Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of Governor Stephen Heard, Captain John Darden, Mammy Kate, Daddy Jack, Captain Dionysus Oliver, and Peter Oliver for their patriotic service accomplished during the American Revolution.

Stephen Heard, who served as Governor of Georgia in 1781, Captain John Darden, Captain Dionysus Oliver, and Peter Oliver all fought courageously in the American War of Independence. Mammy Kate and Daddy Jack, who were slaves at the time, played a pivotal role as well. When their master, Heard, was captured at the Battle of Kettle Creek, the British condemned him to die. But on the eve of Heard's execution, Mammy Kate and Daddy Jack rescued him from the British prison at Fort Cornwallis, and for their heroic deeds, Heard awarded them their freedom.

All six of these Revolutionary War patriots are buried in what is currently Elbert County, Georgia. On October 15, 2011, the community will honor the memory of these patriots with a grave marking dedication conducted by the Stephen Heard and Kettle Creek Chapters of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Samuel Elbert, Button Gwinnett, and Washington-Wilkes Chapters of the Georgia Society Sons of the American Revolution.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to pay tribute to these six brave heroes, who with countless other patriots, successfully achieved for us American liberty and made way for our nation to stand as a beacon of freedom and hope to the rest of the world.

Mr. Speaker, 16 years ago, Congress failed to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution by a single Senate vote. Back then, our national debt was about $5 trillion. Today, our debt stands at nearly $15 trillion, and our Democrat leadership is showing no signs of slowing down their outrageous spending.

Imagine what the state of the economy could look like if it weren't strapped down by that extra $10 trillion worth of debt. Imagine how much brighter the future of our children and grandchildren could be without the threat of having to repay the money that Washington has wasted. Imagine how mom-and-pop shops could be growing, hiring and expanding if looming tax increases weren't a factor in their business plans.

Enough is enough. Missing another opportunity to balance the budget is not a mistake that we can afford to make twice. That's why I authored my balanced budget amendment, so that we can stop the spending and start paying down our debt.

I urge all of my colleagues to become cosponsors of my amendment, which is the most conservative and effective approach to balancing the budget.

A legendary Georgia businessman recently called the Obama administration ``the single biggest impediment to job growth.''

That same man, Mr. Bernie Marcus, also says the business that he founded would have never succeeded if he were trying to start it today. Home Depot, his Georgia-based company, currently has more than 2,200 stores all across the United States. They support more than 300,000 American jobs, and they generated $68 billion in revenue just last year.

Now, imagine the impact on our country if companies that start out like Home Depot--which started as an individual store--or other small businesses weren't able to flourish. That is what the Obama administration is trying to do to the American Dream today. By creating a huge bill with ObamaCare and a failed stimulus bill and by piling thousands of new government regulations onto the backs of small businesses, it is no wonder that job creators are afraid to expand and hire new people.

And so, after 2\1/2\ years of growing the Federal Government and $4.5 trillion in spending later, the Obama administration has given us another proposal of the same old failed policies. Unfortunately, their latest solution to our 9 percent unemployment rate comes with a price tag of almost a half trillion dollars, money that we just simply do not have. So to pay for the American Jobs Act, as I like to call it ``stimulus part II,'' our Democrat leaders want to hike taxes on families and job creators.

We've been down this road before. The stimulus did not work 2 years ago, and it will not work today. Hiking taxes in the middle of a recession will make our economy worse, not better. When will this administration learn that more of the same just simply isn't good enough anymore? Jobs will come when government gets out of the way--by getting rid of ObamaCare, by stopping the reckless spending here in Washington and the threat of higher taxes, and by ending the uncertainty in the marketplace.

Congress needs to pass my jobs bill, which would immediately and permanently lower the corporate tax rate to zero, and it will permanently lower the capital gains tax to zero. This will stimulate our small businesses so that they can do what they do best, grow, expand and to thrive.

In the words of Mr. Marcus, the founder of Home Depot, ``It's time to stand up and fight.''

The free enterprise system has made this country what it is today, and we must have policy that makes it prosper.

My first job was in Nashville at a theme park, managing a

live show that featured barnyard animals playing musical

instruments. I'm not making this up. I had a piano playing

pig, named Pigarace. I had a duck that played the drum named

Bert Bachquack. You can imagine how proud my parents were.

I had my embarrassments and my setbacks, but I kept

writing. I moved to Los Angeles. I got an opportunity in

television. I married. We had two beautiful sons. I had

purpose in my life, and I worked like I'd seen my father

work, with pride and with passion. I'd won a multi-year

contract with a thriving company. I bought an old home and

remodeled it; I was promoted to producer. Except for an

occasional mishap with my tie, life was sweet.

Then the Writer's Guild went out on strike, which caused

the company I worked for to void its contract with me. The

strike went on forever, and when it was over the company was

barely there anymore. I was out of work, my savings were

gone. No one would return my phone calls--I'm sure that's

never happened where you work.

I kept trying, of course. I was always good at trying. But

one day I was sitting at my desk and I was staring at

nothing, my stomach in a knot, my hands trembling, and I

realized I was breaking down, as my father had. I feared I

had failed my father, and my mother and my grandmother. And

my greatest fear was that I would fail my sons. I was afraid

they would see me come apart, as I had seen my father come

apart, and it would be something they could never forget.

I got down on my knees; I had nowhere else to go. And I

prayed a simple prayer. I said ``Lord, all I care about right

now are those boys. And maybe they don't need to grow up in a

house with a tennis court and a swimming pool. Maybe they

need a little house with one bathroom, or no bathrooms at

all. Maybe they need to see what a man does when he gets

knocked down, the way my father showed me. But I pray, if I

go down, let me go down not on my knees, but with my flag

flying.''

And I got up and I began to write the words that led to

``Braveheart.''

Great writers like Robert Frost and Jane Austin have said

that an ending that does not surprise the writer won't

surprise the reader. When I wrote about William Wallace

standing on a battle field ready to die for what he believed,

I felt it and when I came to the end I wept.

Was that moment of prayer the single determining factor in

the arc of my whole life? Of course not. My teacher and

mentor in college, the great Thomas Langford, of Duke

University, once told us in class that no decision in our

lives stands alone; the trajectory of all other decisions

we've ever made points our direction for the future.

Our lives are unfolding stories, they are moving pictures.

If we took a freeze frame of Golgotha, on the day that Jesus

was crucified, and showed that picture to anyone unfamiliar

with the story and asked them to judge who the victor was in

that scene, they'd be unlikely to say: ``The one hanging on

the cross in the middle.''

It was from that cross that Jesus cried, ``My God! Why have

you forsaken me?''

That cry does not amaze me. What does amaze me is that

while one of the two thieves hanging on either said of Jesus

mocked Him, the other acknowledged the justice of his fate

and asked Jesus for help; and Jesus, in the agonies of

crucifixion, told him, ``Today you will be with me in

Paradise.'' That does more than amaze me. It makes me believe

that any power that could enable Jesus to say that, then,

could do anything.

And it seems to me that Jesus' response is the answer to

every prayer that thief never prayed. If God is God, then God

knows our prayers whether we pray them or not.

So why pray the prayers? To me, it's not because God needs

to know my prayers, but because I do.

Prayer sifts us like sand. Take any moment of our lives;

take this one. Here, in a room resonant with power. Did we

come this morning because we want to feel a closeness to

power? Do we come before God because what we truly want is to

use the ultimate power we imagine God has? Or do we fall to

our knees to admit the truth of our weakness--and stand

again, in the strength of that truth?

Jesus said the truth will set us free, and He said the

truth is: God is love.

It seems to me that the prayer that comes from Love is the

prayer that goes to God.

My father once told me a story of a man drowning in the

ocean. He cried out, ``Oh God! If you save me, I will spend

the rest of my life in serving You!'' A few moments later a

boat appeared and he was pulled from the water, and on the

way back to shore the man lifted his eyes to heaven and said,

Of course You do understand that I meant ``in

an advisory capacity.'' But life does not give us the option

of Advisory Capacity.

Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace that in a battle, one man

throwing down his weapon and running away can panic a whole

army, and in a panic, one man lifting up the flag and running

back toward the enemy can rally a whole army, and no one but

God knows what will happen, and when.

What if prayer is the way to glimpse God's true

intentions--the divine purpose for each of us? I'm no

theologian. I'm not looking for logic; I'm only trying to

find an understanding for my experience that prayer matters.

Does it change the mind of God? I don't know. I can only tell

you that it changes me.

When I was a boy we sang a hymn called ``Footsteps of

Jesus.'' Not everyone grew up as I did. I'm sometimes

described as a rarity, a filmmaker who might speak freely

about prayer. But really I'm not so unusual. All of us

dreamers in Hollywood are keenly aware of the falseness of

fame, the fleeting nature of beauty, the illusions of power.

And when I pray with or for my friends, my first concern is

not whether they follow the footsteps of Jesus, but whether I

do.

If I've led you to believe my life is any example of

righteousness, then maybe you're not familiar with the

Tennessee talent for stretching the truth. And even if I

could have stolen Mrs. Carter's Bible, I couldn't have kept

it. You might own the pages but you don't own the Bible until

you've lived it.

Some of you here lead nations. Some of you here lead the

world. All of us here have one heart inside us, and it is in

that one heart where the whole battle is fought.

There are as many ways to approach the great questions of

life as there are people on the earth. But every one of us

must stand alone before all that made us, and all that we

have been, and that we might be. And dying in your bed, many

years from now, would you not trade all the days from that

day to this for one chance, just one chance, to open your

heart before God Almighty, and to tell Him, ``I will lose my

life, and I will find it by loving in all the ways You lead

my heart to love.''

You have a prayer, pray it. Amen.

Congressman Miller: Thank you, Randall. Thank you for

inspiring all of us. And now it is my honor to introduce my

President, our President, the President of the United States

of America. We have an expression in Florida that you can

walk shoulder to shoulder with someone even if you don't see

eye to eye. That's the prayerful spirit in which we gather

today. It is the genius of our founders that we have one

President at a time and it is the higher genius of the

Scriptures that we are to pray for our leaders that we may

all lead quiet and peaceable lives. Mr. President, first we

thank you for your attendance and the strong support that you

have given this event and all of the activities that surround

it. I speak for all members of Congress here and for millions

across our country and around the world, we pray for you each

day as you lead our country. Ladies and gentlemen, the

President of the United States, Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama: Thank you so much. To the co-

chairs, Jeff and Ann; to all the members of Congress who are

here, the distinguished guests who have traveled so far to be

here this morning; to Randall for your wonderful stories and

powerful prayer; to all who are here providing testimony,

thank you so much for having me and Michelle here. We are

blessed to be here.

I want to begin by just saying a word to Mark Kelly, who's

here. We have been praying for Mark's wife, Gabby Giffords,

for many days now. But I want Gabby and Mark and their entire

family to know that we are with them for the long haul, and

God is with them for the long haul.

And even as we pray for Gabby in the aftermath of a tragedy

here at home, we're also mindful of the violence that we're

now seeing in the Middle East, and we pray that this violence

in Egypt will end and that the rights and aspirations of the

Egyptian people will be realized and that a better day will

dawn over Egypt and throughout the world.

For almost 60 years going back to President Eisenhower,

this gathering has been attended by our President. It's a

tradition that I'm proud to uphold, not only as a fellow

believer but as an elected leader whose entry into public

service was actually through the church. This may come as a

surprise, for as some of you know, I did not come from a

particularly religious family. My father, who I barely knew--

I only met once for a month in my entire life--was said to be

a non-believer throughout his life.

My mother, whose parents were Baptist and Methodist, grew

up with a certain skepticism about organized religion, and

she usually only took me to church on Easter and Christmas--

sometimes. And yet my mother was also one of the most

spiritual people that I ever knew. She was somebody who was

instinctively guided by the Golden Rule and who nagged me

constantly about the homespun values of her Kansas

upbringing, values like honesty and hard work and kindness

and fair play.

And it's because of her that I came to understand the equal

worth of all men and all women, and the imperatives of an

ethical life and the necessity to act on your beliefs. And

it's because of her example and guidance that despite the

absence of a formal religious upbringing my earliest

inspirations for a life of service ended up being the faith

leaders of the civil rights movement.

There was, of course, Martin Luther King and the Baptist

leaders, the ways in which they helped those who had been

subjugated to make a way out of no where, and transform a

nation through the force of love. There are also Catholic

leaders like Father Theodore Heshburg and Jewish leaders like

Rabi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Muslim leaders and Hindu

leaders. Their call to fix what was broken in our world, a

call routed in faith, is what led me just a few years out of

college to sign up as a community organizer for a group of

churches on the Southside of Chicago. And it was through that

experience working with pastors and laypeople trying to heal

the wounds of hurting neighborhoods that I came to know Jesus

Christ for myself and embrace Him as my Lord the Savior.

Now, that was over 20 years ago. And like all of us, my

faith journey has had its twists and turns. It hasn't always

been a straight line. I have thanked God for the joys of

parenthood and Michelle's willingness to put up with me. In

the wake of failures and disappointments, I have questioned

what God had in store for me and have been reminded that

God's plans for us may not always match our own short-sided

desires. And let me tell you, these past two years, they have

deepened my faith. The presidency has a funny way of making a

person feel the need to pray. Abe Lincoln said, as many of

you know, ``I have been driven to my knees many times by the

overwhelming conviction that I have no place else to go.''

Fortunately, I'm not alone in my prayers. My pastor friends

like Joel Hunter and T.D. Jakes come over to the Oval Office

every once in a while to pray with me and to pray for the

nation. The chapel at Camp David has provided consistent

respite for fellowship. The director of our Faith-based and

Neighborhood Partnership's office, Joshua DuBois, a young

minister himself, starts my morning off with meditations from

Scripture.

Most of all, I've got friends around the country--some who

I know, some who I don't know--but I know there are friends

who are out there praying for me. One of them is an old

friend named Kaye Wilson. In our family we call her Mama

Kaye. And she happens to be Malia and Sasha's Godmother. And

she has organized prayer circles for me all around the

country. She started small with her own Bible study group,

but once I started running for President, and she heard what

they were saying about me on cable, she felt the need to pray

harder. By the time I was elected President, she said, ``I

just couldn't keep up on my own. I was having to pray eight,

nine times a day just for you.'' So she enlisted help from

around the country.

It's also comforting to know that people are praying for

you who don't always agree with you. Tom Coburn, for example,

is here. He is not only a dear friend but also a brother in

Christ. We came into the Senate at the same time. Even though

we are on opposite sides of a whole bunch of issues, part of

what has bound us together is a shared faith, a recognition

that we pray to and serve the same God. And I keep praying

that God will show him the light and he will vote with me

once in a while. It's going to happen, Tom. A ray of light is

going to beam down.

My Christian faith then has been a sustaining force for me

over these last few years. All the more so, when Michelle and

I hear our faith questioned from time to time, we are

reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other

people say about us but whether we're being true to our

conscience and true to our God. ``Seek first his Kingdom and

his righteousness and all these things will be given to you

as well.''

As I travel across the country folks often ask me--what is

it that I pray for? And like most of you, my prayers

sometimes are general: ``Lord, give me the strength to meet

the challenges of my office.'' Sometimes they're specific:

``Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first

dance where there will be boys. Lord, have that skirt get

longer as she travels to that dance.''

But while I petition God for a whole range of things, there

are a few common themes that do occur. The first category of

prayer comes out of the urgency of the Old Testament prophets

and the Gospel itself. I pray for my ability to help those

who are struggling. Christian tradition teaches that one day

the world will be turned right side up and everything will

return as it should be. But until that day, we're called to

work on behalf of a God that shows justice and mercy and

compassion to the most vulnerable.

Mr. Speaker, in the midst of all the talk about raising the debt ceiling, I don't hear anyone talking about the most important factor in this equation, our unsustainable National debt. Everyone is focused on raising the debt ceiling, but if we truly want to get our economy back on its feet, we need to begin paying off the debt that President Obama and his predecessors have created.

It's obvious that our Democrat leaders in the White House and the Senate care more about making campaign speeches than about the livelihoods of the American people. Liberals want to raise taxes, but of course not until after the elections. And they want to sham us with talks about future cuts that we will never see materialize. It's like one big Ponzi scheme, and they're trying to get the American people to buy into it.

We need spending cuts now, and we need to pay down our outrageous debt. I urge both my colleagues and the American people not to fall for these accounting tricks.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would reduce State and Private Forestry funding by a modest 10 percent, and it would transfer more than $20 million to the Spending Reduction Account.

The State and Private Forestry funding sets aside money for international forestry, urban and community forestry, and supports more than 500 million acres of non-Federal forested lands. We are more than $14.3 trillion in debt, and we need to be cutting areas of our budget wherever possible. It is more than reasonable to request a reduction in this program because the Federal Government has no business giving a handout to private forestry landowners in the first place. This funding would be better managed by the State and local levels of government.

We are broke, Mr. Chairman, as a Nation. We need to be doing what businesses do when they get overextended. They lower their borrowing level; they try to find out ways to pay off their debt, and then they start cutting expenses. This is a mere 10 percent cut. So I urge my colleagues to think about our massive debt, and I urge them to consider sending part of this program back to the State and local governments.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would revert the Smithsonian funding back to the fiscal year 2008 levels. This is simply asking the Smithsonian to tighten their belts, to pull their weight, just like other agencies and departments within the Federal Government are having to do.

Mr. Chairman, this country is broke. We have spent all the money in our bank and then some. We have to prioritize where we can afford to spend money and where we simply cannot afford to. I believe asking the Smithsonian to simply scale back their spending to levels of 2008 is more than reasonable. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would reduce funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities by a mere 10 percent.

I have stood up here and offered amendment after amendment trying to highlight areas of our budget that we can afford reasonable cuts. If you add up all of those modest cuts, the Federal Government could end up saving a significant amount of money. We are facing a fiscal crisis in this Nation, a financial fiasco; and if we can't make the cuts that need to be made, this country is going to go into a total economic collapse.

Now, if someone's broke, they sell their luxury car and get a more efficient one; they stop eating steak and lobster and eat more hamburger and hot dogs. They turn in their membership to the country club. All those things are beautiful things, nice things, luxury things. We have a lot of luxuries that we've been funding through the Federal Government for a long period of time. But, Mr. Chairman, we can't afford to continue doing so because we are in an economic emergency as a Nation. We are broke. We have unsustainable debt. We have unsustainable debt that's going to cause our children and our grandchildren to live at a lower standard than we live today if we keep this up.

Mr. Chairman, in a race a number of years ago, I said Congress was sick; we need a doctor in the House. I'm a medical doctor, and I do addiction medicine. Government needs an intervention for its spending addiction. In addiction medicine we say, if there's no denial, there's no addiction. We've got a tremendous amount of denial about the economic crisis we face in this Nation. We've just simply got to stop the spending.

When a business goes under water, it's overextended as the Federal Government is, what does it do? It lowers its borrowing level--if the lender doesn't do that--it starts trying to figure out how to reduce the debt, and then it goes through every aspect of its expenditures and tries to cut expenses all across the board in every area. The Federal Government needs to do the same.

And then the business will look at how to raise more revenue. Our Democratic colleagues say that we need to raise revenue by raising taxes, but that will just tax away jobs. We must create jobs here in America. We create jobs in America by getting the tax burden and the regulatory burden off the job creators, the small businesses here in America that are suffering and are suffocating with the burden of over- regulation and taxes. We could create more revenue for the Federal Government,

not by raising taxes but by raising taxpayers, and we do that by putting people to work and creating a stronger economy. It's absolutely critical for the future of this Nation. We can't keep going down this road.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, I've heard all the arguments, and for the Smithsonian Institute and other things that a lot of people think are very beautiful and nice, just like that luxury automobile, but we need to stop it. The future of our Nation depends upon it. I'm fighting for America. I'm fighting for the future of our children and my grandchildren. Funding for the National Endowment for the Arts does not need to be a priority in the midst of these trying times, and I urge my colleagues to support a very simple request to reduce its funding by 10 percent.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1938. I thank my friend, Lee Terry from Nebraska, for taking the lead on this important issue.

The Keystone XL pipeline is vital to ensure that the United States is able to meet its demand for oil. Canada is already the single largest source of oil imports for the United States.

This pipeline is expected to bring between 830,000 to over 1 million more barrels of Canadian crude to American refineries each and every day, helping to reduce our dependency on oil from unfriendly nations.

At a time when unemployment continues to hover near 10 percent, this project is expected to add close to 13,000 new American jobs. Until we are able to maximize our domestic sources of oil, we will have to rely upon imports. Canada is one of our strongest allies and is a stable democracy with a strong free market economy.

Canada serves as an example of how we should be exploring and developing our own domestic resources. Again, I thank my friend from Nebraska for working so diligently on this issue. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1938.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I appreciate you yielding a few minutes.

I wanted to kind of break all this down so that the American people could understand very clearly what we're talking about tonight. I've got a little poster here that shows President Obama's and the Democrats' Medicare solution.

This is their Medicare plan. They deny the problem. They deny the problem that the gentleman from Georgia was just talking about with this huge, huge problem, where Medicare is going to go broke in a matter of just a decade. They want to delay any fixes. In fact, Medicare as we know it today exists no longer. ObamaCare took care of that. And they want to destroy it. They will destroy it by letting it go broke.

So this is the Democrat Party's health care plan: Deny It, Delay It, and Destroy It by letting it go broke.

Just recently, one of the government accounting groups released something that should scare every senior, every taxpayer, and every American.

They said that Medicare, within the next couple of decades--that's a lot of zeroes in this; 63 and a lot of zeros. This is the unfunded liability of Medicare over just the next several decades.

Well, I just tried to make it so that the zeroes didn't confuse folks. The unfunded liability for Medicare is $63 trillion. This is unsustainable. There's no way to take care of this.

We need to shore up Medicare. We need to make sure that it's strengthened so that our future generations, not only the senior citizens today, can continue to get Medicare, but the future generations also.

Now, what does $63 trillion of unfunded liabilities mean to everybody in this country? I mean, that's too big a number for everybody to really consider. So I broke it down to every family in the United States. Every family's part of this $63 trillion of unfunded liabilities for Medicare, as it exists today, is over $500,000 per family, $500,000 per family of unfunded liabilities for Medicare just in the next several decades.

Now, I don't know about most families, but my family can't afford to pay $500,000 and neither can the government.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. What the American people need to understand is that we need to strengthen Medicare and Social Security for future generations.

This picture right here is a picture of my two grandchildren, Tillman and Cile Surratt. I love these two kids greatly. They won't see Medicare, and they're going to see an America that's quite different from the one that we see today if we don't make some major changes, major changes in Medicare and Social Security. If we don't shrink them and make them economically viable for my grandchildren, that are 6 and 7, my grandchildren won't see Medicare. They won't see Social Security. And, in fact, people who are 45 or 50 today won't see Social Security or Medicare if we don't strengthen them, if we don't do the necessary hard work of bringing about those changes to strengthening Medicare and Social Security to make them economically viable.

I hear our Democrat colleagues all the time talk about it's the children. I've heard our former Speaker talk about it's about the children so much that I wanted to throw up.

But the thing is, when you talk about it's the children and their future, we've got to deal with this debt. We've got to deal with Social Security and Medicare and make them economically viable by strengthening them, by making them so that they're still available when my kids get grown.

And we're going down a road right now--this President and the Democrats in the Senate and the Democrats here in the House have a three-word plan. Their plan is a three-word plan for Social Security and Medicare: deny the problem. They're denying it. They're delaying doing anything about it. And they're going to destroy it, because both Medicare and Social Security are going broke if we don't strengthen it, if we don't make it economically viable, if we don't do the necessary hard work that this Congress and Republicans are trying to do.

But what do we hear from our colleagues on the other side? Demagoguery and trying to play politics. It's time to stop the politics. It's time to stop playing games.

The American people deserve the truth. No more accounting gimmicks. No more playing with numbers. No more double talk, political speak.

This is the Democrats' plan--deny it, delay it, destroy it--for Medicare, Social Security and this country economically. We've got to change it, and that's what Republicans are working very hard to do.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank you for yielding just a moment to me because I want to add to that statistic; 15 percent of hospitals, nursing homes, and home health care will close because Medicare pays less under ObamaCare. That's absolutely true. A lot of those hospitals are going to be in rural communities because rural communities are going to be hit the hardest.

Right now I'm a primary care doctor. As the gentleman knows, I'm a family doctor. I've done general medicine for almost 40 years now.

The American Academy of Family Physicians said right now, today, one in eight family docs will not accept Medicare at all. Only one in three doctors, according to the American Medical Association limits how many Medicare patients that they take.

That is a marked rise. Back in 2004, only 6 percent of all doctors limited their Medicare patients. In 2008, it went up to 8 percent. Now it's almost one-third limit the amount of Medicare patients that they see. And one in eight family docs don't take Medicare at all; they can't afford to because of the low reimbursement rates. And IPAB is going to hit those folks that much harder.

During our Special Order when we were discussing ObamaCare I made a comment that somebody may have a free health care card in their pocket, but it's going to be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between the States because nobody will take it, and that's exactly where we are headed. So I just wanted to add that.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I would certainly like the time.

The American people need to understand that the purpose of ObamaCare, the bottom line really was expressed by the President himself when he said he wanted everybody in this country in one pool. What's that mean for everybody? It means socialized medicine. That's what all IPAB and all these cuts and everything is geared to do is to force doctors out of private practice, make them employees of the Federal Government, make patients subject to some bureaucrat here in Washington

and tell them what kind of health care they can get.

And the Democrats' plan is to deny, to delay, and to destroy Medicare by letting it go broke. But I want to just add, Dr. Gingrey, to your other ``d,'' the demagoguery that we see. I want to give three examples because the facts have really been, by and large, hidden from the American people.

AARP did an ad, a new one, talking about all the places where the Feds could cut spending, like treadmills for shrimp--well, I certainly want to cut that out--but instead, Republicans insist on cutting seniors' Medicare. Well, that's not true. AARP and the Democrats want to cut Medicare by destroying it, letting it go broke.

An ad put out by the Gender Project, a liberal nonprofit group, shows an elderly woman being heaved off the side of a cliff, with her being in a wheelchair, and asks: Is America beautiful without Medicare? Ask Paul Ryan and his friends in Congress.

That is nothing but bald-faced lies, because we are trying to make sure that seniors get, as Dr. Roe said, a promise made, a promise kept. We want to shore up Medicare and Social Security. We want to strengthen Medicare, not destroy it, like the Democrats are going to do.

Let me give you a third example, then I will yield back.

On the Republican budget, President Obama said in his speech at George Washington University just last month: ``Instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. If that voucher isn't worth enough to buy the insurance that is available in the open marketplace, well, tough luck. You're on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.'' President Obama.

It's demagoguery. It's lies, bald-faced lies designed to try to scare the American people, particularly senior citizens. We are trying to shore up Medicare. We are trying to strengthen Medicare. We are trying to save Medicare from going broke. But the Reid-Pelosi-Obama ObamaCare is to deny it, to delay it, to destroy it, and to demagogue it.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 31 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, July 26, 2011, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 12: Page 105, line 18, after the dollar

amount insert ``(reduced by $2,510,000)''.

Page 158, line 25, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $2,510,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 13: Page 105, line 18, after the dollar

amount insert ``(reduced by $13,500,000)''.

Page 158, line 25, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $13,500,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 14: Page 101, line 10, after the dollar

amount insert ``(reduced by $55,624,000)''.

Page 158, line 25, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $55,624,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 17: Page 4, line 6, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(decreased by $4,880,000)''.

Page 10, line 1, after the dollar amount, insert

``(decreased by $15,047,000)''.

Page 15, line 19, after the dollar amount, insert

``(decreased by $18,294,000)''.

Page 78, line 1, after the dollar amount, insert

``(decreased by $12,500,000)''.

Page 158, line 25, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $__________)''.

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 18: Page 76, line 2, insert after the dollar

amount the following: ``(reduced by $20,860,800)''.

Page 158, line 25, insert after the dollar amount the

following: ``(increased by $20,860,800)''.