Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, last month, along with fellow physician Congressman Phil Gingrey of Georgia, I introduced the MedMal Act of 2010, legislation aimed at enacting a meaningful medical liability reform.

Unlike ObamaCare, this legislation will increase access and lower health care costs for patients, physicians and our government by reducing needless costs incurred because of defensive medicine. Furthermore, this reform will strengthen the doctor-patient relationship by encouraging collaboration between parties when a medical incident occurs.

Repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with patient-centered reforms continues to be our primary goal, a goal that our constituents sent us here to achieve.

Thus we remain committed to passing comprehensive medical liability reform as part of the solution. With a savings of at least $200 billion annually in defensive medicine costs, there is no reason not to act immediately.

Mr. Speaker, last week in my home State of Louisiana, nearly 15,000 citizens gathered to rally against the Obama administration's destructive moratorium on offshore drilling. The Rally for Economic Survival was meant to send a message to Washington that this moratorium is causing serious damage to the gulf coast economy.

While speaking to the thousands of concerned gulf coast citizens, Governor Bobby Jindal put forth another plea to the Obama administration pointing out that the moratorium is causing just as much damage as the spill itself. Here is a quote from Governor Jindal: ``We shouldn't have to fight our own Federal Government. Just as we are fighting one disaster, we're fighting another disaster caused by Washington, D.C.''

Mr. Speaker, let me be clear, this spill is tragic and it was caused by BP. Those responsible must be held accountable and we need to find the root cause of the spill. However, history will show that President Obama did even more damage to the economy than BP through his destructive drilling moratorium.

Madam Speaker, now that Washington leftists have forced socialized medicine down the throats of Americans, the British are about to abandon it.

According to a recent report, a large part of the British health system is being dismantled by the new government because of skyrocketing costs and widespread rationing of care that has long plagued the system and its patients. This radical reorganization would essentially abolish the 150 bureaucracies who decide who gets health care in the system, restoring that decision to its rightful place between the doctor and the patient.

Madam Speaker, as the new British Government prepares to move away from government-controlled rationing of health care, President Obama and the liberals in Congress are taking our country further down the road of socialism. I urge my colleagues to take a lesson from the British and work to repeal this disastrous legislation which inserts Washington between patients and their doctors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate former Shreveport Police Chief Henry Whitehorn on being sworn in as the United States marshal for the Western District of Louisiana. Prior to becoming the first African American police chief in Shreveport's history, Marshal Whitehorn served 29 years in the Louisiana State Police, eventually becoming appointed to the posts of deputy secretary for Public Safety Services and Louisiana State Police Superintendent by Governor Kathleen Blanco. Marshal Whitehorn also served 4 years as a sergeant in the United States Air Force.

I thank Marshal Whitehorn for his many years of public service and wish him the best as he continues to serve the people of Louisiana in this new position.

Mr. Speaker, while the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent and while the gulf coast continues to recover from a devastating oil spill, the people of Louisiana are wondering what they did to deserve President Obama's moratorium on jobs.

According to a recent report by LSU Professor Jim Richardson, the Obama administration's 6-month moratorium on offshore drilling will result in the loss of over 17,400 good-paying jobs in Louisiana alone, just another piece of the Democrat job-killing machine.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in State and local revenue will also be lost as well, all in the name of a moratorium that Federal courts and the administration's own expert advisers have rejected completely. The people of Louisiana would much prefer to have jobs than unemployment benefits.

It's truly unbelievable that when Washington should be focused on helping the gulf coast recover from a catastrophic tragedy, the White House is putting forth policies that do more economic damage than the spill itself.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as cosponsor from the bill H.R. 5585.

Mr. Speaker, from the bailouts to the failed stimulus bills to the government takeover of health care to the failure to prevent and respond timely to the BP spill disaster, Americans are sick and tired of being ignored by their government. Republicans have heard this outcry and believe it is time to let Americans lead the way, so we've launched a new initiative aimed at giving every American a voice in Washington.

America Speaking Out was created as a platform for Americans to share their priorities and ideas for a national policy agenda. In addition to open forum town halls held across the country, we've launched Americaspeakingout .com, an online tool where Americans can go and express their opinion about what issues they believe government should be addressing regardless of party affiliation.

Through initiatives like America Speaking Out, Americans can make their voices heard in Washington. Now is your time to speak out, America.

I thank the gentleman from Washington for the time.

Madam Speaker, I stand in favor of H.R. 5481, which gives subpoena power to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

As we stand here today, oil is still pouring into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, and 242 miles of Louisiana shoreline are impacted by this oil. The highest priority for us must be to stop this leak and to get this mess cleaned up. BP must be held 100 percent accountable for their actions, and the administration must be accountable for their role in the response and oversight. Many questions are still without answers, the most pressing being what went wrong.

The bill we have before us today would provide subpoena power to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. This commission has been tasked by the President with providing recommendations on how we can prevent and mitigate the impact of any future spills that result from offshore drilling. Future tragedies that we are currently experiencing can only be prevented if we know what went wrong. We must find out who made the mistakes, who made the erroneous judgment, what failed, and just exactly what went wrong.

I will also interject, Madam Speaker, that, in operations like this, there are many backup systems; there are many redundancies. So, for a tragedy and a disaster like this to happen, there had to be gross error and gross negligence. This sort of thing just doesn't happen out of whole cloth.

I will support the bill today, but I share the concerns raised by my colleagues on the scope of the subpoena authority. I will voice my own concern and will urge Congress, this commission, and the administration to keep their eye on the ball to resolve the crisis affecting my State and our country and not to use this as an opportunity to advance an agenda, to shut down offshore drilling, or to impose a national energy tax.

The people of Louisiana have been hurt enough by BP's failures and by the inability of the administration to timely and effectively deal with this disaster. The last thing we need is the Federal Government's adding to this disaster by crippling one of the largest economic drivers in my State of Louisiana. The moratorium imposed by the administration would do just that. A Federal judge recently temporarily stayed the moratorium, affirming that it would cause irreparable harm. Any action by the administration, by this commission, and by this Congress must be based on science and not politics. Let's get the answers to what happened in order to stop the oil, to clean up the gulf, and to help Louisiana.

Also, I want to point out a couple of things on this bill about the actors in this situation. First of all, I want to say that I condemn BP and its actions. It is very clear that BP was negligent, if not criminal, in its actions by putting profits ahead of safety.

Let's talk about the administration for a moment. The administration failed to address well-known problems with the Minerals Management Service even well into the first 18 months of the administration. It held off high-volume skimmers from other countries that were offered within 3 days of the disaster. They barely acknowledged the spill for 9 days. They did not give permission for berm construction for almost 60 days in my home State of Louisiana. They repeatedly stopped emergency cleanup operations for trivial or unknown reasons, and that is happening even today. They repeatedly slapped moratoria, as I mentioned before, on offshore drilling that is over 500 feet, which is not, truly, deep water, and when all of the experts on this panel said that it was perfectly safe to do so.

I would like to say there is one silver lining in this entire situation, and that is my own Governor, Governor Jindal. Governor Jindal has been standing point each day in this process, doing everything that a Governor should do and must do while our President is on the golf course and while, of course, the CEO of BP is out on a yacht.

So I just want to say, in summary, Madam Speaker, that I do support H.R. 5481. This is one step in many toward finding out what happened here. We do need subpoena power to find out every bit of this, which will be going on for years, but so will the cleanup and so will the impact on my State of Louisiana, which at this point means that our tourism industry and our fisheries will be devastated, and now that the moratorium is shutting down 33 rigs, it is devastating our economy and our jobs.

Mr. Speaker, the selling of ObamaCare to the American public has been trademarked by one empty promise after another. On September 9, 2009, President Obama infamously promised Americans, and I quote, ``If you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.'' Yet yesterday, in an ironic twist, the Obama administration released draft regulations indicating that up to 69 percent of employer-provided plans may be forced to change their health plans when the new health care law's mandates and requirements begin.

Speaker Pelosi was quoted as saying that we will have to pass this bill to find out what's in it. As the fine print is being placed, we are learning bad news daily about this unpopular law.

Mr. Speaker, I again ask: How many promises will ObamaCare have to break with the American people before we repeal this disastrous legislation?

Mr. Speaker, a recent report has shown that enrollment in high-deductible health plans associated with health savings accounts grew by 25 percent in 2009 to a total of 10 million Americans. These plans, which often provide the lowest-priced health insurance, are targeted in the newly enacted health care bill.

ObamaCare will increase taxes on HSAs from 10 percent to 20 percent and will prevent over-the-counter drugs from being reimbursed tax free from the health savings accounts. Millions of Americans rely on HSAs to cover deductibles, insurance copays, over-the-counter medications, and a plethora of other medical expenses. Furthermore, HSAs are an excellent tool to cut health care costs, while ObamaCare, itself, provides no such tools.

If you truly support health care affordability, I ask you to support my legislation, H.R. 5126, which restores the valuable tool that saves costs.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, I want to congratulate the chairman and ranking member for an excellent mark. I voted for it coming out of committee. I have three amendments in en bloc, two I would like to mention quickly.

One is military retiree pay adjustment that ensures our Nation's military retirees are always paid on or before the first of each month. Second, it requires reports to Congress on U.S. modernization, sustainment, and recapitalization of our bomber force. However, I am very disappointed. The lack of an ear to the people of this country by this Congress is unprecedented, and a good example is the Murphy amendment that we see today that repeals Don't Ask, Don't Tell when we have a scheduled report coming out the 1st of December, and we had the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary Gates who oppose that. So I will oppose the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal.

Mr. Speaker, like millions of small business owners across the country, Zach Hoffman had been duped into believing his office furniture store would qualify for the small business tax credit under ObamaCare.

Imagine his surprise when after analyzing the numbers, he discovered he would receive zero assistance with the nearly $80,000 in health care premiums he pays for his 24 employees. By Hoffman's calculation, he would need to cut his staff to 10 employees and drastically lower wages to be eligible for the tax credit that the Obama administration previously touted as a lifeline for businesses with less than 25 employees. After seeing his premiums rise 15 percent this year, Hoffman rightly feels his government has ripped him off and eloquently described the situation as a bait and switch.

Mr. Speaker, how many promises will ObamaCare have to break with the American people before we repeal this disastrous legislation? Remember when it passed, 52 percent of Americans were against it. Today 63 percent want it repealed.

I thank the gentleman, Dr. Broun from Georgia.

And I still see patients as well when I get a chance, but it's not nearly as often as I'd like. We, being both family physicians, I think we have a special bond. I want to thank the gentleman for his leadership, and certainly he's been a mentor for me, and also a special kind of family practice heart that only we family physicians understand, not just for your patients, but for the work that you do here, and not least of which is for this Republic that I know you love so much. And that, I greatly respect.

What I wanted to extend a little bit from our discussion that we're already into is the fact that, you know, we've had a number of these GOP Doctors Caucus Special Orders during the health care debate, and tonight we know the bill is passed. There's nothing we can say tonight that's going to keep it from being passed. The votes have all been counted and it is in law; although, it's not been fully implemented.

I thank the gentleman.

What I would like to do is take a moment to look through the retro spectroscope, where we are today now that the bill has passed, look at the rhetoric that occurred during the debate--

Right. Well it's a quasi-medical term which is equivalent to armchair quarterbacking or postmortem in which we look back and we go, How do things look now, looking back, as opposed to the way they looked then? You know, what we were saying during the debate is this: This bill is by no means really paid for, that there is smoke and mirrors about the financing, that it will definitely cost tax for the middle class, although the President said otherwise.

The President said premiums would go down for insurance. We said they would go up. The President said people would get more care and better care, and we said, no, the care would be diluted, there would be less access to care.

So there were a number of promises made and, you know, each time we tried to rebut these, we were told that we were using scare tactics, that we are scaring old people and that, really, it was unconscionable to do that.

So what has happened since the bill was passed? Well, first of all, the bill had about 52 percent of Americans who were against it, against 38 percent who were for it. Today, 63 percent of Americans want repeal, so that means that more people now want to get rid of this bill than actually were against it before. That means that some people who were for it now want to repeal it.

And what was the first thing we heard after it passed? Almost within 24 hours, AT&T a write-down of $1 billion, that is a loss of $1 billion for the year; Verizon, $970 million; John Deere, $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million.

We had communication just the other day, a small business owner who thought he was going to be okay under ObamaCare because he had 24 employees, and he said, you know, the threshold is 25 employees, so you get special tax credits and you get support under this program because you are a small business owner that has fewer employees.

Yes, what's happening is the employers, now that they are getting the language of the bill--remember that Speaker Pelosi said if we want to find out what's in it, we have got to pass it first, okay? Well, now it's passed. So, now, business owners are putting the pencil to it.

Here is what they are finding. This is a gentleman who said, you know, I have got 24 employees. So I should be under the threshold, and I should actually get some subsidies and tax credits.

But what he found out was that the way it's calculated, he would have to draw down his 24 employees to 10, and he would have to cut wages down to $25,000 a year, fine print. The gentleman's name is Zach Hoffman.

He is going to have to go from 24 employees making an ample of $35,000 a year down to 10 years making $25,000, $35,000 versus $25,000 a year in order to make that happen. But that's not all. Remember, what I am telling you is not me telling you this. I am just passing on the bad news. Don't shoot the messenger here, okay.

What I am telling you is what people are finding out. The President's chief actuary, this is from, this is in the President's administration, soon after the bill was passed, said, You know what, we made a miscalculation on this. That's from CMS, that this is going to cost $311 billion more than what was anticipated and that it will consume 21 percent of gross domestic product instead of the 16 percent that we predicted. This was within days of it passing.

And then also the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, which we know played along with the smoke and mirrors and the sleight-of-hand financing of this says, oh, my goodness, there's $115 billion that we haven't accounted for. So instead of this thing being revenue neutral or maybe a little bit on the plus side, no, it is going to go in the red just like we were saying all along.

Right.

But it goes further than that. There's going to be $120 billion in taxes that were not anticipated. That's on top of the $600 billion that were already----

Additional tax from the actuary who is saying it's going to be more taxes. Job cuts: 90 percent of medical device makers say that they will eliminate jobs. That's 9 out of 10 companies that make anything from tongue blades to pacemakers, what have you, as a result of the taxation, heavy taxation, excise taxation of medical devices.

Yes.

Yes. So you have costs going up and you have jobs going down. We know that there's supposed to be 32 million more Americans covered under this than otherwise. Half of those are to be estimated to be going into Medicaid. And doctors across the country are dropping Medicaid.

Where are these people going to end up? They are going to end up in emergency rooms, not in the doctors's offices like was anticipated.

But let me get to something that I think is real important because you remember that we brought up the idea that there would be committees that may make a decision about what kind of treatment you may or may not get? Now, we know that they exist in Canada and in the United Kingdom, but we started talking about these. I know that Sarah Palin, Governor Palin, made mention of this and the left blew apart. They said, my goodness, you are talking about death boards. Shame on you for scaring the American people.

Okay, well, let me tell you what's really happening, and this is being reported now. The President has nominated Dr. Donald Berwick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, that's CMS, and his job is to oversee CMS. He is also supposed to oversee the $2.5 billion comparative effectiveness research.

Well, what it basically means is that there's going to be a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, perhaps not even doctors, who are going to be tasked with looking at research, hopefully there's going to be research or they are going to do research, to decide what treatments and what diagnostic tests are worth paying for and which ones are not.

Right.

If the gentleman would yield.

Let me focus on Dr. Berwick, specifically, because this is important.

Dr. Berwick, this is a quote from him.

Right. This is his quote. He considers the British health system ``a global treasure.'' In fact, it's my understanding--I don't have it in my data right here--it's my understanding that he helped design it. And it's designed very simply just to be--a little more technical than what you were describing--is that what they do is they take the population and they assign a value, a numerical value based on quality-adjusted life years. And so just as you say, let's say that the government can afford 1,000 hip replacements this year because of the budget and you've got someone who's 75 with diabetes and let's say somebody 35 who's fully healthy----

A football player, okay. Now, according to the quality- adjusted life years, the 35-year-old has not only more years left to live, but he has more productive years, that is, he's going to work for the state more years. In fact, the 75-year-old probably is not going to work any more years. And so they have to draw the line someplace: Which thousand is going to get the hip replacement this year? And guess which one it's going to be? It's going to be the 35-year-old. That is the way the comparative effectiveness system works.

That's the way they do it in England today. And anybody who's skeptical or doubts that that's where we're headed, they just need to read about Dr. Berwick and all the other information that's coming out on this. And again, there is much reported by The Wall Street Journal. It says, The decision is not whether or not we will ration care-- according to The Wall Street Journal--the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.

It goes on and on to describe the fact that if the quality effectiveness research board is not, in essence, a death panel, then I don't know what really is because, just in the case with the gentleman with the prostate cancer, that's a decision between him and his doctor whether he gets chemotherapy, whether or not he can get surgery. Or maybe he decides, he and his doctor, that the cancer has advanced too far and he's just going to go home, take pain medication, and not fight it. Some people decide that, but that is their decision. But this is going to make it the government's decision to do that.

If you doubt that that happens, again, go and talk to people from the United Kingdom and from Canada. It happens all the time. It's acceptable in those countries and in those cultures that if the government says you don't get treatment or you get only palliative treatment when there is a cure, then that is strictly the way it is. And as far as I know, there is no right to petition; there is no court or anything that you can go to.

So what we really have, just to summarize my comments here, is we had a number of promises by the President. He said the cost curve would go down, as you say; he said the middle class would not pay increased taxes; he said the premiums would go down; and he said a number of other things that I can't even think of today. He scoffed at the idea of death panels and any kind of board or bureaucrat that would dictate what your care would be like, whether the bureaucracy or government would come between you and your physician.

And he said that businesses would be happy, that this would be a boon for businesses. Well, today, where are we? None of those things have proven to be true. Now that the bill is in law, we have businesses not hiring people because we have an unemployment rate of 9.9 and holding because businesses know that if they hire people, they're going to have to pay a lot of money for their health care coming forward. And we also know that what we feared the most is actually in play, and that is that we will have a board, a comparative effectiveness board, just like that in the United Kingdom.

If you would yield for just a comment about employers.

I'm a small business owner, and you, as a medical physician and one who has to run a business, in essence, for health care, I think a lot of people out there may feel safe in the fact that, you know, my employer has always taken care of us, they've always stepped up and done the right thing. But what people have to understand is that if an employer is paying these high premiums and their competitor is not paying those high premiums or reduces the number of employees, then your employer is no longer competitive in the marketplace, and he either has to do the same thing or he goes out of business.

So it's not like you can take comfort in the fact that, well, my employer always does the right thing, he always steps up and he always buys us insurance. This is a whole new paradigm because he's going to be competing; and if his costs are higher, then he's going to go out of business or match what the other one does.

I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, recently the IMF announced a giant bailout to keep Greece from defaulting, defaulting on its own debt, debt for its socialistic economy. The U.S. is the largest contributor to the IMF; therefore, we are the largest bailout source for this. That's right, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. taxpayer is now in the business of rescuing Greece from its debt crisis, which was brought on by reckless borrowing and spending to fund welfare programs.

While the U.S. is putting itself on the hook for another bailout, liberals in Washington are working hard to copycat the Greek model: taxing, spending, borrowing, and increasing entitlement programs across the board. Behind Greece are other European countries on the verge of default. Are we going to bail them out, too? And that's not to mention States like California and the many companies this government has already bailed out. Who will bail out our country when we can't borrow our way out of trouble?

Mr. Speaker, let's stop bailing out countries, States, and companies, and hold all entities, including ourselves, accountable for runaway spending.

I thank the gentleman from Iowa. I would like to state emphatically here this evening, Mr. Speaker, that I support the law of Arizona. Just as the gentleman said, it is really a mirror image of the United States law. I would say that those who are against the law who criticize it, some in our own government, do so for very interesting reasons. It is not really the law that they have such a problem with. It is the fact that we are enforcing a law that already exists. If that were not the case, then why, Mr. Speaker, do these people who are against this Arizona law, why don't they simply bring a bill to the floor and vote to repeal the existing American law. But that is not happening.

What we have had is a wink and a nod for many years, in which case we have a law on the books--I think it is a good law, it is not a perfect law--but a law that if we enforced it, we wouldn't have the problems that we have today. Let's just take a moment to understand why we have the problems that we have.

I lived in the San Diego, California, area some years ago, and it was very interesting. When you would leave San Diego and drive across the border into Tijuana, here we are, two cities that are so close together that they abut one another, and yet on one side of the border you have beautiful homes, million dollar homes. You have wonderful bridges and infrastructure. And then as you cross the border, you find poverty. You find dirt roads. You find people in some cases living in the streets.

So there is such a chasm between the standard of living below the border than above that border, no wonder people try to cross the border for opportunity. I can't blame them for doing that.

But the problem is that it's a cultural and political problem that exists in Mexico today. And so rather than pointing his finger at us, President Calderon should, I think, address the problems in his country, and that is the fact that they have a high level of corruption, a high level of poverty.

I do agree with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) that he is doing a much better job about the drug cartels and enforcing those laws than any President in modern times from Mexico, so I definitely tip my hat to him for that.

But there is also no middle class in Mexico today. And like many third world countries, it's mostly a poverty-driven country, where many people are desperate for work and desperate for opportunities. But on the other hand, there is 10 percent or so of the population that lives a wealthy lifestyle. But there's very few opportunities for upward mobility.

And let's just finally look at it. We're all descendents of immigrants at one point or another, and our ancestors came here because they were looking for opportunity. And we have many people around the world who come here looking for opportunity, and we have a way for them to do that.

I think it was the gentleman from California earlier that mentioned that 600-something thousand legal immigrants came to this country last year. So we have a way of doing that, although we, I think, could make it better. We could make it more efficient. But the truth is there is a legal way to immigrate to the United States, and we should make that available, and we do make that available.

On the other hand--and I welcome those immigrants. But on the other hand, those who come across our borders illegally, inappropriately, and who, in many ways, create danger for our own citizens, create problems for our own economy in terms of the need for education for their children and for health care, doing that illegally is not a solution to the problem. It may be a short-term solution for their immediate economic problems, but Mexico has got to address its own economic and cultural problems. And we, on the other hand, have got to take care of our borders, our sovereignty here.

And so, again, I would just reiterate that I do support Arizona's bold move, I think a necessary move, to protect their borders, to protect their economy. I believe it's Phoenix that is considered the kidnapping capital of at least the United States, if not the world. And who can blame the people of Arizona for doing for themselves what the Federal Government refuses to do, even though it has an obligation to do that?

And then, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) points out, and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) as well, we have the Attorney General sitting here today right in front of this body and having already admitted, confessed that he didn't read the law to begin with; and, after all, it's essentially the same law that he's agreed to uphold and defend as Attorney General, and somehow agreeing with the President from another country who says we should turn a blind eye to the illegal immigrants who are coming across the border.

So I would just say that I agree with the two gentlemen here tonight. It's time something is done. And I agree with the efforts of Arizona, and I do think other States are going to take this up as well and come up with similar laws.

And I think we here in the body of the U.S. Congress should also move forward with immigration reform, but not in the form of amnesty that we hear about from the other side, but a true reform where we can more efficiently allow people to come across the border to work here temporarily if there are jobs for them in a legal way, but make sure that they return when they're done; and, on the other hand, those who are here illegally return and never come back in an illegal status.

Would the gentleman yield?

I'd just like to expand on that point real quickly, and that is that we're moving rapidly in this country towards paying people not to work. So, obviously, that creates that vacuum that you're talking about where people from Mexico want to come across the border illegally to find jobs.

But what's very interesting about President Calderon is, as I understand it, that the rules for immigration into Mexico from its southern border are far more onerous than our own laws. In fact, ours are much more generous, and yet he's again criticizing us. That really makes no sense. It doesn't add up. It's hypocritical, of course.

So I think you're absolutely right, Mr. King, because not only should we make sure that the opportunities are there for our own citizens, but we should take away, I think, any incentives for people not to work when, in fact, they're fully able bodied to do so.

I thank you for yielding.

To expand on that point, I have spoken to a number of business owners who have said just that. They really do not want to hire illegals but feel compelled to because the only way they can compete is to do the very same thing that their competitors are doing as well. So even those who wish not to be corrupt and wish not to break the laws are forced either out of business or forced to violate those laws that we should be enforcing in the first place.

But the other thing, just to touch on amnesty again, it seems like we have gone through this cycle twice before. And the first thing that we do towards a solution has been to generate amnesty. And where has it gotten us? We have more illegals in this country and more problems with illegals than we have ever had before. So if starting with amnesty with or without a fine was a solution to the problem, the problem would be solved already. So obviously amnesty is not the answer. So I oppose amnesty.

I support the enforcement of the laws on the book, both Federal and the Arizona State laws, and perhaps other States that will take up those laws.

And the other thing, Mr. Speaker, that I support is that English should be our national language. It's really I think insulting when you are in your own country and you have to sort through all sorts of phone messages to just get to the right language you should be in. If someone is serious enough about coming to this country and staying or working here, then I think they should at least make the effort to learn our language, at least the basics of our language. And rather than citizens being forced to in effect learn other people's languages just because they are coming here illegally, or in some cases legally.

So those are I think three solid requirements that we should have: That we should have English as our official national language; that we should not grant amnesty under any sort of reform bill; and that we enforce the laws that exist on the book today.

With that, I yield back.

I thank the gentleman. I won't need much time to close out my remarks, and that is that, again, the Federal Government has failed to do its job. It's failed to protect its citizens, it's failed to protect its borders, it's failed to protect its sovereignty. And we have a State, the State of Arizona, which has stepped up, very carefully crafted a law that mirrors that of the Federal Government that's not being enforced. They've stepped up to the plate and said this is costing us in terms of human lives, really. And in terms of other costs, financial and otherwise, we're better off to step forward and do something about this even though the Federal Government refuses to send troops or whatever protection we need to have.

So I think that that is the beauty of this Republic, and that is that each State has its own government and becomes a test tube for the entire Nation. It's going to be very interesting going forward to see what the results of this in Arizona are, and I think the results are going to be very good. And I think very soon we're going to see other States replicating this, and it will force the hand of the Federal Government to finally step up and do the right thing.

And with that, I yield back