Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, at its core, the budget is a statement of America's priorities. It says what we as a Nation value. After all of the Republican budget-cutting promises that preceded and followed the recent midterm elections, we are finally seeing what the Republicans are really about, what they really value--press releases.

Their whole legislative agenda since they gained control of the House has amounted to nothing more than Republican theater. The Republicans are doing the exact opposite of what they promised. They are offering no transparency and no thoughtful consideration of the budget in the Congress, and no job proposals. Instead, they are just offering a radical Republican wish list to appease their base.

Sadly, the budget process is going to be just another backroom deal. Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin has been appointed to determine, on his own, with no input from the rest of the House, what the budget spending limits will be. If you care about openness and transparency, you're going to be disappointed.

The Republicans said everything would be on the table, with increased input and debate among the Members. Instead, we're going to get a budget number drafted by one Member, and we'll be forced to accept it without a vote. If you care about fairness and democracy, you are about to get a very rude awakening. If you care about making smart investments where all Americans can benefit and prosper, you're going to be disappointed. And if you're a faithful deficit hawk who thought a Republican-controlled House would reduce the deficit, you've been hoodwinked.

In the runup to the midterm elections, Republicans promised that if they won the House, they would cut $100 billion from the budget. They didn't have a plan, but $100 billion sure sounded like a good number. Well, it is now months after the election, and they still don't have a plan, no specifics, no baseline number. And boy, are they running away from that $100 billion commitment as fast as possible.

The Republicans do have a list that includes over 100 cuts that completely disregard the economic and social impacts the cuts would have. Mr. Speaker, budgets are about values. They are a moral document. In general, you are either in favor of making smart investments and helping the less fortunate--so, you're smart and compassionate--or you demonize collective government and it's everybody for himself, laissez- faire capitalism.

The Republican Study Committee's list of budget cuts shows us which side of the values equation the Republicans are on. They want to preserve hundreds of billions of dollars for corporate tax breaks but take away student loans from tens of thousands of students. They want to keep building weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't want, but they cut historic preservation. They want to encourage the off-shoring of jobs, but want to cut programs that help our exporters.

Mr. Speaker, we are a month into the Republican leadership of this House, and we haven't seen a single move toward creating jobs. We are a month into the Republican leadership of this House, and we don't have a budget number. We haven't had a hearing, and we have no budget proposal that can be honestly debated.

Cutting the budget is no easy task, and I strongly urge the Republicans to end the political theater and think about our country's values and priorities when it comes to laying out the budget. Let's have an open, fair, and transparent discussion of job creation. The talk of shifting all of the costs of Medicaid onto the States is foolish. You know the poor will suffer with that kind of a proposal. So let's work together toward a responsible budget that reflects that we are both smart and compassionate.

Madam Speaker, a very famous Republican 100 years ago proposed that we have national health insurance in this country. And he also said this--his name was Teddy Roosevelt by the way--``It's not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man or woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

``The credit belongs to the man or the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.''

Now, I have been here for 23 years, and since the Republicans defeated the efforts of the Clintons in 1993-1994, I have waited for 16 years for my cold and timid friends to make one proposal that will deal with the preexisting condition question. We have 125 million Americans who cannot go out and get insurance, who cannot leave their job if they have insurance through their job because they have a preexisting condition, and you have been silent for 16 years. Now you want to come up and throw this away.

Why don't we just settle down and we can make some amendments to this bill. I think there are some things wrong with it. There is a lot of stuff that I didn't get into it when it came through this House. I am sure that there are some things that you would like. But throwing it away is a political farce. You know it isn't going to work. You have admitted it isn't going to work. It is never going to pass, and so we go through.

Let's get the vote out of the way. Vote ``no.''

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my Republican colleagues to start having an honest debate about the health care law which they call a ``job-killing'' law because it polls well, but not because it's true. It seems pretty clear, especially from listening to the Republican attack ads during the last campaign, that the Republican pollsters have found the key to winning this debate and others is by saying ``job-killing'' as often as possible. If a Democrat said the sun rises in the east, the Republicans would say it's a job-killing sunrise.

Republicans entitled the current bill we are debating the ``Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.'' The basis for their ``job- killing'' rhetoric is

a report that they released recently entitled ``ObamaCare: A Budget- Busting, Job-Killing Health Care Law.'' I have a copy of it here if anybody wants to get it. All you have to do is contact the Republicans.

Mr. Speaker, in the last Congress, we took up the challenge of reforming health care in this country because the system was broken and creating tremendous damage to the American economy. The fact is the health care law will help the economy. It will result in more efficiency, more stability of care, healthier Americans, and at fairer costs. That's what the law will do.

Republicans have repeatedly misused statistics from the CBO to support their argument that the law is primarily a ``jobs killer.'' We are truly in a situation of Republican conclusions desperately in search of honest facts.

Let's look at the typical example--the Republicans' twisting of the views of experts to support their view. On the very first page of the report House Republicans released on January 6 entitled ``ObamaCare,'' Republicans state that according to a nonpartisan CBO report from August 2010, the law will result in a loss of 650,000 jobs. Now you can get that from the CBO. It's available for people to read. But if you actually go to what they cite from the CBO report--it's on page 48--the report really says that the economy will use less labor because many people will choose to work less, or retire early, as a result of the benefits of the new law.

Let me read the exact quote from the Republican report. It says, ``the nonpartisan CBO has determined that the law will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by roughly half a percent,'' an estimate that adds up to roughly 650,000 jobs. The Republican report, however, deliberately chops off the last part of the CBO sentence to substantiate their claim. Here is the entire sentence: ``The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount-- roughly half a percent--primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply.'' CBO explicitly makes clear that jobs will not be lost but instead that people will choose to work less in order to have a decent life. With the new health care law, the American people won't be drowning in health care costs and risks to their coverage.

Some evening, on Friday, fly home to Seattle with me and meet the flight attendants from United Airlines. We have the oldest base in the country. Most of those women are working so that they can have health care benefits for their family because their husband has a job and no health care benefits. They're not flying for the pension. They're not flying for the salary. They're flying to keep their health care benefits until they can get to Medicare.

The Republicans want to focus on their message--no matter what the facts are. Republicans say that health care reform is bad for American business. The National Business Group on Health, a collection of nearly 300 large employers including Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin and others, disagrees and says repeal will be bad, bad for businesses.

I will close by quoting, in a somber splash of honesty, the economics editor of the Wall Street Journal. On January 6, just 2 weeks ago, he wrote:

Talking about repeal of the health care law--remember, this is the Wall Street Journal--talking about repeal of the health care law may be a winning political strategy for Republicans, a rare way to please both workers and business executives, and here is what they finally end with--as long as they don't actually succeed in doing it.

The health care law isn't a job killing bill. It's good for business, it's good for American taxpayers, it's good for consumers, it's good for everybody in the society, and I urge my colleagues to recognize that words really do matter and they should stop mischaracterizing the health care law and confusing the American people.

Mr. Speaker, those who are watching this today may wonder what just happened in the House of Representatives. And I want to talk a little bit about it so they understand what goes on next week on the floor of this House. Today we set the stage for the passage of the Republican health care plan. It won't be a repeal of what the Democratic Congress did before. It will be returning us to the status quo where the health care insurance industry in this country is totally in control of the private insurance industry.

Now, yesterday I was on a conference call with groups that represent 18,000 physicians who want us not to act and repeal the Affordable Health Care Act next week. They have taken resolutions in every district around this country among physicians. They have delivered them to the Speaker's Office, Mr. Boehner in Cincinnati. They have taken them to Mr. Cantor's office in Virginia. Because doctors know what this act really does.

I listened to a couple of my colleagues who are physicians, and I heard them say they wanted to repeal it all. But the 18,000 physicians who I was talking to, or their representatives, on the phone yesterday were talking about what the real experience is out in the doctors' offices, not on the floor of the House or not in some political arena where we are making points, but when you are actually dealing with patients.

I am a physician. I have been there. I have done it also. I have had phone calls from Omaha, Nebraska, about whether I could continue to see a patient. And every doctor who has practiced in this country in the last 30 years knows that is what goes on. They know that patients don't have health insurance because they have a preexisting condition. They know that people who thought they had insurance suddenly get an illness and then find out their insurance company won't cover them because of some technicality or whatever they find. They worry about their own children who finish college at age 21 or 22 and can no longer be covered on their insurance policy. But with the bill that we passed last year, those young people can be covered from age 22 to 26 until they get a job where they have health care benefits. Those are the reasons why doctors want to see this bill stay in place and be enacted.

Now, what we're going to see out here next week is political theater. I call it the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Follies Act of 2011. We have a piece of legislation which we weren't told about today. It is exactly one page long and repeals everything that happened. It repeals the prohibition against preexisting condition exclusions. It allows insurers to no longer cover children over the age of 22. It sets lifetime limits again on people's insurance policies. All of that occurs here in one single piece of paper, with no debate, no committee hearings, no effort to find out what's going on out there in the community. It's a political document for a political purpose for a part of the Republican Party. It is not what the American people are actually feeling.

Now, what you will hear next week is even more interesting because we are going to get a fraudulent piece of legislative hot air. They will say, Well, yes, we are repealing ObamaCare. You know, it's strange. They never call Medicare ``Johnson Medicare.'' It passed under President Johnson. I wonder why not. Because it was for all Americans. It's not the President. It's the body that sits here that passes the legislation that covers all Americans. And yet we are now, next week, going to be offered this piece of fraudulent hot air. It's House Resolution 9. They will say, Yes, we're repealing that, but we have this.

And when you read H. Res. 9, it's one page of nothing. Read it. You've got the weekend.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the powerful contributions made by Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) President Rick S. Bender and Secretary-Treasurer Alan O. Link to policies that benefit working families. Throughout their lengthy and distinguished service, they have done much to advance the cause of organized labor in Washington State and, thereby, to improve significantly the lives of our residents. Thanks to steadfast support of its labor movement by Rick Bender and Al Link, Washington State today is the fourth most unionized state in the nation, with the state's 574,000 union members accounting for 20.2% of its overall workforce.

Rick Bender became President of the Washington State Labor Council in 1993, after serving as WSLC Vice President (1988-1993); Executive Secretary of the King County Labor Council (1991-1993); and Executive Secretary of the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council (1987-1991). He is a member of Laborers Local 242 and Elevator Constructors Local 19, and he began his career with organized labor as an apprentice with Cement Masons Local 528 in 1966. In addition to his exceptional service to organized labor, Rick also served the citizens of the State of Washington for many years as an elected member of the State Legislature; I was fortunate to serve with Rick in the Washington State Senate, where he was much respected for his expertise, his hard work, and his commitment to fairness.

Al Link also is a giant in the Washington State labor community. He served in numerous leadership positions in that community prior to his 1994 election as WSLC Secretary-Treasurer, including President of the Spokane County Central Labor Council (1989-94) and President of Steelworkers Local 329 (1991-94), when he represented workers at the Kaiser Aluminum plant in Spokane. Al has been a member of the United Steelworkers of America since 1961.

Together, Rick Bender and Al Link provided bold leadership to the Washington State Labor Council as it achieved many proud accomplishments: they crafted a far-sighted and effective legislative platform to promote pro-working family laws and policies in Washington state government; these included passage of long-sought collective bargaining rights for state employees, protection and strengthening of Washington's model unemployment insurance and workers' compensation systems, promotion of innovative apprenticeship programs, and development of affordable health care and family leave policies.

Intent on highlighting labor's importance to our democratic political process, Mr. Bender and Mr. Link created a groundbreaking grassroots political program featuring the ``Labor Neighbor'' program, a highly successful effort that became a national model for engaging union activists and volunteers in the election process and informing rank- and-file members of labor's endorsements.

They also led successful campaigns for pro-worker ballot measures, including the nation's first indexed minimum wage law, which began as an initiative filed by Rick Bender; it was approved by the voters of Washington State in 1998 following an exciting campaign co-chaired by Rick and especially memorable because it relied entirely on volunteer signature gatherers.

Mr. Speaker, the formidable team of Rick Bender and Al Link leaves a vital legacy that will strengthen the lives of working people and their families for decades to come. On the occasion of their retirement from the Washington State Labor Council, I join thousands of union members, working families, and appreciative citizens across Washington State in thanking them for their vision, their bold leadership, and their dedicated service. We wish them good fortune and much satisfaction in the coming years.

New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman.

Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King.

Connecticut: William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman.

New York: Alexander Hamilton.

Mr. Speaker, we have a new leader in the House and a new majority, and next week they are going to begin their legislative activity with a stunt. It is a stunt they are bringing out here to pretend that they are repealing the Accountable Care Act that was passed in the last session. They know it won't pass the Senate, they know the President isn't going to accept it, so it is being done simply for their base. Now, I object to doing stunts like this when they affect real people's lives.

I just would ask you for a minute to consider what the repeal of this means to middle class families in this country. I am a physician. There are other physicians on the floor. They know how this repeal will affect people in this country.

In September, we already had go into effect the ability of families to put their children on their health insurance up to the age of 26. This repeal will say, if you have got a 25-year-old who has cystic fibrosis and is on your health care plan and getting their medications through your health care plan, we are going to take it away from you. That is what they are saying in this.

They are saying for preexisting conditions, if you were trying to get a health care plan and your wife or your son or you have a preexisting condition, you can be denied by an insurance company. We have already passed a law that says that can't happen. It went in in September. Yet the Republicans are going to come out here and say to the middle class in this country, we are going to take away your protection against insurance companies denying you coverage.

It goes on and on and on, but I want to focus on one particular part of this bill. This bill has the largest middle class tax cut in history--the largest tax cut for the middle class in history--because the tax cuts in this health care bill to help the middle class are used for giving credits to people when they buy insurance. People buy insurance, they get a tax credit. It is the largest one in history.

Let me say that again so you get it: They are going to vote next week. They are going to stand out here with a straight face and vote to repeal the largest middle class tax cut in the history of this great Nation that will be worth $110 billion that they will take away from the middle class.

Now, a few weeks ago we passed a tax bill out of here and we had to give tax cuts to people who make millions and millions of dollars-- millions. They said if you don't give the tax cuts to the rich, we are not going to give them to the middle class. The entire Republican Caucus voted against tax cuts unless millionaires got them. Well, we should have learned from that that this repeal will be just more of the same--take $110 billion away from the middle class by taking a repeal of this law.

You don't have to take it from me. This isn't me making this up. Families USA, a nonpartisan group, has put out this information, and everybody understands it. Now, upstairs in the Rules Committee right now, I could be up there talking but I decided I will talk here first and then go up there and try to get this amendment offered in the bill that will be on Friday. Allyson Schwartz and Gwen Moore are up there already working on this. But it would prevent a repeal effort from increasing taxes on moderate-income or low-income individuals, including through the elimination of tax credits for health care premiums as provided under the health care reform law. We would exempt that one part out of the repeal.

I don't know what success I will have up there, but we will go and try, because it is worth trying. It is worth pointing out how absolutely unthinking this is. It is a mindless thing to come out here with this repeal.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 5901) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt certain stock of real estate investment trusts from the tax on foreign investment in United States real property interests, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendments thereto, and concur in the Senate amendments.

Madam Speaker, I send to the desk a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the chair and ranking minority member of each standing committee and each subcommittee be permitted to extend their remarks in the Congressional Record, up to and including the Record's last publication, and to include a summary of the work of that committee or subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have until publication of the last edition of the Congressional Record authorized for the Second Session of the 111th Congress by the Joint Committee on Printing to revise and extend their remarks and to include brief, related extraneous material on any matter occurring before the adjournment of the Second Session sine die.

Madam Speaker, your committee appointed to inform the President that the House is ready to adjourn and to ask him if he has any further communications to make to the House has performed that duty and advises me that the President has directed them to say that he has no further communications to make to the House.

Madam Speaker, we've had a long, tough Congress, and we come to the end of it, and I'm sorry that my good friend from Texas implied the vote was held open for some nefarious reasons.

We passed the bill for our first responders a long time ago, and they finally got around to it over in the Senate. Those people were important, and it was important that we wait and make sure it gets over here and we get it passed into law.

Unfortunately, one of our Members had gone home to visit her grandmother, who is near the end of her life, and the plane was coming in and trying to drive in the traffic of the rush hour

makes it a little difficult. And so it didn't happen quite as quickly as we wanted, but I'm sure at this time of Christmas, when we all believe that we want good will for all men and all women around the world, we can extend a moment to finish the business of taking care of the first responders who on the 11th of September 2001 didn't hesitate on our behalf.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 6517) to extend trade adjustment assistance and certain trade preference programs, to amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States to modify temporarily certain rates of duty, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and concur in the Senate amendment.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.