Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, yesterday I was unable to vote during rollcall No. 226 because of illness. If I would have been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

I thank my colleague from Colorado.

Apparently, our ground rules here are: We praise the vets on Saturday and punish them on Sunday. To my friend from New Jersey, this afternoon we did a supposed fix for TRICARE, because the Senate bill, basically, unless you're 65 and over, triples TRICARE. We did this Band-Aid thing----

I have 4 minutes, so let me do mine.

We did a Band-Aid this afternoon. Now, the challenge is that as we debate tomorrow, apparently we're going to have separate votes on the Senate bill. And the Senate bill is the problem here because it could become law. So it doesn't really matter what we're doing in the House right now. The question is: Are our veterans covered in the Senate bill, and is TRICARE going to be gutted in the Senate bill? And the veterans who took this risk during the Cold War would rather--as much as they appreciate a flag being raised, they'd rather have their TRICARE. So the fundamental question, if any Member votes for the Senate bill tomorrow in the rule, if we're not going to do this deeming bill and instead do a separate vote on the Senate bill, this is really going to be the vote for veterans.

A second category. When it says there's no harm for veterans, or no job killing, I happen to represent the orthopedic capital of the world in Warsaw, Indiana. It has DePuy, Biomet, and Zimmer. They are getting a tax clobbering in this bill, particularly in the Senate bill, and that tax clobbering equals half of their R&D.

Now, who uses hip replacements and elbows and shoulders more than anybody? Our vets. Because, particularly as we've developed body armor, they're getting hit in those places where they used to die, they're now alive, and a big percentage of them are doing hip replacements.

Now, R&D is critical, particularly as they're 18- to 22-year-olds, those who are retired vets from the Cold War era are looking at trying to get quality hip and joint replacements. One of the questions is is that if you reduce half the R&D, only one of two things can happen: either future vets are not going to have as good quality and advances like we've been having or the jobs will go offshore to reduce the costs so they can do the R&D. There's really not a way that this isn't going to affect vets. It's indirect.

Then, as we all know, veterans health care in general, just like Medicare and Medicaid, pays for variable costs and a little bit of mixed costs. The way the government runs through buildings is that, if we run through those in one year, we don't do amortization and depreciation; therefore, in health care costs, private pay funds most R&D and innovations. So if you're going to keep the quality of care that you're going to have in veterans, you may have your veterans hospital, but the new drugs that are being invented, the new hips that are being invented, the new things that were there that were funded by private pay are going to be squeezed out of the market and, therefore, veterans will be indirectly hurt by that.

A third category this bill hurts in veterans and these Cold War people that we're paying tribute to is, as it goes through and addresses--even in second home sales, by the way. I have a hundred lakes in Steuben County, a hundred lakes in Kosciusko County. These aren't big, fancy kind of western lakes. These are often where retired vets have a mobile home--it's their second residence--that we've now airdropped in a tax on the second residences. It's going to punish many of them who are banking on this either to cash it out for the retirement or to maybe retire there. They're going to get taxed. They didn't have the margin for their homes. We have whole lakes that are around different veterans groups and age groups and people were police and firemen. They aren't all million-dollar homes. Many of them are $20,000 and $30,000 homes that now are suddenly valued at $100,000, $200,000, and they're going to get hammered.

The fourth category where they're going to get hit, and they're very used to in the veterans systems, and it may not directly affect them, but they're going to watch with everybody.

Veterans get ping-ponged back and forth. Right now in Indiana, we're online in this budget to get a new hospital in Fort Wayne. We haven't had investment since before World War II. But they get ping-ponged down to Indianapolis because of utilization. You know what this bill says? In the Medicare reduction it says: Higher utilization of equipment. Higher utilization of equipment is being interpreted and they're now going to cardiologists, oncologists, and others in my district, saying, 80 percent utilization.

That does great for the Federal savings in Medicare, but what it means is everybody's going to get ping-ponged like the veterans are getting ping-ponged, because only Indianapolis in the State of Indiana can reach 80 percent utilization.

So they're telling Fort Wayne, South Bend, other parts of the State that they aren't going to have oncology equipment, heart equipment. And just like the veterans who see their records are often lost; when their appointments are canceled, they have to get a motel. They have to pay for their own gas. This is a nightmare for the rest of the citizens.

So, once again, I would say, We praise them on Saturday. We're punishing them on Sunday.

I'm sorry. I don't have the details in front of me. I have it down. You know the details of the bill far better than I do.

It's based off the capital gains. Right now--I had one person with a $40,000 house, and the capital gains on that made the difference of his retirement on an annual basis. The question is they have planned nothing----

In an earlier bill where I was talking about the veterans health care parts of this bill as we paid tribute to Cold War veterans, Chairman Andrews and I had a follow-up discussion about two of the details which shows the difficulty of this bill. He believes that the partial fix that was done this afternoon on TRICARE was not needed and that it was duplicative. We believed it was absolutely needed. Members who read the same bill can come to different conclusions. Now, my friend from New Jersey actually wrote much of the bill, he is a very detailed guy, and I appreciate his knowledge. But we feel that we needed the TRICARE fix.

On the question of the second home, I said $30,000 and used an example of $200,000. By not going to $230,000, I have missed the tax portion. And he also agrees that it depends on what your income is. If it is $80,00 or above, the example I gave of somebody who had a mobile home whose lot is now worth $230,000 and if they have a job as a teacher and work at a gas station they will have $80,000 in income, which means they will now have taxes on a home that they never thought were taxes. So there were disagreements. You can look at the same question, but clearly it is a tax increase on veterans.

I thank my friend from North Carolina, and I rise in support of Women's History Month. And I am proud to call Congresswoman Woolsey my friend. We don't agree on many issues, but we agree on many history issues. We worked together on Angel Island. I appreciate her leadership here. She's been a passionate advocate for women's rights in this House. But I want to talk more in depth about what most of America is looking at right now--and that's the foot in the door for the takeover of health care. There are several parts that directly relate to Medicare and retirement.

First off, I was not here when they passed Medicare, nor was I here when they passed Social Security. What other people did is other people's business. But what I see in this bill is 13 percent of Americans now say they're confident of their retirement. But without anything in committee, in some kind of magical formula in the last few years, they've raised the taxes to 3.8 percent on unearned income, which is a direct attack on those who've saved for annuities in America. We have spent years trying to encourage people to save. Now, at the last minute, we're going to dump an additional tax on them, already concerned about whether they're going to be able to survive as they hit their older age.

I'm happy to represent Lincoln Financial, which has 1,900 jobs in the annuity industry in my district. You just wonder: How many jobs is this bill going to kill? It is incredible what is being done in this bill. Not only are they punishing people who've saved, who planned to save, and discouraged savings, but they're going to eliminate or at least restrict the growth and lead to a decline in industries like that.

Furthermore, I represent three of the four biggest orthopedic companies in the world. Here's an area where we bought the biggest companies in Germany and Switzerland and around the world. We've become the technology leaders. So what are we going to do? We're going to tax them. They have two choices. The tax is equivalent to half of their R&D. They can either move the jobs and all the parts jobs that go with it, tens of thousands of jobs overseas, or they can eliminate R&D, and our senior citizens in the future won't know what they're missing in hip replacement, they won't know whether we would have had new spinal equipment, they won't know what other types of things they'll miss because this administration proposes to put a tax on that will kill, most likely, future development. And then there's this whole thing about the very people who claim to be the founders and the protectors of Medicare are trying to come up and pay for this bill with reductions in Medicare.

Now they talk about the insurance companies and Medicare Advantage. But what does it mean when it says, ``increased utilization of equipment''? Well, I found out from the cardiologist in my district. What it means is they have to get at least 80 percent utilization on the equipment. That means that the only hospitals in Indiana that will have heart equipment are in Indianapolis. Everything in Fort Wayne, South Bend, all over the State, is going to have to close. In oncology, because they're getting close to 40 percent utilization--the administration is claiming 80--they're going to consolidate in just the biggest cities for oncology.

In category after category, on the backs of senior citizens, saying just like they too often do for veterans, that you have to get in a car and go 200 miles if you want to have something treated on your heart. You have to go 200 miles if you want to do oncology. You have to go 200 miles if you're going to use equipment, because small-town, mid-size cities, and even the second-biggest city in the State of Indiana isn't good enough to have utilization of this type of equipment. We didn't have this debate. That's why you don't go fast on bills.

One of the things we do in the United States is we have driven our health care out to the second tier, the third tier, to small cities and towns, hospitals at 13,000 to 15,000, and things like outpatient clinics. What this does is reconsolidate--it provides jobs for government employees--but reconsolidates in the bigger cities, just like it does in Canada and in England. That's why they have waits. That's why small towns and people out in the countryside in those areas in the other countries have long waits, because if you

try and get high utilization on fewer pieces of equipment, it means your health care is less dispersed around the United States. So in one bill, somehow we're managing to kill the motive to save by taxing it more; to kill the one category that we are leading the world in, in orthopedics; and to destroy health care for seniors. We're not a big city like New York.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk for a few minutes again on the health care bill that's pending that has millions of Americans upset, near panicked. Obviously, we have health care problems in America. I don't know how to answer some of the people who have preexisting conditions with their kids, who have lost their jobs or different challenges, but you don't need to have this type of bill to address those.

We've offered solutions from trying to limit defensive medicine to doing it across State lines. Clearly, we are going to have to spend some money to try to address the preexisting conditions and catastrophic, but you could do that and still keep the private sector by having some form of reinsurance that may or may not be subsidized to the individual or through the government in a pooling process. But there are ways to address this other than making the government the de facto center of the entire health care industry.

I want to talk about four particular things. One is that in this is one of the most weird economic terms: ``unearned income.'' There is a tax increase on unearned income. Unearned income is income you've already been taxed for once. If you put your money in an investment fund or you put it in buildings or in annuities, you've been taxed on that. It's not unearned income. And for years, we've encouraged people to save so our Social Security system didn't go broke, so our Medicare system didn't go broke. Now we're going to tax those who've saved, and we're going to put a penalty on keeping people from saving. It seems counterintuitive that when we're facing these huge challenges in a retirement system that we would raise taxes on the very thing that we've been encouraging people to do.

Then we have the question of industries like the orthopedics. In Warsaw, Indiana, a city of about 15,000 people, three of the four biggest orthopedic companies in the world are centered there: Zimmer, DePuy and Biomet. In addition, you have Medtronic with a large facility there and lots of other small ones. They bought the biggest companies in Switzerland, Germany, and France. It's a category where we lead the world. So what's our solution? If we're the ones leading the world, we're the ones inventing new things--well, we're going to tax them, so maybe they'll leave.

They only have two choices. Since the new tax is half of their R&D cost, they can either stop the R&D so we won't know 20 years from now-- I had one 13-year-old ask me on a teletown hall call the other night ask me, How will this bill affect me long term with my health coverage? I said, I don't really know because the way we're taxing orthopedic companies and these, we won't know what would have been invented. The way we're taxing the pharmaceutical companies, we won't know what drugs would have been invented because we're driving it out of the U.S. or out totally if they can't make money on it anywhere in the world. So that's another part of this bill.

Then I heard one Member on the floor tonight repeat one of the most often heard myths, that because Canada covers their health care, the health care for GM was cheaper. In fact, our Auto Caucus met with the head of GM when we were talking about what we were going to do related to GM. He said in direct response to some of the Members from the other party's question, No, our costs are higher in Canada. It was so counterintuitive, every Member was asking why they were higher in Canada. They said, Well, unions aren't going to take the base plan. They ask for the base plan with a supplement because the base plan in Canada and England isn't satisfactory. So if you have enough power, you will negotiate it more, plus the taxes are higher in Canada. He said, that's why--and that's why GM has followed through with this, as well as Chrysler--jobs have moved down to the U.S. because our health care was cheaper. How did this myth start? Why do we keep hearing that constantly repeated when they know the difference.

The other point I wanted to make is on the so-called savings in Medicare. How are they getting savings from Medicare? Partly from eliminating your choice of Medicare Advantage, the only program that's ever come in under budget as part of Medicare because we had the big insurance companies negotiating them with the big pharmaceutical companies. Rather than having somebody in a government office who didn't know their head from a hole in the ground making the negotiations, quite frankly, we put people who are actually bottom line people who could figure out what the margins were and what they could survive with and move ahead with. That's why Medicare Advantage works. But they're going to do it by controlling the utilization of equipment.

We never had a discussion about utilization of equipment. They want to say 80 percent. In Indiana, the only city that can meet 80 percent on heart, on oncology and so on is Indianapolis. So Fort Wayne 270,000 people, the South Bend region with another 200,000 people, other parts of the State can't reach that utilization. That's the hub and spokes system, only they're moving the hubs to the bigger cities in the United States.

We're not talking about whether you can have this type of thing in rural areas. We're talking about whether the type of diverse health care spread out with access all over America is going to be changed in the name of cost savings. It is a way to save money because people then have to do just like veterans do in the hospital system: they have to pay their gas. They have to decide if they're going to stay overnight. If they get canceled, they have to drive back home or get a motel. All that has shifted to the individuals. No discussion. No discussion about that little clause in there that talks about utilization of equipment; yet it's brutally already being implemented. So I hope that somehow in the next 48 hours, a miracle occurs, and we can defeat this bill.

Back when Thomas Jefferson did the first Louisiana Purchase, he got all parts of 13 States for, what's in inflation- adjusted dollars, $150 million today. When the Senate health care bill passed, it cost $300 million to just get and buy one vote. Who knows what this week is going to cost the American taxpayers.

We've also seen the outrage of how they propose to pass this bill. Over in the Senate, rather than the deliberative body going through in what's a takeover of 17 percent of the American economy, they're going to go through and try to jam it with a majority plus the Vice President, or one, whatever they need.

Now we have the Slaughter rule in the House, where they're going to try not to even have an up-or-down vote. They're not even going to try to get 51 percent or 50 percent plus the Speaker. They're going to deem it passed.

Do they really think the American people are going to buy this unconstitutional fraud?

Mr. Speaker, actually my main subject I want to cover tonight is Israel, but I didn't want today to pass again without making comments about the health care bill, because clearly that is the number one subject on the minds of the people in Indiana as well as the rest of the country.

One of the things that has happened here, without getting into what I believe are the demerits of the bill, the 17 percent of the American economy, and many companies in my district are threatened and their choices threatened, but I think one of the frustrations here is the arrogance of the process.

Initially, we were promised that it was going to be live on C-SPAN and we would see all the negotiations. We are all familiar with how that was abandoned. Then many Members refused to do town halls. They wouldn't answer phone calls. They still won't answer their phone calls or mail. Then we saw deals made in the Senate bill unprecedented in American history.

As I pointed out earlier today, Thomas Jefferson got all of 13 States as part of the first Louisiana Purchase in inflation-adjusted dollars of $150 million. Buying one vote from Louisiana in the other body cost $300 million.

Then when 17 percent of the American economy is at stake, not some annual budget process but 17 percent of the American economy, the Founding Fathers had set up a process in the Senate that is being abused to go down to where it is 50 plus the Vice President can pass the bill. Now we are going to apparently pass this in the House, if they have the votes, and it is going to be deemed passed. We are not even going to vote. No wonder so many American people are losing confidence in government. It wasn't that we were high before, but we have hit new lows. And it is going to be difficult to establish confidence with the American people if we continue at this pace.

But another part of the arrogance of this government is happening in Israel. I would like to insert this article from the Jerusalem Post into the Record. It is an article that makes some nuanced points.

But first let me start and say Israel has an historic importance to the world and to ourselves not just because of its history before the Diaspora and the tremendous history of the Jewish people and the Nation of Israel, but also it was a returning homeland for those after the Holocaust from around the world where they could gather again to the land from which they had been evicted.

Then it is important because it is a democratic bastion in the Middle East, where there are not democratic bastions. We are trying to see if Iraq can form a democracy, and Turkey is kind of a democracy as well. But Israel has been from its founding such a democracy, since its refounding in 1948. Not only that, but they are our best and really only consistent ally in the Middle East. But it is also because Israel is going to be of importance in future world history as well in many ways. In fact, not only should all Americans be concerned about what is happening in Israel, but many people have special concerns about the future of Israel and how the United States responds to Israel.

Therefore, it is extremely disturbing to watch the arrogance of this administration to bully our best ally. This article in the Jerusalem Post says this is the worst that the United States has treated Israel since 1975. The American leadership is mistakenly painting Israel into a corner is the thrust of this article. In one of the more sophisticated statements in it by Mr. Avner, who has written on the '75 crisis, he said, ``If the United States wishes to advance a peace process, it must never paint Israel into a corner.'' And he points out that what is needed is constructive ambiguity.

Now, that is an interesting term because most of us like to be very forthright. And I would say that most people in Israel would like to be forthright most of the time. But when dealing with historic conflicts that have gone back to how the divisions first occurred in what I believe when God gave Israel its land, and divisions that have occurred since then, straightforwardness does not bring peace. Constructive ambiguity brings peace.

So when the United States takes sides in calling Ramat Shlomo a settlement, they chose words that were from the other side. That sends a message that becomes then very difficult for Israel. The question is, have we switched our positions or are we not as fully behind Israel?

Now, anybody who has ever visited there, reads about it, follows Israel, realizes that its enemies on all sides at least claim they want to destroy it. And from time to time they have had wars with which to attempt to destroy it. You don't have to be kind of really informed on international issues to realize that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb. Why are they trying to develop a nuclear bomb? They want to destroy Israel from the face of the earth. It is their stated goal.

Now, the people in Israel may be divided on a lot of things and they have a lot of opinions in their country, but they are a tad worried about Iran. And they believe that the United States and the rest of the world don't seem to be taking it as seriously as they do. Maybe because, for example, you can get a bomber over Jerusalem from Amman, Jordan, in a minute and a half. So they tend to be a little uncertain when there is some doubt. And so they have a deep concern. In this case they have a concern that we are all going to talk, talk, talk while they are going to be in danger because of a nuclear weapon. If we are going to address this, we need to stop giving the signals that we do not stand behind Israel, and we need to stand directly behind Israel and let the world know that is what our U.S. position is and do a little bit of constructive ambiguity.

Obama Repeating 1975 Mistakes

(By Gil Hoffman)

Ex-Rabin adviser says US government's stance recalls US-Israel Sinai

crisis.

The American leadership is mistakenly ``painting Israel

into a corner,'' as it did during a 1975 confrontation

between the two countries, Yehuda Avner, who was an adviser

to then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time of the

crisis, said Monday.

Ambassador to the US Michael Oren was quoted as telling

Israeli consuls general on a conference call Saturday night

that the current crisis with the US was the worst since the

1975 confrontation between then US Secretary of State Henry

Kissinger and Rabin over an American demand for a partial

withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.

Avner said he did not have enough inside information about

the current crisis to compare the two. But he compared the

language of Kissinger 35 years ago to that of current US

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who he said spoke in a

manner that was more emotional than diplomatic.

``The US must never create a situation in which Israel sees

itself as being abandoned, because it encourages belligerence

on the other side and inflexibility on the Israeli side,''

Avner said. ``If the US wishes to advance a peace process, it

must never paint Israel into a corner as it did by calling

Ramat Shlomo a settlement. What's needed now on all sides is

constructive ambiguity.''

Avner, who worked under four Israeli prime ministers,

recalled the details of the 1975 crisis, which he recounts in

his new book The Prime Ministers.

He said the March 1975 incident erupted when Kissinger

demanded that Israel give up the Jidda and Mitla passes in

the Sinai, and Rabin refused. Because of his refusal,

Kissinger left a meeting with Rabin in anger and accused

Israel of ``shattering the cause of peace.''

At the height of the confrontation between the two men,

Kissinger told Rabin: ``You will be responsible for the

destruction of the third Jewish commonwealth,'' and Rabin

replied, ``You will be judged not by American history but by

Jewish history.'' Avner said he hoped the current crisis

would be resolved as successfully.

Then American president Gerald Ford wrote Rabin a fiercely

worded letter that

Avner said was among ``the most brutal'' Israel had received

from the US.

``I wish to express my profound disappointment of Israel's

attitude over the course of the negotiations,'' Ford wrote.

``You know the importance I have attached to the US efforts

to reach an agreement. Kissinger's mission, encouraged by

your government, expresses vital US interests in the region.

Failure of the negotiations will have a far-reaching impact

on the region and our relation. I have therefore instructed

that a reassessment be made of US policy in the region,

including our relations with Israel with the aim of

reassuring that our overall American interests are

protected.''

Within six months, Kissinger succeeded in brokering an

interim accord between Rabin and Egyptian president Anwar

Sadat whereby Israel agreed to pull back its forces out of

the Jidda and Mitla passes but retained the heights above

them while American forces were stationed in the passes.

Avner said that since that compromise was reached, no

Israeli has been killed on the Israel-Egypt border.

Mr. Speaker, SPC Nicholas Scott Hartge served in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in Schweinfurt, Germany.

Nicholas grew up in the small town of Rome City, Indiana were he was deeply involved with his community. He was extremely patriotic and was moved by the events of September 11th to do something special. He decided to serve his country and enlisted in the army during his senior year of high school. His mother, Lori, has often described that on the day he came home seeking her permission to join, Nicholas was so determined that a freight train could not stop him. Just one week after graduation, he left for boot camp at Fort Benning, GA. He could have taken many paths, but chose to serve in the infantry.

In August, 2006, Nicholas and his unit were deployed to Iraq where they had the difficult task of patrolling the streets of Adhamiyah. Every day his unit risked their lives, constantly under pressure, never knowing who their enemy was. Though he was one of the younger members, Nicholas quickly earned the respect of his fellow soldiers. They described him as having a Midwest innocence, and even teased him good naturedly for being such a straight-laced young man. All were impressed by his dedication and drive to succeed--noticing how he would practice new tasks endlessly until he mastered them.

He had a goal to attend West Point, and worked with his commanding officer to prepare for the process. However, when an opportunity was presented to him to join a prep school that could have led to the academy, Nicholas decided he could not leave his unit and chose to stay and finish his combat tour. On May 14, 2007, his patrol came under heavy attack. Nicholas was killed in combat when his humvee hit a roadside bomb, while maneuvering under intense fire.

He always maintained deep roots in his community and was very proud of his hometown. When on a two-week leave from Iraq, Nicholas took time to visit classes and talk with students at the Rome City Elementary and Middle School. In the summer of 2009, the school renamed their annual spirit award as the ``Nicholas Scott Hartge Spirit Award.'' Nicholas had previously received the honor when he was in 8th grade.

SPC Nicholas Scott Hartge received a Commendation Medal for outstanding achievement in the capture of Abu Hassan, and a bronze star for his actions on the day he was killed. He is survived by his mother and stepfather, Lori and Dave Abbott of Rome City; father Scott Roger Hartge of Delaware, OH; sisters Elise Hartge of Rome City and Jennifer (Scott) Wheeler of Fort Wayne; brothers Ryan Abbott of Camp Humphreys, Korea and Justin Abbott of Auburn; maternal grandmother Janet Hines of Orlando; paternal grandfathers Roger Hartge of New Carlisle, OH, Frank Robey of VanWert, OH; grandmother Marjorie Abbott of Fort Wayne and many nieces and nephews.

Renaming the Rome City Post Office in his honor is just a small gesture to recognize the contributions of a young man and his family who sacrificed so much for us all.

I thank our distinguished ranking member, Mr. Kline, and our chairman, Mr. Miller.

This is one of these bills you kind of go, Well, how could you possibly favor tying kids up and putting tape across them or letting people abuse them? That isn't what this is really about. I am going to make four basic points, which I know we have been making all afternoon, but there is no harm with repetition because they are important.

One, there is no reliable data on how much use there is of these techniques. We've heard all sorts of individual horror stories that my sociology prof used to call ``my Aunt Annie stories.'' We have some real cases of abuse that need to be addressed. We have others of a wide variety. I, for example, would abhor most of them. I don't find being made to stand in a corner quite the same as some others might, but I think there is a wide range. We need to know how many of these are serious, how many of these justify intervention, and how many of them are things where there is a difference of opinion. It also fails to acknowledge in this bill that 31 States have had this, and this is a one-size-fits-all, and that many other States who don't have it are doing it. This is the ultimate arrogance.

We are saying that basically State legislators believe that their kids should be tied up, mouths taped, they should be abused, and they're too ignorant to fix this. Since when do we get to always determine the speed and kind of satisfactory level of intervention that a State does, particularly since we don't have the data to prove our case?

Thirdly, it doesn't exempt private schools. Even though there is no direct funding from the Federal Government, we have to have some kind of a clause or a hook that the Federal Government is going in and taking over this since they would be covered by State law on human rights or student rights cases. Private schools generally don't even get direct funding or indirect funding, although some do. And about half of the private, independent schools would fall under that hook, and the danger, of course, is that it could be broader.

Lastly, the bill fails to clarify or delete language that may open States and school districts up to additional litigation. In other words, adverse behavioral interventions that compromise health and safety is undefined and would have to be litigated.

But I want to come back to a basic thing. Number one is, What is the constitutional justification? We have this debate in education a lot that things are reserved to the States that aren't given to the Federal Government. Now we're going to a second degree in the education. Now maybe this comes under the clause that says, If States don't move as fast as we would like them to, then we can intervene and take over their jurisdiction. Maybe it comes under the clause that as we get emotionally upset about something, and we're emotionally moved about a case we saw on TV, therefore the Federal Government and Congress have a right to take it over.

It is truly tragic in thinking that we're the only ones to address this. We had a clause, after the Republicans had first taken over Congress, that we were trying to put in and had in, briefly, that says, Put the constitutional justification of why this is uniquely the problem of the Federal Government and how the Constitution, in effect, justifies that intervention. And generally speaking, what we saw was, Promote the general welfare. Promote the general welfare. Promote the general welfare. Promote the general welfare.

Now, Thomas Jefferson said that this clause, in a letter which I believe was to Madison, was the most pernicious, I believe was the word he used, clause in the Constitution and it would be abused by future generations to justify Federal intervention wherever they felt they wanted to intervene and that ultimately, unless that ``promote the general welfare'' was restrained by Congress itself and by the courts, that Congress would intervene on a regular basis, and ultimately everything that is reserved for the States would be at the Federal level.

I believe there are times, such as in civil rights cases, where there were

clear, systemic, systematic, multigenerational interventions that we needed to get in; that many times those who were more States' rights- oriented defended their positions based on States' rights.

But what we're looking at today is insufficient data. We're looking at the States actually addressing it. Thirty-one States have addressed it. A number of others--the bulk of the rest of them actually have laws up at this time. And I see no reason, no compelling evidence of why we need to do this as opposed to the State legislators. I see no compelling constitutional justification for it. And I believe that Thomas Jefferson, were he here, would call this a pernicious use of promoting the general welfare even though the end-all in the hearts of the people who are doing this are motivated for the right reasons. They care about the safety of the kids. They're worried about whether kids are going to be harmed in the schools, and we all are, and so, quite frankly, are State representatives and State senators.

Madam Speaker, today on the floor of the House of Representatives I would like to recognize the amazing accomplishments of Jason Fabini of Indiana. As an eleven year veteran of the National Football League Jason was a member of three teams, playing under five coaches. Mr. Fabini began his football career in Fort Wayne, Indiana at Bishop Dwenger High School. A standout high-school athlete, Mr. Fabini was recruited to play football at the University of Cincinnati.

As a Cincinnati Bearcat Fabini truly developed his skills, and prepared for a lengthy career in the National Football League. While at Cincinnati, Fabini was a three-time All-Conference USA selection. As a sophomore, Fabini started every game and was named to the third-team All National Independent list. His growth continued when, in his junior year, he received Cincinnati's top award for an offensive lineman--the John Pease Award. In the 1997 season Fabini helped lead the Bearcats to their first bowl-game victory in 47 years.

In the 1998 NFL Draft, the New York Jets selected Jason Fabini as their fourth round pick. As a rookie for the Jets, Fabini started all sixteen games. In his second season with New York, Jason suffered a setback when he tore his ACL in a game against the New England Patriots. While Fabini was forced to miss the last seven games of his second season in the NFL due to his knee injury, he persevered and returned to the field ready to play the following season. In 2000, when Jason Fabini returned to the Jets' starting offensive line, he led the offensive to a tie with the Indianapolis Colts for fewest sacks allowed, 20. In recognition of Fabini's return to play after his injury, the New York Jets awarded him the Ed Block Courage Award in 2000. While with the New York Jets Fabini paved the way for Curtis Martin, RB, to rush over 1,000 yards in seven consecutive seasons, 1998-2004, and in 2004 helped Martin set a club record for most yards rushed in a single season, 1,697 yards. In 2004, Fabini started his 100th career game against the Arizona Cardinals.

In 2006 Fabini went to play for the Dallas Cowboys. During his year with the Cowboys, Fabini played fifteen games for Dallas.

In 2007 Jason Fabini signed with the Washington Redskins, a Dallas rival. As a Redskin, Fabini played in all sixteen games, starting in 13 of them. His versatility as a lineman was truly an asset for Washington and helped Clinton Portis, RB, rush for over 1,200 yards. In 2007, in a game against his old team, the New York Jets, Fabini lead the offensive line to block for 296 yards, the third-highest single-game rushing total in Washington Redskins' history.

In February of 2009 Fabini was inducted into the University of Cincinnati Athletics Hall of Fame.

Jason Fabini has had a long, successful football career. He played in over 152 games, starting over 129 of those games. Throughout his career, Fabini started in eight postseason

contests. Although still young, Fabini has decided to retire from playing professional football so that he can focus on his family and a promising future. Jason Fabini has four sons: Hunter, Jacob, John Michael, and Jordan and is the son of Tom Fabini and Madeline Lombardo of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Madam Speaker, today I rise in support of H. Res. 897 recognizing the importance of teaching elementary and secondary school students about the sacrifices that veterans have made throughout the history of the Nation.

While this resolution is new to the House, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Holland Elementary School has made a special effort to recognize veterans for years. In November 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Holland Elementary School started their annual Veterans Day Recognition Program.

Created by Principal Mike Caywood (a Vietnam veteran himself) and music teacher Jane Zweinink, the Veterans Day Recognition Program invites veterans to come to Holland Elementary on Veterans Day and share their stories with students. Principal Caywood has invited veterans from all over the local community and specifically veterans from local senior care homes. Ms. Zweinink has taught students patriotic songs that are performed for guests when they came to school. The veterans have enjoyed seeing the students perform, singing songs and sharing their patriotic message.

Over the years, Holland Elementary has seen a decrease in the number of World War II vets attending and the Korean and Vietnam vets are getting older. In response, the school has proactively reached out to veterans from Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. They have also had an increase in the number of active duty soldiers participating, including mothers and fathers of students. Many of these veterans come from the school system itself. Fort Wayne Community Schools currently employs over 100 veterans.

Holland Elementary's Veterans Day Recognition Program is a great example of how H. Res. 897 can be implemented. I want to thank Mr. Caywood and Ms. Zweinink for their hard work in recognizing local veterans and making sure elementary students understand the sacrifices of generations before them.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the distinguished subcommittee Chair.

I rise today in support of this bill and not just because of the tragic cases that we have been discussing, but specifically, in support of a more obscure section in the bill that requires passenger vessels to be equipped with acoustic hailing devices. The Long Range Acoustical Devices, LRADS, are the next generation of nonlethal countermeasure devices. These acute, long-range acoustic hailing devices are important for both civilian and military vessels.

Following the suicide attack on the USS Cole while it was at port in Yemen in 2000, the United States Navy established a requirement for an acoustic hailing device. The intent of this AHD was to provide the Navy with a means to establish the intent of an approaching vessel at a distance such that defensive measures could be taken should the vessel not heed a warning.

These hailing devices are not only used as an identifier of intent but also can be used to repel possible attackers or to disperse unlawful mobs. An LRAD was used for this purpose for the first time in the United States in Pittsburgh during the time of the G-20 summit on September 24-25 of 2009.

Last week I had the opportunity to witness an LRAD in action. Ultra Electronics, a high-tech manufacturer near Columbia City, Indiana, demonstrated their acoustic device, the Hyperspike, both as a hailer and as a deterrent. The thumping pulsating sounds were impressive, and I now understand why the crowds were dispersed so quickly in Pittsburgh. I was also impressed with the range of the Hyperspike. It is capable of emitting crystal clear audible messages at distances of over 3 miles across the water.

This act is intended to improve the overall safety of cruise ship passengers. It not only improves capabilities to thwart external threats such as pirate attacks, but also to increase internal passenger safety through increased security measures.

It has been well publicized that pirate attacks on cargo vessels are continuing. As these vessels improve their security against such attacks, it is very likely that the pirates will look for other vulnerable targets, such as cruise ships. This legislation will provide these vessels with the capability to establish vessel intent earlier and escalate security measures to protect the ship, crew and passengers.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2869. I voted against the bill during committee consideration. Unfortunately, the bill before us today is even worse than the version reported out of the Homeland Security Committee.

This legislation gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to require farms, manufacturing plants, timber companies, hospitals, and thousands of other facilities across the United States to change the way they do business. The Secretary will be able to dictate what chemicals are used, how they are used and how they are stored. The bill tries to cover this government take over of the private sector with terms like ``inherently safer technologies'' and ``methods to reduce terrorists attack.''

The Federal Government could impose mandates to adopt unproven technologies and chemical substitutions, but lacks the technical and personnel expertise to evaluate whether these alternatives are effective, productive, and safe across these sectors.

There are over 3,000 facilities in the U.S. that would be covered under this legislation that employ 50 or fewer people. According to experts, mandating inherently safer technologies, IST, could cost anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Companies in my district do not have excess funds to alter how they do business because some bureaucrat in D.C. thinks there is a better way to do it.

Another unprecedented measure in the bill is the establishment of a system allowing any person, even nonaffected persons, to file a lawsuit against the Secretary of Homeland Security if IST is not implemented. This bill might as well be called the Homeland Security Trial Lawyer Employment Act.

Citizen suits are not appropriate in a national security context and this would be the first time Congress would be authorizing such citizen suits in the national or homeland security arena.

The Department of Homeland Security has testified that these suits could result in the release of very sensitive security information through the legal discovery process that would be helpful to terrorists.

This legislation is misguided and interrupts actions on-going at DHS to evaluate and enhance security at chemical facilities. I urge a ``no'' vote.

This is indeed a historic day. It's a crossroads in America. What you just heard from our distinguished Speaker was we, the government, will do this. We, the government, will do that. We, the government, will do this. We, the government, will do that. Instead of having the private sector do this, instead of having competition, instead of having capitalism do this, we, the government, will fix everything. We, the government, will provide everything.

We are in an economic crisis in this country. Just yesterday, for the first time, an over 10 percent unemployment. In my eight counties, over half are over 15 percent unemployment.

So what are we doing today? Taxing small business, the number one producer of jobs, adding regulations to those businesses, adding expenses to those businesses, taxing medical technology, which will reduce R&D, reduce jobs, reduce quality of health care.

What are we doing today? We are not going to require identification for illegal immigrants. We are going to hope that they self-report. With 1,990 pages of ignoring the voices of American people, you get higher taxes, fewer jobs, an unconstitutional takeover of 17 percent of our economy, a trillion dollars of debt, and free health care for the illegals who took your jobs.

I thank my friend from New Jersey for yielding.

Before I get into a couple of specifics with that, this isn't the bill. This is the bill. Originally we had a bill with about 1,200. It was like this. Now it's gone to 1,900. And I want to make it clear that I definitely oppose this abortion funding in this bill, but this is an unconstitutional attack on capitalism, our freedoms, our health care. And even if they fix the abortion, this bill is an atrocity.

But in addition to being a generally bad bill, it's a specifically bad bill in the protection of human life. I've worked with this issue for much of my life. Actually even before the Supreme Court decision on abortion, I was concerned about what California and New York had done. When I was a grad student at the University of Notre Dame, they did the original decision on Roe v. Wade, and we formed within 48 hours the student coalition to support a constitutional amendment. I've spent much of my life doing that.

We now have our first grandchildren. And when you have grandchildren and your own children, you cannot possibly not want to defend that life.

I worked with my friend and colleague from New Jersey. We did a hearing in my subcommittee when I was Chair on RU-486, the only hearing that was ever held here.

It's not only a danger to the baby where they die, and it's a certain death to the baby, but it's a death threat to the mother. And they deliberately covered up these stats. We held a hearing

showing that RU-486 was supposed to be the safe thing, the way to do it behind doors; then you're not cutting up the baby and having to take the pieces out. You're not burning the skin off the baby. You're not exploding the baby into pieces. It's supposed to be more humane. It kills the baby. It destroys it at its early stages.

But this they don't report. They don't separate out the facts. We had over a hundred that even years ago were near-death experiences, a number of deaths. We pull drugs off the market if they're risky. We document this. And all of a sudden, they're on the nonscientist side. They don't want to see the science on RU-486. On top of that it appears they're prescribing it even outside of FDA guidelines. And by the time that the mothers learn they're pregnant, by the time they go into Planned Parenthood, even RU-486 says it's unsafe to the mother after a certain date, and they're getting away with this at Planned Parenthood.

Some say there's no abortion in the bill. Let me ask you, from personal experience, then why did Planned Parenthood fund ads against me after I offered the two amendments? They funded ads in my district in August, along with ACORN and the government unions, to try to ``make an example,'' was their words, for my offering two amendments in the Ed and Labor Committee to make it clear that it didn't fund abortion. Why were those amendments defeated?

Well, part of the frustration of the general public with a bill like this, and you've heard different parts, but in the section on abortion services, I love the section before: ``Nothing in this act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage of services described in (4)(A). ``

Well, what's (4)(A)?

(4)(A) says, ``The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is not permitted.''

Excuse me? It says that it's prohibited, but the thing before says nothing in the next section applies. What kind of double-talk is this? I just do not understand. Do they think that with all the information systems today, with the posting of this, with all of us out there that somebody isn't going to read this? I mean how stupid.

``Nothing in this act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage of services described in (4)(A).''

(4)(A) says, right off the bat, ``The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is not permitted.'' A, reverse A, and you think we're going to buy that?

Furthermore, the Capps amendment, which is what this is basically trying to do, is trying to bypass the Hyde that doesn't cover elective abortion. They say this bill will put a Planned Parenthood clinic in every county in the United States, that it mandates multiple types of things in the public health option.

Congressman Andrews very eloquently responded to my amendment and said if there's a public option, there has to be public payment of abortion. He said if it's a constitutional right, you have a constitutional right to have it paid for.

I have a constitutional right to have a Shelby Cobra and I'm hoping to get one soon from the government.

Just because it's a constitutional right does not mean you have a constitutional right to have it paid for, but that's the language behind this.

Then they came up this week with the so-called Ellsworth compromise, a friend of mine from Indiana. This Ellsworth language, however, merely channels the funding through another entity. This is like saying, well, if SBA gives you a direct loan, it's a government loan, but if the SBA runs through a bank and you get it through the bank, well, that's not an SBA loan, that's a bank loan. Now, the government put all the money in, the guarantee. The government's standing behind it. It's an SBA loan. But it's not really an SBA loan because now we're going through a fig leaf.

The American people are getting sick of the misleading nature and the double-talking of Congress. You have double-talk straight in the bill. Then you have another compromise that double-talks the double-talk. And they wonder why the confidence in government is down? They wonder why people don't trust American politicians as much anymore and American political leaders?

There is a fix for this. There was a fix in committee. There's a fix on the floor. But if we come out with this type of thing and people who claim they're pro-life vote for this, hold them accountable.