[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21537-21544]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Massa). 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. Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honor to have the 
privilege to represent my constituents here on the floor of the House 
of Representatives and convey the thought process for myself and a good 
number of my colleagues about the issues of the day. And hopefully we 
will be able to cap off this evening and send some people to bed with 
some thoughts that they'll wake up in the morning supporting or else 
have good reasons to oppose.
  A lot has transpired here since the August break began, and we only 
have 1 week behind us here in the House of Representatives since we 
have returned. That deep tradition has been that Members of Congress 
would leave Washington, D.C. in the hot, humid month of August. This 
tradition began before air conditioning. It's a good tradition, and I 
think we should keep it because we saw something phenomenal in America 
this past August, and it seemed like a never-ending series of townhall 
meetings that took place in community after community. Nearly every 
congressional district held something. Some held many, many meetings. I 
don't know the record on the number of the townhall meetings that were 
had, but I'm sure it fell in the dozens of meetings for a single 
Member.
  For myself I represent 32 counties in western Iowa, the western third 
of the State, that's sliced from Minnesota down to Missouri, 32 
counties, 286 towns. I held a good number of townhall meetings, and it 
was a very rewarding experience.
  The thing that I take away from it, Mr. Speaker, and there are many--
I got some ideas on the health care issue that are on my list that I 
will talk about here in a moment, Mr. Speaker. But the thing that I 
will remember the most, it isn't a single issue or a single individual 
or a way an argument was phrased or worded or how compelling they were, 
and there were many that were compelling arguments, but it was the 
image of town after town, meeting after meeting, rooms full of people, 
often people in standing room around the outside, some people standing 
and looking in the doorway. We always found a way, I think, though, 
where everybody could hear. If they wanted in, they could get in. We 
couldn't always hear the comments of everyone because there were just 
too many.
  But the dissenters had their say. And they actually had, I think, a 
disproportionate amount of voice within the meetings that I had, but 
that's all right. We got to hear from both sides of the argument. We 
got to hear from more of those that oppose a national health care plan 
than those that support it. Those that supported it were a distinct 
minority in my district, but they had more than their fair share to 
say.
  So I weighed those issues, and I watched their reaction. But the 
thing I remember the most were hundreds of attentive people sitting 
there with focused attention, listening to every word, listening to the 
words that were spoken by their friends, their neighbors, their family 
members, listened to the responses that I gave, and weighing this and 
putting it into their calculator for what America is going to look 
like.
  I will never forget those faces, those eyes looking up to the front 
of the room, paying attention to every word, taking notes. Some of the 
questions were so well worded, so carefully phrased, you could tell 
that there was a deep amount of research that went into the questions. 
I wondered if some of them didn't stay up nearly all night long to be 
ready just for their chance, their chance to have that moment to have 
their say.
  And I'm so encouraged by their commitment, and I wish they had more 
voice. I wish we could hear them now, Mr. Speaker. I wish we could fill 
this Chamber up with the people that filled up these townhall meetings, 
and especially the leadership, but the rank and file of all of us that 
have the privilege here to serve in the House of Representatives could 
hear those voices again in here.
  I hope when we debate a health care bill here on the floor of the 
House that this gallery is full of people. I hope the C-SPAN camera, 
Mr. Speaker, represents millions out there that are watching every 
move, listening to every word, people that are taking notes, people 
that are tape-recording our actions and our words and carefully 
analyzing, and I hope we're held accountable for the decisions that are 
made in committee where generally it doesn't get the press that it gets 
here on the floor.
  But when the day comes, the American people need to know that they 
have been heard, that we went home, that we traveled our districts, we 
did our townhall meetings, and that we came back and conferred with 
each other and arrived at a decision that's the right decision for the 
long-term

[[Page 21538]]

best interests of our descendants, our progeny and their descendants as 
well, Mr. Speaker.
  So I hope that's what happens. And I don't know that it will. I don't 
know that it will because there are forces at play, and some of the 
people, especially in the majority, have voiced this, that their 
townhall meetings with their constituents are just one of the places 
where they get the information to decide. Other places might be the 
lobby. It might be their coffers. It might be their leadership. And it 
could be just simply a deeply entrenched philosophy that favors Big 
Government over freedom.
  So for me in my townhall meetings, if there was one position that I 
took that I was clear on that had the most support of all, it was I 
will not support a bill that diminishes the people's freedom in the 
United States of America. That's my pledge, Mr. Speaker. I will not 
diminish our freedom. It's my freedom too. And I have taken an oath to 
uphold this Constitution, and it's our Constitution and it's about 
freedom. It isn't just about individual freedom. It's about the 10th 
Amendment. It's about the freedom of the States to control those things 
which are not specifically designated and enumerated for the Federal 
Government. This Federal Government has reached across the 10th 
Amendment and violated at least the spirit and I will say also the 
letter of the Constitution over and over again.
  And if this United States of America passes a health care bill that 
looks anything like H.R. 3200, it will be a violation of our 
Constitution consistently in several different ways.
  So I'm very concerned about where we go with this: the disregard, the 
cavalier attitude that many Members of Congress have towards the 
Constitution, towards their oath to the Constitution, towards its 
meaning and towards its content.
  And this drive to create this single-payer system, you know, you just 
couldn't drive the wooden stake in the heart of HillaryCare back in 
1993 and 1994. When Senator Phil Gramm stood on the floor of the United 
States Senate right down this hallway where I'm faced right now and he 
said this health care bill, this national health care bill will pass 
over my cold, dead political body, a lot of people thought that Senator 
Phil Gramm was going to become a cold, dead political body and that 
HillaryCare was going to pass. But it has not. It's been 15 years and 
more since Phil Gramm made that statement, and he has held off this 
nationalized health care, this socialized medicine juggernaut. He has 
and many others have too. It has been a national effort.
  Yes, there are people out there that think that they'd be better off 
if somebody else would take the responsibility for their health care, 
and they are large in number but small in percentage, Mr. Speaker.
  Now, I will make this point that we have constantly heard the words 
and the statistics that are over 40 million people that are uninsured 
in America, that we have got to do something about the uninsured. And 
this number of 40 million usually rounds up to around 44 million. Now 
it has kind of crept up to 47 million and probably the most reliable 
number is close to 46 million people uninsured in America. Now, that's 
a pretty large percentage of our population. We have about 306 million 
Americans, and if 46 or 47 million are uninsured, that's, let's see, 
one-sixth or a little bit less of our population.
  It's funny that the uninsured is about the same percentage of our 
population as the GDP is consumed by health care. But if that number is 
47 million, and that's the highest number that's consistently delivered 
by the other side, and sometimes they stretch it and round it up to 50 
million, but if the uninsured in America are 47 million, they would 
have us believe that these are chronically uninsured people that are 
stuck on these uninsured rolls year after year after year.
  Well, that's not the case, Mr. Speaker. A lot of these people are 
just temporarily uninsured and they're in transition between policies. 
So as those policies change, occasionally they find themselves without 
coverage.
  But I began to ask this question a little more carefully, and that 
is, Who are the people with affordable options? If somebody's uninsured 
and they're making a million dollars a year, I'm sorry, my heart 
doesn't bleed for them. They have decided that they don't care to have 
a health insurance policy and they're willing to take the risk with 
their equity. So that's not my concern. In fact, the United States 
Senate Republican conference staff set the bar at $75,000 a year. If 
you make $75,000 or more a year and you don't have health insurance, we 
are not going to put you in the category where you get a lot of our 
governmental compassion to extract dollars out of somebody else's labor 
to provide that person making over $75,000 a year with health 
insurance.
  Now, the President has decided to do class envy at $250,000; but let 
me just say that if you're making more than $75,000, you can find a way 
to pay for your own health insurance even if you just buy catastrophic, 
and you should get a health savings account and grow that health 
savings account and buy a major medical policy, a catastrophic health 
insurance policy, take care of your own incidental health care bills. 
But 47 million uninsured at any given time, the biggest number that we 
get.
  Now, to boil this down, Mr. Speaker, to who are the people without 
affordable options, you take the 47 million and you subtract from it 
those that we really don't want to provide health insurance for out of 
the taxpayers' pocket at least, and that's going to be those that are 
in the country illegally. Even the President of the United States 
doesn't insist that we insure illegals under this policy. It was a new 
position that he took the other night. I'm not sure that he's as 
serious as we would like, but I was encouraged that right back here a 
few feet behind me, the President of the United States said, no, we are 
not going to fund illegals. Well, H.R. 3200 does. The Congressional 
Budget Office thinks so. The Congressional Research Service thinks so.

                              {time}  2200

  The vote that took place in the Ways and Means Committee that voted 
down the citizenship standard requirements in order to qualify for 
under H.R. 3200, this health care bill. That partisan vote. Or 
Democrats voted down the language that would require proof of 
citizenship that's tried, tested and true, and used to be part of our 
Medicaid policy from the beginning, was voted down by a vote of 29-28 
in the Ways and Means Committee. Democrats then wanted to leave a door 
open, at least in committee, so illegals could be funded under that 
newer policy.
  That also was the case in the Ways and Means Committee, right down 
the party line exactly. They voted down the effort to try to raise the 
standard and require proof of citizenship. But the President is now 
taking the position he doesn't want to fund illegals in this. I think 
he got pushed into that pretty hard.
  So 47 million uninsured at a given time minus 5.2 million illegals, 
this is according to the Republican Conference in the United States 
Senate. I think there are a lot more than that, Mr. Speaker. They use 
5.2 million. I'll use that for the sake of our discussion. Subtract 
that from 47 million.
  We also do not want to--and cannot under current law and should not--
fund those who are new immigrants here. They're under the 5-year bar; 
no welfare until you've been here 5 years, take care of yourself for 
half a decade, and then you can qualify if you come legally. Under the 
5-year bar, another 5 million.
  Now we're adding this up. So you have 5.2 million illegals, 5 million 
new immigrants, but legal, under the 5-year bar, now we're at 10.2 
million. Those making $75,000 a year or more, I mentioned those, there 
are 9 million of those. Those who qualify for government programs, all 
part of the 47 million, 9.7 million Americans qualify for government 
programs but don't sign up, mostly Medicaid, Medicaid eligibles but not 
enrolled. They don't know that they didn't enroll in anything--and if 
we take it and hand deliver it to them. So we're adding up some numbers 
here.

[[Page 21539]]

Then, those Americans who are eligible with their employer but they've 
either opted out or not bothered to opt into the employer-offered 
health insurance.
  So those numbers, 5.2 million illegals, 5 million legal here under 
the 5-year bar, 9 million making more than $75,000 a year or more, 9.7 
million eligible for government programs, mostly Medicaid, but not 
signed up, and 6 million eligible for employer programs not signed up. 
That comes to 34.9 million Americans of the 47 million that we don't 
want to cover with this new policy under H.R. 3200, this health care 
plan.
  There is a consensus out there that says we're not really worried 
about these categories. The one we're worried about are the Americans 
without affordable options. That number is not 47 million any longer. 
If you've done the math, Mr. Speaker, you will have subtracted each of 
these categories from the 47 million. All these categories add up to 
34.9 million. Take that from 47 and you come to 12.1 million Americans 
without affordable options. That is the universe we're trying to fix.
  The President has said we have two problems with health care in 
America; the first one is the economic crisis that we're in--it's a 
year long now, still a crisis--well, it's a problem; the stock market 
was good today, I might say. And he says we can't fix the economy 
unless we first fix health care. In fact, the cost of health care is 
the problem with our economy. And he would tell us if we could fix the 
health care problem, we would fix the economy.
  Well, what's the problem with health care? According to the President 
of the United States--mostly as a candidate, but also as a President--
we spend too much money. Health care costs too large a percentage of 
our gross domestic product. There's a problem. We have to fix it, 
otherwise we can't fix the economy; the President's position.
  The other position that he has, the two points on health care, is 
that we have too many uninsured. Well, let's deal with the big problem 
first. We spend about 14.5 percent of our gross domestic product on 
health care in America. That's premiums and the care and the litigation 
and all of those things. The average of the industrialized world is 
about 9.5 percent of their GDP on health care. Well, we spend a high 
percentage on recreation and a high percentage on other things too. We 
are a rich nation. One of the reasons we spend that kind of money on 
health care is because we do have the wealth in order to distribute it 
to the health care industry, to that one-seventh of the economy that is 
our health care industry.
  So we have wealth, and we decide to spend it on health. It's not the 
worst thing, but we should examine it objectively. I do think we spend 
too much, too large a percentage, but by the same token I don't think 
they get very good health care in those countries that spend a lot 
less. But we spend about half again on health care in the United States 
as a percentage of our GDP as they do in other countries, but we 
produce more per capita than most of those countries too. And I need to 
pull that back and equate the two, and I haven't done that yet. I hope 
somebody does and gets me the information, otherwise I will sit up some 
night and do the doodling, Mr. Speaker.
  But we spend too much money on health care. What would you do about 
that? If you have a problem in your family budget and you are spending 
too much money, you don't solve the problem by going out and spending a 
lot more money. The score on this bill is someplace between $1 trillion 
and $2 trillion; on the low side it's $1 trillion. The most consistent 
number that has been produced, the analysis of it is $1.6 trillion.
  So according to the President, we spend too much money on health 
care. And I don't necessarily disagree, but his solution is to spend 
another $1.6 trillion on it. That's not a solution. It doesn't solve 
the family budget to spend more money when you're spending too much, 
and it doesn't solve the government problem to spend more money when 
you're spending too much. And so even if the President identifies the 
problem correctly, he has the erroneous solution to apply to it: Voila, 
we spend too much money, therefore, the solution is spend more.
  This was the approach he brought to this economic crisis to demand 
more money through the stimulus fund, too, when we came to our 
conference and said, FDR lost his nerve, he should have spent a lot 
more money. He convinced us that the President of the United States 
wasn't going to make that mistake, he was going to spend a lot more 
money. He was going to be FDR/Keynesian economics on steroids. And 
that's what we got, Mr. Speaker. And the White House made a $2 trillion 
mistake on their projections, $2 trillion.
  I remember when the junior Senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin, made the 
statement that $6 billion was just pencil dust. And his opponent here 
walked around with a man-size pencil to talk about pencil dust. Well, I 
don't know that $6 billion was pencil dust--in that context it can be 
questioned. But I can tell you that $1.6 trillion is not pencil dust. 
Getting within $2 trillion of the target is not pencil dust. That's 
real, huge money.
  But if we're spending too much money on health care, then why 
wouldn't we address the things that fix the problem? Why don't we come 
at this in a different way and go after those most obvious things that 
we can use to fix the problem? Now, for example, how much money does 
defensive medicine cost? What does it work within the macro economics 
of the health care equation? And there are some numbers that will 
rattle on down to around 5.5 percent of overall health care costs. The 
health insurance underwriters, the top legislative officer gave me a 
number of 8.5 percent, the cost of medical malpractice premiums and 
litigation and defensive medicine. Those three things together, 8.5 
percent, are overall health care costs.
  If you take the 8.5 percent and you apply it to the 14.5 percent of 
our GDP, you can come up with a number of about $203 billion a year 
that's going all for defensive medicine and malpractice premiums and 
trial lawyers and litigation. In other words, it isn't being spent on 
good health care; it's money that's being churned up in the system to 
pay other people to do other things other than deliver a product to 
people for the benefit of their good health.
  Defensive medicine. Some of the providers got together and advised me 
in one of my meetings that their consensus was between 20 and 28 
percent of the tests that they do are for defensive medicine purposes. 
In other words, get the test, get it on the record to protect them in 
case somebody files a malpractice lawsuit against them. They can always 
roll out the test and go to court and say, Well, I did this and this 
and this, and I ran this test, and these were all negative, so 
therefore our medical conclusion was thus. And of course we all know 
there are anomalies when it comes to health.
  Defensive medicine. Twenty to 28 percent of the tests, the 
unnecessary costs in health care that have to do with malpractice and 
premiums and in litigation and in defensive medicine, perhaps 8.5 
percent, I see numbers to 10 percent, numbers up to 16 percent of the 
overall health care bill.

                              {time}  2210

  I'll settle on that 8\1/2\ percent number--perhaps it's slightly 
less--but if it's the 16 percent, as a number of doctors have pointed 
out, then you're looking, roughly, in the area of $400 billion a year. 
Over 10 years, there's the $4 trillion, Mr. President.
  I remember his speech, and I know there were some folks who saw the 
humor when the President of the United States said, If you adopt my 
policy, over time, it will save $4 trillion.
  Over time. How long is ``over time''? Is that right before the end of 
infinity? Is it 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? a generation? a 
half a century or a century? a millennia? Over time, his policy would 
save $4 trillion. Now, there is an ambiguous statement. You know, if 
you'd invest a penny and drop it in your passbook savings account, over 
time, you'd be worth $4 trillion, too, Mr. Speaker. I think you 
wouldn't want to wait that long.

[[Page 21540]]

  So, as to the high cost of health care, if it needs to be addressed--
and I think it does--let's go where we can get the most money, the best 
results the quickest. Let's do lawsuit abuse reform. Let's adopt the 
California policy. Let's adopt the Texas policy. We passed it out of 
the House of Representatives about 4 years ago. We passed it out of the 
Judiciary Committee, where I sat; brought it to the floor; passed it 
here; messengered it over to the Senate. The wholly-owned subsidiary of 
the Trial Lawyers Association decided to kill our malpractice reform, 
our lawsuit abuse reform, that passed this House under the leadership, 
at that time, of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim 
Sensenbrenner. So it's the simplest thing we couldn't do, the most 
effective thing we couldn't do.
  If you do the scoring on this--now, I don't think we're going to get 
it all. I don't think we'll fix all of those problems, but if we did, 
it would be around $203 billion a year, just by my little back-of-the-
envelope calculation. Over a decade--we do our calculations here on a 
10-year budget--that's $2 trillion. We could save as much as $2 
trillion from health care just simply by cutting the trial lawyers out, 
still letting people get whole and letting the doctors do their 
doctoring without having to do defensive medicine, and it would reduce 
dramatically their malpractice premiums. As I say, they passed medical 
malpractice reform in Texas, and the doctors who had undergone an 
exodus from Texas began to come back to Texas again. It's interesting.
  So, if health care costs too much, why don't we address the problems 
of costly health care? Why don't we put more competition in it?
  In some States, as much as 80 percent of the health insurance that's 
available to them is offered by one company. One company so dominates 
the market that it's 80 percent. In my State, one company dominates the 
market up to 70 percent. Why don't we let the people in New Jersey buy 
health insurance in Kentucky? Why don't we let the people in New York 
buy health insurance in Texas? Why don't we let them buy it in Iowa for 
that matter? We have pretty good policies available in Iowa. If we'd 
let people buy insurance across State lines, that would solve another 
allegation of the President of the United States.
  He has said that they need to inject competition into the health 
insurance industry because too few companies dominate the market so 
much that they can dictate premiums, and that probably is true in 
localities. In fact, I just won't take issue with that statement. Yet 
the solution is not to establish a Federal government-run health 
insurance policy. We know how that goes. Many of us have made the 
argument:
  If you do that, if you set up Federal health insurance, it will 
swallow up the rest of the private insurance companies in the country. 
We have 1,300 health insurance companies in the United States today 
that are selling a possible combination of 100,000 policies. If we get 
ObamaCare, we're going to get a national health insurance system that 
will be subsidized by the taxpayers, and all of our private insurance 
companies will also have to meet new standards written by the new 
Health Choices Administration, czar-issioner. That's what we'll see 
happen. The result of that will be the pattern that is out there for 
us. Here is one pattern:
  In 1968, they passed National Flood Insurance. Yes, there were 
private property and casualty insurers in the business of selling flood 
insurance to people who lived where they could be flooded. That 
happened. It wasn't a great big market back in those years, but we 
didn't have a great big infrastructure to protect either back then. We 
do now. The Federal Government stepped in and passed the National Flood 
Insurance Act, and in a short period of time, all property and casualty 
flood insurance companies dropped the selling of flood insurance, and 
today, you can only buy one kind of flood insurance. That is the 
Federal Government's. They have the monopoly now. They dominate the 
market. They have squeezed everybody else out, and they have destroyed 
the private market in flood insurance. Well, you don't have to just buy 
that model. You could think that's an anomaly.
  We could look at another situation that's going on. How about the 
student loan program in the United States with all of the private 
companies, the private banks and the lending institutions that manage 
the student loans and the good competition that we've had? Now we have 
George Miller, who's deciding that he wants to replace it all with 
Federal. A smaller and smaller percentage of our student loans are 
provided now through the private sector. They want to eliminate it all. 
If George Miller has his way--and I'm confident the President would 
sign whatever George Miller puts on his desk--you won't be able to go 
to a bank and borrow money to go to college. It will all be through the 
Federal Government. The Federal Government will control it all.
  Oh, by the way, Federal flood insurance is a monopoly. The only flood 
insurance you can buy in the United States is from the Federal 
Government. The owned, operated, managed, marketed premium is set by 
the Federal Government. Federal flood insurance is $19.2 billion in the 
red, and there's no way to get it back. So do we want more of this?
  Let me throw another concept out here. Here is another interesting 
thing that comes out in listening to people at townhall meetings. Mr. 
Speaker, some proponents of ObamaCare would say, Well, listen. We have 
Medicaid and we have Medicare and we have Social Security, and they're 
all government programs. You like those, don't you?
  Well, yes. The people who are receiving the benefits like them better 
than nothing, and some parts of them are pretty good, but there's a big 
difference between what they're proposing here and Medicaid, Medicare 
and Social Security. In all three of those categories that I've 
mentioned, of those government programs that we have, the people 
receiving the benefits are predominantly not the ones paying for them 
at the time they receive them. They are the beneficiaries of someone 
else's labor and largesse. The highest producing people in America are 
paying the most taxes, and now the President and the liberals in this 
Congress are determined to tell the freedom-loving, top-producing 
Americans that not only are they going to have to continue to fund 
somebody else's Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, but now they're 
going to have to fund a whole lot of other people's health care, those 
who are in the most productive years of their lives, and by the way, 
you're going to fund everybody else's, but your choices are going to be 
diminished because the Federal Government has to be able to compete and 
push out a lot of the private providers. I guarantee you, if they pass 
this bill, there will not be 1,300 health insurance companies any 
longer. There will not be 100,000 possible policy combinations any 
longer. That number will diminish overnight and over time, and we'll 
see how long it takes before there's the same number of private health 
insurance companies in America as there are property and casualty 
companies that are selling flood insurance.
  I see my friend from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann, has arrived at the 
floor--persistent, relentless and ever on the ball. I would be so happy 
to yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlelady from 
Minnesota.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I could never hold a candle to the stunning Steve King 
of Iowa, so I thank you for deferring to me for a few minutes, and I am 
extremely grateful for the gentleman's comments on the floor so far 
this evening.
  One thing that has been brought to my mind from your comments is 
you'd recalled that you'd remembered that President Obama came to meet 
with House Republicans down in the bowels of the Capitol building, just 
below where we're standing now, and he gave a private speech to us 
where there were no members of the press. One thing that I recall from 
that meeting with the President is the President had said to us he 
would prefer to enact his full agenda and be a one-term President 
rather than not enact his agenda and be a two-term President.

[[Page 21541]]

  I think that the American people cannot underscore enough the fact 
that the President is very determined in his desire to enact this 
health care legislation, and perhaps never again will one party hold 
the type of cards that have been dealt in their hands as they hold 
right now. That's why I think the American people recognize that, with 
an overpowering one-party domination, we see an intention to enact this 
government takeover of health care that literally will lead to life-
and-death decisions.
  You talked about three different areas where the government has 
gotten involved, and it reminded me of yesterday, when I was meeting 
with a group of constituents, and a gentleman told me this story. He 
said he'd just purchased from what is now known as ``government 
motors'' in our country--because the Federal Government has taken over 
not one but two car companies. The United States Government is now the 
largest car manufacturer in the United States. Well, government 
motors--and again, this is nothing derogatory against our dealerships. 
Our dealerships, through no fault of their own, are in the current 
situation that they're in. We know 3,500 car dealerships have received 
pink slips from our government, putting out of work about 150,000 good 
American-paying jobs.

                              {time}  2220

  Well, in the midst of this, a gentleman told me yesterday he went to 
what's now called Government Motors, fondly. He purchased a top-of-the-
line vehicle, brand new. His dashboard split, so he has a brand-new 
dashboard in this top-of-the-line vehicle from Government Motors.
  He went down to the good dealership, excellent dealership that he 
purchased the car from. Dealership said, sure, it's under warranty, we 
will take care of that for you. The gentleman waited. He didn't hear 
back. He said, hey what's up with my dashboard, brand-new car, top of 
the line, Government Motors? It's under warranty, what gives?
  I am calling all around the country. This wonderful local dealer 
turned over every stone that he could. And do you know what he 
discovered? In the entire country, in the United States, there isn't 
one single dashboard available to replace this brand-new top-of-the-
line dashboard in the car he just purchased.
  What am I going to do?, he said. Well, since the Federal Government 
took over GM, suppliers have been let go. No new suppliers are in 
place.
  So here this gentleman purchased a car. It's the last of its series. 
How many suppliers are going to be out there bidding for a car that 
will never be built again?
  That's part of the problem when government takes over. Because does 
government really have to worry about customer satisfaction the same 
way that a private business has to worry about government satisfaction? 
I think that's what the American people in their innate genius 
understand in the middle of this health care debate.
  They understand that when government is in charge, government doesn't 
necessarily have to worry about customer satisfaction unless you are an 
elected official. Then you know you have to go back to your 
constituency. You have to answer for the votes that you cast and the 
decisions that you make.
  But if you are government and you own the company and you dominate 
the company, what do you worry about customer satisfaction, especially 
if you are not only the car maker, but you also control the contracts 
with the dealerships and you are the lender? Because, let's face it, 
now the Federal Government is also the lender when it comes to car 
sales.
  And the Federal Government is backing a lot of the credit card loans 
that are out there now. So where is the public going to go, and who 
does the Federal Government have to answer to?
  And this is what people know, because now it's about my health care 
and my child's health care, and my elderly mother's health care. And I 
really care about my mother, but will a bureaucrat, a nameless, 
faceless bureaucrat give a rip if my mother can't get her hip 
replacement or she can't get the pacemaker?
  Remember, that question was asked of President Obama. He held a 
townhall meeting in the White House, and, recall, there was a woman who 
stood up and said, President Obama, my mother was 100 years old. I 
couldn't get one doctor to give her the pacemaker she needed until 
finally I found a doctor who said your mother has a lot of spirit. I 
will get her a pacemaker. He did, and her mother was still living 5 
years later, doing very well with her pacemaker.
  President Obama's response? He said, Well, you know, maybe a pill 
would be the better answer than surgery.
  Well, the woman didn't need a pain pill. What she needed was the 
surgery. And this is exactly the point.
  Will we have bureaucrats and politicians looking at their bottom 
lines in their constituencies rather than having a doctor who, really, 
his best interest is to make sure that patient is healed and becomes 
well? Who will make the decisions in this upcoming scenario? That's 
really what the American people want to know.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota.
  I was just listening to the General Motors part of this discussion, 
and I am thinking about the components of General Motors, Government 
Motors, and how this all transpired. And it first came about with the 
first little dialogue going on. And some of us said put them through 
chapter 11. We are not going to be without cars. Somebody will take up 
those assets and turn them into a competitive company.
  Speaker Pelosi said, I am not going to get the unions--I am not going 
to let the car makers get bargaining leverage over the unions. So you 
had the bond holders, the secured creditors involved in this.
  And then the President effectively fired the CEO of General Motors.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. That's right.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. And hand-picked his own guy to go in there as the 
CEO of General Motors and over, close, near that period of time, 
picked, hand-picked all but two members of the board of directors on 
General Motors. And the Federal Government ended up with 61 percent of 
General Motors. That's the U.S., the Federal Government, the Canadian 
Government, 12.5 percent, the unions, 17.5 percent. Now I didn't do the 
math on what's left. It's not much.
  And then on top of that you have Cash for Clunkers that goes out and 
buys these cars or puts the down payment down. And the Federal 
Government guaranteeing some of the loans for the cars, it is the 
perfect circle of socialized economy. It's astonishing to me.
  Now what do you do if you are out here making a car that you can't 
sell, and you need to pay the scale for the workers that didn't give up 
anything if we pass a national health care act? The unions didn't give 
up anything in this deal, but they got 17.5 interest in a company.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Let's go back to the crux of this issue, and it is the 
economy, what's happening in the United States economy.
  And as we have seen, the Federal Government comes in and effectively 
nationalizes about 30 percent of our economy, and they are on a deep, 
long drive to make sure that they can nationalize another 18 percent by 
taking over health care. And what's more, with the national energy tax, 
they want to take over even more of the national economy so that the 
Federal Government would effectively own or control well over 50 
percent of the private business profits earned in this company. What 
has it yielded for the economy?
  And I just looked at an article today that was in the Hill newspaper. 
And it said President Obama's chief economist has said, today, the 
jobless rate will remain high despite economic growth. She voiced worry 
that the economic growth expected in the coming years won't be enough 
to bring down the unemployment rate to pre-recession levels.
  Christina Romer said, in 2010, that's next year, Representative, next 
year, the economy will likely grow, but the jobless rate will peak at 
10 percent.

[[Page 21542]]

  We are at 9.7 percent unemployment now. It's going to grow, according 
to the President's chief economist, up to 10 percent. It won't start 
falling at a rapid clip.
  In fact, the administration, independent economists expect next year 
steady but not over-the-top GDP growth of between 2 to 3 percent. That 
will bring unemployment down slowly, but not by big movement; 
Unemployment on the right trajectory, but not coming down.
  This is incredible. We were told we had to pass in 3 days a trillion-
dollar stimulus plan because the President said otherwise we would go 
to 8 percent unemployment. We could only wish we had 8 percent 
unemployment.
  We are at 9.7 percent. The President's chief economist said we are 
going to over 10. And according to the President's chief economist, if 
this health care plan goes into effect, we will lose another 5.5 
million jobs. If we put his national energy tax into plan, it will be 
another 2.5 million jobs lost every year. The President is bent on a 
China-India jobs stimulus plan.
  We are losing American jobs, ceding them to our national competitors, 
and the Americans aren't gaining anything for it. That's why last week 
the flash point, when President Obama stood here in this Chamber and 
gave a speech to the joint session of Congress, there was one story 
that overshadowed the entire night, and that was one of our colleagues, 
Mr. Joe Wilson of South Carolina who had made a statement to President 
Obama.
  And in the midst of that statement, Representative Joe Wilson became 
effectively the point at the tip of the spear on this debate. And it 
was over the issue of whether the President was accurate in his 
statement that illegal aliens would be receiving health care benefits 
coequal with other Americans that are here lawfully in our country and 
at the expense of taxpayers. That was really the flash-point issue.
  And what we found out last Friday night, we saw Democrat Members of 
Congress saying we are willing to put that verification in the bill, in 
other words proving that our colleague, Joe Wilson, was right, which 
makes it almost incomprehensible to me to believe that the Democrat 
majority plans to bring about a resolution tomorrow in this very 
Chamber condemning our colleague for his words.
  He has already apologized for his lack of decorum, everyone agrees 
with that.
  But to think that you would say to one of our colleagues, who the 
Democrats have already proved right by admitting that they are going to 
take the provision out of the bill that Representative Wilson was 
referring to?
  It's almost uncanny to me that we would live to see such a day when 
that would happen.

                              {time}  2230

  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady. I believe it says in the 
book of John that if you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them. If 
you hold them bound, they are held bound.
  President Obama said he accepted the apology. That's forgiveness. 
Because the President accepted the apology from the officer and the 
gentleman, Joe Wilson, no one else in the country has a claim to any 
other redress whatsoever.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Which is why I thank the gentleman from Iowa, 
Representative Steve King, for penning a letter asking others of our 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join that letter in support of 
our colleague, Joe Wilson. I was very happy to sign on to your letter.
  But you, Steve King, the stunning Steve King of the State of Iowa, 
you took the initiative on that front. You were right to do so. And I 
am extremely grateful for your leadership on this issue. Because this 
is the point. When we're talking about this, it isn't about the 
President; this isn't about any Member of Congress. This is about the 
American people. Will the American people continue to enjoy the finest 
health care system that the world has ever known or will we lose our 
freedom of choice over health care and will Americans lose the control 
over another 18 percent of private business profits.
  This is a big deal. This is a really big issue. Because, since the 
inception of Bailout Nation less than a year ago, 30 percent of private 
business profits are now owned or controlled by the Federal Government. 
If President Obama gets his way, that's another 18 percent--almost 50 
percent.
  This is the issue right now. Will our economy be better off by 
government taking over the economy. No? Are you kidding. We've already 
seen demonstration of that in the last few months. Surely, we would not 
be better off with President Obama nationalizing health care and the 
energy industry.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Let me just roll this question back across your 
analytical accountant, CPA, tax lawyer mind, and that is, if 30 percent 
of the private profits today are controlled by the Federal Government, 
and if another 18 percent would be swallowed up in a national health 
care plan, taking us to 48 percent of the private, what if all private 
interests were rolled up in shares, and you could buy derivatives of 
those shares of the private sector? What if you could do that?
  And what if the Federal Government then controlled 48 percent of all 
the shares of the private sector? Because that would be the equivalent, 
I would think. They would almost be to the point of having controlling 
interest over the private sector of the economy of the United States of 
America. Is that how the equation works out?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. That's exactly right, Representative. Again, we know 
President Obama's intention is to effectively nationalize the energy by 
giving the Federal Government control over the use and distribution of 
energy.
  Remember, we had a conversation earlier.
  Then-candidate Obama, Senator Obama, made the statement during the 
course of his campaign. He said, Americans can't think that they can 
drive SUVs, set their thermostats at 72 degrees, or eat as much as food 
as they want, and think the rest the world will be okay with that.
  Well, let's take a look at the report card since President Obama has 
come into office. By taking over GM and Chrysler, what we're seeing is 
the diminution of the SUV. We're seeing a lot of these high-end 
vehicles now being phased out, and instead we're seeing the new cars 
that the President wants to have put in place by Government Motors. 
That's the SUV portion.
  What about setting our house temperature at 72 degrees and buildings 
like this one at 72 degrees? Well, once we have the government 
effectively nationalizing energy, people won't be able to afford to set 
their thermostats at 72 degrees. They will be sitting at home shivering 
at 55 degrees in winter, and in summer most likely won't even be able 
to turn on the air-conditioning.
  And what about food? President Obama said we can't eat as much food 
as we want and think the rest of the world will be okay about that, as 
if that matters to freedom-loving Americans. Well, we just heard last 
week that the Federal Government now under the Obama administration is 
calling for a reordering of America's food supply. What is that going 
to mean? Now will the White House decide how many calories we consume 
or what types of food we consume?
  You're from an agriculture State, I'm from an agriculture State. My 
farmers are very concerned about this. Our farmers are some of the 
greatest geniuses the world has ever seen. When you think of the 
percentage of farmers that we had in this country producing the food 
when the Nation first began, we're now at less than 2 percent of our 
population produces all of the food that Americans consume. Not only 
that, a good portion of the world as well.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, you triggered something in my 
memory here, Mrs. Bachmann, and that would be the hearings that we held 
before the House Agriculture committee. This would have been March 13, 
2007. It has to do with what people should be eating and what is 
healthy, and how we're going to legislate that from the Federal level.
  There were those on that committee that thought that we should 
increase food stamps substantially. In fact, they were pushing to 
increase food stamps

[[Page 21543]]

46 percent. For the most part, they got that job done.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. That's right.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. But, how do you justify that when you can't find 
people that are suffering from malnutrition or people that are actually 
hungry, chronically hungry. There are people that miss meals. I'm among 
them. But we don't have chronic hunger in America.
  In order to justify the expansion of food stamps, they brought before 
us the president of La Raza, that's the organization that stands for 
The Race. Her name is Janet Murguia. And in that testimony she said 
this--and this is a quote, ``There is also mounting evidence that the 
overweight and obesity trends in the United States are due, in part, to 
high levels of food insecurity.''
  So we have a situation where the argument is being made to the United 
States Congress that we have fat people in America that are overweight 
because they were worried about some meals that they might miss one day 
in the future, and they tended to overeat in the present tense. So if 
we would just give them an unlimited supply of food stamps, then they 
would eat less, lose weight, and live healthy and happy thereafter, 
that's what she's telling us. Food insecurity.
  So I'm wondering, Where has this world gone, George Orwell? How did 
we get to this place? And I remember walking down along Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt's monument and looking at the symbols that he has of the 
speech that he gave that is sort of the idea of the four freedoms. 
Freedom of speech, freedom of religion--I'll stand and defend those. 
They are rights. They are freedoms. They are guaranteed.
  But freedom from want and freedom from fear can't be guaranteed by 
anybody but God. And I'm not sure it's healthy to have freedom from 
want, because want is what drives us to produce and be better. And then 
our philanthropy that comes from the times we're short causes us to 
help other people that are short.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. If the Representative would allow me to intervene, 
there is one want that we don't have to worry about any more, and 
that's one organization in the United States that has been given a 
great abundance, and that's the organization ACORN.
  I know that you have done a great deal of work in trying to expose 
the nefarious activities of ACORN. We learned last week that ACORN, 
which has a persistent record of voter fraud indictments across the 
country, was brought under indictment for 11 counts of voter fraud down 
in the State of Florida. And then there were videos that came out 
showing that ACORN, which is a grand recipient of Federal money, was 
found facilitating bringing in underage girls illegally across not only 
State lines but across our country's borders into the United States for 
the purpose of prostitution.
  ACORN was not only enabling this illegal criminal business, they were 
also coaching people on how to avoid their tax payments that they would 
have to pay and how to go into federally funded housing.
  That's why I have been writing letters to the Census Bureau, to the 
Housing and Urban Development Agency, to call on them to stop all 
current and future grants and to investigate all past grants.
  ACORN has been a recipient of $53 million in Federal funds since 
1993. Now, since President Obama, who is a former employee of ACORN, 
since he has become the President, now ACORN has access to $8.5 
billion. And in another bill that passed through the House, an 
additional $1 billion--a billion dollars, $8.5 billion ACORN has access 
to.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mrs. Bachmann, why didn't you do something about 
it?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Why didn't I do something about that?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Yes.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I did. I have and you have. We've been writing 
letters.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Did you offer an amendment in Financial Services?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I did. I offered an amendment in Financial Services. 
It did pass out of the committee. And the amendment said that 
organizations like ACORN or similarly situated organizations that are 
currently under indictment for voter fraud would be ineligible to have 
access to Federal grants.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Did Chairman Frank vote for that amendment?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Chairman Frank voted for that amendment in the 
committee, yes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Why isn't it law?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Well, it came to the House floor and Chairman Frank 
said in the course of his remarks here on the floor that he was not--he 
didn't read the amendment fully. He wasn't aware of what the amendment 
said. And so he said it came to his attention later by his staff, and 
so now he was going to change that.

                              {time}  2240

  Mr. KING of Iowa. Could that be interpreted to mean that ACORN talked 
to his staff after the committee meeting and advised him that he should 
come to the floor and change the language?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I can't tell you whether ACORN spoke with him or not. 
I have no knowledge of that. All I know is that when Chairman Frank 
came to the floor, he proceeded to pull my amendment out of the bill, 
which he did, which meant that now ACORN would have access to another 
$1.5 billion in addition to the $8.5 billion that they already have 
access to.
  ACORN, in my opinion, should have the Internal Revenue Service look 
at their tax-exempt status. In my opinion, I think ACORN has a very 
tough time proving that they should hold onto their tax exempt status. 
Not only that, they have a tough time proving that they should be a 
recipient of any more Federal housing grants. If they want to be an 
organization, they can, but they shouldn't be a recipient of Federal 
taxpayer funds.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Here is an image. In fact, this poster is not here 
tonight, but I will try to bring it down later this week so everybody 
can see it, Mr. Speaker. I thought it would be good for me to go down 
to the headquarters of ACORN to see what it looked like. So I went on 
down there to 2609 Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. That's the 
national headquarters and, for all I know, the international 
headquarters of ACORN. In there is where they process the paperwork for 
many of--probably most of--and probably not quite all of their 
affiliate corporations. But inside those doors, the most fortified 
building in that neighborhood--I yield back.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Aren't there over 200 affiliated organizations housed, 
and it's a two story building?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Yes. But it's a four- or five-story building. I 
would have to look at the picture to count the stories. But the first 
two are all bars, and it's fortified. Then above that, it's high enough 
so that the crowds can't get in. But behind the glass in ACORN's 
national headquarters on the street side, there's a huge poster: 
``Obama for President '08,'' and hanging right next to it is an ACORN 
flag. I have that picture. I have turned it into a poster. I brought it 
down here on the floor.
  ACORN is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. It is unlawful for 
them to engage in partisan politics, and yet they are a get-out-the-
vote organization for Democrats. They are taking Federal tax dollars, 
and they're pushing it through to run political campaigns, and then 
they boldly advertise it in the front window of their national 
headquarters in New Orleans with an Obama poster.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Over and over, I have had people tell me that ACORN is 
effectively the electioneering arm of the Democratic Party, and that is 
concerning. At least I would think that the Democrat majority that 
controls this House would want to hold hearings to clear their name, to 
say that ACORN is not our electioneering arm and prove that assertion 
false. I would think that's exactly what they would want to do, which 
is why I wrote letters to Chairman Barney Frank and to Speaker Pelosi, 
demanding that we have oversight hearings and investigate ACORN to take 
a look at all of the grants that ACORN has received to see if they have 
been spent wisely, if they've been used according to the

[[Page 21544]]

rules that have been set up for their disbursement.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mrs. Bachmann, you have raised a lot of children, 
foster children, your own natural born children. It is a phenomenal 
thing. Have you ever caught any of your children with their hand in the 
cookie jar?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Oh, yes, I have.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Did any of them ever call for a hearing to clear 
their name?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. No. They knew they were guilty, Mr. King.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I think that is the case. Clearly, it's a partisan 
get-out-the-vote organization. They're everywhere in America, in over 
100 major cities, and then subdivisions within the cities. Their reach 
doesn't just go into politics. We saw what was going on with the--
what's the nicest word--subornation of prostitution, child 
prostitution, the encouragement of what appears to be illegal 
immigration, saying that they're going to help with a child tax credit, 
the refundable tax credit which is a transfer from the taxpayers to the 
pimp and the prostitute out of the pocket of the taxpayers, enabled by 
ACORN.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. This is ACORN enabling it. And one of our colleagues 
said that he would hold hearings about ACORN. Several months ago there 
was one indictment after another that came out after voter fraud. Now 
these latest indictments deal with the housing grants that ACORN is 
receiving. He announced that he was going to hold hearings and 
investigate ACORN. Then the next thing we knew, he was not going to 
hold those hearings because he said the higher ups told him--these are 
his own words--he said, the higher-ups told him that he was not to hold 
hearings.
  I think the American people have a right to know. I think they have a 
right to know that these red flags about ACORN didn't just happen last 
week. These red flags have gone up months and years ago. Remember, the 
Speaker of the House said that she was going to drain the swamp. That's 
what she was going to do, drain the swamp of corruption. But could 
anything be more corrupt than a taxpayer-funded tax-free organization 
doing the electioneering bidding for a dominant political party? Does 
it get any more circular than that and, some might suggest, incestuous?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Well, it's circular, and it's incestuous. The 
statement that was made about investigating ACORN was made by Chairman 
John Conyers, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I was sitting in 
the room when that was going on. We had a hearing before the 
Constitution Subcommittee, the subcommittee chairman is Jerry Nadler 
from New York. Chairman Conyers said, I think there's substance here. I 
think we should look into it. Chairman Nadler said, When I see 
something substantive, then I will consider hearings. There was plenty 
of substance. There is plenty more substance here now.
  But since that time, John Conyers has said, Well, the powers that 
be--not necessarily the higher-ups--but the powers that be have decided 
that there wouldn't be hearings. Now who could ``the powers that be'' 
be when you are the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House of 
Representatives? You really only look up and you think, well, the 
powers that be are either the Speaker of the House or the President of 
the United States.
  Well, what we do know is the President of the United States used to 
work for ACORN. That's irrefutable and not arguable. He not only worked 
for ACORN but he also was a trainer for ACORN, and he headed up Project 
Vote, which is part and parcel of ACORN. The President wore an ACORN 
jersey. He was a player and a coach, and now he is an alumni who has 
hired ACORN to help facilitate hiring people at a minimum on the Census 
and now they've backed off of that. I'm not all that optimistic that 
that will stick. But we have a President of the United States with a 
chief of staff named Rahm Emanuel who used to serve in the House of 
Representatives. He is known for hardball, hard-core Chicago-style 
politics. And we're going to have to wonder if we can actually get 
hearings and investigations.
  Here's what needs to happen, Mr. Speaker: This Congress needs to have 
multiple committees with bipartisan hearings and investigations on 
every aspect of ACORN. The Department of Justice has to deploy an 
entire division to go in and do a complete forensic audit of every 
dollar that comes and goes from ACORN and every one of their 
affiliates. They have to bring the IRS into this so we can track every 
dollar, and we've got to see indictments. We've got to see the perp 
walk. We are going to have to see people put in prison for what they're 
doing to the American taxpayers, Mr. Speaker.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. And also there's video footage today of the President 
speaking to ACORN, saying that ACORN would be a part of his decision-
making on various bills.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, did I hear a gavel? Does that mean my 
time has expired?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 60 seconds.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Okay. I thank you, Mr. Speaker. Then I will just 
simply conclude. I didn't pick up the sound very well.
  I appreciate the gentlelady from Minnesota coming to the floor to 
engage in this discussion and dialogue that we have. I'll appreciate it 
when this Congress steps forward and does the investigations of ACORN 
and multiple committees, the Finance Committee, the Ways and Means 
Committee, the Judiciary Committee, the Government Reform Committee, 
those, among others. And when the Justice Department steps up and 
instead of shutting down an investigation of voter intimidation, which 
was an open and shut case of intimidation in Philadelphia, if they will 
step in and really do an investigation of ACORN, let's give the 
taxpayers their due, let's represent the American people, let's clean 
this place up, and let's have the high standards that were envisioned 
by the Founding Fathers.

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