[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 25 (Thursday, February 25, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H923-H929]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       PROGRESSIVES OR SOCIALISTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Himes). 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 finally here on the floor of the House of Representatives. 
Frankly, it's astonishing to me that a fellow Member of Congress has so 
little confidence in things that he says are facts that he refuses to 
yield and deal with the actual facts that he knew were before him.
  To make the statement that Republicans did nothing on health care 
during those years of 2000 to 2006 is flat-out false, Mr. Speaker. It's 
a fact that we moved on health care. We moved some significant policy. 
And in particular, we passed the repair to the abuse of lawsuits, which 
today it was published by the Government Reform Committee--actually, 
was published 2 days ago--that the annual costs of lawsuit abuse and 
health care in America is $210 billion. That's over $2 trillion for the 
course of a bill, and there isn't one dime that would be taken out of 
the pockets of that $2 trillion--a lot of which goes to the trial 
lawyers--that is offered by the President or the Democrats, and 
certainly not the gentleman from Minnesota.
  And for him to stand here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives and very much deny the very fact that is a fact of 
record and then refuse to politely allow for a correction of that 
record so you, Mr. Speaker and, by extension, the American people have 
an opportunity to be honestly and truthfully informed is an affront to 
the dignity of the dialogue on the floor of the House. So that's just a 
start on my answers. And I didn't come here to provide a rebuttal for 
the previous hour.
  But the American people need to know, Mr. Speaker, that there is a 
Progressive Caucus here and it's 78 members strong, the last time I 
counted the names on the list on the Web site. The Web site was put up 
on a poster over here, and they're pretty proud of the policy that they 
have. You can go on that Web site and read and learn that. One of them 
is a Senator; the others are House Members. They are the most liberal 
Members of the House.
  And when you look at the history of the Progressives, you will 
recognize that that Web site, that now with Mr. Grijalva's name in the 
Web site, was the Web site managed by the Socialists. The Democratic 
Socialists of America managed the Web site for the Progressives. They 
put it up. They took care of it. They maintained it. They put the 
information on. They wrote some of the language that went on there--a 
lot of it for all I know--and carried their philosophy from the 
Democratic Socialists--that is the Socialists in America, by the way--
on over to the Progressives' Web site. And when that linkage was 
uncovered and the pressure came up, then the Progressives decided, 
well, we'll manage our own Web site because we really don't want to 
have to put up with the criticism of our brethren, the Socialists. It's 
completely the brethren.
  When you read the Socialists' Web site, it says clearly on the 
Democratic Socialist Web site, dsausa.org, Mr. Speaker. It says clearly 
on there, it starts out with, We are not Communists. I always had a 
little trouble trusting somebody starting out their dialogue with, 
well, I'm not a Communist, because you know there behind that there's a 
``but.''
  Democratic Socialists, the brethren of the Progressives, linked 
together with their Web sites until a few years ago to declare that 
they are not Communists but they believe in a lot of the same things 
that the Communists believe in.
  But the difference, according to the Socialist Web site linked to the 
Progressives' Web site--proudly by the Socialists anyway, and I think 
proudly by the Progressives--they say, We are not Communists. But the 
difference is Communists want to nationalize everything. Communists 
want to have the State own all property and own all of everyone's labor 
and everything exists for the State. And the Communists want to do 
central planning to manage the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick 
maker, let alone labor.
  The Communists are the ones that want to introduce a national health 
care act that's completely a single-payer plan paid for by the 
government. Nobody has to pay for anything. And it would require that 
everyone working within health care in America would be a salaried 
employee.
  Oh, let me see. Where would I come up with that? Well, not 
necessarily on the Democratic Socialist Web site. Not necessarily on--
let me see--the CPUSA Web site. I read that in a bill that was 
introduced by some of the Progressives here in this Congress in 1981. 
They believe and still believe in single payer. They think that health 
care should be free, that it's a right, not a privilege--not just your 
own health care, but everybody's own private health insurance policy; 
that the government ought to run all health care; that they would set 
up boards as central planning management boards that would tell 
everything how to operate.
  But no one could be anything except a salaried or an hourly employee. 
You couldn't do fee-for-service. So if you're a super excellent brain 
surgeon, you get paid whatever they decide. You don't get paid for the 
number or the quality of the brain surgery that you perform.
  But I am back to Democratic Socialists of America. What are they? 
Well, they're not Communists. That's what they say. And the difference 
is they don't want to nationalize everything. The Socialists, the, 
slash, Progressives, don't want to nationalize the butcher, the baker, 
and the candlestick maker--not right away, anyway.

                              {time}  2220

  But when you read their Web site, it says, we want to nationalize the 
major corporations in America. I take that to mean the Fortune 500 
companies and probably some more, and they write that they don't have 
to do it all right at once, they can do it incrementally. They want to 
nationalize the oil refinery business so they can control the energy in 
America, and they want to nationalize the utilities in America so they 
can control the energy in America.
  This could happen incrementally, they don't have to do it all at 
once. Socialist Web site. They say we don't elect candidates on our 
banner. We don't send candidates and get their names on the ballot 
under the Socialist ballot. We advance these candidates as Progressives 
because Progressives doesn't have quite the harsh connotation of the 
hardcore left that Socialist has.
  So they hide under the Progressive banner and they advance the 
Socialist agenda, and it's on both of their Web sites. I wondered when 
I heard Maxine Waters from California a few years ago say, I think we 
should nationalize the oil refinery business. I mean, I had to take a 
breath, catch my breath for a minute, because nobody would say that in 
the society where I live. They don't want to nationalize the private 
sector. They believe in free enterprise and in competition. They 
understand the vitality, this robust economy that we have. But that was 
said. Where did that come from. Maurice Hinchey made a remark also 
about the nationalizing of the energy industry.
  Where did that come from? How does anyone have the chutzpah to make 
such a statement as a Member of Congress that they want to start taking 
over the private sector. This is before our economy started in this 
downward spiral. So I heard these words that came from them, and I am 
reading off the Web site, Democratic Socialist Web site, and the echo 
comes back to be the same.
  I look over at the Progressives, of which each of those Members I 
mentioned are listed on the Progressives Web site, and it's the same 
agenda. Then we have a candidate for President called Barack Obama, and 
he has this artful way of using ambiguities so that the left hears him 
say something that they want him to say, and the right doesn't hear the 
same thing. They might actually even hear what they want him to say.
  But where does the President govern? He is elected on hope and 
change. Well, hope and change is not working so good right now, but 
where does the President govern? Way over to the left.
  And I stand here, Mr. Speaker, on the floor of the House, after this 
6\1/2\-hour health care summit today, and I am wondering, what is this 
about bipartisanship? What was this argument that came from the 
President when he heard the criticism you are not working in a

[[Page H924]]

bipartisan way? You need to reach out to the Republicans, this closing 
the door and locking Republicans out, and it happened. It's been 
happening here since September.
  They met today to talk for the first time about health care in a 
meaningful way since last September, when Democrats shut Republicans 
out of their health care negotiating rooms. And, yes, they had guards 
outside the doors, they were there to provide security for the leaders. 
But think of the image, the doors go closed behind the Democrat leaders 
and they sit in there in the formerly smoke-filled rooms and they 
negotiate what they want to do to America without any eyes or ears of 
the press or anybody from the opposing party or any real conscience or 
conservatism inside the room.
  So they cook up their deal. They cooked it up upstairs--well, let me 
say they cooked it up in the Speaker's office, and they cooked it up in 
Harry Reid's office, and they ran separate bills in the House and in 
the Senate. On November 7, here on a Saturday, the House of 
Representatives by the barest of margins passed a national health care 
act bill that takes away the liberty of the American people.
  Then it went over to the Senate, where even the 60 votes that they 
had to have in the Senate with the liberals they had over there, they 
couldn't get the votes to pass the House version, so they put together 
a Senate version and by the barest of margins, with the, let me say the 
most repulsive of sweetheart deals, put together barely the 60 votes 
they needed to break the filibuster and have it be successful on a 
cloture vote.
  On Christmas Eve, Mr. Speaker, Harry Reid's Scrooge gift to the 
American people was the Senate version of socialized medicine, their 
national health care act, complete with funding for abortion and 
illegals, out of the Senate. Merry Christmas, American people. Harry 
Reid and the 60 votes they had in the Senate at the time delivered a 
Christmas present to the American people with 60 votes, which pretty 
much demonstrated that all the demonstrations that took place since 
August weren't counting for much in the mind of Harry Reid and the 59 
other Democrats over there in the Senate, and that was Christmas Eve. 
So a lot of people went home for Christmas. In fact, most of us did go 
home for Christmas.
  Over Christmas and New Year's, most of the public life goes dormant 
and some of the people thought that going dormant was the right thing 
to do, that nobody would pay any attention anyway. So why would you 
keep a press shop up and why would Members of Congress go out on the 
stump and give a lot of speeches and do town hall meetings and do a lot 
of press and talk about how bad the House bill is, how bad the Senate 
bill is, and how unbelievably bad it would be if they would do what one 
might have expected them to do, and that is appoint a conference 
committee that would try to merge the two bills and resolve their 
differences.
  But the Democrats didn't really think that the American people would 
be paying any attention to what they did. That's one of the reasons why 
they passed the bill on Christmas Eve in the United States Senate. I 
actually wished it would have been as late as possible on that day. I 
think it could have been pushed up to 9 o'clock that night when Santa 
was actually delivering presents, rather than when the elves were going 
to bed in the morning.
  But that's what happened, Mr. Speaker. The American people were 
appalled at what they saw. They were appalled at how tone deaf the 
majorities were in the House of Representatives and how tone deaf the 
majorities were in the United States Senate, and they were talking.
  It isn't that the American people go dormant. They go see their 
family, and, yes, they go to work. And they get on the phone, and they 
get a little time to send their email lists out. What happened was, 
there was a national dialogue.
  I can tell you what happens when our family gets together, and it 
takes three or four family reunions to get us all completely processed 
in their right, faithful way over Christmas vacation, but we will meet 
three or four times, and we will have other little individual meetings 
with friends and neighbors and do those things, there is a lot of 
dialogue going on between Christmas and New Year's. In my neighborhood 
we talk about probably four things, but three things in particular. We 
talk about the weather, and we talk about religion, and we talk about 
the markets, and we talk about politics. That's four, and politics 
moved up on the list.
  It actually sat there, number one, and it was at the dinner table, 
and it was in the living room, and it was all across America. People 
were talking about what was happening to our country. While that was 
going on, Scott Brown was campaigning intensively in Massachusetts. You 
had people waking up in Massachusetts. The polling that showed on that 
day, the 23rd of December, when the timing schedule for adjournment of 
the Senate and that final cloture vote was scheduled, on that day the 
poll I saw showed Scott down 20 points. There was another one that had 
him down 30 points.

  But not a single pundit before Christmas predicted that Scott Brown 
could be the next United States Senator from Massachusetts. That was 2 
days before Christmas. No one predicted it before Christmas. It started 
to come out some days after Christmas, near, I think, the first of the 
year, if I remember correctly, when the first little hint that 
something might be going on in Massachusetts started to leak out to the 
rest of the world.
  But I have every confidence that the faithful people in Massachusetts 
were sitting around their dinner tables and their Christmas trees and 
they were talking about the same things that we talk about, the 
weather, the religion and politics, probably not the markets the same 
way we do. As that position was coalescing in Massachusetts, some of 
the people were thinking, I have had enough. They thought, some of them 
thought we have our version of health care here, and it's not our job 
or our business to impose another version of a government-run health 
care on everybody else in America.
  Some of them thought enough money had been spent, that this $700 
billion in TARP, and all of these companies that have been 
nationalized, much of it by this administration, and the $787 billion 
stimulus plan, that made everybody really nervous to see trillions of 
dollars, at least $1.6 trillion, moving on up to $2-plus trillion 
dollars when you look at all the money the Fed has advanced.
  They saw that happening, Mr. Speaker, and every increment of 
nationalization made the American people more nervous indeed, having 
less confidence in the government that they had elected and the 
decisions that were made by their elected representatives. And as we 
march down through the murderous row of the nationalization of three 
large investment banks and AIG, the insurance company, and Fannie Mae 
and Freddie Mac, where it took on $5.5 trillion in contingent 
liabilities with Fannie and Freddie, for the taxpayers to take on that 
contingent kind of a risk, then the Federal Government turned to the 
car companies and decided, the White House, the Obama White House could 
run General Motors and Chrysler better than General Motors and Chrysler 
could be run by those who are approved by the shareholders.

                              {time}  2230

  And so the President fired the CEO of General Motors and cleaned out 
the board of directors. He replaced himself all but two of the board 
members of General Motors and replaced the CEO of General Motors, put 
in place a car czar, a 31-year-old car czar that had never made a car 
and never sold a car; as far as I can determine never fixed a car. We 
don't even know if he owned a car. And if he did, the question I would 
ask him is, well, was it an American-made car or a foreign car?
  All of this was undermining the confidence of the American people as 
we race toward this political climax that after we saw socialized 
medicine pass in the House on November 7 and after we saw it pass on 
Christmas Eve in the United States Senate--unprecedented to be in the 
session on Christmas Eve doing something that had never been done 
before in the history of this country, trying to set a new standard of 
the socialization, the nationalization of our bodies--all of that going 
on, and the American people were repulsed that all of their voices, all 
that they had to say, everything that they

[[Page H925]]

weighed in with hit only just the deafness of the leaders in this 
Congress, Mr. Speaker.
  And so they went to work. They went to work in Massachusetts. They 
went out into the streets and put up signs and walked the streets and 
knocked on doors. As I went down through Massachusetts, I recall being 
in the Vietnamese section in Boston, and as I went down through that 
section--it's really a small business section of Boston--window after 
window had Scott Brown signs in the Vietnamese section of Boston, and 
certainly did many of the residential areas. There was a tremendous 
outpouring for Scott Brown.
  As I went into the call centers, I had people come up to me and say, 
I'm a union member and my husband is a union member. We've always 
walked the streets for the Democrats, but this time we're here to work 
for Scott Brown. We've had enough. The irresponsible overspending is at 
its core and the taking over private business is a big part of this, 
and trying to push a national health care act down our throats like you 
give a pill to a horse is more than they could tolerate.
  And so in that sea change from 21 percent down to 5 percent up--it 
actually was a 24, 25 percent turnaround that took place in an 
unpredicted way in Massachusetts--Scott Brown rose forward to a victory 
in Massachusetts and had a lead that was about the same for the last, 
I'm going to say in the polls that I saw the last 4 or 5 days at least 
in the race. So I don't think that there was more than about 20 days 
for him to close the gap of 21 points. And he will know that a lot 
better than me, Mr. Speaker. But that message that came from the 
election of Scott Brown, that resounding noise out of Massachusetts--
and there were a lot of people that went to Massachusetts to help. Tea 
party patriots went. Also people from many of the States in the Union 
went up to see what they could do because that's where the fight was, 
that's where people could preserve their liberty and they were 
committed to that cause. That election result came out, and it shifted 
the dynamics in the United States Senate, because Scott Brown promised 
to deliver the vote against cloture that would change the dynamics.
  And so the President of the United States, who has not done very well 
in some of his endeavors--let me see. What did he do? He went to 
Virginia to engage in the Governor's race in Virginia and he went 0-
for-1 in Virginia. He went to New Jersey and did several appearances in 
New Jersey, as I recall, to reelect John Corzine in New Jersey. Chris 
Christie won in New Jersey, Bob McDonnell won in Virginia. So President 
Obama went 0-for-1 in Virginia. He went 0-for-1 in New Jersey.
  He went to Copenhagen twice, once to win the Olympics for Chicago and 
another time to see if he could seek some kind of a global green 
agreement on climate change. Now, they came out of Copenhagen with 
something they pointed to that said was a victory, but not much of 
anybody thought so. It is a mild little fig leaf of a victory.
  So I'm going to describe it this way: President 0-for-1 in Virginia, 
0-for-1 in New Jersey, 0-for-2 in Copenhagen, and--completely a goose 
egg--0-for-1 in Massachusetts. And now the ``Scott heard around the 
world'' has echoed through this place. The White House, after that 
election, had to pull back. They had to stop and see if they could get 
a lay of the land and figure out what to do.
  Senator Harkin said within a few days of that election that they had 
an agreement that they had negotiated with the House, and they had an 
agreement that would bring reconciliation through. It is a bit 
convoluted and I won't explain it in detail here tonight, Mr. Speaker, 
but that was the first we heard that they were meeting behind closed 
doors to put together a reconciliation package. I know it had been 
rumored out there since September, but that was the first I recall of a 
legislator saying, Oh, yeah, we have that deal put together. That was 
Senator Tom Harkin from my State, my junior Senator that said that.
  So they moved on looking to see what they could do. In normal 
circumstances, you would take the differences, the Senate bill and the 
House bill, and appoint a conference committee that would have 
Democrats and Republicans on it. What would happen would be the 
Democrats who were in the majority--Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and 
their people--would go behind closed doors--even with a conference 
committee--and they would make their deal behind closed doors. They 
would negotiate their package behind closed doors. Once they decided 
they could get the votes in the House and in the Senate to pass their 
package, their socialized medicine version of what they want to do to 
America's freedom today when it comes to health care, then they would 
have announced the conference committee.
  The members of the conference committee on their side would have been 
committed to voting for the package that was already pre-negotiated. 
The Republicans would then appoint their conference committee, and at 
an appointed date and time they would all file out into the room, sit 
down in their chairs, call the conference committee to order, and then 
they would go through the charade of debating the different changes, 
somebody would offer a change here and offer a change there and they 
would vote it up or down. After a while, they would have it ratified--
the very deal that was put together behind closed doors--and pushed a 
conference committee report out here that would have gone then to the 
House and Senate, one side taking it up first and then over to the 
other side. The last one to pass the identical piece of legislation 
that was negotiated behind closed doors would go to the President, 
where he would have already pre-agreed to sign the bill. He would have 
been in the room, too, or he and his representatives, doing those 
negotiations.
  So, Mr. Speaker, what I have put together here is a description of 
what actually happens and the functionality if they had gone to the 
conference committee instead of this reconciliation nuclear option. But 
they didn't want the conference committee because they would have to 
then put up with Republican criticism, Republican motions, Republican 
efforts to at least let the world know that there are many logical 
alternatives. And so they circumvented the conference committee. I 
believe, Mr. Speaker, that this is the first time in the history of 
this country, at least on a major bill, that
the White House has stepped in to put together a negotiation that has--
it's a de facto conference committee. The White House has replaced 
them, and they're the de facto conference committee. They've put this 
together and tried to propose something.
  What was interesting was the White House planned and announced that 
they would release a bill on Monday of this week. The White House also 
said that any bill, we would have 72 hours to examine it. So they 
called a meeting for today that was scheduled for 6 hours, started at 
10 o'clock this morning and, interestingly, the time that they released 
their document--that a lot of us thought was going to be a health care 
bill, a third bill, a Reid bill, a Pelosi bill, and an Obama bill, it 
only turned out to be 12 pages or so of bullet points--all of this time 
and the White House can't produce a bill, but they at least filed the 
bullet points of what they thought should be in a bill at 10 o'clock on 
Monday, so exactly 72 hours before the meeting was to convene and did 
convene at the Blair House today in this town. So they timed it to have 
their 72 hours as they promised. It just wasn't a bill. The President 
didn't present a bill, Mr. Speaker.
  But they negotiated today and they had a discussion, and it went on 
about 6\1/2\ hours of discussion altogether. How do you analyze that? 
Well, did anybody take anything off the table? Did anybody offer 
anything? Were there any changes? Were there any agreements? Was there 
any proposal, any amendment, any specific language, or even a concept 
that was agreed to by either side? I am hard-pressed to say that there 
was, Mr. Speaker.
  We can, perhaps, get into some of those things a little bit, but I 
have several of these pieces of data here. This is the health care fact 
check. It doesn't quite match my numbers, but it's pretty close to what 
I have. As I watched this happen, as soon as the meeting opened up, it 
appeared to me that if a Republican would speak, the President would 
interrupt him. And then that individual might reclaim their time and 
try to speak again and the President

[[Page H926]]

would interrupt him again. Then that individual would make a quick 
statement and yield the floor, in which case the President would speak, 
a Democrat would speak--generally uninterrupted--and then the President 
would take the time back and speak, then a Republican would speak and 
get interrupted again.
  And so what is this? Give me the count on this, will you? I have them 
here, and I don't think anybody else has counted them--I have not heard 
that they have. Six and a half hours of meeting, we have the President 
interrupting speakers 70 times in 6\1/2\ hours. Seventy interruptions. 
And out of those 70 interruptions, he was rude to the Democrats 20 
times. He wasn't always rude, actually. Sometimes it needed to be said 
also with Republicans. But you would think it would be equal or 
proportional. And you would think it would be respectful of people that 
care a lot about policy and know a lot of this policy. And presumably, 
according to the White House and the Democrats in leadership here and 
in the Senate, this would have been the first time they had heard 
Republican ideas because they said we didn't have any. Well, we had 
plenty and they knew it, but they repeated that we didn't have any 
ideas.
  So you would think they wouldn't have interrupted. You would think, 
if they were actually telling the truth when they said Republicans 
didn't have ideas, that they would have leaned forward in a very 
interested fashion and listened carefully to the proposals that at 
least they would like to convince the American people it was the first 
time they had heard such things.

                              {time}  2240

  Well, in fact, they'd heard it all before, because we'd produced 
those bills all before. We'd introduced them all before. They were 
introduced, many of them as amendments in the markups of the bills that 
came through the House in the Ways and Means Committee and in the 
Energy and Commerce Committee. They were just all voted down on a party 
line vote with very few exceptions.
  So the President interrupted Democrats 20 times. He interrupted 
Republicans 50 times. That's 2\1/2\ times more. I have here that 
President Obama alone was 1 minute short of 2 hours on his own. It was 
a 6\1/2\-hour meeting. He claimed essentially a third of the talking 
time. The Democrats, including President Obama, burned not quite 4 
hours. The Republicans altogether used up 1 hour and 50 minutes. So 
that's at least 2-1. Actually, when you add it up, it comes to 3.5-1 or 
so. My numbers come to actually 3.5-1 when I look at the time the 
Democrats spoke compared to Republicans speaking. It's about--oh, it's 
a number that originally was about 25 percent. It's probably a little 
more than that, Mr. Speaker.
  We have a number here that shows that 52 percent of the American 
people don't think that they should go forward with a reconciliation. 
Now, that's one of the things that should have been a deal breaker. If 
the President of the United States takes the position that he wants to 
invite people to negotiate on health care in a bipartisan fashion and 
if he is sensitive to the criticism that we haven't had negotiations on 
C-SPAN and that they haven't been bipartisan, then that's what this was 
designed to do. It was to send a message to the American people that 
the President was on C-SPAN and that they were bipartisan. Well, that's 
all true, but the President has intimated and has directly said that 
the Republicans don't have open minds and that he has already accepted 
our good ideas and has incorporated them into the legislation that was 
written this past November and December.
  I recall the President standing in Baltimore before us when he said, 
``I am not an ideologue. I am not. I am a centrist.'' You have to put a 
couple of ellipses in there, but that is a contextual statement. It is 
the message he intended to deliver. It is the message he did deliver. I 
don't know anybody who thinks the President is not an ideologue nor do 
I know anybody who thinks the President is a centrist. He is, by 
record, in fact, the most liberal President we have ever elected in the 
history of this country. He has the largest liberal majority, 
Progressive majority--the people who build common cause with the 
Democratic Socialists of America majority--that I have seen in my 
lifetime.
  The political center of this Congress is way to the left. I don't 
know when they've had a filibuster-proof majority in the United States 
Senate, which just disappeared last month; but of all the tools they 
had to work with to pass their agenda, they pointed their bony fingers 
at the Republicans and said, You are obstructionists. You are just the 
Party of No. You are standing in the way of progress. If you could just 
see the rationale for us and go with us so that we could have some 
Republican votes, we could actually pass this legislation and give 
Americans socialized medicine.
  Well, the problem is Democrats can't agree among themselves. Nancy 
Pelosi--the Speaker--Mr. Speaker, has 40 votes to burn. That is four-
zero. That is three dozen plus four votes to burn. She can give them 
all up and still pass a health care bill in their own conference, in 
their own caucus. Yet they point their fingers at Republicans and say, 
You're obstructionists. You're only the Party of No.
  Well, we're the Party of No--``no'' to socialized medicine, ``no'' to 
breaking the budget, ``no'' to taking away the liberty of our children, 
grandchildren and of every succeeding generation in America, and ``no'' 
to passing the debt along and the interest along to those same people. 
Yes, we say ``no'' to such things. The American people said ``no,'' and 
they want help saying ``no'' in this Congress. It's not a function of 
the Republicans' failure to help Democrats with a bad idea that should 
be criticized.
  If they can't agree among themselves, then could it just be they have 
a bad bill? Could it be that the bill has been rejected by enough of 
the constituents of the Democrats?
  How about the Blue Dogs? Where are the Blue Dogs on this? They seem 
to have gone underground on me this time, and I wonder if they haven't 
become groundhogs and seen their shadows instead of Blue Dogs who used 
to be for balanced budget, fiscal responsibility and for excoriating 
anybody who didn't produce the same. Now that they have a President of 
their very own, it's a different equation for the Blue Dogs. They 
aren't nearly as vocal.
  This reconciliation package, this idea to put together a bill that 
would circumvent the very rules of the Senate which require a 60-vote 
majority to break a filibuster and a vote of cloture, is something that 
has been rejected by many of the Senators who would be making the 
decision to go forward with this. This reconciliation, this ``nuclear 
option'' that it used to be called by Democrats when it was 
contemplated by Republicans, was opposed by Democrat after Democrat 
back in those years, mostly in 2005, when we needed to confirm some 
judges.

  By the way, Senator Reid said today that nobody was talking about 
reconciliation. Huh. Yes, they were. Ben Cardin was talking about it 
while Harry Reid was talking about it. Only he was saying they need to 
go forward with reconciliation. So that's been going on for some time. 
As I said, that argument has been going on since September--the nuclear 
option, as Democrats called it. Now they call it reconciliation--nice, 
warm, and fuzzy.
  The President had an opportunity to take the reconciliation/nuclear 
option off the table. He did not do so today. It would have been an 
extension of an open handshake to at least say, We aren't going to blow 
this thing through over the filibuster rules of the United States 
Senate, but the President didn't do that. It must mean he is still for 
the nuclear option.
  Even though Harry Reid said they weren't talking about it, they are. 
The American people know that. The people in this House know this--
Democrats and Republicans--even though it has been rejected by the 
President, then-Senator Obama, Senator Schumer, Senator Reid, then-
Senator Biden and now Vice President, Senator Dodd, Senator Feinstein, 
then-Senator Clinton, and Senator Max Baucus. All of them have rejected 
the idea of reconciliation. They called it a ``nuclear option'' when 
Republicans were contemplating the same.
  This is on a video, but I happen to have the text. So we should know 
what the President said about this plan that, I think, comes to this 
House and that, I think, comes to the Senate. I think

[[Page H927]]

they're going to try the tactic, and it will blow the place up in the 
Senate, and it will bring the people to the streets in America. I think 
they're going to try it because it appears to me it is their last 
option to push this on us.
  In 2005, then-Senator Obama said of reconciliation, A change in the 
Senate rules that really, I think, would change the character of the 
Senate forever.
  He often pauses for a long time.
  He picks up and he says, And what I worry about would be you 
essentially still have two Chambers--the House and the Senate--but you 
would have simply majoritarian absolute power on either side.
  No check and balance on the majority power is what the President is 
saying there. Only he was a Senator at the time.
  He concludes with, And that's just not what the Founders intended.
  President Obama was opposed to reconciliation as a Senator. It was a 
philosophical position for him, presumably, and now it looks like he is 
salivating over knowing his agenda might fail if they can't violate a 
principle that he believes he stood on then, which I disagreed with, by 
the way.
  Senator Schumer, who was in the discussions today, said, We are on 
the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis.
  This is of reconciliation, Mr. Speaker.
  The checks and balances which have been at the core of the Republic 
are about to be evaporated, the checks and balances which say, if you 
get 51 percent of the vote, you don't get your way 100 percent of the 
time.

                              {time}  2250

  ``It is amazing. It's almost a temper tantrum. They want their way 
every single time, and they will change the rules, break the rules, 
misread the Constitution so that they will get their way.'' Senator 
Schumer of the nuclear option that is being contemplated by this White 
House and the leadership in the Senate and in the House in order to 
force-feed socialized medicine on America.
  Well, the majority leader in the United States Senate had some things 
to say also about the nuclear option back in those years, which I 
believe was still 2005, when Harry Reid said, ``The right to extend 
debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress 
and the White House. In these cases a filibuster serves as a check on 
power and preserves our limited government.'' Harry Reid. What did he 
think? He thought they shouldn't use the nuclear option, the 
reconciliation package, because the filibuster is necessary as a check 
on power and it preserves our limited government.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, it brings me to then-Senator, now Vice President 
Joe Biden, who said of the reconciliation-nuclear option: ``Ultimately 
an example of the arrogance of power, it is a fundamental power grab. I 
pray God when the Democrats take back control, we don't make the kind 
of naked power grab you are doing.'' Vice President Joe Biden. 
Presumably that's also a philosophical conviction. He's praying to God 
that they don't do the same thing that he alleged Republicans were 
about to do--and did not, by the way, at least on that occasion.
  Now I have on reconciliation Senator Chris Dodd, Democrat from 
Connecticut, who said, ``I've never passed a single bill worth talking 
about that didn't have as a lead cosponsor a Republican, and I don't 
know of a single piece of legislation that's ever been adopted here 
that didn't have a Republican and a Democrat in the lead. That's 
because we need to sit down and work with each other. The rules of this 
institution have required that. That's why they exist. Why have a 
bicameral legislative body? Why have two Chambers? What were the 
Framers thinking about? They understood, Mr. President, that there is a 
tyranny of the majority.'' Senator Chris Dodd speaking of 
reconciliation.
  Now, that's a list of some of them, but I think it would be 
instructive to go the rest of the way through, Mr. Speaker, and go to 
Senator Dianne Feinstein and what she had to say of reconciliation, 
which was: ``The Senate becomes ipso-facto the House of 
Representatives, where the majority rules supreme and the party in 
power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power. `` 
Senator Dianne Feinstein. And that is an accurate analysis of the 
function of what's going on right now. We will see if she'll 
participate in this and go back on her position.
  But at least then-Senator and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 
won't have to be engaged in this because she happens to be now the 
Secretary of State and out of this loop. But Hillary Clinton said of 
reconciliation: ``You've got majority rule, and then you've got this 
Senate here where people can slow things down, where they can debate, 
where they have something called the filibuster. You know, it seems 
like a little less than efficient. Well, that's right it is and 
deliberately designed to be so. The Senate is being asked to turn 
itself inside out. Ignore the precedent to ignore the way our system 
has worked. The delicate balance that we have obtained that has kept 
this constitutional system going for immediate gratification of the 
present President.'' Hillary Clinton, opposed to the nuclear option-
reconciliation.
  Now, the last quote that I have in front of me is Senator Max Bachus, 
who was actively engaged in the negotiations on this bill for a time 
with my senior Senator Chuck Grassley, who essentially was shut out of 
these negotiations last September. Max Bachus said of the nuclear 
option-reconciliation: ``This is the way democracy ends, not with a 
bomb but with a gavel.''
  That's what we're looking at, Mr. Speaker. But all of these people 
are in a position to flip around and change their position. I'd remind 
the American people that Thomas Jefferson once said that large 
initiatives should not be advanced on slender majorities. And that's an 
important point, and I don't know that Jefferson was talking about 
bipartisan majorities being broader than slender, but he surely would 
have rejected the idea that very slender, exclusively partisan 
majorities are not conducive to the good future of our country.
  And then I would make another point with regard to these negotiations 
and discussions, Mr. Speaker, and that is the President of the United 
States has had kind words to say to some of the people that we've 
viewed as our enemies. One of them would be Ahmadinejad, who is the 
President of Iran. And he said in his State of the Union address--this 
is an interesting thing to come from the President. This is speaking 
almost directly to Ahmadinejad in Iran, standing back where you are, 
very close in front of where you are, Mr. Speaker. President Obama said 
this: ``To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and 
the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of 
history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench 
your fist.'' That was the President's statement in the State of the 
Union address, and no doubt he's speaking to Ahmadinejad, someone who 
has sworn that he is an enemy of the United States and wants to 
annihilate the ``Great Satan.'' And he defines Ahmadinejad as one who 
is clinging to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of 
dissent. It sounds a lot like what we're going through here in this 
Congress. It sounds a lot like the silencing of dissent that's taking 
place in the House of Representatives, with no amendments allowed 
unless they make Republicans look bad, a shutdown of the open rules 
process, a shutdown of the debates process, and a driving through of 
legislation in a partisan way.
  So I'm going to suggest this, Mr. Speaker, that I would appreciate it 
if the President today would offer the Republicans the same thing that 
he offered Ahmadinejad, and that would be that we would extend our hand 
if he would have just unclenched his fist. We would have been happy to 
meet with the President without preconditions, but the President 
insisted on preconditions. So did Ahmadinejad. He insisted on 
preconditions, and the President said, I don't insist on any. I offer 
my hand. Here is a blank piece of paper. Let's negotiate regardless of 
what your conditions are. But instead the President on health care said 
to Republicans, I'm going to hang on to my ObamaCare bills, House and 
Senate. I'll pick my choice because I couldn't write a bill of my own, 
and

[[Page H928]]

I'm going to hang on to the reconciliation-nuclear option because 
that's the gun to the head of Republicans, and you can figure out if 
you're going to blink and concede something to us today and bring some 
votes over to our side of the aisle so we can claim that this albatross 
is something that belongs to Democrats and Republicans. And when we 
rightfully refuse, they will pull the trigger on reconciliation, the 
nuclear option. And it won't be because we didn't offer an open hand. 
It will be because their clenched fist squeezed the trigger of the 
round of the nuclear option and sets off a food fight in America that 
will be ugly in the streets if they force this thing on this country.

  I have been joined by the gentleman and my very good and close friend 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), whom I would be very happy to yield to.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Iowa, and I appreciate the 
points that he's been making.
  You heard so much information today. It was a bit mind-boggling when 
you think about the number of people that were in the so-called summit 
today, and not only did they not have a copy of the bills that they 
were going to try to ram down America's throat, they seemed to be a 
little miffed when people like Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan had data right 
at their fingertips to talk about, because it's very discomforting, I 
would imagine, if you get very indignant and say there's no money in 
any of these bills for abortion.
  We heard the same thing right here on this floor just within feet of 
where my friend from Iowa is. We heard people say when we debated the 
House bill that there is no money in this bill for abortion. And I 
don't infer any evil intent or intent to deceive, but I know when 
people say that, since clearly they have no intent to deceive, they 
just hadn't read the bill before they came to the floor or went to the 
summit to try to convince people about.
  And let's face it. It was called a summit today. Summit meaning 
height. It was the height of something. And we'll let the Speaker 
figure out for us what that height was, but it was the height of 
something, the summit of something.

                              {time}  2300

  But the President himself, I think he was within maybe 1 minute of 
taking 2 hours of all that time by himself. And I was certified as a 
mediator. I went through training and certification as an international 
arbitrator. I know something about coming together and mediating. And 
when you have one side sitting here and another side sitting over here 
and you say I am going to be fair-handed between the time, and you take 
individually more time beating up on the poor little guys over here who 
got even less time among that whole group. I am not sure how many there 
were on each side, but certainly over a dozen. And the one mediator 
takes 2 hours of the time just pushing his position, belittling the 
position of others. And any time he is corrected, since obviously he 
has no intent to deceive, so when he makes a mistake on exactly what 
the facts are, having somebody try to correct it and then having them 
interrupted, as my friend points out.
  But like we had the discussion here on the floor, our friend Bart 
Stupak across the aisle had an amendment to take out the abortion 
provisions that would allow Federal funding for abortion. So gee, why 
in the world would you need an amendment to take out the abortion 
funding if there were no abortion funding in the bill? But, as I am 
sure my friend from Iowa knows, if you went to page 110 of the House 
bill, there is, and, of course, I have been through, I got tags all 
through this stuff as you can see, because I was trying to go through 
to see what was fact and what was fiction. But right here on page 110, 
subsection capital B, ``Abortions''--this is the topic--``Abortions for 
which public funding is allowed.'' And then it goes on and sets things 
out like that.
  So when somebody comes to the floor and says there is no public 
funding for abortion in this bill at all, and we know also that the 
Senate refused to allow anything close to the Stupak amendment to cut 
out Federal funding, then we know that this same kind of language was 
in the bill that was going to survive and that they were going to work 
from. Because as I have heard my friend Mr. Stupak say, if that 
language is not taken out with a Stupak-type amendment, he can't vote 
for it, nor can maybe 40 of our friends across the aisle. But 
``Abortions for which the public funding is allowed.'' Now, you know 
people did not read that on the floor. And our Speaker did not know 
that that language was there. I am sure she didn't prepare the bill.
  And we also know that they didn't read some of the other provisions. 
Because I am sure that when people from the President on down say, ``If 
you like your health care you are going to get to keep it,'' I am sure 
they didn't intend to deceive anybody. I am sure they didn't. But it 
also tells me they hadn't read the bill that is before us. And this 
language, from the best I can tell, as my friend pointed out earlier, 
from the 11-page summary and then the 19-page summary of the summary. 
Both of those can be obtained, of course, from the White House Web 
site. You can either look at their 11-page summary or their 19-page 
summary of the summary. But I can't find that this language is removed 
in their summary or summary of the summary. So if you look at page 91 
of the bill, it's entitled, ``Protecting the Choice to Keep Current 
Coverage.''
  This is the provision that will allow you to keep your coverage if 
you like it. So, being an old judge, chief justice, I kind of feel like 
I appreciate the representations, but as I used to tell the lawyers 
that argued before me, I appreciate your opinion, but I would really 
rather see the language for myself so I can read it and figure out what 
it really says.
  So, you go look at the language itself, and voila, subsection A, 
``Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage.'' And it describes that, 
``The term grandfathered health insurance coverage means individual 
health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect 
before the first day of Y1.'' That is the first date that the bill goes 
into effect. And then you have got two basic subparagraphs, number one, 
``Limitation on new enrollment.'' And that says, and I will quote from 
that subsection, in order to keep your coverage if you like it, it 
says, ``The individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage 
does not enroll any individual in such coverage.''
  Now, you get what that means. It means the two different gentlemen I 
have had over the last few weeks that approached me back in my 
district, and one of them said, ``I am not concerned at all about what 
you're doing about health care because I was part of a union and a part 
of a big corporation. I retired. They got me a great health care plan, 
and I'm pleased with it. And I'm not worried about anybody else.'' The 
other, as it turned out, had been part of the same union, part of the 
same company and retired. He was concerned, and he said, ``Tell me more 
about how I can keep my policy.''
  For people like that, all they would have to do is read this 
individual provision. So the gentleman who said, I'm really not 
worried, I said, ``Well, let me ask you, since this says here that you 
can't keep your coverage even if you like it if another individual is 
enrolled in such coverage, I have to ask, does anybody ever get added 
to your health care coverage from your union that you were part of and 
retired from and now have this great retired medical policy?'' And he 
says, ``Well, yeah, people retire all the time.'' Bad news. That is 
really bad news, because that means they get added to the policy. That 
means under ``Limitation on New Enrollment,'' number one, you're 
eliminated from keeping your coverage and you get bounced over onto the 
Federal insurance exchange program.
  The second limitation might affect some other Americans who like 
their insurance and would like to keep it. It is this. The title is, 
``Limitation on changes in terms or conditions.'' I am just reading 
from the bill. I'm not making this up. ``The issuer does not change any 
of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost sharing.'' You 
get that? If the insurance company that has the policy you like, like 
these two gentlemen that retired from a major company after having 
their union negotiate a good policy, if any term or condition in their 
policy changes, if the benefits change at all, they add benefits, they 
take any benefits away, they say, well, you know

[[Page H929]]

what, we found out this treatment was not safe so we're removing it 
from something we'll provide coverage for, you find out something is a 
brand new treatment that works, we add that, well, you've changed your 
benefits. And it says here you can't change your benefits if you're 
going to keep it. And if you change the copay, if you change the 
deductible, if you change the price of the policy, bad news. Under 
number two, you lose your policy and you get kicked over under the 
Federal insurance exchange program.
  Now, I was intrigued today to hear one of our Democratic friends 
there at the White House summit give a wonderful example about the 
Federal insurance exchange program. He gave this example or something 
like this. I was listening to two or three things at the same time, I 
had hearings and meetings and things going on. But as I understood it, 
he said, ``Well, like when I want to go look for a flight or make 
travel arrangements, I will go onto Orbitz or Expedia or something like 
that. Well, that's all this Federal insurance program is. You know, it 
helps you find the best policy.''
  Well, that is a wonderful point. I have been trying to find where the 
government owns Orbitz and Expedia. I can't find that they own those 
programs. The best I can determine, whether it's Travelocity, Orbitz, 
Expedia, whatever, I can't find the government owns any of those. I 
can't find that it is a Federal Orbitz, a Federal Expedia, Travelocity, 
whatever it is. I can't find that. Apparently, these are private 
companies. And apparently, from what he said, he likes what the private 
companies are doing.
  Well, we want people in America to have choice. We want them to have 
the best choice. And I bet you if you asked Americans, and said, 
``We're thinking about creating a travel agency, and the government 
will make all your travel arrangements for you. You just contact our 
government office. We're going to give you an option to all the other 
airlines, all the other travel agencies. We're just going to let the 
government do that because we feel like you are owed a public option 
when you travel.'' I wonder how many people would ever go to the 
Federal option, because it is not competitive.

                              {time}  2310

  The Federal Government never has to compete. It can run in the red. 
They don't care. Their salaries are not dependent on how well the 
company does.
  And so I also want to point out that if you look here at section 501, 
the title of section 501 is ``Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable 
Health Care Coverage.'' ``Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable Health 
Care Coverage.'' And this place is supposed to care about the little 
guys, the guys that are out there working from dawn until dusk and some 
of them into the night to try to make enough money and then go to 
another job and moonlight to try to help the family, help the kids have 
what they need to get through school? And you're going to say, You know 
what? You make a little too much to be under the poverty line that will 
allow us to just give you free health insurance or health care, so 
under section 501, we're just going to have to tax you because you're 
not buying a Cadillac insurance policy.
  But then again, we also know if you have a Cadillac insurance 
policy--which to me, Cadillacs are great cars. I used to have one 
before I ever came to Congress. I can't afford one now, but they were 
good cars. And, unfortunately, Cadillacs may not be what they used to 
be now that the government motors owns them or makes them.
  But nonetheless, can you imagine the arrogance of a government that 
tells people, You're not buying as expensive of an insurance policy 
that I think you ought to have so I am going to tax you for it?
  And in the summary, the President's plan points out--or the changes 
to the House and Senate bill says, in the summary, You know what? The 
medical device tax--what some of us referred to as the wheelchair tax. 
Of course, they initially stuck the medical device tax in there, and 
there was no threshold above which you had to be to pay an extra tax if 
you had the misfortune of needing a medical device. And so some began 
to refer to it as the tampon tax, because that meets the requirements 
of a medical device and it could be taxed. And the threshold of a 
hundred dollars is put in there.
  So the President says, You know what? We may just create a whole new 
excise tax that everybody is going to have to pay. Sorry about that 
$250,000 exclusion I told you about at one time, but you're still going 
to have to pay more taxes. This is chock full of this stuff. That is 
why most Americans do not want this bill.
  And if you look, there are all kinds of, still, pot sweeteners for 
Senators or Representatives that were reluctant. They changed some of 
those, but the pot sweeteners were in there to try to get their vote. 
They don't help all Americans. They sweeten the pot only for those 
votes that they think they need to get it passed. That is not right. 
That is not good for all Americans. That's not consistent with the 
equal protection that is promised to all Americans under the 
Constitution. You ought to have equal opportunity, and they don't have 
it.
  I appreciate so much the time as my friend has yielded.

                          ____________________