The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“NATIONAL HEALTH CARE” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H10143-H10150 on Sept. 30, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NATIONAL HEALTH CARE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Schauer). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor and a privilege to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives. And having listened to the dialogue that was presented by my colleagues, often I will be able to see them on C-SPAN and then I'm inspired to come over here and take up the other side of the argument. They have inspired me for a number of years now, especially the gentleman from Ohio, who has headed up some of the dialogue that has brought, I think, significant philosophical disagreement, although personal disagreement seems to be nonexistent, at least from my part.
And the strong sales pitch that they've given on the government option compels me to lay out the facts on this case; and I'll say present it to you, Mr. Speaker, from a different perspective. The first perspective is this: this is, this perspective, Mr. Speaker, is the old HillaryCare perspective. This is the flow chart that is the basis of the facts on the original national health care act bill that was put together as a result of President Bill Clinton's speech here in the well on September 22, 1993.
And out of that came sometimes closed-door meetings, some would say secret. I really just think they were just closed-door meetings that were headed up by Hillary Clinton, now Secretary of State. And as that plan to take over the entire health care system in the United States in 1993 and '94 took shape, this is the flow chart that grows from it. This is the flow chart, this is actually out of The New York Times, Mr. Speaker, is the source of this document. But I had a similar one that I hung in my office for quite a long time.
And to see this government that was created by that proposal back in
'93 and '94 was enough to scare me out of the private sector and into politics to try to engage in saving Americans from this disaster that was coming, that was delivered to us and served up by at that time President and Mrs., I'll say the first man and the first lady of America, for that period of time in the early nineties.
Now, when you have the living daylights scared out of you and you're scared out of the private sector and into politics, it's kind of good to be in a position to seek to, let me say, put the brakes on such a disastrous policy. This is a black and white policy, Mr. Speaker. It was back in those days when we didn't have newspapers that were in full color. The Internet was just forming in a way, but we see all of these new government agencies that are shaped here. And we have some of the things that stand out on it.
Let me say, two cases of ombudsmen that are there to be liaisons between people and government because government is so impossible to deal with we have to give them ombudsmen. And then each one of these is a government agency. The acronyms, many of them I don't recognize anymore. I knew most of them, probably not all of them at the time because this is such a maze and a menagerie. HMO provider plan is one of them. And the accountable health plan. Accountable. So this, black and white, not full color version, is a pretty scary proposition; and Harry and Louise and others scared this right out of the United States Congress.
When Senator Phil Gramm stepped out on the floor of the Senate right down that hallway and he said, this legislation will pass over my cold, dead political body, he meant it. A lot of people thought that it wouldn't hold up to be true and that Phil Gramm would get run over. Instead, the American people stood with Phil Gramm and many others and they rejected this national health care plan.
Well, fast forward 15 years, Mr. Speaker. Here's the black and white version, rejected. Here is the modern technicolor version. And I expect that we will have an opportunity to defeat this scary legislation. It's scarier because we can see it now in full color. In the black and white are existing government agencies and programs. And so we can see as we look across here, these are existing Departments, Treasury, Veterans, Defense Department. Here are existing, well, let me say government-run operations. Here are CMS, Congressional Medicaid Services, here is Medicaid. There's SCHIP. Big debate we've had on that. Here's Medicare.
Down here are where I'd bring your focus. Let me predict also that we have a chance to kill this, and in about 15 years we'll see the 3-D color version of this. It will come up and it will be you'll put on your 3-D glasses and there will be the display, and government will be so big and complicated you can't understand it in two dimensions. It's multiple dimensions. But this is for us to be able to understand. And anybody that read the bill and didn't look at the flow chart is a brilliant person if they can track all of this. If you read the bill, follow the flow chart you have to still be a brilliant person to understand what they're doing.
But I'd direct your attention down to the private insurers, Mr. Speaker. This is 1,300 companies today. The President has said there are two principles that we need to address and fix in this health care in the United States. One of them is that we don't have enough competition among health insurance companies. So we have 1,300 health insurance companies. The gentleman from Ohio said we just need to have the government option, one more. I haven't quite heard the President say; 1,301 companies selling insurance is the magic number. In fact, he would cringe if he had to be confronted with such an idea that adding one more, it being government, to 1,300 companies is somehow constructive. It's not. It's destructive to the private sector and the American people know it.
But these are the private insurers in this little white box existing. And they would be, under this bill, forced into--all of their health insurance policies would have to meet the traditional health insurance plans. In order to qualify, these traditional health insurance plans would have to meet the new government standards. There are approximately 100,000 different varieties of health insurance policies available in the market across the 50 States. Now, you can't buy them from State to State. We need to be able to buy health insurance across State lines. That would put all 1,300 companies in competition with each other, and it would put all 100,000 policies within reach of any American.
But instead, they want to shut that down and set up a government-run option, government regulated health insurance company, and that is these two purple circles here to bring your focus, Mr. Speaker. The qualified health benefits plans. And this would be these 1,300 companies, 100,000 policies that would have to be approved by the new government agency called the Health Choices Administration. Yeah, they're all about choice and all about change.
Health choices administration commissioner. The commissioner, he's not called a czar. He's called a commissioner. The reason he's called a commissioner is because we're full up to here with czars. And so he would be the central planner for all public health insurance and private health insurance in America. A czar, a commissioner, a
``commissar,'' I call him a ``commi-czar-issioner.'' He would be the guy with all the juice that could make all the rules if he could just direct his new Health Choices Administration that would be empowered by legislation proposed by the people on this side of the aisle that the President will find he gets anything in it, a title that looks like a national health care plan of any kind, a path to his goal, which is single-payer, and we know it and we've seen the video tape. The videotape doesn't lie. It might get edited slightly, but the President's for a single-payer plan.
That is the socialized medicine model. We know that. Why don't we just be honest about it? I mean, if the President would step up and say I think that the United States of America can actually run socialized medicine better than any other country in the world, better than any country ever has, then he could make his case as to why. But instead they want to say it's not socialized medicine, just the same way they wanted to argue that amnesty wasn't amnesty. Well, even if you're the President of the United States, you don't get to redefine the English language.
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This is about the health choices commissioner calling these shots, Mr. Speaker, and the very idea that socialized medicine could be called something else. In fact, when we declared it to be the House Democrats' health plan, the public option--they want to call it the public option plan, we want to call it the government plan. The government plan is the government health insurance plan that would eventually replace most, if not all, of the private health insurance in America. They wanted to censor that.
In fact, this chart was banned from being mailed out under our franking mailing privileges because it was deemed to not be accurate because it called it the ``organizational chart of the House Democrats' health plan.'' So I just posted it on my Web page and said, Come and take it. This is the truth.
By the way, this has been clearly and carefully vetted. Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas on the Ways and Means Committee, he went down and carefully examined every component of this bill, put his staff on it, and challenged them to make sure it was all correct. This chart has withstood all criticism. This is a chart that shows what's going on with health care here in the United States.
The points that come from the President are health care in America costs too much money, and we have too many that are uninsured, and that we need more competition in health insurance.
I think I pointed out that competition is not what we need more of, but if he's right on that, we can provide the maximum amount if we just simply allowed everybody to buy health insurance in America wherever they choose and simply go around these State mandates.
So, for example, a similar policy in New Jersey that would cost a young man, 25 years old, $6,000 a year can be bought in Kentucky for
$1,000 a year, and that's the difference in the mandates.
So yes, vote with your feet. Surely you'd think about moving to Kentucky. Business will go there. They need to come to Iowa, too, by the way, Mr. Speaker. But we can solve a lot of this health insurance competition simply by allowing insurance to be purchased across State lines by providing for the portability so people can take it with them. That solves the problem of competition in a far more effective way than the President's proposal of starting up and running and putting taxpayer dollars into a Federal health insurance policy.
The best example I know of to describe what will happen if we have a Federal health insurance policy can be what happened with the flood insurance in America. In 1968, this Congress passed a National Flood Insurance Act, and what it did was it put the Federal Government in competition with the property and casualty companies that were selling flood insurance at the time. And then the Federal Government decided we need to be able to compete in this marketplace and so we'll keep low premiums and we'll require the loans on real estate that are given through national banks to include Federal flood insurance. That was 1968.
This is 2009. There is no private property and casualty flood insurance property available in America because the Federal Government has crowded out all the competition, and now they own the flood insurance in the United States. It has been nationalized, and the flood insurance program has a $19.2 billion deficit--in the red. The only way to get that back--well, they can't get it back. They just simply borrow money from the Chinese or the Saudis and drive us further into debt and pay the deficit of a bad business model. That's what's going on with health insurance.
Now I'm going to make just one more brief point, and I see that the gentlelady from Minnesota has arrived to add her dynamics to this debate.
These are the uninsured in America, Mr. Speaker. I have to edit this a little bit because my numbers aren't all the way I'd like them: 47 million uninsured. I have 44 to 47 million. So I simply start out with a high number, 47 million of those uninsured, and then said, Let's break this down. Let's break this down and find out who really are these people? And do we really want to provide for a government plan out of the taxpayers' dollars to fund this universe of 47 million who don't have health insurance?
So we start around the top. These are the illegals. That number is 6 million in this chart; it was 5 million in my other chart. These are the people that were here under the 5-year bar. Noncitizens who were barred by law from public benefits, that number was 5.2 million. But they add up to 10, 10 million people, the legal and illegal who are disqualified by law from public benefits.
Then you go to those who are earning more than $75,000 a year. That's 9 million. Presumably they could write a check for a premium for their own health insurance but they've opted not to.
Then you have those eligible for health insurance under their employer, roughly 10 million--9.7 is the number I recall. They've opted out, perhaps. They're eligible and didn't sign up, or they opted out.
Then we have those that are eligible for government benefits. That's generally going to be Medicaid people. And that's actually the 9.7 million, and it's 6 million that are eligible by employers but don't sign up.
Now, take all of these numbers that come pretty fast, Mr. Speaker, and I can just tell you what the math is: 47 million minus those that are disqualified for the reasons that I've given leaves us this number: It's actually 12.1 million people that are Americans without affordable options. That's the universe of people that really we're trying to address.
Here's the real chart. This is all of the American people right here, 306 million people, and here are all of the categories of folks that I've listed that I don't believe we should be subsidizing their health insurance: the immigrants, the illegals, those that are already qualified under Medicaid and don't bother to sign up, those that are making over $75,000 a year, those that qualify for an employer plan and opt out. That's all of these people along this spectrum from blue to yellow.
Then we have all of these covered Americans here which are 84 percent of the American people. Who are we really trying to address? Americans without affordable options. Here they are. Less than 4 percent. And for less than 4 percent, the proposal from the people on this side--and I am not going to accuse them of being rational, Mr. Speaker--the proposal is that we tear asunder the entire health insurance industry in America and the entire health care delivery system in America--the best in the world by many standards--in order to get at this less than 4 percent that are Americans without affordable options.
There would not be a rational person that would declare that to be rational behavior, Mr. Speaker.
I would be happy to yield to the gentlelady from Minnesota to pick up from wherever it is I might have left off.
Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Iowa, and I thank you for clearly laying out what the problem is and what some of the solutions are that are being offered by the Democrat majority that controls both the House and the Senate and the White House.
As the gentleman stated, we're looking at about 85 percent of the American people who have health care who, in survey after survey, have demonstrated that they are happy with their health care; they have no desire to change that system that they're currently able to receive. They're very worried, though, because they know that the Federal Government very likely will cause their current insurance system that they have to go away. And they're right.
President Obama has made three things abundantly clear: one is that if we have current insurance, we won't lose it; we will be able to hold on to it. We know that's patently false from the legislation that the House has taken up, H.R. 3200. It states quite clearly that within 5 years, insurance programs would all have to conform with the Federal Government. And that's individual insurance plans, which are only 8 percent of all outstanding insurance plans. Other programs are employer-sponsored plans. So overwhelmingly within 5 years, all insurance plans will have to come under the one-size-fits-all option.
And isn't it interesting with the proposal of the public option, pretty soon that will be like the blob that ate New York City. The public option will be the only option for the American people.
It happened with the student loan situation 2 weeks ago. The last vote we took was to have the Federal Government take over the student loans in this country. Twenty-five years ago, all student loans were private. Then the government introduced a public option. Well, that one choice, just as Representative King of Iowa said, adding that one choice to 1,300 insurance companies was like having the Federal Government add one choice to multiple hundreds of banks across the country that were already making loans privately to students.
But here's the problem. Let's be serious and let's be honest with the American people. The government doesn't like competition. It didn't like competition when it came to the student loans that were offered. It wanted all of the revenue that potentially could come out of that, and it thought it could do a better job, even though on the private sector more people chose to go with private student loans than the public student loans. It didn't matter. The Federal Government wanted to have the whole market to itself, and it captured that market.
It's the same thing now with health care. The President of the United States is suggesting that he wants a public option. As a matter of fact--and this shouldn't shock anyone--during the course of his campaign when he was running for President, he clearly stated that he wanted to see the Federal Government have a single-payer plan where the Federal Government would be the provider of all of the health insurance in the United States.
Knowing that, it's no shock that this is the direction that this body wants to go. We know that. Let's be honest. Let's not dance around this. Members within this body on the other side of the aisle--meaning the Democrats in this body--numbers of them have said they want a single-payer plan. What's that? Government takeover of health care. That's the ultimate goal, Mr. Speaker, to have the government take over health care.
What's the result? Health care will cost far more than it ever did in the past. It will be more expensive to individuals, more expensive to businesses, and it will provide less services. We know that. We know that's exactly what's going to happen despite the fact that the President has said if you have health care, you will get to keep it. Wrong.
Then the President said each American would be able to save about
$2,500 a year. In other words, we'd see cost savings of about $2,500 a year. There is no estimate anywhere that has ever verified that wild statement that the President made.
Then the final statement that the President has made over and over and over again, people making $250,000 a year or less would not see any tax increases. Well, that's verifiably false. We know exactly that Americans will see tax increases.
But there's something that hasn't been talked about much, and it's the whole idea of school-based clinics in schools all across America. And that's in H.R. 3200.
Now, this would raise the hackles on the necks of school parents all across this country when they understand section 2511 of H.R. 3200. The House government takeover of health care bill has a section called school-based health clinics. It would allow a nonprofit health agency--
just say Planned Parenthood because that's what this is written for. Again, we need to be serious. Planned Parenthood is an organization that is the largest abortion provider in the United States. And written into this bill is a provision whereby Planned Parenthood could become the proprietor for school-based clinics in every school across the United States. These have been more accurately called school sex clinics.
One of the very first school sex clinics that was put into this country was in St. Paul, Minnesota. And it was told to the families and the parents that this would actually reduce pregnancy. Of course we knew it wouldn't reduce pregnancy. It increased pregnancy. It increased sexually transmitted diseases. It was a disaster for young women in St. Paul public schools.
The greatest, kindest, most compassionate gift we could give to our young people--whether it's young girls or young boys--is to teach them and tell them the travesty that they can encounter with early onset of sexual activity. It really is an epidemic now in this country.
For so many girls across this country now, 25 percent of girls have sexually transmitted diseases, potentially life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases. Boys as well.
This isn't the kind of country that we grew up in, but today where we have almost a patting on the back of telling young people, It's your choice; do whatever you want to do. Now the Federal Government is going the final step, and they're saying, Let's put sex clinics in our schools.
Can you believe this, Mr. Speaker? Let's put sex clinics in our schools, and let's put Planned Parenthood in charge of these sex clinics, because the bill requires under this provision, Planned Parenthood would be authorized to serve as a sponsoring facility for the Nation's schools. As a matter of fact, the bulk of this health care bill is scheduled to go into effect in 2013. Remember, all the taxes will start this coming January, Mr. Speaker. Right away, at the time we can least afford it, the taxes will go into place, but the provisions of this bill actually go into effect in 2013.
Not the school-based sex clinics. They would go into effect next summer so that these clinics would appear in public schools next fall, and it would require that the school-based sex clinic would provide on-
site access during the school day when school is in session and have an established network of support and access to services with back-up health providers when the school is closed. Can you imagine what this would cost, Mr. Speaker, if every school in the United States had a built-in health clinic? And this health clinic, parents won't have access to.
How do we know that? Parents are going to be excluded from Planned Parenthood as they write these clinics because the bill orders that these clinics protect patient privacy in student records.
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What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. As a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what's going to go on--comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to followup for specialty care. Is that abortion?
Does that mean that someone's 13-year old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back, and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser. They don't know any different.
As a matter of fact, the bill also provides for mental health planning. This is very concerning. In our State in Minnesota we've done a lot of research on this. Mental health; mental health assessments; crisis intervention; counseling; treatment; referral to a continuum of services, including emergency psychiatric care, and mom and dad can't know what's going on?
Mr. Speaker, I am almost without words to think that we have come to the time when the Democrats that control Washington, D.C.--and, make no mistake, they control every level of power in this city. Now they want the taxpayers, if they haven't been beleaguered enough, to pay for sex clinics all across the United States.
Planned Parenthood, which takes in a billion dollars a year, $300 million of which is taxpayer subsidies--hey, that was just the prologue. This is the gravy train. Because now it would be billions and billions and billions on into the future.
What did the President say earlier this week or last week? He wants America's schools to have longer school days and longer school years. Where in the Constitution does it say that the President decides how long the school day is or how long the school year is? And now we're going to have the sex clinics in the schools and they're essentially going to take over the health care services of our kids?
I don't know about you, Representative King, but this is highly offensive to me as a parent to think the audacity--the audacity of the President and of this Congress stepping into this area of privacy of family life.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I just so appreciate the analysis that's been delivered, Mr. Speaker, by the gentlelady from Minnesota. I think about what this is like to be a parent and to deliver your child to a public education system that had this kind of a Federal mandate laid out.
I think back to the days when education was actually local. I often think about where I live. There's a country school just across the road from my house. I actually missed going to the country school by about 5 weeks because of the circumstances involved. And I regret I didn't have that experience. But I grew up around people that did--many of them.
At that time, it was about four miles by four miles, the school district, and the people that owned the land paid the taxes and they hired the teacher and they approved the curriculum. And they bought the coal and hauled it in and carried the ashes and clinkers out. And if they didn't like the job the teacher was doing, they fired her and hired a new one. And if they weren't happy with the curriculum, they changed it. That was local control. And it reflected the values--the moral, academic, and religious values of the people that were paying the taxes.
Today, we have a growing Federal reach that reaches way down into the heart of our educational system from K through 12 and wanting to get into preschool--and is, in some ways--and they want to go clear back to the womb and they want to inject themselves into the unborn children as well with Planned Parenthood, to set them up as somehow the protectors of young children, when they're the people that abort little babies.
We had a debate and a vote here on the floor of the House, and it was an amendment offered by Congressman Pence of Indiana that would have unfunded Planned Parenthood. And that's what this Congress has an obligation to do. We've got to get there. We've got to get there eventually. No organization that provides abortion services or counseling should have Federal taxpayer dollars involved.
$300 million, as Mrs. Bachmann has said, $300 million out of a billion in receipts, fungible money, poured into, you might as well say, one pot of money and sets them up with clinics in our schools so the young girls can go in and out of there and be recruited in the hallways by an organization that's vested in what? Promiscuity. Promiscuity is what Planned Parenthood is invested in.
If you doubt that, Mr. Speaker, I would just submit this proposal. Pull promiscuity out of the equation and see what's left of Planned Parenthood? See what they call for services that are there. There's very little that's left. Without promiscuity, you don't have a birth control program and you don't have an abortion problem and you don't have all of this counseling that goes on with it either.
They are a destructive purpose in this society, and it is something that no taxpayer should be compelled to fund, whether it's in this country or whether it's overseas.
I yield to the gentlelady.
Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, Planned Parenthood has a real problem on their hands--a big problem on their hands--almost on the level of ACORN and the problems that ACORN has had. It's simply this. There's a case that's been filed in California, and Planned Parenthood apparently, allegedly, has been overcharging the Federal Government tens of millions of dollars, because what is alleged is that Planned Parenthood has fraudulently marked up the birth control pills that they have been giving out to people.
So they have been giving out birth control pills free to people in California and charging the Federal Government for those pills. They aren't charging the going rate, allegedly, according to this complaint. They've overcharged the Federal Government.
Well, the President stood in this Chamber and said that he was planning to pay for this big health care extravaganza by getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse in the health care system. Easily, Planned Parenthood can be considered a part of ``the health care system.'' Why? The President considers abortion part of health care. He considers abortion, what he calls reproductive rights, which is a code word for abortion, he considers that essential health care. Well, by the President's own definition, Planned Parenthood is a part of his essential care.
And this is the payoff. This is the payoff to Planned Parenthood. They would be given free access to our kids all day long, and this is an organization that allegedly has overcharged the Federal Government tens of millions of dollars.
Here's another opportunity for the IRS; here's another opportunity for them to go after a 501(c)(3) organization. Again, they brought in a billion dollars last year. They received probably $300 billion worth of benefits, meaning they didn't pay any taxes, but they received $300 billion of taxpayer money. This is an organization that should be investigated by the IRS; very, very likely should lose its 501(c)(3) status, as should ACORN; and they should have all taxpayer subsidies pulled everywhere across the United States.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I agree with the gentlelady from Minnesota. I regret that I didn't bring a similar sign for Planned Parenthood, but I did bring one for ACORN.
As we talk about 501(c)(3)s, not-for-profit organizations, ACORN might claim that they are filed as some kind of a not-for-profit organization. That was one of their reports. We see at least 45 of their affiliates that are filed as 501(c)(3)s, not-for-profit organizations. We see that ACORN's money flows into a central account, and then it's distributed from that central account out to the entities as ACORN needs them.
One big pot of money, one big cookie jar with a lot of Federal dollars involved, State dollars involved, donor dollars involved, tax avoidance dollars involved, and what is ACORN involved in? Other enterprises that are--I'll call them unethical and immoral, Mr. Speaker. And I will go down the list of some of the things that I recall that ACORN has been involved in.
By the way, the linkage with some of what's coming out of Planned Parenthood I think is useful. And I think that's a constructive linkage to make. This segue from Planned Parenthood to ACORN is one that is a natural segue.
Never was it envisioned by a limited government to be funding such huge, behemoth national and international organizations for the purposes of breaking down the core of our society and turning it into an immoral mass of people. They have attacked our institutions, and they have worked within our schools and the educational institutions and the institutions of government and the institutions also of the media.
Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, just to add to that, Planned Parenthood was one of the organizations that gave money to ACORN for the purpose of voter registration before this last election. And it wasn't just Planned Parenthood. It was also the teachers' union.
We've seen videos coming out in these last 2 weeks of little schoolchildren, kindergarten schoolchildren, on videos, they're all across the Internet, where little children are being taught praise of the United States almost in a personality cult-like worship in video after video after video.
Again, this is concerning because we have a teachers' union--there's nothing wrong with unions--but we have a teachers' union that came out and gave money to ACORN for the purpose of voter ID.
It's interesting how you can link Planned Parenthood with ACORN, with the President. And there's a lot of questions that need to be answered.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I did happen to bring my poster of the President and ACORN to help add some clarity to this matter. As critical as the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and the public has been of ACORN--and they deserve every bit of it and a lot more, Mr. Speaker--there hasn't been enough focus on the involvement of the President with ACORN.
His political start was with ACORN. That's by his own self-admission. He said, You've been here from the very beginning. I've been with you from the beginning. Some of the statements from the leader of ACORN ties that back in. I believe her first name is Madeleine, the last name is Talbot, the head organizer of ACORN in Chicago; she has said that she and Obama were working together in this cause from the beginning.
President Obama headed up Project Vote. Project Vote is indiscernible from ACORN. They are one in the same. And that's ACORN's position on it as well as any objective analysis that's taken place.
So he made his reputation with ACORN. ACORN was ``Get Out the Vote for President Obama.'' He paid them to get out the vote even though they registered it as--let's see--
as production and lighting.
Mrs. BACHMANN. Staging materials. That was a big problem for the President during, of course, the election because he had falsely listed on his FEC report that money that was given was for staging materials. That was very concerning. That was brought to the attention of the campaign. They changed that once they found out about that. But, again, this is over $800,000 that was transferred from the Obama campaign to ACORN.
But you were correct when you went back in history, and actually the President back in 1991 took time off from his law firm to run a voter registration drive for Project Vote and an ACORN partner that was soon fully absorbed under the ACORN umbrella.
This is in a Wall Street Journal article written by John Fund: The drive registered 135,000 voters. It was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democrat Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democrat Senate primary.
Congressman King, I wonder if you can comment on this. This is something I don't understand. Why in the world would ACORN have a tax-
exempt status? Why in the world would ACORN be receiving taxpayer money when they worked consistently in election after election to elect one political party--the Democrat Party? Why are the taxpayers paying allegedly for the election of Democrats?
Mr. KING of Iowa. Clearly, according to law, they cannot be a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization if they advocate for candidates in a partisan fashion. One might argue that some of the activities were not partisan.
I will make this argument. This is a picture I took at ACORN's headquarters in New Orleans; 2609 Canal Street in New Orleans. This is the weekend before the Fourth of July. I stood across the street with a 300-millimeter lens.
Mrs. BACHMANN. Was this prior to the election?
Mr. KING of Iowa. It was this year. It was after the election in the fall of 2008. So this would be on or about July 1st or 2nd, 2009. I took this shot of the window. This is about the second floor of this most fortified building in the neighborhood in New Orleans, the ACORN headquarters, and in the window is this huge--we call them barn signs--
this huge campaign poster: Obama for President '08. Easily it can be seen right here.
This no Photoshop, Mr. Speaker. I mean I'm here on the floor of the United States Congress. I took the picture personally.
Hanging over on this side is the ACORN banner that one can easily see. This is ACORN's headquarters. The doors are barred, the windows are barred, but you can see through the bars to see that they're still advertising for the election of 2008, and that is a violation of their not-for-profit status.
That picture itself, Mr. Speaker, should be enough to get the IRS to go in and do a complete forensic examination and audit of ACORN and all of their 361 identified and other unidentified affiliates if we're going to have any integrity in this country.
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When you are a partisan organization and you are collecting donation dollars, Federal tax dollars and political subdivision grants that are coming in, and they are coming in to a series of affiliates, maybe as many as 361 different ones, you commingle that into accounts, and you deploy thousands of people across the country to register voters and you brag about it--an issue in a press release that ACORN did says that they registered 1.3 million new voters when, in fact, the number of actual legitimate voters was closer to 450,000.
Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman will yield, in my home State of Minnesota, it was 41,000 voters who were registered by ACORN. And of course we know year after year, election after election, State after State, the polls' rolls are flooded with false and fraudulent voter registrations, and there's a reason for that. If you have that many, it is very difficult for those who are in charge of the voter registration polls to be able to make accurate counts. Plus, once a person casts their vote--let's say you register the day before you cast your vote--
that vote stands. That vote isn't thrown out. So there is method in the madness for ACORN.
Again, you take a look at tax money going in, tax-exempt status, and you see one political party being benefited. How is this allowed? I don't understand it. And what's amazing to me is there hasn't been one investigation yet, not from the Department of Justice. We haven't seen one from the Department of Housing. ACORN, after all, was the organization that was literally shaking down banks, shaking down mortgage companies. This was also at the behest--our President, again, was involved in ACORN during this time.
All of this agitating was going on for the purpose of relaxing lending standards, lowering lending standards. But for the work of ACORN lowering those lending standards, would we have had the disaster in housing that we have today? I mean, these are very serious questions. And nobody's investigating? Not the IRS, not the Department of Justice, not the Department of Housing. We've been hearing that the IRS will be investigating ACORN, but there have been no investigations.
As a matter of fact, as you and I stand here, has there even been a defunding of ACORN? There have been votes, but has one dime been cut off from that? That's why the American people know that something doesn't smell right now, and they have to continue to call their Member of Congress. They have to continue to call their Senator and demand a full and complete investigation.
Has an audit occurred? Does the gentleman know? Has any audit occurred? I believe the gentleman told me that there is something like 361 affiliate organizations under the ACORN umbrella. Has a full audit occurred?
Mr. KING of Iowa. If the gentlelady will yield, I will lay out the picture of this of the way I think it is in America with the ACORN investigation.
There have been investigations going on within some States for voter registration fraud primarily. Now, those States string up to--we used to have a total of 12, then 14, and now as many as 20 States over time. In only one case do we have an investigation of ACORN as an entity.
Mrs. BACHMANN. Do we have a Federal investigation? These are Federal dollars that are going in. Again, ACORN has received $53 million from 1994 forward. But since the President of the United States, Barack Obama, came in, a former employee under ACORN with Project Vote, he now has given access to this organization of $8.5 billion, an unheard of amount of money. Certainly the taxpayer has the right to demand that investigation occur.
Yet when George Stephanopoulos did an interview with the President and asked him about ACORN, the President didn't seem to know. He didn't seem to know much about the votes we took in the House and the Senate. He didn't know much about ACORN. Maybe it's because he's working on going to Copenhagen to get the Olympics in Chicago. I don't know, but he certainly didn't seem to know much about ACORN.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Let me reclaim and capture the breadth of what is going on here in America, and then I will yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Speaker, it's this: In over a cumulative period of time from about 1990 until today, which is coming to be almost two decades, there have been a string of smaller investigations that took place within the States. As we speak, though, ACORN is under trial in Nevada for direct violations of Nevada's voter registration laws that prohibits paying commissions for registering voters.
So, for the first time, ACORN, as an entity, is on trial in a State. It looks like there is a very strong case on the part of the prosecution. There have also been as many as 70 convictions of ACORN employees, for election fraud, mostly.
There are new indictments in Florida, 11 individuals indicted that worked for ACORN; six were arrested, five were on the loose. I haven't heard if they collected them or not. Those are some of the things that are taking place.
But now this Congress fully understands, having voted twice in the United States Senate and once on the floor of the House to reject funding to ACORN, fully understand that ACORN is a corrupt, criminal enterprise, almost an economy unto itself that draws in money from many different sources, the fungibility of it poured into usually a central account and distributed out to the active entities of the 361 affiliates of ACORN to conduct partisan political exercises, shake down lenders.
Madeline Talbott has bragged about that, who is the mentor of President Obama as he went into ACORN and Chicago politics back in the early nineties, as the gentlelady from Minnesota said. So they have been involved in shaking down lenders and using the Community Reinvestment Act, which was written to prohibit lenders from drawing a red line around certain districts that they didn't want to loan money into.
And ACORN has been involved with red-lining themselves and shaking down bankers to force them to loan money into their red-lined districts. They contributed significantly to the mortgage lending meltdown that we had. They have been corrupting the election process. They're promoting child prostitution. In five cities, we have them on videotape.
And by the way, $1 million of embezzlement covered up for 8 years by Wade Rathke, whose brother was the embezzler in-house. And when the board rose up to make an issue of it, they fired the board of directors. This is a completely corrupt, criminal enterprise.
Mrs. BACHMANN. Let alone the charitable organizations, large, well-
known charitable organizations that have put money into ACORN. It's time these charitable organizations and the trustees of those organizations be held responsible for putting money into the account of a corrupt organization.
Mr. KING of Iowa. And I'm advised that the Catholic Church has ceased their contributions into ACORN. I'm very happy about that. It's easier for me to put money in the collection plate on Sunday.
I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Texas, who always has a unique and accurate viewpoint, my friend Louie Gohmert.
Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Iowa and my friend Mrs. Bachmann. I was able to listen to some of the argument that you've been providing and debate that's been put forth. I know you were discussing health care earlier and now ACORN. I would like to tie the two things together, actually, because I haven't heard a lot of people point this out.
Despite the President, during his joint session of Congress as an invited guest in this House, coming in and saying that we have not--
those critics of the Democratic plan, he said we are not engaged in honest debate, that we were using scare tactics, that we have been using bogus claims, wild claims, demagoguery, distortion, acrimony, cynical and irresponsible, facts and reason are thrown overboard, that we're robbing the country of opportunity, killing the President's good bill. Then he actually used the ``L'' word and said something that was a lie, plain and simple. But it's hard for me to appreciate that because the only bill we had to go from was H.R. 3200.
And as my friends here have been doing, you take the bill--and this is just the first half of it--and you read from the bill. It's kind of hard to distort or not engage in honest debate when you are reading from the bill. But I would like to direct you to page 99, the subsection, Consumer Assistance with Choice.
Mrs. BACHMANN. What is the section number?
Mr. GOHMERT. It's on page 99 of the bill. This is section 205, entitled, Outreach and Enrollment of Exchange-Eligible Individuals and Employers in Exchange-Participating Health Benefits Plan. That is on page 95. Well, we get over here to Consumer Assistance with Choice: To provide assistance, to exchange eligible individuals and employers, the commissioner shall--not ``may,'' but ``shall''--and it includes things like assist exchange-eligible individuals in selecting exchange-
participating health benefits plans and obtaining benefits through such plans. So that's one of the things that the commissioner shall do.
You go down to subsection 3, two-thirds of the way down page 100, Use of Other Entities. In carrying out this subsection, the commissioner may work with other appropriate entities to facilitate the dissemination of information under this subsection and to provide assistance as described in paragraph 2, which included assisting exchange-eligible individuals in selecting exchange-participating health benefit plans and obtaining the benefits in those plans.
Well, if you recognize this language, this is the kind of language that has normally been used to hire ACORN to go out and do the work. This is what it says: You may work with other appropriate entities to facilitate the dissemination of information and to sign these people up to the Federal health plan.
So that is a potential source--like my friend Mrs. Bachmann was pointing out--of not millions or hundreds of millions, but potentially billions of dollars for these people who obviously have been engaged in political efforts, but to go and evangelize the world, or at least this Nation, for the Democratic health care plan. That is there, and I don't see how you deny that is another source of revenue for ACORN.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Gohmert, can you draw a distinction between this language that you read in H.R. 3200 in the health care bill and the language that would perhaps enable ACORN to be the ones that are counseling on, let me say, mortgage loans for houses of prostitution, or how to avoid taxes by underreporting income that might come in as cash by the work of a prostitute, or an ability to file a tax return that would qualify someone who underreports their income for their earned income tax credit, or the ability to claim child prostitutes as dependents? Do any of those things seem to also fit in this similar authorization language that allowed ACORN to do all those things that I listed that might also qualify them to be the loan counselor as well as now the health insurance counselor under this exchange that is here?
Mrs. BACHMANN. I would also add to the gentleman, if we look at the legislation that came before us, the very beginning of this year, it was the expansion of AmeriCorps. Remember, that was a $5 billion bill. Part of that bill were volunteers--of course they're all paid--but these volunteers were also going to be health workers. So it would be curious to look at that language as well to see if they also paid money to community organizations to be workers under AmeriCorps, kind of to also link together with this particular provision, and then work with an ACORN as these volunteers under AmeriCorps all for the effort of putting together this plan.
It really reminds me of the poster that the gentleman from Iowa has of the President with ACORN stitched onto his shirt with the windmills in the background. We're looking at a complete dominance and takeover of American society. Remember, it was just 1 year ago that we had the
$700 billion bailout. Prior to that bailout, 100 percent of business profits were private.
After that time, today, 30 percent of all private business profits today are owned or controlled by the Federal Government. And if the President gets his dream to come true and takes over 18 percent of health care, that means he will have taken over and controlled 48 percent of our private economy.
And if his national energy tax, the cap-and-trade global warming tax, goes through, that's another 8 percent, or 56 percent of our private economy that he plans to take over. That is something that should give pause to every American. It's stunning. It's stunning, and it's frightening.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I will pick up on that. This part that I think is not understood by the White House is that this economy that we have is not simply a giant chain letter that is generated by government borrowing and government spending. A chain letter is a Ponzi scheme, and underneath it there's not substance there.
We have an economy that's based upon our natural resources and adding value to our natural resources, and the intellectual basis that contributes to the value that we add to our natural resources, you have to produce things that have value. The most essential ones are the things that are necessities for life, and the services that build around that are the services that make it more efficient to produce the necessities for life.
The recreational spending is disposable income. All of this is real, and it's founded on production. But government, government has no ability to do that. Government obstructs production, and they add a weight on to the legitimate economy.
We have two sectors of the economy: the productive sector, which is the private producing sector I have described, and then in my less charitable moments I describe it as the parasitic sector, the sector of the economy that sucks the lifeblood out of the producers.
I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
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Mr. GOHMERT. In answer to the gentleman's question about the language, having seen some of the videos of the propositions that were put literally to ACORN workers in different cities about bringing in illegal immigrants under-age for prostitution, I have to say that this language on page 100 would fit. They were assisting them in obtaining benefits, and ``obtaining benefits'' is the language in this bill, but just, unfortunately, we are assisting them in obtaining benefits for activity that was illegal and immoral.
I mean, to have under-age kids engaged in prostitution, the damage that that does to those young kids is just deplorable. But this is language that specifically would allow them to assist and to obtain benefits through these plans. So it fits right into their efforts.
Mrs. BACHMANN. I would ask the question of the gentleman from Iowa, didn't the President say to us at the very beginning of this debate in early August that we needed to pass this health care bill, or I guess I should say in July, that we had to pass this bill by August 1 so we could hurry up and start saving money? Do you remember that? We are going to save money if we have the government take over health care in the United States.
I'm wondering, to the gentleman from Texas and the gentleman from Iowa, how in the world does paying people ACORN, for instance, to do all of this assistance, how does that save money?
Mr. GOHMERT. Let me just say he also said, as the gentlewoman had mentioned, that his plan would save all this money and nearly pay for the whole plan by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse; and yet we're not going to eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse unless we pass his bill.
But, now, in the days of my being a judge, what we saw was if you knew that fraud was going on and you allowed it to continue and you had a duty or an obligation to do something about the fraud and you did nothing, you were an accomplice to that fraud. So it just staggers the imagination that somebody would know where the waste, fraud, and abuse is, know exactly the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse or potentially very close to the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse and we're not going to do anything until we pass his bill? That's a little tough to swallow.
Mr. KING of Iowa. And that is as if it's a bargain. And there are some better ways of saying that out there, and they don't come to me immediately, but if it has to be the bargain that we have to adopt a national health care act in order to get the waste, fraud, and abuse cleaned up, if the American people's demand that Congress clean up corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse has to be held hostage to somebody's government medical plan, I think that tells you what's going on.
This operation has got to go. That is the ACORN logo. And this man has been part and parcel of it for nearly 20 years. And his political life, his public life cannot be separated from ACORN and from Project Vote and from the full continuum of history of his political life, including having been hired by ACORN, worked for ACORN, done so as a pro bono attorney for ACORN, been a trainer of ACORN's workers, having hired ACORN to get out the vote but it was misrepresented in his document and, additionally, having hired ACORN, move the Census to the White House from the Commerce Department, then back from the White House to the Commerce Department when the public outcry got so great, but left a link and a liaison so that they have oversight in the White House anyway. And twice now the Census Bureau has said, well, we're not going to use ACORN with our census workers.
I didn't believe them the first time. I don't know that I believe them the second time. But it's certain that they must have confessed they weren't telling the truth the first time or they wouldn't announce the second time that they were going to sever their relationship. The U.S. Treasury has now said that they don't want to use ACORN to counsel them for the tax services that are out there. The list goes on and on and on.
ACORN and all their affiliates are a pariah. This is their logo on the shirt of the President of the United States. He is part and parcel. And we've got to dig through this all the way. This United States Congress and four to six committees in the House and committees in the Senate have to launch complete investigations and hearings. The IRS has to do this. The Department of Justice has to do this. The American people demand it, and so do I, Mr. Speaker, and so do the speakers here on this floor.
I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota and the gentleman from Texas for their contribution.
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