Floor Statements

Will the gentlelady yield on that point?

If I can just point out something, a lot of people look at this through the lens of their personal experience. Perhaps people watching this say, You know what, I have health insurance, I like my health insurance and I don't have a preexisting condition. Why should I really care about those who do?

Well, I think you understand this, but I think many of our Republican colleagues don't. We wind up paying as citizens one way or the other. You know, we had awhile ago this H1N1 flu outbreak. Now, if someone has a choice and health insurance coverage that allows them to get a regular checkup and get doctor's screenings and get medications and given an idea what they should do to treat that, is it better or worse if they don't have insurance and they get on the bus in the morning and they wind up in a hospital emergency room and take you and your kids with them?

The fact is it is not whether we are going to pay for health care; it is how we do it most efficiently. My Republican colleagues don't seem to understand this very basic idea that they talk about we should have choice. Nobody chooses to be born with cystic fibrosis. No one chooses to have a child that is born with asthma.

I don't care how much you believe in the free market, when God strikes you with those afflictions and you need care, the only question then becomes how do we provide the care that is most efficient. Right now if people don't have insurance and they fall down or they get hit by a bus, God forbid, and they don't have the ability to pay, it is not as if there is some magical force out there that absorbs those costs.

We wind up paying it. Everyone who has a health insurance policy winds up paying it. We in New York, and Congresswoman Clarke made the point about New York, we pay $8 billion in additional taxes. So it is just a matter of how we do it, and it comes down to a very simple idea: it is less expensive to give people a subsidy so they can buy insurance than it is to pay for them in emergency rooms. It is cheaper that way.

So it is just a matter of how we choose to do it, and I think when you point out the fairness and the decency as Americans that we have when we provide the care, it is also doing a favor for everyone who has insurance, and every taxpayer in this country.

So even if you don't buy into the idea that we should be altruistic, and we fundamentally believe, and I believe this is a fundamental difference between the parties, we don't believe you can get too far ahead as a country when you have so many, 30-some-odd million people without health insurance. We don't believe you fundamentally can. There are more people taking time off from work. Every single product we buy has more cost because of our health care failures. That is the difference between Republicans and Democrats. We believe those things out of a sense of compassion.

But even if you just look at the economic bottom line, you should want to provide people with preventive care. It makes the most sense. It saves us money. It saves every American who has insurance money, and I want to thank you for pointing those things out.

I'm curious. Any of the Members who have spoken about the impact on small business, are any of them in favor of the tax incentive that is provided on small businesses to provide health care? Of course they are.

Now, they might not know it's in the bill because to listen to the rhetoric--and a lot of them can be forgiven; they just came off the campaign trail. They were used to saying glib things like ``government takeover,'' ``job killing.'' But I would urge you to read the bill. Small businesses get a 30 to 50 percent tax incentive to provide health care for their workers. Small businesses do.

And do you know what requirements they have to go along with that? None. No gaudy regulation, no government takeover. And just a word on this whole government takeover thing. I mean I love you guys, and I know you are caught up in the rhetoric of the campaign, this is tax breaks that are going to go to citizens to buy, wait for it, private insurance policies. Where is the government takeover in that?

Now, some of us believe that Medicare, which of course you refer to as a government takeover of health care, and I am sure you are opposed to that as well, some of us believe that, frankly, the insurance companies aren't providing a lot of value-added here. But they are the beneficiaries of this plan.

Small businesses today, if the Republicans are successful, will lose that tax incentive. Think that will create a lot of jobs, guys? It's not going to. And you think small businesses benefit when they don't provide health insurance and then people go to hospital emergency rooms to get their care? Who do you think pays that bill? The bill fairy? Your taxpayers. Your taxpayers in your States.

Now, what's your solution? Well, they don't have a solution. We know what they are against. They are against health reform. We don't know what they are for. Welcome to the Republican majority.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, what is the current whole number of Members of the House?

Madam Speaker, a further parliamentary inquiry.

Can the Speaker certify that all 435 Members have been correctly and duly sworn and have taken the oath of office as required under the Constitution?

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I reserve a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I rise to a point of order.

Madam Speaker, I make a point of order that the consideration of this resolution is in violation of the House rules that we just passed in which a new section was created to rule XXI that required at least 3 days' notice to consider legislation, that it be posted on the Internet and we have a chance to review it. It is particularly important in this case since we're dealing with a constitutional issue, one that is without precedent, and I insist on the point of order.

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Am I to understand that under the rules that were just passed, they are already exempting this resolution, which is of a question of the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, that it is already being waived, that that new rule requiring 3 days is already being waived?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thought that the chairman was going to say that he was going to be brief. Well, he had no choice with this rule. It's a pretty short one.

I just want to say in the brief 2 minutes that we have here that this is a pretty important issue that we are faced with. And I should say just at the outset that I have the greatest respect for my friend, Mr. Sessions. I consider him to be a friend. I hope to get to know Mr. Fitzpatrick as well and to call him a friend as well. But what we are dealing with today is perhaps the most basic test that we have of whether we're going to take legislation seriously.

To the great credit of the maker of this resolution, which we just got, it stipulates right in the first couple of sections, we violated the Constitution on our very first day. The constitutional requirement for oath was violated. And I give you great credit for recognizing that in the resolution.

Now you do say that it created nullities, which is, frankly, a way of saying we operated outside this document on the same day we were reading it. When Mr. Sessions and Mr. Fitzpatrick stood up in front of a television set and held their right hand up--not unlike about 2,000 of my constituents, I suspect--they were violating a very important part of these proceedings, and yet we have a grand total of 2 minutes on each side, Mr. Dreier, and to my colleagues, in which to debate how to fix that infirmity.

Mr. Sessions presided over the Rules Committee during a large portion in which he was not even a duly sworn Member of the United States Congress. Yet we are doing nothing to go back and see would that participation influence proceedings at all.

I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this resolution, not because Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Sessions are not Members of Congress, they clearly are and I congratulate them, but because for the first time in American history, the first time in the history of this body, we are going to pass a fix of a constitutional infirmity with--wait for it--4 minutes of debate when we didn't have the bill until just now. I strongly urge my colleagues to think about the precedent this sets.

I ask the consent of the chairman for an additional 1 minute so we can have an understanding.

The gentleman may yield to a unanimous consent request.

Only does Mr. Dreier have the ability to accede to a unanimous consent request.

Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, under the rules of the House, are the Members of Congress who are not duly sworn entitled to be paid for the days of service in which they were here and were not sworn in?

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Section 5: ``Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own Members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent Members in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide.''

I thank the gentleman.

You know, it doesn't take a great deal of courage to come to the floor of the House and say I'm in favor of low taxes. Yes, I think we all want no taxes. We would all like to have no communal needs that we have. We would like to have no national defense.

We would like to have no concerns about clean water.

What we hear of the fight about in elections and, frankly, every single day on the floor is, Who do we stand for? Who are we defending?

On this side of the Chamber we believe that those people in the middle class and those struggling to make it, who each and every year for the past two decades have been getting pushed further and further down, need help.

On the other side of this Chamber are people who quite literally stood up all day today to say, I want to give tax cuts to people who make $1 million and $1 billion a year; and, wait for it, ladies and gentleman, we want to borrow the money from the Chinese to give it to them.

I want the wealthy to be as wealthy as they can be. I have no grudge against that. I want all of us to be that wealthy. But we should be a country that fights for those who really need the help. We should not be a country that says: You know what? If you're a billionaire, we want to give you a little bit more.

Who's going to pay the bill? Who is ultimately going to pay for this tax cut? It is going to be our children and our grandchildren. And to come to the floor and say, well, I want to help hardworking Americans, I have to tell you, when the top 1 percent in this country are making as much as the next 25 percent, I think I know who we want to help.

On this side, we want to help those middle class people and those struggling to make it, and my Republican friends all over this evening have been standing up for millionaires and billionaires. That is the fundamental choice that we have to make here.

I believe that this tax bill has fundamental flaws. If you believe that you should be borrowing from Social Security to pay for a payroll tax, you like this bill. But I know a lot of Americans don't believe that.

So I think what we should do, what we should do is make sure that we fix the estate portion of this, and then we should take a step back and say, you know what we should do? Let's stand up for the middle class. That is what the Democrats stand for.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the sponsor of the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, what it comes down to is that it is not as my good friend characterized it: throwing money away or giving money away. This is whether you consider people who have helped build this country to what it is, who have paid into the Social Security Trust Fund, and who very often rely entirely on Social Security for their support. These are people who, frankly, on average, are making in the magnitude of $16,000, $17,000, $20,000 for the entire year.

The Social Security COLA was passed in the 1970s with a very logical rationale, which was to allow seniors to keep up with the high cost of living. The mistake that we continually make--and perhaps it's because the law is written incorrectly or perhaps it's a misinterpretation--is that we assume for a moment that, when inflation is at a very low level like it is today, it means costs haven't risen for seniors; but if you look at the things that seniors are actually buying and if you look at the things that they need in order to survive--housing, health care, their very basics for food--all of these things are actually experiencing rising costs.

You know, it is somewhat ironic that, when I hear my good friends on the other side talk about the need for austerity, it always seems to be that it is the people who are in the middle class and struggling to make it who are the ones who are supposed to take the hit. Social Security beneficiaries are the broad cross section of this country, and we have made a contract with them.

I have to tell you that I know the new Republican Congress was elected on a platform of eviscerating Social Security as we know it. That is not a rhetorical talking point. If you look at the book quite literally, the book written by the person who is going to be the chairman of the Budget Committee on the Republican side, he suggests turning large portions of the Social Security Trust Fund to the stock market.

Yes, that is their belief. That is what they think the lesson is that was learned.

So there really is a question here about who we are fighting for. Mr. Pomeroy and the people who are going to vote ``yes'' on this bill say we want to fight for senior citizens who are struggling to make it each and every day. They are the ones who believe that Social Security isn't some kind of bizarre Socialist plot but is a way that we have created a safety net. That's all it is.

Nobody, I say to my colleagues, collects their Social Security checks and says, ``Woo-hoo, I'm rich.'' They collect them and say, ``Oh, what a relief. I can get through to the next month. I can continue with the standard of living that I have without its being chipped away.''

Well, now, after 2 consecutive years, we will see the Social Security cost-of-living increase, which is going to inch up to keep track of costs that they have elsewhere in life, be restored. We are doing the best we can. I believe, frankly, the COLA law needs to be rewritten. I believe it did not contemplate the type of scenario we have today in which overall inflation rates are going down and the costs for seniors are staying high.

As other speakers have pointed out, there are two fundamental mistakes that get made when the Social Security Trust Fund is calculated:

One, the basket of things that a senior actually buys is entirely different from what a teenager buys or from what a businessperson buys. They have very discrete costs, and those costs are going up.

It is also important to know that there are sometimes regional differences. In the part of the country that Mr. Pomeroy comes from, energy costs are sometimes exceedingly high because of cold winters. In the parts of the country that I represent and that Congressman Pascrell represents, the cost of housing is extraordinarily high. It is definitely going up more than 0 percent a year.

I would also remind my Republican colleagues of one other thing. A lot of them did not like the Social Security program from the word ``go.'' They didn't like it even then. There is a schizophrenia inherent in the Republican position about Social Security. They really nailed, or actually got it in their bones, that having a safety net program for senior citizens was really something government should not be doing. They didn't like it. Go take a look at the debate back in 1933 when it began. Yet, from 1935, which is when the checks started coming, until today, one thing has been consistently true: month after month, year after year, this program has worked exactly how it was designed. It was designed to allow one generation to help provide a safety net for the next--year after year, generation after generation.

I want to say one other thing.

This whole idea that the apocalypse is arriving and Social Security is coming undone at the seams is wildly, wildly overblown. Today, the Social Security program will add to the deficit exactly zero dollars and zero cents. That's more than I can say about the tax cuts for billionaires, which is going to add $700 billion to the deficit over 10 years.

So what we are saying is that we Democrats, we who will vote ``yes'' on this bill, are standing up and fighting for senior citizens. We are standing up and fighting for every Social Security beneficiary, even the ones who are Republicans and Independents from all parts of the country, because we fundamentally believe the program works. If you believe that the Social Security program is a good and virtuous program, this is your chance to show it, by voting ``yes,'' because this is a chance to improve it.

If you believe that the Social Security program is some kind of hoax or a fraud or you believe what many of my Republican friends believe, that it should be privatized, dismantled, eliminated, tossed in the trash can, then you should probably vote ``no'' on this because this bill only strengthens Social Security.

Now let me make one final remark--and I thank very much Mr. Pomeroy for being the sponsor of this legislation. He has never lost sight of the fact that the senior citizens that we help with Social Security are exactly the ones who helped put us in a position to build this country to what it is today.

Let me make one final point. You know, in all of the political back and forth that very often happens during campaign season, I think that we really did just see a campaign where one side operated almost entirely from a position of what they were against--they're against strengthening Social Security, they're against health care reform, they're against financial reform, they're against a reduction of taxes on the middle class.

We know precious little about what the new incoming Republican Congress is in favor of. This is an interesting test, where they are on Social Security. The chairman of their incoming Budget Committee believes in privatizing it. Many of their candidates kind of hemmed and hawed when asked. This is it, this is a good early test. And I would want to remind the American people that if you believe Social Security is one of those programs you really think should be protected and strengthened, this is the team that's fighting for you, the one that's offering this piece of legislation.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I urge my Republican colleagues to finally realize that supporting senior citizens and Social Security is a virtuous and good thing to do, even from their perspective.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4501) to require certain return policies from businesses that purchase precious metals from consumers and solicit such transactions through an Internet website, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I don't intend to use all of the time. I thank the indulgence of the gentleman from Kentucky both in this debate and during consideration of this bill in committee.

Mr. Speaker, during these difficult economic times, Americans are looking for any way that they can to try to make ends meet. They are taking on second jobs; they are looking through their cupboards, trying to see if there is anything they can sell. Just about any opportunity they can to make a few dollars people are looking for. That is why there has been a great deal of attention paid recently to companies that are advertising very heavily that if you give us your gold and jewelry, we will give you cash for those products.

The problem is that when you put the gold and the jewelry in the envelope and send it to some of these companies, they are finding that consumers are not being treated very well. The Consumers Union and their publication Consumer Reports did a good expose on this, turning out the problems people face. Sometimes they are getting pennies on the dollar for what comes back, but even more difficult are the cases where people don't even agree to the transaction; or finding that since they didn't act fast enough, their gold or jewelry had been melted down, sold off for pennies on the dollar, and they were left with very little recourse.

When Congress found out about this, a hearing was convened in Congressman Bobby Rush's subcommittee in the Energy and Commerce Committee. We heard from victims who had this happen to them. And we also heard from industry groups. There was virtual consensus that more needed to be done to protect consumers. You can have a debate, which perhaps should go on in each household before you engage in one of these transactions through the Internet or through the mail, whether or not you should see a neighborhood pawn broker, a neighborhood jeweler, someone who can give you some actual hands-on advice about these things. But as with so many things with rare jewelry, it's like a lot of other elements of products that consumers don't have a real intrinsic sense of what they should be worth, so they are subject to be taken advantage of.

The act we are taking up today, the GOLD Act, the Guarantee of a Legitimate Deal Act of 2009, makes some changes in the law to give consumers a little bit more weight on their side of the scale, no pun intended. What it would mean is that under this new law a consumer would have to accept or reject the offer before the transaction has been considered complete. Right now there are many companies, including Cash4Gold, the biggest one of them, that will give a finite number of days after which they will simply melt down the gold and consider the transaction completed.

It mandates that the purchasers of precious metals through the mail insure the products and send them back in the same insurance level that they were sent to them for. Let me explain why that's necessary. According to the postal service, we have a large number of people alleging that they would send their gold, say I don't want to do the deal, and mysteriously when the gold was mailed back to them, it disappeared in the mail. And, frankly, it seems more likely than not that the people sending back those shipments never actually did it.

So what we are proposing here is that if someone insures it for $100 going, it gets insured for $100 when it gets sent back as part of the transaction. And it would institute civil penalties for any company that melts down someone's gold without the prior approval by the consumer.

Now, as I said, you can have a debate, and I think that it seems from a lot of the testimony that we took it's good to get a second or a third opinion about the true value, as you might really have some rare exotic piece of jewelry or something that has a high level of gold content; and you may find that when you send it to one of these places, as Consumer Reports found out when they did a study, they found out that the people were only getting on average of between 11 and 29 percent of the value of the gold actually offered back to them.

So you should try to get some advice from an actual person you trust in your community: a jeweler, a pawn broker, and the like.

But also what this finally says is if you are going to go ahead with one of these transactions, if you are going to take a piece of jewelry that you have, put it in one of these prepaid envelopes and mail it off, you are going to continue to have control over the transaction should this law pass. That's why the Consumers Union supports it, the Jewelers Vigilance Council, which is the trade organization that testified. And it's my understanding that even the biggest player in the field that prompted this investigation, Cash4Gold, has said that they support this legislation. And while they have had problems, I want to commend them for doing so.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to thank Representative Whitfield for his kind words and for his help in crafting this bill and making it better than what it was first authored, Chairman Rush, who is the subcommittee chairman, and his staff, Peter Ketcham-Colwill, Michelle Ash, and also Yuri Beckelman of my staff and Bertine Moenaff of my staff, who helped do the research, and of course Consumers Union and the Jewelers Vigilance Council, who helped to provide testimony.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Within the next 30 minutes or so, about four, perhaps five, buses of people are going to arrive on the West front of the Capitol and walk in here and fill up these Chambers. These are people who, almost every single one of them, are to some degree a victim of September 11. They are people who aren't going to run very fast; although, they were, not so long ago, very healthy. These are people who, after September 11, not because it was their job, although some of them are professional firefighters and first responders, but because they are patriotic Americans, they went down to Ground Zero and, with their hands, literally, helped dig out our city and our country.

It was not just from New York. We all remember iconically that the days after September 11, if you stood on the West Side Highway of Manhattan and looked at the license plates of the fire trucks, of the cars, of the ambulances, they were from all around the country. Every single district--434, in fact, of the 435 districts have someone who has that 9/11 cough.

Nine years later, 900 Americans have died from 9/11-related illnesses. Now, they're going to come here and they're going to fill up these galleries, and they don't know a motion to recommit from a suspension. They don't know what the rule is. They don't know what the number is. All that they know is that, by degrees, every single day they're dying. They're dying from diseases they didn't have. These are some of the most vigorous people you can imagine. The fact that they're coming here--you are going to see people in wheelchairs who, on that day, were healthy and vigorous. James Zadroga, for whom the bill is named, one of the fittest guys you can imagine, dead today because of 9/11-related illnesses.

My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, this is a fierce political time of year. No one's more political than I, and no one's more partisan than I. I am proud to be a Democrat. I'm going to fight very hard to win my election. I'm going to fight very hard to make sure you guys lose yours. But if there's one day of the year, if there's one item on the calendar where people like me and Peter King are working shoulder to shoulder where we're trying to figure out a way to do the right thing and put aside politics, this should be the day.

This is the day that we can stand up and say, You know what? If you really believe philosophically we shouldn't take care of these people, vote ``no.'' But let's try not to make mischief. Let's try to talk about this in a serious, adult way. And I'm convinced that we're going to do the right thing. If this is the last thing we do in this Congress, let's, in a bipartisan way, go home to our constituents to say to those people in the galleries, We understand, and we get it.

They are the first casualties of the war in Afghanistan, and the amount of money that we're going to spend would not support the war in Afghanistan more than 11 days. These people have been waiting 9 years. Let's not have any more people die because of the attacks of September 11.

Let's pass the September 11 Act that was sponsored by Peter King and Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler. This is something that affects every single district in this country. Let us do the right thing. And if you believe the right thing is to take care of these people, please vote ``yes'' on the rule. Please vote ``yes'' on the bill. Please vote ``no'' on any troublesome amendments to the bill that come up later.

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.

You know, I have heard some people describe this bill as an entitlement bill, as if people are lining up to get this benefit. Like someone would really want to be on the list of people eligible to get the money that's eligible under this bill to get the health care. The idea that someone would volunteer or be eager to get the benefits that, in order to get them, you have to have a stew of toxic dust in your lungs, so much that you can't breathe normally,

and you cough. And when you hear that 9/11 cough in New York, everyone knows it.

The idea that it's open-ended--no, it's actually a pretty close-ended program in the most final sense of the word, in that many people who have the illnesses that we are trying to treat with this legislation are dying. There are people in this Chamber who are watching these proceedings and those that are home who once upon a time were the most vigorous, fit people imaginable. And it was because of that vigor and that fitness that they went down to Ground Zero on September 11. They didn't ask to be chosen. They didn't fill out a form. They didn't even wear protective gear. They went down because they felt it was their obligation. They didn't just come from Lower Manhattan. They didn't just come from New York.

As I've said many times, if you were in New York the days after September 11, the streets were clogged with parked ambulances and firetrucks and cars, every license plate imaginable. Those people aren't asking for anything beyond just being able to cure the diseases that they got because they served. That's what this is about.

To my colleagues who oppose this, yeah, I imagine there are 100 different ways you can describe it and you can look at line 7 and page 6 and come up with some reason to be against it. But I would ask my colleagues to take a step back. And every single one of us on September 11 stood up in our districts and said, We are not going to forget the commitment that we made that day. Well, this is the moment. You can't stand up in your district on September 11 and say you won't forget, and have a red light next to your name today. It just doesn't wash. This is the day we repay our debts.

You want to call it an entitlement bill? Okay, they are entitled. They are entitled to our care. They are entitled to our respect. They are entitled to the health care that they need, and they're entitled to a ``yes'' vote today. Let's give it to them.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

You know, here in Washington, there are a couple of different ways you can kill a bill. One is the honest way--you vote ``no.'' Put your card in, you press the ``no'' vote. It shows ``no'' up on the board. Another way you can kill legislation in this town is by offering up amendments or offering up procedures and offering up confusion about the bill, that it goes down for that reason and you don't quite have your fingerprints on it.

Mr. Lee's an honorable man, he's a good man. But I have to tell you it as simply as I can. If you vote for his motion to recommit, the bill dies. If you vote for this motion that says, essentially, we're going to take out the money for the care, it doesn't matter how many 9/11 events you go to, doesn't matter how many times you send out press releases that say you care, if you vote for this motion, you vote to kill the bill, period.

And there's a lot of talk about what's in it. You want to relitigate the health care bill? Okay. We're going to get to do that the first Tuesday in November. People are going to be talking, oh, the health care bill is a good bill or bad bill. Let's do that later. Let's do the politics later. Let's do the right thing now. Let's try to take care of the people in this bill with money to do it.

I understand this is a political town and we're in the midst of a political season, but can't we look around? Can't we, at this moment, look around and say this isn't the time for a parliamentary move or a clever motion to recommit?

My colleagues, when you come down here, the only way you can go home and say that you care for the victims of September 11 is if you vote a ``no'' on this motion and a ``yes'' on final passage. That's it.

The people in this room and back home are too smart to be fooled by anything else. ``I want it paid for this way.'' ``I want it paid for that way.''

As Mr. Waxman just said, if you pass this amendment, it essentially says, We are going to go back and argue about the health care bill again. What is next? Are we going to go argue abortion or immigration? No, let's not do

that anymore. Well, if we are going to do it, let's do it in November on elections. We are going to have TV commercials and ads. Now let's just do the right thing. I want to see every Republican and every Democrat say, You know what, if there is one thing we agree upon, it's that the people who gave up their health on September 11 and the days after deserve our care and our respect. We need a ``no'' vote, my colleagues.

I have to tell you something, I have worked with the people who were advocating for 9/11 health for 9 years, and some of them are here. They are too smart. They are going to know that if you vote in favor of this motion to recommit, plain and simple, you are voting to kill this bill. We are not going to let it happen. Nine years is too long.

But I'll tell you something about time, it's also pretty darn close to election day. In 434 districts in this country are people who have a 9/11 cough. I hope they are watching this debate, and I hope they watch not just final passage, which hopefully we get to, because if this Lee amendment passes, this bill is going down. We can't let that happen.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to recommit and a ``yes'' vote on passage.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the Point Breeze Fire Department in honor of its centennial anniversary. The Point Breeze Fire Department has provided a hundred years of service to the beachside communities of Breezy Point, Roxbury, and Rockaway Point, which are located on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, New York, the most populous barrier island in the country.

The Point Breeze Fire Department was established in 1910 and is one of the ten remaining volunteer fire departments in the city of New York. The original department had an operating charter for fifteen years, and in 1976 the Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department was officially incorporated and recognized as a fire department by Mayor Abraham Beam.

The first fire house was located on Hillcrest Walk near Point Breeze Avenue, facing the bay. It was a wooden structure built above the sand that contained two hose reels and a large, mounted CO2 extinguisher, all of which had to be pulled manually by the members to a scene of a fire. In 1938 another firehouse was built at 32 Point Breeze Avenue. It would remain the department's headquarters until 1975. The current home of the Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department, constructed that same year is a modern facility that facilitates the needs of an effective fire department.

The neighborhoods protected by the Point Breeze Fire Department are geographically challenging. The Breezy Point Cooperative is surrounded on two sides by the Atlantic Ocean and on one side by Jamaica Bay. The residential homes are mostly located in the sand and require four wheel drive vehicles to reach them.

The Point Breeze Fire Department has assisted in several marine rescue operations, including the rescue of stranded fisherman and over 300 passengers from a ship named The Golden Venture in 1993. The department bravely responded to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001 and continued to assist the FDNY and NYPD in its rescue efforts at Ground Zero. Only a few months later the department was one of the first companies at the scene of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Belle Harbor.

Today Chief Martin J. Ingram and seventy-five members of the department are responsible for protecting and serving the Breezy Point community. The Point Breeze Fire Department responds to over 125 calls a year which are a emergencies such as brush, car, and structure fires; car accidents; floods; storm-related accidents; downed power lines; boats in distress; and blackouts.

Point Breeze Fire Department and all of its members have faithfully served the many communities of the Rockaway peninsula. They have provided necessary services to an isolated part of New York City that rarely receives the attention it deserves. I am pleased to congratulate the department on the occasion of its centennial anniversary.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the Breezy Point Cooperative for 50 years of service to the Breezy Point, Roxbury and Rockaway Point communities, which are located on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, New York, the most populous barrier island in the country.

Though these beachside communities were founded in the late 19th century, it wasn't until 1960 that residents banded together to save the peninsula from being sold out to developers. On November 17 of that year, the Breezy Point Cooperative was organized and a few months later purchased the land that currently comprises Breezy Point. Members of the community sometimes refer to it as ``Cois Farraige'', Gaelic for ``By the Sea.''

The Cooperative fought tirelessly with and alongside the federal government and the National Park Service to preserve the breathtaking and resplendent scenes of nature that surrounded the area, and the Gateway National Recreation area was developed around Breezy Point, where Gateway continues to be one of the greatest treasures Queens County has to offer.

There are several civic groups in Breezy that also deserve recognition at the time of this anniversary. The Roxbury People's Association, headed by Katherine Sebale, the Point Breeze Association, headed by Christopher Stokes, and the Rockaway Point Association, headed by Tom MacLellan, are all organizations that work tirelessly to better their community and strengthen the heart and soul of Breezy Point.

The story of the Breezy Point Cooperative is a story of a community that relies on the strength of its leaders and citizens, and I would like to memorialize this great milestone of 50 years of service and dedication to bettering the community and its neighbors. I wish the residents of Breezy, as well as the General Manager of the cooperative, Arthur Lighthall, the other members of the cooperative's management Denise Neibel, Patricia Kirby, Dennis Dier, Edward Ammirati, and the Board of Directors of the cooperative, Joseph Lynch, Kerry Schreiner- Cardaio, Barney Cassidy, George Donley, Brendan Gallagher, Martin Ingram, Joseph Kerrigan, Robert Pierson, Matthew Regan, Arthur J. Smith, Thomas Sullivan, Donatina Trotter, John Tully, Thomas Wipf and Robert Lee, congratulations on this important milestone and wish them many happy returns on this happy occasion.

I thank the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my colleagues who are talking about the pay-for and the tax and the fine print that this is a relatively simple matter. This is a noncontroversial bill. If you believe that we owe a debt to the people who have served our country, this is your moment to repay it.

You know, you talk as if you're giving them some kind of a benefit. What benefit has occurred for the people who went down on September 11, who helped pull their friends and neighbors out of the rubble and who now bounce their grandkids on their knees with a stew of toxic dust in their lungs? What benefit has occurred for them?

You are repaying a debt on this day, a debt to these people who deserve it--and not just on September 11 when we all came together and said that we were never going to forget that day. We formed a fund like this one and said, You know what? If you died that day, you died a hero. Well, my colleagues, there are people who are dying at this moment. Are they any less the heroes? Are they less deserving?

Now, there was one word I did hear used which was appropriate--that we are creating an entitlement. That's right. These people are entitled. They are entitled to our care. They are entitled to our indebtedness. They are entitled to what we are doing in this bill. The difference with this entitlement and others is that there are no more people. In fact, there are fewer and fewer every single day because they are dying. They are dying because they were heroes on behalf of this country.

This is the moment for an up-or-down vote. If you put your card in and press the ``no'' button, you are against health care for 9/11 workers. If you push the green button, you are finally doing 9 years later what has been long overdue. That is the plain and simple truth.

Don't be the party of ``no'' today.

It takes great courage to wait until all Members have already spoken and then stand up and wrap your arms around procedure. We see it in the United States Senate every single day when Members say, We want amendments. We want debate. We want amendments, but we're still a ``no.'' And then we stand up and say, Oh, if only we had a different process, we'd vote ``yes.''

You vote ``yes'' if you believe yes. You vote in favor of something if you believe it's the right thing. If you believe it's the wrong thing, you vote ``no.''

I will not yield.

The gentleman gets up and yells like he does to intimidate people into believing he's right. The gentleman is wrong. The gentleman is providing cover for his colleagues rather than doing the right thing.

It's Republicans wrapping their arms around Republicans rather than doing the right thing on behalf of the heroes. It is a shame; a shame.

If you believe this is a bad idea to provide health care, then vote ``no.'' But don't give me the cowardly view that, Oh, if it was a different procedure.

I will not stand here and listen to my colleague say, Oh, if only I had a different procedure that allows us to stall, stall, stall and then vote ``no.'' Instead of standing up and defending your colleagues and voting ``no'' on this humane bill, you should urge them to vote ``yes,'' something the gentleman has not done.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Roxbury Volunteer Emergency Services in honor of its centennial anniversary. Roxbury Volunteer Emergency Services has provided a hundred years of service to the beachside communities of Roxbury, Breezy Point, and Rockaway Point, which are located on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, New York, the most populous barrier island in the country.

In the summer of 1910, Henry B. Page organized the Roxbury Volunteer Fire Department and became Roxbury's first fire chief. During World War II, the Ambulance and Rescue Corps was founded as a division of the Fire Department. Since its inception, the Roxbury vollies have responded to a number of important emergencies both on the peninsula and in New York City. Following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, members of Roxbury Volunteer Emergency Services worked tirelessly alongside other first responders assisting in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero. Two months later, when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed shortly after take-off in Belle Harbor the Roxbury vollies were among the first on the scene. Be it fires, flooding, storm damage, or medical emergencies, our community and our city can always count on Roxbury Volunteer Emergency Services to come swiftly to our aid.

I would like to recognize all of the volunteers who have dedicated their time and are often asked to put their lives on the line for their neighbors. The vollies' members are Anthony Allocco, Timothy Arasin, Brian Baumann, Michael Beehler, James Caffrey, Alex Diffendale, Michael Duemig Jr., Richard Duemig Jr., David Feddem Jr., Diedre Feddern, Michael Forcina, Joseph Forcina, Danielle Hedderson, Paul Hedderson Jr., Gary Hunt, Edward Kurosz, Ryan McKinney, Christina Morton, James Morton, Sandra Morton, Kevin O'Brien, William Reid, Sean Rudolph, Tracy Rutter, Louis Satriano, Charles Thompson, Seamus Ward, Annemarie Willis and Robert Willis. Its life members are LuLu Allocco, William Bocker Sr., Mary Colleran, Richard Colleran Sr., Steven Colleran Sr., Mel Duemig, Michael Duemig Sr., Richard Duemig Sr., Robert Hanretty, William Hartman Sr., Paul Hedderson Sr., Arthur Kahlau, Michael Knowles, Harry Nungesser, and Kenneth Rutter. Its associate members are Robert Bernabo, Ronald Farrell, Eugene Hanretty, Eugene McEnroe and John Mulvanerty. I would also like to extend my congratulations to Richard Colleran, who has served as the vollies' chief for eight years. Roxbury Volunteer Emergency Services and all of its members have faithfully served the many communities of the Rockaway peninsula. They have provided necessary services to an isolated part of New York City that rarely receives the attention it deserves. I am pleased to congratulate Roxbury Volunteer Emergency Services on the occasion of its centennial anniversary.

If you're one of those folks who has one of those new, modern TVs with the ``what the heck are they talking about button'' on the TV, you're going to need it for this side of the aisle because, frankly, it is insane for them to wrap their arms around the idea that deficits are growing, they're booming, and then get this, they want to offer tax breaks to billionaires this year. Millionaires and billionaires. And you know how they're going to pay for it? They don't say. They want to add to the deficit.

But there is one moment of clarity we saw recently that I have got to tell you that in my 12 years in Washington is refreshing. The Republican head of the Budget Committee, their ranking member, came out with a proposal to privatize Social Security. And you know what, that's not some obscure Member. I actually like the guy. I commend him for being honest. Finally, the Republicans have come out and said what, frankly, they've said for 75 years. They want to eliminate Social Security. Not actually eliminate it. They want to invest it in the stock market. Boy, talk about lessons unlearned.

The Democrats, who created Social Security, are here to celebrate 75 years of keeping it strong and another, God willing, 75 years. The Republicans want to privatize it, invest it in the stock market. You decide for yourself what the right policy is.