W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Wait a minute. The Democrats just said this is going to be really cheap. It's not going to be hard to pay for.

Mr. AKIN. I would like to yield time to Congresswoman Blackburn from Tennessee. I think you had a point. And also the stack of that, that is just the beginning of the bill, and it has already given my eyes a headache from looking. What do you have, close to 9 or 10 inches of paper stacked up there, Doctor? That is just where we are now. We haven't done the amendments at 3 o'clock in the morning yet. I do yield to the gentlelady from Tennessee.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time just a second, I'd like to go back over to Dr. Roe. You were there. You're in Tennessee. You saw this experiment. Even the Democrat Governor said it was a failure. I'd like you to just finish fleshing--we have just a few minutes left. If you could finish, and then I'll close.

Mr. AKIN. Let me just, I told Congressman Shadegg from Arizona I'm going to get him in. He had a couple of points, and we're going to jump over to you, Doctor. We'll get right over to you. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. AKIN. I do yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time for a minute. One of the troubles with doctors is you guys are so smart, you go pretty fast. You're going to have to slow this down. What happened was the State government said, We're going to give you medical insurance. And so a bunch of people signed up for that. Then the companies that had the private insurance, they dropped theirs because you could go get the freebie stuff from the government. Then, guess what happened? The government stuff got really expensive and now the State's in trouble. We have a Congresswoman that I greatly respect, Congresswoman Blackburn from Tennessee also. Do you have some more facts? I mean, you lived with it. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. I wasn't going to blame you for that, gentleman.

Mr. AKIN. Just reclaiming my time, gentleman, I think you have asked an absolutely great question, because we just heard an hour from the Democrats. That was their whole point. Their whole point is: We're going to somehow make the costs go down, which is a little hard to reconcile with a $1.5 trillion estimate. We saw 3 weeks ago that we jammed through the biggest tax increase in the history of this country. What was it--a $787 billion tax on energy? Anybody who flips the light switch is going to get taxed. And that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what we want to spend. And somehow this is supposed to be efficiency. That really stretches long on the conscience. We have a number of medical doctors here today, and what I was just thinking about, Dr. Roe is from Tennessee. Did you put a program similar to this into Tennessee, and did you find that it really helped the economy of your State? I'd like to yield a little bit of time, then go to the doctor from Georgia as well in just a moment.

Mr. AKIN. Well, good evening, Mr. Speaker and my friends. We have just heard from the Democrats talking about their new foray into solving all the problems with health care, and boy, did it sound good to me. I have to say it really sounded good. The promises, essentially what I was hearing talk about, first of all, the costs are coming down and you're going to get free medical care and the quality of the care is going to go up. And gosh, if you were given a proposal like that, I don't see why anybody wouldn't say, Yeah, let's just march right ahead with socialized medicine. Let's let the government run it because they're going to bring the costs down, they're going to give you free medical care, and you're going to get even better coverage than you get now. I also was hearing the fact that they talked about the muck of our health care system and how bad the health care system is, and how, if we don't immediately pass this legislation, that things are going to get even worse. But what we have in front of us is this absolutely euphoric view of a great health care system. Well, first thing off that strikes me is a little bit of a problem with common sense, the first is, if our health care system were so bad, then it would seem like, to me, that Americans would be going to some foreign country to get their health care. But what I'm observing is that if I got sick--and I have been sick--the place that I'd like to be treated is in good old U.S.A. I don't want to go to Canada. I don't want to go to Great Britain. I don't want to go to France or Sweden. I don't want to go to Russia. No, I'd like to be sick right here in this country. So it strikes me that a health care system that most people even around the world recognize as probably the most sophisticated and the best quality health care system in the world, we're saying that it is full of muck and that the system has to be completely changed around. And so it's okay if you want to believe these promises, that what's going to happen when the government takes over the health care system is that it's going to cost less money. The trouble is the Congressional Budget Office doesn't say that and the estimates of the costs don't say that. And the States that have tried using the same approach that's being proposed here nationally, they don't say that either, because those States are almost bankrupt for trying to do this kind of a system, and yet, we're going to try to copy those bad examples. We are just actually a few weeks, a couple, 3 weeks away from dealing with the other big problem that the administration has identified, which is the fact that the climate and the Earth is going to get worse and worse, hotter and hotter, and we are going to melt down. So we've got to deal with the problem of global warming by, what would you expect, a very, very large tax increase, the largest tax increase in the history of our country. I guess it was about $787 billion. That was the largest tax increase that we've done. We did that. It was an 1,100-page bill that was brought to the floor, and then at 3 o'clock in the morning, in a special committee hearing, another 300 pages of extra text were added to the 1,100 pages, and the 300 pages being in the form of amendments to had to be collated and put into the 1,100 pages. So, as we were debating this wonderful bill on the floor, they were busy trying to collate this amendment that had been passed, 300-page amendment, at 3 o'clock in the morning. They're busy trying to collate that. So, as we're debating it here on the floor about to take a vote on it, there isn't even a copy of the bill that we're going to vote on. So here we go again. Perhaps we did learn from our last experience that it's easier to pass something that people don't know what it is. And so here we go now with about 1,000 pages of bill in terms of what we're going to do to have the government take over 20 percent of the U.S. economy. The health care business is about 20 percent of the money that's spent in America. It's about 20 percent, or close to it, of our economy, and now we're going to have the government take--well, if you take a look at it, about half of it the government's already running with Medicare and Medicaid. So we've had some experience with the government running these programs. The Medicaid program, of course, is noted for the tremendous amount of fraud and abuse that it has, but if you add the Medicaid and Medicare money, if you take a look at the total money we spent in health care, government's doing about half of it right now, but we're talking about having the government do the rest of it. And so that's where we're going, and I think we need to take a look at that. When the government does take over various things, what tends to happen? Is it noted for its efficiency? Well, usually what happens when the government takes over programs is you get tremendous excess in amount of spending. You get a lot of bureaucratic rationing. These are typical things in government programs. There's an inefficiency and a degraded quality. Those are the kinds of things that history would tell us happens when the government takes something over. That's what's being proposed here. Make no doubt about it, what's being proposed is the government is going to take over the health care system. And that has left people with this particular quip that, if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it gets to be free. Then you will see what real expense means. Well, let's take a look at how well this has worked in the past. One way you can tell whether it's a good idea to make a move or to do something particularly is to take a look at other people who have tried the same thing. The State of Massachusetts decided in 2006 that they were going to require universal health care coverage that's very much like the current Democrat plan where people are required to purchase specific levels of health insurance. Well, here's what happened. Health care costs have risen 42 percent since 2006--42 percent increase. Now we were just hearing from the Democrats that this thing isn't going to hardly cost anything. This is going to be a break-even because there's so much efficiency. Well, what sort of efficiency is a 42 percent increase? And yet, health care access is down and the patients have to wait more than 2 months to try to get to see a doctor. So, is this the kind of thing that we think is going to improve what most people think is the best health care system in the world? Health care costs now up in Massachusetts, they're 133 percent of the national average. Well, that doesn't seem to me to be producing these glorious results that I hear the Democrats talk about. I just don't think that these people may have gotten over their euphoria from just managing to put 1,100 pages, with 300 pages that nobody could read or know what it was, and pass that within a day of the three o'clock in the morning when they made the amendments. So here we go again. We're going to see if we can't pass another 1,000 or 2,000-page bill this week or next week--and it's a lot easier to pass them when people don't read them. I'm joined here this evening by some very, very good friends of mine and some people who've done a number of years of study on the health care issue. I think that we need to talk a little bit about this. Before we go racing off to make some snap decisions, I think that we need to do that. I'm joined by a number of my colleagues. I would yield to the gentleman. If you want some charts, help yourself. This is Congressman Shadegg. He's from Arizona.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, so what you're saying is, if you like it, you won't be able to keep it. That isn't true.

Mr. AKIN. I promised I was going to yield over to the gentleman from Michigan, my good friend Mr. Hoekstra, and I will come back over to you, Doctor, in just a minute. Congressman Hoekstra.

Mr. AKIN. Are you sure you're spelling that word right? It doesn't say ``czar''?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, gentleman, we're talking about the President of the United States firing the President of General Motors. We got ourselves into the insurance business, into the banking business, and now health care. What is it, 20 percent of all of American business? And we're going to have this commissioner, we're going to take another 20 percent the government's going to run?

Mr. AKIN. I would yield.

Mr. AKIN. I promised Dr. Broun that we would give him a chance here. We're getting close to closing.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 525, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, I am the ranking member of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower. We have talked a lot about climate change and global things and taxes, but my concern is very specific with this bill. I have had a chance to tour the huge shipyards where the steel frames go up and the nuclear reactors go into the ships of our mighty Navy, and every single step of the way, there is energy involved in making the steel, in making the aluminum for the aircraft, heavy, heavy uses of energy in welding the steel together. If this bill passes, it is a major threat to heavy industry because it increases the cost of energy. When we increase the cost of ships and planes, we are going to be able to buy less because we are not going to have enough money in the defense budget to be able to buy as many, and in that regard we become more vulnerable as a Nation. This bill, while it has not been talked about in this regard, is a serious threat to our industrial base and, therefore, a threat to the security of our Nation.

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 regarding H.R. 2647, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010. Project: Air Filtrations Systems for Helicopters Account: Department of Defense, Army, Aircraft Modifications Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Aerospace Filtration Systems, Inc. Address of Requesting Entity: 4 Research Park Dr, Suite 200, St Charles, MO, USA Description of Request: To provide $2,000,000 to install barrier filtration systems on National Guard aircraft. This request would allow the National Guard to obtain dramatic savings by reducing engine replacements and thus maintenance, keeping overall engine performance from being reduced due to erosion and Foreign Object damage (FOD), and increasing readiness rates of the ARNG fleet. The earmark will address a portion of the ARNG fleet to include: AH-64A APU Barrier Filter--32 Aircraft; AH-64D APU Barrier Filter--48 Aircraft; CH-47 APU Barrier Filter--80 Aircraft; OH-58A/C Engine Barrier Filter--50 Aircraft. AFS Barrier Filtration Systems capture 99% of the dirt and debris that would otherwise enter the engine or APU and cause a significant loss of performance. This prevents engines/APU's from being removed from the aircraft for costly maintenance or overhaul. Engine overhaul costs could cost as much as $300,000 on one engine. By extending the life of the engine/APU up to 11 times, the savings from one installation kit could be as high as $6.6M on one AH-64 helicopter alone. AFS barrier filters in use by the U.S. Army in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan have been proven extremely effective. These kits have allowed engines to reach TBO and have been a major part of unprecedented readiness rates for the aircraft fleets. 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 $5,400,000 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 w/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 cites 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: Backpack Medical Oxygen System (BMOS) Account: Department of Defense, Air Force, RDT&E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Essex Cryogenics of Missouri Inc. Address of Requesting Entity: 8007 Chivvis Drive, St. Louis, MO 63123-2395 Description of Request: To provide $2,900,000 for improving Air Force oxygen generation technology for emergency field medical rescues. With modification, the Backpack Medical Oxygen System (BMOS) is the system that satisfies the USAF Requirement for a small deployable oxygen generator system. This spiral development program for the BMOS system will significantly decrease the time and funds required to field critical capabilities needed today by our warfighters. The U.S. Air Force requirement for oxygen is a minimum of 93% pure oxygen at 6 liters per minute for critically injured personnel and the BMOS satisfies that requirement. Project: High Power Electrolytic Super-Capacitors Based on Conducting Polymers Account: Department of Defense, Army, RDT&E, Weapons and Munitions Technology Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Crosslink, Inc Address of Requesting Entity: 950 Bolger Court, St. Louis, MO 63026 Description of Request: To provide $9,000,000 for the development of State of the art electrolytic supercapacitors for the purpose of supplying Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) weapons, which are dubbed the ``Objective Force Weapons,'' with quick discharging/recharging energy storage systems that are capable of high power pulses, on the order of megawatts, to be delivered in the hundreds of microseconds to one millisecond time range to make these weapons successful. Approximately 21% of the funds will be used for salaries for four (4) employees, 43% for equipment and materials, and 36% for indirect costs associated with completing the project. This project has received past funding of $2.6 million in FY'07, $2.4 million in FY'08, and $800,000 in FY'09. Crosslink, University of Missouri-St. Louis, University of Missouri- Rolla and University of Florida have collaborated to develop new polyaniline and PXDOT (poly(3,4-Alkylenedioxythiophene--Conjugated electroactive polymers). The results of this collaboration will be the development of devices capable of power delivery rates significantly faster than standard supercapacitors. 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 $9,000,000 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 $9 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. Project: Mission Equipment Technology Implementation (METI) Account: Department of Defense, Army, RDT&E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: QinetiQ North America (Formerly Westar Aerospace and Defense Group) Address of Requesting Entity: 36 Research Park Ct., St. Charles, MO 63304, USA Description of Request: To provide $5,300,000 for funding to complete the METI plan initiated by the Aeromechanics division 3 years ago. This funding will complete the development of a robust enterprise level data repository that supports the Aviation Engineering Directorate's (AED) airworthiness release mission to rapidly develop and deploy mission equipment tools. The AED will have the capability to data mine and analyze complex data to determine trend information to reduce high cycle times between flight tests and airworthiness releases. Project: Bonded Cellular Aluminum Tail Rotor Blades Account: Department of Defense, Army, RDT&E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Kemco Aerospace Manufacturing Address of Requesting Entity: 3616 Scarlet Oak Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63122 Description of Request: To provide $3,600,000 for bonded cellular aluminum helicopter tail rotor blades that are well suited for military helicopter structures which operate in demanding environmental conditions and must be battle damage tolerant. Unlike traditional aluminum honeycomb, the vented/drained cellular bonded structure redistributes load paths around damaged areas and has eliminated corrosion problems associated with traditional aluminum honeycomb structures; dramatically improving life cycle costs. This technology offers significant advantages compared with current structural technologies that were designed over 30 years ago, including 82% reduced parts count, elimination of skin delamination, significantly enhanced battle damage tolerance and field reparability benefits. The tongue and groove joint structures reduce the amount of touch labor required as well as tooling costs. This has the potential to reduce procurement costs by 20-30%. Project: Adaptive-Defense HIPPIE (High-speed Internet Protocol Packet Inspection Engine) on a Chip. Account: Department of Defense, Army, RDT&E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: TechGuard Security, LLC Address of Requesting Entity: 743 Spirit 40 Park Drive, Chesterfield, MO 63005 Description of Request: Provide $6,000,000 to enhance the Army's Cyber Security. This project puts the rapid and power-conserving High- speed Internet Protocol Packet Inspection Engine's (HIPPIE) security capability on a silicon chip. This funding will allow for development of a Nano-power supply and a nano-memory capability. It will enhance the coalition warrior and the US Warfighter's communication security and access control through discreet deployment with secure remote- controlled chip-level destruction in the event a device is compromised. This enhanced capability at the chip-level allows for deployment directly into the hands of the warfighter engaged in traditional and irregular warfare. Project: JSOW-ER Account: Department of Defense, Navy, RDT&E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: LaBarge Inc. Address of Requesting Entity: 9900 Clayton Road, St. Louis, MO 63124 Description of Request: Provide $6,500,000 for Joint Stand Off Weapon (JSOW) a GPS-guided air-to-ground weapon designed to attack a variety of targets in day, night and adverse weather conditions. The 70+ mile range of JSOW allows launch aircraft to stand off beyond the range of most Surface-to-Air missiles. There is a need for a small number of weapons with greater stand off. Currently the Navy fills this requirement with SLAM-ER, Harpoon and Tomahawk. The Navy completed its relatively small buy of fewer than 500 SLAM-ERs in 2004. A new variant of JSOW (JSOW-ER Block IV) would have a range and lethal capability equal to or greater than SLAM-ER and would satisfy the warfighter's need at less than half the cost of SLAM-ER. An existing engine from the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy program will be used to extend the range of JSOW-ER to more than four times of the current glide version.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, the amendment that we're bringing to the floor here is dealing with a situation that has become increasingly difficult between the legislative branch and the executive branch, but specifically the Pentagon. That is that the leadership at the Pentagon is requiring generals or admirals to sign nondisclosure agreements; that is, they're not allowed to share their opinions with Members of Congress. In the past, our relationship with the Pentagon has been one of openness and trying to work together as a team. The Armed Services Committee has always been a very bipartisan committee who worked well together. We've always tried to have a win-win kind of situation both between the parties, but also between the legislative branch and the Pentagon. Unfortunately, these nondisclosure statements have a tendency, we are concerned, with muzzling our admirals and generals and preventing them from giving us data that we need to be able to do our job. This amendment is being brought also by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes), and I would yield 2 minutes to him.

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, we've been talking about missile defense here and an amendment that relates to missile defense. I think one of the things that is important, and maybe a little confusing, is the fact that there are different kinds of missiles that an enemy might send against us, and so we have different kinds of missile defense depending on the nature of what is sent against us. The debate here centers on the very long-range missiles that are known as intercontinental ballistic missiles. We have only one way to stop those missiles, and that is what's called ground-based defense. Now, we have started. We have dug the holes and built the silos for some additional ground-based missiles, and this budget is cutting the funding for something that we have already started. The amendment would restore those and finish something that we agreed to so we are not wasting money starting something and stopping it partway. So that is part of the amendment. And this is missile defense, which is important, along with the other kinds of missile defenses which are supported in this bill and have been done very well by the committee overall. The second component of this amendment restores what is known as the Airborne Laser, a very promising technology which is based more on trying to stop a missile as it's being launched. It has the benefit of being as fast as a flashlight beam that you put on the missile and you kill it right over enemy territory when it's being launched. The bill, the way it is proposed, is going to cut the funding for the Airborne Laser. This amendment restores that important funding. Again, this is a program that we've started, invested a whole lot of money in, and it needs to go forward.

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, I ask for adoption of the amendment.

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AKIN. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. AKIN. May I ask the Chair how much time is remaining?

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. I rise now to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).