Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, it has been said that the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Despite billions of dollars in new taxes, despite billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, and despite deceptive accounting practices to hide the true cost of this bill, it appears that we have run out of what money is here in Washington, because we are seeking to impose unprecedented and unconstitutional mandates on our States.

Tonight, as I cast what might be the last votes of my congressional career, I am pleased to say that as I pursue my full-time activity to become the governor of the great State of Georgia, that I will cast my vote in opposition to this bill.

If this bill becomes law and I am successful in my undertakings, I will devote my efforts to making sure that the people of my State are not subjected to the unconstitutional individual mandate and that my State is not subject to the unconstitutional mandate to expand our Medicaid rolls. I know that I am not alone. Yesterday, 38 States indicated that they would join in suing to challenge the constitutionality of this statute.

I urge my colleagues to join me on a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill, and I express three major concerns.

First of all, I raise a question. The question is: what authority in the United States Constitution gives this Congress the right to mandate that every citizen must purchase a health insurance policy, and upon failing to do so, shall be fined and possibly imprisoned? I think the answer to that question is, there is no such congressional authority.

Secondly, make no mistake about it, illegal aliens will receive government-funded health care under this because all they are required to show is a Social Security number and a name. There is no way to prevent the same Social Security number from being used by numerous individuals, and there is no requirement that a picture ID be produced in order to prove that the person is in fact the name that appears on the Social Security card. If you think identity theft is a problem now, just wait until this bill passes.

Thirdly, this bill requires States to increase their Medicaid rolls to 150 percent of the Federal poverty level. In an ever-increasing fashion, States will have to absorb the cost of this burden. I offered an amendment which would have allowed States to opt out from under this mandate, but it has been rejected. In States like mine, where we have to balance our budget, right now schoolteachers and law enforcement officers are having to take unfunded furlough days. If this bill passes, it will get even worse. We should not be passing a bill that takes days and money out of the paychecks of teachers and law enforcement officers to pay for this piece of legislation.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor of H. Res. 704.

Mr. Speaker, with my apologies to Charlie Daniels, I have some new words for one of his songs, and it goes like this:

Democrats went forth from Washington carrying a bill they wanted to seal. They were in a bind because they were way behind and looking for some doctors to deal.

You may think your health care is in pretty good shape, but give the Dems their due. They're willing to bet a fiddle of gold against medicine sold because they think they know better than you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to deliver a message to physicians and their patients across our great Nation. Don't be fooled by political attempts to buy off your support for a bill which the American people have already rejected. Despite the President's claim that health care reform will not add to the deficit, there is one very large problem: Medicare physician payment reform.

Just yesterday, Democrats in the other body attempted to force through a bill which purported to fix a fundamental flaw in the way Medicare pays physicians. Attempting to move this legislation outside of the context of a health care reform package only underscores the fact that the fix is not paid for, will add to the backs of all American taxpayers, and is being used as a political bait-and-switch to lure providers into supporting a flawed health care reform bill that has already been rejected by the people.

President Obama has made repeated promises that he will not sign a health care bill that ``adds one dime to our deficit, either now or in the future, period.'' By that very logic, the bills that are now pending in the House and the Senate are dead on arrival if President Obama wishes to keep his promise to the American people.

The problems with the sustainable growth rate, commonly referred to as SGR, have forced this body to act repeatedly to override detrimental cuts to physician reimbursement that is prescribed by this flawed formula. At the very core of this issue is patient access to physicians which literally hangs in the balance. If these cuts are allowed to occur, seniors will face an unprecedented loss of access to care, and doctors will be unable to continue to treat seniors when payment rates are far below the cost of providing care.

With a looming 21.5 percent reduction in reimbursement scheduled to go into effect at the end of this year, it is not surprising that the administration would use this political leverage to advance an agenda for health care reform that on its own merit has been and continues to be rejected by many of the American people.

Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health of Great Britain, when asked how he convinced his country's physicians to go along with the government takeover of health care, said, ``I stuffed their mouths with gold.'' Mr. Speaker, this Congress and the Obama administration are attempting to do the same with fool's gold. Instead of being honest and forthcoming with the American people, the administration and Democratic leadership in Congress are choosing simply to ignore the cost of fixing SGR using budgetary games that will add another $250 billion to the Federal deficit. Clearly, dimes aren't being added to the deficit, hundreds of billions of dollars are. This, of course, is in addition to billions of new taxes on individuals and small businesses and cuts to popular Medicare programs like Medicare Advantage.

What is at stake is our ability as a Nation to enact meaningful reforms which drive down cost, improve quality, and increase access to health care coverage of Americans by their own choosing. In fact, CBO estimates that tort reform alone would save Americans over $54 billion over the next 10 years, and that's just one example. So much for bending the cost curve, though, because malpractice reform is being left behind to be fixed another day.

So to my colleagues and physicians looking to strike a deal on that fiddle of gold, remember, it is not your own soul that this legislation will steal; it is the soul of health care in America.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Senate 1717.

As a veteran, I recognize the sacrifice our men and women in uniform are making on behalf of our country to defend our Nation and protect our liberties. But, unfortunately, notable deficiencies in capacity are limiting access to health care which many of our veterans desperately need.

This bill includes authorization of approximately $5.1 million to establish an outpatient clinic for veterans throughout the metropolitan Atlanta area and across Georgia to improve access to care, particularly as the strain exists on existing VA facilities, and it will continue to increase that strain as servicemembers return home. This new facility will work in support of the Atlanta VA Medical Center, which is located in Decatur, Georgia.

Currently, over 630,000 veterans live within the Atlanta VA catchment area, and that number will continue to grow. Estimates further indicate that the number of outpatient visits in the area will grow by 120 percent by 2025, with a dramatic 170 percent surge in mental health visits.

The Atlanta Specialty Care Clinic lease, which this bill provides for, will provide an opportunity to serve our veterans in a contemporary facility, ensuring that maximum safety and security are going to be addressed. This facility will enhance the VA's ability to provide some of the highest-in-demand services in ophthalmology, podiatry, and dermatology, while allowing the existing areas at the Decatur VA facility to be expanded to address mental health services and traumatic brain injury.

I have introduced a similar piece of legislation in the House, H.R. 3704, which also authorizes the establishment of this much-needed facility. Over 17,000 unique patients representing 88,000 outpatient visits per year will benefit by this much-needed addition to our already strained system.

Mr. Speaker, our veterans deserve no less than our best, and I remain committed to ensuring that our servicemembers receive the health care that they deserve.

I thank the gentlemen for their support of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to address this body about a document that is sometimes forgotten. A document that gives meaning and purpose to what we do in this body, that in fact is the basis upon which this body actually exists. And that is the Constitution of the United States.

For over two centuries, this document has been the foundation for our free people. It has become the model for other governments who have copied it around the world. And yet too often it appears that the very document that is the core of our liberties, the core of our existence in this representative democracy, is overlooked in this body. It's as if it were treated as a document of antiquity to be given proper respect in the Library of Congress but to be paid no attention to in our deliberations here. I think that is quite ironic.

I had a town hall meeting this weekend, and one of my constituents raised the issue of the constitutionality of one of the bills that are pending before this body. I promised him I would address that issue, and that is what I intend to do very briefly this evening.

When those 56 men met in Philadelphia, they understood the significance of trying to write a document that controlled the actions of legislative and executive bodies. And they did a very good job of it. Over these two centuries plus, there have only been some 27 amendments that have been adopted.

It used to be that when Congress would legislate on an issue that it would preface it with the constitutional basis upon which the legislation would be even authorized to be considered. That practice has, unfortunately, been abandoned. For those who are familiar with our Federal courts, it is not unlike what a party going into that court would be required to do, and that is to specify the basis on which the Federal court has jurisdiction to consider the issue that is presented to the court.

I think we should do the same thing here in this body. We should ask ourselves the question before any piece of legislation is even considered, Upon what basis of the Constitution do we even have a right to consider to legislate on this subject?

Now, this subject is not just something that I want to talk in generalities about. I think we have a concrete example of a piece of legislation where the core issue is that of its constitutionality, and that is the health care reform legislation.

Now, admittedly, Congress has, under the commerce clause of the Constitution, reached into many realms of our activity in this country. But here in this bill there is one central ingredient, and that is the mandate on an individual that they must purchase a health insurance policy. Now, I think that is where the unconstitutionality of that proposition rises to the fore. And I suggest it for this reason:

First of all, it imposes what is presumed to be a tax if you do not comply. I think it is very clear under the interpretations of our Constitution that Congress cannot impose a tax unless it first has the authority under other parts of the Constitution to regulate the activity, namely the commerce clause or some other designated ability to regulate under the enumerated powers of the Constitution. Here there is no such enumeration. And certainly buying a health insurance policy, the requisite of that is not engaging in interstate commerce. Somebody doesn't go to the doctor to engage in interstate commerce; they go for their own health care concerns.

Some would argue, well, we mandate that people have to have automobile liability insurance. I remind them that it is a quid pro quo in which the State issues a driver's license as a condition for requiring the mandate of insurance. We do not issue a license to the citizens of this country to breathe or to exist. Therefore, by what right do we have the ability to impose a personal mandate?

Now, this issue is not new. I want to quote from a report from the Congressional Budget Office back in 1993 when they were considering the Clinton health care proposal, and I quote:

``A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of Federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.''

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise today unfortunately in opposition to this conference report. I want to point out to this body that something has been added in the original version from the other body that injects itself into something that I don't think the House wants to be involved in, and that is the water wars between Alabama, Florida and Georgia. Unfortunately, there is language here that directs the Corps of Engineers to calculate critical yields on the two major basins that flow through my State of Georgia and, in particular, involve the basins themselves and the reservoirs, the largest of which is Lake Lanier.

Now I do not think that the gentleman who is handling this bill or the Republican gentleman who is handling this bill has any intention of having this inject itself into a controversy that has been going on for decades in the Federal courts and is still currently under appeal as a result of the latest decision. Now the effect of this is one of two things: since it directs the Corps of Engineers to within 120 days to calculate critical yields of the two major river basins, it will either be used for purposes of the ongoing litigation or it will be used as an argument for why human consumption should not be considered in the resolution of this issue between the three States, or among the three States.

Now to spend Corps dollars calculating something that does not take into account the right of people to drink the water that is in their State is unrealistic, and it is a true waste of Federal money. I find it quite ironic that the gentleman who injected this language into this bill just a couple of years ago was injecting language that directed the Corps not to do these kinds of studies. Isn't it ironic how all of a sudden the positions have flip-flopped? Now if you do not think that this is an issue that involves the so-called water wars, I would invite you to look at the press release for the gentleman who is claiming credit for injecting this in it, and it's referred to as the Water Wars amendment.

Now I would hope that this body would not see fit to get involved in a fight that is going to be resolved, hopefully, by agreement of the Governors of the three States. My Governor has initiated an effort to try to resume those negotiations, and we have had a response from at least the State of Alabama. We are hopeful that the State of Florida will respond accordingly. Ultimately, I think this issue will be resolved by the Governors reaching a conclusion and then bringing that conclusion to this body and to the other body and asking for us to incorporate it into the laws of this country.

Madam Speaker, I have a message from the citizens of Georgia: don't dare bring a bill before this House that spends one dime of taxpayer money to provide health care for illegal aliens.

During the month of August, the citizens of my State and the country spoke out on health care reform. Their outcry was unlike anything we have seen in recent years. Town hall meetings, TEA parties, freedom rallies, they all became the forum in which the public protest was intended to send a message to this House.

But here we are 2 months later, and none of the concerns of August have been addressed. In particular, no version of the health care reform that is before the House includes the language that I offered that would require proof of citizenship before receiving taxpayer- funded health care. Now it appears that the House is in a holding pattern. Media reports indicate that Speaker Pelosi is drafting her own version of health care reform. Other reports suggest that President Obama and the White House are drafting another bill.

What appears very clear is that these bills are being drafted in secret and behind closed doors and that there is no intention to submit them to the House committees for hearings or for markups.

I call on the Speaker and the President to open up the process, allow Republicans such as me, the ranking member of the Health Care Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, to participate in the drafting of this bill. It's time for the law to clearly state that those who want taxpayer-funded health care must prove and must verify that they are citizens. I have language that will make that happen. But thus far it has been rejected along a party-line vote. Today the other body rejected a similar proposal along a party-line vote.

If health care is to be written in secret, if the normal committee processes are bypassed, if illegal aliens are allowed to receive taxpayer-funded health care, if a bill is rushed through this House with no opportunity to read it, if any of these things happen, I predict that the historic outcry of the American people during August will pale in comparison to the voices of concern that they will raise as a result of that abuse.

Madam Speaker, this issue is too big, it is too important to our people, it is too destructive of our free market enterprise system to be cloaked in secrecy and rushed through this body in a partisan wheelbarrow. If that happens, the Members of this House should be outraged. But, more importantly, the American people will be outraged.

Tyranny by whatever name it bears and whatever iron fist it raises is still tyranny. The American people deserve better and they will demand it.

Mr. Speaker, Congress recessed on July 31 for the beginning of the August recess. On that day, H.R. 3200 passed out of the committees that had jurisdiction. That is the health care reform bill. It passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I serve, late on that Friday evening, the last day in July. And everybody in this House went home for the August recess.

During that period of time, I held town hall meetings, as did many of my colleagues. There were TEA parties. There were freedom rallies. The American public spoke out as they have not done in a very long time and much of their frustration centered around the bill H.R. 3200 that at that point in time had passed all of the committees of the House and was ready for action on the floor.

But the American public sent a message, a message that they don't like the runaway spending that Congress has been engaged in. They don't like many of the programs that they think are jeopardizing the future of their children and grandchildren in terms of the repayment responsibilities. But more than anything else, they sent the message that they do not want their health care tampered with and taken over by the United States Government.

Now, surprisingly, that message apparently has not been heard on the floor of this House.

Yesterday in the committee of primary jurisdiction that has H.R. 3200, the bill was, in effect, reopened for further amendments. Now, you would think that if the bill is going to be revisited that we would have heard not only from the American people but we would have heard from the President of the United States, who on September 9 spoke right here on the floor of the House. At the time he enunciated issues that he was in favor of. Republicans agreed with many of those things. But the question we had at the time was, where is the bill that embodies the things that you say you're in favor of? We did not see a bill then, and, unfortunately, we have not seen one since that time.

So yesterday in the committee of primary jurisdiction, you would think that we would have seen a bill that embraced the principles that the President said he was in favor of even though they were not embraced in the bill that was the only bill before this House when the President was actually speaking. You would think it would have embraced many of the issues that the American public said they were concerned about.

Republicans attempted to offer a bill that would have embraced those issues where there should be bipartisan support, but we were not allowed to have a vote.

There are many issues that are encompassed in this debate. One that I have supported for a very long time is that if we are going to use taxpayer money, we should verify the citizenship of individuals who are going to receive the benefits of that taxpayer money because unless that is verified, there is no validity to simply saying that we are not going to spend taxpayers' money for people who have violated our law and are coming into our country inappropriately.

So the question remains, Where are we on health care reform? The rumors now abound that Speaker Pelosi is about to introduce a bill that purports to address the issues she's concerned with. We haven't seen the bill. I would ask the question, Is that bill going to come before the committees of jurisdiction? Is there going to be a hearing on it? Are committees going to have the opportunity to amend it? Or is it going to go, as so many other things have gone in this body during these last few months, straight to the floor of this House with very little, if any, opportunity to have an input from the Representatives, who are the elected representatives of the people of this great country?

Those are the questions that still remain. They are still unanswered.

I would conclude, again, if there is something that we have gained from what we have heard from the President and, more particularly, what we have heard from the American public during the August recess, where is the bill that puts it in writing? We have yet to see it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Yesterday, I visited the sections in my congressional district that were affected by the floods that were brought on by the torrential rains that our State has experienced. I was accompanied on that visit by county commissioners and other State and local officials.

Having seen the devastation that has been brought on by these rising waters, I am pleased to join with my other colleagues from Georgia in urging President Obama to declare portions of Georgia, including three counties in my congressional district, to be Federal disaster areas. I was deeply moved by the flood damage that was caused in the counties of Catoosa, Forsyth and Walker that are in my district. Chickamauga Creek was nearing its crest, and there are a number of homes and businesses that are now covered or partially covered by deep, muddy water.

Unfortunately, many of those who are affected by this are not covered by the standard insurance policies, and therefore they are going to be left without any help other than the help already being provided by churches and civic organizations and other parts of our community as they respond to the needs of their fellow citizens. Therefore, I urge the President to begin the process immediately of providing Federal assistance.

Citizens of Georgia have always been willing to respond when disaster strikes, and many of our citizens have gone to other parts of the country when hurricanes had hit. I know that as this water subsides there will be organized volunteers who will come to the aid of the citizens in our State.

I am also hopeful that people of faith will continue to join me in praying for those who are hurting for the loss of their loved ones and the loss of their home and their other possessions. We should pray for those who are willing to volunteer during this time of tragedy, sometimes at great risk.

I applaud the work of the local and State emergency responders who have been on duty, both before and after this storm. Public safety agencies have once again risen to the occasion, and I want to extend my thanks to each of them, because many of them have been on duty around the clock. We have so many professionals who work tirelessly to make certain that our communities are safe and that people are rescued when they are in peril, and such is the case in our State today.

Mr. Speaker, I therefore wholeheartedly support this resolution and urge its adoption.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican leadership standards

on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks one of my district institutions received as part of Bill 3326, the ``Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman Nathan Deal

Bill Number: H.R. 3326

Account: O&M, Army Account

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: North Georgia College and State University

Address of Requesting Entity: North Georgia College & State University, The Military College of Georgia 82 College Circle, Dahlonega, GA 30597.

Description of Request: The DoD Language Transformation Roadmap requires language education for officers. This pilot establishes a cost efficient model for meeting this requirement. The hub concept provides for pre-commissioning language education rather than while on active duty, saving annual pay and allowances in excess of $40K per year per officer. Following the three year pilot, state funding based on credit hour production begins, resulting in a sustainable language hub program. Initial investment is repaid in savings within three years of pilot completion and subsequently represents an annual cost savings in excess of $2M.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks one of my municipalities received as part of Bill 3288, the ``Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2010.''

Requesting Member: Congressman Nathan Deal

Bill Number: H.R. 3288

Account: TCSP--Transportation & Community & System Preservation

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: The State of Georgia, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Address of Requesting Entity: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District 100 West Oglethorpe Avenue P.O. Box 889 Savannah, GA 31402

Description of Request: CG funding of $33,725,000 is necessary to begin construction of the SHEP. While the Record of Decision will not be signed until mid-2010, these funds can be used for final pre- construction monitoring and engineering design of the channel and mitigation components for the project.

Additionally, these funds will be needed immediately after project approval for negotiation of the Project Partnership Agreement. Construction contracts cannot be awarded prior to the completion of this agreement.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I, too, want to thank the sponsor of this legislation and our committee for working in a bipartisan fashion. As many of you will recall, earlier this year, our Nation was rocked with a peanut butter contamination that involved salmonella, and it became very apparent very shortly after the investigation started that a rogue operator, the Peanut Corporation of America, had risked the well-being of thousands of Americans.

In addition, it resulted in millions of dollars of loss to an industry that is very important to my State of Georgia. Peanut sales plummeted. It was in an effort to shore up the company's individual bottom line that PCA had recklessly jeopardized both peanut farmers

and processors and the public in this country.

Now, this is a piece of legislation that is designed to try to correct some of those problems because they are not unique just to the peanut industry. We've seen them in the tomato, jalapeno pepper, the pistachio nuts, the contamination of spinach and many others. This legislation requires the development and implementation of a hazard analysis and food safety plan with regular updating, a requirement which is already in place for USDA-regulated facilities, such as poultry processing that is in my district. These plans have proved to be effective in reducing the hazard of food-borne contamination.

This legislation also implements a risk-based inspection schedule, which improves today's unacceptable status quo and targets our most vulnerable facilities for greater oversight. I know there's been concern about the overlap into USDA activities. There is language in the bill that would exclude the inclusion of farms within the bill. They are excluded. They are not required to register. They're not required to pay a registration fee. Livestock and poultry are also exempt. It does not allow the FDA to regulate what are now USDA- regulated facilities and products.

I commend this legislation and urge my colleagues to adopt it.

Madam Speaker, I submit the follow:

Project Name: Downtown Development Authority Streetscape--Dahlonega,

Mr. Speaker, my State of Georgia now has an unemployment rate in excess of 10 percent. As you've heard, other States are in worse condition. We are asking today the question of where are the jobs. We spent millions and billions, and perhaps even now trillions, of dollars throwing money at the problem, and yet the job losses continue.

The legislative agenda that's been adopted by this administration and by this House has primarily two pieces of legislation. First is the cap-and-trade, a bill that is setting us on a path that has already been followed by some of our European countries, Spain in particular. They set out on this path of green jobs over a decade ago. The result is 17.5 percent unemployment. The green bubble burst, and for every job they created, they lost 2.2 jobs.

The second major approach of this House has been the new health care reform bill, a bill that will tax employers 8 percent of their payroll amounts if they do not provide health insurance for their employees. What does that mean? New jobs? No. It means losing jobs that we already have.

Mr. Speaker, it's appropriate to ask, where are the jobs?