Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, in the late 1880s, landmen circulated flyers throughout the country about a place in the Republican River Valley with fertile soil and plenty of open land--a place named Yuma, Colorado. By 1886, the town had established itself a school, churches, and a thriving ranching community.

This year Yuma celebrates its 125th year, a community defined by the cycles of Mother Nature and the Ogallala Aquifer, made vibrant by agriculture and energized by businessmen and -women who are constantly looking for new ways to be successful.

A little town on the high plains of Colorado, population just over 3,000 people, Yuma has been home to a U.S. Open PGA champion; an Emmy winner; a National Book Award finalist; a Medal of Honor recipient; professional football players; some of the Nation's leading farmers, ranchers, and business owners; and, yes, even a Member of the United States Congress.

Yuma lies in the heart of Colorado agriculture. Yuma County is often the Nation's leader in corn production. It has weathered the boom and bust of farm prices, hailstorms, drought, and wind. For a small town, it seems like no matter where you go, you find someone who is either from there, lived there, or has family there. In many ways, it is one of the biggest little towns in the Nation.

From its Old Thresher celebration in the fall and the Yuma County Fair to high school sports and academics, it is an incredible place to live, to raise a family, to grow, and to do business. I am proud to call Yuma, Colorado, home. Congratulations on 125 years, and here's to wishing the people of that great town many more years of success.

I thank the gentlelady from Alabama for her leadership on this issue, and the time tonight to be able to talk about an issue that's very important to my constituents in Colorado, the Fourth Congressional District, and around this country. There hasn't been a town meeting gone by where somebody hasn't stood up and said, ``Congressman Gardner, what do you think about the debt ceiling? What's going to happen to this country? What happens if we continue to spend the kind of money that this Congress, this Nation has seen over the past decade?''

As we turn our focus and continue to focus on jobs and growing our economy, the only way that this Nation is going to be able to create long-term jobs and job growth is if we do everything we can to make sure we are cutting spending and reducing the size of government.

In 2006, President Obama talked about a failure of leadership, a failure of leadership to increase the debt ceiling, and that he would vote against it. He did vote against it because he believed to continue to kick the can down the road, to continue to spend money without a plan to reduce our debt, address the deficit, he believed was failure of leadership.

Tomorrow we have an opportunity to visit the President at the White House. And I hope we hear from him why he believed that in 2006 an $8.4 trillion debt was too much, why it was a failure of leadership to go beyond $8.4 trillion in debt. Because the President is now asking us to go beyond $14 trillion in debt, to pass a debt ceiling that would allow Congress to spend even trillions more than the $14 trillion debt that we have today. The people in my district are concerned that there is no stop sign in place for the fiscal recklessness that this Nation has seen. The failure of leadership continues from one Congress to another without a plan in place.

I have had the opportunities over the past several years to attend high school financial literacy classes, where

we're teaching our 8th-, 9th-, 10th-, 11th-, 12th-graders what it means to balance a checkbook, what it means to make sure that they are keeping their records straight. Unfortunately, this Congress has failed to learn those same lessons that our high school students are being taught in Colorado, what it means to be able to say ``no'' to spending, what it means to be able to say ``no'' to spending money that we don't have.

Mr. Speaker, I can't think of anything more pressing facing this country at the moment than to make sure we send a strong message to the rest of this country that we have learned a lesson, that we will create jobs in this Nation, and we will do it because we said enough is enough when it comes to reckless spending. That we have put in place policies that will make sure we stop the runaway debt and deficit.

The House took a stand today. We drew a line in the sand with a vote 97-318 that this House rejected the President's request to increase the debt ceiling.

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, this week, my district is losing one of its very best agricultural reporters to retirement. Bill Jackson will be leaving the Greeley Tribune, and in his place will be a big hole in coverage of agricultural issues in the Fourth Congressional District of Colorado.

He spent his entire childhood and early years in Fort Morgan but ultimately moved to my hometown of Yuma, Colorado, where he graduated high school. He served in the Navy, and after that he went to Arizona and Sterling before joining the Greeley Tribune in 1977, where he has spent the last many years.

In 2004, Bill was inducted into the Colorado Agricultural Hall of Fame. Mike Peters, one of Bill's colleagues at the Greeley Tribune, wrote a speech about Bill for his retirement, and it was so funny that I would like to share some of those excerpts with you today.

You know you're Bill Jackson if you go to cover a water meeting and you know what the heck they're talking about.

You know you're Bill Jackson if, when someone mentions Charlie or Dick Monfort, instead of talking Rockies baseball, you tell them how you changed their diapers when they were little.

You know you're Bill Jackson if you know every single farmer, rancher, milker, ditch rider, beet picker, cowboy, cowgirl, and rainmaker in Weld County.

You know you're Bill Jackson if the term ``NISP'' not only makes sense, but it also makes your heart race.

You know you're Bill Jackson if you know the path of a snowflake from the point it falls from the sky onto the mountain, it goes into a river and then a reservoir and down a river until it reaches your water cup.

We're going to miss Bill Jackson. I thank him for his service to Colorado and to Colorado agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, times have been hard for the newspaper business; but this week, the Pueblo Chieftain experienced an especially tough loss--the retirement of its editorial research director, Tom McAvoy.

Tom is a native of Pueblo, Colorado. He graduated from Central High School in 1964 and from CSU-Pueblo. After receiving a master's degree in journalism from Ohio State University in 1969, he spent a year working in the AP's Denver bureau until he accepted a teaching position at his alma mater back in Pueblo, Colorado.

During the summers, he worked part time in the Chieftain's newsroom; and in 1977, the position became full time. When Tom began his career, these were the days of Woodward and Bernstein, Hunter S. Thompson, and Gloria Steinem. Investigative reporting and gonzo journalism just don't exist like that anymore. These were also the days before emails and cell phones, and stories were literally filed over the wires. Tom is, without a doubt, what one would consider ``old school.''

In 1983, Tom took over as the political beat reporter for the Chieftain, working out of its Denver bureau for the next 21 years. He covered the State capitol, three Governors; and he remembers what the Colorado legislature was like before term limits.

I've had the opportunity to work with Tom not only at the State capitol in Denver, Colorado, but at the Chieftain. He knows a great deal and cares a great deal about Colorado, southeastern Colorado, and the water law that has made Colorado the great State that it is today. Not only am I going to miss Tom McAvoy, but I know the people of Pueblo and the people of southeastern Colorado will as well.

Tom, thank you for your service to the people, and I look forward to working with you because I know, in retirement, you're still not going away.

Mr. Speaker, creating jobs and growing the economy is the number one goal of the 112th Congress, everything we can do to create jobs and help this country move forward and get our economy back on track, but long-term economic growth and job creation is only possible if we control the uncontrolled debt and deficit situation that is driving this country into bankruptcy.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit with a number of voters in my district who were very concerned about the direction of our country, and I read the following quote to them: ``Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.''

I didn't tell them who had said that. I just asked them if they agreed with that statement. Everybody clapped and cheered. I mentioned that this was said

by then-Senator Barack Obama in 2006 when our debt was $8.4 trillion. We had an $8.4 trillion debt in 2006, and the President of the United States then said, ``We have a leadership failure. The buck stops here. America deserves better.''

Well, if $8.4 trillion was a failure of leadership, what, Mr. President, is $14 trillion of debt?

The debt isn't Republican. The debt isn't Democrat. It is both Republicans and Democrats that have put us in the position that we are in today, and this Congress, our obligation is to clean up the mess.

We're told, though, by the White House that we are to raise the debt ceiling--in effect to ``do as I say and not as I do,'' according to the President.

It is irresponsible to take the steps of increasing the debt ceiling without finding solutions to our spending problems that put us here in the first place. I continue, along with my colleagues, to look for those solutions.

We've passed a budget to cut spending and to get our deficit under control. Speaker Boehner is negotiating in good faith. But what do we hear from our colleagues in the Senate who have failed to pass a budget for 756 days? They have failed to pass a budget for 756 days. ``There's no need to have a Democratic budget,'' Senator Reid said.

The President talks about caps but no real cuts.

The debt ceiling is exactly that. It is a ceiling. It is not an arbitrary number that should simply be moved whenever it's easy to do so. The debt ceiling has been raised 10 times in the past 10 years. That's too much for something that was intended to be an actual check on government spending. If the debt is to be raised again, this country needs and deserves an honest effort to control spending and make sure that we are not in the same position in the future.

The past Congress spent a lot of time dealing with credit card reform to help American consumers. Well, perhaps it's time that we treat the Federal Government itself to a little bit of credit card reform to make sure that the Federal credit card doesn't continue to increase over and over without an end.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am concerned that the future job growth in this country, unless we reel in our Nation's debt, unless we address the deficit, is DOA--debt on arrival.

America deserves better, Mr. President, it certainly does, and we are here to work with you to make sure that it gets better policies, a better future, and that we protect America from future economic catastrophe.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Anne Fulton from Greeley, Colorado.

Anne's story reminds us that out of tragedy, opportunity is born. One August 16, 2003, Anne lost her 19-year-old son Judd Fulton in a fatal automobile accident. Judd was an exemplary student and athlete. He was a graduate of the inaugural class at Northridge High School in Greeley in 2003. Not only did Judd excel in the classroom, he was a phenomenal student athlete. It was his skill on the football field that earned him a scholarship to Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. Judd was returning to the University from his home in Colorado at the time of the accident.

Out of this horrible tragedy Anne Fulton, Judd's mother, saw opportunity. In 2005, Anne started a Memorial Scholarship Fund in her son's name. The Judd Kazuto Fulton Memorial Scholarship is a dedicated scholarship fund for Northridge High School students and Black Hills State University football players.

Every year, Anne holds a fundraiser for the scholarship by holding a Golf Tournament in Eaton, Colorado. This tournament happens every May and raises money and increases awareness for this memorial scholarship. Anne describes her son as unassuming, dedicated, hard working team player, with a willingness to do whatever it took to get the job done. Students who receive this scholarship exemplify the same characteristics.

It is my honor to remember Judd Fulton today, and to recognize Anne Fulton for her never-ending dedication, hard work, and for improving the lives of students in Greeley, Colorado. She has provided many with opportunities they could have only dreamed about. Thanks to Anne's generosity and tireless effort, the dream of these students has become reality.

I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support this fiscally responsible budget plan.

For the past few weeks, Congress has been occupied, arguing over a continuing resolution because the previous Congress failed to put in place a spending bill for this year. We cannot afford to make the same mistakes that they did in the last Congress. We are facing a record $1.6 trillion deficit, a $14 trillion debt, and we need a plan to get spending under control--a plan, not a campaign speech and not partisan bickering. We've taken positive steps in the right direction. However, we must move from saving billions to saving trillions, and this budget will let us do just that.

At the same time, we must fulfill our promises to our constituents and pass policies that will spur job creation and economic growth to strengthen and preserve Medicare and Medicaid. The proposed budget would create nearly 1 million new private sector jobs next year. Additionally, according to the studies, it would bring the unemployment rate down to 4 percent by 2015. It would spur economic growth by increasing the GDP by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. It does this by creating a less burdensome Tax Code for families and small businesses and by incentivizing job growth and investment.

We will get out of debt only when we focus on pro-growth policies and budget-tightening plans. This plan will do that by reforming Medicare and Medicaid to ensure that those programs are still available for our children. It is the safety net that we have promised. Without reform, those programs are unsustainable and will cease. The plan we will vote on tomorrow represents a fundamental shift in how the government does business--a shift back to fiscal sanity. The budget proposal saves $6.2 trillion compared to President Obama's plan. If a person spent $1 million a day, every day, since the first day of year 1 A.D., he still would not have spent $1 trillion by today. We will save six times that amount in 10 years.

Mr. Chairman, I was taught a valuable lesson as a kid. If you weren't responsible with your allowance, you didn't get it again. No taxes. Save money.

Thank you to the gentleman from Indiana for yielding.

I am here tonight to talk about the proper relationship between the Federal Government and State and local governments, this issue of Federalism, our Nation's founding documents.

When I was first elected, I embarked on a listening tour right after November 2, during which I met with local officials from across my district to talk about issues that they were concerned about, what was on their minds, what challenges they were facing in their offices. At each stop, local leaders talked about the problems facing their communities; and even though every county is different, every community is different, the Federal Government seemed to cause the same problems in each one of them.

In one county in my district, I was told a story by a county commissioner of the time that the commissioner asked his staff to count all of the Federal and State mandates that they placed upon their health and human services department at the county. They counted up the mandates that they were under from national, State regulators, Congress, State legislation, State legislatures. The county commissioner actually asked his staffer to quit counting when he reached 9,000 individual mandates that that one department, at the county level, was under.

On this listening tour and since then, since being sworn in on January 5, at the town meetings that we have held, it never ceases to amaze me that one of the strongest moments of bringing applause to the town meetings is when we talk about what happened on this floor when we first started the 112th Congress, the time when we read, both Democrats and Republicans, the Constitution of the United States before the American people right here on the U.S. House floor.

When I talk about how we joined together in reading the Constitution, people always applaud because it matters to them, because they believe this country continues to be guided by that most fundamental document of our country.

Those 9,000 rules, though, that that county commissioner was talking about were created by Federal and State regulators who don't understand the problems that each of our unique districts faces because they have never been there. They don't know what it's like. They don't understand that each county, each city, each school board knows how to govern their jurisdiction better than anyone in Washington ever could, and they do not understand that an unfunded mandate imposed on the entire country does not work.

Each State and county in this country is unique and often has far better solutions than those of the people here in Washington, D.C., can devise. The Founding Fathers understood this very well and designed a system focused on limiting the authority of the Federal Government and on putting power closer to the people. Our Federalist system has long served as the safeguard of limited government.

As a State legislator from the Eastern Plains of Colorado, I will never forget the time that I received a call from a cabinet member from the previous administration who was urging me to vote for a particular piece of legislation because there was Federal money involved and that the only way that Colorado would receive this Federal funding was if we passed a bill that the Federal Government wanted. They were dangling money out in front of us to pass a bill. That instance proved to me what we continue to see today, which is the power shifting ``away'' from the States and ``to'' the Federal Government--but to what end?

Last year, Congress passed a health care bill that places increased Medicaid obligations on already cash-strapped States, which have no way to pay for them. Regulations from agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency continue to drive up the cost of energy and force American jobs overseas. Just today, we heard Senator Murkowski, Senator Begich, and Representative Young testify before the Energy and Commerce Committee on a bill about the need to pursue energy policies in Alaska, polices that will allow them to access the resources of that great State and to release, unleash, as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day. The State is supportive. Witnesses for the Department of Natural Resources testified. Unfortunately, the Federal Government continues to block their progress. The Founding Fathers wouldn't even recognize our country today as the one that they formed over 200 years ago.

Education is another area in which there is the employing of Federalist principles. There is no better example of which we can talk about the differences between the Federal Government and the State government and how the Federal Government continues to overstep its bounds. The Board of Education in Douglas County, Colorado, has taken it upon itself to truly innovate in the area of education financing; but the problem with the system in the Federal Government is that it's a top-down approach. Since when is the Federal Government able to better communicate the needs of children in a community than that community, itself? There are some good initiatives in Congress out there, like the A-PLUS Act, by Mr. Garrett from New Jersey, which would allow the States to opt out of No Child Left Behind funding and use that money toward programs they think deserve attention.

Along with Federal funding comes very prescriptive mandates. The more Federal funding a school receives, the less it's able to listen to its own community--to its teachers, to its parents and, yes, to its students. The more it is forced to listen to the Federal Government say ``you can use this money, but you have to use it here, and you have to use it this way,'' it's tough for a lot of States to say ``no'' to that in these cash-strapped times. I look forward to addressing some of these issues during the debates of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind; but we must put power back in the hands of teachers and parents, who know best how to teach their children.

Health care is another challenge this country faces as Congress is imposing an individual mandate on citizens to purchase federally approved health insurance. This mandate is contrary to the Federalist principles that we are talking about this evening. The bill forces States to expand their Medicaid eligibility standards. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, by 2019, Colorado will see a 47.7 percent increase in Medicaid enrollees as compared to the estimated national average of 24.7 percent.

The health care bill was created by the Federal Government, and the cost of its expansion has shifted directly back to State budgets. Further, under the takeover of the health care bill, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has the authority to enact and to execute rules and regulations that local administrators are required to follow. This takes the power away from States and local governments and wrests it in the hands of the Federal Government.

What is more important, though, is the ingenuity and progress in health care that has been established and accomplished by the States on a State-by-State level. Through this process, they've made significant improvements to our health care industry. Unfortunately, I believe the health care bill that was passed in the last Congress is a step away from that direction.

Last week, I had the opportunity to take my 7-year-old daughter to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell, to visit Independence Hall, and the National Constitution Center, to talk to the people who work at Independence Hall about the great symbols of freedom in our country, about the writing of those founding documents, about what it meant to talk about freedom, about liberty, about our great Republic. I am reminded of the time when, during recent events in Libya and Egypt, my wife and daughter were watching television, watching the news, when the President spoke on TV. They were talking about the fight for freedom that continues in the Middle East, and the President mentioned how we have to continue working for freedom around the globe.

My daughter looked at my wife and said, ``But we are free.''

To that, my wife looked at her and said, ``Yes, but we must always continue to work for it, to fight for it.''

That's why we are here tonight, talking about how we can ensure those fundamental liberties, those fundamental notions of freedom, that are enshrined in our basic form of federalism.

With that, I yield back to the gentleman from Indiana.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

One of your comments reminded me of a story shared with me by a constituent several years ago. They talked about their time attending law school. They were talking about in their constitutional law course, they were starting with the Bill of Rights, going through the amendments reading cases. And when they approached the 9th and 10th Amendments of our Constitution, the law professor of this particular class said we are just going to skip the 9th and 10th Amendments because nobody really knows what these do anymore. And they went right on and beyond the 9th and 10th Amendments.

Our discussion tonight has been on the issue of federalism, has been on the issue of the powers that rightly rested with the Federal Government versus the States. And here we are dealing with a law school, a public law school where this individual was told we're going to skip the 9th and 10th Amendments because nobody knows what it means.

I believe the American people have a great interest in what the 9th and 10th Amendments mean. I know that many of our public law schools have audit opportunities, and I believe the people who are interested around this country in what students are being taught, what public law schools are teaching regarding the Constitution, regarding the 9th and 10th Amendments of this country, they have a right to audit that class and maybe they should start attending some of these law school courses to learn just exactly what our schools are teaching when it comes to federalism, the 9th and 10th Amendments, the liberty amendments of this great Nation.

I just thank you for the opportunity to share that story with the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act. Without this bill, the EPA is going to outsource jobs and business with greenhouse gas regulations, not to mention placing huge financial burdens on consumers who will see energy prices skyrocket as a result of compliance costs to utilities, refineries and more.

However, what I want to talk about today is how it relates to rural America and agriculture, particularly in Colorado. The EPA has time and time again said agriculture is exempt. If agriculture is exempt, then why did the Rural Electric Association in my district write to me and say it will cost farmers and ranchers in my State an additional $1,700 a year to irrigate their land, if the carbon bill were to pass this Congress last year and be signed into law by the President; $1,700 a year, that carbon legislation would have cost farmers and ranchers in my State. By 2030, it would have cost them an additional $7,000 a year for one meter to run their irrigation. That's costing agriculture. That's costing jobs.

Instead of becoming the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA is becoming the ``Everyone Pays a Lot Agency.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Fort Lupton Middle School located in Fort Lupton, Colorado.

This year, Fort Lupton Middle School was selected as the National Middle School of the year by the National Association of Middle School Principals. This award recognizes middle schools that have been committed to the educational and developmental needs of young adolescents. Fort Lupton Middle SchooL excels at this responsibility.

The statewide Colorado Student Assessment Program is conducted every year to evaluate how students are learning. Fort Lupton Middle School has showcased outstanding academic achievements with gains in reading and math test scores for the last four consecutive years.

In addition to their outstanding academic achievements, Fort Lupton offers over 27 different academic programs and honors, 29 student activities, and 10 sports. The middle school sees 442 participants in these programs among a population of 441 enrolled students.

The Fort Lupton faculty and students both acknowledge that the school library is truly the heart of the school. This acknowledgement reinforces why Fort Lupton is the National Middle School of the Year. The school excels because of the dedicated and exceptional faculty, because of the great Fort Lupton community, and because the students are engaged in and out of the classroom. It is a true example of excellence in education.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4, which would eliminate the 1099 mandate instituted by the President's health care bill. I've spoken with countless constituents around the Fourth Congressional District of Colorado, not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as business owners, as people who have worked to build up their companies from scratch into successful opportunities for themselves and their families. They oppose the 1099 provisions of the health care bill, not because they're Republicans, not because they're Democrats, but because they know it would cause grave impact on their businesses and their ability to continue to thrive and grow and hire new people.

Madam Speaker, they are speaking as the voice of this country's businesses, the backbone of our economy. If we are going to create jobs in this country to move our country forward, then we have got to do it starting by the repealing of the 1099 provisions.

A bill passed last Congress in the 111th Congress, it doesn't matter the day or the time, but what passed was a bill where people said, ``We need to pass the bill to know what's in the bill.'' People read the bill. They know what's in the bill.

In Weld County a businessman is going to spend 40 hours a month to comply with these provisions.

In Larimer County, a manufacturing company is going to have to hire new people to comply with the provisions of this act. Is that the kind of job creation this body is looking for?

Let's create penalties on business and hope that it drives the economy? That's not right.

Madam Speaker, today I urge the passage of H.R. 4, with both Republicans and Democrats standing up to fight for businesses in this country to get our economy moving forward again.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment simply prevents the Department of Health and Human Services from implementing the exchange as created under ObamaCare.

The exchange does not allow the American people to choose the benefits in their health plans. Instead, it will force the American people into a one-size-fits-all program where government bureaucrats limit their health insurance options. The government will control which plans are allowed to be offered in each State. It will control which companies will be allowed to sell health insurance plans in each State and will control the benefits contained in those health insurance plans.

Exchanges, as they are being designed, will only serve to further strain cash-strapped States by forcing them to use their employees or hire new employees to create and run them.

Recently, several Republican Governors sent a letter to Secretary Sebelius criticizing the exchange and asking her to provide States with complete flexibility in operating the exchange--most importantly, the freedom to decide which licensed insurers are permitted to offer their products.

I urge adoption of amendment No. 79.

February 7, 2011.

Hon. Kathleen Sebelius,

Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

Washington, DC.

Dear Secretary Sebelius: Many of us believe the Patient

Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) should be repealed

by Congress if the courts do not strike it down first. But,

with no assurance of either outcome, we face the decision of

whether to participate in the bill by operating state

exchanges, or to let the federal government take on that

task, if the bill remains in effect in 2014.

In addition to its constitutional infringements, we believe

the system proposed by the PPACA is seriously flawed, favors

dependency over personal responsibility, and will ultimately

destroy the private insurance market. Because of this, we do

not wish to be the federal government's agents in this policy

in its present form.

We wish states had been given more opportunity to provide

input when the PPACA was being drafted. We believe in its

current form the law will force our health care system down a

path sure to lead to higher costs and the disruption or

discontinuation of millions of Americans' insurance plans.

Though we still have grave concerns with other provisions of

the PPACA, we suggest the following improvements: provide

states with complete flexibility on operating the exchange,

most importantly the freedom to decide which licensed

insurers are permitted to offer their products; waive the

bill's costly mandates and grant states the authority to

choose benefit rules that meet the specific needs of their

citizens; waive the provisions that discriminate against

consumer-driven health plans, such as health savings accounts

(HSA's); provide blanket discretion to individual states if

they chose to move non-disabled Medicaid beneficiaries into

the exchanges for their insurance coverage without the need

of further HHS approval; deliver a comprehensive plan for

verifying incomes and subsidy amounts for exchange

participants that is not an unfunded mandate but rather fully

funded by the federal government and is certified as workable

by an independent auditor; commission a new and objective

assessment of how many people will end up in the exchanges

and on Medicaid in every state as a result of the legislation

(including those ``offloaded'' by employers), and at what

potential cost to state governments. The study must be

conducted by a neutral third-party research organization

agreed to by the states represented in this letter.

We hope the Administration will accommodate our states'

individual circumstances and needs, as we believe the PPACA

in its current form threatens to destroy our budgets and

perpetuate and magnify the most costly aspects of our health

care system. While we hope for your endorsement, if you do

not agree, we will move forward with our own efforts

regardless and HHS should begin making plans to run exchanges

under its own auspices.

Sincerely,

Governor Robert J. Bentley; Governor C.L. ``Butch''

Otter; Governor Nathan Deal; Governor Mitch Daniels;

Governor Terry E. Branstad; Governor Bobby Jindal;

Governor Haley Barbour; Governor Brian Sandoval;

Governor John R. Kasich; Governor Tom Corbett; Governor

Dennis Daugaard; Governor Sam Brownback; Governor Paul

R. LePage; Governor David Heineman; Governor Susana

Martinez; Governor Mary Fallin; Governor Nikki Haley;

Governor Bill Haslam; Governor Rick Perry; Governor

Scott Walker; Governor Gary R. Herbert.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price).

Mr. Chairman, again, I would simply urge adoption of the amendment to defund the exchanges.

As a former State legislator, the legislators I have talked to in Colorado and around the country all urged the same thing that I have spoken to: Defund the exchanges; defund this bill.

Let's put real solutions in place that will actually decrease the cost of care, increase the quality of care, and we can begin that process tonight.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I will remind my colleagues of testimony that was given before the House Budget Committee by Mr. Foster, the chief actuary of Medicare, who blew a hole in the two primary promises of ObamaCare. The first promise, that people get to keep the health care that they have if they liked it, he said that's not going to happen. The second promise, that it would lower the cost of health care, he said that's not going to happen. This is the chief actuary of Medicare.

I didn't have the opportunity to speak on this floor when this bill came through the House of Representatives, but I do now, because the people of Colorado spoke on November 2 when they said, enough is enough, let's get Congress doing the people's business, creating jobs, getting government out of the way.

Let's find real solutions for the health care bill, solutions that will actually bring commonsense reforms to lower the cost of health care, increase the quality of care, not result in 800,000 job losses, not result in promises made to the people that can't be kept. We have got to do something soon. And I hope it's voting. I urge the adoption of this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mr. Gardner

Amendment No. 557: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Gardner

Amendment No. 79: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Gardner

Amendment No. 80: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following: