Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Pence Amendment #11 regarding the defunding of Title X health programs including Planned Parenthood. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America provides essential medical services to millions of men and women. For more than 90 years Planned Parenthood has promoted the health and well-being of women and men. More than 90 percent of the care Planned Parenthood provides is primary and preventive. These services include wellness exams, cancer screenings, immunizations, contraception and STD testing and treatment.

Often the only medical care women and men will receive is at Planned Parenthood. More than 6 in 10 patients who receive care at centers like Planned Parenthood consider it their primary source of care. Three- quarters of Planned Parenthood patients live at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty rate. These patients need centers like Planned Parenthood more than ever. Without their services millions of patients will go without health care.

The Pence Amendment would defend all of these services. Planned Parenthood is the only national provider that has developed a set of evidence-based guidelines to define health care delivery, and they review them annually. For every public dollar invested in family planning services, $3.74 is saved in Medicaid-related costs. This amendment would cut these savings to the federal government and state governments. Title X funding provided 2.2 million Pap tests, 2.3 million breast exams, over 6 million tests for sexually transmitted infections, and nearly 1 million HIV tests. This amendment would cause women to experience unintended pregnancies, face potentially life- threatening cancer and other disease that could have been prevented. This amendment is not about fiscal responsibility or legality, it is about denying women the right to affordable medical care.

In Colorado and across this country Planned Parenthood is providing care to over 3 million people a year. Their services are essential to women, men and their families. No one should go without affordable health care, and Planned Parenthood leads the way in providing it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the Golden Hotel Bridgewater Grill and owners Burt and Andria Lewis for receiving the Business of the Year award from the Golden Chamber of Commerce.

This award is given to an outstanding chamber member that has contributed substantially to the Chamber of Commerce community.

The Golden Hotel Bridgewater Grill has become a business known to travelers throughout Golden, Denver, Colorado and the Western Region. This property is the first solar powered hotel in Golden. Owners Burt and Andria Lewis state ``This was an easy decision for us; we are consistently trying to enhance our green practices and what better way to do so than by going solar''.

The award winning Golden business has a huge presence in participation and involvement in the Golden community. The property is also very well known for its many charitable donations.

I extend my deepest congratulations and appreciation for the Golden Hotel and Bridgewater Grill and owners Burt and Andria Lewis for this well deserved recognition by the Golden Chamber of Commerce. I have no doubt their appreciation to community has made our community a better place for all of us to live.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Bob List and Dennis Eggemeyer for receiving the Charlie O'Brien award from the Golden Chamber of Commerce.

This award goes to members who are well respected within the organization and are motivated by an unselfish desire to contribute to the community for the betterment of greater Golden.

Bob and Dennis were members of Mayor Jacob Smith's committee ``Summit on Sustaining Golden's Retail Economy''. An idea acted upon was Golden's First Friday Street Fair. The main purpose of this idea was to bring people to historic downtown Golden to see and experience a good time with hopes they will return on a regular basis.

Bob and Dennis faced several obstacles in their research but never gave up their pursuit of putting this event together. With cooperation from many groups, the obstacles were worked out and the success story can now be told.

In the summer of 2010 there were five street fairs bringing crowds estimated to be at least two thousand per event, residents having fun meeting and networking. The only negative to report is ``there should be more of these street fairs throughout the year'' which has been taken under advisement.

I extend my deepest congratulation and gratitude to Bob List and Dennis Eggemeyer for this well deserved recognition by the Golden Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for making our community a better place for all of us to live.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Craig Baker for

receiving the Golden Chamber of Commerce Ambassador of the Year award.

Craig has been very active in promoting the Golden Chamber of Commerce in several ways. Attending ribbon cuttings, grand openings, ground breakings and mentoring new chamber members. Craig's attitude is positive, enthusiastic, and infectious.

As a member of the Golden Chamber of Commerce, Craig has been very active with the Golden Saturday Farmers market. Arriving at 5:00 a.m. for seventeen Saturday's, helping set up Chamber activities. His peer's consider him the most efficient storage arranger ever. He can fit many items in a very small space.

I extend my deepest congratulations to Craig Baker for his well deserved recognition by the Golden Chamber of Commerce. I have no doubt he will extend the same dedication and character in all his future accomplishments.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Bob List and Dennis Eggemeyer for receiving the Charlie O'Brien award from the Golden Chamber of Commerce.

This award goes to members who are well respected within the organization and are motivated by an unselfish desire to contribute to the community for the betterment of greater Golden.

Bob and Dennis were members of Mayor Jacob Smith's committee ``Summit on Sustaining Golden's Retail Economy''. An idea acted upon was Golden's First Friday Street Fair. The main purpose of this idea was to bring people to historic downtown Golden to see and experience a good time with hopes they will return on a regular basis.

Bob and Dennis faced several obstacles in their research but never gave up their pursuit of putting this event together. With cooperation from many groups, the obstacles were worked out and the success story can now be told.

In the summer of 2010 there were five street fairs bringing crowds estimated to be at least two thousand per event, residents having fun meeting and networking. The only negative to report is ``there should be more of these street fairs throughout the year'' which has been taken under advisement.

I extend my deepest congratulation and gratitude to Bob List and Dennis Eggemeyer for this well deserved recognition by the Golden Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for making our community a better place for all of us to live.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Barb Warden for receiving the Golden Chamber of Commerce Civic award.

This award is given each year to an organization of individuals that have contributed greatly to the quality of life in Golden.

Barb Warden is known to be a behind the scenes kind of person, but her ability to be on the front lines of communication has brought her to the front of the pack. In February 2007, Barb had the vision to create and build www.golden.com. Her main reason to build this website was to promote small businesses and cultural organizations. Today this website is receiving over half million hits a month and growing. ``When folks want to know what to do, where to shop, what's happening in Golden, they search on www.golden.com. More than 30 businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies have had their websites built by Table Mountain Web Design, the official name of Barb's company.

I extend my deepest congratulations to Barb Warden for this well deserved recognition by the Golden Chamber of commerce. I have no doubt she will exhibit the same dedication and character in all her future accomplishments.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chair, just so we don't forget where we were, Colorado in August of 2008 had about a 4, 4\1/2\ percent unemployment rate. We had a crash the likes of which we haven't seen in decades in September, October, November of 2008 on the financial markets centered on Wall Street. Colorado then went to 8 percent unemployment. Thousands of people in Colorado lost their jobs because of the recklessness that we saw on Wall Street. There were no police on the beat, or if they were on the beat, they were told to look elsewhere.

Since Barack Obama took office at the beginning of 2009, when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month, the stock market in the fall of 2008, under the last months of the Bush administration, lost thousands of points. Since March of 2009, the stock market has doubled, because people understand that there is some restraint and enforcement of the financial markets now. People are starting to get back to work. The middle class is realizing they have pensions that are growing again. We have to have confidence. We have to have certainty in the financial markets. And to underfund and take away the police that are trying to deal with these unbelievably complicated types of financial transactions is wrong for Middle America. Middle America got hit hard. It's just getting back on its feet, and my friends on the Republican side of the aisle just want to pull that rug out from underneath them again and let the bums start pillaging Wall Street again.

No, we had Ponzi schemes. I look to my friend from Missouri because I was listening to her. Two of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever in the history of the United States, $65 billion with Mr. Madoff and I can't remember how much Mr. Stanford was, or the Stanford Investments, but billions of dollars, millions of transactions. We had testimony in our committee that the SEC during the period from about 2001 to 2007 was notified 21 times during that period about Mr. Madoff and they did nothing.

So now we finally have certainty back in the marketplace. The market has doubled, and now we want to take those police back off the beat when Middle America is strengthening itself again?

I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri.

Reclaiming my time, I would say resources have now been added, and they're performing their duties, and the stock market has doubled so that the people in Colorado, the moms and pops of Middle America, finally see their pensions growing again.

So much wealth was lost because of what happened on Wall Street, whether it was out-and-out fraud like in Madoff or just recklessness. We can't have that anymore. That almost brought this country to its knees, and this cut to the SEC is just very misplaced. We can't forget what happened 2 years ago.

Offered By: Mr. Perlmutter

Amendment No. 327: Page 214, line 18, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $53,000,000)''.

Page 214, line 21, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $10,000,000)''.

Page 214, line 24, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $9,000,000)''.

Page 214, line 23, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $46,000,000)''.

I thank the gentlelady.

Mr. Speaker, I come after a couple of members of the Financial Services Committee with whom I like to work and I admire; but I've got to say, what's being proposed here today is that America forget what happened on Wall Street 2 years ago, 4 years ago, 6 years ago. It's a request to have collective amnesia and forget that giant Ponzi schemes were perpetrated on hundreds of thousands of people. Pension funds, firefighter funds, people all across this country.

Let's just start with one guy named Madoff. The reason you have regulations, the reason you want a regulatory body is to stop crooks like Bernie Madoff. And under the Republican watch, it was, Let's not regulate. Let's not enforce regulations. Let's allow the market to regulate and police itself. And then we have a guy like Bernie Madoff.

I heard Mr. Bachus talk about a company that, because of regulations, won't invest $1 billion. Well, regulations and the lack of regulations under the Bush administration cost investors $65 billion in the Madoff Ponzi scheme alone. Forget about Stanford and the other ones where these bandits were running rampant.

Our economy expects regulation. It requires regulation so people aren't defrauded and looted. And it's this kind of oversight where we make sure the regulators are doing their job to look out for crooks who are stealing people's money. That's their job.

The thing that threw this country into a tailspin was the Wall Street excesses and the rampage that these Ponzi scheme artists put on America, and my friends on the Republican side of the aisle want us to forget that. They want to say, Let's not have any regulation. We have too much regulation. Well, that lack of regulation almost killed this country's economy, millions of jobs lost. We don't hear anything from the Republicans about, Let's put people back to work; let's create jobs. It's about, wait a second; we've got to get rid of these regulations that they did not enforce when they were in power, causing this country to lose billions of dollars and millions of jobs.

So we all agree that there should be oversight of the executive branch. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

The regulations are important, especially in an arena where huge amounts of money are being transferred. Billions of dollars were stolen from Americans. We have regulations in place. We need those regulations enforced. And if the Republican Party thinks that these things are in excess, they should go talk to some of the victims of those giant Ponzi schemes that occurred under their watch.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to again debate the repeal of the health care legislation passed last year. Democrats provided in that bill various freedoms: Freedom from discrimination for preexisting conditions, freedom from cancellation because you get sick, freedom to move from job to job without losing your insurance. Those freedoms are part of the legislation of America today. They are all based on the equal protection laws of the 14th Amendment.

The Republicans, in a very radical and extreme move, want to have Americans forfeit these freedoms. We can't have that done. This is about saving money, $230 billion. Republicans talk about saving money. But they are prepared to repeal an act that saves America $230 billion.

We want to make sure that we have manufacturing in this country, we make it in America. We're not competitive with the rest of the world. We can't allow this repeal to take place. I urge a ``no'' vote.

I thank the gentleman from Arizona.

Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to know Gabby before we were elected to the Congress. She was in the State legislature in Arizona; I was in the State legislature in Colorado. She was one of the youngest people ever elected to the State legislature there in Arizona and she has been a friend of mine for some time now. I am having a hard time processing what actually occurred last Saturday to her and to those other people. Our prayers obviously are with her, with the families of those who were murdered, and for the swift recovery of everybody who was injured in that shooting. I rise in support of the resolution and I thank the leadership for bringing it.

The second paragraph of the resolution says, Whereas on January 8, 2011, an armed gunman opened fire at a ``Congress on Your Corner'' event hosted by Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson.

I want to explain what it was she was doing, because it's at the heart of our democracy. We've heard about it from other speakers. We do something like Gabby's ``Congress on Your Corner,'' which we call, ``Government in the Grocery.'' Other Congressmen and women do similar things. It's about listening to your constituents. It's about being accessible in a less formal setting than on the floor of the House of Representatives or in an assembly hall but where people feel comfortable talking to you. So comfortable and so successful was her ``Congress on the Corner'' that she had the littlest, most innocent person in Christina Taylor Green, a 9-year-old, to one of Arizona's most powerful, experienced people, in the chief district judge, John Roll, coming to a very informal setting, at a grocery store, to talk about America, to talk about their hopes, their desires, their concerns. This is what it's all about.

This woman was conducting something so essential to the fabric of our democracy.

And to the grocery stores, the coffee shops, and the flea markets, those that provide these venues where people feel comfortable to come and express their views, just, thank you.

I do these kinds of events every other Saturday. We obviously have to work with the different grocery stores and law enforcement to see if we can continue to operate in these fashions, but this is what it's all about.

Gabby Giffords is as good as they get. We pray for her speedy recovery, and we thank her for her service.

I first want to extend the sympathies of Colorado and of the Representatives to our friends from Nebraska. We suffered the Columbine tragedy a number of years ago, so we definitely understand how painful something like this is.

Mr. Speaker, the purpose for me rising today is to talk about what has been given to this country in the form of the Constitution, particularly in the 14th Amendment.

I would say to my friend from Texas, ``nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''

Until we passed that affordable health care act, people with pre- existing conditions were being denied equal protection of the laws. We passed that. They now have freedom from discrimination. Yet my friends on the Republican side of the aisle want to take away that freedom. That's wrong. That's wrong for people in my district and for millions of people across the country because they, their kids, their families, and their friends have different physical conditions that require attention and must be covered and not discriminated against.

``No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State.''

I thank my friend from Vermont.

I want to piggyback on something that you just said. I hope that we can and we will work with the Republican majority on a lot of issues to get people back to work in America, to stop outsourcing jobs to other countries, to stop importing oil at tremendous price to this country so that money continues to flow away from the U.S. instead of into the U.S. I want to work with them on those kinds of things.

But what I am concerned about is something you just mentioned. The ideology and the radical approach that they are taking to repeal something that was put into place over the last 2 years but has been needed by this country for decades is something that I will fight. Ideological, radical extreme positions are not what the American people want. They want practical, solid solutions where people are treated fairly and equally.

In the health legislation, the Affordable Health Care Act that we passed, the guts of that legislation is about treating people equally. What I mean by that is we stop discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. They are now free from that kind of discrimination. That is so important.

We talked a lot today about the Constitution. Well, prior to the Constitution we had the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of Independence starts off, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'' It probably should have added ``women'' at that point, but back then it was ``all men are created equal.''

That is carried forward in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and I have prepared a chart of this, of the language, which says no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

People with prior illnesses, with physical conditions, have been discriminated against because of those conditions and illnesses. That is wrong, it is immoral, and in my opinion it is unconstitutional.

In my district, I was standing at a gas station. A guy comes up to me and he says, You all have to pass that legislation. My daughter has Crohn's disease. I am in a roofing company. I want to start my own roofing company, but because she has this disease, I have to stay here. Otherwise, she will be uninsurable because of her prior condition, and I am stuck in that job.

Well, this bill, the heart of this bill is to give freedom from that kind of discrimination against her prior illness, freedom to that roofer so he can go start his business. That is at the heart of the American way.

In my own situation, I have a daughter with epilepsy. She didn't ask to have epilepsy; that is just part of her makeup. But because of the epilepsy, she is uninsurable, unless she is part of some big group policy.

So in the Affordable Health Care Act, we have done away with that kind of discrimination. We have freed people from that kind of discrimination. The Republican majority, ideologically, radically driven, wants to take that freedom away, and I will fight that today, tomorrow, and next week.

With that, I yield back to my friend from Vermont.

Well, I'd say to my friend from North Carolina that he was talking about the fact that seniors will see this doughnut hole, their prescription drug prices go back up, the costs go back up; but even, I think, more worrisome than that is the fact that, under the Affordable Care Act, those same seniors receive $250.

In my district in Colorado, the suburbs of Denver, 31,000 seniors received this past fall $250 in assistance to payments of their prescription drugs. Even with that, we still save the $230 billion that you were talking about. Yet, when the Republicans repeal this in kind of an ``all or nothing'' situation, do those seniors have to pay that $250 back, each of them? I don't know. I think they ought to be worried about that, and that's why this is such an extreme measure.

They are taking away freedoms that belong to the people, that belong to Americans. They are doing it in a radical and ideological way. When they said during the campaign, you know, Let's put people back to work, and let's not spend too much money, they're spending more. They're taking away freedoms, and I am concerned that those seniors are going to have to pay that $250 back, per senior. The seniors should be concerned as well.

This is a radical act, Mr. Speaker and Mr. Price. We have got to fight it. I hate fighting these battles right out of the box, but if they're going to take these kinds of radical positions, we have no choice.

With that, I would yield to my friend from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Sure. I appreciate my friends.

You know, instead of amending or repairing, as Mr. Price from North Carolina described it, they want to repeal, just take it away.

Well, they're taking away freedoms. They're taking away the freedom from discrimination for prior illnesses, like my daughter with epilepsy, like the daughter who had Crohn's disease, or the friend at the gas station. It's taking away the freedom from cancellation because you get sick, you know, and lose your insurance. You know, it's taking away the freedom to move jobs so you're not stuck in a job, so you can move jobs and not fear losing your insurance. I mean, they're taking away a lot--and maybe this $250 that went to the seniors. It is a radical move to take these freedoms away, and I hope they think twice and don't vote to repeal.

With that, I would yield back to my friend from Vermont for his final remarks.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor and applaud Kay Ehalt for her outstanding service to our community.

Kay Ehalt has made a life of caring for others. She has raised two sons and a daughter. She puts her heart and soul into creating gift baskets that are creative and unique and adds the personal touch to make each recipient feel cherished.

Kay has been involved with the Kiwanis for many years and travels annually with the Children's Hospital Jungle Mobile. The Jungle Mobile is an ambulance converted into a safety education classroom on wheels. It travels to rural areas to teach kids about fire safety, water safety and how to call 911.

In addition, Kay is an avid supporter of the Jefferson Foundation's Crystal Ball. Volunteering her time for the event and donating items for the silent auction. Whenever an organization needs something for auctions, fundraisers or decorations, Kay is always offering her services or her baskets without being asked.

I extend my deepest congratulations to Kay Ehalt for her well deserved recognition by the West Chamber serving Jefferson County. I have no doubt she will exhibit the same dedication and character in all her future accomplishments.