Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, a government is what it spends, and a government without a budget is a government without direction. A highly intelligent man once put it this way: ``If you can't budget, you can't govern.'' The man responsible for those words was none over than John Spratt, the Democratic chairman of the House Budget Committee. He made that statement 4 years ago.

Likewise, 4 years ago now-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, ``Enacting a budget is the most basic responsibility of governing.''

Mr. Speaker, in the interest of bipartisanship let me just strongly affirm the sentiments of my Democrat colleagues in this case. As we now find ourselves well over a month past the April 15 budget deadline, with essentially no progress to be shown on any budget, something that hasn't happened in 35 years, truly this tax-and-spend Democrat majority is failing the most basic responsibility of governing and is categorically demonstrating its inability to govern in any responsible way.

Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve better.

I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, the ominous intersection of Jihadist terrorism and nuclear proliferation has been inexorably and relentlessly rolling toward America and the free world for decades.

We now find ourselves living in a time when the terrorist state of Iran is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. If that occurs, all other issues will be wiped from the table because whatever challenges we have in dealing with Iran today will pale in comparison to dealing with an Iran that has nuclear weapons.

Yet, Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration seems to remain asleep at the wheel. We see repeated signals that the Obama administration may already be adopting a policy of containment. It is beyond my ability to express the danger of such a policy. I am afraid that the last window we will ever have to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is rapidly closing.

While it is unlikely that the bill before us will be enough to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons by itself, it is a step in the right direction, and I applaud its sponsors. I only pray that the Obama administration will wake up in time to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear armed nation, from threatening the peace of the human family, and from bringing nuclear terrorism to this and to future generations.

Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

You know, I've been trying to follow some of the conversation here, and I think that everything you've said has a profound significance, and I appreciate it.

I know this is a general discussion about missile defense, about our nuclear posture and about the concerns that we have related to Iran. The recent summit that was here in Washington essentially, or ostensibly, was about trying to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Yet the reality is that this ominous intersection of jihadist terrorism and nuclear proliferation has been inexorably and relentlessly rolling toward America and the free world for decades, and it is now a menace that is almost upon us. I believe that it represents the gravest short-term threat to peace and security of the entire human family in the world today; and I believe that the Islamic Republic of Iran, due to the jihadist ideology of its leaders, represents a particularly significant danger to America and her allies.

President Ahmadinejad was speaking to the whole world when he said that, You, for your part, if you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, recognize the Iranian nation's greatness, and bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will later force you to surrender and bow down.

Now, that makes me a little nervous given the fact that Iran has recently begun to enrich uranium really beyond 20 percent now, which is four times the necessary enrichment percentage for peaceful purposes, and it puts them at about 90 percent of the way there for being able to have fissile material for nuclear weapons.

So I just have to say it's a difficult thing, especially difficult for me in some ways, because I stood at that podium there 5 years ago, and I called upon the country to refer Iran to the Security Council. The guess is, at that time, they had probably less than 164 centrifuges, and now they have 8,000. Of course, as my good friend from Missouri knows, 3,000 is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that can be used as a platform for a full-scale industrial program capable of churning out dozens of nuclear warheads per year.

I guess I'll yield back here, but I would say this: what we are really facing with Iran is a jihadist nation with leaders who threaten the whole world, who threaten the peace of Israel, who threaten to wipe them out. It is now developing an industrial base to make dozens of nuclear warheads in the future.

I know people say, Well, that's over a year away or 2 years away or 3 years away. Well, let's pretend for a moment that that's correct. I'm not sure that having something that will change the world that dramatically and then all of humanity that significantly which is only 2 or 3 years away is cause for celebration. It's especially concerning when you consider the fact that, throughout history, especially in the case of, say, like North Korea, our timetables have always been wrong. We've always thought, well, it was going to take them a lot longer than it did. Anyway, at this point, I would just suggest to you that, I think, this is a profoundly significant issue.

I yield back to my friend, the gentleman from Missouri.

Well, certainly, I am, and I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The RNEP, or robust nuclear Earth penetrator, which you mentioned, was something that many of us advocated for in the past because we wanted to make sure that we could hold assets like Natanz or the facility at Qum in Iran. We wanted to be able to be sure that we could hold that at risk so that they didn't think that they could build nuclear weapons without any danger to them. This is a particularly significant situation, so I couldn't agree with you more.

Of course, you mentioned missile defense. You're talking about the delivery mechanisms as far as where the bomb goes off. That's a very, very important point; but there is another one, which is the timing. That's being able to deliver something realtime, in other words, on demand. See, that's what gives them a strategic capability, which is if they can say, Okay, your city--New York, or whatever it might be--is 30 minutes from our ICBM capability, and it's always aimed at us.

See, if we have nuclear missile defense capability, then it is no longer as much of a strategic threat and it devalues that program pretty profoundly. And when a country like Iran, that is facing great dangers from the outside world anyway if they become nuclear armed like Israel or others, then perhaps that becomes a part of their calculus, and perhaps it keeps them from moving forward with their nuclear power program in the first place.

Unfortunately, this administration, and you know, I just got to tell you, this administration cancelled our efforts in Europe to be able to have the capability to interdict missiles coming from Iran, whether it was going to be to protect our forward deployed troops, or to be able to protect Europe, and certainly if they gain the ICBM capability, to protect the United States. And it is astonishing to me that we did that, because we have no system that can really be built in time to go into their calculus in the meantime.

So while some of the greatest security threats in a generation are coming up on our generation, the Obama administration seems to be busy insulting our friends and emboldening our enemies. And all the while taxing and borrowing and spending our economy into a place of such vulnerability that our capacity to respond to these threats in the future will be demonstrably diminished. And when it comes to the growing incontrovertible danger of a nuclear-armed Iran, I would just tell my good friend that this Obama administration has been asleep at the wheel.

I thank the gentlewoman so warmly.

It's very difficult for me to add anything to the very touching words of the gentleman from Indiana and from the very kind and loving words of the gentlewoman from Ohio. This is one of those issues, obviously, where we stand together, and it transcends any political parties. And tonight we mourn with Poland because they have shown themselves to be some of the most brave, noble people in the history of humanity; and I can't express just, as with you, how we are all deeply saddened by the tragedy that has befallen them.

Now, just this past Saturday, of course, it doesn't seem like it could have happened that recently, but we were all stunned when the Polish Air Force flight carrying 96 passengers, of course including the Polish President, Lech Kazczynski, and his wife, Maria. They went home together. The Polish Military Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of Poland's National Security Bureau, and numerous other Polish public servants, all of them crashed and their lives ended suddenly, and I suppose it's a reminder to all of us of our own mortality and also a reminder to us of how difficult it is to lose people that have led such a noble country.

Now, of course, it's impossible for any of us to stand here and say anything that will really make sense of such an unexpected tragedy. But as Americans continue to stand in solidarity with the Polish people and with the families and friends of those taken all too soon by Saturday's crash, perhaps we can come away from this horrific event reminded uniquely of that strong bond that both of you spoke of that's shared by the United States and Poland.

And I am reminded of the words of G.K. Chesterton reflecting upon the value of an ally. He said, ``There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having just one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.''

I think in a sense throughout history when we have had a firm knowledge that Poland stood with America for the cause of freedom it always made us feel like we were outnumbered, whoever was before us, and there can sometimes be a tendency among those of us in public service to focus our attention almost exclusively on the bad things that are happening all around us and all the wrongs that need to be righted. But sometimes in doing so, perhaps we occasionally lose sight of all the good things, the friends that we have in the world that share our common commitment to the ideal of freedom for everyone. And truly the United States has and has always had that kind of an ally in the nation of Poland, a friend that has continuously provided strong support to the United States both diplomatically and militarily.

And, of course, as both of you have said, it's a tragic irony that those on board the Polish air flight were on their way to remember another dark day in their nation's history 70 years ago when 20,000 of their precious predecessors of Poles were brutally killed by a Communist regime. But because of those experiences, the people of Poland, including President Lech Kazczynski, who from a young age fought against the forces of communism within Poland, they have been a freedom-loving people who understand as well as perhaps anyone what it means for a brutal regime to attempt forcibly to suppress the light of liberty, and that shared value goes to the heart of what our Founding Fathers in America believed when they established this great Nation.

So, Mr. Speaker and the gentlewoman from Ohio and the gentleman from Indiana, I just want to stand with you and hope all of us take time to remember this steadfast alliance between Poland and the United States of America. They are our friends, and the families of those on board the crash we know tonight mourn the premature death of their loved ones. But every American stands together with them in saying that the nation of Poland and those most directly affected by this tragedy remain deeply in our prayers.

God bless Poland and God bless both of you.

You know, Mr. Speaker, it is sad that the chains of bondage are often too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. History has shown humanity to be susceptible to malignant dangers that approach inaudibly and nestle among us until the day of sudden calamity comes and finds us empty-handed, brokenhearted, and without excuse. The ominous intersection of jihadist terrorism and nuclear proliferation has been inextricably and relentlessly rolling toward America and the free world for decades. Mr. Speaker, this menace is now nearly upon us, and it represents the gravest short-term threat to the peace and security of the human family in the world today.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, due to the jihadist ideology of its leaders, represents a particularly significant danger to America and her allies. It was 31 years ago that the Iranian Revolution occurred, and that nation's relentless march to jihad was born. Shortly thereafter, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a few other Islamic revolutionaries led a student revolt that shocked and defied the world when they kidnapped and held 53 American hostages for 444 days. Then during the Iraq-Iran war, Mr. Speaker, the Iranian regime again shocked the entire world with its brazen barbarity when reports surfaced that Iran was clearing the way for its tanks by using a force they referred to as the Basij. This was a phalanx formation of child soldiers and old men that they would recruit from the streets with promises of glorious rewards for their self-sacrifice. This was signified by plastic keys that were given to the children to wear around their necks in order for them to unlock the gates of heaven as they marched to their own bloody deaths.

Between 1980 and 1988, Mr. Speaker, Iran's radical leaders sacrificed an estimated 100,000 innocent Iranian children in this gruesome process. Row upon row would be marched into battle, falling under the rapid fire of the enemy's machine guns and clearing minefields with their own bodies to make way for Iranian tanks. This, Mr. Speaker, is the ideology that gives rise to Iran's now-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Those radicalized, brainwashed, Basij forces have now come of age and are among Mr. Ahmadinejad's strongest supporters. And today the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran has now led his Nation to become the world's largest sponsor of terrorism.

President Ahmadinejad was speaking to the whole world when he said, ``And you for your part, if you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, recognize the Iranian nation's greatness and bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will later force you to surrender and bow down.''

How can we possibly trust such a man to have his finger on a button that could launch nuclear missiles aimed at our families? And how would we negotiate with a nuclear Iran when their jihadist ideology considers Armageddon a good thing and believes that it is God's will for them to annihilate America and Israel? Despite claiming to desire peace, Ahmadinejad has consistently undermined every advancement toward peace in the Middle East by supporting terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Shiite insurgents, and militias in Iraq responsible for killing and maiming U.S. and coalition forces and countless innocent citizens.

What possesses us, Mr. Speaker, to believe that they would not do the very same with nuclear weapons? Mr. Speaker, Iran has recently begun to enrich uranium to beyond 20 percent, which is four times the amount necessary for peaceful domestic energy production. It also means that they are 70 percent of the way to weapons-grade uranium capable of fueling nuclear warheads. Iran's leaders still claim that they're just enriching uranium for solely peaceful intentions, Mr. Speaker. But the IAEA put it this way: ``We are being asked to believe that Iran is building uranium enrichment capacity to make fuel for reactors that do not exist.''

Over the last several years, Iran has shifted its stories with each well-documented discovery about its enrichment efforts by the IAEA. First it claimed it had no centrifuge program whatsoever. Then it claimed it had only done a limited amount of centrifuge testing. And now we know, in fact, that Iran possesses not a few but thousands of centrifuges. Mr. Speaker, if the Iranian enrichment program is only for producing nuclear power plants for fuel, why have they continuously deceived the world and hidden it for three decades?

With its languishing economy and literally centuries worth of natural gas reserves, Iran's claim that it seeks nuclear capability solely for peaceful purpose is ridiculous beyond my ability to express, Mr. Speaker. Iran has disregarded three previous rounds of security council sanctions and has repeatedly misled the IAEA.

They have built underground enrichment facilities at that Natanz and the newly discovered underground facility at Qom, and they've continued to test the long-range ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver a nuclear payload.

Mr. Speaker, back in 2005, I stood on this floor and called for Iran to be referred to the United Nations Security Council. At that time Iran had fewer than 150 centrifuges. Today the Iranian program now includes over 8,000 centrifuges. And only a total of maybe 3,000, Mr. Speaker, is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that can be used as a platform for a full scale industrial program capable of churning out enough enriched uranium for dozens of nuclear war heads.

The IAEA reports that Iran has already manufactured enough uranium hexafluoride to ultimately manufacture at least 20 nuclear warheads.

It's also been reported that Iran has experimented with polonium, Mr. Speaker. Now, Mr. Speaker, polonium is a radioactive isotope with only one known purpose on this entire Earth, and that is to trigger a nuclear explosion.

Iran has a multiple medium-range ballistic missile program. Based on the success of their medium range Shahab III, Iran is now attempting to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Shahab IV, the Shahab V and the Shahab VI, and the Simorgh two-stage rocket.

The regime only last year successfully launched its first satellite. Mr. Speaker, this is the same technology necessary to integrate a nuclear warhead and an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this brings me to something even more ominous. There

is growing evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear high altitude electromagnetic pulse weapon, or an EMP, capability. An EMP attack on America, Mr. Speaker, would consist of a nuclear blast detonated at high altitude which would instantaneously generate an electromagnetic pulse that would be spread out over our homeland at the speed of light with devastating effect. In evidence of this, Iran has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea. It has also tested high altitude explosions using the Shahab III, a test mode consistent with an EMP attack and described the tests as successful. Experts have no other explanation for this type of test than that it was an effort to develop an EMP capability.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it would only take one such weapon properly designed and delivered to critically damage our country's electrical grid. According to some experts in such a scenario, an estimated percentage of 70 to 90 percent of the population of the United States would become unsustainable.

Mr. Speaker, it is impossible for me to even wrap my mind around that figure or that scenario. Now, for those who are unfamiliar with the high altitude electromagnetic pulse threat, let me extensively quote for a moment Dr. William Graham, the chairman of the EMP Commission who testified before the House Armed Services Committee on the threat to the United States from an EMP attack. He states: ``EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. The electromagnetic fields produced by EMP weapons deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which American society depends. Their effects on critical infrastructures could be sufficient to qualify as catastrophic to the Nation.

A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack without really having a high level of sophistication. For example, an adversary would not have to have long-range ballistic missiles to conduct an EMP attack against the United States. Such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the U.S. coast using a short- or medium-range missile to loft a nuclear warhead to high altitude.

Mr. Speaker, I just don't know how to put it any clearer. Terrorists sponsored by a rogue state could potentially execute such an attack, and they could do so without even revealing their identity.

Mr. Speaker, an effective EMP attack on America would send this Nation back to the horse and buggy era without the horse and buggy. For terrorists, this is their ultimate goal. An EMP, I am afraid, could be the ultimate asymmetric weapon.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there are two things in history that have supercharged worldwide recruitment and incitement for jihad. First was the taking of our hostages in Iran. And second was the tragedy that occurred on 9/11.

A nuclear attack on Israel or America would activate and accelerate jihad worldwide in ways that we can only begin to imagine. If Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons, our entire world reality changes, Mr. Speaker.

First, containing nuclear proliferation becomes almost hopeless. President Obama's idyllic vision of working toward a nuclear-free world would be absolutely dead. Iran is a threshold state, and its nuclear program is already on the brink of catalyzing nuclear proliferation throughout the entire Middle East. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey all have signaled their interest or intent to become a nuclear power if Iran does. Ahmadinejad is in fact quoted as saying, ``Iran is ready to transfer nuclear know-how to other Islamic nations due to their need.''

A nuclear Iran also means the Arab-Israeli peace process would be dead. Our security assurances to our allies in the region would be drastically weakened, and America might well be forced to extend its nuclear umbrella, Mr. Speaker.

Moreover, any leverage over the Iranian dictatorship that we might once have possessed will now be completely lost.

Mr. Speaker, if Iran attains nuclear weapons capability despite our demands that its nuclear program be dismantled, what reason will that regime ever have again to believe America's word actually means anything?

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, there is more. Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, and it continues to brazenly provide support, whether finances, weapons or warfighters, to its proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadist terror groups.

It should send a chill down our spines to consider that the same willingness Iran has demonstrated to proliferate missile technology to its terrorist proxies would undoubtedly also become a willingness to proliferate nuclear weapons technology to those same terrorists.

Mr. Speaker, in 1988, Osama bin Laden called it a religious duty for al Qaeda to acquire nuclear weapons. Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said, ``My worst nightmare is terrorists with nuclear weapons. Not only do I know they are trying to get them, but I know they will use them.''

This is the greatest danger of all, Mr. Speaker. If Iran does step over that nuclear threshold, rogue regimes and terrorists world over will then have the access to these monstrous weapons. No wonder the State of Israel is concerned.

Mr. Speaker, Israel remains the truest friend America has in this world. And yet, in recent days, Israel has received more open rebuke from the Obama administration for plans to build houses in Jerusalem than Iran has received for building a secret uranium enrichment facility to build nuclear weapons that would threaten the entire world. It astonishes me, Mr. Speaker. And may I remind this administration that Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is the capital of the nation of Israel founded and built by the ancient people of Israel 3,000 years ago. And when this administration criticizes Israel, do they not understand that Israel's enemies and ours see it as weakening of the Israeli-American alliance and an opportunity to boldly advance violence against Israel and the hegemony of our common enemies in the Middle East.

Israel and America need each other now as much as we ever have, Mr. Speaker, because nuclear Iran presents a threat to the paradigm of freedom for the entire world, and it truly represents a fundamental existential threat to the State of Israel.

A Jewish author, Primo Levi, was once asked what he had learned from the Holocaust. He replied, When a man with a gun says he's going to kill you, believe him.

At this moment, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who, in the same breath, both denies the Holocaust ever occurred and then threatens to make it happen again, is arrogantly holding a gun with which he vows to wipe the State of Israel off the map.

In June of 2008, Ahmadinejad again made clear where he stands. ``Israel,'' he declared, ``is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene.''

Ahmadinejad has also said, ``Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury.''

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said, ``We have discovered how to hit the Jews, where they are most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we will take away from them. We are going to win because they love life and we love death.''

Mr. Speaker, indeed it seems that Hitler's ghost still walks through the streets of Tehran.

In December 2001, former Iranian President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani was commenting on the possibility of an Israeli retaliation after an Iranian nuclear strike. He said, ``The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely while the same against the Islamic world would only cause damages. Such a scenario is not inconceivable.''

Mr. Speaker, the small nation of Israel could fit geographically into my congressional district almost three times. An Iranian Shahab III missile can reach Israel in 12 minutes. If Iran can develop and attach a medium-size nuclear warhead to that missile, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem could be ashes within 15 minutes after the missile was launched from Iran. If the warhead was detonated above the atmosphere over Israel in an EMP attack, the entire Jewish nation could be completely incapacitated. Israel missile defenses

would only have about a 50-50 chance of knocking down even just the first of such missiles.

Mr. Speaker, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said many years ago: ``In our long war with the Arabs, Israel has always had a secret weapon: no alternative.''

Mr. Speaker, Israel has very few options and no margin for error.

Israel understands that Iran is currently ruled by a regime whose present leaders embrace an evil, poisonous ideology that causes mothers to leap for joy when their children blow themselves to pieces so they can kill other innocent human beings. And a responsible Israeli leader facing a mortal threat from a nuclear armed terrorist state will do whatever is necessary to defend his people.

Mr. Speaker, Israel will not be made to walk silently into the gas chambers again.

And when the day comes when the head of Israeli intelligence tells the prime minister that Iran is on the brink of an operational nuclear weapons capability, Israel will act, and in their own self-defense, and no one will have any right to blame them.

So let me say this, Mr. Speaker: If and when the people of Israel find themselves with no time left and no choice but to defend themselves by taking preemptive military action to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, the Obama administration will owe an apology to the whole world for failing to act, but especially to Israel for leaving them with no choice but to act on behalf of all of us.

America and the western world will then have a moral responsibility to stand with Israel in whatever follows.

Mr. Speaker, there is a moment in the life of every problem when it is big enough to be seen by a reasonable person and still small enough to be solved. Almost 5 years ago, I stood at this podium and called upon the United States to recognize that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons and should be referred to the Security Council. Soon thereafter, Iran announced it had enriched uranium using an array of 164 centrifuges. Today, Iran has over 8,000 centrifuges.

Mr. Speaker, our predictive timetables have also often been wrong altogether. Both North Korea and Iran stunned the international community with the extent and rapidity of their development of missile capabilities. In 1998, the intelligence community said North Korea was years away from developing long range missiles. And then on August 31 of that same year, North Korea launched a Taepodong-1 missile that landed between Japan and Hawaii. And of course, Mr. Speaker, North Korea now has nuclear weapons.

Today it is also clear that the 2007 NIE report on Iran woefully underestimated the urgency of the Iranian nuclear threat. My point, Mr. Speaker, is so very simple. We are running out of time to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

But where is the Obama administration? While some of the greatest security threats in a generation are rushing upon this one, the Obama administration has been busy insulting our friends and emboldening our enemies, all the while taxing and borrowing and spending our economy into such a place of vulnerability that our capacity to respond to these threats in the future will be demonstrably diminished. And when it comes to the growing incontrovertible danger of a nuclear armed Iran, this administration has been asleep at the wheel, Mr. Speaker.

During Mr. Obama's entire tenure, the administration's policy toward Iran has been appeasement, denial, broken deadlines, and talk of sanctions. And now just today--just today--the Wall Street Journal reports that the administration actually plans to soften its position on sanctions toward Iran.

Mr. Speaker, it is becoming very clear that the Obama administration has now embraced an unspoken policy of allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons and is even now preparing to embrace a policy of containment afterwards. This administration's refusal to make the hard choices now translates into capitulation and acquiescence to Iran's fanatical goal. What an inexplicably naive and inexpressibly dangerous policy.

Whatever challenges there are in dealing with Iran today, Mr. Speaker, they will pale in comparison to the dangers of dealing with them after they have gained nuclear weapons. Because once that threshold is crossed, Mr. Speaker, Iran will be able to pass that technology and those weapons on to the most dangerous terrorists in the world. And this administration and so many to come will face the horrifying reality of nuclear jihad. And those of us who have been blessed to walk in the sunlight of freedom in this day will be consigning our children to walk in the minefield of nuclear terrorism tomorrow. If the Obama administration allows this to happen, Mr. Speaker, future generations will remember it as a treacherous betrayal of the entire human family.

Seven decades ago, a murderous ideology arose in the world. The dark shadow of the Nazi swastika fell first upon the Jewish people of Germany. And because the world did not respond in time to such an evil, it began to spread across Europe until it lit the fires of World War II and the hell on earth that followed. It saw atomic bombs fall on cities and over 50 million people dead worldwide. All because, Mr. Speaker, the world's free people did not respond in time.

History has taught us that evil ideologies must ultimately be defeated in the minds of human beings, but in the meantime they must often be defeated upon the battlefield.

Mr. Speaker, our choice with Iran is no longer a choice between the way the world is now and the way the world might be after a military strike to prevent them from gaining nuclear weapons. No, our ultimate choice now is between what the world will be like after a preemptive strike on Iran or what the world will be like after Iran gains nuclear weapons.

Mr. Speaker, we are out of time. America must absolutely make the necessary decision to impede Iran's nuclear program through the immediate imposition of comprehensive, coordinated and crippling economic sanctions, both unilaterally and in concert with our allies, to strike at Iran's petroleum trade and its finances. These actions must be taken regardless of our success or failure within the United Nations Security Council.

We must also actively work to support Iran's courageous and noble dissidents and assure them that America stands with them in their quest for democracy and freedom. Their protests represent what may be one of the very last remaining hopes for peacefully destabilizing the regime and sending it toppling into the dust of history once and for all.

But finally, Mr. Speaker, let there be no mistake. It must be unequivocally clear to the radical leaders of Iran that military action will occur if they continue in their maniacal pursuit of nuclear weapons.

For these reasons, I have introduced a bill called the Peace Through Strength Act which would express support for the Iranian dissidents and would significantly expand economic sanctions against Iran and those nations that continue to do business with Iran including in banking and in oil. My bill would also require that the Secretary of Defense would be required to develop and maintain viable military options to prevent the successful development or deployment of a nuclear weapons capability by the Government of Iran.

So in closing, Mr. Speaker, may I remind us all that we face an enemy in jihad that's even more insidious than Soviet communism and we live in a time when a terrorist state is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. I think Brink Lindsey said it best. He said, ``Here is the grim truth. We are only one act of madness away from a social cataclysm unlike anything our country has ever known. After a handful of such acts, who knows what kind of civilizational breakdown might be in store?''

Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that the last window we will ever have to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is very rapidly closing.

So I end my comments tonight with Winston Churchill's prescient warning to the leaders of his day. He said, ``If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without blood shed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to a moment when you have to fight, with all the odds against and

only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse moment. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is still better to perish than to live as slaves.''

Mr. Speaker, let us resolve for the sake of our children and for future generations that we of this generation will do all within our power to prevent a dark chapter in history being written on our watch and to hasten a day when Iran and its proxies will no longer be able to threaten the world with nuclear jihad, and when the persecuted and repressed and noble citizens of Iran can walk together with free peoples across this world in the sunlight of human liberty. God let it be, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this flawed bill.

Mr. Speaker, today I resolutely intend to vote against H.R. 3590 and H.R. 4872, the imposition of government-run health care on the American people.

It appears that Democrats in this majority are determined to shove this bill down the throats of the American people with not even a single Republican vote. Never has such sweeping legislation--taking over fully one-sixth of our economy--been done with a purely partisan vote. Therefore, whatever ill comes from this bill, history should record that Democrats alone chose the path of socialism over the highway of freedom. Let future generations hold them accountable.

My first reason for voting against this bill will be the conviction in my heart that I will be voting to protect my children, their contemporaries, and generations to come from being forced to live under the socialist ideal of a bill that will dim the light of freedom and suppress many of the hopes they might have otherwise had.

I vote against this bill because it is my deepest conviction that its cost will grow to threaten the entire economy of the United States in the years to come. In every corner of the planet, in every corridor of history, socialized medicine has always cost more, not less. Every government health care program the United States has ever implemented has cost many times the amount that was first predicted.

I am fundamentally convinced that the costs of this bill will so overwhelmingly outpace present predictions that Congress will have no choice but to drastically alter its provisions in the future.

I also intend to vote against this bill because of the provisions in it that will increase the killing of unborn children in the name of health care. Nothing so completely destroys the notion that this bill is about compassion than the arrogant and cruel disenfranchisement of those helpless unborn children who have no voice in this twisted and corrupt process.

It is also my conviction that this bill will reduce the quality of the greatest health care system in the world, and that many of those who support it today will be its victims tomorrow.

Ultimately, this bill is about robbing America of one of its greatest distinctives: freedom of the individual. It's about robbing the American citizen of power, and putting it in the hands of left-wing bureaucrats and elitists who think they know more about running people's lives than the people themselves do.

Finally, I vote against this bill because I believe one day America will look back and see what a tragic mistake that it was. It is my hope that when that occurs, my children and my children's children will know that it was my deepest desire to protect their freedom as faithfully as my father protected mine.

Mr. Speaker, this government health care takeover has been debated on so many fronts. The President says it is to save money; and, yet, Mr. Speaker, in every corner of the planet, in every corridor of history, socialized medicine has always cost more, not less. Every government health care program the United States has ever implemented has cost many times the amount that was first predicted. So if this bill saves money, Mr. Speaker, it will be the first in human history.

Democrat leaders say that the government takeover will increase the quality of health care; and yet once

again, Mr. Speaker, every example in history speaks to the contrary. Those living under socialized medicine across this planet can only dream of living in a free market economy like America, because they know that if they have a cold in their country, they can call a doctor. But if they have something serious like cancer or diabetes or heart disease, they had better call a travel agent and come to America if they possibly can.

Democrat leaders say that this will make health care more accessible to the people, and yet we have testimony from doctors themselves that say that anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of them say that they will quit the practice of medicine if this health care monstrosity passes.

And it will be the poorest of the poor, Mr. Speaker, who will fall off the table when the scarcity of health care resources comes. So much for accessibility.

But the big one, Mr. Speaker. Liberals say that this bill is about compassion to those who can't afford health care. But it is such a false argument, Mr. Speaker, because there are so many ways that we can help those who don't have health insurance without destroying the best health care system in the entire world. One of those would be to wipe out frivolous lawsuits, the savings of which would pay for a Cadillac insurance policy for every last one of the 11 million Americans who say they want health insurance but can't afford it.

And to say this is about compassion, Mr. Speaker, when Democrat liberals are doggedly determined to prevent any amendment that would be included to stop the taxpayer-funded murder of little unborn children is the most insidious distortion of all. Mr. Speaker, nothing so completely destroys the notion that this bill is about compassion than the arrogant and cruel disenfranchisement of helpless unborn children who have no voice in this twisted and corrupt process.

No, Mr. Speaker, this is not about compassion. This bill is about power. It's about robbing the American citizens of power and putting it in the hands of left-wing liberal bureaucrats and elitists who think they know more about running people's lives than the people themselves do. It's about robbing America of one of its greatest distinctives: the freedom of the individual.

I just have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, if left-wing Democrats in this Chamber arrogantly disregard the voice of the American people and shove this socialist obscenity down the people's throat, the people themselves are going to shove it somewhere else in the next election.

But there are still Members, Mr. Speaker, of this body who are going to support this bill anyway because they're willing to sacrifice freedom in the interest of gaining either a political advantage or somehow some free lunch to them in some capacity. And to those, I would just repeat the words of Samuel Adams during the time when there was another great struggle in America over whether the power of the government or the rights of the people would prevail.

During the early days of the Revolution, when America was about to be born, Samuel Adams admonished those who would give up freedom and accept tyranny and government control over their lives in its place. And I repeat this admonition to those who would still intend to vote for this bill. He said, ``If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude more than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands that feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.''

Madam Speaker, to paraphrase James Agee, ``In every child who is born, under no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the entire human race is born all over again.'' The Democrats say compassion is the fundamental motivation behind this government takeover bill. But if compassion was the motivation, Madam Speaker, Democrat leadership would not be so doggedly determined to include the increased taxpayer-funded murder of little unborn children in this bill. Nothing so completely destroys the notion that this bill is about compassion than the arrogant disenfranchisement of those who are helpless and have no voice. It is an unspeakable disgrace.

Madam Speaker, it is obvious that Democrats are determined to ram this bill down the throats of the American people using the so-called Slaughter solution, a shameless political gimmick that would avoid even an up-or-down vote on the bill. But if they do, Madam Speaker, the world will know that it was never about compassion, and Democrats will find that they have dangerously underestimated the American people.

You know, sometimes, Mr. Speaker, those of us in government in our erudite debate forget that all economy is effectively productivity. That is what it is about. And the foundation of productivity in this country is jobs.

Since Democrats took control of this Chamber, almost 7 million jobs have been lost. A year ago, Mr. Obama and the Democrats passed a trillion-dollar stimulus which was supposed to solve the problem, but instead has left us with nearly a 10 percent unemployment rate.

Mr. Speaker, this left-wing Democrat notion that we can borrow, tax, and spend our way into economic prosperity should now be disproven thoroughly in the minds of any reasonable person. Yet we learn today that inexplicably this administration still plans to shove the monstrosity of government-controlled health care down the throats of the American people. This will raise costs, decrease quality, rob the American people of their God-given freedom, rob our children of their future, and it will cost America many, many more jobs, Mr. Speaker. Where will the madness end?

Mr. Speaker, the Thanksgiving thoughts that I offer this evening were written by someone who sacrificed a great deal for someone that they loved. It has really nothing to do with roast turkey or pumpkin or all of the homey images that we have come to equate with this holiday. Tonight, I want to speak of a day whose noble purpose and origins are often lost on those who think of it as only ``Turkey Day.''

The truth is, this national holiday has much more to do with Presidents than it does pilgrims; more to do with our precious freedoms than sumptuous feasts. Yes, it's wonderful to have Thanksgiving dinner with precious loved ones, it's wonderful to have that time with those that we care about, but this was also meant to be a time of giving thanks to God for all of his blessings, including the gift of freedom, something that often gets lost in this season, forgetting it was bought by the blood of past generations of Americans, a sacrifice still borne by so many men and women in the armed services in the battlefield these very moments.

A national day of thanksgiving to God was actually called after America became a Nation by two of our greatest Presidents and Commanders in Chief, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The first one was in 1789, right after this new Nation was still healing from the wounds of the American Revolution. General Washington, who had led those who favored revolution against the will of those who did not, was now seeking to unite a people with a new Constitution as one Nation under God.

There wasn't another national celebration of the day for 74 years and, ironically, it was during the Civil War in 1863, in the midst of one of our greatest national tragedies, that President Abraham Lincoln called for all his ``fellow citizens in every part of the United States to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens'' so ``that God could and should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.''

He went on to say ``We have forgotten God'' and ``It is the duty of nations as well as men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.''

Those words spoken nearly 1\1/2\ centuries ago came from a President who had found his own faith just a few months before. As he walked among the graves of thousands of soldiers who had fallen at the Battle of Gettysburg, his heart had broken over their tragic sacrifice. Abraham Lincoln was a President who deeply valued the lives of all Americans--civilian, slaves, and all soldiers, including everyone who actually fought against him.

The just freedom of hundreds of thousands of slaves had cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. It was an unspeakable sacrifice that weighed so heavily on him, and he believed only God could give him strength to unite the Nation again. He wrote a letter to a friend and said that he had not been a truer believer when he left Illinois to assume the Presidency.

``I asked the people to pray for me,'' he wrote. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.''

Abraham Lincoln understood the high cost of freedom, but counting the cost and trusting God to hold and ultimately heal the Nation, President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in America forever. Mr. Lincoln and George Washington both understood the high cost of freedom and helped to forge a new Nation with unheard of liberties, Mr. Speaker, including the right to disagree. And both of them called the Nation to thank God.

So, Mr. Speaker, as we prepare to go home to our families and loved ones, let us remember what every man and woman in the Armed Forces can tell you personally: freedom is never free. And as we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, let us be thankful to all of those who have died that we might live in freedom--from the American Revolution to this current war we fight against jihadist terrorism. And let us thank the God, from Whom all blessings come, for this marvelous gift we call liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Speaker, I have some prepared remarks tonight about the Pelosi health care reform bill, but you know what I would like to do here in the beginning is just to talk about some things that Republicans believe in.

I have plenty of criticism about Ms. Pelosi's bill, and I will definitely make that known in a few moments; but you know sometimes I think it is incumbent upon all of us in this place, rather than just saying what we're against, to say what we're really for.

Republicans have believed since the beginning of the party that no matter who one was, that they had the right to be free, the right to live, and the right to pursue their dreams. This is something that we have felt was the essence of America from the very beginning. In fact, the Republican Party was born out of a commitment on the part of a group of people that believed that African Americans were human beings deserving of the same protection that all other human beings had, even though the Supreme Court of the United States had said that, under Dred Scott, that Dred Scott, a slave, was not a human being or not a full person under the Constitution.

Of course, you know there was some unpleasantness about that debate, Mr. Speaker; we had a great Civil War in this country. But the commitment on the part of Republicans to restore equal protection to all people regardless of their station in life sustained them in that crucible of that horrible Civil War, and I hope that Republicans will maintain their commitment to that no matter what happens.

We have been debating a great deal on trying to make equal access to health care in this country, and Republicans believe in that with all of our hearts. I've often heard in this Chamber, What are the Republican ideas? They have challenged us and said that we really don't have anything that we believe in, that we are just the Party of No. That is such tragic injustice because there are about 40 bills that have been introduced into this House by Republicans saying what we wanted to do with health care reform, and we have not had the opportunity for any of those bills to be presented on this floor, and oftentimes even our amendments are not allowed.

Mr. Speaker, for a moment let's just ask ourselves, What has given America the most powerful economic engine and force of productivity in the face of human history? It has been that thing called freedom, that thing that allows each person to pursue, to the greatest extent possible, what they believe to be true and good, whether it be in the area of their own self-interest or the area of trying to help other people or in the area of just trying to make a better world, that we believe freedom created innovation, it created a sense of almost dreaming about what could be. That innovation, I think, is probably the most important difference in the effect of the Republican's version and the Democrat version of health care reform.

Republicans believe that when health care is in private hands, that even the providers of health care--sometimes because they want to make money, sometimes because they want to help others--but the providers of health care are always seeking new ways and better ways to do things, new innovation, ways to come up with new, less expensive, but more effective procedures. I think that we all delude ourselves if we believe that we can accomplish making affordable health care available to everyone if we don't focus on this thing called innovation.

Let me, if I could, deviate and give an example, Mr. Speaker. There was a time in America where the government controlled our telephone company. It was true that our telephone company--at that time we called it Ma Bell--was a private company, but it was almost entirely controlled and regulated by government. Of course you know you had one old clunker telephone and you had to dial the number, and of course sometimes the operator would get smart with you if you asked her what time it was. It was a government-run system with all of the attending bureaucratic nightmares.

And the equivalent in today's dollars for long distance would be about $3.10 a minute. It was a real disaster. Now, it was nice just to have a phone system, but the reality is we never really saw a great deal of innovation.

But then, when I was just a young man in the legislature, we decided that maybe it was time to break this thing up and give it to the private sector and see if they couldn't do something better with it. And what happened was profound; we created a system that would serve everyone. In other words, we told those companies that if you're going to provide telephone service, you've got to make sure you provide it

to the senior citizens up in the mountains or something like that that wouldn't be able to compete in the regular process. We've got to make sure that they're taken care of, and they were.

But something else very wonderful happened, Mr. Speaker. When we turned the telephone company and broke it up and said now we're going to let the private sector come up with the innovations that they could and we're going to see if they can provide a better mousetrap for the country, if they can provide better telephone service at a cheaper price, look what happened, Mr. Speaker, look what happened.

Today we have cell phones, almost everyone does. You can pull up the Library of Congress on your cell phone. It is astonishing. The BlackBerrys that we carry around here can send messages anywhere on Earth, and we can even pull up our Web site. Boy, I'll tell you, for those that are narcissistic, that is a great little item. And it is just an amazing thing what has happened.

And guess what else has happened, Mr. Speaker? Today, long distance is around 3 cents a minute; sometimes it's less than that. It's getting to the point where a lot of the companies are just offering a system that you can say, well, you've got unlimited dialing and phone and voice and text now that you can use all you want for $50 a month. Isn't that amazing, Mr. Speaker? But that was because innovation occurred.

I truly believe that this country has shown a proclivity to create innovation that could absolutely revolutionize the health care industry in a way that almost none of us can imagine at this moment. Would we have imagined 25 or 30 years ago that the telephony, the telephone systems of this country, would be so amazingly transformed when we put it into private hands? Now, it was true that some of the people that were in that area were motivated by profit. Some of them made money, some of them lost money, some of them went broke. It was a typical free enterprise situation. All the chaos and the attending realities went along with that. People went broke; people made money. But the end result was the American people were served in a wonderful way and today we have the most magnificent communication systems in the world, and almost everyone takes part in that.

The poorest of the poor have a better life because we deregulated the telephone companies. And it had this magnificent effect on all of America. And now we are able to do things that we never could have done before.

Yet it seems like, when government has something, that innovation is stifled and that the things that would create a better system are somehow suppressed. Because, after all, what is the incentive for innovation in a government-owned system?

If you're a bureaucrat, you have a certain amount of money, and you are tasked with the job of delivering the service in your mission plan. It's not an evil or a bad thing. It's just a bad system. It just doesn't work very well, Mr. Speaker, because the bureaucrat kind of has two options. He is not in charge or she is not in charge of innovation. He is in charge of the delivery system that government doesn't deliver very well.

He has to make kind of a calculation. Well, we've got so much money, and we want to make the services available, and sooner or later, he or she runs out of money from the budget--it always happens--and they have to make some very hard choices. When that occurs, there is rationing or somehow they will distribute it in ways that are more amenable to the budgets that they have. It's just a very difficult situation.

I'm sorry that bureaucrats have that difficulty. It's a difficult thing to be a bureaucrat, and I kind of feel sorry for them, but I don't want to make more of them, Mr. Speaker. I don't want us to lose sight of the greatness of America and forget that it is not too late to make a better world. We cannot give up our freedom and expect that somehow socialist policies will do the same thing for the family of man as this thing called ``freedom'' has done for America. It has never happened.

Any time you have ever turned over any major process to a socialist environment or to a socialist enterprise--that's really a bad word. ``Enterprise'' and ``socialism'' don't belong in the same sentence. Any time you turn it over to a socialist, bureaucratic system--again, ``system'' is probably being pretty charitable--what happens is that all of the ways to improve the system are diminished or are completely eradicated.

So, Mr. Speaker, I think it's important that we don't lose sight of what made us a productive country. In that sense, what Americans need to realize is that there are ways that we can improve the health care system. There are ways that we can fix what is broken without breaking what is working.

About 83 percent of Americans believe that the health care system is working for them. Now, there are many people who simply cannot afford health care insurance, and they need it and they want it. Republicans have come up with a very simple approach to that, and that is either through tax credits or through some type of drafts or vouchers or something along those lines that we can put in the hands of people who cannot afford health care insurance, and we let them then be empowered to go out and to buy health care policies from the private sector which best meet their needs.

Now, there is still a raging debate about how much we should do or how we should do it or if we should do that. I understand that because I think that can move us in a dangerous direction as well, but it is still the safest way that we can use the mechanism of government to somehow provide for those who are less fortunate.

In the final analysis, it is important that we empower the individuals and not empower government, but if we did it the right way, if we could see innovation occur, Mr. Speaker, and if we could put this thing back the way that the Founding Fathers first envisioned it, health care would be one of those magnificent advanced systems in which everybody would be able to go to their own doctors and say, Well, you know, I've got this problem, and they say, Well, you know, we've got this new system that could really fix it.

I'll give you one example, Mr. Speaker. It is something that is completely untested yet, and it is something that isn't finished, and it is something that doesn't work yet, but there is an effort to try to treat cancer in a new way by injecting a substance into the body that disperses throughout all the cells in the body. It even passes the blood-brain barrier, and it literally is able to be disseminated into every cell. Now, that is the theory. I want to emphasize in the strongest possible terms that we don't have this kind of process or procedure yet, and it's too bad that we don't.

In any case, the dream--the hope--is that this substance would disperse throughout the entire body and that the person would be left in a dark environment and that within about 24 hours this substance would disperse out of the body or would be changed in nature to where it would be diminished or dispersed or eliminated and that the only cells which would retain it would be cancer cells and that, when this substance is exposed to very bright light, it would turns toxic and would kill only the cancer cells.

What an incredible idea. What an incredible dream. Now, I know it's a long ways away. I know there will be people who will like to pursue something like that. It's just not available yet, Mr. Speaker, but it could be, I believe. I believe, if we turn the minds of free people loose, that all kinds of wonderful things can happen. Something like that would cost a few thousand dollars, not the tens of thousands or the hundreds of thousands that are spent on advanced cancer surgeries and treatments today. It could change everything. Yet, if we don't allow the free market and free people to pursue those kinds of things, they will never occur, because one thing is very certain in a government-run plan: There are just no pursuits of those kinds of things. That is one of the great tragedies of forgetting that freedom still works.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans believe that there are ways that we can empower individuals to be able to go out and do things for themselves and that we can empower even those who cannot afford health insurance to buy it on their own and that we can still maintain this free market freedom that we talk about so often.

I truly believe in things like allowing us, as individuals in America, to be able to buy our insurance from any insurance company in America. We can't do that now. If you're in one State, you can only buy, in most cases, across the State that you're in. There are about 1,400 or 1,500 insurance companies in this Nation. If we could allow people to buy insurance from any of those, can you imagine the competition that would occur? Can you imagine the ways that they would work to try to be the ones to sell you your insurance? Can you imagine how much nicer they would be on the phone? Can you imagine that, when something would go wrong, they would try to work with you as much as possible because they would know, if they didn't, they would lose your business?

Unlike a private system like that, in a government system, if bureaucrats make you mad, tough luck. It doesn't really matter to them that much. There is no incentive for them to even be kind to you. You only have one place to go, and they know that. They have a monopoly as it were. I just think that that's one of the Republican ideas that could be very helpful.

Another one is just tort reform. You know, a lot of people don't know what that word ``tort'' means, and sometimes I wonder how they came up with that term. It simply means that we would try to have some sort of legal reform that would end these frivolous lawsuits which cause medical malpractice insurance to rise through the roof, and it would make all the difference in the world.

I mean the fact is that just what we could save on stopping frivolous lawsuits, Mr. Speaker, would buy every one of the 11 million people who we are projecting don't have health care insurance, who can't afford it but who would like to if they could, a Cadillac health care insurance policy. I just think that it is astonishing that we don't pursue things in that direction. There are so many things that we can do, and Republicans have some ideas to do that.

I told you, Mr. Speaker, that I have about 15 minutes of prepared remarks on Ms. Pelosi's bill, and I intend to give those, but first, if he would be inclined, I would like to yield to my friend, Congressman Hoekstra, if he is prepared to speak to the issue at all.

Reclaiming my time here, Congressman Hoekstra, the main difference is that that document that you hold in your hand primarily chains down government. It dictates to government, not to the individual. It empowers the individual.

You know, when George Washington and some of the other Founding Fathers put this together, they did something that was singular in history. They were in a position to arrogate all kinds of power under themselves. They had just thrown off the Crown. They had done some amazing things. The people of this Nation loved them, and they could have had any kind of power, any kind of government mechanism, really, that they had tried to put together, but they did something very amazing, and it has changed the world. They said, for once, we are going to empower the individual. We are going to give the individual the rights, and we are going to tell government what it can't do rather than tell the people what they can't do.

If the gentleman would yield, I will give you the exact number. The word ``shall'' appears in this bill 3,425 times.

Mr. Hoekstra, the reality is that word ``shall''

should be pointed out as to what that means in this place. ``Shall'' is the preeminent word of law. In other words, that is, if there is any single word that makes law, it's that word ``shall'' in this place. You can say ``may,'' that's permissive. But ``shall'' or ``shall not,'' those are the key crux of all law in a sense.

It's astonishing to me that we forget that law is force. I had a wonderful friend many years ago that was in the State Senate. He said always remember, Trent--I was a very young man--he said, remember that law is the gun.

He had big envelope on his desk. He had an old World War II pistol in it that was disarmed, and he always pulled it out and he said, The law is the gun. It is force. The word ``shall'' is what puts force to it. When you have this word ``shall'' 3,425 times in a bill, that's a lot of force. That's a lot of government arrogating great power unto itself and taking it away from the people.

Arizona is a donor State.

It's in the low nineties, Mr. Hoekstra.

It seems like what happens every time you send something into the Federal Government for them to send back or disburse, they always whack a little piece of it off as it goes by, don't they?

We don't have many turtles.

We need a rattlesnake fence in Arizona.

I've heard a lot of strange stories about bureaucratic programs, but one that drives peace-loving turtles to suicide is just about too much, isn't it?

Yes, we did.

You know that's right, Mr. Hoekstra. It's amazing to me the parallels that we see in these things. When we talk about education, I think it's pretty significant to remember one basic equation. That is, that one of two people will decide the academic, the spiritual, the philosophical nature or the substance of a child's education. One of two people will decide what that's going to be. It will either be a parent that would pour their last drop of blood out on the floor for that child that they love very much; or it will be a bureaucrat who doesn't even know their name.

I would suggest to you that that's the same thing with this health care bill, that the parallel is profound here. We are either going to have one of two people make decisions in health care. I mean, we might have a little bit more involvement by the doctors, but ultimately the ones that decide what treatment they have or don't have, it's either going to be the patient or some bureaucrat.

Because the patient, when they are talking to their own doctor, if the patient is empowered, they can always go to some other doctor. But when we have this Pelosi nightmare shoved down our throats, I am convinced that all of a sudden those decisions that were better made by the patients will be made by some bureaucrat.

I would suggest that one of the more frustrating things about all of this, like in education, what happens when government controls it is the wealthy can still do pretty much what they want. Wealthy families in this country can choose private schools for their children, because they have the extra money to do it. The poorest of families do not. They are stuck in a system that government controls and runs and almost always makes it substandard because of that reason.

The same thing will happen in health care. The wealthy will figure out some way to get around this. We have offered amendments, as you know, Congressman, in this body to say for those people who either voted for it, or at least Congress, if they are going to have to pass this thing, should have to live under it themselves. Those amendments get voted down overwhelmingly because there are not too many Members of this body who want to live under a government-run health care system. But they are willing to put it on those people who have no choice, and there is something fundamentally wrong about all of that.

It is always amazing to me, if we just happen to be a cursory student of history, that we can look back and see the highway of history is littered with the wreckage of socialist governments that thought they could manage productivity and that they could create a better distribution system than the private market. I don't want to join that litany, and I know you don't either.

You keep making the parallel in education. I think it is kind of interesting that, in Canada, they started this government-run system, and they ran into so many problems that people are now suing to get their freedom back. It is very difficult to get it back. It is the same thing with education.

If they have a cold, they call a doctor up there. If they have cancer or something serious, they call a travel agent.

Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do, I hope in the next hour I will be afforded the opportunity to give my written comments, but I would like, if I could now, to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Garrett.

I think the gentleman is being entirely too cynical. I think the notion that any of the Americans are going to read a 2,000 page bill in the 6 hours that they will have, we have got maybe five speed readers in the country that can do that. So I think you are being too hard on them.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

I will just put this in my own perspective the best I can here. I have always believed, as I know the three of you have, that the true statesmanship was the effort to try to look to the next generation. Someone said that a politician looks to the next election, whereas a statesman looks to the next generation. Some of those issues have been my life. I was the director of what Arizona's version is of a children's department. We've always wanted to try to look to the future and look to next generations. That's why I was so intrigued by the gentleman from Illinois' comments about our birthright, about freedom because I believe of all the tragedies in the Pelosi bill, that the loss in freedom is the big one.

This is not the first time that we have struggled in this country about that. There was a time when the colonists were here that they were oppressed so badly by the Crown of England that they said that we have to somehow break free. But there were those who were afraid, and I understand that. See, they didn't have freedom at that time. They were trying to gain it. They were trying to go against all odds to try to do what they could. But some were afraid.

I will never forget Samuel Adams' words because I think it should apply to all of us here tonight. I think it should apply especially to those on the other side of the aisle that are struggling tonight with how they're going to vote. He said to the colonists who were afraid to fight the King, he said, If you love wealth better than liberty, if you love the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We seek not your counsel or your arms. Crouch down, and lick the hands that feed you, and may your change sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

And I would say today that we need that same call to liberty that they had back then that made them march with bloody feet in the frozen ground to find liberty for us. I have got two little babies at home that are just a little over a year old, and I don't want to throw away their birthright or the freedom that I hope that they will walk in someday. I want them to stand in the light of the freedom that we see on the top of this Capitol dome. May it be.

Well, I certainly thank the gentleman. In the last hour, I tried to talk about some of things that the Republicans were for, but I had made a commitment to give some remarks on the Pelosi health care plan. So I really appreciate everyone's indulgence here because I feel like I'm taking more than my share, but I will make these comments and then I will make myself scarce, if that will be all right.

Mr. Speaker, only 1 week ago, on Friday, October 29, Speaker Pelosi and her fellow liberal Democrats introduced H.R. 3962. But they grossly mislabeled the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The bill would more accurately be entitled, The Big Spending, Big Taxing, Big Entitlement Pelosi Plan for Big Government Takeover of America's Health Care Act.

Despite House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer claiming during their press conference that the health care bill was part of an open and transparent process to reform our health care system, the American people were oddly prohibited from even attending the liberal Democrats' publicity rally on the steps of the Capitol. Mr. Speaker, this really isn't surprising considering the Democrats' habit of closing Republicans completely out of the legislative process and negotiating the provision of this current health care plan behind tightly closed and locked doors.

Mr. Speaker, the new Pelosi plan looks and sounds starkly similar to the Democrats' first attempt at a Big Government takeover of health care, H.R. 3200. That is because essentially it is the same Big Government socialist nonsense Speaker Pelosi introduced months ago, the same plan that caused literally millions of Americans to speak out against it through letters, petitions, protests, and by showing up to register their staunch disapproval at town hall meetings throughout the country all summer and fall.

Now it seems clear that the voice of Americans have fallen upon deaf ears in this House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker, and Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid are determined to shove this partisan nightmare down the throats of the American people.

Now, buried within the contents of this 2,000-page bill as well as a separate 13-page bill that would increase the deficit by more than $200 billion are details that will see a massive Federal intrusion in the health care of every American. For instance, Mr. Speaker, the Pelosi health care plan creates 111 new offices, bureaus, commissions, programs bureaucracies over and above the entitlement expansions. This includes, Mr. Speaker, a government-run insurance program that could cause as many as 114 million people in America to lose their current coverage. The Pelosi health care plan also abolishes the private market for individual health insurance, forcing individuals to purchase coverage in a government-run exchange.

The Pelosi health care plan enacts insurance regulations that would raise premiums and encourage employers to drop coverage. The Pelosi health care plan enacts trillions of dollars in new Federal spending that would exacerbate the deficit and imperil the Nation's long-term fiscal viability. The Pelosi health care plan also taxes all Americans: individuals who purchase insurance, individuals who do not purchase insurance and millions of small businesses.

Mr. Speaker, this will absolutely kill millions of jobs and raise health care premiums across the board. Mr. Speaker, the Pelosi health care plan also cuts Medicare by $500 billion, which will devastate the Medicare Advantage program and result in higher premiums and dropped coverage for more than 10 million seniors. And nearly 70,000 of those seniors, Mr. Speaker, live in my district alone.

The Pelosi health care plan would eliminate more than 5.5 million jobs as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health care insurance coverage, and this is according to the model developed by Christina Romer, the chairwoman of the President's own Council of Economic Advisers.

Mr. Speaker, in 2008 health care spending in the United States reached $2.4 trillion, and it was projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012 and $4.3 trillion by 2016.

Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount that we spend on national defense. And now the Congressional Budget Office has testified before Congress that the Democrat health care plan will actually increase that already sky-high health care spending.

Only weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, President Obama stood on this very floor and promised a joint session of Congress and the American people that he would ``not sign health care legislation if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future.'' But, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that is one of the many promises that will unequivocally be broken by the Pelosi health care plan. Adding in the more than $200 billion cost of the unfunded companion ``doc fix'' bill, H.R. 3961, the health care ``reform'' agenda proposed by liberal Pelosi Democrats totals more than $1.5 trillion, nearly double President Obama's stated figure.

Mr. Speaker, that unequivocally breaks the President's promise by increasing the deficit to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Add the $1.5 trillion projected cost of this bill, and it's still a conservative estimate given the historic precedent of drastically underestimating the cost of government programs, Mr. Speaker.

When Medicare passed in 1965, the Congressional Budget Office predicted it would cost $12 billion per year by 1990. In reality, the cost of Medicare in 1990 was $110 billion, more than nine times greater than projected. Likewise, the Medicare expansion of it in 1987 was projected to cost $1 billion annually. By 1992, the actual cost was $17 billion, or 17 times the amount projected. What makes us think that a government takeover of more than one-sixth of our economy is going to be any different, Mr. Speaker?

Someone recently pointed out that a nearly 2,000-page bill of over 400,000 words that costs as much as this one does, that that plan amounts to over $2.2 million per word, and there are a lot of words in this bill, Mr. Speaker.

Moreover, the Pelosi health care plan is a massive increase in the size and scope of government, creating, expanding, or extending at least 43 entitlement programs and 111 additional offices, bureaus, commissions, programs, and bureaucracies over and above the entitlement expansions.

During the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, this bill would impose numerous new taxes.

Number one, it would impose a 5.4 percent surtax that would primarily be shouldered by small businesses. It would impose a 2.5 percent penalty tax on those who do not acquire health care insurance. New and increased taxes on a wide variety of health plans, including HSAs and HRAs. An ironic, and this one kills me, an ironic 2.5 percent tax on medical devices. And an 8 percent tax on businesses that can't afford to provide health insurance for employees, just to name a few, Mr. Speaker, bringing the total to $729.5 billion in new taxes on small businesses. Individuals who cannot afford health coverage and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage to meet the Federal bureaucrats' standards created under this bill will all pay the bill.

Now, our top marginal income tax rate right now is 35 percent. Mr. Obama wants to boost the top rate to nearly 40 percent in 2011 by allowing some of the tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush to expire. The new health care taxes imposed by this bill would come on top of that. This would mean that just the Federal tax rate alone would be 45 percent. And when you add in the State and local taxes, individuals and small businesses could see total tax rates of close to 60 percent, Mr. Speaker.

The cost of the Pelosi government takeover of health care and new taxes it would impose alone are a disaster of the first magnitude for America. But the monstrosity of the Pelosi health care plan doesn't even end there.

On September 9, during his address to the joint session of Congress, President Obama stated verbatim the following quote: ``One more misunderstanding I want to clear up--under our plan, no Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.''

But despite promises and statements made by the President to the contrary, Mr. Speaker, this bill explicitly allows Federal funding of abortion and permits Federal subsidies to go to private insurance plans that cover abortion, making this bill potentially the largest expansion of abortion on demand in America since Roe v. Wade.

White House health adviser Zeke Emanuel is a longtime proponent of rationing as a means for controlling and distributing the vital health care services Americans need. And for all the furor over the ``death panels,'' a term that the Democrats so viciously mocked, H.R. 3962 would establish a new ``Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research,'' perhaps more accurately labeled a ``life and death panel,'' since the panel would be allowed to deny lifesaving treatments to patients on the grounds of cost savings, the same sort of rationing we see in Britain's national health care service which routinely denies costly patient treatments to those whose lives are deemed less worth saving.

This is the inescapable reality of government health care, Mr. Speaker. The scarcity of resources and the inevitable unresponsiveness of massive bureaucratic systems result in rationing of health care services, deciding on who may receive care and who is forced by the government to go without. And this should not happen in America.

These ``decisions'' would be in the hands of President Obama's new ``health czar,'' or the ``Health Choices Commissioner'' created by this legislation. The ``health czar,'' or the ``Health Choices Commissioner,'' could forcibly

enroll individuals in government-run insurance, and they would be required to conduct random compliance audits on health care benefits, allowing the Federal Government to intervene in the business practices of all employers who offer coverage to their workers. And that is unbelievable, Mr. Speaker.

The Pelosi bill also contains numerous so-called ``sweet treats'' for the notorious allies of liberal Democrats. The Pelosi plan makes groups like ACORN and Planned Parenthood eligible for Federal grants administered by the health czar. It refuses to address frivolous medical lawsuit reform while it actually creates new incentives for the trial lawyers to sue the doctors and medical industry into the stone age. Speaker Pelosi and her liberal colleagues are shamelessly sticking their thumbs in the eyes of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans have offered more than 40 alternative health care plans that would implement true health care reform in this country, including empowering those who cannot afford insurance with the ability to purchase their own insurance policy from the private sector; allowing families and businesses to purchase health care insurance across State lines; allowing individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health care insurance at a lower price, the same way large corporations and labor unions do; giving States the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs; and ending frivolous lawsuits that contribute to higher costs.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, it is clear that instead of listening to the American people and embracing these real solutions, Speaker Pelosi and her liberal colleagues have chosen to placate their most liberal allies, from ACORN to Planned Parenthood to trial lawyers, and to forcibly shove this bill down the throats of the American people.

But, you know, Mr. Speaker, in closing, of all the egregious things that I have just told you about this bill, the worst of it is the way that it steals America's freedom with the word ``shall.'' Mr. Speaker, the word ``shall,'' as we all know in this Chamber, is the key word in all government mandates and control. The word ``shall'' is government force. Unbelievably, the word ``shall'' appears in the Pelosi health care plan more than 3,425 times. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi Federal Government is using the force of law with the word ``shall'' 3,425 times to steal the freedom of the American people and forcibly insert a bureaucrat between patients and their doctors. The Pelosi health care plan is nothing but 2,000 pages of Big Government, higher taxes, and literally thousands of government mandates.

Mr. Speaker, flying in the face of Nancy Pelosi's claim that the health care bill that she has would be posted online for 72 hours for review before final vote, it looks like tomorrow this body will be forced to vote on a bill that will completely overhaul one-sixth of the economy and potentially devastate our health care system all against the will of the vast majority of Americans. And I encourage every last one of them, Mr. Speaker, for the sake of their children and future generations, to stand up against this bureaucratic socialist monstrosity.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa for his kindness in allowing me to keep this commitment.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 836, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, it is so ironic that this Congress is debating the means of covering the uninsured while Democrats are planning to cut the existing coverage of those who need it most--our senior citizens.

Nearly 70,000 of those senior citizens will be affected and live in my district,

Mr. Speaker. Those senior citizens will experience drastic changes to their Medicare coverage as a result of the $500 million Medicare Advantage cut imposed by the Democrats' bill, H.R. 3200.

Democrats may silence all of our Republican bills, but they are wrong if they believe Republicans will keep silent and allow senior citizens in America, who have already spent the majority of their lives contributing to this Nation, to be forced to give up the health care coverage they so vitally need in order to pay for a socialist, government takeover of health care which has failed in every State and in every country that has been unwise enough to allow it to happen.