of that in the past.
I yield to the gentlelady, and then I will come back with any closing
comments.
Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman from Iowa. And I look forward to
the day when you are in the majority party, next year on this floor,
and I am in the majority party, God willing, and that we can work
together with President Obama to solve the problems of this country;
that we can go back as happened in the 1990s, where you had a member of
the Democratic party as President and a Republican Congress, and they
worked together to balance the budget.
That is what the American people, I believe, are yearning for. That
is what I am yearning for. And I look forward to working with the
President in a way that we can balance the budget and bring the
American people back to have faith and confidence in its government
because we return to founding principles.
You know, there is an old saying: When all else fails, read the
directions. The Constitution of the United States is the directions.
And at a time like this, when we have record deficits, when we have
soaring U.S. interest payments like you see on this chart, when we have
Americans concerned about their health care, about their jobs, about
the ability to earn an income, when people are concerned about the
growth in China and what they see in some cases as the decline in jobs
in the United States, that is when you return to founding principles.
Let's look at our Constitution more often. Let's return with our
President next year, as a majority party, and I hopefully will be
serving with you in the majority party at that time, and get back to
those founding principles. Read the directions, what made America
great, and restore the confidence of the American people in this
institution and in our ability to self-govern.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady for joining me tonight in
this Special Order.
You have heard, Mr. Speaker, my enthusiasm to put an end to this
socialized medicine bill. You haven't heard what has been refreshed, at
least, although I am confident you have heard, the things that the
Republicans would like to do.
Republicans have introduced at least 42 different health care bills
here in this Congress. We have passed good pieces of legislation in the
past when we were in the majority and sent them over to the Senate,
where the trial lawyers blocked any reform. And one of those is to
reform lawsuit abuse in medical malpractice.

The number that I get from the health insurance underwriters is 8.5
percent of all our health care costs is wrapped up in lawsuit abuse--
the litigation, the defensive medicine, and the premiums that are
unnecessary because of the lawsuit abuse. That 8.5 percent represents
$203 billion a year going out unnecessarily wasted out of health care.
This 4,000-page bill. And we don't know how many pages it is now. I
don't know if they are back there now writing more pages, or if they
are burning up pages trying to balance out their carbon footprint. But
in this 4,000-some page bill, there is not anything in there that does
one single thing to reduce one penny in unnecessary health care costs
that has to do with lawsuit abuse.
So that is number one. We want to fix that. We have introduced
legislation on it. We passed it out of the House in 2005 when we were
in the majority, and sent it over to the Senate where the trial lawyers
blocked it, lawsuit abuse.
John Shadegg for years has been pushing legislation to allow people
to

[[Page H190]]

buy health insurance across state lines. So today, in Governor
Christie's state, someone who would pay a premium there, a young 25-
year-old man, buys a health insurance premium for about $6,000 a year,
a healthy young man, can go to Kentucky, can buy a similar--not the
same, but a similar policy, for $1,000 a year. So why wouldn't we adopt
the Shadegg language and let the people in New Jersey save $5,000, and
let them buy that policy in Kentucky until they start to lower the
premiums and lower the mandates in New Jersey?
Buying insurance across state lines does a lot to lower the cost of
health care. And the President has said there isn't enough competition
in the health insurance industry. Remember, he demagogued the health
insurance industry mercilessly for a long time: Not enough competition.
So he wanted to create a new Federal health insurance company that
would offer a handful or a dozen health insurance policies.
Here are the real numbers, Mr. Speaker. There are 1,300 health
insurance companies in America--1,300 companies. That is a lot of
competition. The President's idea is, well, we need 1,301, then. And
that will be the deciding factor. And of those companies, there are
approximately 100,000 different varieties of policies. If one wanted to
go shopping, you could conceivably buy 100,000 different policies. That
is a lot of policies and a lot of options and a lot of companies, and
they are not allowed to compete across state lines. In fact, some of
them don't want to do that. Some of them want to protect their little
bailiwick, and some of them are trying to establish a de facto monopoly
in their States. The Shadegg bill fixes that, and it breaks that down
and lets people go out of state to buy insurance. Those are two big
things.
I want 100 percent deductibility of everybody's health insurance
premiums. If a corporation or a company, a sole proprietorship,
partnership, limited liability corporation, if they can deduct health
insurance premiums for their employees, why if they don't provide that
insurance can't the employee deduct 100 percent of that premium in the
same way? It is completely unjust.
When I bring that up, some say it costs too much money. Well, then
let's level the tax a little bit. It is $32 billion, if I remember
right, on the number. That is not too much money to give people equity
and give people justice.
So let's have full deductibility of everybody's premiums. Let's buy
insurance across state lines, make all of the insurance companies in
the country compete against each other. Let's end this lawsuit abuse,
Mr. Speaker. Let's have transparency in billing, so we can start to
reduce the cost shifting that takes place. Because some people
underpay; others have to overpay.
And, by the way, cutting Medicare by half a trillion dollars and
alleging that there is waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption out there--
and they'll be able to find that all if we just let them cut Medicare
by half a trillion--how is it the President of the United States can
make an allegation that there is waste, fraud, and abuse, and can end
corruption to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and not point
one finger at the people that are corrupted or doing it? And how is it
that the President of the United States can hold a right hostage to an
ultimatum?

{time} 2230

We have a right to a legitimate government; we have a right to
government oversight. If there's waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption in
Medicare, we shouldn't have to be held hostage to pass socialized
medicine to find out where it is so the government can go fix it. That
should happen every day, automatically, every time, by due-diligent
public servants. A half a trillion dollar cut. By the way, wiping out
Medicare Advantage. Oh, except for Florida. That's the carve-out on
there.
The American people are full up to here of those kind of shenanigans.
They're tired of special arrangements. They really don't like the idea
that everybody's Cadillac health insurance plan is going to be taxed at
40 percent, except the unions. They're not going to be taxed quite so
much. Give those an exemption because, after all, they helped the
President get elected.
So this is like a huge, right-out-in-the-open, shine-the-spotlight-
on-it, political payoff. This is America. And this is what the people
in Massachusetts revolted against today. A peaceful revolution. People
that came up and said, I'm going to exercise my right at the ballot
box. And if they exercise their good judgment and their right at the
ballot box, then you don't have to go to the other form of changing
government, which gets a little bloody. The French had it kind of rough
after our Revolution. We don't want that in this country. We're
grateful for people that go to the polls and provide that kind of
revolution with good judgment and good energy and good organization and
a great and wonderful spirit.
For me, I get to pack 3 days of good memories about Massachusetts
into my mind, and I can carry that with me forever. That's something
that will never change now. I look forward to going back up there.
Massachusetts, that deep, deep blue State turned a little purple today,
Mr. Speaker.
So I appreciate your indulgence and you listening and I appreciate
the opportunity to address you here before the House of Representatives
on this glorious day. I look forward to every day we have from here on
out to the end of this session as we shape this policy and we start to
move back to sanity in America. I look forward to the elections in
November of this year, 2010.
I look forward to the new faces that will come, the freshman class.
It will be a large freshman class--a class of vigor, people that are
full of energy, that really do come to change this country. I intend to
team up with them, bring us a balanced budget, bring us back more
liberty, strengthen our families, strengthen our foreign policy and, by
the way, while that's going on, we need to shape a President for 2010.
Thank, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate it, and I yield back the balance of
my time.

____________________