[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2936-2940]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 PUTTING OUR NATION ON THE RIGHT TRACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Black). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the

[[Page 2937]]

gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Iowa is pleased 
to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the House, and I 
want to express my disappointment in the gentlemen who spoke before me. 
I usually come here to pick up my material for rebuttal. And as I 
listened to you talk about your affection for the Peace Corps, I didn't 
come up with a single thing that I seek to rebut here tonight.
  So I'll go off on the subject matter that I came to address, Madam 
Speaker, and that is the situation where we are in this country today 
with debt and deficit and the growth in government and the things that 
we must do to turn this country back around and put it on the right 
track.
  This House here this afternoon voted to pass a continuing resolution 
that has within it an aggregate of about $4.1 billion in cuts over a 2-
week period of time that if you multiply or extrapolate that out to the 
end of the fiscal year, it comes in that neighborhood of about $61 
billion in cuts which arguably holds the reductions in place. But it 
did specifically go in and make the cuts in areas where the President 
had recommended those cuts. It dialed down the contention and tried to 
find a way to find a solution and a resolution. A list of the 
President's recommendations I have, but I don't think I'm going to take 
the time or the trouble, Madam Speaker, to read them into the Record. 
I'll just say that it suffices to show that a number in the 
neighborhood of $2.7 billion would be to earmarks savings, and the 
termination of programs saving is about $1.25 billion, so we get to 
that number that's just slightly more than $4 billion.
  It's perhaps a victory. It's perhaps a success. It's perhaps a 
temporary one. I think most likely that it is. These cuts that were 
offered here today will, most likely, be met with an agreement down on 
the other end of the Capitol building in the Senate that is run by 
Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. I think I saw some language in 
this appropriations bill that might directly affect him. That might be 
what helps convince him as well.
  Madam Speaker, this is a short-term piece that was designed to be a 
period of time that would allow the Senate to mull over the House 
position, which is H.R. 1. H.R. 1 is the bill that has the highest 
priority for the Speaker of the House. It's been traditionally the 
case. And 2 weeks ago, this Congress negotiated, debated, and offered 
amendments. Some 500 to 600 amendments were filed. Nearly 200 of them 
were debated and voted upon. And many of them that went in were cuts in 
spending or prohibitions from using that spending to implement certain 
policies that have been since rejected by this Congress.
  And, Madam Speaker, we need to remember that there was an election 
last November 2 of 2010. And to quote the President of the United 
States, he famously said after the election of November, 2008: We had 
an election, and we won, which means that he dictates the policy. Well, 
Madam Speaker, to the President of the United States, I would say, we 
had an election November 2. You didn't win that one, Mr. President. In 
fact, you declared it to be a ``shellacking.'' It was a shellacking.
  And the Republicans won the majority in this House by huge numbers. 
We're looking today at 87 new freshman Republicans and nine freshman 
Democrats, to give you a sense of the poor proportionality, or the 
disproportionality. The seats that were picked up have dramatically 
changed. The gavels all changed hands in the House of Representatives. 
The agenda changed. It has gone from an agenda that has been driven 
under the speakership of Nancy Pelosi for 4 years, of an agenda of 
accelerating spending, increasing government and pushing socialized 
medicine--which is what I have long declared ObamaCare to be. That 
doesn't shock anybody, Madam Speaker. It is common vernacular out in 
the central part of the United States at a minimum.
  And so we saw this push to grow government. We saw the President 
participate in, as a United States Senator, and accelerate his efforts 
as the President of the United States in the government take-over, 
first promoting a $700 billion TARP bailout program that was designed 
to pick up toxic assets that could have been far better picked up by 
the private sector if he would have just identified them and we would 
have exempted capital gains taxes on the profits that would be made. We 
would have seen private money go in and pick up these toxic mortgages 
in a large way and be managed--managed for a better result that would 
have kept more people in their homes. The list of good things goes on 
that might have happened had we had more free market solutions and less 
government intervention.

                              {time}  1830

  But that $700 billion TARP plan was a mistake, in my view, Madam 
Speaker. And behind that came the call for the economic stimulus plan 
which was $787.5 billion that rolled up to around $816 billion for the 
economic stimulus plan. Not all of it was spent, but it was to keep 
unemployment below 8 percent. We know that it sailed up into the upper 
9 percentile, 9.7 and above. It has dialed down now to around 9. But we 
have a lot of people who have given up and stopped trying.
  It is clear that the stimulus plan didn't stimulate the economy at 
all in the way that it was described or the way it was promised to us, 
but it surely added to the debt. We have seen about $3 trillion in 
unnecessary spending driven by this President. We have watched as proud 
companies went into hock to the Federal Government and found the 
Federal Government engaged in managing some of those companies.
  Three large investment banks were taken over by the Federal 
Government, at least by the power of management or influence--AIG, the 
insurance company, over $180 billion that flowed into AIG to protect 
other investors that had an interest in AIG, the insurance company, or 
in policies that they had offered that were guaranteeing the return on 
mortgage-backed securities, Madam Speaker. So there is $180 billion 
there. Three large investment banks and AIG, the insurance company.
  We saw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transition from quasi-government to 
government, to taxpayer guaranteed, stepping in to play a role in the 
majority of the mortgage loans in the United States, guaranteed by the 
taxpayers.
  I recall standing on this floor, the floor of the House of 
Representatives, October 26, 2005, listening to the most immediate past 
chairman of the Financial Services Committee arguing that he was never 
going to participate in bailing out Fannie and Freddie. And if anyone 
was considering buying stock in either one, they should not do so under 
the consideration that Barney Frank from Massachusetts would be engaged 
in bailing them out. And so he later became chairman of the committee, 
and that's what happened.
  We saw Dodd-Frank become law, which gives the Federal Government 
massive regulatory control over the financial institutions in America. 
We saw the government, the White House, takeover of General Motors and 
Chrysler. And we saw ObamaCare pass, which I have declared to be the 
nationalization of our skin and everything inside it. And by the way, 
it includes a 10 percent tax on the outside if you go to the tanning 
salon. That is over 51 percent of our economy swallowed up by the Obama 
administration and supported by the Pelosi House and the Reid Senate.
  And we come to this point where America can't take it anymore, Madam 
Speaker. We can't take it anymore. And all over the world they know 
that too much spending has put America in debt. It has put our currency 
in question. It has put our economy in an unstable position, and it 
guarantees that we will be in a long, drawn-out recovery because we 
have the overspending. We have the debt to service, which is pay the 
interest. And then we also have to eventually pay off the principal. 
And we are borrowing from the Chinese and begging them. And we are 
borrowing money from the Saudis and begging them. Yes, it affects our 
foreign policy. We are watching a foreign policy that is a 
conflagration in the Middle East.

[[Page 2938]]

Country after country is blowing up and seeking to throw off the yoke 
of its long-term dictatorship ruler and replace it with--we are not 
sure what their ideals are, but they have hit the end of their patience 
line.
  So here we are. Here we are with a continuing resolution that the 
government is operating on today that was negotiated and passed here in 
the House and in the Senate in December. It extended the funding for 
the government over until March 4 of this year; midnight, March 4, 
which is somewhere around Friday night, I think. Maybe Thursday night.
  So there has been an action here on the floor to pass a continuing 
resolution to do temporary stopgap funding to keep the government 
running for another 2 weeks, up until March 18. And that CR has now 
been messaged to the Senate. And the Senate can decide if they want to 
take it up tomorrow or the next day, get it to the President's desk. If 
the President signs the CR, the government keeps running; if the 
President doesn't, the government shuts down.
  I am watching as my colleagues seem to think that there is one data 
point of message for them to learn from, that because there was a 
government shutdown in 1995, it was one that was pushed for by 
Republicans, it was driven by Republicans. They wanted to face 
President Clinton down and insisted that they pass a balanced budget 
and to get to a balanced budget. In spite of all of the things that 
happened in 1995 and in early 1996, that was the result, Madam Speaker. 
They shortly had a balanced budget, and that balanced budget came a lot 
sooner than it would have otherwise and it lasted at least until such 
time we were hit by September 11 and the calamity that sent this 
America into an overspending binge.
  I think we could have faced the calamity of September 11 without 
having to blow our budget in the way we did, but that is not what 
happened. But what did happen in 1995, if that is the only data point, 
I want to make this point, Madam Speaker. First of all, there are 
thousands and thousands of students all over America who are studying 
political science. Some of them are watching tonight. Some of them are 
reading in the paper the things that we say and we do, and they are 
analyzing it. They are listening to their professors analyze what goes 
on here in Congress, and they are listening to the instruction of the 
rules, the standards, the axioms that come from certain data points 
along the line of continuum of political history. And that one data 
point on that line of continuum of political history is the government 
shutdown of 1995, and some of it drug over into very early 1996, and 
the argument is that House Republicans lost that because they had to 
concede their position to the President and to the Senate.
  Well, it is a fact that the House had to concede. They did concede. 
It is also a fact that the Republicans that controlled the Senate at 
the time passed a unanimous consent agreement to go ahead and spend the 
money that was demanded by Bill Clinton and send it over here to the 
House. The House was in a position where they couldn't push that chain 
back uphill and President Clinton and the Senate got their way and 
imposed it over the House.
  But I will still say that there is not a dime that can be spent by 
the Federal Government if the House of Representatives insists that it 
not be spent. We have to concede and go along with it at some point, or 
it won't be spent. And the negotiating position that was there for the 
House Republicans in 1995 was one that was marginally stronger because 
they had at least a majority in the Senate. That is the difference in 
the dynamics. But it was also about $300 billion, as I recall, on 
Medicare spending.
  So whenever you put down a dollar figure and you try to stand on that 
as a principle, it is a different stance than if you put something that 
is principle down and stand on it. For example, whether we are going to 
spend $300 billion on Medicare in 1995, or 250 or 200 or 150 or 100 or 
no more, you will lose or gain people along that line of that 
continuum. If you want to cut Medicare by $350 billion, you would lose 
some people that might be with you at 300. And if you move the line up 
$400 billion, 450, you lose some people who might have been with you at 
350 or 400.
  Money is something that there is a sliding scale. You cannot find a 
principle there that you can stand on. It is like going to an auction 
and seeing something that you want. And maybe you go to the auction and 
you decide I want to buy a bicycle and I am willing to pay $100 for 
that bicycle. If you go to the auction and the auctioneer is crying out 
he has a bid for $100, now he wants $101, do you pay that extra $1 and 
go home with the bicycle, something to show for it? Or do you say, no, 
that was my principle. My principle was I am not going to spend more 
than $100.
  Well, some people live by that principle. I do, occasionally. But it 
is not a principle that is tied to anything that is definable from a 
sense of right and wrong. It is a percentage scale. If $100 was the 
right number, it is only 1 percent wrong to pay $101. If you get it for 
$99, do you have any more virtue? No, you just got a bargain from what 
you anticipated.
  But when you stand on a principle, it is a different story. The 
principle here that is better for the House to stand on than the 
principle of the $300 billion in 1995 is the principle that we must not 
be funding ObamaCare willfully with appropriations bills here in the 
House. We must not do so because every Republican and a handful of 
Democrats, and there will be more, voted to repeal ObamaCare.
  We passed the repeal and sent it over to Harry Reid. Furthermore, now 
that that has happened, every Republican, with H.R. 1, has voted to 
shut off any funding that can be used to implement or enforce 
ObamaCare. That is also a fact. They are principled votes. They are not 
votes that are measured on the dollar figure. In fact, most people who 
voted in that fashion didn't know how much money it actually saved us 
for voting to repeal ObamaCare.
  And it is hard for me to take a position on that. I'll just say that 
the chairman of the Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, has used the words 
about $2.6 trillion is the spending that is saved by repealing 
ObamaCare.
  That is the best number we have, and I don't disagree with that. I 
accept that number, but it is hard to come down to something and then 
argue are we doing it because of the money savings. Did we vote to 
repeal ObamaCare because it would stop the spending of $2.6 trillion? I 
think not, Madam Speaker.

                              {time}  1840

  I think it's part of it. It's part of the equation--and we can't 
afford it--but there are many other principles. The most important one 
is: ObamaCare takes American liberty, and puts it into the hands of 
government to manage our, I'll say, the second most sovereign thing we 
have, which is our bodies and our health.
  That's what's wrong with ObamaCare; it's a matter of principle. It's 
the takings of American liberty that must be stopped. No, we can't 
afford it, and it's money that's better spent by doctor-patient 
relationships and by individuals making decisions on their health 
insurance and moving on down the line with those conservative 
principles. We need to stand on principle.
  We have this opportunity here in this 112th Congress to stand on 
principle. The stance needs to be that we will not vote to fund 
ObamaCare. I'm going to add to this that neither shall we vote to fund 
Planned Parenthood, and I shall be looking for ways to unfund every 
other entity like them that promotes abortion or provides abortion as a 
matter of practice in their facilities. Planned Parenthood has invested 
in promiscuity, but that's a longer discussion than I will engage in 
tonight, Madam Speaker.
  I do think these two issues are tied very closely together going 
forward in that ObamaCare funding must be shut off, and we cannot be 
asking our Members to vote again to appropriate funds that can be used 
to fund ObamaCare. Some will be saying we didn't have

[[Page 2939]]

ObamaCare funding in this short-term CR, just as they said there wasn't 
ObamaCare funding in the CR that passed at the end of December that 
takes us to the 4th of March, but here is the answer to this:
  There are at least 21 different components to ObamaCare that are 
beneficiaries of funding that go into the various departments. There is 
no prohibition for that money going into or for being used to implement 
or to force ObamaCare. There are at least 21 different areas. Then when 
you look at the money that's in there, we discover altogether the 
automatic appropriations. There was something like $4.9 billion for the 
balance of this year that was automatically appropriated. That's not 
prohibited in this CR. We didn't get it into H.R. 1, actually, either. 
But the 21 programs are there, and the money is there for them. I can 
roll those into the Record, Madam Speaker, but there is another 
component to this that is a blanket component:
  It is language in ObamaCare that gives the authority to the Secretary 
of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, to do 
intradepartmental transfers so that she can use that money to implement 
and force ObamaCare at her discretion. We failed to shut that language 
off, too.
  So this appropriations bill that passed today, H.J. Res. 44, the 2-
week CR, has 21 places in it that could fund ObamaCare, and it still 
allows for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to take 
intradepartmental transfers to use at her discretion, at will, which 
funds ObamaCare.
  Then the Pence language, the Pence amendment that he has worked on so 
valiantly and for so long to shut off all funding to Planned 
Parenthood, was passed by this House in H.R. 1. It became a component 
of the position of the House that was delivered here at about 4:30 on a 
Saturday morning, a week ago last Saturday morning.
  Those components, I believe, need to be part of everything we do 
going forward. I will stand and promote those, and I will stand with 
those who will stand for life. I simplify it when I say the Pence 
language shuts off funding to Planned Parenthood, but there are other 
components that also were left out.
  One is the Dornan amendment, which prohibits funding for abortions in 
D.C. There is the Mexico City policy that shuts off funding to 
abortions in foreign lands, which we've always done, which is not part 
of it. The international population control and planning fund gets 
money still, along with Planned Parenthood.
  This is what has taken place, Madam Speaker, in this short-term CR. 
Boy, it's hard for many Members to vote for it. They want to be team 
players, and I appreciate that sentiment. From my standpoint, I have an 
obligation to my constituents and to God and country to do the best job 
I can to serve, and it goes in the opposite order: God, country. 
Constituents are right up there with country. Sometimes the best 
interests of my district are not always going to be the best interests 
of America. I haven't had that conflict that I can articulate yet, but 
if that comes, I'm pretty confident my constituents will understand the 
priority.
  We have to do the right thing for the long term for our country, and 
the right thing is for us to stand on principle and to shut off this 
funding to ObamaCare, to shut off this funding to Planned Parenthood, 
to make sure that we are standing on solid, moral, principled ground so 
that we have a firm place from which we can then negotiate those things 
that are negotiable with the Senate, which, by the way, is a proxy for 
the President of the United States. So, if it can be negotiated with 
the Senate, it's also negotiated, in my view, with the President.
  In a moment, I'm going to look forward to yielding to my friend from 
Texas, who has just arrived on the floor, but I want to also add this:
  For weeks now, the Democrats in the House and the Democrats in the 
Senate have been clamoring for a government shutdown. They seem to be 
determined to shut the government down. They seem to think that, if 
there's a government shutdown, they're going to win that debate, and 
they're going to maybe pick up seats in the House and pick up seats in 
the Senate, and they'll be able to impose their government growth/
government spending/expansion of debt proposals that they've been 
pushing for the last 4 years, which have failed and which the American 
people have rejected.
  We should not be deluded into believing that Democrats somehow want 
to go through this period of fiscal austerity. They want to drive this 
spending up, and they want to have more excuses for increasing taxes. 
If government grows and taxes grow, at some point the taxes grow to the 
point where they consume everything, and then those business entities 
that I talked about being taken over by this White House become the 
small part of a long list of business entities that are taken over.
  I've spoken of this before. On the Web site, the Socialist Web site, 
they say: We don't want to nationalize everything like the Communists. 
We're just Socialists. We only want to nationalize the Fortune 500 
companies. Thanks a lot. Give the barber, the butcher, the baker, and 
the candlestick maker some relief. Thanks a lot for that. They want to 
manage the Fortune 500 companies ``for the benefit of the people 
affected by them.''
  That's the unions.
  The President handed shares in General Motors and Chrysler over to 
the unions, who had no skin in the game, no equity invested, but he 
handed the shares over to them anyway. It's right off the Socialist Web 
site, and the Progressives that are left in this Congress adhere to the 
agenda of the Socialists, which is on the Web site.
  But Democrats who are clamoring for a shutdown fail to understand 
that the American people are more sophisticated today than they were in 
1995. They've seen this movie before, and they fear it ends with 
Republicans giving in to the demands of tax consumers. I have that same 
fear, but I'm encouraging all of us on this side of the aisle and those 
discerning Democrats who remain--and there are some--to join with us in 
putting an end to ObamaCare, in putting an end to funding for Planned 
Parenthood, in putting an end to overspending.
  Let's get serious about real cuts. Let's get serious about holding 
the line. When every Republican in the House voted to repeal ObamaCare 
and when every Republican voted to unfund ObamaCare, then, by golly, 
that's our obligation. That's what we must do. That's what we shall do.
  Madam Speaker, I'd be happy to yield to the gentleman from Texas, my 
friend Judge Gohmert.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Iowa.
  I've been listening to your well-thought-out comments. This is a 
serious time, not just in American history but in world history; and 
it's a little difficult to get beat up from our friends from the other 
side of the aisle over what's going on right now over a continuing 
resolution when there is one reason we're doing any continuing 
resolution--they didn't do their job last year. This was supposed to 
have been done last year. They didn't do it. Why?
  I guess they were concerned if people saw exactly a budget that's 
required by law, but that wasn't done last year--they just ignored 
that--just like the President is now going to ignore the Defense of 
Marriage Act. I didn't know Presidents could pick and choose the laws 
that were duly passed and signed into law and just say, We don't choose 
to defend that anymore.
  But to get beat up by people across the aisle over what's going on is 
a little tough to take, because they didn't do their job, and now we're 
having to do it.

                              {time}  1850

  And then to further get beat up over spending issues because we're 
trying to cut spending.
  I know my friend from Iowa, as I did, voted ``no'' on the CR today 
because it didn't continue the hard-fought battle that was won in H.R. 
1, where we were defunding ObamaCare. But I recall in 2005, 2006, my 
first term in Congress, getting beat up--figuratively speaking--by my 
friends across the aisle because they said, rightfully, we were

[[Page 2940]]

spending too much money and that we were going to run $100 billion to 
$200 billion in deficit over the amount we were going to receive in, 
and that that was irresponsible. Well, they were right. We shouldn't 
have been spending $100 to $200 billion more than we were getting in in 
2005 and 2006. They said we were spending too much, they were right. 
And what happened in November of 2006? They promised they would get the 
spending under control if they were given the majority, they got the 
majority, and they immediately started spending more than we had spent.
  And so here we are after a Democratic President gets elected 
promising hope and change, and people didn't realize that the change 
was going to be the few pennies left in their pockets after this 
government was spending so much and leaving little that banks can loan 
for new businesses and small businesses to hire people. So the economy 
is struggling. I mean, this government has sucked up all the capital 
that there is to create jobs and to get the economy going.
  So one of the things that has troubled me is hearing people 
complaining about wanting to cut hundreds of billions of dollars--in 
fact, trying to cut $1.5 trillion of the President's proposed $3.65 
trillion budget, $3.7 trillion. We're only supposed to get in about 
$2.16 trillion total of all Federal revenue, and this President's 
proposing a budget that's $1.65 trillion more than that.
  So I keep wondering, since our Democratic friends across the aisle 
were beating up on us in 2006 for spending too much money, what would 
be wrong with saying not cut $100 billion, but cut $1.65 trillion, and 
let's get back to where we were in 2006. That was only $200 billion 
over what we were receiving. The Democrats were right: Republicans were 
spending too much money in 2005 and 2006. What would be wrong with 
going back to that budget? And yet here there's all this rancor over 
just cutting $100 billion. And the President's talking $1.65 trillion 
more than we received in?
  I don't know if my friend from Iowa noticed, but 2 weeks ago when the 
President came out with his absolutely irresponsible budget that was 
going to spend $1.65 trillion more than we brought in--not the $160 
billion more that we got beat up for spending more than, but 10 times 
that, $1.65 trillion--I noticed in the paper the next day that the 
Chinese were selling off some of their U.S. bonds, some of the debt 
from our country. Well, it immediately came to my mind, if I were China 
and I were holding our debt, and I saw that the President of the United 
States, despite making almost daily speeches about how we're getting 
spending under control--it would be irresponsible, he says, not to get 
spending under control--and then he reveals his budget and it's 
spending $150 billion more than he did last year, I'd start selling off 
our debt too. I would be thinking these people are so crazy.
  I mean, the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. Nations 
around the world have been advising us as friends, look, you don't 
realize what you're doing, but people are getting ready to dump the 
dollar as a reserve currency for one reason--well, two reasons: One, a 
lot of them are jealous, but number two, we're being irresponsible with 
our economy and with our spending. And so I couldn't help but vote 
``no'' today on the CR with my friend from Iowa.
  I also heard a lady yesterday talking about 30 people had lost their 
jobs because of ObamaCare and what this administration is doing. I've 
heard from people who are extremely upset back in Texas who have lost 
their health care just because ObamaCare has been passed. I've talked 
to doctors who have said, I'm done, I can't play these games anymore. I 
have not saved as much money as I had hoped before I retire, but I'm 
done. And they're giving up the medical practice. I talked to a doctor 
just this morning who said the very same thing.
  It just keeps bringing back: If you care about people, if you care 
about them having jobs, if you care about their self-respect that comes 
when they have a meaningful job, earn their own keep instead of having 
the government luring them into indentured servitude status where they 
are servants of the government and just running around wherever they 
can find a government that will hand them a check and demanding checks, 
America deserves better.
  There are people that have given that last full measure of devotion 
to make sure that freedom existed around here, not freedom to go 
begging the government for a check, not freedom to go begging the 
government for health care, to pass some law that we're going to take 
someone's money that they earned, they don't want to give up, and force 
them to spend on people who don't want to work. We owe them better than 
we've been doing.
  And so when we hear our friends talking about how we shouldn't even 
have to go through this process, I couldn't agree more. If they had 
done their job, if they had cut spending instead of putting the dollar 
in jeopardy, putting our economy in jeopardy, then they're right, we 
shouldn't have to be going through this. But we have got to defund 
ObamaCare before too many more people lose their health care and end up 
having rationed care. I heard about more doctors today who are no 
longer taking Medicare or Medicaid. We owe all of the people across 
this country better than what they've gotten in the last 6 years, and 
what they've sure been getting the last 2 years.
  These are dire circumstances, and we just can't keep this going. I 
mean, we are really in serious trouble. And I know my friend knows that 
or he wouldn't be spending his time here when he could be doing so many 
other things. But I appreciate my friend from Iowa more than he could 
possibly know. I appreciate his courageous stands, and I look forward--
I can't really say that. I don't look forward to the battles ahead, but 
I look forward to having a friend as we go through them.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from 
Texas. He sparked some things in my mind that in about the 6 minutes we 
may have, a little bit of dialogue with regard to that.
  One point that I wanted to make about what's going on with the 
strategy on ObamaCare is that I've spoken significantly about how this 
House has voted to repeal it, this House has voted to shut off the 
funding to it at every single opportunity.
  And if there's a strategy out there that says we're going to do death 
to ObamaCare by a thousand cuts, I'd ask those folks that are concerned 
about a real showdown with the President on ObamaCare to think about 
what really happened not so much in the 1995 shutdown, which I said 
earlier I don't think is applicable under these circumstances. There's 
a better issue to understand.
  And that is in 1998 when the impeachment of President Clinton was 
brought up, when America found out about what was going on in the Oval 
Office and in the room next to the Oval Office in too stark of detail 
for the children of America to be so rushed in to the birds and the 
bees discussion in the way that they were, Madam Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I apologize. I didn't hear your 
gavel earlier.
  So even though it's abrupt, I am happy to yield back the balance of 
my time.

                          ____________________