[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 22 (Monday, February 22, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H636-H643]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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 appreciate being recognized to address you here on the floor of the 
House of Representatives. I appreciate my colleagues that have spoken 
in the hour previous and those that will perhaps join me in the hour 
that ensues at this point.
  As one can tell from listening to that dialogue, we can clearly see 
that there is a high degree of concern about the direction America is 
going. I would like to get into that pretty deeply, but I also 
recognize that my friend from Georgia has something left unsaid, and so 
I would be very happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. King. I appreciate you yielding.
  You have a document there that I know you are going to explain it, 
but I want to say before I have to leave that my name is on that 
document. It is the Declaration of Health Care Independence. In fact, I 
recently signed a copy of the Declaration of Independence. I was 
honored to do so, as I was honored to sign the Declaration of Health 
Care Independence.
  But what I want to say is the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution of the United States cannot be separated. And in fact, the 
Declaration of Independence in itself, the original declaration penned 
by Thomas Jefferson, set out the philosophies of

[[Page H637]]

government. The Constitution took those philosophies and embodied it 
into a foundational principle that this government should be run upon. 
We have left that idea.
  We hear people talking all the time about a Constitution that is 
flexible and that is changeable and that it is a flowing document. 
Well, it can be amended. The Founding Fathers set in place the process 
for amending the Constitution. There have been just a few, over 20 
amendments to the Constitution.
  It shows the beauty of the Constitution of the United States. I carry 
a copy in my pocket all the time. I believe in this document as our 
Founding Fathers meant it, one of very few Members of Congress that 
believe in the original intent and vote that way here on the floor of 
the U.S. House of Representatives.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are suffering. They are suffering, 
and frankly they are scared, they are angry. They are scared and angry 
because they see their freedom being taken away from them. And this 
health care bill that we have been discussing for the last several 
weeks is something that is bringing that to the head. Because what I 
see is an American sleeping giant is arising, a sleeping giant that has 
had some nightmares, nightmares about Obamacare, nightmares about an 
energy tax that is going to destroy our economy and kill millions of 
jobs in this country, a nightmare of overgovernance from the Federal, 
state, as well as local level.

                              {time}  2115

  They are angry, they are scared, and they are sleeping giants waking 
up. And I'm excited about that because, frankly, Mr. Speaker, I think 
the best days of America are still ahead, but they're not going to be 
ahead for our children and grandchildren if we continue down this road 
where government is going to control our health care, what cars we 
drive, what we eat, how we live our lives. And the American people 
understand that very firmly; they understand that government is trying 
to rule them instead of them taking care of their own family's 
situation.
  Most people in America just want to go to work, come home, live a 
great life for their families and take care of all their family 
business without all the government intrusion. That is what you are 
fighting for, Mr. King. That is what I'm fighting for here. That is 
what the declaration of health care independence is all about. We must 
return back to the foundational principles.
  In Hosea 4:6, God says, ``My people are destroyed for lack of 
knowledge.'' And I am encouraging people to get a copy of the 
Constitution of the United States. We give out hundreds, maybe 
thousands, of copies out of our offices in Georgia as well as our 
congressional office here in Washington. But I encourage people to get 
a copy of the Constitution. Read it; it's readable. It wasn't written 
by a bunch of lawyers. And that is all there is to it. In fact, the 
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and every single 
amendment that has ever been passed, in this little booklet. ``My 
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'' America is going to be 
destroyed for a lack of knowledge if we don't become knowledgeable 
about limited government and start demanding something else.
  Mr. King, you have been very vigilant in coming to the floor over and 
over again fighting for what you and I believe in, and that is fair and 
limited government, personal responsibility and accountability. I 
applaud the efforts that you have made, and I feel very honored to 
serve with you. I feel very honored to come to Special Orders and speak 
with you, and I thank you. I just want to thank you from the bottom of 
my heart for being engaged in the fight. I'm a marine. You're not a 
marine, but you're a fighter, and I appreciate that. I thank you and 
yield back.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I very much thank my good 
friend from Georgia, who is always there when I need him, and he shows 
up sometimes before I realize I need him. This may well be one of those 
times.
  Mr. Speaker, there are certain bonds that get built here in the House 
of Representatives. There are people here working late at night and 
they're up early in the morning and they are pushing an agenda, those 
that carry a Constitution in their pocket and those that believe it. 
There are some that carry a Constitution in their pocket that believe 
that it is a living and breathing document. That way of thinking that 
began to erode our liberties over 110 or 120 years ago is the way of 
thinking that says that there is no guarantee whatsoever, that the 
Constitution is not only a protection of the rights of the majority, it 
is the protection of the rights of the minority, whichever side of that 
equation you happen to be on.
  This liberty that we have is not just in the document, but it is 
something that we have to preserve and protect. Those that set about 
with the argument that it is a living and breathing document are 
actually undermining our liberty and turning it over to people in black 
robes who then can decide in their fashion what they believe the 
Constitution is supposed to say. So I pose the question, Mr. Speaker--
and I posed this question to Chief Justice Rehnquist when he was alive 
and sitting on the Supreme Court--and that is, if the Constitution 
doesn't mean what it says, if it doesn't mean what it was understood to 
mean at the time of its ratification, then what has it become? Has it 
become just an artifact of history, or is it a shield that liberal 
judicial activists can hold up to protect themselves from the criticism 
of the public that they would like to convince that they don't have the 
capability of reading a very simple document, that clear, plain, 
precise language of our Constitution?
  I yield again to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. King.
  In Psalm 11, God asks a question. He says, ``If the foundations be 
destroyed, what are the righteous to do?'' Well, the Constitution of 
the United States was obviously the foundation of this country. But if 
you think about it, if it is a living and breathing document, then that 
means it can be applied by anyone in any manner. What does that have a 
potential of leading to is nothing but tyranny. Tyranny. And that 
philosophy is a tyrannous philosophy.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. The tyranny of the majority, as our Founding 
Fathers defined it.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. It is the tyranny of the majority. And it's 
tyranny that destroys freedom and liberty in this country. And I say 
liberty and freedom. Let me define liberty for you, Mr. Speaker, 
because I see them differently.
  Liberty is freedom bridled by morality. A wild dog is free. True 
freedom for everybody is anarchy. But we have liberty in this country. 
Liberty is where my freedom ends, where yours begins, where you and I 
can come together in a society and we can work for a common good. That 
is what our Founding Fathers very firmly believed. That is what I 
believe. We need to work together for our common good.
  We are supposed to be, under the Constitution, a government of the 
people, by the people, and for the people, not a government over the 
people. That is what many in this House, many in the Senate, and many 
Presidents, even Republicans and Democrats have----
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, if I can just make this point 
that however long we might talk to the people on that side of the 
aisle, they're not going to change their mind. They are the wrong 
people. I can tell you that I stood here for 7 years and made some 
powerful arguments, and I can't think of a single time when one of them 
stood up and said, Oh, my, I didn't realize that. I didn't think about 
it that way. I'm going to change my mind. It doesn't happen in the real 
world.

  I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, you are right. They are absolutely 
entrenched in the philosophy that they know best: The government needs 
to control everything. Well, there is a word for that. It's called 
socialism, central planning. That is exactly what many people on the 
other side hold very dear to is they think we are too ignorant to 
control our own lives, to make our own decisions, so they have to 
control our health care. They have to control what light bulbs we screw 
into the lamps in our home. They have to control what

[[Page H638]]

kind of toilet we can have in our bathrooms and what kind of 
showerhead, what kind of cars we can drive. That is socialism, that is 
central planning, and that is the road we are going down.
  We are on a road towards people losing their freedom, where they 
cannot make decisions for themselves. This health care bill, proposal--
it's actually not a bill; it's a proposal that the President put forth 
this morning. I went on the Web site and looked at all the things. 
There is no bill. The proposal is nothing but the first step in taking 
over the whole health care system and making it government control so 
that government bureaucrats control that part of it. We have got to 
stop it, and it is up to the American people.
  Mr. King, you are exactly right. Mr. Speaker, Mr. King is exactly 
right that there are folks that don't pull out the Constitution. They 
talk about the Constitution, but they have no clue what limited 
government is supposed to be under the Constitution. They fight for 
bigger government, bigger government control, socialism, central 
planning so that it takes everything away from individuals. And the 
American people are going to have to stop it by standing up and saying 
no to ObamaCare, no to an energy tax, the tax-and-trade, or cap-and-
trade as they call it, no to forced unionization, no to the illegal 
aliens in this country--they need to go home; they're criminals. They 
need to say no to all those things. The American people need to say no 
to those. We are accused of being the party of ``no,'' but we are the 
party of ``k-n-o-w,'' because we know how to solve these problems over 
here on the Republican side if we can just have our voices heard. The 
American people need to demand that also; that is absolutely critical.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I 
appreciate him sticking around for a few extra kind words. The 
gentleman, the doctor, the marine from Georgia, thank you very much, 
Dr. Broun.
  I want to move along into a component of this that is at the front of 
my mind. The first part of this is so that you, Mr. Speaker, and the 
people on the other side of the aisle--and I know your constitutional 
position from a formal standpoint, nonpartisan position from a formal 
and constitutional standpoint, that would be one of the points we would 
disagree on, but how did we get here is the question. Why is it that 
America is watching as the White House has rolled out, what is it, 14 
pages of platitudes, no legislative language, that is supposed to be a 
bipartisan negotiating standard? Why is it that the President of the 
United States has refused to give up on ObamaCare--which some could 
call ReidCare, others would call PelosiCare, some of that is ObamaCare, 
and I call it TroikaCare. It is a health care policy that is put 
together by those three rulers and leaders that are untested in a 
single party government, and this is what you get. You get something, 
Mr. Speaker, that is put together behind closed doors in those formerly 
smoke-filled rooms with guards outside the doors, and they are trying 
to put together some kind of package that can garner now 51 votes in 
the United States Senate and 218 votes in the House of Representatives. 
Meanwhile, the President is chastising Republicans for not wanting to 
work in a bipartisan fashion.
  So what has happened? I will make the point, Mr. Speaker, that the 
President of the United States has simply lost his mojo. He doesn't 
have it anymore. He had the most juice of any President I can think of 
when he was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. This was a Nation that was 
on the verge of euphoria because they elected the first black President 
of the United States, because it was a new way forward, because it was 
all about hope and change. And this hope and change was defined 
differently to people depending on what they heard from the ambiguities 
of the President of the United States. One side, the extreme liberals, 
believed that the President of the United States was going to jerk the 
troops out of Iraq come whatever calamity. They believed that he would 
never engage in a foreign conflict and he would sell off our tanks and 
airplanes and spend the money on social programs. The other side 
believed that the President might be somewhat stable with national 
defense and maybe wouldn't spend so much money. And everybody certainly 
believed that the President would work in a bipartisan fashion, but it 
didn't happen.

  When the President of the United States, today's President of the 
United States, Mr. Speaker, was working in a complicit fashion with 
George W. Bush when TARP unfolded 1 year and several months ago, it 
turned out to be first $350 billion, and then another $350 billion. We 
see it as one package. Well, it was not. Under the 110th Congress, and 
it would be in the last months of the Bush administration, $350 billion 
was approved for TARP--Troubled Asset Relief Program. Henry Paulson 
came to this Capitol on September 19, 2008, before the presidential 
election and did what I call his ``Chicken Little routine.'' He said, 
The sky is falling, the sky is falling and it is a financial calamity, 
and the only way we can prop the sky back up is you give me $700 
billion and do so right now. And maybe, just maybe I will be smart 
enough and wise enough to do this, but if you tie my hands and you put 
any strings on this money, if you try to alter or amend the latitude 
that I demand, then the whole sky is going to come crashing down. The 
economic world will collapse. Because he had been thinking about it for 
13 months, he presumed we had only thought about it for 24 hours, and 
we had to bite the bullet and take the bait so that they could set the 
hook and reel us in on TARP.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, that was one of the things that happened. It 
wasn't actually the first. But through the course of this, President 
Obama, then-Senator Obama, was right along the way supporting for, 
voting for every irresponsible spending that took place as a United 
States Senator, and then as a President-elect United States Senator, 
then as President of the United States newly inaugurated. That is when 
he really turned up the heat. That is when he really opened the 
floodgates, and that's when the spending really moved on and that is 
when we really saw the nationalization of these eight huge entities. 
That would be three large investment banks, Mr. Speaker. It would be 
AIG, the insurance company. It would be Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.

                              {time}  2130

  Now, that's six of the eight. The American people are watching this, 
and they're thinking we have a constitutional republic. We elect our 
representatives. Their job is to use their best judgment and their best 
resources to come to the best conclusions possible and to make 
decisions for the American people because, first of all, the American 
people can't all be investment bankers. They can't all know what's 
going on on the inside of Wall Street. They can't all know what the 
United States Treasurer is doing, and they can't understand necessarily 
all of the advice that's going into the White House or into the offices 
of the Members of Congress.
  They can provide their input, and we need to listen, but they also 
trusted the judgment. That's how our Founding Fathers set this up. 
That's why this is a constitutional republic, because every one of us 
has his own unique franchise. Every one of the 435 Members of the House 
and of the 100 Members of the Senate has a unique franchise.
  We owe the American people this, Mr. Speaker: first, our best effort; 
second, our best judgment.
  Our best effort is clear, which is to work as hard, as diligently and 
as efficiently as you can. Our best judgment includes input from the 
American people, and it includes input that comes from the experts and 
the data and the analyses and the studies and the testimony and the 
hearings that come before these committees so that we can come to a 
good conclusion.
  The American people, to some degree, trusted those conclusions, but 
they saw TARP come down the pike. Then they saw the takeover of some of 
the large investment banks and the investment brokers like Bear 
Stearns, Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG--bing, bing, bing, one after 
another--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taken over by the Federal 
Government. They are getting more and more uneasy as this unfolds.
  Then, Mr. Speaker, as the American people had this knot in their 
guts, along came the nationalization of General Motors and Chrysler. 
That's when the credibility of the White House

[[Page H639]]

tanked, because, even though the American people don't necessarily 
understand Wall Street, they understand cars. Most of us own one or 
more of them. We know pickups, too, and people who know pickups 
certainly know cars. I'm not sure it's the other way around, Mr. 
Speaker. We know cars. We make cars. We market them. We sell them. We 
fix them. We race them. We buy them, sell them, trade them. We collect 
them. Americans have a love affair with cars, especially with their 
American cars.
  The President of the United States nationalized two huge, important 
American automakers. He took them over. He dictated the terms to the 
bankruptcy court, and the hearings that were held before bankruptcy 
changed not one single dot or cross on a ``t'' from the proposal that 
was dictated by the White House going into the bankruptcy court, 
according to testimony in the Judiciary Committee on just this.
  So the President dictated the terms, or his people dictated the 
terms, and the President appointed a car czar, a 31-year-old car czar 
who had never made a car or sold a car. We don't think he has ever 
fixed a car. We don't even know if he owned a car at the time, but if 
he did, we ought to take a look and see if it was an American car or if 
it was a foreign-made car. We began to lose faith quickly when we saw 
the White House take over our automobile business.
  The Speaker of the House, Mr. Speaker, made the point that she would 
not give the automakers bargaining control over the unions, over the 
United Auto Workers union. When she said that and when that term stuck 
and when the President of the United States and others leveraged the 
bondholders out--the secured creditors who had hard collateral invested 
in these companies--and when they had secured collateral that they 
could foreclose on, they were aced out. One of the reasons they were is 
that those secured entities that held those were some of the investment 
banks that were bailed out by TARP. So they had leverage that said, 
Give up your positions because we've got the money, and we can control 
your boards of directors.
  So the White House dictated then the terms of these bankruptcies to 
the automakers. They took the secured credit away from the investors, 
and they handed it over to the labor unions. Additionally to that, the 
President of the United States fired the CEO of General Motors, and 
replaced the board of directors of General Motors down to the last two. 
All but two were directed by the President of the United States, and 
the American people were repulsed by the very idea that the President 
of the United States would be engaged in nationalizing companies.
  As I look at this, I just have a little piece of document that I've 
printed off of the socialist Web site, the Democratic Socialists of 
America. Mr. Speaker, I would encourage you and the others who are 
interested in this to go to the Web site dsausa.org. There you will 
find some of the text of the strategy that appears to be the strategy 
of the White House.
  ``Social redistribution,'' it reads. Social redistribution is one of 
the goals. ``The shift of wealth and resources from the rich to the 
rest of society will require''--this is the Democratic Socialists' Web 
site--``the shift of wealth and resources from the rich to the rest of 
society will require, No. 1, massive redistribution of income from 
corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the 
public sector in order to provide the main source of new funds for 
social programs, income maintenance, and infrastructure 
rehabilitation.''
  A massive shift of income from corporations and the wealthy. In other 
words, share the wealth, Mr. Speaker. This is right off the socialists' 
Web site.
  Item No. 2 reads, ``A massive shift of public resources from the 
military to civilian uses.'' We've seen that, too.
  Furthermore, on the socialists' Web site, it talks of the 
nationalization of major corporations. It says they don't have to do it 
all at once. They can do it gradually. They want to nationalize the oil 
refinery business. They want to nationalize the energy industry in 
America. All of that is on the socialists' Web site, Mr. Speaker. All 
of that looks stunningly like what we've seen happen over the last year 
and a half.

  The American people have had enough. Eight large entities. The last 
two were the automakers, and the automakers were the ones that gave the 
American people the insight into what the rest of those decisions were.
  Right after that came the stimulus plan--$787 billion poured into the 
economy for a purpose that only 6 percent of the people think it 
produced. Only 6 percent think that the stimulus plan worked.
  Right behind that came cap-and-trade, cap-and-tax. This was another 
plan to punish American business and to punish everybody in America who 
uses energy under the extremely myopic and ill-informed idea that 
anybody is ``trying to save the planet, trying to save the planet.'' I 
don't want to sound like a broken record. I'm actually quoting a high-
profile person in the House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker.
  Well, you're not going to save the planet if you're going to use 
false data--data that has been either jiggered or data that has been 
sorted and selected to produce the results that they want. It looks 
like the data that produced the hockey stick graph was selected data, 
and the language that came out of some of the leaked emails said we 
have to hide the decline. Michael Mann wants to hide the decline. Phil 
Jones wants to hide the decline.
  Well, the American people understand now that it wasn't just 
something that they didn't understand. Cap-and-trade, the science 
behind that--if you call it science--is another one of those things the 
American people thought they didn't understand, but surely, the experts 
did, just like they didn't understand Wall Street, but surely, the 
experts did. Now they're finding out the American people knew more 
about Wall Street than the people of Wall Street did, because they want 
fiscal responsibility. They aren't skimming the cream out every quarter 
and, come what may, letting the economy become unstable and, perhaps, 
crash. It's the same with cap-and-trade, cap-and-tax, and the 
pseudoscience behind that. They understand now that the results have 
been rigged to some degree--they don't quite know what.
  Right behind that came comprehensive health care reform--socialized 
medicine, Mr. Speaker. The American people rose up again, and they 
filled the town hall meetings in August, and they kept them full into 
September, and we came back here and argued and fought this 
legislation. As that unfolded, finally, on the 7th of November, a 
version from the House passed here on the floor. In the following 
month, on Christmas Eve, a version in the Senate, a significantly 
different version, passed there with a 60-vote super majority. On 
Christmas Eve, the elves were just putting away the last gift that they 
had put together, the last toy for the kids, and they were going to go 
to bed to sleep while Santa delivered, but Harry Reid had to have a 
vote over in the United States Senate. So the Christmas Eve gift to the 
American people was socialized medicine, Senate style.
  Now we have a House version and we have a Senate version, and the 
American people rose up. Not a single pundit on Christmas Eve, on the 
day that that bill passed, had said that there was a chance for Scott 
Brown to win the United States Senate race in the special election in 
Massachusetts, which was scheduled for and did take place on January 19 
of this year. Not a single pundit predicted it on that date. No one saw 
it coming. Some poll showed Scott Brown down 30 percent. Others showed 
him down 21 percent on that day. His opponent went dark, and they 
stopped the campaign. People thought that everybody would be distracted 
over Christmas, and so there wasn't any point in doing politics during 
that period of time from Christmas Eve on through New Year's Eve and on 
into the new year, when you finally get back into the rhythm of things.
  Yet the thing that didn't get anticipated was that, oh, we talked 
politics all right when we got together for the holidays. We do several 
King Christmases to get it all taken care of in the right way. We talk 
about politics. We talk about religion. We talk about the weather. So 
do all kinds of Americans, and so do people in Massachusetts. So, when 
they came through the other side of that and with the intervention that

[[Page H640]]

we had, Scott Brown obviously won the election in Massachusetts in the 
``Scott Heard Round the World.'' That was the death knell for 
socialized medicine in America. The President of the United States 
immediately refused to receive the message from the people in 
Massachusetts, and he insists on pushing ObamaCare back at us over and 
over and over again.
  While that was going on--excuse me, Mr. Speaker. I think I need to 
make this point--from the 19th of January, there were a lot of other 
maneuverings that went on. Senator Tom Harkin said that they had 
already negotiated a settlement between Democrats so that they could 
figure out how to pass a bill before Scott Brown won the election. That 
strategy, I presume, was predicated upon an assumption that they would 
have 60 votes in the Senate. In any case, they contemplated the idea 
that they might have to try to move something through on 
reconciliation--the tactic that they use in the Senate on rare 
occasions which Democrats call the ``nuclear option,'' but it's not too 
handy to call it a ``nuclear option'' today.

  Mr. Speaker, even though the blizzard shut this town down for a week 
and it was hard to get some business done, they have been meeting 
behind closed doors again. Even though the American people are revolted 
at the idea of cooking up this toxic stew called ObamaCare--
``TroikaCare'' I called it earlier--this toxic stew that started with 
socialized medicine, single-payer government runs it all, this big, 
old, dated, 15-year-old, tainted soup bone called HillaryCare, they 
dropped it into a pot to cook up this health care bill. Then they saw 
that nobody wanted it. Nobody wanted the plain old, straight, single-
payer that President Obama, as candidate Obama, had promised that he 
was for to the American people.
  So they started throwing in some other kinds of vegetables and things 
to change the flavor of it or the looks of it a little bit. So they 
gave some options about it the other way, but it still turned out to be 
the same soup bone in there, that same tainted meat that cooked up this 
toxic stew. This toxic stew, called ObamaCare, is something the 
American people don't want. They don't want the taste of any toxic 
stew, and once it is, no matter what you add to it it's still toxic. 
It's still tainted. The American people don't want a potful, and they 
don't want a bowlful, and they don't want a cupful, and they don't want 
a spoonful. Mr. Speaker, they want no measure of this national health 
care plan that has been cooked up. It's tainted. It needs to be thrown 
over the side, thrown out, and we need to start over. That's what 47 
percent of the people say--they want to start over. Another quarter of 
them says to just throw it out and do nothing. There is maybe a quarter 
of them who think--I think the number was actually 23 percent--that 
ObamaCare should be passed, and that's a pretty low percentage.
  Thomas Jefferson said a large initiative should not be passed on 
slender majorities. Well, now they're trying to push a large initiative 
through without a majority. I say that because, Mr. Speaker, the 
American people have spoken. The American people realize now what they 
have produced in the past election. They know they have got a new 
election coming up here in November of this year. The political center 
of America has moved, and the elections haven't caught up to reflect 
the movement of the political center, but no one doubts it will happen. 
They are just as confident that there are going to be significant seats 
that are going to be picked up here in the House of Representatives.
  So I'm going to make this point, Mr. Speaker, which is that nothing 
good can come from the President's insisting on pushing ObamaCare back 
out onto the table on Thursday. Nothing good can come from closed-door, 
secret meetings, planning a strategy called ``reconciliation-nuclear 
option,'' which is the equivalent of holding a gun to the heads of 
Republicans, figuratively speaking, and then saying, Listen, I have all 
the cylinders full; the hammer is cocked. This is reconciliation-
nuclear option. Now you can either accept this that we offer to you, 
ObamaCare through this version, or, if you don't, we're just going to 
pull the trigger, drop the hammer and run that reconciliation package 
through the Senate and over here to the House where the House would be 
sitting with two Senate versions passed.
  Then they would pass the reconciliation, which are the changes that 
the House insists on in the Senate bill--not the House--excuse me--the 
Speaker and the House Democrats insist on in the Senate bill. If they 
pass that, they would then hold it and not message it to the President. 
They would wait, and then they would pass the Senate version of the 
bill, message that to the President, ask him to sign the Senate 
version. Then the reconciliation-nuclear option package would go to the 
President of the United States, and he would sign that right 
afterwards, probably in the same bill-signing ceremony, and the second 
bill amends the first bill.
  That, Mr. Speaker, is how honest this is, and I'm not suggesting that 
it is. That should give the American people an idea of what's going on 
here, and it is something that repulses them and me.

                              {time}  2145

  The job of the Speaker is to bring out the will of the group, not to 
bring out the will of the Speaker.
  We have some negotiations to take place. Before we go to those, I 
want to make a point that is very useful to me, and it is something 
that was originated within the mind and the thought process of my 
friend from Minnesota. This is the Declaration of Health Care 
Independence. I could read this whole thing down here, but it 
recognizes six points above of what went wrong. Those six points are 
that everything that's going on right now, except for what Republicans 
have done, has denied our American liberty. It increases our taxes. It 
cripples the economy. It creates a new tax. It creates a bureaucracy 
that will devise ways to increase the spending. It empowers bureaucrats 
to do what they will to us. And it costs us quality and choice. Those 
are the negatives.
  Mr. Speaker, the positives are these in this Declaration of Health 
Care Independence: These are the things that we say are the new rules 
for the road going forward. We're going to consider working with people 
who believe in these principles. These principles are, number one, 
we're going to protect the doctor-patient relationship. Number two, 
we're not going to add to the debt. Number three, we're going to 
improve, not diminish, the quality of care. What we do is going to be 
transparent in its negotiations and in its meaning with no favoritism 
to anyone from any State, equal protection under the law. We're going 
to treat people the same whether they're Members of Congress or whether 
they are your regular citizens that don't have the privileges that we 
have here. We are not going to fund abortion. We are not going to fund 
illegals. There will be no new mandates on the States, individuals, 
businesses, or employers. I said equal protection. And we're going to 
utilize the marketplace of ideas and choice with competition.
  That, Mr. Speaker, is what this Declaration of Health Care 
Independence does. It currently has at least the signatures of 96 
Members of Congress. Somebody printed that there was a small number of 
people that have supported this. That's only 2 days of trying. Ninety-
six Republicans have signed this. Not a single Democrat has come 
forward and been willing to sign it at this point. And we need to send 
a strong message to the leadership, going cheek to cheek with the 
President of the United States and dancing a tango and acting like we 
want to do business and we don't have any rules for the road. These are 
the rules of the road. And I will, Mr. Speaker, make the announcement 
here that I will not vote for a bill that doesn't honor and respect 
these parameters. And I want to start with single standalone pieces of 
legislation, and I want to start with tort reform.
  I need to recognize the gentlewoman from Minnesota because she was 
here first for so much time as she may consume until such time as Mr. 
Gohmert gets nervous about it.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding.
  I'm so thankful that you're bringing up the Declaration of Health 
Care Independence. I believe that viewers may be able to see that on 
your Web site at king.house.gov. Also it would be available at my Web 
site as well, which is

[[Page H641]]

bachmann.house.gov. We encourage viewers to go and view this document 
and take a look for themselves. As I understand, we have about a 
hundred Members of Congress that have already signed this. I understand 
that anyone can go ahead and take a copy of this bill and post it on 
their Web site. They can download it. They can do whatever they would 
like. They can take it to their Member of Congress, their Senator. 
Whatever they want to do they can do with this. I understand that some 
people have taken this and posted it on Web sites and have gotten at 
least 10,000 signatures of the American people. So it's interesting how 
this has captivated the imagination of the American people because 
going forward with this health care summit on Thursday, we need to have 
a roadmap. The President has indicated what his roadmap is, and many of 
us--I know that Mr. Gohmert, Mr. King, myself, other Members of 
Congress spent hours working on this Declaration of Health Care 
Independence. We labored over this, particularly Mr. Gohmert, 
particularly Mr. King, wordsmithing every word to make sure this was 
exactly right. That's why we're very proud to have the American people 
see this as a roadmap going forward on health care, unlike what we 
believe will be seen this coming Thursday. I just want to let the 
American people know ahead of time. It's now Monday; so we're within 
the 72-hour window of when this health care ``summit'' will occur. I 
say it's summit in name only because I say be prepared, America, Mr. 
Speaker. I say be prepared, because we probably had more substance come 
out of the beer summit that was at the White House than we will in all 
likelihood see come out of 6 hours of TV cameras on Thursday coming up.
  Why do I say that? I say that because this dog and pony show that is 
planned for this upcoming Thursday needs to be about what the American 
people want it to be about, and the President is demonstrating, in 
essence, a very deaf ear to what the American people have asked for.
  The American people overwhelmingly have repudiated the Democrat job-
killing government takeover of health care. Again, as Mr. King has 
said, this is the government's taking over one-sixth of the American 
company, or 18 percent of the private sector. Just like that, in one 
fell swoop, taking it over so that rather than the American people 
having the say over their health care decisions, now the say goes to 
the Federal Government so the Federal Government gets to decide. So 
egregious is this bill, in fact, it's not even a bill. It's an 11- or 
12-page proposal that the White House just put up online today. It says 
in essence the Federal Government would be able to price-fix on health 
insurance policies. We've been down this road before. This is an old 
movie. It's a B movie at that. It's been repeated over and over. Any 
time government gets the wise idea of putting its hand in on price 
fixing any commodity, any service, any wage in the United States, 
inevitably the result, and it's always been this way, is scarcity.
  So now think of that in terms of health insurance. The Federal 
Government says how much a policy can be in the United States. 
Inevitably there will be less of that product. Why? Why would a private 
organization decide to put a product out and can only spend so much on 
that product? The only option this organization would have would be to 
offer less of it. Fewer options, less care. In other words, the Federal 
Government is going to mess up health care even more than they already 
have done. We know this because the President has decided he's going to 
begin on Thursday with a plan that already the American people have 
repudiated. The American people have said clearly what they want in all 
of this is lower costs and more competition. That isn't done at all. As 
a matter of fact, the President's own economic adviser, Christina 
Romer, has already said if the President's plan goes through, it's 5\1/
2\ million jobs lost.
  Now, things haven't gone real well already by the estimates from the 
President's advisers. They said if we passed the stimulus plan when we 
had 7.6 percent unemployment that we wouldn't rise above 8 percent. 
They said if we do nothing, it will go up to 9 percent unemployment. 
Well, we're now millions of jobs lost later and we're still hovering at 
10 percent unemployment. And the President's own economic adviser says 
if we put his plan in place, we'll lose another 5\1/2\ million? I think 
that alone is reason enough to reject his plan.
  But that isn't enough. This plan also we know is massive tax 
increases in violation of what the President promised the American 
people. It's also massive job killing, as the President's own economic 
adviser said. And it cuts half a trillion dollars out of Medicare. 
That's right, Mr. Speaker. While we will be adding in about 47 million 
more people into receiving services, we're going to cut $500 billion 
out of Medicare. Who's going to be hurt by all of this? Senior 
citizens.
  Senior citizens are so smart. They have been on to this from the 
beginning, and that's why overwhelmingly senior citizens have said, Mr. 
President, don't do this thing. I'm the one that's going to pay the 
price.
  That's right. Only every American will pay the price because all of 
us will see tax increases. All of us will suffer from these job-killing 
actions. This will force Americans again to pay for other people's 
abortions, and it will force Americans to pay for people's health care 
that aren't in this country legally.
  Every word in the health care bill was negotiated by Democrats behind 
closed doors. In fact, they said today that if the Republicans won't go 
along with their bill, they're going to go forward with it anyway. 
Well, then what in the world are we going to this summit in name only 
for? If the Democrats have already said we've figured out our 
legislative trick, according to the chief negotiator for Speaker 
Pelosi, we've got our trick, we know how we're going to trick the 
American people and pass through a bill that two-thirds of the American 
people said they don't want. Well, if that's the case, what's this 
about?
  Well, we know what this is about. Today the White House 
Communications Director gave a quote, and he said that they want the 
American people to see the negotiations played out on TV among 
Democrats and Republicans. And why do they want that to happen? Well, 
Mr. Pfeiffer said, ``The fact that the summit,'' and I quote, ``will be 
on TV and that the legislation is posted online will help take away a 
little of the concern of this being something hatched behind closed 
doors.''
  Well, I hate to break it to you, but this has already been done 
behind closed doors. As Mr. King said, while the snow shut down 
Washington, D.C., that didn't shut down the Democrats, who control 
every lever of power in Washington, from staying behind closed doors.
  Remember, every minute of this health care bill, every minute, has 
been negotiated behind closed doors with all the special interest 
groups who don't want to get whacked by the President. Except for the 
American people. They did not get access behind those closed doors. 
It's been negotiated behind closed doors. It's going to result in tax 
increases. It's going to result in less health care. And it's going to 
hurt senior citizens the most.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Exclusively with Democrats.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Exclusively by Democrats. They have been the only ones 
behind closed doors with these negotiations. So don't for a moment 
suffer the delusion to think that what's going to happen this Thursday 
in a 6-hour time period--remember, the President on Saturday in his 
weekly radio address said that when we have these negotiations, he 
doesn't want to see any political theater. Oh, really? He also said 
that he wants to go through section by section a 2,700-page bill. In a 
6-hour period, Mr. President, you're going to go through section by 
section a 2,700-page bill, which, by the way, none of us have seen yet?
  Mr. Gohmert, have you seen this bill? Mr. King, have you seen the 
bill?

  Mr. KING of Iowa. I have not seen the bill.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. That's because no one has seen this bill. It's not 
online. How do we know that? Today the Director of the Congressional 
Budget Office, Mr. Douglas Elmendorf, said, We can't score how much 
this bill is going to cost. Why? We don't have the legislation. In 
fact, he said, We don't even have enough details out of this, quote, 
little 11-page proposal to even say how much the thing is going to 
cost.

[[Page H642]]

  So we don't know exactly who the players are that are going to go to 
this summit in name only on Thursday. We don't have a bill yet that we 
can negotiate. Yet this is going to impact every American, raise taxes, 
kill jobs. We don't even know what the bill is. We don't even know who 
the players are that are going to be in the room. And somehow this is a 
negotiation when the President has already said through his mouthpiece, 
his spokesmen, they have already said, well, it doesn't matter if the 
GOP turns it down, we're going to go our own way anyway. So agree with 
us. That's your option, Republicans. Agree with us or take a hike. 
Doesn't that make the American people feel good?
  I thought the Declaration of Independence said that we rule by the 
consent of the governed; that we pass laws with what our constituents 
want. I spoke to Steve King earlier; I spoke to Louie Gohmert earlier. 
They were both home over these last 2 weeks in their respective 
districts. Their constituents told them, We don't want this job-killing 
government takeover of health care. That's what my constituents told 
me. I was just this weekend in St. Cloud, St. Martin, in Stillwater, in 
Woodbury. I was up in Anoka County. Everywhere I went people said, 
Michele, please, you don't think they're going to pass this health 
care, do you? Well, President Obama plans to. He must have his fingers 
in his ears or something must be happening, with all due respect, 
because that's not what my people are telling me in my district. All I 
can say is, Mr. President--Mr. Speaker, I am speaking through you. Mr. 
President, I beg you, listen to the heart cry of the American people. 
They don't want this clunker, for cash or otherwise. They don't want 
this thing. Let's start over and have a true legitimate negotiation. 
Let's not insult the intelligence of the American people. That's all 
this summit in name only is. There is more respect for the beer summit 
than there is for this so-called ``summit'' in name only on Thursday. 
It's a travesty.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I very much thank the 
gentlewoman from Minnesota.
  In transition to the gentleman from Texas, I will just say I can tell 
you, Mr. Speaker, who will not be at the summit, who will not have a 
forum, who will not have a microphone, and that will be there will be 
no outspoken conservatives allowed to address that issue on Thursday at 
the Blair House. That's a given. I make that prediction for the 
American people, Mr. Speaker.
  I yield to the gentleman from Texas who has so patiently waited and 
has so much to say. And I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota for 
joining us.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  It's a pleasure to wait. It's not patiently. I'm just sitting and 
taking in everything that has been said and benefiting from that.
  My friends here, the gentlewoman from Minnesota, the gentleman from 
Iowa, and others, have worked very hard on the Declaration of Health 
Care Independence.

                              {time}  2200

  But it must it be noted that these last 10 things that are pledges 
are things the President has already promised. You know, and it is 
important that people in Washington keep their word. You give your word 
and say, this is what we're going to do, we will not do that, then it's 
important that we keep our word.
  So we were hoping that the President--and there's still time, and we 
would ask, Mr. Speaker, that the President go ahead and note these 10 
things, all of which he has promised, and say, you know what? Even 
though our leaders didn't make these preconditions, they're not really 
preconditions. They're just saying, will you live up to what you've 
promised before? Please, Mr. President, live up to what you promised 
before. That's all this is asking. That's all it's stating. That's what 
the pledge is.
  Number 1, protect as inviolate the vital doctor-patient relationship. 
That's been promised by the President. We're going to protect the 
doctor-patient relationship. So that shouldn't be a tough one to agree 
to.
  Number 2, reject any addition to the crushing national debt heaped 
upon all Americans. The President promised when he was running for the 
Presidency and after he's elected to the Presidency, we're not going to 
heap on any debt. And, in fact, I've enjoyed his speeches recently 
where he has chastised Congress for spending too much money, and that 
he's having to do by Executive order what didn't pass in Congress.
  And I'm sorry. I haven't heard anybody point out the irony of saying, 
you know what? I am going to appoint an executive committee, people 
that I choose, and heck, I'll let you throw some people in there, but 
I'm going to sign an order to create a panel to save money. Now, this 
panel is going to cost millions and millions of dollars. But we're 
going to have a panel that will cost us millions and millions of 
dollars, but we're hoping somehow in the end we'll finally get this 
Democratic majority to do what they haven't done before, and that is 
rein in spending.
  You know, Republicans lost the majority in 2006 because they had not 
reined in spending. Yeah, it was the Republican Congress in 1995 
through 2000 that did as they said, they reined in spending. This 
President has said that.
  And I don't know what happened to the Vice President. I do know the 
President said, you know, he's going to put him in charge and people 
would be afraid to mess with the Vice President.
  But what happened to scrubbing the budget line by line? We just shot 
up $3.8 trillion, never a budget that high in the history of the 
country ever. And yet, just crushing national debt will be heaped upon 
all Americans.
  So, the ask here, Mr. Speaker, is that the President go back and 
listen to some of his own speeches recently where he has said we have 
got to stop this runaway spending. So if he'll listen to what he said 
himself there, then we'll be able to get him to agree to Number 2 
because he said it himself.
  Number 3, improve rather than diminish the quality of care that 
Americans enjoy. Now, it's one thing to come before the American public 
and say nobody's going to be denied any type of coverage. Yet, you talk 
to people in England, you talk to people in Canada, they're not denied 
coverage.
  So we're not going to say you can't have that surgery. You can't have 
that radiation. We're going to put you on a list and one in five of 
you, like for with localized breast cancer tumor, one in five of you 
here in England are going to die waiting on a list; whereas, if you 
were in America, you would get that treatment anyway. So let's improve, 
rather than diminish the quality of care. That ought to be the goal.
  Number 4, negotiate it publicly, transparently, with genuine 
accountability and oversight, and be free from political favoritism. I 
know eight times the President promised on television that he--it's on 
video eight different times that the negotiations would be done on C-
SPAN.
  Well, that doesn't mean when you're going to come bring a bunch of 
people in and talk for 6 hours when the negotiation already occurred, 
because we've already heard from AARP and union reps, those folks that 
have said, oh, yeah, we've already negotiated this deal. We've come up 
with a compromise between the House and the Senate bill. That's not 
transparent.
  He promised everybody would get to see who was siding with the 
pharmaceutical companies--I've heard the President say this stuff--and 
who's siding with the union, who's siding with the AARP and who's 
siding with people. And when I say ``AARP,'' I mean that entity. I 
don't mean retired people, because all of us, I think, in this Chamber 
right now side with the retired people whether we do with AARP or not.
  Number 5, treat private citizens at least as well as political 
officials. What that means is, particularly, the little phrase that was 
added to the House bill when people had an outcry from around the 
country that we expect Members of Congress to have to live with 
whatever they do to us, there was that line inserted into the House 
bill that just said Members of Congress may participate in this 
program.
  Well, I haven't found anybody in America, when you read that line to 
them, that doesn't immediately pick up on the word ``may.''
  Now, this pledge that we're asking of the President, that so many 
people across America have already signed on

[[Page H643]]

to, just says, you know, treat private citizens at least as well as the 
public officials.
  We're called public servants for a reason. We're the servants. We're 
not supposed to be the masters.
  Number 6, protect taxpayers from compulsory funding of abortion. 
Well, the President said right in here in September, there are those 
who claim that our reform efforts--well, let's see. Under our plan, no 
Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. He said that.
  Well, the truth is, we had to have the Bart Stupak amendment to 
prevent what the President said from being false. And if the Stupak 
amendment hadn't passed here in the House, then what the President said 
would not have been true. In fact, at the time he said it, it wasn't 
true. I'm sure he didn't realize that he was stating something false, 
but it wasn't true. That's why the Stupak amendment was necessary. And 
the Stupak amendment was not used in the Senate version.

  Number 7, reject all new mandates on patients, employers, 
individuals, or States.
  Well, originally, that's what was promised by the President, so 
hopefully he'd be willing to go back and live up to that.
  Prohibit expansion of taxpayer funded health care to those unlawfully 
present in the United States. The President said in September, those 
who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants, this 
too is false. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who 
are here illegally.
  Unless you require identification, it's not going to happen. We want 
the President to the live up to his promise, and we'd ask that that 
pledge be made.
  Number 9, guarantee equal protection under the law and the 
Constitution. That means it applies across the board to everyone, every 
State.
  Number 10, empower, rather than limit, an open and accessible 
marketplace of health care choice and opportunity.
  I've heard people say I want the same health care coverage you have. 
Well, you don't want what I had last year. I didn't want it. I got rid 
of that at the end of last year, and I went through that big 
publication we had that every Federal employee has, and I chose a 
different insurance for this year. I hope it works out.
  You don't want my insurance I had last year. You want my choices, and 
that's what Number 10 is talking about. American people ought to have a 
choice.
  And with those 10 things being covered, I sure hope the President 
will be willing to live up to those things he's promised over the last 
year and half.
  And I yield back to my friend, Mr. King.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank my friend the judge and Congressman from 
Texas for joining us here this evening. And to bring this together and 
bring it to a close, Mr. Speaker, I'd just say this, that there will 
not be outspoken conservatives that will be part of this discussion. 
There may be outspoken liberals; that would be if the President speaks 
up. That would confirm that, in my view, Mr. Speaker.
  But the American people have rejected the very idea that the Federal 
Government would do what it would do, take over 100 percent of the 
health care in America and all of the health insurance policies that 
are in America, and, by the way, if they say that they won't, but 
they'd actually regulate every single one, it's true.

                              {time}  2210

  I talked a moment earlier, some minutes earlier, about the 
nationalization of these eight huge entities and what that means to 
free enterprise, but the real utter irony that we have, Mr. Speaker, is 
that not since 1973, since Roe v. Wade, have there been thousands and 
thousands of people who have stood up and said the government has no 
business telling a woman what she should do with her body. That is a 
sacrosanct decision made by the woman and her doctor and her pastor or 
her priest. I've heard the argument over and over and over again. And 
it is made by men and women. It's been made for two generations. And 
now the very same people that are arguing that you can't tell a woman 
what to do with her body, are now advocating that the Federal 
Government should take over the management of everybody's body.
  The utter nationalization of the most private thing we have, our 
health care. Take away our choices, take it over and manage it, give us 
whatever insurance policy the Federal Government will approve, tell us 
what we have to pay for it, tell us what mandates will be included in 
it. And if we can't afford it, they will give us a refundable tax 
credit, and if we can't afford it and don't buy it, they're going to 
fine us, and they're going to fine the employer that doesn't produce 
it.
  This is a mandate for the first time in the history of America that 
the Federal Government would mandate that a person has to buy something 
that is imposed on us by the Federal Government, and I say ``no'' to it 
all.

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