[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24411-24414]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        HATE CRIMES LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Perriello). 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, I appreciate being recognized and the 
opportunity and the privilege to come to the floor and address you 
here. It is also a bit nostalgic to step in behind Duncan Hunter. I 
remember many times standing here on the floor of the House debating 
issues, and a lot of them were national security issues, including our 
immigration issues, with Duncan Hunter's father. And this transition 
has been very good to see a young man, a young marine, stand here in 
the well and speak to you and talk to you about our national security 
issues from the experience standpoint of a marine who has served in 
Afghanistan and now one who serves in the United States Congress. I 
very much appreciate the addition to this Congress that he is.
  I lament what we have seen happen today, this activity that this 
Congress has gone through; the Department of Defense authorization bill 
that saw at least 144 or so vote against it. Most of those that voted 
against the authorization bill, including me, support, of course, the 
Department of Defense and our national security and all of our men and 
women in uniform and all of our veterans all the way back to many wars 
prior to today. The Department of Defense authorization bill was used 
as a political tool by the left to advance a left-wing agenda that 
should be appalling to the American people if they understand the 
motivation of this idea of inserting hate crimes into the Department of 
Defense authorization bill.
  It's a piece of legislation that had passed off the floor of this 
House a piece of stand-alone legislation. Many of us opposed it. It is 
activist legislation that sets up and creates sacred cows, people who 
get special protected status, people who are identified by their 
alleged, hopefully private, sexual behavior or thoughts. This is a bill 
that the United States Senate couldn't figure out apparently how to 
debate on its own and send back over here to the House amended or 
simply send it to the President. So they polluted the Department of 
Defense authorization bill with it.
  I would be very happy to yield so much time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from California who I think has an opinion on this matter.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman.
  The liberals in this Congress and in the Senate did a despicable 
thing today. There is usually one bill in this Congress that gets 
passed that's nonpartisan. It's bipartisan. It's the authorization bill 
to get our military what it needs. And it has never been so important 
as it has been during this time of war. This is beans, band-aids, 
bullets, trucks, armor, and flak jackets. Everything that we need to 
win these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is in this authorization bill 
that was being voted on today. I voted ``yes'' on it. Many voted 
``no,'' and they were in the right as well as I was in the right. And 
here is why. To attach a hate crimes bill, a thought crimes bill, which 
is wrong in and of its own, but has nothing to do with the military, 
nothing whatsoever, but the Democrat Congress knew that we would not 
vote against the military. That's the hand that they played. So they 
put one of the worst and most rotten bills that has been passed by this 
Congress on top. They piggy-backed it on top of our defense 
authorization bill because who's going to vote against the troops?
  That was their slant today. And as a marine and as a congressman, it 
is one of the most despicable things that I have ever seen done by this 
body. Some of us voted for it. Some of us voted against it. Each of us 
voted our own conscience on this, and both votes were right. We do have 
to get our military what it needs on one hand, but on the other hand, 
we are not going to be ridden roughshod over by a liberal Congress that 
thinks that they can attach absolutely despicable bills to important 
things like the defense authorization bill. That's why voting ``no'' on 
this bill today was also the right choice. So I thank the gentleman for 
his conscientious vote today, and I appreciate it.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I so much appreciate the 
gentleman from California. I'm looking to this new leadership that's 
emerged into the new Congress, and Duncan Hunter is one of those 
people. The statement that he has made, I concur with. I have looked at 
the Department of Defense authorization bill with hate crimes 
legislation, which is, in fact, thought crimes legislation, built into 
it, slipped into it as a, not quite a poison pill, because there were 
liberals over here today, and I would be happy to yield to any one of 
them that want to stand up and defend themselves, liberals over here 
today that maybe for the first time voted for the Department of Defense 
authorization bill because it had this hate crimes legislation in it, 
the thought crimes legislation in it. Their radical social agenda in 
some cases overcame their resistance to supporting our military. And so 
it was a double-edged sword that was put in here, a rotten sword, the 
wrong, wrong thing to do.
  I looked at it from this perspective: that if we are going to let 
them put into the Department of Defense a piece of legislation that's 
so contrary to the rule of law, so abhorrent to equal justice under the 
law, it turns out to be holding the Department of Defense hostage; it's 
almost like somebody kidnapped the Department of Defense bill and 
required that in order to pay off the kidnappers, the ransom note was 
the hate crimes bill. That's what happened. I don't think anybody is 
going to stand up and defend that today. They wanted to avoid that 
debate. They wanted to force a vote. And President Obama, of course, 
supports the hate crimes legislation. So he will sign the bill, and it 
will be law in the United States of America. And then we will be asking 
juries and judges to discern not the act that might be committed that's 
a crime, but the thought that was in the head of the perpetrator and 
the victim. And it is not the basis of the law going all the way back 
to English common law to determine what's in the head of the 
perpetrator or the victim when a crime is committed because an 
individual is a sacred life. All life is equal under the law. Whether 
you're a little-bitty baby or whether you are a senior citizen with a 
terminal illness, those that value those lives under the law are valued 
equally.
  The father of Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania as a Democrat 
Governor of Pennsylvania, said this: Human life cannot be measured. It 
is the measure itself against which all other things are weighed. We 
measure the life and say that it is the measure itself, and an act 
committed against a person's life, and it could be murder, it could be 
assault, it could be rape, it could be a number of different acts 
actually against a person's property, and now this hates crime 
legislation for the first time would increase the punishment against 
someone because the victim may have perceived that they were of a 
different sexual orientation. So for the jury or the judge to get into 
the head of the perpetrator and the victim for the first time and value 
the victim who might be, because of their sexual orientation or their 
gender identity, a special protected class of people, different from 
everybody else, so a crime committed against a self-alleged homosexual 
would be punished additionally.
  If there were, say, two people who were equally victims of a crime, 
one of them was a self-alleged homosexual, the other one was not, the 
penalty for the assault on the homosexual would be greater than the 
penalty for the assault on the person who did not declare their 
sexuality. Mr. Speaker, that's a principle that we should not cross.
  As we debated this issue in the Judiciary Committee, I brought an 
amendment. Now I will argue that the way the language reads and the 
definitions of sexual orientation and gender identity are so broad that 
anyone's proclivity could be included in this, whether they are crimes 
or whether

[[Page 24412]]

they are not. So I brought an amendment that would strike out inclusion 
of special protected status for pedophiles. You would think it should 
be clear. We should be willing not to protect special protected status 
for pedophiles. The Democrats on the committee argued against it. And 
it went on a recorded vote to vote against excluding pedophiles as a 
special protected class. The result of it, Mr. Speaker, was special 
protection for pedophiles and all other paraphilias that are listed in 
the American Psychological Association.
  That came to the floor of the House of Representatives. We had a 
debate on it here. The gentlelady from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin) had a 
definition. She said it only includes heterosexuals or homosexuals. 
That was her language in the committee. That would not include then, of 
course, bisexuals. I think that might be trouble for her analysis. But 
Alcee Hastings, the gentleman from Florida, stood over at that 
microphone, and he read a list of about 30, I will call them 
paraphilias. And he said this language protects all of these behaviors, 
I believe all philias whatsoever, are protected. Alcee Hastings. I 
couldn't believe it, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  1830

  I couldn't believe it, Mr. Speaker. So after the debate was over, the 
vote was over, I went over and I personally asked him, Did you really 
say what you said? Did I hear you right? Did I miss a word? Somehow is 
there a misunderstanding on my part?
  He said, No, that's what I believe.
  That's what is in the Congressional Record. It is in the 
Congressional Record in the Judiciary Committee. It is in the 
Congressional Record on the full record on the floor of the House of 
Representatives, in the debate and the effort to offer amendments that 
would exclude these behaviors. And some of these, many of these 
behaviors are crimes. Hate crimes legislation protects some acts that 
are criminal because they are under this list of paraphilias that are 
part of the sexual orientation or gender identity of the alleged 
victims or maybe even the perpetrators.
  It is a horrible piece of legislation. It addresses crimes of 
violence, which means an offense that has an element that threatens the 
use of force against property of another that might be the property of 
someone with a particular sexual orientation or gender identity.
  This is bad law. It is bad legislation. It is a bad, bad precedent 
for a country that has built its strength upon the rule of law, Mr. 
Speaker, and now this pill has been slipped into the Department of 
Defense authorization bill. And there were dozens and dozens of Members 
of this Congress that voted ``no'' on the bill exclusively because of 
the hates crimes legislation, the thought crimes legislation that was 
injected into it. And they will be characterized now in campaign ads as 
being against our national defense.
  We know, and the totality of the record of the Members of Congress 
here is understood, but it was a raw political move, and it was a 
bitter thing to see happen.
  I am not worried myself; I will speak up, Mr. Speaker, so I am not 
worried myself.
  I do have a couple of other subjects that I want to shift to.
  Mr. Speaker, I am shifting over to the health care debate. This is 
the chart of HillaryCare. This legislation emerged in 1993. At the time 
President Bill Clinton gave a speech on the floor here of the House, 
September 22, 1993. He laid out the principles for a national health 
care act, for a complete government takeover of all of the health 
insurance and the health care delivery system in the United States.
  This is the flowchart that came from that legislation. I will at 
least give him credit for honesty. And I will give he and Hillary 
credit for at least writing a bill. Some of us were nervous that a lot 
of it happened behind closed doors. But they did write a bill, and they 
tried to push it on Americas, and Americans rejected the National 
Health Care Act in 1993 and 1994.
  This is the flowchart that comes off of The New York Times that was 
published at the time. Black and white, a little fuzzy. They didn't 
have the graphics that we have now. They didn't have color in their 
newspapers like we do now. But I do have the chart that we have for the 
new bill now.
  This, Mr. Speaker, is the new chart. The black and white that is on 
this new chart for H.R. 3200, the black and white are existing 
programs. The color are the new programs that are created by H.R. 3200. 
So you can see some of the things that exist. Let's see, the Office of 
Minority Health exists. The Office of Civil Rights exists. The National 
Coordinator For Health Information Technology exists. But the new ones 
in color are created by the bill.
  There are a lot of them, and I can bog us all down in this, but I 
will take you down to the part of the bill that gives me the most 
heartburn. And there is no cure offered for my heartburn if this bill 
should pass. We have private insurers in America. This black-and-white 
box here, that represents 1,300 private insurance companies in the 
United States of America. It is a lot of companies, a lot of 
competition; 1,300 private health insurance companies.
  They are offering in the area, the best estimates we have, about 
100,000 different policy variations. That is this box here, traditional 
health insurance plans.
  The private insurers and all of their plans in this box, under the 
bill they would have to qualify in order to be qualified health 
benefits plans. That is this purple circle here. It looks rather 
benign, but it is not benign. Getting qualified for all of these 
100,000 policies with the 1,300 companies into these qualified health 
benefits plans will be done so by the rules of the bill, and the rules 
are written by the Health Choices Administration and the commission and 
the commissioner.
  This would be one of the most powerful positions in government, the 
health choices commissioner. And you're wondering why are they not 
calling him a czar?
  Mr. Speaker, that is because we are full up to here with czars. I am 
going to call him the commi-czar-issioner, the person who would be 
writing the rules, with his huge staff, and he would make the 
determination which, if any, of these 100,000 health insurance policies 
would qualify to go into the purple circle of the qualified health 
benefits plans.
  While those decisions are being made by the health choices commi-
czar-issioner, we would also be creating under the bill a public health 
plan. That's the public option. That is the public option that--I 
believe today Speaker Pelosi said there are the votes to pass a public 
option plan here in the House of Representatives. If that is the case, 
I don't know why she is waiting. They will lose some Members I am 
convinced of that, Mr. Speaker, but the health choices commissioner 
will be writing rules that have to be met in order for the private 
carriers to qualify, all the while they are looking at setting up the 
Federal health insurance plan that will take billions of dollars of 
capital to get it established, and they will write their plans with 
certain restrictions and with certain premiums designed to compete with 
the private sector.
  Remember, the President said we have to provide some competition. We 
don't have enough competition in the health insurance industry.
  I would suspect that he couldn't answer the question how many 
companies do we have today? How many policy options do we have today? 
Mr. Speaker, I have just told you, 1,300 companies, 100,000 policy 
options, and the President's argument is we have to provide a little 
more competition so there is a little more variety. The government can 
do that because health insurance companies aren't doing that job?
  What would happen would be billions of dollars would go in to create 
this new Federal health insurance plan. And then if it couldn't compete 
with the private sector, the rules would be written differently for 
these private plans. Many of them wouldn't qualify. They would set 
mandates and require that policies cover a whole series of things. What 
about pregnancy for someone who is a grandmother? If everybody has to 
pay for those kinds of things, the premiums will go up. Those

[[Page 24413]]

are the kind of mandates that make health insurance premiums go high.
  The government would write the rules so they can compete with the 
private sector is what would happen, and they would tap into the 
pockets of the taxpayers in order to have the capital to jump-start the 
health insurance plan. And then as they move forward, regulating 
private insurance companies and subsidizing the public option, the 
government plan, the Democrats' health insurance plan, it would squeeze 
out the private plans.
  Now, how can I say that this is what would happen with some 
confidence? None of us have a crystal ball. But I have a little bit of 
history, and I take you back to 1968 when, at the time, the only flood 
insurance in America was provided in the private market by the property 
and casualty companies.
  In 1968, this Congress passed the Federal flood insurance program. 
When that program was passed, in order to compete, they started to 
write regulations. The regulations that they wrote in part were 
requiring national banks who gave loans for real estate to require that 
those policies, the Federal flood insurance policies, be purchased by 
the borrower. So there was a mandate that people had to buy flood 
insurance. They wrote the rules, the premiums and regulations.
  And today, since 1968 when there was no Federal flood insurance 
program and all flood insurance was private on that day when they came 
to the House in 1968, today a person in America cannot buy a flood 
insurance policy from anyone except the Federal Government. The only 
thing left is Federal flood insurance. There are no private carriers 
out there. The Federal Government has swallowed up the entire private 
flood insurance industry.
  That is an example of what might happen with the health insurance 
industry, and what I think is likely to happen with the health 
insurance industry.
  In examining some of the policies around the world, I would point out 
that in Germany they tell us they have the oldest national health care 
plan in Germany, that they have provided health care for their people 
since Otto von Bismarck's time. I don't know whether they tell us that 
or I recall reading that from history. Ninety percent of the health 
insurance in Germany is the public option; 10 percent is the private 
option. The people that buy insurance outside of the government 
insurance plan are those that are entrepreneurs, self-employed, more 
well-to-do. They want a policy that gives them a little extra coverage 
and takes a little better care of their health. At least that exists; 
90 to 1.
  Really, this is something that is the President's plan? He would like 
to have this public health plan swallow up 90 percent of the private 
health insurance in America? I think so. He is on record saying he 
wants a single-payer plan.
  When you think about how that goes, a single-payer plan, and if we 
provided, let's say, funding to buy insurance, to help people buy 
insurance that couldn't afford it, and that would perhaps be a voucher 
that goes in, that one can control to buy health insurance, the 
argument then becomes: How big should that voucher be? Let's just say 
poor people would get $3,500, and the more wealthy they were, the less 
money they would get. And if that were ever established, the next 
argument is: Where is the threshold? What is the means testing?
  Pretty soon the number would go from $3,500 to $7,500 to a $10,000 
subsidy for people's health insurance premiums. And then at a certain 
point, I will hear the argument from over here, if we are still around 
on that day, we will hear the argument, well, it costs too much money 
to administer vouchers and to give refundable tax credits to people so 
they can afford to buy health insurance, why don't we wipe out that 
whole bureaucratic mess and simply have people show up at the public 
clinic and we will take care of them accordingly, and their medical 
records can be managed by the government along with their health care.
  I can give you some examples of what happens when you end up with a 
National Health Care Act, Mr. Speaker. That would be the average time 
waiting for a knee replacement in Canada: 340 days. The average time 
waiting for a hip replacement in Canada: 196 days.
  I talked to an individual, ran into him at a home improvement type of 
store. He is a legal immigrant from Germany. He told me he had a hip 
replacement. He waited in line for at least 6 months for a hip 
replacement. Finally, he was put in several lines around Europe. He 
went from Germany to Italy, where they gave him a hip replacement. That 
was one of the ways he could move more to the front of the line.
  We had an individual that made a presentation to us. He was a doctor 
from Michigan who practiced both in Michigan and in Canada. When he 
first went to Canada to work the ER, a young man came in with a torn 
meniscus and some ligament damage. The doctor looked at it and said, 
You need surgery right away. I will schedule you for tomorrow morning. 
He was used to working in the United States.
  Little did he know, and he found out quickly, he couldn't schedule 
him for surgery in Canada for the following morning. He couldn't even 
schedule him for an examination. The specialists that approve the 
surgery had to be scheduled first. So this young man, with his knee 
torn up, waited for 6 months for the specialist to examine the knee and 
approve surgery, which was scheduled another 6 months later.
  So the reconstructive surgery for this young man who was 
incapacitated, couldn't work, was 6 months for the exam, 6 months to 
get the surgery scheduled, and then all of the rehab that it takes 
after the muscles atrophy over a 12-month period of time. A full year 
from the injury where, this doctor, who has good credentials and has 
spoken to this Congress and I find to be a very credible individual, in 
the United States that surgery would have taken place the next day, in 
Canada, it took place 365 days later. We don't need this kind of health 
care in America. The argument that we have too many uninsured is 
something that we just simply need to address with some facts.

                              {time}  1845

  I know it's hard on the people on the other side when they have to 
deal with facts. When the President says that we have too many 
uninsured, and the arguments that you have constantly made that there 
are 44 to 47 million uninsured. Sometimes you round it up to 50 
million, but 47 million is the largest legitimate number that we hear 
that are uninsured in America.
  Somehow they have gone past the idea--first, they want to establish 
the idea that everybody has a right to health care. Well, that's not in 
the Constitution. We can make your argument as to this right to health 
care. Out of the compassion of the American people, we can decide that 
we don't want to leave anyone behind, and we can decide that we want to 
make sure that everyone has access to health care. In fact, everybody 
in America has access to health care. That question is answered.
  The only argument that remains is that there are too many that are 
uninsured, 47 million. So here are the enlightenment facts, Mr. 
Speaker: 84 percent of the people in the United States have a health 
insurance policy. In fact, they're happy with it. They don't want it 
changed. They don't want to lose it. This is the pie chart. All of the 
people here in blue are insured, and almost all of them are happy about 
the insurance that they have.
  All of these little slices here, these are the 47 million people who 
are uninsured, and they go down through these categories. I'm going to 
go from right to left--yellow, black, orange from the bottom. Illegal 
immigrants, 2 percent. That's part of that 47 million. I don't want to 
give them insurance off the back of the taxpayers, especially if we're 
borrowing the money from our grandchildren and the Chinese. Then we 
have legal immigrants.
  This is a slice in black. They are the ones that are, by law, barred 
for 5 years from being able to access public benefits. You come into 
the United States, you should be able to take care of yourself. That's 
one of the standards.

[[Page 24414]]

That's another 5 million people, 5.2 million illegals, 5 million 
legals. Then you have individuals who are earning more than $75,000 a 
year. That's the list up here in orange. That number is a number that 
presumably, if you're making more than $75,000 a year, you can write a 
check for a health insurance policy. So they do have an affordable 
option. They just aren't exercising the option.
  Then in green, those eligible for government programs. That's 9.7 
million. That is these people here, 3 percent. They're eligible most 
generally for Medicaid, but they don't sign up. But they're on the 
list, 9.7 million. We're adding up to 47 million as we go. Here are 
those that have coverage eligible under their employer. That's around 6 
million people. These folks opted out or didn't opt in to their 
employer-provided health coverage, health insurance coverage.
  So all of these lists that we have, from illegal immigrants to new 
immigrants, $75,000 or more and could buy their own insurance, those 
who are eligible for government programs and don't sign up, those who 
are eligible for employer programs and don't sign up--all of that, you 
subtract that from 47 million and, Mr. Speaker, you come up with a 
number that is 12.1 million Americans who don't have health insurance 
and don't have affordable options.
  I have another little chart that shows this. This is the breakdown of 
this group here. This spectrum from yellow to--well, red or orange has 
been put now on a chart. This is 47 million. Here is how we show this. 
These are the different categories that I said: illegals, legals, those 
that are eligible for Medicaid, those eligible under employers, and 
that full list. But here in orange, 12.1 million people, less than 4 
percent of the population of the United States, and we're going to 
change here in the House of Representatives, working with the Senate 
and with the effort of the President and likely his signature for less 
than 4 percent of the population?
  Let me look at this. This sliver right here, that's 12.1 million 
Americans, this piece, and that's less than 4 percent of the population 
of the United States. The President's proposal and the liberals' and 
the Progressives' proposal, the Democrats' proposal is to transform 100 
percent of the health insurance industry in the United States and 100 
percent of the health care delivery system in the United States to try 
to reduce this 12.1 million number down to something less than that, 
maybe something less than 6 million, but certainly not down to zero.
  The President stood here and tried to tell us that the proposal would 
not fund illegals, but his Democrats have voted down the amendments in 
Energy and Commerce and in Ways and Means that would have required 
proof of citizenship in order to access these benefits that are written 
into H.R. 3200, the bill. So it's pretty hard for the President to be 
critical of those who make allegations about his veracity when the 
facts show otherwise, Mr. Speaker.
  I hope that that dances along the edge of the rules adequately and 
still carries forth the message. I'm trusting the American people to be 
intelligent, well informed, objective, not selfish and be able to self-
sacrifice, to reach out and help others, but remember to preserve our 
freedoms. If we sacrifice our freedoms, if we throw over the side that 
vitality that makes us great, the dependency takes away our vitality. 
Urgency and need add to our vitality.
  Free market capitalism has been a driving force in this country. Yet 
to date, according to The Wall Street Journal, a third of our private 
sector has been nationalized within the last year. A third of it. When 
you add three large investment banks that are nationalized, AIG, the 
large insurance company, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General Motors, 
Chrysler, eight large huge entities swallowed up and nationalized, 
which means the Federal Government controls them. That's a third of our 
private sector, and this health care industry here is between another 
14.5 percent and 17.5 percent of our GDP. The range is somewhere 
between the two.
  But if you add those numbers up to what's already been nationalized, 
you are up to over half of the private sector of the United States. We 
need to remember that going to Western Europe and looking for ideas and 
seeking to conform to the ideas that are driven in Western Europe 
diminish our freedoms. They don't enhance our freedoms. We are a unique 
people. There is something unique about being an American. We aren't 
simply an extension of Europe. We are our own people. We're free people 
that came here to live free or die. I love the motto of New Hampshire: 
``Live free or die.'' That has been the case for hundreds of years here 
in the United States.
  We've skimmed the cream off the donor crop from every civilization 
that sent us people. It was hard to get here. The people that had a 
dream got here. When they came here, they built on their dreams. They 
built on our dreams because we have freedom. We have got to expand our 
freedom, not diminish it. We shouldn't be expanding our government. Now 
we have got to shrink our government. We have got to find a way to have 
a private sector that can have the kind of growth necessary to ever pay 
off this national debt and save people their freedom so that they're 
not underneath the thumb of a national health care act.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________