Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, as we're having a debate on the issue of health care and a lot of different ideas and different things are being passed around, I think it's really important that we look at the real reason why we need to make reforms to our health care system in America.

Clearly there are problems with health care, but there are very narrow problems with people who don't have the ability and the access to get health care at an affordable price. What we need to do is focus on fixing the problems in the system that don't work, but at the same time, we need to be very careful not to destroy the things that make medical care in the United States the best medical care in the world.

I think what concerns many of us is this proposal of a government takeover of our health care system where the government would come in all under the guise of competing against private companies. Of course anybody that understands what competition really means and who looks at the concept of the Federal Government, with taxpayer backing, coming in as your competitor when they write the rules that both of you have to play by--they've got this health care czar that they're creating in their bill, which, by the way, I think the count is up to over 30 czars now created in this administration.

We need to sunset these czars. We need to get rid of these czars. We shouldn't have people with these unbridled powers that have absolutely no accountability to the public, did not go through the scrutiny of the normal process that a cabinet secretary or high-ranking official would have to go through with Senate confirmation, testifying before committees and being answerable to the American people. Yet you've got these czars with these powers, and now they're trying to create a health care czar that would literally have the ability to make major decisions over individual families' health care.

I think it's very important to go through and talk about some of these claims that are being made because they are claims that are being made that completely are contradicted by the bills that we have before us in the Congress that are brought by and supported by this President and this administration.

One of the first claims that's been made a whole lot is if you like the health care you have, you can keep it. Now, personally I think that's a very important claim. I think that's one of the sacred parts of health care that we should maintain. If people like the health care they have, they should keep it. The problem is in the bill that President Obama supports in the House, the only bill this administration, Speaker Pelosi, and others are promoting, is H.R. 3200. In that bill, in fact, on page 15 of that bill, they give the power to the health care czar, again an unappointed bureaucrat, a person who did not go through any confirmation process, who was just appointed by the President, who is wholly unaccountable to Congress, this health care czar would have the power to decertify private plans.

That's right. That means if you have a health care policy you like, the health care czar, in their bill, has the power to take away your health care plan even if you do like it. It's in their bill. We actually tried to take that out in committee.

Another claim that's been made a whole lot that was made here on this

House floor deals with the issue of illegal immigration and do illegal aliens have access to health care. Now, many have claimed that illegal aliens wouldn't be able to get health care in their bill. The problem is, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the President's bill allows 8 million illegal aliens to have access to his government-run health care plan. That testimony was given by the Congressional Budget Office. That's not a Republican or a Democrat who said that. That's the bipartisan group that we actually have to follow who scores these bills, who makes a determination whether or not these statements are accurate. The Congressional Budget Office has said 8 million illegal aliens would have access to this government plan that the President is supporting, H.R. 3200.

And there are a lot of other claims that are similar to those that are just not accurate. One of the ones that's thrown around a lot by the President and others is this straw man that we've got to fix health care and if we don't pass his bill, then everybody else is for the status quo if they're not for his bill, if they don't want the government to take it over.

That's not true. If you look at the bills that are out there, there are many bills that I and others support that are very different approaches than the bill that the President and Speaker Pelosi support. One good one is H.R. 3400. H.R. 3400 has nearly 40 Members of Congress that are cosponsors, including four medical doctors, people that really understand the problems in health care. In our bill we actually address the problems that exist. We address the problems with preexisting conditions. I don't think it's fair or right that somebody can be denied health care coverage because they're battling maybe a disease like cancer or some other tragic disease that in the current system they are currently discriminated against. We fix that problem in our bill. We invoke real competition, but it's not by bringing in the government; it's by allowing people to buy across State lines and have competition.

So we need to address these problems in a real, honest way.

Would the gentleman yield?

And I appreciate my friend from Missouri yielding.

Of course when President Obama brought that stimulus bill and he said that this would stave off the unemployment rate that was approaching 8 percent--of course now at 9.5, approaching 10 percent--added $800 billion to our national debt, a real offshoot of that stimulus bill since the President passed his stimulus bill, 2 million more Americans have lost their jobs. And so we see more people unemployed, in large part because of this big-government approach like the stimulus bill, then that cap-and-trade energy tax that they brought, and now we see this health care bill.

I'm on the Energy and Commerce Committee. We were supposed to have another meeting tonight to take up amendments to this proposal by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi to have a government takeover of health care--a devastating approach to really addressing the problems that we can address in a very specific way instead of this government takeover. But now they're short on votes, and they're definitely having problems getting the votes, which is, I think, in large part because Americans across the country have started to see some of the details of this bill, and they realize how bad of an approach it is.

Just the other day when they canceled the vote on the House floor that was supposed to occur this week, you saw the stock market actually take off. So American families out there who have retirement accounts and pension funds actually saw an increase, not because of the policies of this administration working, but because Americans finally saw that some of this Big Government approach, this government takeover of health care, actually is in trouble, and that's what really got the economy back going again. So I think you can see their approach is actually hurting the economy instead of helping the economy.

And so I yield back to my friend from Missouri.

Back in Louisiana there's something called the ``rule of holes.'' And what the rule of holes says is if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is you stop digging. And here they are. They brought this bill, the stimulus bill, $800 billion of debt for our children and grandchildren that's actually led to increased unemployment. Clearly their approach didn't work, as many of us predicted it wouldn't. You would think the first thing they would do is say, okay, yes, that was something that they did wrong. Maybe we should go look at some of these Republicans who put alternative ideas on the table and suggested and maybe we'll look at their ideas. And instead they talk about spending even more money. In fact, the Vice President just 2 weeks ago said that they need to keep spending even more money to keep from going bankrupt, as if anybody can make any sense out of that. But then they filed this bill to propose a government takeover of our health care system.

And I want to show you right here, this is a depiction of the actual organizational chart of their proposal.

If you look at this, I think--and, clearly, we have reforms that we need to make in our health care system. Commonsense ideas like allowing portability so if somebody leaves a job, they can take their health care with them, or removing the discrimination against preexisting conditions. I don't think it's fair that if somebody gets cancer that they can literally be discriminated against in their health plan. We addressed that in our proposals. Unfortunately, what they proposed is this new system where they have dozens of new bureaucracies.

I think the gentleman from Missouri makes a very important point. We put this chart together based on their bill, the bill that President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and many of the other liberals who are running Congress put this bill together, proposed a government takeover of heath care. They create all these new dozens of bureaucracies.

I think the most important relationship in health care is that relationship between the patient and the doctor. And look at what their bill does to create dozens of new Federal bureaucratic agencies that come in between the doctor and the patient.

So when we put this chart together to actually show what their bill does, the Speaker censored this document, literally said we can't send this out to the public.

Now, I'm holding this up because I have the ability because we're here on the floor, but I, by the rule of the Speaker, can't even send this to my constituents back home. People want to know what their bill does, and they're trying to censor that information from being shown to the public. But the public is figuring it out anyway, and they see dozens of new bureaucrats. A health care czar that can ration care.

That's exactly what I'm saying. I represent about 650,000 people in Southeast Louisiana, people who are starting to look at the details of this bill, and they don't like what they see because what they see is government bureaucrats in Washington telling them which doctor they can see or even if they can get a medical procedure and the ability by this new health care czar that you can't even see because it's censored by the Speaker to ration care----

I sit on the committee, and yet I'm not even privy to these discussions, these secretive backroom discussions that are going on. This is coming from the administration that said they would be the most transparent in history.

In fact, on this health care bill just 2 weeks ago, we had a hearing with the head of the Congressional Budget Office talking about the cost of the bill. This is a bill in its current form that adds over 240 billion more dollars to our national debt, and we're concerned about the cost. We had the head of the Congressional Budget Office come to our committee to talk about the cost.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on Congressionally-directed project funding, I am submitting the following information regarding project funding I requested for Southeast Louisiana as part of the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations bill.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill

Account: Information Technology Development

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR)

Address of Requesting Entity: 2251 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70145

Description of Request: I have secured $2,500,000 for Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). It will fund a 3D modeling simulation which will allow NASA and DOD to model their manufacturing and testing complexes, facilities, and processes prior to deployment. Modeling prior to development reduces initial costs and minimizes ongoing production. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill

Account: Enterprise Information Technology

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR)

Address of Requesting Entity: 2251 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70145

Description of Request: I have secured $7,500,000 for Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). The funds will be used for sustaining critical joint Navy/University information systems research and technology transfer in partnership with the University of New Orleans and local small businesses and industry. Funding will update the current operations environment at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill

Account: Special Operating Forces Underwater Systems

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR)

Address of Requesting Entity: Naval Special Warfare, San Diego, CA 92135

Description of Request: I have secured $1,000,000 for Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). It will fund a new generation submersible, capable of conducting insertion & extraction of Special Operation Forces personnel and/or their payloads. Technology services would be headquartered in Mandeville, Louisiana. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

On the heels of the failed stimulus bill that added another roughly $1 trillion of debt to our Nation's debt, also leading to about another two million people losing their jobs in this country and then that cap-and-trade energy tax proposal that literally would run millions of jobs out of our country, most Americans across our Nation are saying, Where are the jobs?

And, instead, the latest proposal by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi is this attempt to mandate a government takeover of our health care system.

And, you know, the President goes out and he gives these speeches. And he says under his plan if you like the plan that you have, you can keep it. Well, unfortunately, I don't think the President has read his bill because if you look right here in section 102 of the bill, it says that the government health care czar is going to be able to take away your health care plan even if you like it. It's right here in the bill.

Another part, Mr. Speaker, of what the President says is anybody who makes under $250,000 a year won't pay anymore in new taxes. Once again, maybe the President hasn't read his own bill, but in his health care bill right here in section 401, tax on individuals without acceptable health care, $29 billion in new taxes.

Read the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank my colleague from Baton Rouge for yielding me 2 minutes, and it's also good to follow up my colleague from Lafayette rising in support of this resolution commending the 2009 LSU Tigers for their national championship winning the College World Series.

As a proud alumnus of LSU, I was very excited to see them regain the prominence that they had under Skip Burtman, who won five national championship College World Series during his tenure as the head coach, probably one of the greatest baseball coaches in the history of college baseball. And now to have turned the program over to Paul Maneri, who just in his third year won the national title, winning this College World Series in Omaha, a place that many people from Baton Rouge and fans of LSU all throughout the country enjoy going to, and enjoy celebrating national championships like now. They did with the sixth national championship, making them number two behind all college teams in the history of college baseball.

So there were a number of notable achievements. Of course, you've got to congratulate the coaches and the players, and the entire LSU community for what they've done, but there were some distinctions. Chad Jones and Jared Mitchell became the first two teammates who actually won a BCS national championship being on the 2007 football national championship team and also being on the team that won the College World Series. So some notable achievements there. And the entire LSU faculty, of course. The LSU program generates hundreds of thousands of dollars that go back to the academic programs and the great academics at LSU as well.

So, again, I thank my colleague. I'm proud to cosponsor this resolution, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Geaux (go) Tigers.

Well, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. I appreciate your leadership on this issue and the fact that you are willing to come here tonight and talk about some of these challenges that our country's facing. And when you look across our country today, people are facing many challenges.

But I think what's even more concerning to people when they look here in Washington, and they look at what's happening in the Congress, and they look at what this administration is doing, I think it's frightening people across the country. The fact that they see these policies that are being proposed, and some of these policies that have actually passed. In January, when President Obama took the oath of office, one of his first steps was to pass this unprecedented spending bill that he called the stimulus bill and he rammed it through Congress, a bill that everybody knows that nobody that voted for the bill had time to read because they rammed it through so fast, because they said it needed to pass because it was going to stop unemployment from reaching 8 percent. Well, now we're at 9\1/2\ percent unemployment, and that number is climbing.

The problem is our deficit is climbing even higher. We exceeded a trillion dollars in deficit just a week ago. Unprecedented in our country's history. And people are looking at that and saying, Why is it that every American family is cutting back to manage and live within their means? State governments have been cutting their budgets to live within their means. Why is it that Washington and Congress, especially, is spending money out of control at a rate that is unprecedented, and it cannot be contained?

And then they look at the policies. And I think that's what's concerning people especially today. And they look at this crazy energy proposal, this cap-and-trade energy tax and this proposal to have a government takeover of our health care system. And clearly reforms need to be made to health care, but there is bipartisan agreement on a number of reforms that can be made to allow people to have the portability so if they move from one job to another, they can take their health care with them.

But a real competition in health care or address pre-existing conditions, there is bipartisan agreement on all of those issues. Not one of those is in the President's bill because he chose to go it alone. He said, I don't need to work with Republicans. And in fact, he's not even working with moderate Democrats. He's decided to go with the most

far extreme leftists that want to just have a government takeover of health care where, literally, a bureaucrat in Washington that's not elected, didn't even go through a Senate confirmation, can have the ability to tell you which doctor you can see or even if you can get an operation.

And we've seen the devastating results in countries like Canada, in England, where they've done the exact same thing. And now those people who have the means in those countries come to America to get health care. Because even with our flaws--and we've got flaws in our system that need to be worked out--but even with our flaws, we have the best medical care in the world. And yet they want to destroy that system by having a government take it over and then add $800 billion of new taxes on the backs of American families.

And if that wasn't enough, that leads us into the topic that I know my friend from Tennessee really started off talking about, and that's energy. This cap-and-trade energy tax that actually passed this House, and I sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee and we debated that for weeks, and I strongly opposed their bill because their bill doesn't address the energy problems in our country. We don't have an energy policy in America. Imagine that. The greatest country in the history of the world, the most industrialized nation in the world, doesn't have a true energy policy. We've got the ability to create a comprehensive energy policy that actually eliminates our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. And we filed a bill.

Some people would lead you to believe there is no alternative out there. It's just this cap-and-trade energy tax or nothing.

Well, there is a different approach. There was an approach called the American Energy Act, which I'm proud to be a co-sponsor of. I know my friend from Tennessee is a cosponsor of. It's an all-of-the-above policy. It says yes, we should pursue those alternative sources of energy like wind and solar power. But unfortunately, those technologies aren't advanced enough yet. You can't run your car or house on wind or solar. You surely couldn't run a hospital on wind and solar because they're intermittent sources of energy, and so you need some other forms to keep power generating in this country. And so yes, you have coal production and we should advance the technologies to make clean coal technology.

But you also need advance nuclear power; nuclear power emits zero carbon. It's a zero carbon emission source of energy. Eighty percent of Europe is on nuclear power now. It wasn't on their bill. They discouraged it. We need to move towards those other alternatives.

We also need to recognize the existing types of energies we have in our country, and that's oil and natural gas. It's also some of the new sources and technologies that we have, like these tar sands in the Midwest which right now are prohibited from being explored by Federal policy. In fact, if you go into the Gulf of Mexico, there are many areas there where there are huge reserves of oil and natural gas that are banned from even being explored.

I've taken a few Members out to the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago. We went out to the largest natural gas exploration facility in the country. It's called Independence Hub. Nine hundred million cubic feet of gas a day. Actually represents 2 percent of our entire country's natural gas needs. It's out there in the Gulf of Mexico, and they have greater capacity. In fact, we keep finding more and more reserves of natural gas every day. In north Louisiana, I'm proud to have gone out and visited the area in Shreveport, Louisiana, called Hainesville. Hainesville shale find is the largest new find of natural gas in our country's history. It was just found 3 years ago, and we continue to find more and more reserves like that.

So there are all kind of natural resources that our country can use, and yet Federal policy blocks it. And the only answer President Obama gives us is this cap-and-trade energy tax--which actually limits our ability to explore American resource of energy and gives greater power to those oil OPEC barons in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East that don't like our way of life. So we've got to get a comprehensive energy policy, and we've got to move away from this idea of taxing businesses, taxing families, raising electricity costs--which their bill does--and go to a policy that adopts a comprehensive, all- of-the-above approach.

So here at this time I'm going to yield back to my friend from Tennessee. But we're talking in the same week that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Collins landed on the Moon, the Apollo 11 mission. The 40th anniversary this week. I had the honor of meeting them. True American heroes. When I talked to Neil Armstrong earlier this week, what I told him was, What you did, what your crew did and what all of the NASA officials did, they inspired a Nation because they showed us what the greatness of America can be if we truly set our minds in a bipartisan way. And back then under President Kennedy when he said and set that objective that we were going to go to the Moon by the end of the 1960s, the entire country came together, Republicans and Democrats. We can do that again.

But President Obama's got to set aside the bipartisanship and this extreme radical policy, and we can get there.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on Congressionally-directed project funding, I am submitting the following information regarding project funding I requested for Southeast Louisiana as part of the Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center

Address of Requesting Entity: 4950 Essen Lane, Baton Rouge, LA 70809

Description of Request: I have secured $350,000 for the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. Mary Bird Perkins (MBP) Cancer Center is the only independent, nonprofit cancer treatment, education and research center in Louisiana providing state of the art radiation therapy to all community residents. Outreach services are provided through the Center's CARE Network which provides cancer support services, awareness and education activities, and research and education initiatives. Funding will allow MBP to continue expansion of the CARE network services. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: Employment and Training Administration (ETA)--Training & Employment Services

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Southeastern Louisiana University

Address of Requesting Entity: SLU Box 10784, Dyson Hall, Room 106, Hammond, LA 70402

Description of Request: I have secured $150,000 for Southeastern Louisiana University. Southeastern Louisiana University can expand its initiative to provide economic and workforce development, community planning, and smart growth assistance to meet the needs of post-Katrina Southeast Louisiana. The facility houses several economic, business development organizations and community planning resources. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: Employment and Training Administration (ETA)--Training & Employment Services

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Tulane University

Address of Requesting Entity: 6823 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70118

Description of Request: I have secured $250,000 for Tulane University. The funding is for the establishment of a Community Health Worker Training Institute as a component of the Tulane/ RAND Center for Health & Society in Louisiana. The Institute will benefit the region in three key areas: reduced healthcare costs, increased worker productivity, and job creation. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: Employment and Training Administration (ETA)--Training & Employment Services

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: West Jefferson Medical Center

Address of Requesting Entity: 1101 Medical Center Boulevard, Marrero,

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on Congressionally-directed project funding, I am submitting the following information regarding project funding I requested for Southeast Louisiana as part of the Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act

Account: Federal Highway Administration, Delta Regional Transportation Development Program

Name of Requesting Entity: Regional Planning Commission

Address of Requesting Entity: 1340 Poydras Street, Ste. 2100, New Orleans, LA 70112

Description of Request: I have secured $400,000 for the Regional Planning Commission. The project entails the construction of a new interchange at I-12 & LA Highway 1088. The Project is needed to alleviate severe congestion along LA Highway 59 & the Mandeville/Abita Springs roadway networks. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act

Account: Federal Highway Administration, Delta Regional Transportation Development Program

Name of Requesting Entity: Regional Planning Commission

Address of Requesting Entity: 1340 Poydras Street, Ste. 2100, New Orleans, LA 70112

Description of Request: I have secured $400,000 for the Regional Planning Commission. The funding is to upgrade transportation and drainage on Clearview Parkway (LA Highway 3152) at the interchange area with Earhart Expressway (LA Highway 3139) in the Elmwood area of Jefferson. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise

Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act

Account: Housing and Urban Development, Economic Development Initiatives

Name of Requesting Entity: South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission

Address of Requesting Entity: 1340 Poydras Street, Ste. 2100, New Orleans, LA 70112

Description of Request: I have secured $100,000 for the South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission. The funding will provide for a bulk- head along the southern end of the facility adjacent to the North Pass Channel. The area is vulnerable to tidal surges and unpredictable/ irregular weather patterns and the damages must be eliminated in order to utilize the facility. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

I want to thank the gentleman from California for yielding time and for the comments that he made earlier against the bill and the rule. And I rise, as well, in opposition to the bill because this bill, this

PAYGO bill as it's dubbed, does nothing to control spending. I strongly believe we need to get our fiscal house in order.

I think if you look at the actions of this administration since President Obama became President in January and Speaker Pelosi continued her reign, and she has been in office for 2\1/2\ years now as the Speaker, Harry Reid over in the Senate as well, you have seen spending get out of control here in this Congress, and it's done so under PAYGO.

The PAYGO rule that they are trying to put into law has gotten us to a point today where we're facing a $1.8 trillion, with a ``T,'' deficit.

Just last week the Federal deficit this year exceeded $1 trillion. These are numbers that have never been seen before in the history of our country, and it all happened under this rule that we're hearing all of these Fourth of July speeches about how great PAYGO is and how PAYGO is going to require fiscal responsibility. We have PAYGO today, and it has given us a $1.8 trillion deficit this year.

And so what I proposed in the Rules Committee last night was an actual ability to require some strict discipline on PAYGO by taking out the exemptions, the loopholes. You would ask yourself if we've got PAYGO, and if the people on the other side that are talking about it and they say how wonderful it's going to be, well, if it's so good, how could it have yielded us a $1.8 trillion deficit?

That's because PAYGO is a hoax. PAYGO is waived every time they want to spend money that we don't have. So they simply waive it. In fact, in the stimulus bill earlier this year, the largest spending bill in the history of our country, $787 billion of money that we don't have, it was rammed through Congress. Not one person who voted for it had the opportunity to read it, but the President said it had to be done quickly because it's going to create millions of jobs. Well, we've seen now that is a failure.

Where are the jobs? Two million more Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus bill passed. And the bill passed without the funding in place, without any kind of offsets, no cuts at all; in fact, $787 billion of new spending under the PAYGO rule.

So you would ask yourself if PAYGO is so good, how could a $787 billion unfunded bill pass under that rule? Well, that's because they simply waived the rule. It's right here in the rule that they passed on the stimulus bill. Many of the people that are coauthors of this bill were happy to vote to waive it, and they were able to waive it with a simple majority vote. And this bill that they're talking about today has the same language that still allows PAYGO to be waived any time they feel like looking the other way.

And you would say, Oh, they wouldn't do that. Well, sorry to tell you, in the last Congress, 12 times they waived PAYGO.

So 12 times in the last Congress alone they waived PAYGO by a simple majority vote.

I had an amendment last night in the Rules Committee to require a three-fifths vote to say if you really want to install fiscal discipline, then put a high bar so you can't just waive it every time you want to spend money you don't have. Guess what? Not one person on the other side supported that amendment.

I've cosponsored a constitutional amendment that requires that we balance our Federal budget. Many States have a similar fiscal discipline that's placed in their constitutions. Unfortunately, we don't have anything like that here in Washington, and the results are that this Congress is spending at unprecedented levels that's led to these debts.

And one other hidden secret about PAYGO. It is allowed to cut spending. Some people around here don't know what cutting spending means; they just keep growing spending. But when PAYGO has been used, 34 times in the last Congress it was used not to cut spending but to raise taxes.

So once again, not only is PAYGO a hoax, it doesn't stop spending from being out of control at all because it's been waived every time they wanted to spend money, like in the stimulus bill, but 34 times in the last 2 years, PAYGO was used to raise taxes on American families.

And so if you wonder why your tax burden keeps going up and up and up and then you've got this thing called PAYGO that sounds really good and you hear all of these Fourth of July speeches on the other side about fiscal discipline, well, fiscal discipline to them means raising taxes on American families or just waiving it when you feel like spending money that you don't have.

The American people deserve better. They deserve honesty and transparency in their government, not some bill that purports to be about fiscal discipline and yet can be waived any time they want to just look the other way. And judging by history, they've waived it every time they wanted to spend money that this country doesn't have.

We can hear about George Bush all day and about Republicans. For the last 2\1/2\ years the Democrats have been running Congress. Nancy Pelosi has been the Speaker. Harry Reid has been the Senate President and Barack Obama today is the President, and in the last 6 months we've seen spending at unprecedented levels with a $1.2 trillion deficit. PAYGO is a hoax. Let's get real fiscal discipline.

I want to thank my friend Mr. Akin from Missouri for yielding and for hosting this hour to talk about health care.

Just earlier tonight, we heard President Obama talking about the latest rendition of his story to the American people about what this bill does and doesn't do. I think what you're seeing across the country, though, is people have now started to see the details of the bill.

I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee where we've been debating this bill for a few weeks now. We finally got the text of the bill just a few days ago. In fact, we had a hearing with the Congressional Budget Office last week. The day after the chairman of the committee finally released to the public the details of the bill, when we were talking to the head of the CBO about what the cost of this is to the American people, the head of the CBO acknowledged he didn't even have the opportunity to read the bill, but as he started to go through it----

Well, you know, I think it is changing every day, and the sad part of it is what's not necessarily changing are the details. What is changing is the rhetoric.

Every day they seem to come out and say something just to try to appease the American people. When the American people start looking at the details of this bill, they realize this bill gives a government bureaucrat, this new health care czar they're creating--we're not even talking about Cabinet Secretary post, somebody who is actually confirmed by the Senate. We're talking about a Federal bureaucrat, a health care czar, gives this health care czar the ability to take away your insurance if you like it. And so the President will go give a speech and say if you like what you have, you can keep it. The problem is his bill gives the bureaucrat the ability to take your health care away.

Their bill allows this health care czar to ration health care on Americans, and so American people are looking at this--and small business. And I talk to small business all the time. I just talked to one a little while ago who watched the President's speech and he said, One of the things that we're sick and tired of is all of these new taxes that they keep adding onto the backs of working people and all of these new mandates that government keeps adding onto the backs of people that are taking away their rights, taking away their health care.

And they see it in this bill. And they give all the speeches they want and all the assurances. The problem is, in the bill, they take away those rights.

Again, I thank my friend for yielding. When we really talk about the numbers, there are lots of big numbers being thrown around, billions and billions of dollars. The CBO, Congressional Budget Office, has already said that the promises of savings--and President Obama has promised lots of savings--as he's read the bill, he's said the promises of savings don't exist.

So you hear the President talking about we're going to squeeze all these savings out. The problem is the bill doesn't yield any savings. What it yields is an increase in Federal spending to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, over $800 billion in new taxes. But this is the bureaucracy that they create.

I think when you really start talking about why the American people, as they're looking at this plan, are turning against this government takeover of health care, this is what really I think offends the American people. This is an organizational chart of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi's proposal to have a government takeover of health care, and I think what frightens people the most--and there are a lot of things about this bill that frighten people across America. The fact that you would have a bureaucrat to ration care.

But I think what is the most offensive, even above the tax increases and above the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending of money that we don't have, is the fact that they're proposing in their bill--this is the doctor and this is the patient. Look at all of the bureaucracy that their bill is placing in between you, the consumer, the patient, and your doctor.

We've got two doctors here tonight joining us from Georgia and Louisiana, and when you look at this organizational chart of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi's proposal to have a government takeover of health care, what offends people the most is the fact that they're placing all of these new Federal bureaucracies, including a health care czar, in between you and your doctor.

And people know, when you look at Canada, when you look at England, people know what that led to. And in fact, just Monday of this week, Monday of this week, a tragic story. A 22-year-old man, 22-year-old man in England died because of England's government-run health care system, very similar to this proposal, denied the ability for that 22-year-old to get a liver transplant. His 44-year-old mother testified how horrible the system is that they have in England, a system that would

allow a 22-year-old man to die because they denied him treatment.

This is the exact same structure. All these Federal bureaucrats unelected here in Washington, D.C., coming in between you, the patient, and your doctor. This is offensive. This is why this is such a horrible idea. We need reforms, but we surely don't need this.

I yield back.

There's one other thing that the President will do with his government takeover of health care if he truly does want to make it revenue-neutral, which it's not. Right now, this bill adds hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit, and the number grows every day. The number is in the $200 billion range right now, but we know, by the end of this week, it's probably going to be higher.

What the President will do is ration care. In this bill, he has got this health care czar--it's in his bill--with the power to ration care. So if he is going to control costs to make sure that it doesn't cost any more, well, we already know he added about $800 billion in new taxes, so every American family and every small businessperson knows they're going to see massive tax increases. That's bad enough. That's going to lead to millions of jobs lost in this country.

Even with all of that, his bill costs so much over $1 trillion that he still doesn't have enough money to make the two ends meet. So, if he truly lives up to his word, then the way he does that is the same way that Canada, England and any other country that has a government-run system does it. They ration care.

There are a lot of statements that have been made by the administration, all of which contradict each other. I think the American people are catching on to the fact that the administration has these focus groups and that they say things that people want to hear. Yet they do the opposite.

Just last week, Vice President Biden said we have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt. Now, any American who balances his budget, which is every American family, knows that's a ludicrous statement; but it's the way that they're governing, and it's the way that this bill approaches this.

In fact, as we've been talking about how much will this bill cost, how much will this government takeover cost, in the Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this week, they had amendments to the bill to actually add even more costs. What are those costs? What is that additional spending that the Vice President talks about that they need to implement to keep from going bankrupt?

They added another $250 million. There was one amendment that a Member on the Democratic side offered in the committee which would create a program that would allow the Federal Government, through this government takeover of health care, to create a new program to allow for individual organizations like Planned Parenthood--and we asked if Planned Parenthood and if groups like ACORN would be able to access this program, and they said yes. It would allow groups like Planned Parenthood to have access to $250 million in a new Federal program-- money we don't have--to teach teenage girls how to use condoms. By the way, this would be without the permission of their parents.

So imagine you're looking at this budget deficit spiraling out of control and at this spending in Washington spiraling out of control, and the President brings this government takeover of health care and says, We're not going to pass a bill that doesn't control costs. Yet there was an amendment that they passed. Not one Republican voted for this amendment. Those of us who are pro-life were highly offended by it, but the amendment passed. It's in the bill. It creates a separate $250 million taxpayer-funded program to allow groups like Planned Parenthood to teach your daughter, without your permission, how to use condoms. It's in their bill to take over health care. That's what's going on with this bill.

The American people are seeing this. That's why they're trying to ram this bill through by the end of next week, without the American people being able to read the bill, because they know when people read this stuff, they're going to revolt. They should because this is a horrible idea.

I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, right now Americans all across the country are dealing with this tough economy, many by tightening their belts and by managing their family budgets. Unfortunately, they are looking to Washington, and they are seeing this Congress that is being run by people that don't get what the American people are dealing with across the country.

Spending is out of control here in Washington by this administration and by this Congress. Look at the proposals that we are debating today. Health care in America needs reforms. But with all of the problems that exist, we still have some of the best medical care in the world. In fact, people that live in countries that have a government-run plan and who have the means, come to America to get care because in those countries, government takeover of health care has led directly to rationing of care. And so what are we facing today? We are facing a plan by the President, Speaker Pelosi and others here to have a government takeover of America's health care system.

When you read this bill, and you hear all of this great rhetoric, you hear the

President saying that if you like the plan you have, you can keep it. The problem is, the bill doesn't allow you to keep your health care plan. There is actually a section in their government takeover that allows a health care czar, some bureaucrat in Washington that was never elected to anything, to be able to take away your health care if they don't think that it complies with these new Federal requirements. So if you like what you have, this health care czar can take it away from you.

In fact, if you're uninsured--and all we hear about is the uninsured and that we need to address the problem of the uninsured, and I agree. The thing is when you really break down the numbers and when you look at who is really uninsured, you get to a number of about 7 million people. Once you strip away the illegal aliens and you take away the people who choose not to get health care who are currently eligible, you end up with 7 million Americans. That is a number we can address without blowing up all of the things that work for over 300 million Americans.

But in their plan, they actually tax some of those very people that are uninsured.

The Congressional Budget Office just gave testimony last week. Unfortunately the chairman of the committee threw the public out of the meeting. It was a secretive meeting that they wouldn't even allow the public to come into. I guess after they heard the testimony, you can see why, because the testimony said, number one, that the costs in this bill are out of control. All of the savings that we heard, that were promised, don't even exist. That's the Congressional Budget Office's testimony.

But then they talked about the taxes, over $580 billion in new taxes on businesses in their health care bill. There's over $240 billion of penalties that would be applied to American families that maybe don't go along with this new government takeover of health care. There's $29 billion of taxes on uninsured people in their bill. The Congressional Budget Office gave the specific testimony that this bill, this government takeover of health care, adds $29 billion in new taxes on the backs of uninsured Americans. And this is as they're running around saying that they want to help uninsured Americans. I know a lot of uninsured Americans out there that don't think $29 billion of new taxes on their backs is the kind of help that they want. When you look at this bill, you start to realize that what they're doing, what they're proposing, is the very government takeover where rationing of care would exist, where a government bureaucrat can get in between the relationship of you and your doctor. It's the same thing that's happened in Canada, it's the same thing that's happened in England, where unfortunately just yesterday we saw the story of a 22-year-old who was denied lifesaving care, denied a transplant by this government bureaucracy that exists in England that rations care.

I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee where this bill is currently being debated. We were in committee till 12:30 in the morning last night. We had an amendment that would have prohibited a Federal bureaucrat in Washington from interfering between the relationship of an American citizen and their doctor. That's the most sacrosanct relationship that should exist. Nobody should come between the relationship between you and your doctor. Yet they voted down that amendment. So clearly this is about rationing. Their proposal is not about reforming health care, because there's bipartisan agreement on the reforms that need to be made to address the real problems that exist in health care. What their bill is about is a government takeover. It's growing government more. It's adding more to the Federal deficit. Hundreds of billions of dollars by CBO testimony would be added to the Federal deficit, at a time when Americans are saying, Congress, Washington, control spending. Get a grip. People saw that the stimulus didn't work. There are no jobs.

This bill is a horrible idea. Government should not be taking over our health care system and interfering in the relationship between us and our doctor.

Mr. Speaker, Americans all across the country are asking, where are the jobs? When President Obama brought the stimulus plan before the American people, he said it needed to be rammed down their throats quickly. He didn't allow people even the opportunity to read it. Not one Member who voted for the bill even had the opportunity to read it. But he said, don't worry. Just trust me. It will create millions of jobs.

Well, now 6 months later, 2 million more Americans have lost their jobs since President Obama took the oath of office. And what's their answer? They're talking about another stimulus bill. In fact, just last week, Vice President Joe Biden said, We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.

The American people are starting to understand what's going on here with this Congress, the liberals that are running this place. They realize all they're doing is taxing and spending, and they're not creating jobs. They're running jobs off. The cap-and-trade energy tax would lose 3 million jobs to countries like China. And then they come back with this plan to have a government takeover of our health care system, a plan that would add another $800 billion of new taxes on the backs of American people and run off even more jobs.

The American people know what's going on here. They want jobs, not these crazy liberal policies.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2938, a bill that extends the timeline to bring this hydroelectric power plant project in Illinois on line. It gives them another up to 6 years, and ultimately, this would be the decision of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But as they're going through the process right now of permitting and approval, this provides them an additional 6 years to make sure that the project has enough time to get approved and completed and bring this new power source on line.

I would like to yield 3 minutes to my friend from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I would like to yield 3 minutes to a cosponsor of this bill, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

(Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I would yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I'm prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I again rise in support of the legislation dealing with hydroelectric power. I think it is important, as we are talking about energy, that we really talk about the need to get a comprehensive national energy policy in our country. It is not just enough to promote hydroelectric power. It is not just enough to look at any one significant source of power. We need to look at all of the resources in our land. In fact, the inscription by Daniel Webster right above the Speaker's rostrum talks about the need to explore the resources of our land. Unfortunately, there are many Federal laws and barriers in place that prevent us from doing just that. This cap-and- trade national energy tax imposes even more barriers. In addition to imposing significant taxes on to the backs of American people in the form of higher utility rates and bureaucratic regulations, it will run millions of jobs out of this country.

That's not the right approach. What we need is a comprehensive energy policy. I'm proud to be a cosponsor, with many other of my colleagues, of the American Energy Act, a bill that we filed earlier this year to take that comprehensive approach to a national energy policy, one that looks at all of the alternatives. We explore more technologies for wind, for solar, for hydroelectric and for nuclear power. We use our natural resources, like oil and natural gas, to get to that bridge to fund those other alternatives. We use the things that we have here today to get us to those technologies that aren't yet readily available to power our homes or to run our cars. But hopefully one day, through the use of these technologies, we will advance the utilization of the natural resources we have in our country to create jobs.

Our bill would actually create jobs and generate billions of dollars to the Federal Government, not by raising taxes, but by actually creating more economic opportunities by creating jobs and getting people back to work so that they can contribute and pay into and pay down this debt as opposed to raising the debt and running off jobs.

So I would hope that we would support and get to a place where we can actually get agreement in a bipartisan way to pass a bipartisan bill like the American Energy Act that actually takes a comprehensive approach to solving our national energy needs and reducing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil--rather than this tax approach, this cap-and-trade energy tax that actually would make countries in Europe, the Middle East and China more powerful and put America further at risk--so we can get our strengthened energy policy and we can get energy independence. But we need to have a bipartisan approach, not this cap-and-trade energy tax that literally would run millions of jobs out of our country.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.