Floor Statements

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 29 minutes

p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, May 19, 2010, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting week. It's been an interesting time. And there are things that we agree on between our parties.

I heard my friends across the aisle talking about we need to have an audit of the Federal Reserve, and that is certainly something that I agree with and everybody on my side I know agrees with. We ought to have an audit of the Federal Reserve. As Newt Gingrich has said repeatedly, if transparency is good enough for the CIA, it ought to be good enough for the Federal Reserve. We need to know what they are committing us to. We need to know what they're doing, how much trouble are they getting us in. Those are things that need to be known. So I am delighted to hear my friends across the aisle join us in our cry for an audit of the Federal Reserve.

The difference between friends on this side and friends across the aisle is that my friends across the aisle have the numbers, they have the power to get an audit done of the Federal Reserve. There are a number of things that can be done when you control the House and the Senate and the White House. And even if the White House doesn't agree, which they very well may not because of all the shenanigans that have been going on in the financial realm, the Congress still controls the purse strings. And there are things that can be done in this House and down the hall in the Senate that would bring this to a head and would have the Federal Reserve crying uncle, uncle, all right, we will go ahead and allow the audit. It ought to be done. Enough of the shenanigans, blaming one side or the other.

Well, the majority party has such a massive majority, it's a real easy thing to get done, and I would be delighted if we had colleagues across the aisle that would come together with us on this side and require that audit of the Federal Reserve so we would know what has actually been going on so we could set some goals and go about fixing this economy, fixing this broken financial system so we could get it back on a road that makes some sense.

Now, I have heard my friends across the aisle talking down here today and as well yesterday evening about the financial bailout, and I was rather disappointed. I know some, like my friend Marcy Kaptur, have been adamant about the problems going on in the financial system going back to the fall of 2008. And she and I, there are many things we don't agree on, but we are both for complete transparency--she has been there all along--and demanding full responsibility and accountability in the financial sector. And I have been so pleased with things she said in the last couple of years on this issue since the TARP bailout in September, October of 2008.

But then hearing other colleagues across the aisle talk about Republicans are trying to stop financial reform because Republicans are so closely aligned with Wall Street? I mean, that theme has been played long and loud

for years. And the Heritage Foundation finally had enough and said let's see what the truth is. So they did some research. And the fact is anybody in America can go on Huffington Post or look at some of these Web sites where you find out who contributed to what, and you find out the real truth. And the real truth is that Wall Street donates to the Democratic Party and to now President Obama about four to one over the Republicans.

Now, you can go to Goldman Sachs and find an officer who has made a maximum donation to Senator Obama and a maximum donation to Senator McCain; but you do a little more research and you check that address and you find out, well, gee, the wife and all the children, though, made maximum donations to Senator Obama and to the Democratic Party. And you find out, gee, there is a financial link here that there have been completely misleading statements about for years. And the truth is now in black and white. Let's forget the misleading statements about who is in bed with whom and just follow the money, and that's all you have to do. And you find out in some cases some of the Wall Street firms, it may be three to one, some it may be five to one, but average about four to one donations from Wall Street firms to the Democratic candidates, including Senator Obama, now President Obama.

So once you know that is the relationship that exists financially and has for years, then it causes you to look at all this talk about financial reform and making these people accountable. We're going to bring them to bear. We're going to make them account for all of these things, and we're going to make it so that they can't do this and they can't do that. But once you know that the people that are doing this so-called financial reform, what amounts to another bailout bill, once you know that relationship, then you have to look at the bill being proposed more carefully.

Now, I know we have friends that come here to the floor and, just like they did on the ``crap and trade'' bill, made statements on the floor that this bill will not cause one single person to lose their jobs, that this is going to be a job creation bill. And they got their talking points and they dutifully came to the floor, and they talked about how the crap and trade bill was going to be so wonderful and it was going to create jobs.

And I was able to come to this very spot on the floor and pull out that bill. Of course, we didn't get that last 300 pages until--it seems like it was around 3 in the morning or so. And then actually we did not have a complete bill when that bill passed. Up there at the Clerk's desk, I kept asking for a copy of the full bill assimilated, and we found out there wasn't one. It was in the process of being assimilated; so nobody on this floor could see a complete bill assimilated and know what all it meant together. And yet that got rammed through.

But just on the original about a 1,000-page crap and trade bill, if you went back to 900-and-something in the pages, I was able to point out there was a fund there created in the bill that obviously my colleagues were not aware of because I know they wouldn't come down here and intentionally mislead people, but whether it was the liberal left wing groups that wrote that bill--we know that we had a chairman or two that said they didn't know what was in the bill even though it was coming through their committee. Somebody knew. So since it wasn't the committee Chair, the Members of Congress that were on the committee, since it wasn't Members on the floor because they weren't sure--they were making statements about the bill like nobody losing their job that obviously wasn't true because there was a fund created that would pay people who lost their jobs as a result of that bill.

So whatever liberal left wing group or whatever special interest groups wrote that bill for the Members of Congress that was rushed in here, so much of it, at 3 in the morning when people couldn't read the assimilated bill, whoever wrote that bill knew people would be losing their jobs as a result of that bill, pure and simple. They were losing their jobs.

There was even a fund in there that would provide some remuneration for people who lost their jobs as a result of the bill and had to move to follow the job. But, unfortunately, in that bill, the crap and trade bill, there was no provision to pay for travel to India or China or Argentina or the other places that those jobs were going to likely be going; so they weren't going to be able to follow the bills. The one good thing for those who voted for that disastrous bill here in the House is that I still feel strongly that once people find out what all was in that bill that they voted for, then they will lose their jobs. Many of them will lose their jobs in here as a Member of the House as a result of that bill. So it looks like the good news for those that vote for the bill and lose their job as a result of it is that there's a built-in provision that may provide them with some compensation and travel expense when they lose their job as a result of voters finding out what all is in that bill.

But that is the kind of thing we have dealt with here, people meaning well, getting their talking points, thinking they were telling the truth, coming in here and passionately proclaiming what was put before them, but not reading the bill. That is so important. So when we apply this cynicism, once you know that the people that are pushing this bill are the ones that have benefited four to one in contributions from these very firms that will be so-called ``reformed,'' then you take a more skeptical look at what's in the bill and we get to find out a little bit more about what is in it, because obviously some of my friends have not looked at it thoroughly enough to know what is in it and to know that it's really not the financial reform bill that they thought it was.

It's more of a financial ``deform'' bill, more of another bailout bill, or I would say perhaps we could rename it the Goldman Sachs monopoly bill. A friend across the aisle had a blowup of some of the monopoly pieces. It applies. That's a perfect, perfect display for this financial bailout bill because it's going to allow certain firms to have monopolies. This bill is going to create some monopolies.

One of the truths about this bill is that there are backdoor bailouts. Despite the rhetoric, there are backdoor bailouts in this financial deform bill, or the Goldman Sachs monopoly bill. The Dodd bill from the Senate, it codifies these backdoor bailouts that were used by the Federal Reserve to pump money into Bear Stearns. It also was used by the Federal Reserve to pump money into AIG, into Fannie Mae, into Freddie Mac.

And then this thing that troubles me so deeply, systemic risk council. It's in the bill, a systemic risk council. I was hoping 2 years ago, as we got into the TARP business, and some of us actually read that disastrous bill and could see that this was just not something that should be done in America, some of us hoped, well, since we have seen that Secretary Paulson is completely sold out to Goldman Sachs, it's an effort to bail out the buddies at Goldman Sachs, yes, we are bailing out AIG apparently, he wanted to do that, and lo and behold billions of dollars turn around and go straight from AIG to Goldman Sachs. So it did help his friends. But some of us had hoped that Mr. Bernanke might be the level head in all of this.

But having been in meetings with Mr. Bernanke, and having watched him closely on television and read so many of his comments, it appears that he has been caught up as well in this power grab, in this lofty ivory tower he has been placed in with this incredible amount of power without accountability. It was Stalin who said, ``With power, dizziness.'' And we have seen some of that dizziness in the way these financial markets have been handled by people at the top.

But it appears from the things Mr. Bernanke has been saying that he has bought in hook, line, and sinker into this systemic risk business because he could get to say, you know what, this is who I'm naming a systemic risk. And when the Federal Government says this firm or this bank, this company is too big to fail, that means the Federal Government will not let them fail. That means they can go in the red and run their competition out of business, knowing the Federal Government will not let them fail, but their competitors don't have that assurance.

That's why you might as well call it a monopoly bill, because it's going to

allow firms to become monopolies. And we saw after the TARP firm, boy, Goldman Sachs got to be a bank in addition to being everything else to all people.

One of the things that concerned me as I read through the TARP bill, when I got toward the end where it said that it was raising the debt ceiling by $1.3 trillion, and we knew that it was a $700 billion bill, well, why would you need to raise the debt ceiling $1.3 trillion if it is a $700 billion bill? And of course we know there was $100 billion added to the bill in order to buy enough votes to get it to pass. So it's an $800 billion bill and yet it raised the debt ceiling $1.3 trillion. Well, there's a half a trillion dollars there for some reason that was built into that.

So I went back through and I reread the bill, and I kept pleading and begging with other colleagues, Please, just read the bill. You'll see we don't do this in America. We don't give one man $700 billion and say, go play with it and fix this and make us better. We never have done that in America since we've had a Constitution. With that qualification.

There was a man in American history that had that type of power that was given by the Continental Congress by a bill that was passed December 27, 1776. His name was George Washington. This was a humble man. This was a man who made the statement, ``People unused to restraint must be led. They will not be drove.'' And so like in the Battle of Trenton or in that 1755 disastrous ambush that the British walked into and didn't listen to Washington, who was in his early twenties, we have seen pictures over and over painted by those there that Washington didn't do as I was taught in the Army, that commanders are normally supposed to stay at the back and command from the back and coordinate things. Washington in some of the worst battles knew he needed to be out front so people would see him and do the right thing.

There was one soldier after the Battle of Trenton that wrote home talking about how afraid he was with so many people dying. He said, ``But when I saw bullets flying around that priceless head of our great general, encouraging us as he went, sir, I thought not of myself.'' Now that was a leader. Not Hank Paulson we're talking about. That's not a leader. We're talking George Washington.

And when the Continental Congress was afraid that the people who had signed up for 6 months' enlistment around July 4th, around the time of the Declaration of Independence, when their enlistment was coming up, they got word these guys may not reenlist. So they passed a bill basically giving Washington the power to make whatever contract, pay whatever he needed to pay. We didn't have a Constitution yet. But they knew this man and said, ``You fix it.'' And they sent a cover letter that in essence was saying that we know you well enough to know our liberty is not at risk. And when you have no further need of this power, you'll give it back. And he did, like no man has ever done before or since in history.

But in 1787 we got a Constitution. Since that Constitution we have never allowed one man to do what Hank Paulson and now Tim Geithner are being allowed to do, and with Bernanke's assistance. It's a disaster. Systemic risk council. We are going to decide who wins and who loses in America? And you want us on this side of the aisle to vote for this bill? And you call it a financial reform bill? It isn't. This is not reforming things. This is taking us away from the free market principles from which we have been running for far too long.

That TARP bill took us away from it. And some of us prayed that we would have a chance to get back on track, and we have run farther and farther. And it gives no comfort when people on the other side of the aisle say, well, your President started this with a TARP bailout. Yes, and it was wrong then and it's become even worse of a nightmare.

Stop already. Return liberty and freedom back to people. I'm not talking about unregulated financial markets. We have the regulations. Just like we have regulations that would have allowed the President, the executive branch, the administration to monitor more carefully what was going on in the Gulf of Mexico, to monitor more carefully what Madoff was doing, what Goldman Sachs was doing, how the credit default swaps were allowed to be insurance without putting money in reserve to insure against that insurable event out there they were supposed to be taking premiums for.

This is not a financial reform bill. And to stand here on the floor and say Republicans are standing in the way of this, you betcha. I don't want a Goldman Sachs monopoly bill being passed into law and signed into law simply because they gave four to one more money to the Democratic Party than they did to the Republicans. I don't care if they gave four to one to Republicans, it is wrong to give them the kind of monopoly that they have been given through TARP and in the year-and-a- half since. It's got to stop. And this bill is not the bill that will do that.

So don't come to the floor and talk about how this is going to reform things and create accountability because it gives unrestricted leeway to give any nonbank financial company ``too big to fail'' status. What a disaster for this society, for this incredible gift of a country we have been given.

Now we are not blessed in this body and in this country because of what we ourselves who stand as elected officials today have done. We are not blessed because of what we have done. We have been blessed because of the sacrifices of the Founders and those over the years that worked so hard to make this country into the greatest Nation that has ever existed in the history of mankind. And now we have people that are peeling back the very principles that made this such an incredible place to get to live in.

Well, let's look some more at this financial bailout bill, financial deform bill, whatever you want to call it. There is a 100 percent bailout for creditors in this bill. So a failed firm's creditors and counterparties could recoup far more of their investment, potentially 100 percent, than they would if they went through a normal bankruptcy proceeding.

We have seen enough of the corruption of the bankruptcy system. The provision for the bankruptcy system was put into the Constitution by those people with such incredible foresight. Unfortunately, it was into the early 1800s before they actually passed laws creating the bankruptcy courts that allowed people to avoid debtors' prisons like the financial backer of the Revolution, Mr. Morris.

But this bill that's being touted as such a great financial reform bill will also allow the FDIC to guarantee debt obligations of failing Wall Street firms without limitation and without congressional approval. You want us to vote for a bill that allows debt guarantees for failing Wall Street firms without this body approving of them and you call that a financial reform bill?

Also under this so-called financial reform bill, what's really more of a financial deform bill, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to purchase debt without any limit. You know, Washington gave back the power as soon as the Revolution was won. Four years later we got the Constitution, and we have never allowed this kind of insanity since then.

And yes, Secretary Paulson under a Republican President created this monstrosity and bailed out his buddies effectively, but it's got to stop. It's got to stop. And this bill is just more and more and more of the same.

On May 5, 2010--for people keeping track that is yesterday--Freddie Mac requested an additional $10.6 billion in bailout funds. Between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayers have already lost $126.9 billion bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And now it appears that is just bottomless. It's got to stop. Don't ask us to come in here and pass another further power extension to those who are already dizzy with too much power and no accountability. It's got to stop.

This financial so-called reform bill, this Wall Street future bailout bill is a disastrous mistake. And, heaven help us, we should not pass this bill. We have lost enough rights and power to Wall Street already.

So I hope and pray this Day of National Prayer that those who have been getting the four to one contributions over Republicans from Wall Street firms will say, sorry, guys on Wall

Street, we started playing this game and saying Republicans are in bed with you. Oh, yeah, yesterday one of our friends across the aisle said that, gee, these Wall Street firms are having closed-door meetings with Republicans. They may have been. And you can imagine what's being said. They've cut their deals with the people that they've been giving four to one to over Republicans. They've cut their deal. They know they are going to be sitting so pretty, they're going to have monopolistic ability like never before in history.

So they want to meet privately with Republicans and say, Look, you don't have to worry. We're really getting serious oversight from these Democrats, the ones we give four-to-one over Republicans to. We're really getting serious oversight here in this bill. We just need you to come on board. No telling what kind of things they're telling Republican Senators behind the scenes to try to get them on board with this terrible financial deform bill.

But let me point out something that I did find as I went back through and tried to figure out, well, where could that other $500 billion, between the $800 billion designated in the TARP bill and the amount that the debt limit was raised, what loopholes may be in this bill? As I went back through it, one of the things I found was this provision. The all caps title of this little section, title 1, section 101(c)(1), Public Law 110-343. It says:

The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this act, including, without limitation, the following:

One, the Secretary shall have direct hiring authority with respect to the appointment of employees to administer this act;

Number two, entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code;

Number three, designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Federal Government. Such institutions shall perform all reasonable duties related to this act as financial agents of the Federal Government;

Four, in order to provide the Secretary with the flexibility to manage troubled assets in a manner designed to minimize cost to taxpayers, establishing vehicles that are authorized subject to supervision by the Secretary to purchase, hold, and sell troubled assets, issue obligations;

Five, issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authority or the purposes of this act.

Holy cow. What a blank check the Secretary of the Treasury received. When President Obama nominated Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury, even though he signed and certified he would pay the taxes that were designated 4 years in a row and he couldn't bring himself to actually pay those, he is in charge. We were told at the time, Yes, but he worked so closely with Paulson on the bailout that he knows what needs to be done and he will be able to continue the same thing. Some of us said, That's a reason not to confirm the guy. Good grief. But he has all this power.

Well, is it any wonder that the firm that donated four-to-one to President Obama and his party had the biggest profit year in their history last year? That's right. Goldman Sachs, while the rest of America has been hurting and struggling, trying to get back on its feet, Goldman Sachs is on its feet and made a bigger profit than ever, which brings me back to this.

So I have been trying to look for things to see, well, they had the biggest profit year in history. Could that be because the Federal Government is paying them all this taxpayer money to do the things that the Federal Government told America we will do, but actually they farmed it out and paying no telling how much money to Goldman Sachs to do this stuff?

Well, I did find one contract here--this amended and restated investment management agreement between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The first whereas is: Whereas, the Open Market Committee has approved the purchase by the System Open Market Account of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae). So they approved this deal, and in the first paragraph it points out that this is between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, LP, designated as manager.

Then you go through and find out they're appointed to manage, supervise, direct the investment portion and appointed as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's agent in fact. It's just amazing what all power they're given on behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It does point out that they're going to get some nice fees here.

It says that this agent here, this manager, can hire firms to help them carry out their duties. But you have to look at attachment C to see who on exhibit C is authorized to act on behalf of this manager, Goldman Sachs Management, LP. So you flip over and you find exhibit C to this agreement. Well, my goodness, there's Goldman Sachs & Company is authorized counterparty to act on behalf of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, LP. Isn't that wonderful. Because they probably know each other. Well, doesn't that work out well?

Those were good investments they made in this last election, and yet people still continue to come to this floor and talk about how Republicans are in the pocket of Wall Street, even though the Democrats received four-to-one over the amount that the Republicans got.

Well, I know there are people in this body--it doesn't matter what kind of contributions they got--they're going to vote what is appropriate under their conscience. Unfortunately, we've got groups on Wall Street that are awfully powerful in their persuasiveness and convincing people that giving Goldman Sachs their biggest profit year in the Nation's history, in their history, is the thing that needs to be done. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about. And Republicans are getting blamed for this, for trying to stand in the way of more monopolies on Wall Street.

And if you look at the bailout of the automotive industry with TARP funds--and the truth is, I signed on to all those letters where we said we never intended for TARP to be used to bailout the automotive industry. I signed on to those because I agreed that was not the intent. The trouble is I read the bill, and so I knew that it could be used for whatever the Secretary of the Treasury wanted to use it for, basically. Incredible power given under that bill. And now we're going to follow that up with this new financial deform bill, this new bailout bill.

That's why you've seen Wall Street firms sign on to this business of taking out the $50 billion bailout fund. That's been done in the last few days. Why would the Wall Street firms sign on to that? Well, if you look at the bill, you find out why. They've still got the potential to be named as systemic risk by the Systemic Risk Council, Mr. Bernanke leading, and get too-big-to-fail status.

And I heard my friends. I couldn't have agreed more when they said we have got to stop this business of creating too big to fail. AIG should have been allowed to file bankruptcy. That's what the bankruptcy laws were for. They should have been allowed an opportunity to reorganize. Goldman Sachs should have been given a chance to reorganize under the bankruptcy laws, not the way they were perverted and destroyed and turned upside down with regard to the automotive industry, but followed the way they're supposed to be.

It didn't happen with the automotive industry, and it didn't happen on Wall Street, as it should have. The firms should have been allowed to go through and try to reorganize. The pain would have been so much more quickly over than when we exacerbate it. But for folks to come in and say, I want to stop this too-big-to-fail business, that's why we've got to pass this bill. They've got to read the bill. It's in there. It's still going to allow that to be going on. It's got to stop. It's in the bill.

So you wonder why you have Republicans standing in the way of the financial deform bill. Well, take out the Systemic Risk Council, take out the

too-big-to-fail designation, take out the bailout for firms without going through regular bankruptcy proceedings. Take that out. The automotive industry should have showed us that this is not what you do. You don't turn the law and the Constitution upside down.

People might wonder, Well, how could that have happened? You've got Congress, the executive branch, and you've got the judiciary. These are supposed to be checks and balances. But it didn't happen. The checks and balances didn't work. So you had an auto task force that was appointed by the President. And then the auto task force met in secret and refused to come up here and tell Congress exactly what was going on in those meetings. They said later, Well, we didn't really pick which dealerships would go out of business. We just told them, basically, how many had to go out of business. Why? Why was it their job?

When a firm, a company, an industry goes through bankruptcy, an effort at reorganization, you have to have a plan. And the debtor can propose the plan and you can have creditors come in and propose plans. You have secured creditors that come in and they get first choice. That's the law. That's the law as allowed under the Constitution.

We had an auto task force that put together this plan, and they said, No, we're turning the law upside down. We don't care what the law says. So we're going to take the secured creditors and we're going to give them pennies on the dollar for their secured claims, despite the law saying they get first shot, and unsecured creditors may get little or nothing. They took the unions and said, You know what? You're unsecured under the law. You may get little or nothing. And we made them like secured creditors, the auto task force did, so they own a big hunk of the company, just like the Federal Government does.

You say, Well, how could that be? Well, bankruptcy judges don't sit for life terms. They depend on the good graces of others to appoint them so they can continue to be bankruptcy judges. And many of them aspire to be district judges, where they have lifetime appointments. Who makes lifetime appointments of Federal judges? The President does. So if you're a bankruptcy and you want to one day be a Federal district judge with a lifetime appointment and somebody from the White House says, Here, sign this. It will save you months of hearings, even though the law requires them, and it does kind of turn the Constitution upside down, but just sign here. Things will be good for you in the future. Well, that remains to be seen. But it sure wasn't good for the country.

Despite the head of GM going on TV and saying, We paid back our loans, with interest, ahead of time, I know everybody else in America who has loans would love to have taxpayers loan you money and then take taxpayer money to repay the loans. But to some of us, that doesn't really feel like a clean payback of this little area because we still own a big interest. You hadn't paid back the Federal Government for all that was put in there to save this so-called company.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, bless her soul, she put a 24-hour hold on one deal and it gave some of us hope that, okay, Congress completely failed in its duty as a check and balance on the abuse of power from the executive branch, but maybe the judiciary, that third check and balance, they're coming through. Thank goodness Justice Ginsburg did that. But then, apparently, the Justices were persuaded that if you extend this stay more than 24 hours the deal will be gone and this will all go away and everybody will lose their job. You can't extend the stay.

And I'm betting there are Justices who are now saying we should never have allowed them to talk us into just allowing them to turn the law and the Constitution upside down just because maybe this deal with Fiat might not go through. Fiat had no business owning the American company unless they could do it properly, without turning our laws upside down. So the third check and balance went away, and nothing protected the Constitution, nothing protected the laws as they were passed. It's got to stop. It's got to stop.

And yet we see a bill brought before the House and Senate and, lo and behold, the Federal Government is going to take over all student loans. We're taking over the student loan business. Well, I am so grateful that my youngest daughter is graduating within the next 2 weeks. We had to do student loans to do it. My wife and I cashed out all our assets except our home in order to run for Congress, so we had to use student loans to get our girls through college. And to think that anybody in this country might have to be beholden to whoever is in the executive branch, whichever political party is controlling the executive branch is who we have to hope and pray will be kind enough to extend a student loan to us in the future? Do Democrats really want to have to depend on Republicans for their student loans based on who is in the White House? Should Republicans have to rely on who is running the executive branch in hopes that their kids will get student loans? It's the wrong way to go.

And now with the Federal Government having taken over Freddie and Fannie, we've taken over such a big part of the housing, the home mortgages, does either party or independents or tea party or progressive liberal party, do you want to be beholden to another political party in power in order for you to get a home loan or a student loan? This is where we've come. It's got to stop.

I know that in the minority we're a voice crying in the wilderness, but it's got to stop. There are people on the other side of the aisle that know that, who say this. And to my friends, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that they would all go back and read these bills, particularly the ``financial deform bill,'' and find out that it is not as the talking points have represented. It does create the too-big-to-fail problem, and it's got to stop. I hope we will have some Democratic friends who will help us. It's tragic.

I was in a Bible study with a hero of mine, Chuck Colson, a little over 1 year ago. He pointed out that this society is resting on three legs: one is morality, one is economic stability, and one is liberty. And throughout history, as long as you had morality, you could have economic stability. But when you lose morality, it always leads to economic chaos. You have too many Madoffs out there that think it's okay to just live high and wild lives off other people's money that they've stolen. Then you have people get elected that think some people have made too much money, so I want to steal their money. But since I'm in power, I can pass laws that allow me to take their money and spend it the way I want and it won't be called stealing because we'll legalize the stealing because we have the power. And, yes, the power resides in this Congress to legalize stealing of people's money. The power rests here, but the moral authority does not.

And when I hear friends say, well, Christians ought to be helping those who can't help themselves, helping the widows and orphans, Jesus did talk about those things, Even as you have done to the least of these, my children, you have done to me. And we should be doing those individually. But He never said use and abuse your taxing authority to legalize theft of other people's money so you can give to your favorite charity. He was saying, you do it yourself with what you have. You do it. You help individually. Don't go corrupt a governmental system that was put in power, as Romans 13 talks about, If you do evil, be afraid, because God doesn't give the government the sword in vain. The government is not supposed to become a part of doing immoral acts; it's supposed to protect those entrusted to its care, and we've gotten too far away from that.

During the revolution, so many were heard to quote Voltaire--some say he said it, some said he didn't, but he was quoted as saying, I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'' So many of us heard that, learned that in school. What a noble, moral concept: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, even though it offends me. And look how far we've come.

To some of us who look at the Ten Commandments and say, you know what? Conduct outside of those, all of us are going to break the commandments because no one--but I believe one--is perfect, but that offends. But

people here have the right to, in some cases, lie, in some cases commit adultery, in some cases some of these things are illegal, but that has been changing. And we've changed this society from one in which the Founders said, I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, and we've turned it into one where what you say offends me, and not only am I not going to defend to the death your right to say it, I'm going to force you out of your job, I'm going to do everything I can to cause you to lose all of your assets, I am going to do all I can to make your life nothing but misery from now on. How did we get so far from the founding that we would want to destroy people's lives because what they have said offends?

When the Pilgrims came over, when so many of the groups that came over to what they called the New World, they were fleeing from the kind of persecution that has now started. This was a National Day of Prayer, and yet we had Franklin Graham--what a great, great man--he was uninvited from speaking to our military. We had Tony Perkins not long ago uninvited from speaking to the military at Andrews Air Force base even though he served this country's uniformed military services for 6 years because there were some who said in the administration we disagree with what you say and we're going to ruin you and try to do all we can to keep you from speaking.

The military is fighting for people's right to say what they want, and yet we're denying people the right to come speak to the military while they're fighting and dying for the right to speak freely under the First Amendment? How did that ever happen?

From 1800 to 1860, and again intermittently until 1880, there were church services held right down the hall, nondenominational Christian church services. I was asked earlier by a CNN reporter, how do you reconcile the separation of church and state with a group reading through the entire Bible in 5 days over here at the west side of the Capitol? Well, I reconcile it because I know where the phrase ``separation of church and state'' came from. It came from Thomas Jefferson in his letter to the Danbury Baptists.

There was nothing about preventing people from having church or having religion or praying in Jesus' name, or doing any of those things, or speaking to the military. To the exact contrary. Thomas Jefferson used to ride down Pennsylvania, according to CRS, most of the time--the Congressional Research Service, they've authenticated this-- most of the time when he came to the church service every Sunday here in the Capitol he liked to ride his horse down here, down Pennsylvania. He's the one that codified the phrase ``separation of church and state'' because it's not in the Constitution. It's so unfortunate that so many of our judges over the years have been so poorly educated about our history.

And then you've got James Madison as President who came to church most every Sunday he was in Washington here in the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, but according to CRS, he was different from Jefferson. Jefferson liked to ride a horse and usually Madison liked to ride in a coach drawn by four horses to come to church in the Capitol. Jefferson--who coined the phrase ``separation of church and state''-- sometimes brought the Marine band to play hymns for the nondenominational Christian worship service here in the Capitol.

The Constitution's First Amendment was never about discriminating against Christianity as this administration has done by uninviting people to speak to the military who are fighting and dying for the very beliefs that the people were denied the right to come talk to them about. And yet we have people who are so politically correct they're afraid to say that a guy who makes very clear about what he screams before he shoots these other servicemembers, that this is an act of a crazed jihadist, Islamic jihadist.

Thank God that the vast majority of Muslims are not jihadists of that type, but you need to recognize the ones that are and that they're out there and they want to destroy our way of life. And you can speak to moderate Muslims--many of them are afraid to speak out openly because they've become targets--but you speak to moderate Muslims, they know. They're some of the first to be killed when the crazed jihadists take over. They don't like moderate Muslims.

But the Nation was founded on principles such that the church, the Christian church, was at the heart the Declaration of Independence. Over one-third of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were not just Christians, they were ordained Christian ministers, had churches. And the church was behind the effort to abolish slavery because they, just like John Quincy Adams, knew it was so wrong. And as Adams, for about a year and a half, took a young, tall, slender, not very handsome man under his wing down the hall, as Christians, they became so close in that short time, John Quincy Adams affected him so he knew as a Christian that slavery had to end because we could not continue to be blessed by God if we were treating brothers and sisters by putting them in chains and bondage.

And he preached that sermon over and over and over just down the hall. And the churches were preaching--some weren't, but many were-- that was the heart of that movement. And what was Martin Luther King, Jr.? Dr. King was an ordained Christian minister. The church has been behind the great movements here in America, and now we're discriminating against it? We're saying what you believe in a Christian church so offends us, not only are we not going to fight to the death for your right to believe what you believe and say what you want to say, we're going to destroy you and keep you from doing anything publicly that you want to do in observing your religion. How did we go so wrong?

How did we go so wrong? Abraham Lincoln struggled with this terrible war that was going on because he believed in a just God, and yet this thing was going on and so many brothers and sisters were dying and it was a terrible thing. And that is why he said in his second inaugural, How do you reconcile this? He said, Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. But he goes on and he says, If we shall suppose that American slavery, and you might substitute in there abortion, American abortion, abortion is one of those offenses of which, in the providence of God must needs come but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove and that He gives to the North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came. Shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, said the President, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all of the wealth piled up by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and every drop of blood drawn by the lash, or by the abortion doctor's hand, as was said 3,000 years ago, so must still be said today, Lincoln said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, as he quoted scripture.

We are told it may not be appropriate for the military to hear from somebody who believes the things that Jesus taught. So you have Tony Perkins cancelled. You have Franklin Graham cancelled because they believe the things Jesus taught. You have others who we have been hearing about the last couple of days who have been uninvited to speak to military. And yet I was given by my aunt a Bible that was given to an uncle in World War II. It has this metal front, May the Lord be with you. And inside on the first page, it says at the top: The White House, Washington. As Commander in Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible. That is signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

We all need to pray that God will continue to bless America.

I thank my friend for yielding. Steve Forbes was up here on the Hill a couple of weeks ago. One of his comments was that we could do a complete repeal, and at the same time we could put some fixes in there that Republicans had been proposing, that we have had out there as alternatives at the same time, just one fell swoop, so that people would realize that we have not been the Party of No, we have some fantastic ideas that would have revolutionized health care and gotten it back to where it had transparency, where it was affordable, and gotten insurance companies out of the health care management business and into the health care insurance business, where you insure against an unforeseeable illness or catastrophe down the road and put patients back in charge of their health care.

I certainly had a proposal along that line that we never could get CBO to score nearly a year later, I guess about 9 months to be fair, that they have sat on that to try to help kill--help work for the Democrats to help make sure that any of the good alternative plans could not get scored so that we couldn't come in and say here is the plan that saves money, gives more freedom, and does all these things. Anyway, it's been a bit of a tough year.

But the problems didn't just start with this President. My friend from Iowa knows as well. We have been heading in the wrong path for some time. Of course Republicans lost the majority, rightfully, in November 2006 because Republicans had gotten giddy after 2001 and had started spending too much money. And voters held them accountable. And we hope they will continue that trend this November.

But I recall my favorite President, from Texas that is, George W. Bush, I think the world of him, he is smarter than most people give him credit for, but he got sold a bill of goods by a bad Secretary of the Treasury, and he was told a good way to stimulate the economy in January 2008 was to have a stimulus bill and have $160 billion, $40 billion of which would just be given to people as a rebate who didn't pay income tax. They would get an income tax rebate even though they didn't pay income tax.

And my friend from Iowa may remember as President Bush came down the aisle here he shook hands with everybody, and made his speech, and then on the way back up I didn't realize there was a mic open that picked me up asking him, ``Mr. President, I wanted to ask you how do you give a rebate to people that didn't put any bate in?'' And that's still a problem.

And then you come up, and bless his heart, Hank Paulson saved his firm Goldman Sachs, saved the people that he had worked with and chaired over and had great personal interest in. He was able to save them at great cost to the American way of life, to the free market system. Just created a real disaster. You can't set aside free market principles to save the free market.

But it all led up to desensitizing people to just how much $700 or $787 billion is. It is an enormous amount of money. And so here we came into January of 2009, and right off the bat have a $787 billion stimulus, most of which has not been spent. Even though we were told that people didn't have time to read it, you got to just pass it, $787 billion dollars will be thrown out there and we will get the economy going. Had to be passed so fast, before people could read it.

And then yet the President took several days, kind of like he has getting fired up to do anything about the gulf coast. So he takes his time, waits for a photo op to sign the stimulus bill into effect. But the problem is you can't raise taxes the way this health care bill did and think you are going to help the economy in the long run. It's not going to happen.

And then we find out we have moved from the overly high 39 percent of Americans not paying Federal income tax to now the projection that 53 percent of American adults will be paying all of the income tax. I think historians all pretty well acknowledge that in a democracy, including this republican form of government where people can vote for candidates based upon what they promise to give them in the way of benefits, once you get past one more than 50 percent of those who are voting receive benefits and not pay income tax, or not pay the Federal taxes, you've lost it. You head to the dustbin of history. You're done. There is no recovery from that, absent a miracle from God.

And of course some of the people that are creating the problem don't believe in God, so they are really in trouble because they can't even expect a miracle from God like some of us could.

But 53 percent of Americans to pay all of the income tax. And then I have heard great disparagement, as my friend from Iowa has, as we have been to the tea parties and been asked to speak at various tea parties, including the one down Pennsylvania Avenue a few weeks ago, the one at the Washington Monument, and you see all these wonderful, peaceful, law-abiding people, and you talk to them and you find out these are people paying income tax.

And we also have seen the latest survey that indicated that 28 percent of Americans, up from 20 percent, 28 percent of Americans identify with the tea party. Well, what that means is since those 28 percent pay income tax, it means that over half of the 53 percent projected to pay all the income tax this year, those that are really carrying the load for the country, pulling the wagon for everybody else, over half of them are tea party members, identify with the tea party.

Quite interesting. It's not the marginal group that some would have Americans believe. We are talking about rank-and-file Americans who are pulling the weight with income tax.

Now, one of the things that would help a lot is if all of the President's promises about jobs were to come true. Then we would have more people able to pay income taxes. I know an awful lot of folks who would welcome the chance to get back to paying income taxes, but they can't find jobs. This health care bill is a real jobs killer.

I have had, as I'm sure my friend from Iowa has had as well, people who've come up and who've said, I lost my job. My sister lost her job. These folks lost their jobs. After the health care bill passed, they had to be let go. Others are saying, We've had our salaries cut. We've been told it's coming.

These are economy killers, and these things in the health care bill are robbing America of people who would be able to help with that income tax burden. So it has been tragic, and it just breaks my heart to hear from these people who have lost their jobs because they had to ram through this health care deform bill instead of doing what was really right for America. We didn't have to have people lose their jobs just to pass a health care bill, but they didn't care about what America thought.

I want to mention one other thing about the Tea Party folks before I yield back to my friend from Iowa.

We've heard that people were rowdy at the Tea Party on that weekend that health care got rammed down America's throat. Some of us went out and walked and saw the folks. We walked down the street. People were lining the sidewalks pretty thick. They were yelling and cheering when some of us came out because they were so vocally opposed to health care.

On that weekend, as I was going back to my office from a vote over here and as people had crowded onto the sidewalks and as most of my friends in Congress were walking through the streets, I decided to get up on the sidewalk and walk through the middle of the crowd and thank them. This was not a group for which the SEIU, ACORN, or the Federal Government paid their way. These were people who had come on their own money--nobody else's. They'd had to come up with their own money. Some of them had taken time off from work and from family. They'd made sacrifices to get here in order to let their voices be heard. So I wanted to personally make sure I went through the crowd. I shook as many hands as I could, and I thanked as many people as I could.

As I was going down the sidewalk, people were patting me on the back and were speaking encouragement to me. I was just saying, Thank you for coming. Thank you for letting your voice be heard.

About 10 people into the sidewalk, I started to reach for this lady's hand.

She probably was 40 to 50 years old. She was pleasant-looking enough.

She said, I'm for health care.

I thought I misunderstood, so I said, Well, I am, too--just not for this disaster.

But she said, No. I support this bill.

She wouldn't shake my hand, and I thought, well, that's kind of strange. That's kind of a party killer person right here in the middle of the crowd; but, oh, well. That's fine. That's America. So I moved on.

I was shaking hands and was thanking people. They were so wonderful and encouraging. They were saying ``thank you'' for my thanking them. It was really very moving at times. Those were some of the expressions we got.

About 15 feet down the sidewalk, I met a guy who said, I'm not shaking your hand.

I realized this was another one like the lady. Every 10 to 15 people, as I shook hands with people on both sides, I ran into people who wouldn't shake my hand because they were for the health care bill.

When I got to Independence, I had a guy yell, Are you Louie Gohmert?

I said, Yes.

He wanted to know why I hated homosexuals, and I explained I don't. You know, as a Christian, I am supposed to love everyone, and I try very much to do that, but it doesn't mean I have to embrace lifestyles that the Bible says are inappropriate.

Anyway, he used the ``S'' word and some things that I won't use. I mean I know it's appropriate for Senators like Senator Levin, but I'm not going to use those words down here. I don't think they're appropriate here, but I had them used on me out there on the sidewalk. He was, obviously, also not a supporter of the Tea Party, of me, or of those who were walking through.

After I got back to my office, I realized, you know, those people were placed about every 10 or 15 feet in the middle of the crowd. I don't know what they did after they refused to shake my hand, but there were certainly people placed regularly throughout the crowd who were just that--they were placements. They were people who were put in there. They were observers. Hopefully, they weren't the people who yelled epithets or things to try to make their conservative folks around them look bad; but I can verify and I can testify that those people were out there and that they were amidst the Tea Party folks. Most assuredly, they were not Tea Party people.

Well, thank you.

One of the other things that comes to mind is we talk about our freedoms--about the ability to assemble and about the freedom of speech, which is the ability to say what is in your heart.

We come to what happened last week in England, where a man who was not intentionally out being a nuisance, but he was asked by an officer, according to the article I read, who looks for violations of this type of law, ethics type of law--and this person apparently was homosexual in practice, and he asked the individual about the Bible, about sin. He mentioned drunkenness and a number of things that would be sins as addressed in the Bible and was asked about homosexuality, and he said, yes, under the Bible it's a sin. It's hard to look at Romans 1 and think otherwise. But anyway, this man was arrested. He was put in jail and now is out awaiting trial on his charges. And it was one of the things that concerned us greatly about the Hate Crimes Act because we knew that bill was based on two lies. And there were publications like Texas Monthly that didn't bother to look into the facts, many publications around the country that just ran off and jumped on the train of those who refused to read it, laws to read the facts, to look at facts that were being cited as basis and find that they were lies. But the two things on which that bill were based were both lies. Number one, that there was an epidemic of hate crimes in America. Number two, that it would somehow have changed for the better the outcome in the James Byrd case in Texas, the Matthew Shepard case. And the fact is that those are lies.

The James Byrd case had two of the three--the two most culpable defendants got the death penalty. The only effect the hate crimes bill would have had if it had been in place back then would be that those guys that got the death penalty would have gotten life in prison instead of death. I felt like from the evidence that I read and heard about that they deserved the death penalty. And in the Matthew Shepard case, they got multiple life sentences; so it wouldn't have affected those cases.

The FBI statistics show there has been no surge, uptick in hate crimes, alleged hate crimes, and those include yelling of things inappropriate.

I don't think my friend from Iowa or any of our friends, and those that I met at TEA parties would condone nasty name calling. None of the people I met. But we get into a very dangerous area. There were Founders that fought and died for this country and for that thing that would later become the First Amendment. It didn't exist during the Revolution, but they believed the concept of freedom of speech. And they often cited Voltaire as the source. Some disagree, but Voltaire is usually given as the source for the saying ``I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'' That helped form a basis for this country. Yet now we have evolved in this country to where the thought police have a slogan that is more apt to be, I disagree with what you say, and I'm going to destroy your life because of it. I'm going to see you're fired. I'm going to see that you lose as much of your assets, hopefully all of them, as I can. I am going to destroy your life.

So we have come a long way from those days when the Founders were willing to fight and die so people could say things they thought reprehensible but at least they had the liberty to say them.

One of the things that gets very dangerous is when you start putting a lid on people's freedom of speech, as the PC police around here, as the thought police have begun to do. When you prevent people from being able to say what's in their heart and vent a bit, then you build up steam. If you don't allow people to vent, they build up steam, and then you have an explosion. So I know there are those that say, well, talk radio is hateful and whatnot. And actually talk radio, most of it, is not hateful at all.

But you go back to the President's own statement that we're not a Christian Nation. Well, I am not going to debate that. I know that we were founded by people who professed to be, although history is often rewritten nowadays, including in the early 1800s an early biography of Washington that was a complete fraud.

But if my gentleman friend from Iowa would allow me, this has just been on my heart because I go up from time to time to the Lincoln Memorial, and I stand there and read those profound words from that selfless man. And on the north inside wall is his second inaugural speech. And it brings me to tears every time I read it because this is a man who is wrestling with how a just God could allow the pain and suffering to go on that he did. And it is a beautiful theological discussion. If it would be all right with the gentleman from Iowa, these are Abraham Lincoln's words in his second inaugural. It's there carved into the marble, and he was talking about the North and the South, trying to make sense of how you could have friends and family fighting on two sides of an issue. He said:

``Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.''

Then he quotes Scripture, and he says: ``Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.

``If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

``Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

``With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.''

Powerful, powerful words. And having lost my brother a couple of weeks ago, sometimes it is a struggle when you believe in God to know the kind of hurt and suffering that goes on.

But as Lincoln said, and so it must still be said, ``The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'' And I do believe, and I don't try to push my religious beliefs on anyone else, that God normally allows us to suffer the consequences of terrible decisions. If you follow the rules, you do what we are told allows your nation to be blessed, and your nation gets blessed. If you follow the things that cause your nation to be cursed, it just seems throughout history, that is usually what happens.

This is such an important time in our history. We have got people who would gladly destroy everything we believe in, all the liberties we have, and yet we have people who are at the same time striking at our freedoms of speech, striking at our liberties to assemble as we wish. Those things need to stop. We need to stop those who by terror and by warfare would try to take away those things that the Founders and all those who have fought and died since have put at our feet and given to us as a gift, and we need to fight those from within who attempt to take them away through misrepresentations of what are truly the facts in order to pass bills that actually are based on lies and hurt the country.

I appreciate my friend so much yielding to me.

Mr. Chairman, having been elected in 2004 to come to Congress, I got here and met someone else who was elected to come to Congress at the same time named Luis Fortuno. The Fortunos were a couple of the most wonderful, lovely people I have ever met, and it's a real privilege to have gotten to know them. So my initial feeling is that I would want to support whatever they supported, especially to have a Republican governor in Puerto Rico. The things that he is doing are wonderful. Cutting government, working to reduce spending in Puerto Rico, those are the things that we need leaders to help with in Washington.

But we are a people who came into being through a belief in self- determination. And so on initially hearing that Puerto Rico would have a vote that would allow them to decide whether they wanted to be part of the United States as a State, my initial impression was this would be a good thing. But on seeing that it has been divided into two votes and finding that there are three choices in the second vote, I am very concerned.

If Puerto Rico wants to be a State, then they should decide to do so unequivocally and tell this body to do so unequivocally. It ought to be one question, ``Do you want to be a State?'' ``Yes'' or ``no.'' And if the answer is loud and clear we do, then that's what we should take up. So regretfully, I will be voting ``no'' on this because I am concerned this is not the way to decide a statehood's future. I will be voting ``no.''

I appreciate my friend yielding.

The other alternative to getting hot under the collar is just to have your heart broken. Part of it is anger. When you go through and read these provisions like I'm afraid so many people did not do, you know the impact it is going to have. And yet, you know, AARP got their deal negotiated, you find that in different places, the big pharmaceuticals got their deal negotiated, the insurance companies got something in there in a number of places. You got Plaintiffs Bar got some things negotiated. And you think, who in the world was negotiating for the people of America? Everybody else was getting their deals, unions got their deals, but when you read through this, you knew who it was going to hurt. On the one hand, we had people across the aisle saying they're going to help the working poor. If you read the bill, you knew what it was going to do. You can't increase that amount of taxes, just as my friend from Missouri was talking about, you can't increase taxes like that and not cause some people to lose jobs or have their income cut or have their salaries cut, which means cut income.

I've talked to other people who say that because that passed they are winding down their business and people will be out of work at the end. It will take probably 1\1/2\ years, one fellow was telling me last weekend. So you know people are losing their jobs and how devastating that is to lose your job. A career is gone because somebody got overzealous here and passed bills with increased taxes.

The working poor didn't get the help they were looking for. If you make 133

percent or less of the poverty level, oh, yeah, those were the people they were going to really help with this. They're going to get ultimately shoved into Medicaid that so many doctors aren't going to take anymore. Walgreen's, I read they weren't going to take any more prescriptions. That's not helping people in America. It doesn't help them to lose their jobs. It just is heartbreaking to see what is happening to people now because of this poorly conceived health care bill.

I yield back to my friend.

Already has hurt them.

You are exactly right. The last person I heard from is a woman who is losing her job, heartbreaking because there is no need for these people to lose their jobs. We had over 4 million people lose their job since the so-called stimulus was passed. And now we passed a health care bill under the guise of ensuring 30 million more. I'm hearing now this past weekend people that have been told that because ultimately the owner is going to have a choice between $2,000 per employee or paying for the Cadillac health care that the government is going to require, they're going to drop the health insurance. So it seems pretty clear there is going to be a lot more than 30 million people that lose their insurance because of the added taxes that are put in here.

Oh, and I love the provision--talk about helping the working poor--if you are not able to afford the level of insurance required by this bill and by the Federal Government--and I guess that's the 15 people that are on this board that are going to make all these great determinations for everybody's health care that the President will appoint--but if you can't afford that level insurance, then we're going to help you. We're going to tax you an additional 2.5 percent on your income, an additional income tax for the working poor that can't--as I had somebody tell me 2 days ago, if I could afford the insurance, I would buy it. I can't. Now I'm going to get hit with an extra income tax on top of that? Because people are leaving, they're finding out. Employers are finding out they are either going to let people go, cut their salaries, cut back the workforce. It is just so unnecessary. And yet this thing got rammed through and real people are now hurting because of the thoughtlessness of this Congress.

And of course we know where that all led. Ultimately, it led to the Soviet Union borrowing money, printing money as fast as they could and then ultimately coming to the day of reckoning. And when they realized we can't borrow enough, we can't print enough, and they have to announce we're out of business as a country, all of these states that made up the USSR, they're on their own. We're out of business; we can't borrow enough; we can't print enough.

You know, another tragedy out of this health care bill--and not in terms of human suffering, but still a tragedy--was the media and the light that was cast from the media through this bill. Because you think back through the years, both Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents, I don't recall in my lifetime a media being so oblivious to truth. I can't imagine under George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, going on back, I can't imagine the media ever allowing any governmental entity to stand up and say we are going to save $1.3 trillion with this bill starting 11 years from now and going 20 years from now.

Obviously, for the next 10 years we're going to cut Medicare $500 billion, and we're going to raise taxes by $500 billion. We're going to do this for 10 years and then that will pay for 6 years of health care. And the mainstream media didn't utter a whimper. I just can't imagine the media letting that go without saying, excuse me, did you say it won't start saving money until 11 years from now when you're gone and out of office? But this is what we've come to; the media just let it go.

Just very quickly, not only should we repeal it completely, but all of these wonderful alternatives we have ought to be in the same bill. Not only are we ripping out this bad bill, but here fixes the system. We've got those bills, we just couldn't get them to the floor. I look forward to getting them to the floor.

And let me add, if I might, CBO sat on them since last summer and wouldn't even give us a score. Shame on them.

I appreciate my friend from Iowa yielding.

What was one of the most heartbreaking aspects of this health care bill that was crammed down the throats of Americans, a majority of whom were begging and pleading and demanding not to pass it, but it was the aspect of the increased taxes at a time when we're in a recession. We could not afford increased taxes which was going to bring about an end to more jobs. We couldn't afford what was in the bill which meant that people were going to be laid off. It meant that people were going to have salaries cut. It meant that people were going to lose their health care insurance. Because whoever's staffer or the special interest groups, all those folks that worked on this thing, they knew a number of things. First of all, of course, whoever's staffer in leadership helped draft it made sure the leadership staff was not included in the mandate for Members of Congress and their staffs to have to participate in the Federal program, so they knew they didn't want to be part of it.

But then here we are in a recession. It should be all about jobs. It should be about careers and helping people get back employment so that once they have the jobs, they've got employment, they can do the things they used to do that helped drive the economy: go back to the store and pick up something to wear; go back to a restaurant and get something to eat. And then that feeds those that work in the restaurant and the cycle goes on.

Instead, we increased taxes $500 billion over 10 years; $50 billion a year average. Employers were telling us in advance of the vote, If you do this, it's going to cost us billions of dollars across the country. We're going to have to either lay people off, we're going to have to cut people's salary, we're going to have to drop their health care insurance.

And so in the bill, you've got a provision that if you're considered not a small business, meaning less than 50 workers, then you've got a choice: you either provide the mandated health insurance at the level required or you pay a $2,000 fine. There's a little gimmick in there. You deduct 30 from the number of employees, so if you've got 50, then you deduct 30 and you pay 20 times $2,000, or $40,000, or you buy health insurance for all 50 employees. $40,000, less than a thousand dollars per employee, or health insurance for 50.

Well, it's a no-brainer. So many businesses with the added taxes that are in this bill are already saying, We've got to make cuts somewhere. If we can get away with only paying $40,000 instead of paying many times that for health insurance for our 50 employees, that's what we're going to have to do so we can keep them employed. That doesn't insure the 30 million that we were told was the whole purpose of this bill. In fact, it will ultimately throw more than that off of their own health insurance.

``If you like your health insurance, you'll keep it.'' People all across America heard that over and over. Apparently it simply was not true. The only question is, did the person making those statements know that they were not true when they were made? Or did it become a matter of convenience to strip everybody's health insurance at a later date? Either way, it was grossly unfair to all the people who did like their health insurance.

Reforms needed to be made, there's no question. We all agree on that. We could have worked together to provide those reforms. Instead, we had a monstrosity of a bill that simply got crammed down everybody's throat. That is what's most troubling.

I've already gotten the calls, I've gotten emails, I'm hearing people say they've been laid off, a family member has been laid off, they've been told they're going to have to cut their salaries. Why? Because we rushed this health care bill and rammed it through without most of the people in this body bothering to read it. I read all I could in the short period of time and I read enough to know that this is a disaster for America.

But if you're into government controlling everything, then you've got to love it, because it's sure going to have more government: 17,000 more IRS agents monitoring everybody monthly to make sure they're complying with the insurance requirements. How amazing, though. We hear from our friends across the aisle, We're concerned about the hardworking poor in America.

Well, guess what: If you make under 133 percent of the poverty level when this disaster kicks in in 2013, 2014, you're not going to have a choice. When you need health care, you're going to be thrown into Medicaid. I heard that Walgreens said they're not going to take any more Medicaid prescriptions. Doctors are saying we can't

make enough money to pay for the care, much less make a profit, so they're not taking Medicaid.

What a disaster for America. This needs our attention. But the heartbreaking aspect I keep coming back to is, people didn't have to lose their job, lose their insurance. Businesses didn't have to pay this much more tax. But we rushed it through. And I come back to a quote by George Washington, who said, ``Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.''

When this government was designed by our Founders, it was never intended to be the master of people. The people were meant to be the masters of this government; and this bill has thrown that all out of whack just as George Washington and so many of our Founders anticipated, and it requires the actions of Americans running to the sound of legislation to help prevent any more from this fearful master, as George Washington put it.

Well, we do have the danger of Iran about to go nuclear at the same time, as you all have pointed out, that our President cancelled what took so long and took such great effort by so many, including our friends in Poland, to establish this missile defense that was going to be built. That got cancelled. That was going to help protect us. That was going to help protect our allies.

I just want to read here some of the comments that have been made. President Barack Obama said on November 7, 2008, ``Let me repeat what I stated during the course of the campaign. Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable.'' He said on October 20, 2009, that the bond between the United States and Israel is much more than a strategic alliance.

And then you look at what Ahmadinejad has said. He said in 2005, quote, ``God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism.'' He also said that Israel was to be wiped off the map. He said, ``Like it or not, Israel is heading toward annihilation.'' He also said, ``Today, the

time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come, and the countdown to annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.'' It has started. And we are disarming unilaterally while Iran--we are talking about maybe some sanctions, like maybe that will work as well as it did against Iraq? It didn't work because people cheated.

Russia and China have said, hey, we're making a lot of money selling to these folks right now. We're not sure we're getting on board with this. And all the while those centrifuges are just a spinnin'. They are spinnin' while we're all here talking. And we're coming closer to the day when Ahmadinejad will be able to try to keep his promise, all while we are disarming. It makes no sense. We took an oath to provide for the common defense. It is high time we did that.

Madam Speaker, it is always and ever an honor to get to speak in this body. It touches the soul when you think about the freedoms that have been afforded to people in so many places that have been discussed right here on this floor.

Apparently, this is the last that we will be addressing the House before we break for what's considered the Easter break, and so it's time to pause for a moment and think about what we have been doing. We just passed the most incredible bill, not in a good way, that most Americans, a much bigger majority of Americans than voted for President Obama, had made clear that they did not want passed. We didn't pay attention to them. I say, ``we,'' collectively. I thought it was a big mistake, especially the more I read.

For example, this body, our friends across the aisle, pride themselves, they constantly talk about helping the little guy. Well, how about the little guy who is working, working, trying to get by. He doesn't make all that much, he doesn't make all that much, but they make just under 133 percent of the poverty level.

That means under the bill that has now been signed into law, that person, that person's family, are eligible for Medicaid, which means under this law that person, their family, will have to do one of two things, and this begins in about 3 or so years. They will either go on Medicare, which has got to be scary for them because, you know, Walgreens came out--I read somewhere that they were not going to be accepting Medicaid to pay for prescription drugs. Doctors all over the country have complained that Medicaid does not pay them for their own out-of-pocket expenses so they can no longer accept it. So doctors across the country are saying we are not going to take Medicaid.

Under this bill that has been passed, signed into law, even with the so-called reconciliation, what a misnomer. That poor working man, woman, family, they either go on Medicaid, with more and more people refusing to accept it, or get nothing in the way of insurance.

If their employer is providing it, they cannot accept it. They have to say, I am not allowed, under this punitive so-called health care bill, to accept the wonderful insurance that you have been providing. The law now says I take Medicaid or I take nothing. There is no in between. So much for helping the working poor.

And, heaven forbid, if you are working as hard as you can and you are not quite making enough to buy the level of health care that will now be mandated by the Federal Government. Well, we are going to help you. We are going to pop you with a fee or tax to teach you a lesson. That makes no sense. That just makes no sense.

So you have 14 States, as I last heard, who have said, We are filing suit. We are going to do what we can to stop it. Twenty-five other States that are looking into it, looking at whether they should pass a bill in their State to nullify or stop it or say we are not going to take it, see what they should do.

For the State of Texas, for example, we have been frugal. Our State leaders have done an admirable job. We have got, I think, $8 billion or $9 billion in reserve for a rainy day. You have States like California that are in the tank. You have other States that are just barely hanging in there. Well, I know it's Easter time, but it's time to say, Merry Christmas. You States, guess what you just got. You just got billions of dollars that you are going to have to pay in Medicaid in this bill.

Now, what we have done, since the country is about broke and we are selling bonds, printing money to try to keep from announcing that we are broke, we have decided, You know what? To try to keep Ben Nelson from looking bad, we're just going to pay all of the State portion of the Medicaid expense for a while, for a few years, and then you are going to have it. And the States will not be prepared for it.

You know, when Art Laffer was the economic adviser for President Reagan, he advised him when Reagan asked, How do we get out of double- digit inflation? They had way over 10 percent inflation, double-digit inflation; they had over double-digit employment, worse than it is now, coming out of the Carter years. There was double-digit interest rates. My wife and I, our first home we bought just off of post there at Fort Benning when I was in the Army and we had a 12\3/4\ loan and some people were envious that we had such a low interest loan. Interest rates, some have told me they had 15 percent, 18 percent, just crazy. It was an economy that was a disaster.

So Reagan asked Art Laffer, What do we do to come out of this terrible economic mess? And Laffer said, You have got to cut taxes by 30 percent. That's how you stimulate the economy.

Well, the Democratic-controlled Congress at that time refused to do an automatic 30 percent tax cut the first year, 1981, so they phased it in, 5 percent the first year, 10 percent the second year, 15 percent the third year.

As time went on, Art Laffer became prophetic, because when President Reagan had called him, President Reagan said, Great news, Art. We've got the 30 percent tax cut, just what you asked. And he said, Well, that's great. And he said, Well, you ought to be ecstatic. This was your idea. He said, Well, I am happy. Fine.

He says, Why aren't you happy? He said words to the effect that, Look, I understand you are going to phase this in over 3 years: a 5 percent cut the first year, 10 percent cut the second year, 15 percent cut the third year. And President Reagan said, Well, that's right. The Democratic-controlled Congress said that's the only way they would do it. They weren't going to give us a 30 percent tax cut the first year.

And Art said, Well, Mr. President, let me put it to you this way. If you are

going to buy something from the store and you heard they had a 5 percent sale this month, 10 percent sale next month, 15 percent sale the third month, when would you go buy it? And President Reagan responded after a pause, Are we going to have a bad couple of years, Art? He said, Exactly. And that's exactly what happened because they did not cut taxes 30 percent off the bat.

But once the 30 percent taxes kicked in, the economy turned around in such a dramatic and short period of time that President Reagan was elected to a second term, when in 1982 people didn't think that was going to be happening; but it did because he cut taxes.

Well, let's look at what the economic forecast is for the United States. We know that, come January of next year, we are going to have the biggest tax increase in the history of the country. The biggest tax increase in the history of the country.

Now, we know that when the Republicans had the majority, they didn't have 60 votes in the Senate, and so they were pushing and pushing trying to get the tax cuts to be permanent. But they didn't have the 60 votes in the Senate. The only way they could get it passed because of the Democratic obstruction was to agree to have the tax cuts go away at the end of 2010.

I wasn't here. It was a year or so before I got here, but I personally believe they should have pushed, they should have gotten it done, they should have made sure those tax cuts were permanent so that nobody could come in here and have what we are going to have the end of this year, the biggest tax increase in the whole American history without even having a vote, just letting the tax cuts expire.

Well, since we know capital gains rates are going to shoot up, we know the marginal rates income tax are going to shoot up, we know that the estate tax is going to go from zero, shoot back up to 55 percent. Talk about socialist.

The estate tax, the death tax says: you've accumulated too much and you don't deserve it, so we are going to give you a little exemption and then we are going to take over half of everything else you have accumulated through the blood, sweat, and tears of you and your family.

That just doesn't seem right. It seems like some law that you would find in the old Soviet Union before they went broke because it does so much to discourage a family business or a family farm. But that's what is coming.

And now, on top of that, we have just had, as somebody said, the mother of all unfunded mandates on the States. Texas has done so well; it is going to have to come up with $25 billion under this bill over the next 10 years. So much for the money they had saved and tried to make sure was there for the rainy day. Here came a flood, and not from nature, not from nature's God, but from the hand of the President signing a bill that was rammed through against the will of the American people, through this House and through the body at the end of the Hall. Can you think of a worse time to increase taxes?

You know, we heard from Caterpillar this week; $100 million it's going to cost them just this year.

You wonder, well, why did they make that announcement? If you are a corporation and you know there is bad news coming, then you have got to get it out there; otherwise, somebody may come after you and say you artificially inflated your stock prices by keeping bad news secret. So we find out. I believe we saw John Deere may lose $150 million this year. I mean, devastating these businesses.

Well, perhaps there are people here in this body or down the Hall that thought Caterpillar, John Deere, these other companies just had too many employees, so they said it's time to go ahead and lay more people off. Let's put them on unemployment, let's extend unemployment, let's have more and more people without a job. Because that is what has happened.

I know I am being sarcastic. I know people across the aisle and down the Hall do not want to see more people lose their jobs. I understand that. But that is the effect of what is happening by the senseless stuff we are passing the last week, the last two weeks. And now we are going to take up cap-and-trade. As our friend, former Chairman Dingell, had said, It's not just a tax, it's a big tax. That's exactly what cap- and-trade is.

It's heartbreaking. People are going to lose their jobs right here around Easter time because of the senseless, hardheaded acts of this body and the one down the Hall: we don't care if the country doesn't want it; we don't care that the States can't afford it. We don't care that you couldn't pass the same bill right now through the Senate or through the House the way it was sent down here. We don't care. We are just going to pass it.

We're just going to pass it. It's unbelievable. Just unbelievable. We had friends here who thought that the Executive order would prevent and stabilize things so that you couldn't pry Federal money from people's hands; take their money, make it Federal money, and pay for abortions. But there are at least three ways under this bill that that's going to happen. Terribly unfortunate.

It was amazing, because it was as if someone was trying to trick America so you couldn't tell what was going to happen with abortion. Because I don't have the bill with me. I've got my copy back there in the cloakroom, but I've been through it. And you look, and at page 119, subparagraph B(i) it says, basically, you can't fund abortion with Federal tax dollars. If you had done a word search for ``abortion,'' you would not see page 122 come up, just three pages over. It wouldn't come up because ``abortion'' is not in that paragraph.

What it says is that people are required to make available health insurance policies that will cover abortions, but it doesn't say abortions. It says cover what is mentioned in B(i), that subparagraph, which is abortion. So you won't find it if you're doing a word search for ``abortion.'' Sure enough, that's what's required.

And then--I'm sure it's just out of ignorance--people didn't know what the Hyde amendment really did. It prevented appropriations through the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill from being used for abortion. But some people were bound to know. They're just bound to know. Somebody's staff. Somebody. Surely it just can't be me. There are bound to have been people who knew that this bill appropriated money. That money was appropriated, therefore, outside the Labor and HHS appropriations bill. Therefore, the Hyde amendment did not apply to it.

For those of us that know something about Executive orders, we know that an Executive order cannot be used--for one thing, you can't use to legislate. Another thing, you cannot use an Executive order to impound money that's appropriated in a bill that the House and Senate had passed. Number three, you can't use it for a line item veto to strike something you don't like. There's money in the bill for community health centers.

That was what we were fixing to do. It's now done, and so are so many American jobs because of what we have passed this week.

There's a line from a movie, ``Broadcast News,'' where Holly Hunter is telling an executive that he's making a wrong decision. And he says, in essence, It must be wonderful to always know what should happen. She says, basically, No, it's horrible.

The fact is, it must be wonderful for those who don't realize the human suffering that's going to come out of this bill--the people that lose their jobs, who don't realize that down the road we are going to devastate this thing that we used to call the free market system as government approaches taking control and, in some cases, ownership of 50 percent or so of the American economy. Who would have thought? When you can see where this goes, it's horrible, just like she said. It's horrible.

Community health centers have done wonderful jobs. They have helped so many people that needed it, but now they're being appropriated money that can be used for abortions. And there's nothing that can stop that; certainly not a flimsy Executive order that cannot impound money that's dedicated for something else. Besides that, an Executive order can also be changed on a whim. It happens all the time.

So, as I struggled and thought about how did we get to this point in history, because there was a time if you went against the will of the State and you went against what you were sent up here to do, and that is serve and defend the Constitution, then your legislature, your State legislature that elected you, could yank you back. Because there's an amendment, number nine, that says: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This is the Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. If it's not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, it's reserved to the State and the people. It's probably the most violated provision in the Constitution.

As some Justices have pointed out in speeches before, in 1913, we had the 17th Amendment. Because, apparently, some State legislatures had actually abused that system, sending State individuals up here to be U.S. Senators with an agenda that wasn't necessarily helpful to the country. So the 17th Amendment changed the ability of the State legislature to select a U.S. Senator, and it became a popular vote.

All week as I have talked about Article V of the Constitution, I've been very careful not to ever say that we should repeal the 17th Amendment, because I'm not sure that's a good idea. It needs more study, more looking. It needs the collective concentration of 50 States' best thinkers. We have heard other potential solutions to what happened when the elimination occurred of the only real check to this body and the Senate body usurping rights reserved to the States and the people. Once that was eliminated, then you began to have real unfunded mandates. States come up with money and do this. States come up with money and do that.

It was not supposed to be that way. This Federal Government was never supposed to be able to dictate unfunded mandates to States. It was never supposed to be allowed to usurp authority reserved to the States and the people by the 10th Amendment. But that's what has occurred because there was no check and balance to do that.

You've got the Supreme Court, but they are appointed by the highest elected Federal official, the President. They're confirmed by high U.S. Federal elected officials. So why would anybody think they would be out to protect the rights reserved to the States and the people? They should. It's what the Constitution said. They have an obligation to uphold the Constitution. They should. But that's not what has been occurring.

So what hit me was article V because I really believe, you know, that God can work things together for good. And through such a terrible thing, like this

health care bill that's going to cause so many people to lose their jobs, many people to have their pay reduced, many people to not have the insurance they had before. We're already hearing tons of employers saying, Well, in this bill, it's actually cheaper for us to drop the health care insurance we're providing, let them go get the lesser government insurance, the Federal insurance exchange federal program, and we save money even though we're having to pay this extra tax. Well, somebody that designed this bill knew that would happen, and that's what they intended to do, drive them away from their better private insurance to the government's awaiting coverage.

Did anybody really know all that was in here? Perhaps somebody did. I mean, in the bill, the staff of the leadership of the House and Senate were exempted so they don't have to participate. They can keep the good insurance they have right now, where all the rest of us in Congress on our staffs, we have to go under the Federal insurance exchange program. And ultimately, I lose what I think is the greatest hope for getting us off the road to socialized medicine because that's just the next step. This was the first. That's the next, just like President Obama--then- Senator Obama laid out previously when he was running for the Presidency. This is the first step. Then you have the transition into the single payer, the socialized medicine. It's where it goes.

So how do you go about stopping that? What in the world really good could come from such a bad bill where pharmaceutical companies--man, they're going to get rich out of this thing. Yeah, they're going to get back some billions. But my HSA, for the short time I may be able to keep it, for a little longer, I can't buy my hay fever pills for under $3 anymore with my HSA. I'll have to buy prescription drugs, which will help the pharmaceutical companies. Good job.

And I remember the President saying, We're going to televise our debates on C-SPAN so you can see who's really looking out for the pharmaceuticals and who's looking out for the people. Well, you know what, it turns out we didn't need C-SPAN after all. When we read the bill and we see the sweetheart bills that were done for pharmaceutical companies, the massive number of new clients initially--until we go to a full government takeover, a short-sight on the part of insurance companies that bought in. But they're going to have a bunch more money. AARP, they're going to sell a lot more insurance because provisions in there are going to allow them to kill Medicare Advantage. So that means AARP, they don't care that they've lost so many members because they're going to make a lot more than that in the insurance that they'll get to sell. The plaintiffs' bar got a deal in here. There are just all kinds of deals for everybody.

So we found out who's looking out for the little guy. It was nobody that was in those negotiations. But somebody was sure looking out for the pharmaceuticals. And since there wasn't any Republican in any of those negotiations where the deals were cut, we know there was nobody there looking out for the little guy. They were looking out for the pharmaceuticals, the big companies, the unions, plaintiffs' lawyers. They just came out great. Happy Easter. Somebody laid an egg.

We look at article V. This is what it came back to. You look at article V. This may be the real good that could come out of the disaster that's gone on here lately and the abuses of the process, it seems. Article V has been used many times for the first part that says, ``Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution.'' That's been used many times. And once they propose those amendments, passed by two-thirds of the House and the Senate, then it took three-fourths of the States to ratify. But here is the part that has not been used--I can't find that it's ever been used. It almost was for the repeal of the prohibition, but when the Congress saw that the States were about to get to 34, which is two-thirds or--there weren't that many then. When the States were about to get to two-thirds, then Congress acted quickly, jumped in, had two-thirds of the House and Senate and had a repeal of the prohibition.

But here's the part, that Congress ``on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths.'' So the thing is, the legislatures, two-thirds of the States' legislatures can apply and say, Congress, we want a convention--not a Constitutional convention; it's not a Constitutional convention. That's what occurred in 1787. This is an amendment convention. That's what is called for. Not a rewrite of the Constitution. An amendment convention.

And I know there are differences among some constitutional scholars who say, Well, Congress can actually limit the amendment convention, okay? You have asked for an amendment convention. Perhaps the States could say, We want a convention to fix the lack of checks and balances between the Federal Government and the State government. I think you could limit it to that. You know, just like the Constitution provides for impeachment, it doesn't provide the rules of procedure, right? You can't have a trial in the Senate for impeachment without promulgating rules of procedure. But the Supreme Court, as always, appropriately kept hands off when it comes to rules of procedure. You know, that's your guys' business in the legislature when it comes to setting up rules of procedure for impeachment. You decide how you're going to run the trial, and then we can review the overall result. Well, I think that's possible as well with an amendment convention.

And think about it too. Even if those who say, Well, they could do amendments that might just rewrite most of the Constitution, think about it. It requires three-fourths of the States to ratify it. You're not going to have three-fourths of the States ratify, rewrite a Constitution. I mean, we may do some crazy things in this Congress, like we've done in the last week, but we're not going to rewrite the greatest document governing mankind in the history of the world. But it does need tweaking from time to time. And it's awfully tough for a Federal Government to see when it's being at its worst, most abusive of States' rights, and rein them in.

But that's why there's this balance. That's the genius of this document. We can come in and fix when something gets abused too much. It's why the 17th Amendment came into being. But I have not once ever proposed that we eliminate the ability of the people of any State to elect a U.S. Senate, and yet that was a headline in one paper that that's what I was proposing because there were liberal blogs that were going nuts. They seem to do that from time to time without regard for the truth.

But if you look at what I've said, it's very simple. We have got to put back some kind of check or balance on this runaway abuse of States' rights. Now I know there's some people in Texas or some other States that say, Well, we just need to secede. Give me a break. We do not need to secede. There is strength and power when we are the United States of America, and that's what we need to stay. But we need to get back to the common sense of the Founders that gave us the opportunity to have such a great country.

I have article V blown up here. Here is article V from the Constitution. The Congress--skip to the second part after the ``or,'' the disjunctive, on the application of legislatures, two-thirds of the several States--that's what we're talking about--``shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments''--not a rewrite of the Constitution, because that's not going to happen, and it wouldn't be ratified. So get real. I know there are some who say, We're headed for a cliff. We're going to fall into the abyss. We have got to do something, and I think they're right.

Proposing a budget with $1.5 trillion deficit this year?

Man, my first year here I was hearing all the screams and hollering about how abusive a $160 billion deficit was, how mean spirited could George W. Bush be.

And by the way, I really appreciate the sensitivity of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We shouldn't be

making death threats. I've had plenty of those as a judge. I know what that's like. It never bothered me until they started threatening my family. But I know what that's like.

I know what it's like to be abused, as I was out here on Saturday, because of my position on the hate crimes bill. I don't go running to the media about it. But I appreciate the fact that we should all be able to agree there is no place for bigotry, there's no place for racism. We should be able to disagree without being extremely disagreeable. We can disagree, that is important. Unless one person in this body has a 100 percent lock on God's truth, all the time, we really ought to listen to each other. And yet today we had 10 minutes, 5 minutes on either side, to debate the reconciliation, so-called misnomer regarding the health care plan.

We've got to get back to some sanity before we ruin this place.

Now, I know some people get scared when you talk about amending the Constitution and letting the States have a convention to propose an amendment. But that could be the thing that gets us back on track so this body and down the Hall can't continue to run up a $1.5 trillion deficit a year. I mean, good night. Ten times what I heard Bush getting beat up for? Give me a break. Goodness.

We've got to get back to some fiscal sanity. I think this could do it. I think it could rein things in, get the check and balance in place so that we could look back one day and say, as bad as this was, as upset as most of Americans have been about this abusive process by which this disastrous health care ``deform'' bill was passed, it led to a greater good if we amend the Constitution, we preserve the check and balance so that this body and the Senate can't come together and a majority in the House or Senate, cram a bad bill down the minority's throat, say, tough, even though, in this case, you represent the will of the vast majority of the people in America, we don't care. We're smarter than you. We're going to do this anyway. You wouldn't be able to do it.

One proposal is an amendment that might allow the States within, say, 30 days, 45 days, something like that, after a bill that affected the States could come back in and three-fourths could vote to veto the bill and that would veto the bill. End of it. It's dead and it couldn't be overridden by the House and Senate. That would put a check and balance in place.

Some, and I'm not sure I like this idea, but it may have possibilities if the right restraints were put on--some have said, well, we don't want to go back to the legislatures selecting, in some back-room deal, a U.S. Senator, because that just seems kind of tawdry. But perhaps, if a Senator was hurting their State, you could set some kind of recall system up so the State could recall a Senator that got too far afield and too far beyond the Constitution itself.

There are all kinds of proposals. This country is composed of brilliant people who could come together and make something very, very special. That's how we were founded. We were founded as a special country.

Going back to an act that had never occurred in the history of mankind, and I doubt will ever occur in the history of mankind again, and that was, in 1783, it's depicted in a huge painting down the Hall in the rotunda, of George Washington with his hand outstretched, as he tendered his resignation. He said, in effect, I did what you asked. I've won the revolution. Now I'm going home. Nobody had ever done that in the history of mankind. Never. When King George III was told that George Washington was going to, after having defeated the British, resign and go home, he just didn't believe it. He said, nobody would do that. In fact, he said if Washington were to do that, he would be the greatest man alive. He probably was. Nobody had ever done it before or done it since.

At times, when the military, when the Articles of Confederation were falling apart, they were calling upon Washington, please, we'll let you be King if you'll just come rule. The country's falling apart. He wouldn't do it. But Washington, in tendering that resignation, ended it with something very special. He ended it with what appears to be a prayer. The whole resignation was so moving that it was printed and distributed all over the country. They loved George Washington.

His resignation, at the end, and I quote, toward the end, said, ``I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the state over which you preside in His holy protection. He'd incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field.

And, finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and specific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the divine author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy Nation.

Then he signed it by saying, I have the honor to be with great respect and esteem, Your Excellency's most obedient and very humble servant, George Washington.

That's how we get started. That kind of humility, that kind of selflessness. And yet we just passed a bill that exempts the leader's staff, White House, White House staff, except the President says he's going to go under it. But what happened to that kind of humility and selflessness by those in government? Well, I know what it is to sleep on an air mattress three or four nights a week for the honor of getting to serve here, and it's nothing compared to what those valiant Founders and those who fought over the years for our freedoms have given up.

So article V, that's a possibility. Maybe that gets back some sanity. Maybe it does.

What have we got to lose? We can't keep running up this kind of debt. We can't; we will lose this Nation. You know, you think it can't happen. Look at Greece, the way they're struggling. Go back to the Soviet Union. They spent so much in Afghanistan, so much on missile defense. They couldn't borrow enough, they couldn't print enough, and they finally had to announce, We're broke. China wasn't buying their debt. They couldn't get anybody to buy enough debt, loan them enough money. They couldn't print it fast enough so they went out of business. It happens. There is no nation in the history of the world that has ever gone on indefinitely. Every nation comes to an end. It is up to the vigilance of those in government of that country to ensure that future generations are protected.

I have the liberties and freedoms I do in this country, all of us here do, not because of something we did. I didn't deserve to be born here and have this kind of liberty. It was because of the generations that went before us, generations of people like George Washington and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. So many of these guys that just were willing to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. I have been blessed because of their faithfulness in those prior generations.

You want to read a beautiful theological monologue, read Lincoln's second inaugural address as he struggled to deal with how a just God could allow the kind of suffering that had gone on, and he deals with it beautifully.

In that second inaugural that's inscribed on the north wall inside the Lincoln Memorial, trying to deal with how this could happen, he said, you know, we all read the same Bible, we all pray to the same God, yet the prayers of both could not be answered. He struggled and he came through and he recognized that a wonderful God has blessed this country.

You go back to the speech of Benjamin Franklin, to the Constitutional Convention, when he said, ``In the beginning contest with Great Britain when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor.'' By the way, that's not the words of a deist. ``To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity.

And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.'''

Franklin went on and said, ``I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.''

I want to finish, Madam Speaker, tonight with a radio address that was given on April 2, 1983, by Ronald Reagan. He has been talked about so much lately, and it seemed appropriate on this occasion as we wrap up before we recess and go home and see what our constituents have to say about us. He said:

``This week as American families draw together in worship, we join with millions upon millions of others around the world also celebrating the traditions of their faiths. During these days, at least, regardless of nationality, religion, or race, we are united by faith in God and the barriers between us seem less significant.

``Observing the rites of Passover and Easter, we're linked in time to the ancient origins of our values and to the unborn generations who will still celebrate them long after we're gone. As Paul explained in his Epistle to the Ephesians, `He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. So then you were no longer strangers and aliens, but you were fellow citizens of God's household.'

``This is a time of hope and peace, when our spirits are filled and lifted. It's a time when we give thanks for our blessings--chief among them, freedom, peace, and the promise of eternal life.

``This week Jewish families and friends have been celebrating Passover, a tradition rich in symbolism and meaning. Its observance reminds all of us that the struggle for freedom and the battle against oppression waged by Jews since ancient times is one shared by people everywhere. And Christians have been commemorating the last momentous days leading to the crucifixion of Jesus 1,950 years ago. Tomorrow, as morning spreads around the planet, we will celebrate the triumph of life over death, the resurrection of Jesus. Both observances tell of sacrifice and pain but also of hope and triumph.

``As we look around us today, we still find human pain and suffering, but we also see it answered with individual courage and spirit, strengthened by faith. For example, the brave Polish people, despite the oppression of a godless tyranny, still cling to their faith and their belief in freedom. Shortly after Palm Sunday mass this week, Lech Walesa faced a cheering crowd of workers outside a Gdansk church. He held up his hand in a sign of victory and predicted, `The time will come when we will win.'

``Recently, an East German professor, his wife, and two daughters climbed into a 7-foot rowboat and crossed the freezing, wind-whipped Baltic to escape from tyranny. Arriving in West Germany after a harrowing 7-hour, 31-mile journey past East German border patrols, the man said he and his family had risked everything so that the children would have the chance to grow up in freedom.

``In Central America, Communist-inspired revolution still spreads terror and instability, but it's no match for the much greater force of faith that runs so deep among the people. We saw this during Pope John Paul II's recent visit there. As he conducted a mass in Nicaragua, state police jeered and led organized heckling by Sandinista supporters. But the Pope lifted a crucifix above his head and waved it at the crowd before him, then turned and symbolically held it up before the massive painting of Sandinista soldiers that loomed behind. The symbol of good prevailed. In contrast, everywhere else the Holy Father went in the region, spreading a message that only love can build, he was met by throngs of enthusiastic believers, eager for Papal guidance and blessing.

``In this Easter season when so many of our young men and women in the Armed Forces are stationed so very far from their homes, I can't resist recounting at least one example of their sacrifice and heroism. Every day I receive reports that would make you very proud, and today I would like to share just one with you.

``While the San Diego-based USS Hoel was steaming toward Melbourne, Australia, on Ash Wednesday, its crew heard of terrible brush fires sweeping two Australian states. More than 70 people were killed and the destruction was great. Well, the crew of this American ship raised $4,000 from their pockets to help, but they felt that it wasn't enough. So, leaving only a skeleton crew aboard, the 100 American sailors gave up a day's shore leave, rolled up their sleeves, and set to work rebuilding a ruined community on the opposite end of the Earth. Just Americans being Americans, but something for all of us to be proud of.

``Stories like these--of men and women around the world who love God and freedom--bear a message of world hope and brotherhood like the rites of Passover and Easter that we celebrate this weekend.

``A grade school class in Somerville, Massachusetts, recently wrote me to say, `We studied about countries and found out that each country in our world is beautiful and we need each other. People may look a little different but we're still people who need the same things.' They said, `We want peace. We want to take care of one another. We want to be able to get along with one another. We want to be able to share. We want freedom and justice. We want to be friends. We want no wars. We want to be able to talk to one another. We want to be able to travel around the world without fear.'

``They then asked, `Do you think that we can have these things one day?' Well, I do,'' Reagan said. ``I really do. Nearly 2,000 years after the coming of the Prince of Peace, such simple wishes may still seem far from fulfillment. But we can achieve them. We must never stop trying.

``The generations of Americans now growing up in schools across our country can make sure the United States will remain a force for good, the champion of peace and freedom as their parents and grandparents before them have done. And if we live our lives and dedicate our country to truth, to love, and to God, we will be a part of something much stronger and much more enduring than any negative power here on Earth. That's why this weekend is a celebration and why there is hope for us all.

``Thanks for listening, and God bless you.''

That was Ronald Reagan, 1983. There is wisdom among the States. It all doesn't reside here in Washington, D.C. It can be found in brilliance, in schools, in workplaces, in coffee klatches, in places all over this God blessed country. Let's trust them. If we have 34 States say, and next January would be a good time to work toward them and have momentum toward January of 2011 and in January of 2011, 34 States say, you know what, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Leader of the Senate, it's time to have an amendment to the Constitution to preserve the rights reserved to the States under the 9th and 10th amendment and the genius of this country as it has come together through the different amendments to ensure the rights and to ensure the ongoing of this blessed country can go on.

That is the message I leave with you as I yield back, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution 257, 111th Congress, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 21 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until Tuesday, April 13, 2010, at 2 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, you know, we have seen for some time the Federal Government, since 1913, usurping States' rights. This Federal Government, this Congress, the House and Senate with the complicity of both Republican and Democratic Presidents, sending to the States unfunded mandates demanding that they come up with millions and billions of dollars that they didn't have, just out of the blue. We've now come up with one that many States believe will bankrupt them.

How did we get here? Well, in 1913 the constitutionally sanctioned process of electing Senators was changed by the 17th Amendment. That was put in the Constitution after great debate, and what it required was that the State legislatures, the States select--not the overall population of the State--but the State legislatures would select the U.S. Senators. That was a check and balance on the Federal Government's usurpation of States' rights because if any U.S. Senator came up here and voted such an unfunded mandate upon the State, he was going to quickly be recalled, as has happened before.

But the appeal--and I don't know how I would have voted on the 17th Amendment because it sounds so good. You know what, we ought to let all the people in the State elect our U.S. Senator. And once that was done, once that amendment was passed, there was no further check on States' rights and the protections afforded in the 9th and 10th Amendments that reserved all power not specifically enumerated, as it says here, in the 10th Amendment: ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.''

Both Republicans and Democrats have violated that concept. And what could the States do about it? After 1913, they had no power to do anything about it. They didn't have an Army as big as the United States, and we didn't want secession again. We didn't want another civil war. It should be done legislatively and diplomatically and within legislative bodies, however they were called, and within the framework of the U.S. Constitution.

Well, the Constitution, when it was drafted, addressed that point, and it's very clear. And perhaps it took a government to run away, as one State representative or Governor said, The mother of all unfunded mandates. The States--there are 39 of them that have so far said, We're not going to take this anymore. We're going to do something, whether it's going to be legislative, litigation, whatever. We're going to stop this. But the truth is, it may take years to get through the courts to the Supreme Court. It may take years.

So here's the solution: it was in the Constitution all along. It's called article V of the United States Constitution. Now we know that article V has been used many times by this first line, ``The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary''--we know that's been used many times. The House and Senate agree we need an amendment, and so they call for the amendment to be produced. But something--I haven't been able to find it. It's been done before, but it can be. It's there. But here it is: ``Or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States shall''--it means Congress shall, Congress shall, that it's not any choice that Congress has.

If two-thirds of the States apply and say, We want a convention--not a Constitutional Convention because this can be restricted by the Congress--but an amendment--one amendment would be all that was necessary to return a check and balance on the Federal Government, give the States what the 9th and 10th Amendments reserved to them. Two- thirds of the States make application, Congress shall call in a convention for proposing amendments--not rewriting the Constitution. And this is a procedural issue that the Supreme Court has always said, with regard to procedural issues, That's political. It's procedural. Congress, you do it however you want to. We're not touching that. We're not going to issue a decision. That's what this should be. This is how we return control and some sense of order to the States.

I would ask my colleagues across the aisle--sometimes I raise my voice. I'm not going to do this, so I need you to listen. I'm very sincere.

I know that there are some wonderful-hearted people that have been

standing against this bill from a pro-life position. They're good hearts. But they've been sold a bill of goods. You don't have to believe me.

I had an incredible non-reversal rate as a judge and chief justice; as a lawyer very successful. But let me tell you, there are people waiting to get the executive order struck down the moment it is signed. You needed to hear from somebody who understands your heart and understands where you're coming from. The executive order won't work. Then in the end, your standout will have been for nothing.

Please take another look at it. This is the wrong thing to have your vote swayed by. You can't say you weren't warned.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this government takeover of health care in this so-called health care bill.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor any time to come speak, to have the privilege of speaking on the House floor. It's been a long day. It's been a long week. I fear there will be longer days, weeks, and years in the future if tomorrow this bill passes, because some of us have seen socialized medicine firsthand. As an exchange student in the Soviet Union, I have seen it back in 1973. I know where this all goes. I've seen where this plays out. And I know that my friends on the other side of the aisle believe their motivation is the highest and the best. I understand that. I understand our friends that are pushing for government control of health care honestly believe the country will be better off if they can only get all health care, health insurance under the control of the Federal Government, and everyone is better off.

I know they believe that, and I know they believe that they are acting in everyone's best interest in pushing for this, but that is not the basis for the founding of this country. And for anyone that has read ``The 5,000 Year Leap,'' I was a history major, I pride myself on being a bit of a historian, and that book gave me an interesting perspective because for nearly 5,000 years when settlers came to a new area and settled down there, they came with basically the same tools. They tried to grow crops and live off the land; and for 5,000 years, there wasn't a whole lot of change.

And then came this incredible experiment brought by people who, like the Pilgrims, came from Holland to England and then to America, people who came to get away from persecution as Christians. And they came here, and after that first horrible winter when the Pilgrims decided to try a new idea and give everybody private property and I live off what you grow, and you can sell or trade what you have left, and this private property concept began to grow and flourish, and free enterprise took over; and in just a few short years, relatively speaking in history, this country advanced more than the whole human race did in 5,000, just in a couple of hundred years. And it was the entrepreneurial spirit was

given a chance to just grow and flourish.

You see what happens when the government takes over health care. In those countries, they meant well. They thought this will be so much better, we will give government-type control choice, and it will be better for everybody. And then you come back to the statistics and we have been told so often that gee, Canada, Europe and England, their health care is so much better than ours. But you compare cancer rates, if you have cancer, you want to be in the United States because your odds of survival are so much better. Why? Because there is liberty and entrepreneurial spirit. There is more ability to take off and develop new things, more research and development right here in this country because of the basis on which we were founded.

My dad was found to have prostate cancer back in the 1990s, and thank God he is still here. I lost my mother in 1991. But if you are found to have prostate cancer in America, you have a 92 percent chance of survival. If my dad had prostate cancer in England, he has a 50/50 chance of living. I know where I would want my father to live.

Now there have been some horror stories that make all of us mad. The example of the lady who was denied coverage when the insurance company knew they should have had coverage, knew they should have provided it and they even had their own internal doctor say, yes, she is covered and you should provide the coverage or she will lose her baby, and they refused to provide coverage and she lost her baby and it went to the Supreme Court. And they said no because the Federal Government passed something called ERISA, and under that law, which is where her policy is, you can't sue for denial of coverage.

There is a provision in here, and I am wondering if that is part of the deal that talked insurance companies, some of them, into buying into this monstrosity. I wonder. But there are coverages that will be covered under ERISA that may not have been covered under ERISA otherwise. As a former judge, those are cases that they filed in State district court. Immediately, the insurance lawyer comes and files for removal, they go to Federal court, and then they get dismissed. You can't sue them under ERISA for denial of coverage. So maybe that was one of the bargaining points for the insurance companies to sign on.

I have seen some of the things that got the pharmaceutical companies to sign on because they were going to force people to buy prescription drugs that they could otherwise buy over-the-counter generic. I have seen those deals.

It has been an extraordinary day. My friend referred to perhaps 20,000. If you look at the area that was filled with people today, and I have heard the park estimates that area, when it is full, is at least 80,000, and that is what it appeared to me to be. It was an amazing day. People want their liberty. They don't want the government to control their health care records. They don't want the IRS to be the extension of the government of the health care that is going to tell them what they can and can't do.

And of course the big news of the week was when we learned that CBO said it was going to cost around $10 billion to hire around 17,000 new IRS agents because those are the agents that are going to monitor everyone to make sure you are doing exactly what the government in this monstrous bill is telling them to do.

I don't want this. When you look at the survival rates, whether it is cancer or heart disease, it is better here. You have a heart problem, you go have heart surgery, and they can't turn you down because you don't have insurance.

I had a gentleman in east Texas from Canada tell me his father died because he lived in Canada and under the Canadian system, when he was found to need a bypass, they put him on a list where he stayed for 2 years because the Canadian system they had bureaucrats, under their bill, about like this, that moved people in front of him on the list and he died waiting to get his bypass. You don't wait 2 years to get a bypass in the United States.

But there have been abuses. We need to deal with those. We can fix those. I have a health care bill that I filed, and I have got this amended version. I have been trying to get my health care bill scored since last summer. I think so much of Newt Gingrich. He said, Man, you have got to get that scored. That ought to score well, and it could change the whole debate on health care reform because there are a lot of free market ideas that put insurance companies out from between us and our doctors. It tells seniors, you can have your Medicare and your Medicaid if you want them; or, and it is going to be cheaper for the government, we will give you $3,500 cash in your own debit card account, HSA account, health savings account, you control it with a debit card, and we will buy you private insurance to cover everything above that. There are all kinds of good ideas.

I see friends on the floor here that have brought some fantastic ideas. No one has done more in working to reform health care than Dr. Michael Burgess over here, but those ideas have been shut out.

I would like to recognize my friend from Georgia who was a member of the legislature in Georgia. He has dealt with these issues. He has been in the debate on these issues and heard hearings on these issues.

I would like to yield to him.

I thank my friend from Georgia so much. We have also been joined by another Member of Congress, he just has been doing an amazing job, really so powerful. He knows the President firsthand, having debated him back in Illinois in the legislature there. Has great insight himself.

I would like to yield such time as the gentleman from Illinois may use.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

You know, the President has been promising Members on the other side, if you will just pass this bill--Speaker Pelosi has been promising people on the other side, if you will just pass this bill, then between now and November, there are going to be things in this bill that kick in that are going to make America love you and want to vote for you in November.

And I was just curious if the gentleman knows what the biggest thing is that kicks in immediately in this bill between now and election time.

The first thing that kicks in are taxes. They kick in immediately. And I know you've dealt with the grass roots. You've been part of the local communities and business community, and the gentleman knows what it is to make a bottom line.

Right now in this economy, can you envision what happens with additional taxes, say an additional 8 percent payroll tax on some of the people you've been hearing from and talking to?

And I would yield to the gentleman.

I thank my friend from Illinois so very much.

And, you know, I've been talking to people all over my district, and of course today with tens of thousands of people going through the crowds and hearing from people, talking to people, it has been staggering. But I had a conversation last night before I came to the floor with a gentleman in a small business. He has under 20 employees, but he was saying, In my 25 years in this business, I have never been so on the bubble as I am right now. I'm hanging on by my fingernails. You put a 2 percent tax on me, much less an 8 percent payroll tax on me, I'm done. I'm out of business, and everybody that works for me is out of business.

And when the number one concern in America is the economy, jobs, and really not just jobs, but careers--we're destroying careers here. They said, Well, people want jobs. No. They need careers. We're destroying them right and left.

Here's an article this week about Caterpillar. They wrote to the President. They said, Please, don't do this. This will cost us a hundred million dollars in the first year. How do you think a company that is in--you know, they're doing okay. They're the world's largest manufacturer of construction equipment, but they have said they're barely hanging on.

The President went to Caterpillar and said they're barely hanging on; we're going to help them. How is helping them putting another hundred million dollar burden on them? That may drive Caterpillar overseas like we have done to so many businesses.

But I'm telling you, my heart breaks for these businesspeople who love their employees that have been with them for a long time, and we're hearing, I don't want to lose my employees. I'm either going to have to close down, have my employees take dramatic pay cuts at a time they sure can't afford it, or I'm out of business. Those are the choices I got.

I appreciate my friend, Dr. Burgess, a medical doctor, being here with probably more experience in reviewing the alternatives in health care.

I would like to yield him such time as he may use.

I thank my friend, Dr. Burgess. And I can assure my friend that it was not indulgence. It is a pleasure and honor to hear someone so knowledgeable about this very issue that is supposedly being brought to a vote tomorrow.

This is big. And if people had heard the President talk back in 2007 and going into this campaign for President in 2008, he made very clear, he has made it very clear that he would sign a bill like this that would be the first step towards socialized medicine. He said this will be the first step.

Canada didn't get there in just one step. You need this step, and then you can transition into full--what is really socialized medicine.

And in his speech today, to encourage Democrats to get on board, he said these words: ``This is the single most important step that we have taken on health care since Medicare.'' Absolutely. Absolutely it is. And that is the step he was talking about 2 years ago, that this is the first step, and then we move into full socialized medicine where the Federal Government controls everything about your health care. It is a huge step. It is a devastating step.

And so you have to think that if there are those Democrats that are still trying to decide between ``yes'' and ``no,'' you really should think, what is--the President is saying all this good stuff will happen between now and November. Well, there may be a credit here or there, but when my friends that have talked to me about being so close between closing their business, being out of business, and hiring another employee and moving forward, when they get hit with an 8 percent payroll tax and have to go out of business and lay off everybody, or stay in business at a dramatically reduced level and lay off individuals, cut salaries, and those people can't pay their bills and then we lose more mortgages, I don't think people are going to be in a good mood come November.

Now, I know Art Laffer has said--and he is such a brilliant economist--that it is possible that the economy could start improving for one reason, and that is that next January the biggest tax increase in American history will hit, and it will absolutely devastate the economy. So it could be that toward the end of the year, as people start moving to get ready for the massive increase in capital gains and all of the income tax rates that go up, that it may look right before the election like we are starting to have a recovery. Maybe so. But, on the other hand, when you start adding all these taxes now, that changes the equation.

And how our Democratic friends and CBO can tell people with a straight face this pays for itself, when you have got 10 years of income to pay for 6 or 7 years of health care. And then we are told, Yeah, but in the second 10 years it really starts to pay for itself. That has never happened. Do you think Congress is going to sit back and do nothing for the next 20 years and just wait and see for 20 years if things fix themselves?

The Soviet Union didn't get that chance. When they started spending money like this first on the Afghan war and then on the missile defense system, they ran out of money. Nobody would loan them money. They couldn't print it fast enough. They went out of business.

When the President said in his comments these words: ``For example, instead of having five tests when you go to the doctor, you just get one.'' He was being very truthful. Thank God, my mother had many tests over a period of 6 days before they found her brain tumor and she didn't just have one.

I do appreciate the President saying in his speech today the words that, ultimately, the truth will come out. I believe he is right, and it will be devastating for those who were pushing through this government control. And toward the end of his--well, actually there was a lot more speech, but I will just finish with one other mention regarding the President's speech.

He says, ``Now, I cannot guarantee that this is good politics.'' That is very true. You vote for this. I know some people may have districts where they are used to having everything given to them, entitlement districts, and they will need to vote for it because they are used to entitlements. But elsewhere, it is not going to be good politics, and you are looking at the end of some political careers here, unless the President has agreed to give them jobs when they lose their seat.

But you know, this deal with Caterpillar, they are saying they are going

to lose $100 million in the first year. I have heard about States, like one Goodyear plant in Alabama where the State and local came together and offered $51 million just to keep the people there and keep the plant open. This bill is going to cost them $100 million, cost Caterpillar $100 million. We are going to charge them $100 million. Do you think companies are going to be able to stay long like that?

And I just want to finish up in my time tonight going back in history, just to remind people before this terrible vote tomorrow. Hopefully, the American people will prevail, people will lose their nerve to force this economy and the health care off a cliff, and then we can come back and we can work together. We can provide real solutions. We have got lots of good ideas. Just let us work together with you to do that, instead of having the President say, as he did at our retreat, I have read all your bills. You know, there is a thing or two. But I have read them. He had not read our bills. He has not read all our bills. We have got lots of things that could be considered.

But you go back to the founding of this country. In 1783, the Articles of Confederation didn't work. They were too loosely woven, no common currency, a lot of problems, so it was falling apart.

In 1787, we had the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. They talked George Washington into coming back and presiding. He had done what no man had ever done in the history of the world before or since: he led a revolutionary military, won the Revolution, resigned, and went home. He said: I did what you asked.

Well, in 1787 they are telling him: if you don't come back and preside, the 13 States are not going to come back. We are done. The country is over. But all 13 States have agreed to come back if you will promise to preside over the Constitutional Convention.

I mean, what a testimonial for a man--a man of integrity--that he was so beloved. If he would come back, they would come back. They won't come back for anybody else. They knew he was a man who could walk away with power and never look back, because he had done it.

The Convention goes on in Philadelphia. They put blankets over the windows to keep people from looking in and people being distracted looking out, and there was bickering and arguing. It went on and on for nearly 5 weeks. At that point, Benjamin Franklin was 80 years old. He was a little over 2 years away from meeting his Maker, meeting his Judge, meeting his Creator.

Yes, he had sowed some wild oats in his life, and some people thought he was a deist. That's someone who believes God created things or something happened to create things and then that being has stepped back and never done anything, basically. Well, what some people call a deist today was recognized. He knew he was a couple years more away from meeting his Maker.

Witty and brilliant as ever, he stood up and said these words--well, he started by saying, We've been meeting for nearly 5 weeks. We've accomplished basically nothing. We have more noes than ayes on these votes. Then I want to use his exact words taken down by James Madison. ``In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not once hitherto thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate understanding? In the beginning contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.''

Benjamin Franklin went on. He said, ``All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind of providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?''

Ben Franklin then went on and said, ``I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writing, that `except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' Firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.

``We shall be divided by our little partial local interest; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

``I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in the assembly every morning before we proceed to business.''

After that, seconded by Mr. Sherman, it was unanimously adopted, and, from then to today, we have prayer to begin our sessions in here. But, oh, if we could ever come back together as a group and, as the very first Congress did, join and pray together as they did on their knees and come together. As one wrote to his wife, It was such a moving, powerful prayer time, even the surly old Quakers had tears in their eyes.

This is an important time. I thank God for those who have come and made their voices known this weekend. I thank God for the blessings with which we have been enriched, and I hope that people across America will pray to that same God Ben Franklin referred to and that he will move in the hearts of people in Congress that they will do the thing that will bring us together and create a stronger Nation that can survive for another 200 years.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard that by standing in the way of this fictitious health care, so-called reform bill, we're killing people. Here's a chart that tells you who dies. If you have prostate cancer, you want to be in the United States under our system right now. You've got a 91 percent chance of survival. If you're in England, 51 percent chance of survival. You want to talk about killing people? This will kill people--not because you're denied coverage, but because you're put on a list and you die waiting for protection.

I'm not standing with the insurance companies. We have insurance companies that are endorsing this bill. They're standing with the Democrats. Big pharmaceutical companies are standing with the Democrats. Who's standing with who? We're standing with the people that want health care that's affordable, that they control. We want the government and insurance companies both out from between patients and doctors.