Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, ``Alice in Wonderland'' is in American theaters now, but not even my fellow Kentuckian Johnny Depp could argue that down is up when we're talking about Federal taxes.

As you've heard this morning, even President Reagan's domestic policy adviser has said that taxes are considerably lower by every measure since President Obama became President.

This Congress has done an incredible job in lowering taxes for the American people. This year, the average refund for working families will be $3,000, which is a 10 percent increase over last year. We are taking less and less out of the American working family's paycheck. In fact, the Federal taxes as a percentage of the national economy is at its lowest rate in nearly two generations.

No, only in a fantasy world like ``Alice in Wonderland'' could you claim that this Congress has not done a great job in lowering taxes for the American public, and we will continue to make sure that American families have the best standard of living we can possibly create.

Madam Speaker, in the wake of the phenomenal accomplishment we made this weekend, my constituent and Senator, Mitch McConnell, said, We have a new slogan for the fall, ``Repeal and Replace.'' Well, that really doesn't surprise because while we have been legislating for the American people, our opponents on the Republican side have been doing little more than sloganeering.

I hope Mitch McConnell does come home to Kentucky this year and tells parents like my niece, whose 1-year-old son was rejected for insurance because he had had an ear infection, that we are going to repeal that provision that guarantees kids be protected against being disqualified for preexisting conditions. I hope he says we are going to repeal the provision that says that 15,000 small businesses in my district alone, and in his district, his hometown, will be denied that tax credit providing insurance for their employees. I hope he says that we are going to repeal that provision that narrows the doughnut hole for about 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries.

I say I have a slogan to combat ``Repeal and Replace,'' ``Just Wait and See.''

Madam Speaker, this morning on my way in to the Capitol I experienced a moment of karma. The first song that came on the radio, when I turned it on, was a song from the show ``Les Mis'' called ``One Day More.'' In that Broadway show, ``One Day More'' is sung on the eve of an insurrection by French students, many of whom know they are going to die.

One day more today we will be passing an historic piece of legislation that will not take lives. It will save lives; the 18,000 lives that are lost every year because of a lack of health insurance. We will save lives, we will save money, we will save Medicare, and we will save jobs. One day more until we accomplish all of that for our economy, for our citizens, and for our country.

Tomorrow, indeed, will be a wonderful day.

I thank the gentlewoman. Madam Speaker, this is getting to be like a broken record. And I know there are a lot of people out there younger than I am who don't know what a broken record is, but it used to be something we played music on, and when it got a scratch on it, it skipped, and you had the same notes time after time after time.

Well, we've been listening now for a year to the same talking points that Frank Luntz wrote a year ago and handed out and said, This is the recipe for defeating health care reform. And we need to defeat health care reform because if we don't defeat it, and the Democrats succeed and President Obama succeeds, then we will be in the minority for the foreseeable future. That's been the strategy from day one, and things like government takeover and job killing and rationing are the same words we have heard time and time again. The reason we keep hearing those is because our colleagues from across the aisle don't want to discuss the substance. They don't want to discuss the benefits. They don't want to discuss the protections and the security that we're providing for virtually every American.

Now I've heard a lot of this stuff about the burden on small businesspeople and job-killer. Well, I don't know how many of my colleagues from the other side have a lot of experience in the business world. I was a small businessman. I have two brothers who run considerable-sized businesses. I have a sister who runs a small business. And my father was an entrepreneur who developed a business. Not once, not once, did ever any of them, or I, my father included, ever say the tax rate, their personal tax rate, made a difference in how they operated. And you know why? Because entrepreneurs aren't in it just to make money. They're in it because they want to be their own bosses and they're doing something they love. If the tax rate goes up, they just say, Hey, that's okay. I may have to work a little bit harder, but that's not why I'm in it. That's not going to change my business strategy, particularly when you're talking about a 2 or 3 percent tax increase on somebody who makes over a quarter of a million dollars a year.

Let me tell you what that means. Let's say you're making a million and a half dollars. Small business person, entrepreneur, making a million and a half dollars, and this bill is enacted. Now here's the way I look at it. Somebody comes to me and says, I'm going to make you a deal. You're a charitable guy. For $30,000 I'm going to allow you to say that you insured 32 million people; that you saved 18,000 lives a year; that you prevented 700,000 bankruptcies in this country; that you allowed small businesses to provide insurance for your employees and employees of small businesses around the country, because they are 60 percent of all the uninsured in the country. And I'd say that's a pretty good deal. I make charitable contributions that were a lot less effective than that.

This is a good deal for small business people. And let me tell you why. A small businessperson right now is facing premium increases across the country, 20, 30, 40 percent. Those are the types of things that really impede a small business--not a small incremental tax increase on their personal income. When you're talking about premium increases of 30 and 40 percent, you're dramatically changing the way you do business. Plus, you're being put in the position of forcing your employees to pay more for their coverage or else dropping their coverage altogether, which means some of those employees aren't going to be able to continue to work for you. They're going to have to find a job with a big company that has a group plan. No. This is the greatest step forward for small businesses in the country's history.

I tell you, I was in a small business with about 25 employees. We had a very young, very healthy group of employees, except for one person. We had a woman who had cancer. What happened to our insurance premiums? Every year, 15, 20 percent, because of her misfortune. Everybody else in the company suffered. That's what we face now.

I talked to a businessman in my district not too long ago. He has 110 employees. I said, What's going on with your health insurance? He said, Well, funny you should ask. Last year, we had two people that had pretty serious illnesses. Our first quote for renewal was a 75 percent increase. We negotiated that down to 38 percent, but we had to increase everybody's copays and everybody's deductibles, and we had to ask everybody to come out of pocket a little more money.

So here's the situation. Two employees get sick and 108 others have their standard of living diminished. That shouldn't happen in America. That's not the law of supply and demand which we rely on in many other areas. This is the problem with our health care system. These are the problems that we're trying to solve in our health care reform. This is a great step forward for small business, it's a great step forward for America, and I urge all my colleagues to support it. I know it will be the best vote I've ever cast in Congress.

I thank my colleague. You know, it's fascinating to have been engaged in this discussion for the better part of a year now as we talk about the things that we know the American people are demanding. They want us to act. They want us to act now in a comprehensive way to solve some of the problems facing the delivery of health care in this country.

We know because we've seen polls, just as our colleagues on the other side have seen, that when you ask the American people do they want competition and choice in their health care insurance system, they say, by margins approaching 75 or 80 percent, Yes, we do. Do they want an end to the insurance practices of ending prejudice, discrimination because of preexisting conditions; by overwhelming margins, they say, Yes, we do. When we say, Do you want protection against having your insurance canceled just because you happen to get sick, they say, by overwhelming margins, Yes, we do. When you work through all of the elements of the legislation we're considering and will approve this weekend, the American people overwhelmingly say, Yes, we want that.

I know our colleagues like to throw out these national poll numbers now and say, Well, these polls show that--now it's about 50-50--but the American people really don't want this. Well, there's one poll recently that asked those people who said they were against President Obama's reform plan, the congressional plan, they said, How many of you who say you're against it are against because it doesn't go far enough? And nearly 40 percent of those said, That's why we're against it. And that's kind of what I've been hearing in my district. Just like the shop owner I spoke to over Christmas who said, You know, I'm against what you're doing. I said, Really, why is that? She said, Because I have diabetes and I can't wait until 2014 to get the help I need. Is she against reform? Not on your life. Not on her life either. She wants reform. She wants it faster and she wants more of it.

And that's what I'm hearing all over in my community. I don't know what is going on in some of our Republicans' communities, but what I hear by overwhelming margins, people say, Do it. Do it now. We are desperate.

And you know what's interesting? As we've gone through this debate, and my friend Mr. Dreier was down here just a few minutes ago talking about how much they did when they were in control of Congress, well, they say they were for having insurance companies being able to sell insurance across State lines. Did they do anything when they had control of the Congress for 12 years? Did they make that possible? No. They say they're for ending preexisting conditions. Did they do anything about that? No. How about the rescission issue? Did they do anything about that? No. Yes, they passed the prescription drug plan. For some people, that's working out very well. For those who are in the doughnut hole, that middle portion where they pay 100 percent of the cost, it's not working out very well.

Did they do anything about that? Yes, they did. They passed the bill, but they didn't pay for it. And now the CBO says that's going to add $8 trillion to our debt.

So while the Republicans say they've been concerned about solving America's health care problems, they really

haven't done anything about it. And the one thing that sticks with me throughout this entire debate, 1 year long, nobody on the Republican side has ever said in any discussion that they had any interest in insuring the uninsured. Those 47 million people, many of whom are going bankrupt, some of whom are dying, 18,000 a year are dying, almost a million a year are going bankrupt, did they say anything about insuring the uninsured? Not a word.

So we're committed to providing the health care system America needs, wants, and demands. We're going to do it this weekend. And as I said before, this will be the proudest vote I ever cast on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Madam Speaker, every time I hear a Republican talking about health care reform, they say the American people don't want it. They say it so much that I think they're beginning to try to convince themselves that it's true. But there's a national poll that shows what the real story is.

They asked, of all the people who are opposed to health care or say they are, how many are opposed to it because they don't think it goes far enough. Forty percent. Almost 40 percent said that was the reason. They will not be unhappy when we pass health care reform. They will be ecstatic, like the shopkeeper I talked to over Christmas who said she was against what we're doing because she has diabetes and she can't wait 4 years for the help she needs.

No, the American people will applaud us when we pass comprehensive health care reform, and I will consider it the proudest moment of my service.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday Jewish Hospital in my home town of Louisville, Kentucky, was forced to lay off 250 workers and announced plans to eliminate a total of 500 jobs. These hardworking people who played by the rules now, through no fault of their own, must figure out a new way to provide for their families.

Here are the reasons the CEO gave for the layoffs: ``With 900,000 Kentuckians now without health insurance, we are experiencing a perfect storm of declining volumes and increasing levels of uncompensated care.''

To my colleagues who argue health care should be scrapped and focus given to jobs and the economy, I urge you to note this tragic situation and understand: Health care is all about jobs and the economy.

To my Senator and constituent, Mitch McConnell, who keeps saying we should start over and take our time, 250 Louisvillians, your constituents and mine, Senator, are the ones who are now starting over.

Louisville is anything but alone in this crisis, and the unemployed workers in my community are far from the only casualties of this failed system. I urge my colleagues to directly address our struggling economy and high unemployment without delay by working together to reform our broken health care system.

Mr. Speaker, just as we are about to reach the mountaintop of health care reform, just a few feet away, opponents of health care reform say, Start over. Well, you know, there are people in this country who do have to start over. The 1,800 people or 17 a day, 700,000 a year, who go into bankruptcy because of health care costs, they have to start over. They have to start rebuilding their lives all over again. And those 14,000 people every day who lose their health insurance, they have to start over as well. They have to start the search to find out how they can protect their family with affordable health insurance.

The only people who really get to start over are the insurance companies who, when people get very sick, say, We are going to start over with another customer because you are too expensive to care for.

No, we can't start over because, if we start over, life will be over for too many Americans.

Mr. Speaker, as we have said many times recently, we are acknowledging and recognizing the 1-year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It is interesting on these anniversaries that we have considerable discussions about whether the act, or any other act, was successful or not.

Just watching Sunday morning's national talk shows was a very interesting experience, because we had on one show Governor Granholm from Michigan and Governor Barbour from Mississippi, and you would have believed that the two of them came from different planets or at least that they were talking about two very different pieces of legislation.

Jennifer Granholm talked about tens of thousands of jobs being created in Michigan, beginning the foundation, setting the foundation for a new explosion of battery technologies and energy technologies. Governor Barbour on the other hand said, ``Well, we got a few jobs, we've paved a few roads, but it really wasn't that good of a program.''

My own Senator and my constituent, Senator McConnell, was on another talk show saying, ``Yeah, the governors like it. It funds a lot of government jobs.'' Well, I am going to get to that in a minute, because those government jobs are not just government jobs. Those are not bureaucrats. Those are teachers, those are firefighters, those are police officers. Those are people who are providing critical public services to our constituents. But let's talk about where we were a year ago.

My colleague from Virginia just talked about a lot of the data reflecting what the situation was in the economy several years ago and last year when the Recovery Act went into effect. But let's talk about what we were trying to do then, because this wasn't just about creating jobs. As all the economists have said, we faced a considerable gap in demand in the economy, as much as $1 trillion a year. That is the capacity of the economy versus the demand for goods and services. And when you have that kind of gap, if you have too many people working and too little demand, people get laid off. That is what has happened in our economy. Nobody else was filling that gap, so economists across the spectrum said government has to be the spender of last resort. We have to fill that gap because consumers aren't spending.

So what did we do? We not only put in programs that would create jobs through infrastructure spending and investment, but we also said we need to make sure that people have their unemployment benefits, because unemployment benefits are spent; they go directly into the economy as quickly as possible.

We wanted to give tax cuts. Many of our Republican colleagues asked us to do that, so 95 percent of the American people have received a tax cut. Now, a lot of them don't know it. As a matter of fact, I understand there is a poll now of Tea Party supporters in which only 2 percent say they actually think the taxes have decreased in the last year; 95 percent don't. But, in fact, virtually 95 percent of those people have received a tax cut.

But let's talk about just the experience in my own congressional district in my own State. As Senator McConnell said, it is only helping support a few government jobs. Well, in fact, in my district, because of the first-time homebuyers credit, sales of homes in Louisville have had four successive months of gains, substantial gains. Because of stimulus fund investment, GE's Appliance Park is bringing 400 jobs back from China to help build a new energy-efficient water heater in Louisville, Kentucky. Those aren't government jobs, but private sector jobs.

The stimulus moneys helped retain 600 teachers in Jefferson County Public Schools. We have a new maintenance facility being built at our public transit company; 80 new construction jobs building this energy- efficient facility. Stimulus funds provided a billion dollars to shore up our KCHIP program. That is health insurance for children. We had funding for career training for 500 at-risk young people. We had $26 million for remodeling and renovating schools.

Now, Senator McConnell may think those aren't jobs, but I don't think those schools are renovating themselves. There are people working to renovate those schools, as well as building a new Beechmont Fire Station, $2.2 million. Those are human beings working because of the Recovery Act.

In all just in my district we have served more than 4,000 people. According to local government, which is tracking the funds very carefully, we have created 1,800 jobs just in Louisville, Kentucky, and we have, again, provided numerous public services both in Louisville and throughout the State.

Now, we have a long way to go. The Recovery Act was not a cure-all. We can have our doubts and our differences about whether it has succeeded as well as it might have, but the fact is there

has been true progress made, and we expect more progress to be made.

Mr. Speaker, we've heard one after another of our colleagues from the other side come today and ask, where are the jobs? Well, I invite them all to visit my district because in Louisville, Kentucky, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has created hundreds and hundreds of jobs and will create hundreds more. Already, 1,800 certified jobs, doing things like building additions to two new schools, building a new facility at our TARC system, our bus system, a new maintenance facility, a new fire station in Louisville, paving miles and miles of interstate, all of these things are bringing people to work, creating jobs, not to speak of the 600 jobs in our school system that have been saved because of the stimulus funding.

No, anybody who wants to see jobs created can come to Louisville, Kentucky. And as I said, they're not finished because, due to stimulus funding, General Electric's Appliance Park is about to bring 400 new jobs to our community to build an energy efficient water heater.

And lest anybody think these are jobs that are moving from one place to another, they're right. They're coming from China to the United States.

Mr. Speaker, we all remember the great line of Rodney Dangerfield. When asked, ``How's your wife?'' he said, ``Compared to what?'' Well, beginning last Friday, with President Obama's appearance before the Republican conference and this week with the introduction of the new budget, we have seen the ``compared to what.''

President Obama has an aggressive plan to create jobs and restore economic vitality. We want to provide credit to small businesses, job tax credits and very important incentives to both middle class working families and the businesses that create most of the jobs.

On the other side, we saw from Congressman Ryan their version of economic growth: Privatize Social Security, eliminate Medicare for everybody under 55, and give people vouchers to buy insurance which they won't be able to afford. And, of course, tax cuts across the board, which means more tax breaks for Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and the managers at AIG that just took $100 million worth of bonuses.

We now see the ``compared to what,'' and I hope that we continue to see the ``compared to what.'' We will see who has a plan that will create economic growth for the American people.

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights on the occasion of the organization's fiftieth year.

In 1960, while the civil rights debate was raging across the country over the extension of Civil Rights to all Americans, Kentucky became the first state south of the Mason-Dixon line to establish a human rights commission.

Since that time, the pioneering members of the Commission have been an ally of all Kentuckians fighting for equality, fairness, and the equal application of justice. The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights is charged with enforcing State and Federal Civil Rights law. It is also tasked with a powerful mandate, remarkable in its scope and comprehensive in its aims;

``To safeguard all individuals within the state from discrimination because of familial status, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age 40 and over, or because of the person's status as a qualified individual with a disability,'' reads the mandate. ``Thereby to protect their interest in personal dignity and freedom from humiliation, to make available to the state their full productive capacities, to secure the state against domestic strife and unrest which would menace its democratic institutions, to preserve the public safety, health, and general welfare, and to further the interest, rights, and privileges of individuals within the state.''

Those who have worked with the Commission throughout the last five decades have committed themselves to meeting the goals of that mandate. And that dedication is reflected not just in the law books of the Commonwealth, but in communities throughout Kentucky.

It was Kentucky that was the first southern state to pass a civil rights act and the first in the Nation to enact a fair housing law. And each and every day, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights continues to fight to educate our citizens about how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

Every citizen of our Commonwealth can be proud of the legacy of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. I urge my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Commission for fifty years of dedication to the expansion of equal rights across our Commonwealth and honor their vision of a people united against discrimination and united for equality.

Mr. Speaker, among all of the potentially disastrous consequences of last week's Supreme Court decision on campaign finance, one of them is a really cruel irony. Those of us who think we need public financing of Federal campaigns may now watch as taxpayer dollars actually are used for Federal campaigns.

AIG, which this Congress and our taxpayers bailed out to the tune of $180 billion, may now be able to spend our money, your money, to actually influence Federal elections.

Not only that. We passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to regulate Wall Street, finally, after they brought us to the brink of disaster. We spent a lot of money doing that, taxpayer dollars.

The companies that were saved by those dollars can now directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates for Federal office.

This is a disgrace. And, unfortunately, we still haven't acted sufficiently to put an end to the risky behavior of Wall Street. I hope the Senate will act and we can sign the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law before the Supreme Court destroys the country.

Mr. Speaker, there is always a great deal of danger in spontaneous reactions to elections. One of the things that I thought about last night when I watched Scott Brown accept his victory in Massachusetts was that he didn't talk about returning to the agenda of 2000-2008. He didn't talk about returning to Bush economics or the Republican agenda. As a matter of fact, he never mentioned the word ``Republican.''

What he did talk about, and he talked about it extremely well, was about the need for us to listen to the people, that the job wasn't his job or a Kennedy job. This was the people's job. It's a lesson for all of us to learn.

The true political victory will be won by the party and the individuals who demonstrate responsiveness to the needs of their communities and of their citizens. We have been doing that now for a year. I think we can make a strong case on the Democratic side that we have saved this country from an economic abyss. We will continue to do that while we continue to listen to the people we work for.

Madam Speaker, I would like to tell you about two of my constituents in Louisville who came up over the break and who told me why they were against health care reform.

The first one was a mother. She said she thought our health care reform bill was going to hurt too many people. When I asked her why or who, she said, Well, like my son. He had a kidney transplant, and I'm afraid he won't get

the care he needs. When I told her that under our bill we could very well save his life because he would never get insurance under the present situation and that he would never be denied coverage under our bill, she had a little bit of a conversion right on the spot.

A second was a woman who owned a gift shop in Louisville. She said she was against health care reform because she is a diabetic. She said, I can't wait until 2014 to get the help I need. She wasn't against health care reform. She needs it now, and she needs it desperately. Under our bill, there will be a high-risk pool so she can immediately get coverage that she can't get now.

The fact is health care reform as proposed by the House Democrats will save lives, will save money, will save jobs, and will save Medicare. It is time to pass health care reform.