[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 44 (Monday, March 22, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H2207-H2214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   $13 BILLION A YEAR FOR HEALTH CARE

  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. Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate being able to 
address you here on the floor of the United States House of 
Representatives and what has been referred to in the past as the 
world's greatest deliberative body--and what has to struggle to reach 
that standard these days, I would say, Madam Speaker.
  You know, we are not done yet. This legislation passed the House 
sometime this morning. I will just say, first of all, I am grateful 
that this usurpation of American liberty technically in its final phase 
didn't take place on the Sabbath during Lent, although most of the 
machinations, debates, and battles, and some of the votes, actually did 
take place on the Sabbath during lent.
  Our Founding Fathers would have considered it a serious violation of 
the standards of decency to assault liberty on the Sabbath, especially 
during Lent, and I consider it the same. Sacrilegious may have been 
something that would have come to mind.
  But what we have seen is the Senate version of the bill, which has 
come over here to the House and was voted on and debated on first, and 
voted on. And the identical form is the Senate--was the legislation 
that most of us heard President Obama refer to, and I believe it was in 
the conference February 25 at the Blair House, as ObamaCare.
  Thirty-some million more people put on the rolls, and many of them on 
Medicaid rolls, many of them don't quite fit the standards that seem to 
be the highest ideals of the initiation of this legislation. The 
argument is, if there is $130 billion, it will be reducing the deficit 
over a 10-year period of time, $130 billion over 10 years. The American 
people can move a decimal point one place to the left and figure out 
what that is annually, $13 billion a year by their calculations.
  Madam Speaker, I could take you down through the list of the spending 
that has been out of control by this Congress. It all has to be 
initiated here, promoted by the President of the United States, 
trillions, trillions of dollars added up, $700 billion in TARP, $787 
billion, which rolled into over $800 billion and the economic stimulus 
plan, of which only 94 percent of Americans believe did any good, and 
that

[[Page H2208]]

trillions that have been added, that have been advanced by the U.S. 
Treasury and the debt and the deficit that's created by the Obama 
budget, and we're being told that we should give up 100 percent of our 
personal control of our own health insurance and health care in America 
and completely transform the entire health insurance industry, the 
entire health care delivery system, when we have 85 percent of the 
people in America that today are insured and 85 percent of them are 
happy about it.
  And we would transform the entire health care delivery system and the 
health insurance system in America for what? And the argument is, we 
will reduce the deficit by $13 billion a year.
  Madam Speaker, I would point out that if we were interested in 
reducing the debt by $13 billion a year, it would be a piece of cake to 
take $13 billion out of the abusive lawsuits that are being driven by 
the trial lawyers in America. These numbers come to us in stark relief.
  The health insurance underwriters give us a number that 8.5 percent 
of the overall health care costs in America are driven by the abusive 
lawsuits. That 8.5 percent, when you do the calculation, comes out to 
be $207 billion a year. That's the cost of defensive medicine, the 
litigation, the unnecessary settlements that come, not the part that 
makes people whole, and the part that goes directly into the pockets of 
the trial lawyers in America, who are bringing lawsuits and driving 
physicians to do defensive medicine to the point where it's been going 
on so long that it's taught in our med schools how you protect yourself 
from litigation.

                              {time}  2200

  You spend the money on unnecessary tests instead. That's my low 
number, $207 billion a year, which is the Health Insurance 
Underwriters. That's 8\1/2\ percent. These numbers and estimates go 
from $207 billion up to $210 billion a year, which is the number that's 
produced by a Government Reform Committee analysis, on up to $650 
billion a year.
  So if we were really serious about trying to reduce the deficit, we 
can do this to $13 billion a year for the entire massive ObamaCare 
legislation that was rammed and force-fed through this Congress, at a 
tremendous amount of bone twisting. $13 billion a year and $130 billion 
over 10 years. Think, if we could abolish the abusive lawsuits and 
finally end the unnecessary tests, those that are defensive medicine, 
and take that waste out of our health care system. If we could save 
$200 billion a year up to $650 billion, you've got to be a piker to 
brag about $13 billion when you're the President of the United States. 
And the money that they spent to twist the arms here to get down to 
that. And then, to add the reality to this that the $13 billion a 
year--I'll say the round number of $130 billion in deficit reduction by 
the CBO, which was under a tremendous amount of pressure. We'll find 
out if they're legitimate or not over time, but their credibility may 
fall into question. I don't question it here tonight, Madam Speaker.
  But here are the things to calculate that aren't part of this 
calculation when people hear that number of $130 billion deficit 
reduction. That is a half a trillion dollars in Medicare reimbursement 
rates that are cut out of the reimbursement process today; $500 billion 
cut out of Medicare. Nobody believes this Congress will vote to cut 
that spending. Nobody believes that. The people that voted for this 
bill don't believe that, and the people that voted for this bill will 
not vote to cut Medicare for half a trillion dollars. That's an 
accounting gimmick that's designed, like a red herring, to throw the 
hound off the trail.
  Another one of those components of this calculation is $569.2 billion 
in tax increases. Tax increases on medical equipment, for example. Tax 
increases across the whole plethora of things that add up to $569.2 
billion. And another calculation--and we will get the precise number in 
a moment--$200-plus billion for the doctors fix.
  So when we add this up, Madam Speaker, $500 billion for Medicare to 
cut the slash of the underreimbursed Medicare as it is today. According 
to the CMS, the Centers Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Federal 
Government, by their calculation of cost, not by the actual cost of 
providers, only reimburse 80 percent of the Medicare costs to deliver 
their services. And still, they would cut half a trillion dollars out 
of them?
  Add the half trillion to the $569 billion in tax increases, and now 
you have 1 trillion, 69 billion, 200 million in cuts with the tax 
increase on one side, the cut in Medicare on the other side. Those two 
things change the revenue of this. You add to that the $200 billion 
that is the doctor fix, and now you're up to that area of about $1.25 
trillion dollars of funding that are distorted in the calculations of 
the Congressional Budget Office, because they do what? They do the 
calculation on what's presented to them.
  And we're supposed to be elated over a CBO score of a deficit 
reduction of $130 billion that I guarantee you, Madam Speaker, and I 
would guarantee to the American people as well, we will never realize 
such a thing. We will see a complete transformation of our health care 
system, except that we have launched an effort to repeal this abysmal 
piece of legislation.
  I would be very happy to yield so much time as he may consume to the 
relentless doctor and Congressman from Texas, who lives this and has 
made a pledge of his life's effort to come here and get this health 
care policy right in America. And he can't have slept very well last 
night.
  Dr. Burgess.
  Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  There's lots of things I could say. Let me say this on the physician 
fix in Medicare, because that has been something that has been left out 
of the equation. The Democrats do say that they passed a bill last fall 
that the Republicans tried to block and the Senate won't take up, but 
the fact of the matter is they haven't got it done.
  What does it really cost to repeal the sustainable growth rate 
formula? I have some familiarity because this is something I have 
worked on ever since I first got here. Three years ago, the 
Congressional Budget Office score to repeal the sustainable growth rate 
formula was in the neighborhood of $290 billion over 10 years.
  But what happens, as we all know, every year that we don't fix the 
SGR, that dollar figure that should have been saved gets added on to 
the cost of the fix. There is no way that the cost of fixing the 
sustainable growth rate formula is 1 dollar less than $300 billion. It 
is likely $350 billion or more.

  What many of us conveniently choose to ignore is that there will have 
to be something done to protect seniors who are part B participants, 
because the premium paid by the seniors in part B is, by law, fixed at 
25 percent of the cost of the part B program the previous year. Well, 
if you add that much money to the cost of the part B program, guess 
what's going to happen to that senior's 25 percent of their premium? 
It's going to go up significantly.
  Well, in Congress, sometimes we don't like to do that because it 
makes people mad at us and they get grouchy around election time and 
they won't vote for us, so we are likely to do something to hold 
seniors harmless from that rate increase. And, as a consequence, that 
makes the cost of repealing the SGR even higher.
  When you hear people talk about perhaps it can cost as much as $400 
billion to repeal the SGR, they are talking about, yes, the true cost 
of repealing the SGR and a protection for seniors--at least low-income 
seniors--in the part B program. All of that is going to cost money. 
That's the reason that that number gets inflated so high.
  Yes, there were some tricks and gimmicks that were used when the 
Democrats had their bill here in the fall to hold that cost down to, I 
think it was, $240 billion or $250 billion. The fact of the matter 
remains that it is a huge expenditure completely left off the CBO, 
Congressional Budget Office, tally sheet. As a consequence, you're not 
being honest with the American people if you said, Well, this is going 
to be the greatest revenue saver of all time. Nonsense. Start that 
story with, ``Once upon a time,'' and finish it with, ``And they lived 
happily ever after,'' because it is truly a fairy tale or a bedtime 
story, except it's kind of scary when you think of what your children 
are going to have to face with the amount of debt we are laying at 
their feet.

[[Page H2209]]

  Again, this has been through both the Republican and Democratic-
controlled House of Representatives that we have let this happen. It's 
not to put all the culpability at the feet of the Democrats on the SGR 
formula, but they are culpable in this regard: They are not attesting 
to it. They are not accounting for it in this formula or in this score 
sheet, this tally sheet they have. And then they're going blithely 
around the country talking about how this is going to save the greatest 
amount of revenue that anyone has ever seen in peacetime.
  The President is going to have a signing ceremony tomorrow for the 
bill that we passed. He is then embarking upon a tour to sell the 
American people on the concept of what we passed. That's getting a 
little backwards, isn't it? Shouldn't we have engaged the American 
people and gathered the popular support from around the country for 
this bill before we passed it through the House and the Senate and 
signed it down at the White House?
  This has been their problem all along. I have said it before, but it 
bears repeating. If you do not have popular support for a measure this 
large, then it's no great surprise that the people push back. And 
because the people pushed back, yeah, the Republicans didn't want this 
and they didn't vote for it, but it was the Democrats within their own 
conference, within their own caucus. This was a fight in the Democratic 
caucus. Because how can you go home and face your constituents when 
they have told you over and over and over again in town halls, 
telephone town halls, emails, cards, faxes, letters, they have told you 
over and over and over again, We don't want you to do this. We don't 
trust you.
  The congressional approval rating right now is 17 percent and 
dropping. We don't trust you to do this. You won't read the bill. You 
won't take the insurance yourself. Why should we believe you that you 
can do something this large?

                              {time}  2210

  Now had we taken an alternative approach, which was rejected by the 
President, rejected by the Speaker of the House, but had we taken an 
alternative approach and said, Let's take three things that are really 
bugging people and try to fix them, and maybe if they see we can do 
that, maybe they'll give us the permission to work on a few more 
things.
  So instead of a 1,000-page bill that became a 2,000-page bill that 
became a 3,000-page bill that became a 4,000-page bill--and this was a 
4,000-page bill, by the way. There was 2,700 pages in the Senate 
legislation, and then another 1,300 pages in reconciliation. That's a 
lot of pages for the American people to have to sort through on a 
weekend. And many brave souls, I'm sure, tried. Rather than doing a 
4,000-page bill, let's do three or five 50-page bills and try to take 
care of some of the problems.
  You know, here's the sad part. Because a lot of the benefits are 
shifted out so far because it's just going to take a long time to build 
the infrastructure and the bureaucracy to administer these things, 
they're ironically going to do some of the things that John McCain 
suggested during the campaign. They're going to create risk pools for 
people with preexisting conditions, and subsidize these risk pools, and 
get people some help right away. That's a good thing. I would support 
that. I would have supported that a year ago, had we said, Look, we 
know we want to work on a big health care bill, but let's get some help 
for the people that are really needing it right now.
  And that poor group of people with preexisting conditions, there is a 
way we can help them. The Congressional Budget Office scored that at 
about a $20 billion cost over 10 years' time. I personally think it's 
going to be a little bit higher. But that's a far sight less than a 
trillion-dollar bill. So why didn't we do that a year ago? Why didn't 
we have a hearing on it in my committee? Why didn't we call in some 
experts and say, How do you get this done? We are still going to pass a 
big bill at some point, but we just really want to help these poor 
folks who have preexisting conditions today.
  Why didn't we have a hearing on, What do we need to do to help people 
who are perhaps facing early retirement, a way to buy into Medicare? Or 
is there some other type of insurance product that might be out there? 
Might we do something in the marketplace that would allow a product to 
be developed and sold for them? We didn't even try. We didn't have a 
hearing. We didn't talk about it. We just said, No, we're going to do 
mandates. We're going to do a public option. We'd love to do a single-
payer if we thought we could pull the wool over the American people's 
eyes for just a few more days, and this is what we want to do.
  The reality is that people would look back at it and say, No, you 
can't do that to us. Mandates are unconstitutional. What about equal 
protection under the law? This deem and pass thing that they flirted 
with for a few days really got people in a snit until they finally 
backed off on that. But why be so duplicitous? Why be so fancy about 
passing these things? Make it a straightforward bill. Make it the 
number of pages that someone could reasonably read in one sitting, and 
tell people what you're going to do, tell people what you're going to 
propose.
  Even better yet, go out amongst the people and find out what they 
want. This is what I did with my nine principles that I have developed 
for health care reform that were up on my Web site--or perhaps are 
still up on my Web site. I listened to the people in my town halls. I 
listened to the people who were on my telephone town halls. They said, 
Help us with preexisting conditions. Sell across State lines, fairness 
in the Tax Code, liability reform, blah, blah, blah. That's what we 
want.
  Why didn't we do it that way? Instead we have this gargantuan bill 
that we shoved down the throats of the American people. And I don't 
know, we're stuck up here in Washington. We're insulated inside the 
cocoon. Our phones have been shut down all weekend. Our faxes have been 
overloaded. So we don't really know what people are thinking out there. 
But I've got a hunch they're not happy about what we did last night. 
I'm sorry to have consumed so much time. I will yield back to the 
gentleman from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Texas. And I know that 
since he had a little trouble sleeping last night, if he has a little 
longer period of time to vent himself tonight, he may be able to get 
caught up with this and rest a little. But I do not believe that we're 
going to be forgetting this, nor will we be backing off.
  The first order of business this morning issued a bill draft request 
to repeal this legislation that passed the House last night, the Senate 
version of the bill. It's not curious at all that it's happened more 
than one of us has stepped forward to do that. I'll continue to work on 
that cause and work to have legislation that can repeal the Senate 
version of the bill and can be converted into a discharge petition that 
can then bring a repeal to the floor of the House. There are 212 House 
Members who voted against it. That means if they will all stick to 
their convictions--and there was one resignation last night, so that 
means we have seven more on top of that--that if all of those would 
sign on the courage of their convictions and seven would have a 
conversion, we would be able to bring a repeal to the floor of the 
House. That's one of my efforts, Madam Speaker. And I intend to remain 
committed to that.

  Going back on Dr. Burgess's comments with regard to cost, he said the 
doctors' fix has to be in the area of $360 billion. I spoke of the $500 
billion cut in Medicare reimbursement rates as part of that bill and 
tax increases in there, aggregate, that are $569.2 billion. The things 
that aren't in this bill that change the overall cost of the bill 
totals $1.4292 trillion that, if they were presented in a fashion that 
was designed to inform the American people, would have shifted the 
balance of that scoring from, I'd say, a deficit reduction of $130 
billion to a deficit increase of $1.429 trillion, minus $130 billion. 
So we would be in the area of $1.3 trillion is what the additional cost 
of all this is that is masked by the cuts in Medicare, the tax 
increases that people don't seem to be focused on or animated by, and 
by the necessity to pass a doctors' fix. All of that. And the net, that 
would be the net deficit that was created by this bill, when you 
subtract those numbers, works out to be $1.3 trillion, a net deficit 
created by this bill.
  All of this to solve a problem that the President has identified as 
us

[[Page H2210]]

spending too much money on health care. So we spend too much money on 
health care, and the economy's in a downward spiral--this is all the 
President--and we can't fix the economy unless we first fix health 
care. The problem with health care is we spend too much money, and the 
President's solution is spend a lot more. Speaker Pelosi's solution is 
spend a lot more.
  So that's what got done last night, Madam Speaker. The American 
people end up with a huge liability that goes on to our children, our 
grandchildren; and babies yet born will be paying interest on a debt 
that shows no sign to be reduced anytime within the calculations of the 
people that are in control of this country today, that being the White 
House, the gavel here, in the White House, and the gavel in the United 
States Senate.
  So when Dr. Burgess talks about a story that begins with ``Once upon 
a time'' and ended with ``happily ever after,'' I don't know if there 
is a happily ever after for America. But we're living in a once-upon-a-
time time, Madam Speaker.
  Now, I wanted to take up this issue and roll us back to the Stupak 
amendment and what happened here in the House last night. The Stupak 
amendment was brought forward in the weeks before the November 7 first 
passage of the House version of the bill. It was driven, I think, by 
the best merits of seeking to prohibit American taxpayers from having 
to fund abortions. I would like to prohibit abortions; but if we can 
continue to prohibit American taxpayers from having to fund abortions, 
at least we're maintaining the current status quo.
  That changed last night, Madam Speaker. But the Stupak amendment was 
motivated and designed to prevent Americans from having to pay for the 
elimination of innocent unborn human life. That was properly motivated, 
and it was very hard work here in this Congress. Every Republican 
supported the Stupak amendment. There were 64 Democrats who voted for 
the Stupak amendment. Everyone got at least some cover to be able to 
say, I am pro-life.
  That went on from November 7, this cover of being pro-life Democrats, 
until last night, Madam Speaker. And now it's a legitimate question to 
ask, Is there such a thing as a pro-life Democrat? Or was it always a 
political position that was contrived to posture to pacify constituents 
rather than a deeply held internal conviction that one is willing to 
stand and sacrifice for? I'm having trouble at this point finding a 
real pro-life Democrat. I'm sure some of them in their most private 
world do care a lot about ending the destruction of innocent unborn 
human life.
  But after the Stupak amendment, after the long negotiations that took 
place, after the events that took place yesterday of Congressman Stupak 
in one room, the pro-choice people in another room, shuttle diplomacy 
going back and forth, and finally about 4 o'clock yesterday, 
Congressman Stupak held a press conference and revealed that the Stupak 
12, the dozen that had pledged that they would hold out to defend 
innocent unborn human lives and oppose Federal funding of abortion, 
decided that they had found a solution that would take them off of the 
pressure hook and out of the pressure cooker that was being put there 
by the Speaker.

                              {time}  2220

  We have to believe if the Stupak 12 would have stuck together, this 
anti-liberty, anti-life bill would have failed last night. But it did 
not.
  Now what was the rationale that came before that Stupak press 
conference yesterday? And in the Stupak dozen, I would point out that 
we still don't know who they all are. We probably know who some are, 
but we don't know who they all are. And you can't count votes in this 
United States Congress or any legislative body unless the people that 
are on the list are public.
  If they say I will be a ``no'' on the Senate version of the bill 
unless there is a fix that will put real pro-life language in it, if 
they will step up at a press conference and take their position and 
make that pledge before God and man, you can generally count on them. 
But a lot of them were pledged by Congressman Stupak, but they were 
anonymous, Madam Speaker.
  I never believe an anonymous oath stuck for anything because they can 
always flip and vote the other way. And when pinned down later on, they 
can say, I was never one of the Stupak dozen. So they had the option. 
Those who were not public, those whose names didn't leak out into the 
press, they all had the option to vote yes or no. If they voted no on 
the bill because it didn't have pro-life protections in it, then after 
the final vote, they could always say, Well, I stood up for innocent, 
unborn human life. I was one of the Stupak dozen.
  But if they voted yes, Madam Speaker, and when they were accused 
later on of flipping their position and not sticking with their 
publicly announced convictions on pro-life, they could always say, 
Well, I was never part of the Stupak dozen. I really didn't make that 
pledge or that oath. I was not part of that deal. So don't write me 
into this presuming I flipped positions and didn't stick to my 
convictions because I never announced my convictions. That is what goes 
on when people who are supposedly part of a coalition remain anonymous 
and their names do not become public. Their public statements are not 
part of the record. And so therefore they can vote any way they want to 
vote and always hide from the accountability. They don't have to give 
or keep their word. And for months, the Stupak dozen remained 
anonymous.
  And now we have to wonder, was there a single Member of Congress, was 
it all Democrats on that dozen, was there a single one that had the 
courage of their convictions that put up a vote to defend innocent, 
unborn human life? Or did they all find a way to slip into the excuse 
of, the President of the United States is going to sign an Executive 
order that will take the Stupak language and make it the law of the 
land. That is the summary of the Stupak conference yesterday, as I 
heard it.
  The President's Executive order makes protection of innocent unborn 
human life from the assault of American taxpayers' dollars, pro-life 
American taxpayers' dollars protected by an Executive order of the 
President of the United States.
  Now, I have to believe that a duping has taken place here. We are the 
people who have to take an oath, and we are glad to do it. An oath to 
uphold the Constitution of the United States. We take that oath right 
down here on the floor together, and I carry the family Bible in to 
take my oath, to uphold this Constitution of the United States. And we 
are upholding a Constitution--what we understand the text of the 
Constitution to mean. And what it was understood to mean at the time of 
its ratification.
  It cannot be anything else. It cannot be a living, breathing, 
growing, moving, changing, morphing organism. The Constitution has to 
mean what it says. If it doesn't mean what it says, it is no guarantee 
whatsoever. It is simply a document that allows a judge or a 
manipulating attorney to manipulate society however they choose to do 
so. Or the Constitution could just become instead a shield that an 
activist judge can hold up and say, that is the Constitution. It was my 
job to interpret it as a growing, moving, changing, morphing document; 
and because society has changed, the Constitution has to adapt to it. 
That is nuts.
  It is nuts to think that the Constitution has any value if we are 
going to put it in the hands of an activist judge and have it turn into 
something that is malleable, that they can shape in their hands however 
they want to. There wouldn't be any reason for a Constitution if it was 
growing, moving, changing, and morphing. The text of it has to mean 
what it was understood to mean at the time of the ratification of the 
basic document, the Bill of Rights, or each of the amendments in their 
time as they came through.
  And the Founding Fathers put provisions in place so if we weren't 
satisfied with this Constitution, its text in its original 
understanding, then we could amend it. A fair amount of wisdom. It is a 
high bar. But still, it needs to be a high bar to amend the 
Constitution because this is our guarantee.

  And to think that we would have Members of this United States 
Congress at this very high and presumably well-educated, well-informed, 
and sophisticated level, that would take an oath to uphold this 
Constitution, each

[[Page H2211]]

2 years as they are seated in this Congress, and believe somehow this 
Constitution doesn't mean what it says, that there really isn't what 
you would call a separation of powers, that the executive, the 
legislative and the judicial branches of government somehow are not 
defined specifically in here with our individual duties. All 
legislative powers are vested in the Congress; they are not vested in 
the President of the United States.
  You don't have to read very far into the Constitution, Article I, 
section 1, ``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a 
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a 
House of Representatives.'' All legislative powers, Madam Speaker.
  And yet, Congressman Stupak and the other 11 of the Stupak dozen 
found it convenient to believe that this doesn't mean what it says, 
that a President of the United States can amend the legislation of the 
land, the law of the land, by Executive order? Who could dream of such 
a thing? What kind of country could we have if the President can amend 
the legislation, the Federal code, by Executive order? Any President 
could come in on a whim and amend the very reasoned deliberations of 
the House and the Senate that we have come together and concurred in, 
and sent the document to the President of the United States to be 
signed into law, and the President could then just simply sign an 
Executive order to change it?
  If the President can do that, why didn't he just write the entire 
socialized medicine ObamaCare package? If he can run this country by 
Executive order, we don't need a legislative branch, unless we come 
together to appropriate money. And why can't you do that by Executive 
order, too?
  This is the kind of thinking that subverts our Constitution. And this 
initiated and promised from the President of the United States, who 
used to teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago as an 
adjunct professor. I will just read this again, just in case we forget 
what Article I, section 1 says. ``All legislative powers herein granted 
shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist 
of a Senate and House of Representatives.''
  The gentleman from Michigan and the 11 other gentlemen and 
gentleladies who are either publicly part of the Stupak 12 found 
something that was the best deal that they could find to let them do 
what they were probably willing to do for a long time before they 
finally capitulated, and that is vote for this socialized medicine 
bill, because that is where the political power has gone. So they will 
migrate where political power is instead of standing on their 
convictions to defend innocent, unborn life.
  How can it be that the President of the United States will sign an 
Executive order that alters the legislative language of the United 
States Congress? What utter arrogance on the part of the White House. 
What utter naivete, at best, on the part of the Members of this 
Congress that buy into such a thing.

                              {time}  2230

  Madam Speaker, I'm not without experience in this category. I didn't 
just open up the Constitution and read Article I, section 1. I have a 
deep and long history with defending the Constitution and the 
separation of powers.
  And, in fact, as a State senator, I exercised that at some expense to 
myself and my family. As a State senator, I took an oath to uphold the 
Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of 
Iowa. And some time in 1999, I received a fax that came from an 
anonymous source, and I never found out where, but it was a photocopy 
of an article that was written in the Washington Blade here in 
Washington, D.C., and it said, at that time State of Iowa Governor 
Vilsack, now Secretary of Agriculture, had signed an executive order, 
an executive order that granted special protected status for sexual 
orientation and gender identity. And it was--I want to say it took 
great credit for that executive order advancing the special rights of 
people who often read the Washington Blade newspaper.
  It seemed to me that somebody had a little bit of extra exuberance 
that somehow that information would be sent out here to Washington and 
it would be posted in the paper and nobody in Iowa would have probably 
picked up on it, but I think somebody out here found it, cut it out, 
and faxed it to me. That was on a Wednesday evening. I read that 
article, checked the Iowa Administrative Bulletin, and there on page 
632 of the Iowa Administrative Bulletin I found the executive order.
  Now, the Governor had had a press conference that day. He'd talked 
about several other actions on his part, but he didn't talk about the 
executive order, executive order number 7, granting special protected 
status for sexual orientation and gender identity.
  And I went to our attorneys and I said, I believe this is a violation 
of separation of powers. I believe he is legislating by executive 
order, and I believe it's a constitutional violation. And even our 
attorneys on our side of this analyzed it and said, No, you're wrong. 
This is very carefully written and artfully drafted and nuanced in such 
a way that it isn't a violation of the Constitution, and this executive 
order will stand.
  And it didn't make sense to me, and they couldn't explain it to me. 
And often I find out, if they can't, it isn't just because I can't 
understand it; it might be they don't either.
  So I sat down at the word processor and I put all the language in 
section 19B.2 of the Iowa Code. I typed it in so I had the words to 
work with. Then I took the executive order number 7 on page 632 of the 
Iowa Administrative Bulletin and I patched that in to the code of the 
civil rights section of the Code of Iowa, Iowa law, just like our 
Federal Code here, Federal law. And where it struck out words in the 
Iowa Code, I put strike-throughs in them; and where it introduced 
words, I put underlines in them, and pretty soon I had a document that 
showed me what the Code of Iowa would read like if that executive order 
were allowed to stand.
  And it was clear to me that the Governor had legislated by executive 
order. He'd added two more categories to the special protected status 
of the Civil Rights Act which was patterned off of title VII of the 
Civil Rights Act in the Federal Code. So it was clear to me that the 
Governor, the chief executive officer of my State, had legislated by 
executive order. I didn't have anybody that agreed with me, but I 
believed it.
  So I sat down and I wrote up an analysis of it. And I set that up and 
I sent it out to about a dozen of the people out there whose judgment I 
trust, and I asked them to give me an opinion. And that was on a 
Thursday night.
  And before I got an opinion back from anyone, I was driving down the 
road that Friday morning about 10:15 or so, maybe 10:30, listening to 
one of our radio talk show hosts, our top radio talk show host in Iowa, 
who happens to be one of the people that's talking on WHO radio. And 
that is the original station where Ronald Reagan had a microphone when 
he learned the broadcasting business, so anyone that has access to that 
microphone has a legacy to uphold.
  And as our talk show host was talking, he brought up this executive 
order, which I didn't think anybody knew about but me, and he began 
going down through a list of items that he objected to and an analysis 
of it. And as I listened, as I drove down the road, it occurred to me 
that this sounds a lot like the points that I had sent out the night 
before to my friends for their opinions. And I pulled my pickup truck--
where I come from, they're just a pickup--off on the gravel road at an 
intersection and I dialed on my cell phone into that radio program.
  And he asked me what I thought and I told him. I said, I believe the 
Governor is legislating by executive of order. I believe it's a 
constitutional violation of the separation of powers.
  And he said, What are you going to do--at the time--State Senator? He 
said, What are you going to do, Senator? And I said, I'm going to sue 
the Governor.

  And he asked me, Do you have the support of the legislature? I said, 
There are 150 of us between the house and the senate, and if 149 of 
them think it's a bad idea, I am suing him anyway, because he's 
violated the Constitution of the State of Iowa by legislating by 
executive order.
  Now, to move this longer story into a shorter version, Madam Speaker, 
it comes down to this. I followed through

[[Page H2212]]

on that. There were a number of people that joined me as plaintiffs. 
I'm very glad that they did. They were stalwart, and we stood together. 
But the case of King v. Vilsack went before the courts, and the courts 
found in my favor and in the favor of the Constitution and in the favor 
of the people that stood up to defend the Constitution, and they 
vacated the executive order because it was unconstitutional. It was an 
attempt by an executive officer to legislate by executive order rather 
than allow the constitutional authority of the legislative branch to 
make those decisions. And so that executive order number 7 was vacated 
by the courts.
  And I believe it was a help to the administration, the Vilsack 
administration, so that they didn't follow down that path and continue 
to try to run the State of Iowa without regard to respect for the 
legitimate authority of the legislative branch.
  Well, now Governor Vilsack is the Secretary of Agriculture. We've had 
our times together, but I'm appreciative of that time, because that 
gave me the background and that gave me the responsibility to analyze 
these issues and come to a fundamental conclusion.
  If a Governor can't legislate by executive order, neither can a 
President. It's the height of arrogance to think that you can do so by 
executive order, especially when the President has so much on the 
record that would say otherwise.
  And I would point out that President Obama was very, very critical of 
President Bush for his signing statements, not executive orders, that--
essentially not an executive order that it would amend a statute that 
hasn't even gotten to the President's desk yet, but a signing statement 
that points out reservations about constitutionality of certain 
segments of a bill.
  And here is what President Obama said of signing statements. This is 
March 9, 2009. He's been inaugurated for a couple of months, a month 
and a half now. And the title of this memo is, from the White House, 
``Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies; 
Subject: Presidential Signing Statements.''
  Now, remember, this is the President who, as a candidate, was 
critical of President Bush for his signing statements. And he says 
this: ``In recent years, there has been considerable public discussion 
and criticism of the use of signing statements to raise constitutional 
objections to statutory provisions.''
  This is the President who has objections to the utilization of 
signing statements, which I have some of those same reservations to be 
objective in this.
  And he goes on and says: ``There is no doubt that the practice of 
issuing such statements can be abused,'' an implication President Bush 
abused those.
  Continuing, ``Constitutional signing statements should not be used to 
suggest that the President will disregard statutory requirements on the 
basis of policy disagreements.''
  I'd better read that again. ``Constitutional signing statements 
should not be used to suggest that the President will disregard 
statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements.''
  That's President Obama as recently as March 9, 2009. And here he is, 
March 21st, now the 22nd, 2010. So let's just call this a year and a 
couple of weeks later, the President of the United States apparently 
believes that he can go beyond the signing statement, even though he's 
critical of signing statements and the ``constitutional signing 
statement should not be used to suggest that the President will 
disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy 
disagreements.''
  Well, there apparently is a policy disagreement between Bart Stupak 
and the other 11, however anonymous they might be, and those who are 
willing to vote for this bill, regardless. But we know the President of 
the United States doesn't disagree with the policy in the bill that 
he's about to sign tomorrow.

                              {time}  2240

  He and Bart Stupak disagree, as do the 11, as does every Republican 
that voted for the Stupak amendment and presumably some of those that 
are part of the 64 Democrats that did the first time around.
  But the President's taken a position that signing statements are to 
be used carefully and with great restraint even though he said as a 
candidate he didn't support signing statements at all. And now the same 
President is telling us that he can amend a piece of legislation that's 
been fought over since last July by everybody in America, finally 
passes the House of Representatives, goes to the President's desk, and 
he's going to amend it by executive order to keep our Stupak happy. And 
I went to court to sue a Governor who is now the Secretary of 
Agriculture successfully to make the point that the chief executive 
officer of the State or the United States has no authority to amend 
legislation by executive order. King v. Vilsack's in the books. This 
executive order doesn't have any weight or substance. It will either be 
thrown out in court or will be disregarded. Mr. Stupak has to know 
that.
  That is another thing that the President went on and said with 
signing statements, With these considerations in mind and based upon 
advice of the Department of Justice, the President, speaking through 
this memo, I will issue signing statements to address constitutional 
concerns only when it is appropriate to do so as a means of discharging 
my constitutional responsibilities. In issuing signing statements I 
shall adhere to the following principles: Ya-da-da.
  Only when it is appropriate to do so as a means of discharging my 
constitutional responsibilities. The President doesn't have a 
constitutional responsibility to sign an executive order. It would 
alter the language in the legislation. That is the responsibility of 
this Congress. And to think that there would be a piece of legislation 
that was passed here that could not have passed if the convictions of 
the people that were required to vote for it would have been reflected 
in their vote. But no. The false promise of an executive order brings 
about the flip of a dozen votes and a bill that couldn't pass--in fact, 
a bill that couldn't pass the United States Senate today passed the 
floor of the House last night, and it's on its way to the President 
because the President promised an executive order that would, in 
effect, amend the legislation that will soon be signed into law. It is 
a constitutional violation. I have been to court to prove it.
  And I would go further and say why would anybody believe that it is 
the intent of the President to follow through on such a thing if, in 
the ultra-hypothetical situation, he really had an authority to sign an 
executive order that would bring about this effect? Why would anybody 
believe this?
  I went back today and a looked through the transcripts of the 
Illinois State Senate. And here's what I found. State of Illinois, 92d 
General Assembly, regular session, Senate transcript 20th legislative 
day, March 30, 2001. Not so old in our time.
  Where's the President on the issue of protecting unborn human lives? 
Well, before the Illinois legislature, several times the Illinois Born-
Alive Infants Protection Act was introduced, it was introduced to 
provide legal protection to all born babies wanted or not, including 
the right--and it gave them the right to medical care. Then-Senator 
Barack Obama voted multiple times against such legislation. The 
President has not stood up to defend innocent unborn human life. When 
he was asked at the Saddleback Church in August of 2008 when his life 
began or when life begins, his answer was, That is above my pay scale.
  Well, he seemed to think it was not above his pay scale when he spoke 
on the floor of the Senate that day. And the sum total of the dialogue 
of the President would tell any careful reader with a somewhat critical 
eye that the President of the United States must believe that a woman 
who was seeking an abortion, even though the baby survived the 
attempted abortion, has a right to a dead baby anyway.
  Here's what I read from that transcript on that day, which is March 
30, 2001. The floor of the Illinois Senate. And the question came from 
Senator Obama: ``Thank you, Madam President. Will the sponsor yield for 
questions?'' Presiding answer responded: ``He indicates he will.''
  In which case State Senator Obama followed with this. He said: ``This 
bill was fairly extensively debated in the Judiciary Committee, and so 
I won't belabor the issue. I do want to just

[[Page H2213]]

make sure that everybody in the Senate knows what this bill is about, 
as I understand it.
  ``Senator O'Malley, the testimony during the committee indicated that 
one of the key concerns was--is that there was a method of abortion, an 
induced abortion, where the--the fetus or child, as--as some might 
describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of 
the concerns that came out of the testimony was the fact that they were 
not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they 
were still living. Is that correct? Is that an accurate sort of 
description of one of the key concerns in the bill?''

  Senator O'Malley, presiding officer, apparently responded and then 
from, yes, Senator O'Malley, the sponsor of the bill, said, ``Senator 
Obama, it is certainly a key concern that the--the way children are 
treated following their birth under the circumstances has been reported 
to be, without question, in my opinion, less than humane, and so this 
bill suggests that appropriate steps be taken to treat that baby as a--
a citizen of the United States and afforded all the rights and 
protections it deserves under the Constitution of the United States.''
  That is Senator O'Malley.
  Senator Obama responded: ``Well, it turned out--that during the 
testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman's 
right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the 
concerns that your--you raised and that were raised by witnesses in the 
testimony. And there was some suggestion that we might be able to craft 
something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring 
for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion.''
  Senator Obama continued: ``Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit 
further, and so I just want to suggest, not that I think that it'll 
make too much difference with respect to how we vote, that this is 
probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, 
whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by 
the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, 
what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are 
entitled to the kinds of protections.''
  In any case, watching the clock tick down, Madam Speaker, I'm going 
to follow with this--let's see, ``that they are persons that are 
entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a--a 
child, a 9-month-old--child that was delivered to term.'' In other 
words, he draws a distinction between the unborn child that is 
struggling for life after an attempt of abortion and the child that is 
9-months-old.
  And he goes on and says: ``That determination then, essentially, if 
it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I 
mean, it--it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal 
protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child and if this 
is a''--so he admits that. He admits then abortion is killing a child 
if you allow that child to be named as a citizen of the United States 
by law.
  Now continuing: ``And if this is a child, then this would be an anti-
abortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found 
unconstitutional. The second reason that it would be found 
unconstitutional.
  ``This essentially says that a doctor is required to provide 
treatment to a pre-viable child, or fetus, however way you may want to 
describe it. Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme 
Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take 
place.''
  Not true, actually, Madam Speaker. They didn't draw that line. They 
made exceptions for life or health of the mother and that includes now, 
according to Dole v. Bolton as to economic or the familial health of 
the perspective mother, who I consider as a mother that day.
  It goes on, and I will just bring this to a conclusion, as the 
President of the United States continues all of this dialogue on the 
floor of the Illinois Senate, standing up in opposition to the Born-
Alive Infants Protection Act which protects the life of a child that 
has survived an abortion from being pushed off into a cold room and 
starved to death so no one can hear that child scream itself to death, 
the President argues in the substance of this that this woman has a 
right to a dead baby.

                              {time}  2250

  It concludes this way: ``As a consequence, I think that we will 
probably end up in court once again, as we often do on this issue, and, 
as a consequence, I will be voting `present.' ''
  This President said he would vote ``present'' on the issue of the 
Born Alive Act, which is the most outrageous position, and it finds 
itself in direct contradiction to the Born Alive Act, which is almost 
identical to the Illinois act that was passed unanimously in this 
United States Congress, in the House, and by a voice vote in the 
Senate, or vice versa; I actually don't remember which way, without 
opposition in each Chamber, but opposition in the Chamber of the 
Illinois Senate, by the President of the United States, who now we are 
going to trust to write an Executive order that's not going to be 
constitutionally upheld, that doesn't have the convictions of the 
President, but it gives just the smallest of fig leaves for the Stupak 
dozen. That's what the American people have seen, Madam Speaker. That's 
what brings some of their outrage.
  But shifting subjects and bringing this into the Congressional Record 
and towards the conclusion, I will point out a press release that does 
give me some hope. This is a press release that also comes from 
Chicago, AP. The headline is this: ``ACORN disbanding because of money 
woes, scandal.'' It's an article by Michael Tarm, and it was filed at 
8:57, fairly fresh news for us.
  It says, ``The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced 
Monday it is folding amid falling revenues--6 months after video 
footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to 
conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute.
  Hannah and James, in 6 months, according to this article, have 
brought about the destruction of ACORN, ACORN the criminal enterprise, 
ACORN that has been involved in advocating for a Community Reinvestment 
Act and then deciding they are the brokers of who is writing the most 
bad loans in bad neighborhoods. ACORN, the organization that admitted 
to over 400,000 false or fraudulent voter registration forms, ACORN 
that has been under multiple prosecutions in multiple States, at least 
14, I believe it is 16 States in the country for voter fraud, voter 
registration fraud and a number of other activities.
  ACORN, the organization that was raided in New Orleans, Louisiana, at 
their national headquarters, and the Attorney General of the State of 
Louisiana brought out a massive amount of records, copied those records 
for ACORN, and they are being sorted through to this day. ACORN, the 
organization that seemed to want to change the shingle but it couldn't 
change the faces of the people that were running the organization, and 
the pressure that's come in this Congress to shut off funding to go to 
ACORN; the United States Senate shut off funding to ACORN. Thanks to 
Senator Mike Johanns, who offered the amendments to get that done.
  And then there was a judge, Nina Gershon, in the Eastern District of 
New York, who decided that Congress didn't have a constitutional 
authority to end funding to a multiple criminal enterprise entity 
because we failed, our government failed, our Solicitor General 
apparently failed to make the argument before the Eastern District of 
New York that Congress had some motive other than punitive. And so 
there was an unprecedented decision made by Judge Nina Gershon, and she 
ruled that it was a bill of attainder and we should not have punished 
ACORN, and that ACORN has access to, and should, to Federal funding for 
grants and contracts, not only what's going on in the past, what's 
going on now, but in the future, because they have been successful in 
the past, and Congress failed to prove.
  Well, there isn't going to be that center of ACORN to appropriate 
funds to as long as we keep the pressure up, Madam Speaker. America is 
a better place because of this good news tonight.
  I am not convinced that this is the end of ACORN. I think people like 
that re-form again and shape new organizations and come back in an 
insidious way, but we have got to follow and track all the money all 
the way down.

[[Page H2214]]

We have got to stand up for the principle of life, we have got to stand 
up for the Constitution. We have got to respect article 1, section 1, 
where all legislative authority is vested in the Constitution of the 
United States.
  Follow through on ACORN. The sun did come up this morning, even 
though it was behind the cloud, and there is still some free air left 
in America.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________