Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, the President recently said that the private sector is doing just fine. But for millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans, and millions more struggling with higher food and energy prices, there is nothing fine about the state of the U.S. economy. That's why the House has passed more than a dozen bipartisan bills.

This week, the House will consider the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act. This package of domestic energy production bills, of which I am a cosponsor, will not only reduce energy costs for hardworking families and small businesses, but it will also get government out of the way so that American job creators can do what they do best, that is, grow the economy and put people back to work.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 4348.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mrs. Black moves that the managers on the part of the House

at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses

on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4348 be instructed

to reject section 31108 of the Senate amendment (relating to

distracted driving grants), other than the matter proposed to

be inserted as section 411(g) of title 23, United States Code

(relating to a distracted driving study).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with many of my freshman colleagues to talk about the impact of a very important bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called ObamaCare, on our economy, our caregivers, and most importantly, the American people seeking care. Any day now the Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision on ObamaCare. And while I hope that the Supreme Court rules on the side of the Constitution and the American people, no matter what happens, the fact remains, this law is bad policy. It's bad for health care, it's bad for the economy, and it's bad for the future of our country.

The rhetoric of the bold promises used to pass ObamaCare into law simply cannot be reconciled with reality. The more the law is implemented, the more the American people don't want it. The President's promises on quality of care, lower insurance premiums, no increase in taxes, and no effect on the deficit, in just 3 years have been broken time and time again.

Broken promise number one: President Obama said in March of 2010:

If you like your doctor, you're going to be able to keep

your doctor. If you like your plan, keep your plan.

The reality is, President Obama's very own administration now estimates that the new regulations contained in ObamaCare will force up to 80 percent of small businesses to give up their current plans by 2013. The Congressional Budget Office also estimates that between 3 million and 5 million people will be dropped from their employer-based coverage by the time the law is fully implemented.

When I visit businesses in my district, I always ask: Have you done the math? Will you keep your insurance or will you pay the fine? Time and time again I get the same answer: We'd like to keep insuring our employees, but it doesn't make good business sense to do so.

Yesterday, in fact, I participated in a field hearing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the effects of government regulation on the economy. We heard from several business owners and State leaders. A gentleman by the name of H. Grady Payne of Conner Industries, which has a plant in Fayetteville, discussed the impact of ObamaCare on his business. He said his company has about 450 employees, and he struggles each year to encourage them to participate in health insurance. The company has had to create different employee groups in order to create an employee base which would have 75 percent participation as required by most insurance companies.

Now, Payne said that the nondiscrimination provisions of the health care reform would prohibit this, forcing the company into several expensive options. It could switch from full insurance to self- insurance; it could expand coverage to all employees and have the employee cost set according to an affordability formula; or it could stop offering health insurance altogether and instead pay a penalty of $2,000 for each employee. Payne said any of the three options would cost the company more than $1 million compared to current costs.

I'll talk about other broken promises, but I would like to yield 5 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young), representing the Ninth District of beautiful Bloomington.

Thank you, Mr. Young. I appreciate his comments about starting over. Certainly, we do feel that that is the direction that we need to go. As a matter of fact, we've had over two dozen votes on repealing and replacing this very onerous bill that has affected our businesses, as has just been said.

Now I'd like to yield 5 minutes to our class president, as a matter of fact, Austin Scott, who represents the Sixth Congressional District in Georgia, and he represents Warner Robins.

I yield to my colleague from Georgia.

Thank you so much, Representative Scott, for coming here today and talking about the negative impact on our economy. Certainly, we know that that is true.

I want to talk about broken promise number 2, and how this is a negative impact on our seniors.

Broken promise number 2 is proponents of ObamaCare claimed that it would protect Medicare. That couldn't be further from the truth. The health care law cuts more than $500 billion from Medicare, and it threatens the choice seniors currently have in deciding which kind of health care best fits their individual needs. And thanks to ObamaCare, Medicare Advantage enrollment will be cut in half by 2017. The only thing this law does for Medicare is ensures bankruptcy in 8 years.

Now, instead of structurally reforming Medicare and building on what is working with Medicare Advantage, ObamaCare further weakens Medicare's fiscal state and punts the difficult health care decisions to unelected bureaucrats. This is clearly not the way to preserve care for our current or future retirees. Real, sustainable reforms must be made for those under 55 in order to keep our promises to current seniors.

This law hurts seniors today, and it stands in the way of protecting this program for our future children and grandchildren.

Now I'd like to yield 5 minutes to a friend of mine from Las Vegas, Nevada, Representative Joe Heck, representing Nevada's Third District, who is a physician and a health care provider.

Thank you, Dr. Heck.

And Dr. Heck talked, as we all know, about the major costs that are involved in this ObamaCare, and I want to talk about broken promise number 3. It will not add, and I quote, ``one dime to our deficit.'' That was a laughable assertion then, and now, 3 years later, it is clear that it could not be further from the truth. The law will add trillions to our deficit in the years to come.

Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin estimates that the law will increase the national debt by at least $500 billion in the first 10 years, and over $1.5 trillion in the second decade, not to mention the $115 billion needed to implement the law. That is more than $2 trillion in new debt that will be passed on to our children and our grandchildren.

Now I would like to yield 5 minutes to my good friend, Mike Kelly, who represents Pennsylvania Three, and he hails from Erie, Pennsylvania.

I thank my friend from Pennsylvania, who is a job creator.

We are talking about how this bill is affecting our job creators and our economy, which leads right into my broken promise number 4.

It was said that it will not raise any of your taxes. The President's health care law broke this promise with 20 different tax hikes, placing a tremendous burden on American families and small businesses--the engines of job growth. Americans are already facing a barrage of Washington-created headwinds from the avalanche of new regulations to the impending fiscal cliff on January 1. On top of that, job creators also must work against the velocity of the massive $5 billion ObamaCare tax increase that will be coming at them over the next decade.

This year, the ObamaCare tax burden comes in at around $15 billion, as you can see here on the chart, which represents about $190 for each family of four, but we see it increase 20-fold by the year 2040 when the tax burden will be $320 billion and when the amount for a family of four will be $3,290.

With the cost of living--with gas and food and all of these other crushing burdens on our people--they just cannot afford another increase in taxes. Every dollar businesses are holding back in anticipation of this tax hike or new regulation is a dollar not spent on hiring Americans who are out of work.

With that, I would like to yield 5 minutes of my time to Rob Woodall, my good colleague from Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Yes, that's exactly what you're seeing here. It is the rhetoric versus the reality on premium costs.

We can see that the promise was that we'll bring down the premiums by $2,500 for the typical family. We see here is the line of the rhetoric and here is the reality, and we can see that it did not bring it down. As a matter of fact, they're going to continue to go up. It's estimated, by the time we reach 2015, the premiums will actually have increased by almost $2,400. A broken promise.

My concern is when folks see that chart back home, they are not aghast. Because candidly, that's what they expected. They expected good rhetoric out of Washington, D.C., and they expected abysmal results. Candidly, I don't know why they wouldn't. It doesn't matter whether it's a Republican administration or a Democratic administration, Washington, D.C., is famous in its one-size-fits-all solutions for overpromising and underdelivering.

But you always have hope. You always have hope that this time it's going to be different. Say what you want to about hope and change. I remember when the President was rolling out this provision. I thought, Golly, if we would just pass this bill 10 pages at a time, there probably would be some meritorious parts of it, there would probably be some provisions that the American people would want. I might not want them, and leave me alone in the world that I live in, but other folks would want them, it would pass by 218 votes, If we would only look at it one small part at a time.

But there were some ugly things in the bill, ugly things that I hope the Supreme Court solves and releases to us

next week and shares with us. There were things that folks wanted to hide in all of these other provisions in the health care bill. One of the things that I pride myself on in this Congress, what we've seen out of the Ways and Means Committee, is we haven't seen any 2,000-page bills in the 15 months that you and I have been in Congress. We haven't seen any 1,500-page bills when my freshman colleague from Alabama has been here in Congress. We've seen limited bills with limited ideas that the American people can digest and understand.

I know that we can deliver that, with the help of colleagues like the gentlelady from Tennessee, with the Doctors Caucus here in this House, the largest Doctors Caucus that we have ever had in this House. I know that we can implement solutions that make sense 10 pages at a time in consultation with the American people, not an end-run around the American people.

I just keep staring at this chart behind you--promises that insurance costs would go down, and the reality that a command-and-control government structure has driven those costs up.

I was a staffer here before I ran for Congress, and I was here when this bill was being passed. I remember the phone calls coming in, when folks started to say, What's the rush? I'm a Democrat. I'm an independent. I'm someone who wants the government involved in health care, but what's the rush? I'm concerned that there is something hidden in there that you folks in Congress want to push it all through before we've had a chance to see what's in it.

Chart after chart that you brought down here tonight brings back those memories, that that's exactly right. There were things hidden in there. Folks did not know what was in it. But we now have a chance to do it better. With your leadership on the Ways and Means Committee, I'm certain that we will.

I thank the gentlelady for the time.

I thank the gentlelady from Alabama for coming to the floor and giving us some very real situations and quotes from people right back in your district. I was writing down here that you had folks who were providers of health care, people who were job creators. I'm talking about the patients, talking about whether this is really what our government was set up to do, and bringing these very real situations here so that we can let the American people know how this bill is affecting every segment of our society. I thank you so much for coming, especially with those remarks of the people from your district because these are the people who are living this and are every day having to deal with what is being placed as a burden upon them. So thank you so much for sharing that. That's the purpose of this Special Order tonight.

I would now like to yield 5 minutes to my good friend and colleague from Cincinnati, Ohio, Steve Chabot.

Thank you. I thank you for coming here tonight to talk about this program and how it has put a wet blanket on our economy. Not only that, you did talk about some real solutions that really could help to deliver health care and make it more accessible, increase the quality of the care, and at the same time lower the cost. So I sure do appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

I'm going to go quickly to my last points here.

In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to release their decision regarding the constitutionality of ObamaCare. And I stand firmly with those 26 States and the National Federation of Independent Businesses who have laid out convincing evidence that this bill seriously violates our Constitution and our founding principles. For the last 3 years, no one has known how or when the court would rule on ObamaCare so the House has worked tirelessly to repeal and defund the law. Because every day this law stands is a day that jobs are being lost, Americans' health care insurance premiums are going up, job creators and consumers are bearing the brunt of ObamaCare's tax hikes. And in just 3 short years, ObamaCare has already resulted in fewer jobs, higher health care costs, and more debt.

My first act here in Congress was repealing this law in its entirety. Subsequently, I have voted more than two dozen times to either defund or repeal ObamaCare since being elected to Congress. Unfortunately, these amendments and others like them have been blocked by the Democrat-controlled Senate. But due to the steady stream of broken promises, the growing and unrelenting public outcry, and Republican lawmakers' unwavering determination, we have been successful in getting several of the most egregious portions of ObamaCare repealed or defunded and signed into law. In fact, one of those successes was my legislation that closed the loophole in the health care law and saved taxpayers $13 billion. My bill was signed into the law by the President last November.

Six other ObamaCare provisions have been repealed or have had funding rescinded and signed into law. One of those that many of us will remember is the onerous 1099 tax provision that would have drastically affected especially our small businesses.

Now Republicans are not going to stop here. We will continue to pursue opportunities to get these and other defunding and repeal bills to President Obama's desk. Before coming to Congress, I worked in health care as a registered nurse for more than 40 years, and I have seen firsthand the problems and the obstacles that patients and the health care providers face. But ObamaCare is only serving to exacerbate the current problems and creates entirely new problems. Repealing ObamaCare is a very important first step that must be accomplished, but that simply is not enough.

For the past two sessions of Congress, the House Budget Committee has produced full repeals of ObamaCare and has also set in place a constructive framework to replace the government takeover of health care. House Republicans have built on principles that empower patients with policies that have proven records of success.

Now the House Republican budget passed last year heeds the warnings of economists around the world. The simple truth is that ObamaCare is one of the single most destructive things to happen to our economy. We cannot try to micromanage 17 percent of our economy through a maze of mandates, taxes, and price control. Our project uses models that foster competition, innovation, and choice as driving principles behind improving our health care system.

A critical part of implementing real, patient-centered reform is Medicare reform. The premium support structure would be a constructive approach to defending and saving Medicare for current and future retirees. Premium support would reflect the structure of the overwhelming successful Medicare part D program. Now Medicare's prescription drug program is succeeding beyond all expectations. It's delivering needed prescription drugs to the Medicare beneficiaries at a lower cost than expected due to the strong competition--yes, competition--among health care plans that work to keep costs down and negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for savings.

This market-based program is seen by policymakers as a model for how to restructure health care entitlement programs. The CBO estimates show that part D is costing far less than the initial projections. Total costs for part D are now estimated to be 43 percent lower than the initial projections for the initial 2004 2013 forecast period, according to CBO Medicare part D baselines for 2004 2013.

In March of 2012, the CBO reduced its Medicare part D spending projection from 2013 2022 by $107 billion. This was due to ``an increase in the number of high-volume drugs with generic substitutes available and changes in drug utilization.'' At the same time, CBO increased its projected spending for the rest of Medicare.

Now let's take a look at the average beneficiary part D premiums in 2012 that are far below the original projections. As a matter of fact, you can see here on the chart that the average monthly beneficiary premium for part D coverage is about $30 in 2012, virtually unchanged from 2011 and far below the $56 forecast that was originally projected. According to the CMS administrator, Don Berwick, these consistently low premiums, ``are going to make medications more affordable to the Medicare beneficiaries,'' and CMS officials reported in 2011 over 99 percent of part D enrollees had access to the plan with a premium that is the same or lower than their 2010 premium. And you can see that very clearly here on this chart of what the projections were and what the actual amount is coming in. The same amount of the premium in 2011 and 2012. Just remarkable.

Now research shows that increased access to medication achieved through part D is actually lowering beneficiaries' health care costs. A new study in JAMA found that the implementation of the Medicare prescription drug program was followed by a $1,200 per year decrease in nondrug medical spending among those who previously had limited drug coverage, which has been reported to generate over $12 billion per year in savings to part D from less use of hospital and skilled nursing facilities.

As a matter of fact, what this has shown is that because patients are receiving their medication and can afford them, they are not going to the hospital as much, therefore saving costs. Beneficiaries are also highly satisfied with part D. Recently released surveys showed that Medicare part D enrollees are overwhelmingly satisfied with part D coverage. Eighty-eight percent of the part D enrollees are satisfied with their coverage, and 95 percent say this coverage works well. Additionally, vulnerable beneficiaries who are dually eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare exhibit the highest satisfaction.

Now should the high court fail to overturn the law, or sever parts of this

disastrous piece of legislation, the House Republicans will continue to fight to defund and repeal ObamaCare. While the country continues to suffer from failed policies and broken promises of the Obama administration, my Republican colleagues and I will not only continue to undo the damage, but we will also rebuild a health care system that puts patients and their doctors in the driver's seat rather than the unelected bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in today's America, it can be difficult to find employees who truly exemplify service, loyalty, integrity and commitment. Today, it is my honor to recognize Jeff Rice for his thirty-one years of service at Dollar General. Jeff first joined Dollar General as a part time employee in 1981 and began working full time on May 7, 1984.

Beginning as an order puller at the Scottsville Distribution Center in Kentucky, Jeff grew his career and his influence through his hard work and dedication to excellence to eventually become the Vice President of Human Resources for the company. The length of Jeff's tenure has only been matched by the depth of his commitment to the Dollar General family and its success.

What is truly inspirational about Jeff is the positive impact he has had on the employees at Dollar General and his community. When he retires in July, his easy smile, passion for doing the right thing, and deeply rooted values will be hard for Dollar General to replace. I congratulate Jeff on an exceptional career and wish him well in what surely will be an exceptional retirement that will undoubtedly be filled with continued service to others.

Mr. Speaker, as one of the most outspoken opponents of ObamaCare, I hope that in the coming weeks the Supreme Court strikes down this disastrous piece of legislation. But the fact is no matter what the Supreme Court decides about ObamaCare, it does not change the reality that this law is horrible policy.

In just 3 short years, ObamaCare has already resulted in fewer jobs, higher health care costs, and more debt. That's why I have voted more than a dozen times to either defund or repeal ObamaCare since being elected to Congress. For instance, last November, my legislation that closed a loophole in the health care law and saved taxpayers $13 billion was signed into law.

Today, the House will vote on legislation to repeal two of the ObamaCare law's most egregious job-killing taxes in this law: one, the medical device manufacturing tax; and, two, the medicine cabinet tax.

According to the Joint Tax Committee, the medical device tax increase will take away $29 billion from job creators over the next decade. These higher costs will be passed along to consumers, like veterans with prosthetics and seniors with pacemakers and hip replacements.

This bill will also repeal the medicine cabinet tax increase, which prevents owners of health savings accounts, or HSAs, or flexible spending accounts, FSAs, from using these accounts to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medications. ObamaCare's limitation on purchasing over-the-counter medications will result in longer wait times for those who truly need the care and will also drive up health care costs.

In addition to repealing these disastrous tax hikes, the bill also improves the flexible spending accounts by allowing participants to get back unused FSA dollars, up to $500, as taxable wages in the subsequent year. Under current law, any unused balance goes back to the employer and is lost by the employee. This reform to the FSA accounts rewards, rather than penalizes, consumers for being healthy and saving their money.

Before coming to Congress, I worked in health care as a registered nurse for more than 40 years. I have seen firsthand the problems and obstacles patients and health care providers face. But ObamaCare is only serving to exasperate the current problems and creates entirely new problems.

Our health care system desperately needs market-based and patient- centered reform, not a government takeover. It is critical that the House continue to fight against ObamaCare until either the Supreme Court overturns the law in its entirety or until we have willing partners in the Senate and in the White House.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I hope in the coming weeks, the Supreme Court strikes down this disastrous piece of legislation, but the reality is that no one knows for sure what the court is going to do. So we must continue to do everything we can to get rid of this law.

Today, as a cosponsor of this Health Care Cost Reduction Act of 2012, I continue to fulfill my pledge to defund, repeal, and replace ObamaCare with commonsense solutions.

First, this bill defunds ObamaCare by getting rid of these job- killing taxes. The 2.3 percent Medicare device tax would cost the taxpayers almost $30 billion, and the cost to the manufacturing industry would be about 43,000 jobs, forcing them either to close down or to ship these jobs overseas.

This bill also repeals ObamaCare's over-the-counter restrictions on flexible spending accounts. ObamaCare's government-must-know-everything mentality takes the flexibility out of the flexible spending accounts and drives up the health care costs. Most importantly, we're replacing it with real reforms that promote consumer choice, quality care, and reduced health care costs.

This is what the good people of the Sixth District of Tennessee expect me to do, why they sent me to Washington, and why I'm continuing to fight every day to defund, repeal, and replace ObamaCare with commonsense solutions.

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

Mr. Chairman, I'm here today to talk about my amendment that would prohibit funding for an ill-conceived lobbyist position at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The Obama administration announced on February 7 of this year that it would begin advocating on behalf of illegal aliens, illegal alien advocates and communities that harbor illegals.

When Congress established the Department of Homeland Security, it created an advocate position for immigrants in the legal immigration process, but it declined to create one for illegal immigrants. The President cannot continue to willfully ignore the laws and the intent of Congress.

Mr. Chairman, there are currently 10 million unauthorized aliens in this country, and in the last 3 years, eight States have adopted immigration enforcement measures to address the illegal alien population in their States. This has come to pass because of the Federal Government's failure to secure the borders and enforce our immigration laws.

Nevertheless, the administration has not only used taxpayer dollars to sue States for such laws, but now wants to use taxpayer dollars to act as a lobbyist for illegal aliens. My amendment would deny the Obama administration funding for the illegal alien advocate position at ICE.

Contrary to what the Obama administration seems to think, the Department of Homeland Security was not created to act as a lobbying firm for illegal aliens. Using taxpayer dollars to fund a position whose primary purpose is to advocate on behalf of individuals who have come into our country illegally is ridiculous and certainly a waste of precious taxpayer dollars.

The administration should be using this money instead for its intended purpose--to combat illegal immigrants.

I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, during Floor consideration of H.R. 5325 on June 1, 2012, I mistakenly recorded my vote on roll No. 311 as ``no'' on the question on agreeing to the amendment offered by Mr. McClintock of California.

I intended to vote ``yes'', on the McClintock amendment, which sought to reduce the Department of Energy, Energy Programs, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Account by $1,450,960,000 and apply the savings to the spending reduction account. Again, I would like to reiterate my strong support for the McClintock amendment and wish to clearly state for the record that I support the amendment to H.R. 5325 and did not intend to vote against it.

Mr. Speaker, as one of the most outspoken opponents of ObamaCare, I hope in the upcoming week that the Supreme Court strikes down this disastrous piece of legislation. But the fact is, no matter what the Supreme Court decides about ObamaCare, it does not change the reality that this law is horrible policy. That is why I voted more than two dozen times to either defund or repeal ObamaCare since being elected to Congress.

Yesterday, in the House Ways and Means markup, we successfully passed out of committee two bills that would repeal the ObamaCare tax hikes: one, the medical tax device; and, number two, the medicine-cabinet tax.

It is clear that the House must continue to fight against ObamaCare until either the Supreme Court overturns this law in its entirety or until we have willing partners in the Senate and the White House.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an important piece of legislation that I am proud to cosponsor, the No Budget No Pay Act. It says if we, the Members of the House and the Senate, don't adopt a budget and pass all of the appropriations bills by October 1, we don't get paid.

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires the Congress complete a budget annually, and for over 1,000 days, we have not done so. The deadlines for the budget and appropriations bills are missed so often that they're meaningless. This kicking the can down the road mentality has got to stop. People are fed up. And, frankly, America cannot afford it anymore. We have to balance our books just like American families do.

Our constituents have to perform their job duties to collect a paycheck, and so should we. I urge you to support this commonsense legislation. Not only will it help us get our fiscal house in order, it will help restore trust in this institution.

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

Mr. Chairman, I'm here tonight to talk about my amendment that would prohibit the Obama administration from filing lawsuits against Arizona, South Carolina, Alabama, and other States over their immigration enforcement laws.

In the last 3 years, eight States have adopted immigration enforcement measures to address the illegal alien population in their States. In response, the Department of Justice and Eric Holder have pursued unprecedented lawsuits against these States.

Mr. Chairman, there are over 10 million unauthorized aliens in this country, and States must be able to enforce the law if the Federal Government refuses to. And the States should not have to live in fear of Federal retribution for trying to keep their citizens safe. This amendment would deny the Obama administration and Eric Holder funding for these ridiculous lawsuits. And until the Supreme Court decides the case against Arizona's S.B. 1070, Congress must use our power of the purse to stop these political lawsuits and allow states to uphold the law.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mrs. Black

Amendment No. 23: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mrs. Black

Amendment No. 15: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a woman of incredible strength and courage, one who has inspired and personally pushed numerous young ladies to achieve beyond their wildest dreams. I am of course talking about the record-setting leader of the Lady Vols basketball team, Pat Head Summitt.

Now, I could stand here and read off a list of her stats and accomplishments on the court--and they are many and quite impressive-- but, Madam Speaker, I believe that would miss the true scope of Pat Summitt's impact not only on the sport, but on the lives of her players and so many who have watched her career.

While the world saw her impact on the sport, her focus was always on teaching young women about life and using their shared passion of basketball as the tool. Her student athletes were always students first. They left the University of Tennessee equipped for a successful life.

She instilled in her players the work ethic she learned on a dairy farm in Henrietta, Tennessee. It was her father's values of determination and hard work and her years of holding her own among the boys in her family that inspired the toughness, the drive to achieve, and the winning attitude.

Now the legendary Pat Summitt will inspire countless Americans off the court as she raises awareness in her personal fight against Alzheimer's. One item from her well-known list of the definite dozen is to be a competitor. Those of us that have admired her for years know that she is a true competitor and is ready for the fight.

Thank you for yielding to me. I want to thank you as a fellow member of Ways and Means and a freshman for bringing us together tonight for this Special Order. This is such an important issue, and the American people really need to hear that there is a choice. There's a choice between a system or a plan that is going to take more money out of the pockets of our hardworking taxpayers or one that's going to put more money in those pockets and make a system that is fairer, flatter, and simpler.

As I traveled throughout my district over the last 16 months now, I've continued to hear from my businesses in particular that there's so much uncertainty out there. And I ask them, What is the uncertainty? What is it that's keeping you awake at night that keeps you from growing your business, and as a result of that creating more jobs? Obviously, when people have jobs, they have money in their pocket. And what do they do when they have money in their pocket? They spend that money. And they spend that money to buy other products and services, which means that the economy grows.

And what they tell me is there are really three things. One, they feel like they don't know when a new mandate is going to come down, such as the health care. And that's going to cost them money. They also don't know when we're going to put another regulation on them. And many of the businesses are very burdened by regulations that, frankly, those are not the same regulations that you see when they do take their businesses offshore, which means we are just driving them offshore.

And the third is the one we're here tonight to talk about, and that is tax. We have heard in a number of our hearings in Ways and Means that all the way from the corporate tax down to the individual tax and the pass-through tax that many of our small businesses use that they are willing to give up those deductions and loopholes that are currently in the Tax Code to get something that is fairer, flatter, and simpler.

This Tax Code has not been reformed in 25 years. What it has had is a lot of things that have been added to it. And with everything that's added to it, it only complicates it more. But it does something else. It picks winners and losers. And by having a tax reform that would make things fairer, flatter, and simpler, we wouldn't be picking winners and losers. It is far too complicated.

Most of the American people don't realize that the United States has the highest corporate tax in the world as of April 1, when Japan lowered their corporate tax. I don't know that we want to be very proud of this, but we became the country that has the highest corporate income tax. Talk about driving people offshore.

So in our tax reform we bring the corporate income tax down to a level that is an average for all of the countries that we do trade with and that we are in competition with, and we bring it down to 25 percent. We do something that makes sense. It's a commonsense reform. Likewise, when we take a look at our other businesses that are not the large businesses that are corporations, but the small businesses--and about 60 percent of the small businesses are pass-through. That means they're in the individual tax system.

Am I hearing that we're out of time?

If I may then just conclude with a couple of words.