W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. It's like, if you had a rug and you took out all the threads going one way, the whole thing wouldn't make any sense almost.

Mr. AKIN. Yes.

Mr. AKIN. Gentleman, I can't help but interrupt you there for a minute because I've heard it said repeatedly, and particularly by the President, that the Republicans don't have any alternatives or options. The fact is there are dozens of Republican bills, and none of them were put into any of this.

Mr. AKIN. What you are suggesting, Gentleman, it's almost too commonsense for us to do. One of the ways that when we do create good legislation, usually there is a good consensus, and the minority and majority parties work together, they put stuff together and say, Well, this is the stuff we can agree to, this is the stuff other people can agree to, but together let's take a piece of the problem and solve it. Instead, what this is is an attempt to take--what is it, one-fifth of our economy--and federalize it. And that's a pretty ambitious step, even if everybody agreed, this will be an ambitious step. And in this case, not one Republican agrees and agrees in the House or Senate, from what I know. Even if they did, this would be very ambitious to try to rewrite 18 percent of the U.S. economy and federalize the whole thing. That's a pretty ambitious thing to do.

Mr. AKIN. Actually solved some problems.

Mr. AKIN. Ran right through.

Mr. AKIN. Gentleman, I would like to get to some of these questions that have come up, questions the President has raised, other people have raised, and take a look at them a little bit more carefully now that we have a little bit of time to say, What is the story? What are the real facts? Because you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. So one of the first things you are going to think about is in our environment, is this health care proposal expensive or is it too expensive? Somebody once quipped that if you think health care is expensive now, just wait till it's free. So how do we take a look to assess how expensive it would be? You know, the President started his speech last week by saying, Hey, I inherited a trillion-dollar debt. And immediately, as a member of the other party, I thought, well, you inherited a trillion-dollar debt, but you are not doing too shabby yourself. Because if you look at the Wall Street bailout, half of that was under his leadership, that's $350 billion. You have got another $787 billion for this supposedly stimulus bill. You have got SCHIP, and then you have got, what was it, the appropriations bill. And then the huge bill that was passed, the cap- and-tax bill in this House, that all adds up to $3.6 trillion. So I think it's reasonable to ask the question is this thing where the government takes over 18 percent of the economy going to be expensive? And he said it's going to be so efficient that we are not going to have any debt, and it's going to be fantastic and will hardly cost anything because we will take the money out of Medicare. And so with a bill that's sort of plastic, I mean, you have got a 1,000-page bill, and people want to change it all the time. No one really--hasn't been finalized, all we have is the 1,000-page draft. How much do you assess how much it's going to cost? Well, one way to do it is, here is Medicare and here is Social Security and Medicaid, the three biggest entitlements we have got, and they are growing out of control. So what we are claiming is that this socialized medicine bill is not going to do what these other socialized medicine things did or particularly Medicare and Social Security. Now the liberals agree to these numbers. They are saying Yes, these things are growing out of control, but this proposal is not supposed to.

Mr. AKIN. It was billions, now trillions.

Mr. AKIN. So there is a good reason for people to be saying ``hold on'' in terms of these Big Government solutions. We are just absolutely not spending our kids, but our grandchildren, into debt with these things. And I guess the question is, when you go from George Washington to George Bush, and you are running at, whatever it is, $5 trillion, and then you are going to add another 8 just under the Obama administration, doesn't that suggest that perhaps we need to kind of get off the accelerator of spending government money?

Mr. AKIN. That's something we will live to see, and our grandchildren will just be growing up enough. I would just like to stop on that point because I notice that the gentleman is probably a little younger than I am, but not too far distant. And you don't get to be a colonel by just being a--you can be a chicken, but not just a spring chicken. As we grew up our parents, sometimes called the Greatest Generation, they had it in their heart that they wanted to hand a better future to their children and to America than what they had been blessed with. And it seemed like it was one of these, just sort of a national virtue that that generation had the desire to personally sacrifice so you and I could do things like go to college or graduate school or do things that they had not had a chance to do. And somehow or other, this breaks my heart that we, in our generation that had been blessed by a selfless set of parents in that great generation are, instead, wanting to leave our children and grandchildren in a much worse fix than we found ourselves. Something about that seems almost un-American and intolerable to me. Gentleman, would you want to comment on that?

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. I can tell the gentleman is from Iowa. He has got this farming technology down. Isn't that incredible, GPS in your tractor, telling you how much fertilizer to put in a section of a field? It's amazing what free enterprise can do.

Mr. AKIN. You know, the thing that just amazed me about that comment, Free enterprise doesn't work because we've got this big economic crisis. And you go, Well, let's see. What's the economic crisis caused by? Oh, it's a real estate problem. Oh, real estate. In what regard? Well, it seems like a whole lot of people have mortgages that they can't pay in real estate. Well, how did that happen? Oh, well, we've got Freddie and Fannie. And what sort of agencies are those? Quasi- governmental agencies. And what have they been doing? They've been instructed by the U.S. Congress to make loans to people who can't afford to pay their loans. Now guess what's happening, the people can't afford to pay their loans, and all this stuff is sliding down the wall in a big mess. So we've sold this stuff all over the world, and now the economy is in a mess. Let's see, how did this economy get in a mess? Oh, the Congress created an agency who distributed lots and lots of loot to Congressmen in the form of PAC checks. They created an agency to sell stocks and bonds, packaged up in a nice clever way by Wall Street that weren't worth anything because the people couldn't pay their mortgages, and we say this is a failure of free enterprise? It's a failure of socialized government trying to impose itself on the free market and in the idea of trying to be charitable, saddling somebody with a loan they can't afford to pay so they have got to go into bankruptcy. What a compassionate solution.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the accomplishments of Junior Achievement of Mississippi River Valley. In particular, I would like to congratulate the organization's President, Lori Jacob, for winning JA Worldwide's 2009 Karl Flemke Pioneer Achievement Award. This award recognizes significant achievements and contributions of new Junior Achievement USA Member Presidents. Junior Achievement is the world's largest organization dedicated to teaching students in Kindergarten through 12th grade about the importance of economics, entrepreneurism, and financial literacy. The organization reaches over 9 million students around the world each year, with over 130 local offices in the United States and operations in over 110 countries worldwide. One of the things that makes JA so unique is its use of adult volunteers to bring business to life for students. In the U.S. alone, young people in more than 188,000 classrooms benefit annually from these positive role models. Ms. Jacob is clearly deserving of receiving this year's Flemke Award. She began her career with Junior Achievement in 1987, serving in many roles within the Marketing, Education, Development, and Operation departments until she assumed her current position in 2007. Under her leadership, the area reached 127,000 students in over 700 schools this year, on a $2.7 million budget, making Junior Achievement of Mississippi Valley one of the organization's largest operations in the United States. Ms. Jacobs led the area to become a national two-time winner of JA's most prestigious funding award--the MetLife Entrepreneurial Award. She has been a champion in creating more awareness of JA, and has a volunteer board of directors composed of over 60 leaders of the St. Louis community. In this current economic climate, teaching students the importance of economics and financial literacy is of the utmost importance, and I congratulate Ms. Jacobs and Junior Achievement of the Mississippi River Valley for their efforts throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, in accordance with House Republican Conference standards, and Clause 9 of Rule XXI, I submit the following member requests for the record regarding H.R. 3327, Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010. Project: Hyperspectral Imaging for Improved Force Protection (HYPER- IFP) Account: Department of Defense, Army, RDT&E (CERDEC, NVESD, Special Projects) Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Clean Earth Technologies, LLC. Address of Requesting Entity: 13378 Lakefront Drive, Earth City, MO, USA Description of Request: To provide $2,000,000 for the Hyper-IFP (Hyper spectral Sensor for Improved Force Protection) Program. The introduction of a Hyper-IFP in FY08 is allowing the detection and recognition of humans (with a near zero false alarm rate) and providing indication of other certain physiological triggers that can indicate that a person is under extreme stress such as contemplating ``bad'' behavior. To date successful development, test and evaluation has been done in the lab, though these systems have not been fully optimized for theatre operation or for costs. The continued funding of Hyper-IFP will operationalize and integrate the knowledge gain in the lab and apply it in a true-fielded application at an affordable cost. The Hyper-IFP system will also be environmentally hardened to allow field deployment and allow integration with other FP sensors in the last quarter of 2009. Hyper-IFP is focused on the missions of Perimeter Security, Suicide Bomb Detection and Urban Route Recon. Utility will be demonstrated through an evaluation in both the Southwest border and contingency mission in Southwest Asia. This effort will require leveraging the current Force Protection sensor suite designs for the missions sites to maintain interoperability. In the end, this request focuses on both achieving data verification, and the delivery of sufficient hardware to validate the Technical Data package for re- procurement as well as demonstrate the system's ability to deploy to DoD/DHS users for the missions described. The Night Vision Electronic Sensors Directorate, Ft. Belvoir Virginia, is very supportive of this project. Project: Aircrew Body Armor and Load Carriage Vest System Account: Other Procurement--U.S. Air Force Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Eagle Industries Address of Requesting Entity: 1000 Biltmore Drive, Fenton, MO 63026 Description of Request: To provide $3,000,000 to issue the Aircrew Body Armor Load Carriage Vest System, an integrated body armor vest system, to aircrew personnel. The system provides fire retardancy and ballistics protection from a wide array of threats including small arms fire, fragmenting shrapnel and spall, while decreasing the heat stress and weight burdens faced by airmen. Currently issued aircrew flight equipment survival vests are not body armor-compatible due to weight, heat, and survivability concerns. Current issue is not fire retardant and fails to meet the present needs of the U.S. Air Force. Of the $3 million, approximately 25% is for materials; 25% is for labor; and 50% is for armor and armor integration. This request is consistent with the intended and authorized purpose of the U.S. Air Force-Other Procurement account. If funded in full, this is a one-time funding request with the goal of the Air Force using internally budgeted funding to continue fielding the system to aircrew personnel.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 680, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Here's something that I think is kind of amazing. Take a look at this statement. This was an amendment that was offered to the Democrats' health plan: Nothing in this section shall be construed to allow any Federal employee or political appointee to dictate how a medical provider practices medicine. Now, I would say I think that's something that a lot of my constituents would say I don't want some bureaucrat telling some doctor what he can and can't do to take care of me. Take a look at the vote when this was done in committee. This was an amendment that was proposed by Dr. Gingrey. He spent his life going to medical school and taking care of patients. And look at the votes. Republicans, 23 votes saying we don't want to put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor, and zero voted against this, of the Republicans. Of the Democrats, only one Democrat voted for this amendment and 32 of them voted against that. Now, I think a lot of people on Main Street America think why can't we just get along as Republicans and Democrats and just solve problems. But this is a very fundamental difference between the two parties, isn't it? This is what we've been talking about. Do we really want a Federal bureaucrat? And what they just voted to say was we think that in order to control costs, you're going to have to let some government bureaucrat make those decisions and tell a doctor and a patient that they can't get the care.

Mr. AKIN. That's not intuitively obvious, in order to avoid bankruptcy, we've gotta spent more money.

Mr. AKIN. Organic chemistry. As an engineer, I feel your pain, my friend.

Mr. AKIN. With only one exception of one Democrat, a straight party- line vote saying we want to put Federal employees between your doctor and you as a patient. This is pretty serious stuff. This is very serious stuff to me. Because as I said, when I came to Congress, I had a poor health care plan. I came to Congress and found out there were some Navy doctors in this building, and those Navy doctors gave me a physical. I felt bulletproof and everything at 52. I found out that I was bulletproof and doing great except one little detail: I had cancer. And the fact that they discovered that and were able to get treatment without some bureaucrat taking that away from me, that's why I'm alive today. I can understand why people are going to be very, very cautious entering some government-run plan that produces results for people, something like what the European Union is doing. I yield to my good friend from Texas.

Mr. AKIN. Oh.

Mr. AKIN. I thank you very much. I thank my many good friends who've joined us here for this discussion. I think many understand it's a very serious issue. It's better to go slow and get it right and don't mess it up as we have some of the things that have been passed at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Mr. AKIN. I'm not allowed to say ``socialized''? Socialized. Socialized. Socialized.

Mr. AKIN. A lot of them are quite happy with the idea of socialized health care. They acknowledge that.

Mr. AKIN. Just reclaiming my time, what you're saying is pretty incredible. What you're saying is a bill that we've been working on for some number of weeks that is going to put the government in charge of all of health care in America, basically the government is going to be taking over, what is it, just under 20 percent of the U.S. economy----

Mr. AKIN. So it's like Henry Ford and his car. You can get any color you want as long as it's black. So the only kind of student loan you're going to get is a government student loan because we've basically chased the private sector out.