[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 137 (Saturday, October 5, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6312-H6319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE REST OF THE STORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. BARTON. Mr. Speaker, for the last hour, the minority in the 
House, the Democrat Party, has had the right to speak to the American 
people in their leadership Special Hour. I think the gentleman from 
Oregon and the gentleman from California did a good job of presenting 
the side of the story as they viewed it.
  Having said that, Mr. Speaker, the late Paul Harvey had a radio 
program for many, many years that many of us listened to, and in that 
radio program he would tell us ``The Rest of the Story.''
  Well, Mr. Speaker, for the next hour, those of us on the majority 
side, the Republican side--most of us from Texas, although we're going 
to have some friends from Michigan and perhaps from Florida, too--are 
going to tell you the other side of the story, the rest of the story. 
And let's start by discussing this continuing mantra from the minority 
side that we ought to just bring up the clean continuing resolution, or 
CR, from the other body, the Senate, and life would be perfect.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, there's one tiny, small problem with that. And 
that is,

[[Page H6313]]

Mr. Speaker, that that continuing resolution funds the discretionary 
part of something that is legally called the Affordable Care Act, but 
most people in the United States are now calling it ObamaCare.
  Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare is a huge new entitlement. It's not just 
another Federal program. It changes, fundamentally, the way we practice 
medicine in the United States of America. It changes, fundamentally, 
the rights of Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare mandates--forces--every American to have 
health insurance, whether they want it or whether they need it. It's a 
huge new right taken away, a freedom. Heretofore, we've said that 
people had the right to choose whether they wanted health insurance or 
not. And now we're going to tell them, at the Federal level, they to 
have it. That is not a trivial right to take away from the American 
people.
  Mr. Speaker, the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, mandates that every 
employer that has at least 50 employees must provide health insurance. 
Heretofore, health insurance had been considered a fringe benefit. Some 
employers provided it, some employers did not. Now, according to the 
Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, you have to provide health 
insurance.
  What that's done, Mr. Speaker, is caused many small businesses to 
reduce their workforce, to change their work hours. Many employees that 
were full-time, 40-hour employees, have become 20- or less than 30-hour 
part-time employees. Again, a huge change in the way Americans have 
conducted their business.
  Mr. Speaker, there are many mandates in the Affordable Care Act, or 
ObamaCare, that relate to how you practice medicine. Many health care 
practitioners have told me in my district that they're not going to 
practice. They're going to retire. They're not going to put up with all 
the mandates. They're not going to put up with all of the paperwork. 
Again, something that is fundamentally changing the United States of 
America.
  Mr. Speaker, in the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, there are all 
kinds of mandates on what has to be included in insurance, how the 
insurance companies have to provide it, what premiums they can charge. 
Because of this, Mr. Speaker, many insurance companies have raised 
their premiums. Many insurance companies have changed their policies. 
Again, a fundamental change.
  So, Mr. Speaker, when our friends in the minority on the other side 
say, Just bring up a clean CR and we'll vote for it, they don't point 
out that that clean CR includes funding for ObamaCare. It is, again, a 
fundamental change, Mr. Speaker. Most of us on the Republican side, the 
majority side, don't want that. We want the freedom to choose.
  I would ask my friends on the minority side, if ObamaCare is so 
great, why does it have to be mandatory? Let's make it voluntary.
  Republicans happen to support many of the things in it. We support 
coverage for preexisting conditions. We support allowing young adults 
to stay on their parents' life insurance until they reach the age of 
26. We support the concept of the public exchanges. In the Republican 
alternative, when ObamaCare was passed, we had something called ``co-
ops.'' Not exactly like these health exchanges, but certainly similar.
  So, again, if this act is so good and so great and everybody loves 
it, let's make it voluntary. How about making it voluntary for a year 
and just let the people choose? If these health exchanges are great, 
people are going to flock to them. If all of these mandates are really 
worthwhile, make them voluntary based on free choice and the market, 
and most of those will be accepted and implemented. So that might be an 
alternative at some point in time to consider. Take all the mandates 
away, leave the structure of the law, and let the American people 
choose whether they wish to participate.
  Mr. Speaker, there is another side to this story. In the next 50 or 
55 minutes, the Texas delegation on the Republican side, with some help 
from friends in other States, are going to tell you the other side of 
the story.
  With that, I would like to yield to Congressman Weber from 
Friendswood, Texas.

                              {time}  1230

  Mr. WEBER of Texas. I thank the gentleman.
  You know, it's interesting. We see that in 2010, the other side of 
the aisle--the Ds--had no problem passing this humongous takeover of 
health care. Funny, they had no problem that the Republicans were 
against it; they had no problem that the majority of Americans were 
against it; and, Mr. Speaker, they had no problem that the majority of 
the business community was against it. They had no problem that there 
wasn't any bipartisanship involved, and now they have no problem 
blaming others, as a result of this government shutdown, of this failed 
legislation, this not-ready-for-prime-time hostile takeover of almost a 
sixth of the economy.
  In short, the other side has no problem. I guess that's right. Now 
the Affordable Care Act is the American people's problem, and yet they 
continue to blame us. They continue to demagogue and say it's all about 
us.
  We have a President who will not negotiate. He will negotiate with 
terrorists; he will get his foreign policy from the Russian President, 
Putin; but he will not come to the House of Representatives and 
negotiate.
  The majority leader in the Senate and the Executive in the White 
House want this House of Representatives, the Republicans, to 
unconditionally surrender and roll over and forget that it is the 
American public that has the problem--this huge entitlement that the 
gentleman from Texas was just alluding to. This is our method of 
getting negotiations going about fixing that problem.
  Interestingly enough, today we heard in speeches on the floor of the 
House the analogy of the Republicans' attempt to go ahead and fund 
those crucial parts of the government while they play their games. They 
bring up a game analogy called Whac-A-Mole. They say that our policy is 
akin to Whac-A-Mole. Well, Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I recall 
in recorded history that someone has actually made a molehill out of a 
mountain--a Whac-A-Mole analogy.
  I would submit that the ``Unaffordable Care Act,'' as I like to call 
it, is a lot larger than the 900-pound gorilla in the room. Our 
colleagues on the other side are ignoring the 900-pound gorilla and 
paying attention to moles, that proverbial molehill. That's so 
interesting.
  In some of their comments today they have been decrying the fact that 
hunters in their own States may not get to hunt. Well, that seems 
really peculiar to me. The party who is in favor of gun control, who 
seems to be anti-Second Amendment rights in my opinion, all of a sudden 
are interested in hunters' rights. As Mr. Rogers from the old TV show 
used to say: Can you spell hypocrisy? Sure you can.
  It's very interesting to me, Mr. Speaker, at this juncture in the 
game, that all of a sudden they're interested in those rights that 
heretofore they had no interest in and somehow it's the Republicans' 
fault.
  I will remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, as well 
as the American people, that of the last 17 shutdowns in the last 30 
years, 15 of those shutdowns occurred when a Democratic majority was in 
control of this House of Representatives. You never heard the terms 
``terrorists,'' ``holding a gun to the head,'' ``refusing to 
negotiate.'' You never heard that back then.
  But because of this Affordable Care Act, as the gentleman from Texas 
has already eloquently stated is a huge mandate, because this seems to 
be their signature legislation--to make Americans have health 
insurance--now we're hearing that all of a sudden they're in favor of 
these other things.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, since March 23, 2010, when President Obama signed 
that hostile takeover of health care into law, we have seen key promise 
after key promise made to the American people broken.
  The President said, ``The Affordable Care Act is designed to make it 
easier for younger Americans to obtain and maintain health insurance.'' 
Well, I'm from Texas. We believe in being truthful with people. In 
Texas, you get in trouble for making those kinds of false statements. 
We still believe in truth, justice, and the American way even though 
we're from Texas.

[[Page H6314]]

  In reality, if ObamaCare is implemented in Texas, health insurance 
premiums on the individual market will see an increase of 53 percent 
for young males and an increase of 11 percent for young females. That 
doesn't sound like such an affordable deal. To top that off, those who 
live in Texas could see premiums increase up to 43 percent in the 
individual market and 23 percent in the small group market.
  Promise number two, broken, the President said, ``If you like your 
current health care plan, you'll be able to keep it.'' Promise number 
two, broken.
  The fact is, ObamaCare incentivizes, as the gentleman from Texas 
stated, employers to drop coverage to avert taxes and fees that would 
be imposed on those small businesses and large businesses if they were 
to continue to provide their employees coverage. Home Depot, UPS, to 
name a few, have dropped tens of thousands of covered employees from 
their plans just at the outset of this. According to the CBO, 7 million 
people will lose their employer-sponsored coverage, nearly double the 
previous estimate of 4 million.
  In 2012, the Texas State Comptroller, Susan Combs, and her office 
surveyed Texas members of the National Federation of Independent 
Businesses and received replies from over 900 Texas businesses, large 
and small. In that report, only 3.4 percent of those business owners 
believe that the President's health care would be good for their 
business. In fact, fines and penalties paid by those same Texas 
businesses with more than 50 employees for fiscal year 2010 through 
2019, those fines were estimated at $9.3 billion.
  Not only have there been broken promises, there have been major 
delays of the law. It is simply not ready for prime time; and the truth 
of the matter is, folks, it will probably never be. As more and more 
Americans get that, they understand how imperative it is that we make 
changes in that law. In fact, since the law has been in place, there 
have been 22 actions to defund, revise, or repeal parts of that 
overburdensome law.
  To the other side, I would say this. Let's use the President's words: 
Knock it off and move on. Fifty-nine percent of the American people 
want this law defunded. Why does the President and the majority leader 
keep ignoring the American taxpayers?
  In my district, I have constituents sharing their heart-wrenching 
stories about the negative impact ObamaCare has already had on their 
family. There's been hundreds of responses. Take Susan Gay from 
Beaumont. She said:

       My husband and his coworkers lost their overtime 2 years 
     ago from the vote for ObamaCare. We are now still frightened 
     he may lose his job, as he works for a small business man 
     locally in Beaumont.

  Susan, I hear you. The Republicans hear you. We're fighting for you, 
fighting for your husband and his coworkers and millions of others that 
have already been negatively impacted by the President's hostile 
takeover of the health care system.
  Folks, your House Republicans are making every effort to get rid of 
this law. We have introduced replacement bills that will empower the 
individual and make affordable health care more accessible for 
everyone.
  Folks, there is a better way. It is high time that the President and 
the Senate get on board with us in the House if they truly want to help 
and listen to the American people.

  I'm Randy Weber, and I'm proud to be a Texan.
  Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Congressman Weber.
  Before I yield to my friend from far north Texas, Mr. Benishek, of 
the First District of Michigan, I want to read into the Record a 
comment that I received on my Facebook page. Now, most of these 
comments are from Texans, some of them are not. I'm not sure of the 
location of this gentleman, Mr. Dave Guss, Jr. This is a Facebook page 
comment received yesterday or this morning:

       Just got a letter from my provider that my policy will end 
     and I need to purchase a new one. When I called and asked 
     why, I was told that my current policy does not meet the 
     required coverage for ObamaCare because it has no prenatal 
     coverage. I am a male. The new policy will cost me $500 a 
     month, the old one I had was $200 a month.

  We have a number of these stories, Mr. Speaker, that I will be 
putting into the Record as this Special Order continues. But now I 
would like to yield to the gentleman from the First District of 
Michigan (Mr. Benishek).
  Mr. BENISHEK. I want to thank my colleague from Texas. I feel a great 
affinity for my Texas colleagues, and I'm an avid fan of western swing, 
especially Bob Wills.
  I didn't know how we would end up in a shutdown. I never really 
wanted to have a shutdown in the government. I wanted to reach a 
compromise with the Senate and have business go on. The problem is 
that, in the House, we've passed four different pieces of legislation 
that would have prevented a shutdown. I mean, I can see, for example, 
the first thing that we sent to the Senate was a plan to fund the 
government and defund ObamaCare. Okay. I can understand that the Senate 
isn't going to maybe significantly budge on that, but maybe we would 
get out of the Senate some votes. Maybe some Democrat Senators would 
vote for it. We would see what kind of support we would have on the 
Democrat side in the Senate.
  So then we sent to the Senate a piece of legislation which simply 
delayed the President's health care law for a year. The President had 
already delayed components of his law for some people or for some time. 
So let's try this. Maybe we would get Democrat votes in the Senate to 
support that. Well, those two propositions, they weren't even voted on. 
They were tabled in the Senate. They voted to table them and not have 
any debate about the merits of those two proposals.
  So then we sent to the Senate a proposal not to defund the 
President's health care law but to continue to fund the President's 
health care law, but to change the law so that it affected all 
Americans the same. The President, by executive order, changed his own 
law. Contrary to the law, he wrote an executive order to change the 
nature of the law so that employers were exempted from their mandate. 
In other words, the law mandates that employers provide insurance for 
their employees or suffer a fine. The law also demands that individuals 
buy insurance or suffer a fine. Well, the President saw fit to change 
the law so that major employers don't have to pay a fine, delayed the 
enforcement of that part of the law for a year, despite the fact that 
the law doesn't go for that.
  And when is the President allowed to change a law by edict, by his 
signature? We change laws in this country by statute. Should we allow a 
President to change the law at his whim?
  Another aspect where the President changed the law is he changed the 
law to give special privileges to Members of Congress, that the Members 
of Congress who have to go to the exchange would be afforded a 
subsidy--unlike anyone else who has to go to the exchange. So how is 
the President changing the law to give special privileges to Congress 
something that the American people should be for?

                              {time}  1245

  I think that the American people want the law to apply to everyone 
the same.
  The third thing that we asked for from the Senate was simply change 
the law so that the law applies to the Congress, to the President, and 
to the Vice President, the same as it does to every other American, and 
to afford individuals the same delay in the law that the President 
granted to his big manufacturers, some of his favorite unions--not all 
unions got it. Why not all Americans?
  So that is what we asked for in the Senate. Not even to defund the 
President's health care law, but simply to make the law abide with all 
Americans.
  How is it that we have become a country where the law applies only to 
certain people--that the President by a written statement can exempt 
certain people from the law? Is that what this country is becoming? Is 
that the United States of America that we grew up in? I don't think so.
  I think what we asked for, which funded ObamaCare and simply changed 
the law to apply to everyone, was certainly a reasonable compromise 
from our initial piece of legislation. And they tabled that.
  Our fourth effort to keep the government open was simply to ask the 
Senate to come talk to us. So if you won't agree to make the law the 
same for everyone, will you at least come to us

[[Page H6315]]

and talk about what you will accept? That is why we are in this impasse 
we are today.
  We have taken steps to reopen the government. We have passed targeted 
pieces of legislation that will fund critical portions of our 
government--FEMA, national parks, WIC, Veterans Affairs, the National 
Institutes of Health, the National Guard. We even passed legislation 
that furloughed employees will be paid once the shutdown ends.
  The Senate and the administration have given exceptions to their 
allies, big businesses, and some unions. Why shouldn't the American 
people be given the same kind of treatment?
  We have heard a lot about a clean CR. I don't know, I don't see how 
it is so clean when it allows the President to change a law by edict. I 
don't see that as a clean piece of legislation. I think that is a piece 
of legislation that allows unfairness in the law to continue. To me, it 
is rather unclean.
  I am willing to talk to the Senate to come to some sort of agreement, 
but it just strikes me as really, really disingenuous to call what they 
are calling a clean CR ``clean'' when in reality it is allowing the 
President to change the law at his whim. I think that the 
administration and the Senate certainly should come to the bargaining 
table and talk to the House. The ``power of the purse.'' We have the 
power of the purse. Shouldn't our consideration be taken into account? 
Shouldn't we have conversations to make sure that the country stays 
open?
  I just wanted to explain to you, Mr. Speaker, and to those listening, 
how I feel and why we are here. I would ask your support in that.
  Mr. BARTON. I thank the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Florida, I want to 
read two more comments into the record from my Facebook page.
  The first one is from Kevin Hussey, H-U-S-S-E-Y. Kevin says:

       It's doubled my premiums. Simply put, how is that 
     ``affordable?''

  And Laren Engel Schmude comments:

       My mom is facing having her hours cut, or being laid off 
     all together, not to mention that her company is dropping 
     health insurance for part-time employees all together.

  Again, these are comments from folks on my Facebook page.
  I would also like to point out that my wife, Terri Barton, is the 
marketing director for Ennis Regional Medical Center in our hometown of 
Ennis, Texas, and it is her job to help the hospital get ready to 
implement ObamaCare. I have texted her this morning and asked her how 
that is going, and she has replied that the counselors are all trained 
and they are ready to help if people call in wanting to sign up. Ennis 
Regional Medical Center is a certified application center, but so far 
very few people have called and tried to sign up.
  That is on the front lines. Ennis Regional Medical Center is a 
hospital approximately, I think, 60 or 70 beds, in a town of 
approximately 18,000 people, in the suburbs of Dallas and Fort Worth, 
Texas. It is on the front lines of ObamaCare as we implement it, if we 
do implement it.
  With that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from 
Florida, Congressman Yoho.
  Mr. YOHO. I thank my colleague from Texas, and I appreciate you 
wearing our stripes on your tie today. That is apropos.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to address all of my colleagues, both 
Republicans and Democrats, but more importantly, the American people, 
for they are the ones that we all need to listen to. They are the ones 
that will hold us accountable. We were sent here to represent the 
people. I represent approximately 700,000 citizens in north Florida's 
congressional district and had approximately 65 percent plus support of 
that district.
  One of the things I ran on was preventing the Affordable Care Act 
from being implemented, and I have voted to do all in my power to 
prevent this ill-conceived legislative malpractice of a bill from being 
a burden to the American citizens I represent.
  I also ran on the rule of law and the adherence to the Constitution. 
So when I hear my colleagues on the left--I mean, excuse me, to this 
side of the Chamber--say the Republicans want to shut down the 
government, I find it somewhat disingenuous.
  I am voting the way the majority of the people I represent have 
instructed me to do, as have my colleagues.
  Since we are the House, the people's House, we are the voice of the 
people. So when my Democratic colleagues say the Republicans want to 
shut down the government, keep in mind that it is the voice of the 
people that we represent whose voice you are hearing. That is the way a 
representative Republic works.
  Another issue that belittles this body and lowers our approval 
rating--I read the other day--with the American people, equal to or 
less than a root canal or a colonoscopy, is the drama, the theatrics, 
and the name-calling. Understand, no one on this side, as is true for 
your side, wants children, veterans, old people, or widows to starve or 
to be deprived of health care. We, as you, will take care of the needy, 
the truly needy.
  The name-calling, I have to admit, seems to emanate from one side 
more than the other side. I have heard childish, angry words like 
``jihadist,'' ``terrorist,'' ``anarchist.'' Today, I heard ``Whack-a-
moles,'' ``teabaggers'' and ``Tea Party radicals.''
  Now, it is interesting, the word ``Tea Party'' reminds me of a time 
in our history. In fact, it was a pivotal point in this country in 
gaining its independence from a tyrannical government under the rule of 
law by the King of England. I am so thankful that the colonists at that 
time rose up--rose up--in opposition to a minimal tax placed upon all 
the tea sold into America. That led to the Boston Tea Party.
  So isn't it ironic that after 237 years, we have created a government 
that not only says you must pay the tax, but you also must buy our tea? 
Can you say the ``Affordable Care Act?'' Is it any wonder that today 
there is a new Tea Party in America with a mindset of limited 
government, fiscal responsibility, free enterprise, personal 
responsibility, and the Constitution?
  The Tea Party is a movement. It was a spontaneous movement that 
happened throughout this country. There is no national leader, there is 
no national headquarters. The American people said they were tired of 
Washington and the gridlock and politics as usual, and that led us to 
where we are at today. They said, like I did: ``I had enough.''
  Now, as far as shutting down the government, nobody I know wants to 
shut down the government, because in the shutdown who pays? The 
American people pay. Therefore, it would behoove us to negotiate a 
settlement to keep the government up and running for the benefit of 
these people and for this great country.
  The Republicans have offered at four different times CR legislation 
that represented the voice of our constituents to keep the government 
open. Two of those offers were outright rejected by the President 
himself and the leader of the Senate, Mr. Reid.
  We worked through last Saturday up here until 2 in the morning and 
passed more legislation to resolve this issue and compromised. We did 
not hear back from either side--the President or Mr. Reid. Many of us 
in the Republican party were on the Senate steps of the Capitol on 
Sunday afternoon asking for a chance to sit at the table just to 
negotiate in conference to stop this gridlock and get America back to 
work again. Again, silence from the President and Mr. Reid. We did not 
hear from the President or Mr. Reid until Monday afternoon. Their 
answer was ``no negotiation,'' which translates to ``our way or the 
highway.''
  On one other point, to clarify, is for the House and Senate to go to 
conference over the budget. Yet the Senate didn't offer a budget for 
over 4 years, the last 4 years. But now all of a sudden it is a problem 
if we don't go to conference.
  Again, one side is being disingenuous to the American people, because 
a budget does not fund our government. A budget is a wish list of the 
House of Representatives, of the Senate, and the President. 
Appropriations are what funds this government, and the House has passed 
four appropriations bills, and the Senate has failed to bring those up 
for approval by the Senate and then send over to the President to sign. 
So again, America, you are being fed misinformation.
  That is why this government is shut down. The American people need to

[[Page H6316]]

hear the other side of the story. They need to hear that we amended our 
bills, the CR bills, four times from the House to negotiate with the 
Senate. They need to know that we requested to go to conference to 
resolve our differences, the way a Republic is supposed to work, the 
way differences have been resolved in this esteemed body since its 
inception.
  Mr. Speaker. Let's add an air of dignity to this damaged body, let's 
end the name-calling, let's end the bickering, let's go to conference 
on a continuing resolution, hash out our differences and get this 
government up and running again, and let's focus on the ensuing tsunami 
that is coming called our debt ceiling.
  This is a time for us not to be Republicans or Democrats; this is a 
time for us to be Americans. It is what the American people expect, it 
is what the American people deserve, and it is what I came to 
Washington to do.
  Mr. BARTON. I thank the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to read a couple of more comments from my 
Facebook page that have come in in the last days.
  This is from a gentleman named Richard Lay:

       Since ObamaCare my insurance rates have gone through the 
     roof. Every teacher I know has seen their monthly insurance 
     rates increase by more than $200 to $300 per month. One 
     teacher's went up by $400.

  Mr. Anthony Rhodes from Arlington, Texas writes:

       My rates have increased over 15 percent a year for the last 
     3 years. Last year and 3 years ago, my deductibles also went 
     up 20 and 50 percent respectively. There has been nothing 
     affordable about my health care for the last 3 years. I have 
     less coverage and it costs me more, and even if I wanted to 
     cancel it, I am better off paying the high prices because I 
     get hit with a penalty tax if I cancel. I get fighting mad 
     just thinking about the mess of legislation that was passed 
     so that we could ``find out what's in it.''

  With that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from 
the 11th District of Texas, Mr. Mike Conaway, from Midland, Texas.
  Mr. CONAWAY. I thank my colleague from Ennis, Texas. I appreciate his 
hosting this hour.
  Mr. Speaker, as we all know, this Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, 
or as most of the folks in District 11 want to refer to it, the 
``Unaffordable Care Act,'' was passed in this House by the slimmest of 
margins in March of 2010 and then passed without, frankly, one 
Republican vote. It was also passed in the Senate by parliamentary 
tricks that were used to avoid the 60-vote issue that they lost. Once 
they lost the Ted Kennedy seat to Scott Brown, it eliminated their 
ability to cram it through there. They had to resort to some 
parliamentary issues. Again, with not one Republican vote to make that 
happen.
  While our colleagues on the other side may say that this is currently 
the law of the land, that was 3\1/2\ years ago. Today, poll after poll 
is showing that the American people are expressing themselves that they 
do not want this bill and the underlying requirements and costs 
associated with it crammed down their throat. Much like those now 
infamous words of Speaker Pelosi when she said that we were going to 
have to pass this bill before we would know what is in it, the American 
people are going to have to suffer through this flawed rollout in order 
to understand what is in it that they do not like as part of the 
implementation of this deal.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. Speaker, we've had to resort to a government shutdown, quite 
frankly, to try to get this President's attention and Harry Reid's in 
order to force them to come to the table. It is almost unconscionable 
to hold the American people through their government hostage like that, 
but that is exactly what this President and Harry Reid have wanted to 
do.
  We have time and time again, as has been recounted already on this 
floor today, to find common ground with this President and the majority 
leader in the Senate and to come to agreement on those parts of funding 
the government that are unrelated to the implementation of the 
Affordable Care Act, areas in which we thought we could agree.
  One of the first ones was the bill that passed unanimously in the 
House to fund the Department of Defense and the related contractors 
while this shutdown is going on so that they would not be impacted by 
it. We then sent a series of bills across this House floor for which 
we've gotten good bipartisan support.
  We've had 25 Democrats agree with us on continuing the funding of 
pediatric research. We've had 23 Democrats agree with us that we should 
reopen our parks and memorials. We've had 35 Democrats agree that 
veterans benefits should not be impacted by this. We've had 36 
Democrats agree with us that the National Guard and Army Reserve should 
be paid for their monthly training. We've had 23 Democrats join us on 
disaster relief. Then, just today, we had 189 Democrats--100 percent of 
those voting--agree with us to pay furloughed Federal employees once 
this conflict with the White House and the Senate is over; and 184 of 
them agreed with us that the Federal Government should continue to 
provide religious services to our Armed Forces while this is going on.
  In addition to these efforts, the House passed by voice vote a bill 
that would allow the District of Columbia to continue to operate using 
its own resources, not Federal general revenues. It was UC'd, as that 
phrase is used in the Senate, and it was passed by the President.
  So this President and Harry Reid have had a very checkered pattern of 
supporting some issues that we thought we had common ground on, but not 
supporting others, including Harry Reid's now callous comment with 
reference to children with cancer as to why would we want to continue 
that funding during this time frame.
  Mr. Speaker, analogies are always dangerous, but this one, I think, 
fits. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built a wall in Berlin, 
separating East Germany from West Germany. I would argue that we are in 
another cold war today with this President and with Harry Reid in the 
Senate. This is a cold war that they are also building a wall of, but 
their flat-out refusal to negotiate with House Republicans--except, of 
course, when it benefits a constituency that they believe is important 
to them on these issues--is their building of a wall of obstinance, a 
wall of hardheadedness and a wall of stiff-neckedness, if that is, in 
fact, a word. It's a little hard for somebody in west Texas to get his 
tongue around that one. Nevertheless, that is a wall in that they are 
refusing to listen to the American people.
  To paraphrase those wonderful words of Ronald Reagan's when he was 
speaking to Gorbachev, I will try to use those same comments to this 
President and to Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate:
  Mr. President, tear down this wall of obstinance. Tear down this wall 
of stiff-neckedness. Tear down this wall of not negotiating with House 
Republicans. Listen to the American people, and tear down that wall so 
that we can get this government back to operating and so that we can 
deal with a bill--and now a law--that the majority of Americans do not 
want.
  Mr. BARTON. I thank the gentleman.
  Before I yield to the Congressman from the Fourth District of Texas 
(Mr. Hall), let me read a few more comments into the Record from my 
Facebook page.
  This is from Kevin Jones:

       It hasn't hurt me yet, but it will. I don't have medical 
     insurance; don't want medical insurance; don't need medical 
     insurance. I pay my own way. Because I am self-pay, I am able 
     to negotiate some nice discounts on my medical bills. 
     ObamaCare will just be another tax on me.

  This is from a lady named Theresa Stone:

       I had a job that I did well in, but because I was expensive 
     and getting old--I'm turning 54 in January--to save money, I 
     was let go in February for absolutely bogus reasons. I am 
     collecting unemployment, but that ends in January. I lost my 
     insurance when I lost my job. I can't afford my bills--house, 
     food and insurance--so I am uncovered. I will never sign up 
     for ObamaCare--ever.

  With that, I yield to the gentleman from Rockwall, Texas, the Fourth 
District of Texas, Mr. Ralph Hall, a decorated World War II veteran 
and, in my opinion, the absolutely nicest man in this Congress.
  Mr. HALL. I thank you for those compliments. You read them out just 
exactly like I wrote them for you.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you, too, and I thank you for being here when 
most everyone else has gone.

[[Page H6317]]

  ObamaCare was forced through the Congress without a single Republican 
vote. Just think about that for a second--not one Republican vote. I 
don't know if that has ever been done. I think Charles Krauthammer says 
it best in an article from yesterday's Washington Post.
  He said:

       From Social Security, to civil rights, to Medicaid, to 
     Medicare, never in the modern history of the country has 
     major social legislation been enacted on a straight party-
     line vote--never. In every case, there was significant 
     reaching across the aisle, enhancing the law's legitimacy and 
     endurance. Yet ObamaCare, which revolutionizes one-sixth of 
     the economy, regulates every aspect of medical practice and 
     intimately affects just about every citizen, passed without a 
     single GOP vote.

  Mr. Krauthammer is not alone in being concerned about this country. 
We are concerned about, not the Members of this House or of the Senate, 
but of everyone who has children or who cares about children.
  Let's talk about jobs. There are no jobs now whether you are educated 
or not educated. They don't look to a job. By the time this President 
exits, they're not going to find any employers. That's how serious it 
is. This is a real problem, Mr. Speaker, and I'm afraid it's going to 
bankrupt the families and bankrupt the businesses in the Fourth 
Congressional District, which was the third largest user of 
manufacturers in the entire United States Congress--House or Senate--in 
2011. I have not seen the words for 2012.
  We are forcing people to buy insurance that they can't afford; and if 
they opt out, we fine them. Then they can't even afford the fine. What 
a train wreck. Go ahead and go to the Web site and sign up. There are 
reports from all over the country of glitches and of the confusion and 
frustration from those who have tried. Now we're hearing that the 
Federal Government will be shutting down the Web site for repairs. You 
would think, after 3 years of planning, it would at least be able to 
sign people up. This is clearly not the case, and they are clearly not 
ready for prime time. I think this is a sign of things to come under 
ObamaCare, Mr. Speaker.
  I am also concerned about data security in this system. Given the 
government's track record, I am worried that people's personal 
information could get out. All of us have good and honest relationships 
with our doctors. We trust each other. We do not need the government to 
get in the middle of that relationship. The push for ObamaCare was to 
cover all Americans; and now, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office, 30 million people will still not be covered in the year 2022. 
So what's going on here? This is just one giant tax on the American 
people. If you don't sign up, you get taxed. If you do sign up, your 
rates will go up, and some reports are saying it will be by as much as 
400 percent.

  In closing, I'll just say another push for ObamaCare was to bring 
down the cost of health care. According to the American Action Forum, 
health insurance rates for people between the ages of 18 and 35 will go 
up substantially. Premiums for this group before ObamaCare averaged 
about $62 a month, and now the premiums for these youngsters will be on 
the average of $187 a month. That's triple the cost. How is this 
helping? My constituents are opposed to this bad health care law. My 
mail is 100 to 1 against it, and I am opposed to it.
  The folks on the other side of the aisle should listen to the 
majority of Americans and repeal, defund, or delay ObamaCare. The 
Senate had four chances to prevent this shutdown. They selected none of 
them, and we shut down.
  Mr. BARTON. I thank the gentleman from the Fourth District.
  I would point out to the Speaker that, yesterday, Congressman Hall 
was one of the Texas Congressmen who went to the World War II Memorial 
to make sure that our veterans on their honor flight were allowed in to 
see it.
  I want to read one more email into the Record before I yield to the 
gentleman from Flower Mound, Texas, Dr. Burgess. This has come in as 
we've been doing this Special Order, Mr. Speaker.
  Katie Hoffman of Minneapolis, Minnesota, says:

       Hi, Joe. Keep up the good battle today. I am tuned in to C-
     SPAN with a close eye. I received notice last week under the 
     Affordable Health Care Act that my insurance will be doubling 
     almost from $113 a month to $207 a month. I am a 35, 
     nonsmoking, healthy female. Who am I paying for? I've had 
     enough. I'm working hard to cover the non-working society--
     frustrated. Keep up the fight.

  Then one more from a gentleman named Tim Ruschi:

       Dear Representative Barton, I just want to express my 
     support for your efforts. I am watching you right now on C-
     SPAN. My wife and I received a certified letter recently from 
     our insurance provider, Cigna, informing us that our health 
     insurance plan is being dissolved, effective January 1, 2014. 
     I believe the President knew he was lying when he boldly 
     proclaimed many times that, if people liked their insurance 
     coverage, they could keep it--period. He knew or should have 
     known full well that the Affordable Care Act would cause many 
     insurance plans to shut down, and now this has become the sad 
     reality. I cannot trust anything the President or this 
     administration says anymore.

  With that, I yield to the gentleman from Flower Mound, Texas, in 
Denton County, Texas, Dr. Michael Burgess.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities towards the President.
  Mr. BARTON. If I may let the Speaker know, this was an email sent to 
me from an American citizen. I was just reading something an American 
citizen wrote. These are not my remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities towards the President, including by reading 
into debate matter that would be improper if spoken in the Member's own 
words.
  Mr. BURGESS. I thank Mr. Barton for bringing this hour to the floor 
of the House.
  Mr. Speaker, it is significant that this is the Texas hour. People 
look to Texas for leadership. Certainly, from an economic standpoint, 
Texas enjoys a AAA rating. The United States, unfortunately, does not.
  If you look at Texas between the years 2009 and 2011, it gained 
nearly a million new residents. Other times when there have been vast 
expansions of populations in a State, the rate of uninsurance has also 
increased, except in Texas. During that time period from 2009 to 2011, 
the rate of uninsurance went down.
  Why is that?
  It's because people were moving to Texas because they could find a 
job, and accompanying that job typically was employer-sponsored 
insurance. The reason for that is, of course, that Texas has a long 
history of utilizing the energy resources inherent in that State. In 
fact, it's Texas that has gone a long way towards redefining our 
national energy policy and making us an exporter of energy rather than 
an importer.
  But our purpose today, here, is to talk about the Affordable Care 
Act. It has already been referenced that the other body passed this 
late on a Christmas Eve in order to get out of town right before a 
snowstorm. Now, the chairman of the Finance Committee in the other body 
when talking to the Secretary of Health and Human Services earlier this 
year said, Madam Secretary, I am worried that we are seeing a train 
wreck.
  I wanted to provide for Members of the House of Representatives what 
a train wreck looks like right before it happens.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the House and my colleagues, this is where we 
were last Monday night--the two locomotives bearing down on each other 
with smoke trailing out of each of their smokestacks. This is a train 
wreck right before it happens, and that's where we were on Monday 
night. A train wreck was fixing to happen, and we were trying to do 
everything possible to prevent it. We had passed four bills and had 
sent them over to the Senate to allow funding for the government. Each 
one had been rejected. In fact, with the last one, in the spirit of 
compromise, we said let's just sit down and talk; and the Senate 
rejected that as well.
  When you stop and think about the history of this thing, you say, Why 
has it been so hard to implement this? The reason it has been hard to 
implement this is that this was never intended to become law.
  The House of Representatives never had a single hearing on what at 
the time was known as H.R. 3590. It was passed in the Senate without a 
single Republican vote at the midnight hour

[[Page H6318]]

on Christmas Eve, and every Senator thought, We'll get a chance to go 
to conference and fix it. We know there are problems, but we'll get a 
chance to fix this. They didn't because they lost their 60th vote in 
Massachusetts, and the Senate majority leader told the Speaker of the 
House at the time, There is nothing else I can do. I've put everything 
into it. I can't pass this again in the Senate. It's because he lacked 
one vote.
  I will just ask people in this body on both sides of the aisle to 
think back. Lyndon Johnson was a Member of this body. Lyndon Johnson 
was the majority leader of the Senate. Lyndon Johnson was President. 
Can you imagine Lyndon Johnson not passing the Civil Rights Act because 
he lacked one vote? Can you imagine Lyndon Johnson not passing Medicare 
because he lacked one vote? No. He would have exercised Senate 
leadership or Presidential leadership, and he would have gotten that 
vote, and he would have made it happen.

                              {time}  1315

  Both of those, by the way, passed with bipartisan majorities in both 
the House and the Senate. So don't fault the House of Representatives 
because of how bad this thing is. Don't fault the Representatives 
because the people of the United States do not like this thing. Don't 
fault the United States House of Representatives because they couldn't 
even get their informatics piece correct with 3\1/2\ years and billions 
and billions of dollars.
  Why did the site crash in the first couple of days? They knew it was 
coming. They knew there would be great interest in this. Amazon is able 
to do that. Amazon handles how many millions of hits a day? Facebook--
certainly a nonessential site on the Internet--how many transactions 
does it handle a day? How could they not be ready? This is, after all, 
the President's signature piece of legislation.
  I get criticized because they say Republicans haven't tried to fix 
it. Republicans have tried to fix it. We have passed seven pieces of 
legislation that have modified the Affordable Care Act, and the 
President has signed them. The President himself has laid portions of 
this law down not to be enforced for whatever period of time he says.
  Certainly, people can't sign up for preexisting condition coverage 
now. They have to wait until the first of the year. That window has 
been closed since February 1 of this year. The employer mandate went 
away right before the Fourth of July weekend. Reporting requirements 
were also suspended right after the Fourth of July weekend. The 
President has put more pieces of this law on hold than any Member of 
this House could ever do.
  I appreciate so much the gentleman from Texas holding this hour. I'm 
privileged to have been a part of it. I did want to remind people what 
a train wreck looks like right before it happens.
  Mr. BARTON. Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have remaining in this 
Special Order?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bentivolio). The gentleman from Texas 
has 9 minutes remaining.
  Mr. BARTON. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to Mr. Stockman, I want to 
apologize to the House for reading into the Record comments from 
citizens of the United States exercising their First Amendment rights. 
One of those citizens made a disparaging remark about the President of 
the United States, and we understand that Members, ourselves, cannot 
personalize these issues. Some of our citizens that are commenting 
don't understand the rules, but I do, and I want to apologize to the 
House because I do understand the rules.
  I now yield to Congressman Stockman.
  Mr. STOCKMAN. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize the fact that we're 
talking here today about things that impact our Nation, and I want to 
talk about our Speaker who, as you know, or many of you know, I voted 
against and didn't want to be the Speaker. Today, our Speaker has been 
vilified after offering opportunity after opportunity to negotiate. The 
President, on the other hand, said he's not willing to negotiate with 
our Speaker.
  The Speaker grew up in Ohio in a working-class community, and has 
negotiated many times with the President. It's most puzzling to me why 
now the stance of no negotiation. Every time we had a shutdown--I was 
here in the last shutdown--we negotiated. The President at that time, 
President Clinton, negotiated. In all the shutdowns, we always had 
negotiations. That's the way this body works is that we work on 
compromise.
  The President wrote a letter to this individual who is the head of 
Iran. He's negotiating with the head of Iran, who wants to eliminate 
Israel. He's willing to negotiate with him for nuclear weapons.
  The President also wants to negotiate with the head of Syria. This 
individual gassed his own people, tortured his own people, and killed 
his own people. I don't understand why he's willing to negotiate with 
him, but he is. Again, he's not willing to negotiate with our Speaker.
  Next, the President is also willing to negotiate with the Taliban. 
The President ordered the release of several prisoners prior to even 
negotiations to get ``the negotiating to start.'' Again, let me remind 
the body that the Speaker is not to be negotiated with, but the Taliban 
is. Now the President says, I'm willing to negotiate if you give up 
your position. That's not negotiation.
  I would like to show you, Mr. Speaker, some of the words that have 
been used against our Speaker and the Republican body. We've been 
called by this administration: terrorists, anarchists, suicide bombers, 
blackmailers, fringe, extortionists, ideologists, gangsters, 
extremists, bombs strapped to their chest, guns held to their heads.
  We're not talking about the terrorists who the President is 
negotiating with, but we're talking about the working-class gentleman 
from Ohio.
  I call on the President to tone down the rhetoric. I call on the 
President to respect this body and to negotiate in good faith. It's 
time to end the government shutdown, and let's do it in a positive 
manner.
  I would like to point out, too, while these names were hurled in 
insult to the Speaker, never once has the Speaker ever used that kind 
of terminology against our President.
  I would like to see this body turn down the rhetoric and get back to 
the business of negotiating and making compromise. It's the fair thing 
to do, it's the proper thing to do, and I just appeal to the Nation to 
stop using this kind of rhetoric against people in this body. We 
deserve better.
  I praise the gentleman from Ennis, Texas, for allowing me this time 
to speak to unifying the body and negotiating in fairness. We ask the 
President just to sit down.
  By the way, Mr. Speaker, we've appointed conferees to negotiate. To 
this date, they've never shown up on the other side. We can't negotiate 
unless there's someone else. Anybody in a family knows that it takes a 
husband, a wife, a spouse, or a partner to make a deal. It takes two 
people. You can't do it unilaterally.
  Mr. BARTON. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 2 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. BARTON. Mr. Speaker, to my friends in the body, this is a serious 
issue. ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act, as I said at the start, 
is a huge new entitlement. At a minimum, we would have a real debate 
about it. As has been pointed out, it barely passed the House on a 
partisan vote. No Republicans voted for it, and some Democrats, I 
think, voted against it. I think it passed by one or two votes. It 
passed the Senate only because they were able to get around the 60-vote 
requirement to end debate. It is the law of the land, but it was passed 
with all Democratic votes and no Republican votes.
  Before it is fully implemented, I think it is worthy of a debate and 
it is worthy of the type of situation that's going on now. As I said at 
the top of this Special Order, if the Affordable Care Act is such a 
great thing, let's make it voluntary for the next year and let the 
American people choose whether they want to implement it as it is 
currently structured. If they don't, let's work together, hopefully on 
a bipartisan basis, Mr. Speaker, to change it.

  No one wants the Federal Government to shut down. That's obvious. The 
Republicans in the House are bringing bills to the floor on a daily 
basis to try

[[Page H6319]]

to open up as much of the Federal Government as is possible. Our 
friends on the Democrat side some days are with us on that and some 
days are not. They were with us today on paying furloughed Federal 
workers when they come back to work. Hopefully, next week, they will be 
with us on paying the veterans, opening the VA, the national parks, 
funding cancer research, and some of the things that earlier this week 
they were against.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________