[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[HOU]
[Pages 11450-11457]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            BROKEN PROMISES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Markey of Colorado). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, it's an honor to have the 
opportunity to address you here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives, and picking up where my colleagues left off, they have 
given, I think, a good presentation over the last 60 minutes that 
covered a lot of important territory with regard to the budget and the 
spending. I think they've made the point that since the rules of the 
House required a budget resolution, this House has never before failed 
to pass a budget. There are political reasons for that.
  I happen to see a quote over on the wall that I hadn't picked up 
before, and it didn't attribute it to anyone, but I am pretty sure it 
wasn't a Republican, Madam Speaker. It was a quote that, generally 
speaking, was this, that, well, until the deficit reduction commission 
would meet and produce a decision, we couldn't possibly pass a budget 
here in the House. And that would be--oh, let me see, a week or two or 
so after the election in November. Imagine, Congress can't do its work 
unless the President appoints a deficit commission, and that deficit 
commission couldn't possibly return a recommendation to this Congress 
until after the people have spoken.
  It's amazing to me, Madam Speaker. The people have spoken. The people 
in this country have elected their Representatives that serve on this 
side of the aisle over here in the majority, on this side of the aisle 
over here in the

[[Page 11451]]

minority. We have a responsibility to step forward and bring a budget, 
and that budget needs to be the reflection of spending discipline and 
the spending priorities of the House of Representatives.
  According to the Constitution, all spending starts here--not in the 
Senate. It starts here. And traditionally, the House has received the 
President's budget, his budget recommendation. We've evaluated that 
budget in the process of moving a budget resolution here in the House--
in a responsible fashion when Republicans were in charge at least. I 
think in a less responsible fashion, but at least it got done before 
when Democrats were in charge, until now.

                              {time}  1930

  But the spending has been so irresponsible that even the 
irresponsible overspending Democrats don't have enough will to bring a 
budget to the floor and allow it to be debated and voted upon here on 
the floor of the House, where the rules require us to do so. Because 
why? Because the President has appointed a Deficit Reduction 
Commission, after spending trillions of dollars irresponsibly, and now 
he has put these brains to work to figure out how to solve an 
unsolvable problem.
  I know what that feels like, Madam Speaker. I remember going through 
the farm crisis in the eighties. I remember when asset values were 
going in a downward spiral and opportunities for increasing revenue 
were also going in a downward spiral, and the customer base that I had 
was doing what was happening to me. My bank was closed down by the 
FDIC. All accounts were frozen. Commerce came to a halt. I had two 
pennies in my pocket, a payroll to meet, kids to feed, a business to 
run, bank loans to pay even though the bank was closed by the FDIC, 
opened up next Monday by new owners. I know how that thing works.
  You set your priorities. You step up to your responsibilities. But I 
have sat there at my desk during those years with my legal pad and my 
calculator trying to figure out how to make it work. And I know what it 
feels like when you think that there is something wrong with your brain 
because you can't solve a problem.
  Well, there is something wrong with the people's brains that spent 
all this money all right. And now the problem they can't solve is how 
to present a budget to the Congress because they have created an 
intractable, unsolvable budget problem not by being caught in an 
economic downward spiral exclusively, but by going into a downward 
spiral where Federal revenues are being reduced in proportion to the 
downward economic spiral while they are increasing the spending like 
they are in an upward economic spiral. These two things are going 
opposite directions. Federal revenues are going down; Federal spending 
is going up.
  The divergence of these two lines, the income and the outgo, have 
gotten so far apart that even the people without a conscience towards 
balancing a budget, and I mean the Democrats in this Congress, they are 
having a little trouble selling the idea to the Blue Dogs. Yes, Blue 
Dogs have gone underground. They have been quiet. They haven't been as 
active as they were in the past. They are certainly not as bold as they 
have been when I used to stand here and take lectures from the Blue 
Dogs that said, We want to balance the budget. What's wrong with 
Republicans that they can't balance the budget?
  Well, nothing wrong with me, because I voted for every balanced 
budget that's been offered on the floor of this House since I came 
here. And I don't know why I wouldn't continue to do that. And we are 
looking for a chance to bring a balanced budget to the floor again, and 
we will. We will if we can break the mold here.
  But this House, led by the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has so kowtowed to 
the President's spending priorities and spent trillions unnecessarily. 
The number that I had added up in my head standing on the floor here a 
week or two ago was $2.34 trillion of unnecessary spending, $2.34 
trillion.
  And the President's budget as he presented it, it's the only budget 
we've got to go with. No conscience to try to balance it. No conscience 
to try to limit it. Today a baby born in America, their share of the 
national debt--you just might say that here's the IOU that that little 
old baby, when their footprint goes down on the birth certificate is an 
acknowledgement that their share of the national debt that they owe 
Uncle Sam is $44,000. And we worry about that little child, all the 
money that it takes to provide health care and education and clothing 
and housing and nurture and love to bring that child up into 
responsible adulthood. That little old child that grows into 
responsible adulthood, we worry about them carrying a student loan debt 
that might be, oh, let's say--pick a number in the ballpark. It's not a 
statistical number. It's a ballpark number. Maybe $40,000 worth of 
student loans when they finish college.
  That burden of servicing the interest and the principal on a $40,000 
student loan, we worry about that. Well, I would be happy to take that 
$40,000 loan and a guarantee of a college degree and think that child 
could pay that off.
  But for nothing. They don't get a college degree. They don't get an 
education. They just get access to citizenship of the United States of 
America for their $44,000 that's their share of the national debt, a 
little baby with ink on their foot stamped right there on the birth 
certificate. There is one in this country we haven't seen, but the 
footprint on those we have seen, those little babies owe Uncle Sam 
$44,000.
  And, Madam Speaker, when that little child enters into fifth grade, 
and I picked fifth grade because that's the budget cycle. We do 10-year 
budget cycles, and we calculate our revenue stream. We calculate our 
outgo over a 10-year period of time. We put a number figure on 
something like, oh, let's say ObamaCare, what does that cost? That's 
over a 10-year period of time. So when that little child, from 10 years 
to the time they are born, they will be starting fifth grade. When they 
start fifth grade, that little child that owes Uncle Sam $44,000 that 
was born today owes Uncle Sam at that point, starting in the fifth 
grade, $88,000 under President Obama's budget. Doubles the individual 
national debt share just projecting the President's budget. And that, 
Madam Speaker, is with the President's own numbers. It's that bad.
  There isn't going to be a solution coming out of the deficit 
commission because there is an intractable problem that's been created 
by irresponsible overspending and a myopic, wrongheaded view that John 
Maynard Keynes had the right idea when he came up with this cooked-up 
theory back before the Great Depression began that if you wanted to 
recover from an economic downward trend you would just take a lot of 
government money and borrow it from somewhere and dump it into the 
economy, give it to people, and get them to spend it. That's the 
Keynesian economic theory.
  Government would put money into the hands of people; people would go 
spend the money, and spending that money would stimulate the economy. 
That was his plan coming into the thirties. When FDR was elected, 
that's what they did. They overspent. They spent the country into more 
deficit than they had seen before, and borrowed money and put it into 
the economy in all kinds of programs. The WPA, the CCC come to mind as 
some of those programs.
  Now, that was nice for the people there that got the government jobs, 
and it was nice to have the soup lines. But here's what I know. When 
government is putting out borrowed money to pay people to do something 
else that's in competition with the private sector or pay people not to 
work, it's awfully hard to recover economically, because it takes the 
private sector to bring us out of this economy.
  So this White House now has taken a look at the model of the 
thirties, and the President of the United States, his lesson, his 
takeaway from the whole lesson of the Great Depression was this: FDR 
lost his nerve. That's what the President said, February 10, 2009, 
before our conference, ten feet away from me, said FDR lost his nerve. 
He should have spent a lot more money. If

[[Page 11452]]

he had spent more money, the President's opinion, this country would 
have come out of the Great Depression almost before it--he didn't say 
this word--but you know, before we got into the depths of it. And he 
argued that FDR lost his nerve, should have spent more money. If he had 
done that, we would not have had the depression that lasted a full 
decade and more.
  And he argued that because FDR lost his nerve and failed to spend 
enough government money, what we had was--and this is according to the 
President's words--a recession within a depression, and unemployment 
numbers that went up during that period of time instead of down. And 
then he said along came World War II, which was the greatest economic 
stimulus plan ever.
  I would even take issue with that statement. But I am going to 
concede his point there and not make an argument about it, Madam 
Speaker, because there is some basis for that statement. It's not 
completely off base at all. There is just a different perspective that 
I would emphasize.
  But I would argue that sending this Nation into debt and borrowing 
money and putting it into the hands of people not in exchange for 
production, but just in exchange sometimes for make-work or doing 
something was not the right way to come out of a depression or a 
recession. What we need to do is increase productivity. We need to get 
the private sector more competitive. And he has done everything but let 
the private sector get more competitive.
  But this Keynesian economist on steroids, which is our President, has 
not made what he considered to be the same mistake that Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt made. Remember, Roosevelt lost his nerve. He didn't spend 
enough money. The President hasn't lost his nerve. He spent a lot more 
money than FDR would have thought of spending. He spent a lot more 
money than John Maynard Keynes would have thought of spending.
  Keynes's argument was this. He said, I will solve all the 
unemployment in America for you, and here is how I will do it. We will 
go get a whole bunch of American cash--now, I am paraphrasing here; 
there is an exact quote that does take this message out--a whole bunch 
of American cash, American dollars, and I will find an abandoned coal 
mine. And we will go out and we will drill holes with a drill rig all 
over into that abandoned coal mine, and we will stuff these holes full 
of cash. And then we will haul garbage in there and fill that abandoned 
coal mine up with garbage--this is before the EPA, you might remember--
and then we will just turn the entrepreneurs loose to go in and dig up 
the money. We will solve all the unemployment problem.
  People will go in and dig up the money. There will be a whole 
industry involved, almost like mining it for gold. I am adding an 
embellishment here, because I have included Keynes's image of this and 
I am adding the embellishment beyond. So his idea was, though, that 
people would go in, dig through the garbage, dig up the money out of 
the holes in the abandoned coal mine, and it would become an industry. 
And they would probably need some equipment. They would need shovels at 
least, and there would be people industriously digging through garbage 
and pulling the cash out and taking it to town. It wouldn't even be 
like gold where they had to go to the assay office. Cash was just as 
good.
  It reminds me of the movie that was produced that had the Beatles in 
it years and years ago called ``The Magic Christian.'' And in ``The 
Magic Christian'' movie, they wanted to emphasize that there were a lot 
of greedy people in the world. And they filled this swimming pool full 
of all kinds of sewage and garbage and junk and things that would be 
revolting to jump into. And then there is a scene in the movie where 
doctors and lawyers and professionals and probably gangsters and every 
character that you can think of that they wanted to denigrate--they 
filled it full of garbage and junk and sewage and then dumped a bunch 
of cash in there. They had people diving into that, fighting over the 
cash. That image in ``The Magic Christian'' is the same image, a 
similar image that's created by John Maynard Keynes. But those things 
don't produce an economy. They don't produce wealth.
  We have to be an economy that produces goods and services that are 
essential first for the survival of humanity and then essential to 
improve the productivity of humanity. And the next level is so that 
there is a savings or disposable income component to this so that we 
can go do the things we enjoy doing. But if an economy compresses down 
to the essentials, it will be a survivalist economy where our effort 
and our industry goes towards staying alive.
  The next level is the level of productivity where our endeavor 
increases our productivity so that we can be competitive and we can 
compile wealth and use that wealth to increase our productivity that 
then increases our standard of living and our quality of life. And if 
the survival component of the economy and the increased productivity 
component of the economy gets high enough, then there is disposable 
wealth for us to spend to enjoy life, like go to the ball game, go on a 
vacation, take the kids fishing, go to Disney World, take the family 
out to Washington, D.C., see the monuments, go to the National Archives 
and to Arlington Cemetery. Those things, that's from disposable income 
that comes out, the recreational travel, the nonessential things that 
we spend money on, and that creates another industry.
  But as you chase those industries down, you will chase them down to 
those components that are essential for the survival of Homo sapiens on 
this planet. That's the real economy. That's the economy we've got to 
stimulate. That's the one we have to let grow. It's stimulated by low 
taxes; it's stimulated by low regulation, and it's stimulated by 
entrepreneurs that understand the idea that they can invest some money 
or create an endeavor that will produce a profit for them that feeds 
their family and builds up some capital that can be used to increase 
their productivity so that the business can grow and they can hire 
employees and people have jobs. That's the economy we are supposed to 
support.
  I think it's completely outside the understanding of the White House. 
I look around and I wonder who in the White House has actually signed 
the front side of the paycheck. Who's had employees? Who's started a 
business? Who's bought a business? Who's maintained and expanded an 
existing business that's in the White House circle? Who thinks like a 
free enterprise capitalist or like an entrepreneur? Is there anybody 
there that has an instinctive understanding of what it's like to start 
with something or maybe even start with nothing and create jobs and 
wealth? That's what America has done.
  We have had the scenario that lets us do that. We have had the 
entrepreneurs. We have had the people with the dream that came to the 
United States because they knew this was a place where they could be 
allowed to succeed, and no one could come and take away the fruit of 
their labor and their endeavor. That's been the American Dream and it's 
been the American guarantee.
  And now, now the White House can go in and order the terms of a 
bankruptcy for Chrysler or General Motors and direct that 17.5 percent 
of the shares of General Motors be handed over to the labor unions, the 
United Auto Workers who didn't have skin in the game except the 
potential for a future job. And yes, they had a benefits package out 
there, but their skin in the game wasn't conceded. They didn't concede 
a single point. Maybe some outside claims on insurance that could come 
in later years that all of them at the table believed was going to be 
replaced by ObamaCare anyway. There was no risk on UAW. They got handed 
17.5 percent of the ownership of General Motors at what, the expense of 
the secured creditors, the stockholders, the bondholders that had the 
first mortgage on the asset values of General Motors taken out by the 
White House.

                              {time}  1945

  Never before in America have we seen a scenario like that where it 
was testified under oath by the Treasurer of the State of Indiana that 
in the case of

[[Page 11453]]

Chrysler, the Obama White House went into the bankruptcy court and 
dictated terms going in, and the terms that came out after chapter 11 
were exactly the terms dictated by the White House. Of the testimony 
that took place in the chapter 11 bankruptcy hearings, there wasn't one 
jot or tittle that was changed as a result of the testimony because the 
White House dictated the terms.
  The Obama administration were the only ones that were evaluating the 
assets of Chrysler going into chapter 11. And who is the only buyer on 
the other side? Well, the White House. Never before in a bankruptcy 
court. That is unjust. You can't get justice out of a scenario of a 
chapter 11 bankruptcy court that allows the same entity that is setting 
the terms to be the entity that is buying.
  The White House is saying here is what the value of Chrysler is and 
here is what we are willing to pay and nobody else gets to be a bidder. 
And in the case of General Motors, take these shares away from the 
shareholders, take the assets away from the secured bond holders, push 
them over there and turn them over to the United Auto Workers.
  So what, so they can run the business of General Motors for the 
benefit of the people affected by it. Doesn't that sound good. Doesn't 
that sound great, Madam Speaker. Run a Fortune 500 company for the 
benefit of the people affected by it. Where have I heard that language 
before? Run a business for the benefit of the people affected by it. 
Oh, yes, I know where I have heard that language before, Madam Speaker. 
I read it on the Socialist Web site. You can go read it yourself, 
dsausa.org. They want to nationalize the Fortune 500 companies which 
would include General Motors and Chrysler. I don't know if it includes 
BP, but I imagine they are in their sights today.
  And they say we are not Communists; we are Socialists. We don't want 
to nationalize every business in America; we just want to nationalize 
the Fortune 500 companies and a few others that catch our attention. 
And we want to manage them for the benefit of the people affected by 
them. That is a quote: manage them for the benefit of the people 
affected by them. Dsausa.org, it is the Socialist Web site, who, by the 
way, tell us they don't run candidates on the Socialist ticket as if 
they were Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians or Communists. They run 
candidates on the Democrat ticket as Progressives, and they say the 
Progressives are the legislative arm of the Socialists.
  So I read this and I am thinking, all right, but why would I take 
that seriously? They are attaching themselves to the Progressives in 
Congress, so I research a little more. I find out that there is a Web 
site for the Progressives here in Congress. The gentleman from Arizona 
(Mr. Grijalva), it is a Web site that has his name on it now. It is 
often up here on a blue board with white letters that is presented by 
Keith Ellison of Minnesota. I see him constantly advertising the 
Progressives.
  So I go back and do a little research, and I find out that the 
Socialists were the ones that managed the Progressive Web site until 
1999. Yes, they are an offshoot. They are joined together at the hip. 
They are Siamese twins. The Progressives here in Congress are the 
Siamese twin of the Socialists of America. The Socialists ran their Web 
site until they took a little heat in 1999, and then they decided the 
Socialists running the Progressive Web site was a little too obvious a 
link, so the Progressives took over their own Web site and started to 
run it from there. But the Socialists still have on their Web site the 
proud bond between them and the Progressives in the United States 
Congress.
  The last time I looked at the list of the Progressives on the 
Progressive Web site, there were 77 Members of Congress that were 
listed. Of these 77 Members, they would be obviously among the most 
liberal left wing Members of Congress. But the people in America don't 
think of liberal left wing Democrats as Socialists. They think of them 
as people who are for a little more social justice, but they don't 
think of them as Socialists. If they would read the Socialist Web site, 
I think that would be a pretty good description of what a Socialist is.
  When you read on the Web site that they want to nationalize the 
Fortune 500 companies, and then you can minimize your dsausa.org Web 
site, and then open up the Progressive Web site and read on there what 
they want to do. Well, let me see. They want to nationalize the energy 
industry in America. They want to nationalize the oil refinery in 
America. Those would be statements written and said, stated by Maxine 
Waters of California and Maurice Hinchey of New York respectively. I 
read those statements through the press, and I hear them make them. I 
go back and look at the Progressive Web site, and it says on there: 
Proud Member of the Progressive Caucus, Maxine Waters, Maurice Hinchey. 
And then I go over to the Socialist Web site and I read on there, We 
want to nationalize the Fortune 500 companies. We want to nationalize 
the energy industry. We want to nationalize the oil refinery industry.
  You see the pattern here, Madam Speaker. What is on the Socialist Web 
site is an agenda. It is on the Progressive Members of Congress caucus 
Web site as an agenda. And this agenda is being carried out by the 
White House and people are proudly advocating for these ideas while 
never admitting that they are a Siamese twin of the Socialists, who 
brought this out, and they have done this for a couple of decades or 
more and made this advocacy.
  Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the one member of the 
Progressive Caucus, at least on the list, he is not in the House but he 
is in the Senate, Madam Speaker, Senator Bernie Sanders. He is a self-
avowed Socialist. I know of no one who has tried to rebut his statement 
that he is a Socialist. He is a proud Socialist United States Senator. 
He remains, I believe, a member in good standing as a member of the 
Progressive Caucus over here. Bernie Sanders advocates many of the 
things that are on the Progressive Web site, and certainly they are 
tied together. I have explained how that works. He is the highest 
profile Socialist in the United States of America, and no one has 
challenged his position that he is a Socialist. That would be like 
someone saying Steve King is not a Republican, Madam Speaker. And so I 
take him at his word. Senator Sanders from Vermont is a Socialist. They 
have elected him; that is how it goes. I don't like it, but that is how 
it goes. I don't dislike him; I just disagree with him philosophically. 
But that is how it goes in America.
  So he is a Progressive and a Socialist, and we have 77 Progressives 
in this Congress. Well, are they Socialists? I think many are. I don't 
know if all are. But I know this: if you look at the voting records of 
President Obama when he was in the United States Senate serving with 
Bernie Sanders, it is clear that President Obama voted to the left of 
Socialist Senator Sanders of Vermont, consistently to the left.
  So, Madam Speaker, the argument is not what is the ideology of our 
President. It is what is to the left of a Socialist. That is the 
argument that is out there and what we need to consider and 
contemplate. I believe this, that if you want to declare something not 
to be Socialism, however it is Socialism, you have to figure out how to 
redefine something to the American people. They are smart enough to 
know what words mean. They know what Socialism is. They know what 
irresponsible overspending is.
  They know when a President and a Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi and 
Majority Leader Reid, disagree with the will of the American people. 
They understand that it is free enterprise that has driven the economy 
of this Nation to success, and economically has been the component that 
allowed for the United States of America to be the unchallenged 
greatest Nation in the world. They understand that the bogged down 
economies, managed economies, whether it was central planning in the 
Soviet Union that finally collapsed in 1991, or whether it is the 
unstimulating economy that has bogged down Western Europe for a long 
time, that the vitality in this American economy that keeps chugging

[[Page 11454]]

along is rooted in the individual entrepreneurs that are the invisible 
hands that are making decisions every day that turns this economy and 
makes it move.
  We are not about to give up on free enterprise even though we have 
people that don't believe in it that own the gavels today, even though 
we have a President of the United States and a White House staff and a 
lot of the Cabinet that don't understand, nor do they appreciate or 
believe in free enterprise capitalism. I doubt if there is anybody out 
there in the White House that can say, Yes, I read ``Wealth of 
Nations.'' I understand it. I understand the division of labor. I 
understand the comparative advantage that Adam Smith wrote about. No, 
they understand Karl Marx, but they don't understand Adam Smith.
  This is where we are, and it is why we have to push the reset button 
in November. This Nation is resilient. We can come back from this. We 
have a lot of debt and deficit that we have to pay off. We have a 
lowering national image abroad. We have a military that took a serious 
reset today, and I pray that it gets turned out for the best.
  I think that some of our tasks are very difficult, but finding our 
soul is going to be the most difficult one. America will produce and 
bring us to a greater level of greatness yet if we find our soul, if we 
redefine and identify the pillars of American exceptionalism and chart 
ourselves down that path that goes beyond the shining city on the hill 
that Ronald Reagan so well spoke of and take us to the level that we 
can achieve, that we can see just beyond our horizons now.
  Truthfully, I didn't come here to speak about any of the things I 
have spent the last half hour discussing. I wrote a number of subject 
matters down on a piece of paper, and I would like to refer over. I 
mentioned, Madam Speaker, the ObamaCare issue. And here is where we 
are. Whether it was 2 months or 3 months ago today that ObamaCare 
passed, I think this is a monthly anniversary of that tragic day when 
this Congress refused to use its common sense and refused to listen to 
the will of the people. Somehow they seem to be shut up here in 
Washington, and the constituents couldn't get to them and they hammered 
through and force fed an ObamaCare bill on the American people that 
today is the law of the land.
  There was a cry that went out for almost a year from this country of 
the people that said I don't want my health care taken over and 
nationalized by the Federal Government. And bills that came in, 1,994 
pages dropped on us near the end of October. It was a Thursday, 1,994 
pages. We held a quick meeting a couple of hours after the bill was 
out. We didn't get a warning. Nobody is working with our side of the 
aisle. This is all drop the ambush on them if you can. Don't give them 
time to regroup their forces. We are going to bring this ObamaCare bill 
and try to turn it into law.
  Well, a couple of hours after it was electronically available, our 
very astute staff put together an analysis of ObamaCare. And after that 
2 hours, they presented us in the period of about an hour what they 
thought was in it in a quick cursory example. They broke it apart in 
titles and went down through the titles and told us what they thought 
we had. I thought they did a very good job of it, and it was very 
accurate. I appreciate the work that was done. We understood this: we 
had to kill the bill. We put all kinds of effort into that. People from 
every State came to this city to lend their voices in trying to kill 
ObamaCare because they wanted to keep their freedom.

                              {time}  2000

  I want to keep my freedom, and I joined with them.
  We came very, very close in November, December, right down to 
Christmas Eve when Harry Reid, the old scrooge, put the bitter pill out 
there on the floor of the Senate and America was force-fed that bitter 
pill that took away the liberty of the American people and nationalized 
our skin and everything inside it. That passed the Senate on Christmas 
Eve, and then it still had to face a cloture vote in the Senate. The 
people from Massachusetts rose up and decided they were going to do the 
improbable and the impossible, and they elected Scott Brown to the 
United States Senate, who said, I will oppose ObamaCare, and he came 
here to do just that. And in an unusual and in an unexpected and a 
unique tactic, they circumvented the vote in the Senate and shoved a 
vote here on the floor of the House on a promise that there would be 
another package passed through the Senate.
  So we had this scenario that happened. When ObamaCare passed--and I'm 
talking about the bill, not the recissions package that came along 
afterwards--at the moment that ObamaCare passed, it could not have 
passed the Senate. When it passed the House and went to the President's 
desk, it could not have passed the Senate. And it did not enjoy a 
majority support here in the House unless there was a promise that they 
would pass a recissions bill afterwards that would give some of the 
holdouts the things that they thought they needed to amend the bill.
  So they toyed with the idea of actually amending a bill that hadn't 
become law. That was the effort. There couldn't be an honest effort to 
put together a bill that was debated and perfected and amended in 
committee and on the floor so that it could become the will of the 
House or the will of the Senate. Neither the will of the House nor the 
Senate was passed that day when ObamaCare was passed. Maybe that's 
inside baseball, Madam Speaker, but here's where the American people 
are today. Wherever I go in this country I hear people say, ``I want my 
country back.'' They have seen this administration--and, yes, some of 
it started in the previous administration--but it had everything that 
I'm about to list, it had 100 percent support of Barack Obama whether 
he was a United States Senator, whether he was the President-elect, or 
whether he was the President of the United States, had most of it under 
his guidance as President of the United States.
  Here's what happened. This Federal Government took over, 
nationalized--and when I say nationalized, I mean ownership, 
management, or control of--three large investment banks, AIG, Fannie 
Mae, Freddie Mac, General Motors, Chrysler--where am I going? There's 
more to this. All the student loan programs in America, all of that 
swallowed up by the Obama administration. And I'm going to go through 
that, that's one-third of the private sector activity according to 
Professor Boyles at Arizona State University, one-third.
  And then, along came ObamaCare, which passed. The gentleman earlier 
talked about that being 17 percent of our economy. The number I see is 
17.5 percent. Well, we're close, we're within half a percentage point, 
who really knows? But when I add it up, I added 18 to 31 percent, that 
takes us to 51 percent. The question is, whether it's 50.5 percent or 
51 percent of the private sector activity taken over by this Federal 
Government--three large investment banks, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, 
General Motors, Chrysler, all the student loans in America, now the 
nationalization of our bodies, of our health care, taking away a 
person's individual choices on how they will manage their health care, 
what insurance policies they will buy because, after all, the Health 
Choices Administration czar--they call him a commissioner, I call him a 
``commizarissioner''--will write the rules later.
  There isn't a single health care policy in America that the President 
of the United States can say I guarantee that this policy will be 
available to you when ObamaCare is implemented, not one. Remember, he 
promised America that if you like your health insurance policy, you get 
to keep it. He promised that over and over again. It was no guiding 
light, it was no promise, except a broken one. And I began to wonder--
there's a Web site out there that's a whole list of all of the broken 
Obama promises. It goes on and on and on. I wonder if he doesn't have a 
czar that's charged with keeping track of all of the Obama promises and 
making sure

[[Page 11455]]

that he can break every single one of them in his first term. He's got 
a great start. But I know the American people don't see a guarantee and 
a promise from the President anymore.
  If you like your health insurance policy, you get to keep it, I 
promise. Well, so what? Your promise means nothing because what we know 
today is there isn't a single policy in America that anybody believes 
that they get to keep on the other side of the implementation of 
ObamaCare.
  And so if I'd stitch this back together, the list that I've gone 
through--the banks, AIG, Fannie and Freddie, General Motors, Chrysler, 
student loans, all of that, a third of private sector activity--
ObamaCare, 17.5 percent of the private sector activity of the health 
care swallowed up, taken over by the time this is implemented in 2014. 
And so now we're at 51 percent of the former private sector activity 
now nationalized, taken over, under the ownership, management, or 
control of the Federal Government.
  The gentleman earlier talked about Hugo Chavez. I remember seeing a 
picture of the President glad handing his handshake with Hugo Chavez 
almost a year ago. And I said at the time, when it comes to 
nationalizing companies--Hugo Chavez had just taken over a Cargill rice 
plant in Venezuela, but when it comes to nationalizing companies, Hugo 
Chavez is a piker; he cannot hold a candle to the President of the 
United States. And that's just a fact, Madam Speaker, it's not an 
embellished fact, it's just a fact.
  So today we've lost 51 percent of our private sector activity to the 
nationalization of this Federal Government. They have nationalized, 
under ObamaCare, our skin and everything inside it. The most sovereign 
thing that we have, now we can't manage it the way we managed it 
before. It will be that we can only manage our health care in the 
future under the permission of the Federal Government. And by the way, 
nationalize our skin and everything inside it. And let's just say that 
if your daughter is getting ready for the prom or a wedding and she 
wants to go to the tanning salon, ObamaCare taxes the outside of your 
skin too, to the tune of 10 percent. What is that about? Couldn't they 
restrain themselves? Why do something that's so blatant as that that it 
embellishes the argument that the nanny state is going to prevail? Are 
they really worried about somebody's health?
  They wanted to tax a non-diet pop. They want to manage behavior, they 
want to control diets. They're involved in an effort to take 1.5 
trillion calories out of the diet of kids because one-third of our 
youth are obese. And Secretary Gates, I believe, has spoken about this, 
our Secretary of Defense, that there is a higher percentage of young 
people that don't qualify to go into the military because they've got 
too much blubber around their belt, so they can't qualify. I would say 
this then: If they're healthy otherwise, bring them in. If they meet 
all other standards but they're a little too fat, bring them into basic 
training, just keep them there a while longer. By the time you run them 
around the field in combat boots a few more times and put them on a 
diet and exercise plan, you'll get them where you want them to be. 
They're still good shells of physical specimens, they just need to be 
cracked into shape. It doesn't mean we have a national security problem 
because too many kids are fat. I think we do have a problem, though, a 
nanny security program if this Federal Government is going to try to 
control the diets of our kids in this country. Taking away our liberty, 
taking away our freedom, disregarding the vitality of America that 
comes from our individualism, from being able to make choices, being 
held responsible for choices.
  So ObamaCare has got to go, Madam Speaker. And there are those who 
think, oh, we can't get it done. It's hopeless now, the bill is passed, 
let's move on. We need to look ahead, not backwards. Well, listen, if 
we're going to look ahead, we have to look backwards and determine that 
ObamaCare is a terrible idea. It's an unconstitutional thing, it's an 
unconscionable thing to do to a free people.

                              {time}  2010

  America, with its vitality, loses a chunk of its vitality when you 
take away our individualism and our liberty, and if people think we 
can't repeal ObamaCare, let me lay out this scenario. It works like 
this:
  Every single Republican voted ``no'' on ObamaCare. There were 34 
Democrats who voted ``no'' on ObamaCare. There was only one thing 
bipartisan about ObamaCare, and that was the opposition to ObamaCare--
in the House and in the Senate. So ObamaCare is the law of the land, 
but the implementation of it doesn't get completed until 2014. That's 
when we are really saddled with the juggernaut of this ``taking our 
decisions away from us and creating the dependency on people so that 
they no longer think about the freedom and liberty of making their own 
choices.'' So here is how we repeal ObamaCare.
  First of all, there is Michele Bachmann, Parker Griffith, Bob Inglis, 
I believe, Jerry Moran--and there may be Todd Akin--and I. Those people 
I can think of have all introduced legislation to repeal ObamaCare, a 
standalone repeal of ObamaCare that is simply this: A 100 percent 
repeal of ObamaCare. Pull it out by the roots. Pull it out root and 
branch and lock, stock and barrel so there is not one particle of 
ObamaCare DNA left behind. This has become a toxic stew that we have 
ingested now, and it is turning into a malignant tumor that will start 
to metastasize in 2014 when ObamaCare is fully implemented. So here is 
what we do:
  Of my bill and others' bills, we have 90-some cosponsors on this 
legislation. I have introduced a discharge petition. I think it's 
discharge petition No. 11. I'm not certain of the number. I think 
that's the number. I've signed it. A lot of others have signed it. A 
lot more need to sign it because of this: If a discharge petition gets 
218 signatures on it here in the well of the House, it has to come to 
the floor for a vote unamended. That means we can force a vote even 
over the will of the Speaker of the House, who, surely, would do 
everything she could do to resist the repeal of ObamaCare. We could 
force a vote, but the process of getting to 218 signatures on a 
discharge petition identifies--separates, let's say--the men from the 
boys and the women from the girls.
  Now, if you really were sincerely against ObamaCare, it's one thing 
to vote against it, and 34 Democrats did. Nancy Pelosi let them off the 
hook because they were afraid they would lose their seats in their 
districts, but who knows how many of them were serious. When we 
actually had the motion to recommit on no mandates, on no Federal 
mandates to buy insurance, there were only 21 Democrats who voted with 
that as opposed to the 34 who voted ``no'' on ObamaCare. So you've seen 
the conviction drop by 13 just in that little exchange.
  How many of those 21 really have conviction?
  We'll find out because the discharge petition is here, and I 
challenge those 21. In fact, I challenge those 34--and everybody else 
who is opposed to ObamaCare--to sign the discharge petition. Let's 
bring that discharge petition to the floor and repeal ObamaCare. Let's 
pull it out by the roots. Let's send it over to the Senate. Let's see 
what Jim DeMint and others can get done over there. That's what we need 
to do here in the House of Representatives.
  Now, maybe that doesn't get itself accomplished and get ObamaCare 
repealed, because people in America, Mr. Speaker, can think in 
sequences, in logical, multiple sequences. All of the solutions are out 
there in America. I trust the judgment of our voters. They know this: 
If we are successful in getting 218 signatures on a discharge petition 
and if we pass the repeal of ObamaCare and if it goes down the hallway 
and across, through the Rotunda and over to Harry Reid, of course he'll 
do everything he can to kill it.
  Maybe they'll find a way to get that done over in the Senate. Then it 
would go to the President, and we know what would happen. He would veto 
the bill. So it would come back to the House or

[[Page 11456]]

to the Senate for an opportunity to override the Presidential veto.
  It's not something you would consider to be politically possible 
today. Maybe there is an outside chance that it could be possible by 
the time we get to November. I doubt it, too--I'm skeptical about 
that--but we'll have put the marker down, Mr. Speaker. We will have 
separated the women from the girls and the men from the boys with the 
discharge petition. We'll have set the stage for the other side of 
November, the other side into the next Congress, when, I believe, the 
gavels will come into different hands from our side of the aisle, in 
which case we can move a repeal of ObamaCare as a standalone, a 100 
percent repeal of ObamaCare as a standalone. We can do that. When that 
would happen, we would recognize President Obama would veto that, and 
we would have to figure out how to come up with a two-thirds majority 
to overturn the Presidential veto.
  Again, that's a very, very high bar, but this Constitution here in my 
jacket pocket tells me all spending has to start here in the House, Mr. 
Speaker. All spending has to start here in the House. So a House 
controlled with a gavel in the hands of Republicans would simply refuse 
to fund any dollars. Any American taxpayer dollars would be prohibited 
to be used to implement ObamaCare. That could work really well in a 
Republican majority in 2011 and in 2012. So ObamaCare wouldn't be 
implemented. It would be sitting there without implementation, and 
Republicans would have passed a repeal of ObamaCare at least once 
during that period of time, maybe more times. Then we elect a President 
in 2012 who takes, as a matter of his campaign and his oath, his number 
one priority, which is to sign the repeal of ObamaCare. Pull it out by 
the roots.
  So I have this vision of a President of the United States taking the 
oath of office, Mr. Speaker, with pen in hand: I swear to the best of 
my ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States, so help me God. Pen in hand.
  Normally, the President will turn and shake hands with the Chief 
Justice and with the outgoing President, and there will be a great 
celebration up there on the west portico of the Capitol. I would like 
to see him interrupt that for one thing. I'd like to see that pen in 
his hand when he takes the oath. I'd like to see the repeal of 
ObamaCare right there at the podium on the west portico, right by the 
bible that he chooses to take the oath on, and I'd like to hear him 
take that oath ``so help me God'' and bring his hand right down to the 
document that is the repeal of ObamaCare and sign the repeal of 
ObamaCare right there in the first instant of the new administration 
that begins on January 20, 2013.
  Don't tell me we can't repeal ObamaCare. Yes, we can. We have to move 
a discharge petition now. We have to separate the women from the girls 
and the men from the boys on that subject. We've got to identify it so 
the voters know what to do when they go to the polls in November. When 
the time comes that the new majority is here and is being sworn in in 
January, probably on January 3 of 2011, we will refuse to fund 
ObamaCare, because the funding has to start here, and you can't get 
around that. No President can get around that. No Senator can get 
around that. The Constitution says it starts here. We control all 
spending in this House. There will be no funding to fund the 
implementation of ObamaCare. We hold the line in 2011 and 2012, and we 
elect a President who will sign the repeal of ObamaCare on January 20, 
2013, right there on the podium at the west portico of the Capitol. 
It's right through those doors. Take a left. It's out on the portico 
where great events takes place.
  That's what needs to happen--the full repeal of ObamaCare. Move this 
discharge petition now so we can separate those who are for a 
standalone, 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare and those who seem to lack 
the will to put their markers down and to be clear with the voters in 
America. That has got to happen.
  Now, I didn't leave a lot of time for some of the other subject 
matters that I felt the urge to address, but I'll go through a list of 
them. A lot of them have to do with immigration, Mr. Speaker.
  One of them is regarding the Secretary of Labor, who is using our tax 
dollars to run ads to tell people: Call this number. If you're legal or 
illegal, it doesn't matter. You deserve a reasonable wage, so we'll 
protect you with our labor laws. If you're working in the United States 
illegally, we're not going to ask you for your Social Security number 
or where you were born or what your lawful present status is or whether 
you are legal to work in America. If you're illegal and if your boss 
isn't paying you a going wage or is not treating you right under 
America's labor laws, call us. We'll keep you confidential, and we'll 
go punish the employer.
  They're spending--it has to be millions of dollars--out of the 
Department of Labor budget to tell people who have broken into this 
country, who have unlawfully entered the United States or who have 
unlawfully overstayed their visas and who cannot lawfully work in 
America, that they are going to use the law to punish the employers if 
they don't treat them right.
  Now, I don't say that an employer should be able to abuse their 
employees, but I do say the Secretary of Labor gets this way wrong if 
she thinks that she is going to use my tax dollars, Mr. Speaker, or is 
going to use your tax dollars to advertise to people working in America 
illegally, who are taking jobs away from Americans and from people who 
can work legally in this country, and reward them with the objective of 
their crimes by bringing the force of the Department of Labor against 
their employers.

                              {time}  2020

  I tell you, I don't know where they find these people to appoint them 
to the Cabinet. This is one. I want to look at the full text of her 
remarks and come on tomorrow with a decision on what position I want to 
take. But this is a marker that needs to be down. We don't use American 
tax dollars to advertise and reward illegals for coming into this 
country. That is a form of amnesty being advertised in the television 
airwaves across America, with American tax dollars, at the direction of 
the Secretary of Labor; her face up there saying, Trust me. I will 
protect you. I won't enforce the law against you.
  Amnesty. To grant amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and 
award them with the objective of their crimes. That's what she's 
saying. She's saying, We're not going to bring the law against you. We 
won't enforce the law. We'll keep your name confidential. Trust us. If 
your objective is a good job, we'll make sure we come down on your 
employer, not on you. But all the while she knows that anybody working 
in the United States illegally had to falsify their identification to 
get the job in the first place. And they probably did an identity theft 
or purchased the theft product from someone's identity in order to work 
in America. That is a serious crime. When someone's identity is stolen, 
they never get it back again. It is being implicitly encouraged by the 
Secretary of Labor. And that's got to stop, Mr. Speaker.
  Now, Arizona law. Let's just say Arizona. Fox News today ran a 
story--I think they started it last night in some text that I read--
about the spotters down in Arizona that occupy the mountaintops along 
the transportation routes coming up through Arizona. Now what is going 
on is drug smugglers, people smugglers, contraband smugglers, occupy 
these locations on top of the mountains in Arizona. A lot of mountains 
in Arizona are shaped like volcanoes. Some is volcanic, as I notice, 
anyway. They come to a point. They're a cone.
  And up on top of them--or whether it's a ridge--they will pick a spot 
where they can see an intersection of highways coming from two or three 
different directions or more, and the employees--these are paramilitary 
armed personnel that are organized as a military force taking position, 
strategic positions on top of mountaintops in Arizona, and they will 
take the stones and they'll stack them around like a

[[Page 11457]]

gun emplacement and hunker down with optical equipment and they will 
watch the traffic.
  And they have communications equipment with scramblers and 
descramblers in it so they can talk to their people and we can't listen 
in on them. We know the frequencies. I've heard it on the radio. I've 
flown over there in a helicopter and listened to the excited chatter as 
we fly toward some of those mountaintops to try to pick those spotters 
off of there before they come off the mountaintop and go hide in the 
desert. You can hear the chatter intensify up to a fever pitch and then 
all of a sudden it goes dark. Silent. That's because they come off the 
mountain right before you get there and they go down and hide.
  I have pictures. I have hundreds of pictures from the top of these 
spotter locations. These are tactical positions in America. They're 
used to facilitate the smuggling of drugs and people, all kinds of 
contraband, and some of those people may well be terrorist suspects. 
They're from nations that we should be concerned about.
  That traffic is going on through Arizona and other States. And these 
locations aren't just sitting along the border. These locations go all 
the way up the highway. Not just to Tucson. All the way to Phoenix. 
They control the transportation routes there. They tell them when to 
go, when to stop. They run decoys with a small amount of drugs in them. 
When the Border Patrol and other law enforcement officers converge on a 
vehicle, they sacrifice one of their people for the means of bringing a 
truckload through while they're diverted. That happens. It happens 
regularly.
  We have a massive number of illegal border crossings. We have 
backpackers that are marching through the desert. We have 110-pound 
guys with 50-pound packs or more on their back and they march for a 
hundred or more miles sometimes. You look at some of those guys with 
calves like that on them. They're in shape because that's what they 
do--they walk back and forth in the desert and get paid to smuggle 
drugs in and out of the United States. And we sit here and we allow 
drug smugglers to occupy tactical positions on the tops of mountains, 
controlling the transportation routes in America, all the way up to 
Phoenix, and we're not able to go snap those people off those mountains 
and lock them up or put them through the shakedown and find out who 
they're affiliated with.
  And we can listen in on the radio, but we can't understand it because 
it's a scrambled chatter and their equipment is at least as good as 
ours--and maybe better. And they supply them and they bring them food 
and drink and other things they need, as well as weapons. And I've been 
there to see these locations and optical equipment.
  Mr. Speaker, we've got to take the spotters off the top of these 
lookout mountains. We cannot have the drug smugglers in tactical 
positions that control our transportation routes, however difficult it 
is. And there are tactical ways to do this. Our Special Forces know 
how. A lot of our law enforcement officers know how. They just need a 
mission. And last year I was able to get an appropriations amendment 
that directed a million dollars to take the spotters off of the 
lookouts in Arizona. And that appropriation went over to the Senate, 
where it was killed and died, Mr. Speaker.
  So we've got to wake up. We've got to defend this country. We've got 
to shut off this border; build a wall; build a fence; stop the bleeding 
at the border; take the lookouts, the spotters off the lookout 
mountains in Arizona; shut off the magnet on jobs; get back to the rule 
of law. Let's reward people that respect the law and punish the people 
that violate the law without regard to race, creed, color, ethnicity, 
or national origin. Take it right out of title 7 of the Civil Rights 
Act. By the way, without violating Arizona law or Arizona's 
Constitution or the United States Constitution or any other State 
Constitution, for that matter.
  Those are a number of the things on my mind, Mr. Speaker. And I'm 
very well aware that within the next 60 seconds I will have reached the 
balance of my time. And so I want to acknowledge and appreciate being 
recognized to address you here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives.
  And I would yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________