Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1808. I am proud to be the first non-Georgian sponsor of the bill after the entire Georgia delegation. I knew Congressman Norwood very well. He was one of my very best friends in the House. I can think of no better tribute than to name the Veterans Affairs Center at One Freedom Way in Augusta the Charlie Norwood Medical Center. Congressman Norwood was a strong advocate for veterans. He was a veteran himself. He was very active in health care issues and veterans health care issues on the House floor. This is a fitting tribute to his service in the Congress and his service to the country when he was in the military and served so nobly and ably in Vietnam. I rise in strong support and hope we get unanimous support for this bill at the appropriate time. I have had the pleasure of working with many great men and women in my 22 years in the House, and I can say with all honesty that Charlie Norwood was one of the best. I knew Charlie well, both as an outspoken member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and a good friend. His devotion to people of the Tenth District of Georgia was undeniable, as was his passion for improving this country's healthcare and the lives of its veterans. Charlie Norwood's service to his country began long before his election to the House of Representatives. Charlie volunteered to serve in the United States Dental Corp during the Vietnam War. Captain Norwood provided dental, emergency medical, and surgical care for United States personnel, Vietnamese civilians, and prisoners-of-war. The Dental Corp operating procedures that he helped develop while in combat conditions have now become standard. Upon returning stateside, Charlie settled in the Augusta area and set up a private dental practice serving local residents as well as providing care for military personnel, retirees, and dependents under Department of Defense programs and for low-income patients under Georgia Medicaid. His work on behalf of veterans and military personnel continued throughout his twelve years in the House of Representatives. Throughout his congressional service from 1995 to 2007, Congressman Norwood repeatedly defeated attempts to reduce Federal support for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia. I think it only appropriate that we gather here today to honor the memory of this great man by placing his name on the institution that he fought so hard for. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to Congressman Charlie Norwood.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure of working with many great men and women in my 22 years in the House, and I can say with all honesty that Charlie Norwood was one of the best. I knew Charlie well, both as an outspoken member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and a good friend. His devotion to people of the Tenth District of Georgia was undeniable, as was his passion for improving this country's healthcare and the lives of its veterans. Charlie Norwood's service to his country began long before his election to the House of Representatives. Charlie volunteered to serve in the United States Dental Corps during the Vietnam War. Captain Norwood provided dental, emergency medical, and surgical care for United States personnel, Vietnamese civilians, and prisoners-of-war. The Dental Corps operating procedures that he helped develop while in combat conditions have now become standard. Upon returning stateside, Charlie settled in the Augusta area and set up a private dental practice serving local residents as well as providing care for military personnel, retirees, and dependents under Department of Defense programs and for low-income patients under Georgia Medicaid. His work on behalf of veterans and military personnel continued throughout his twelve years in the House of Representatives. Throughout his congressional service from 1995 to 2007, Congressman Norwood repeatedly defeated attempts to reduce Federal support for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia. I think it only appropriate that we gather here today to honor the memory of this great man by placing his name on the institution that he fought so hard for. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to Congressman Charlie Norwood.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Dr. Burgess of Denton, Texas.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I want to yield our last minute to the distinguished minority leader from the State of the current number one college football team in the country, Ohio State, Mr. Boehner of Ohio.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I want to recognize myself now and then recognize myself later in the debate, because my speakers aren't here. Is that acceptable, Madam Speaker?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Madam Speaker, one of the things that has been talked about in this debate is that the pending bill before us does not allow illegal aliens to receive benefits, and there is a section in the bill, section 605 that says that. But it has no enforcement. And in another part of the bill the requirement for citizenship verification is repealed, and the substitution for that is a requirement that a beneficiary or potential beneficiary simply show a Social Security number. And as we all know, there are millions of fraudulent Social Security numbers floating around. So when we actually do get down to negotiating the conference after this veto is sustained, I hope that my friends in the majority will work with us in the minority to make sure that illegal aliens do not get benefits and that we have the appropriate enforcement mechanism in the bill that we send to the President. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I'm not sure I understand. Let me rephrase my question.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, what we have today is a classic case of a Washington, DC, nonintersecting conversation. Since the President vetoed this bill several weeks ago, my friends on the majority side have spent 2 weeks encouraging outside groups and perhaps their political arm, I am not sure about that, to spend millions of dollars in television and radio ads bombarding targeted Republicans to get them to change their vote. Now, that is only the sixth time in history that we know of that a veto has not been brought to the floor immediately on the President's veto. The result is going to be that when we get to the vote in the next hour or so, the next 30 minutes or so, the President's veto will be sustained. Then, hopefully, we will have the real bipartisan negotiations that should have started 6 or 7 months ago. It is interesting to me that we are still having a misunderstanding about the basic facts. And the reason is, we have never had a legislative hearing in either the Ways and Means Committee or the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have not had a subcommittee markup in either of the jurisdictional committees. And we really didn't have a markup at full committee, because the original bill for SCHIP was a 500-page mammoth bill that we got at midnight the day before it was supposed to be marked up in the case of the Energy and Commerce Committee. But once we do sustain the President's veto, we are going to have these negotiations I hope. And first we are going to talk about the kids. Both sides are talking about the kids. Well, here are the facts. Under current law, every child in America who is below 100 percent of poverty is covered by Medicaid. Both parties support that. Under current law, every child in America who lives in a family between 100 and 200 percent of poverty is covered by SCHIP if they will sign up. Now, there are some children and families that won't sign up. In Dallas, Texas, I am told that only 33 percent of the eligible SCHIP children are actually in an SCHIP program. That is a travesty. We ought to do something together to reach out to those children and those families to make sure that they either have SCHIP coverage or private insurance, that they have something. We can work together on that on a bipartisan basis. Now, once you get above 200 percent of poverty, we have a difference of opinion. The original House bill said go to 400 percent of poverty. That bill is dead. The bill before us goes to 300 percent. It is a legitimate policy argument: If you want to go above and expand the program, how much do you expand it above 200 percent? Do you go to 300 percent? Do you go to 250 percent? The Republican alternative is, let's cover the lowest income kids first. Once we get 90 percent of those kids covered below 200 percent of poverty, let's let States go to 250 percent. That is the Barton-Deal alternative that we have the discharge petition on. But that is a legitimate policy argument. Now, let's talk about illegal aliens. Under current law, you are not supposed to cover a child of an illegal alien. But they are covered because there is no verification enforcement system. In the pending bill, they have section 605 that says no benefit shall go to children of illegal aliens. But that is all it says. There is no enforcement mechanism. There is no enforcement mechanism. That is something we can work on in the conference. That is something we can work on together to really put some enforcement to make sure that SCHIP benefits are for citizens and legal residents. We can work on that. Let's vote to sustain the President's veto, and then let's work together to get a program that really is for the kids, not for adults, that really is for citizens, and that we can afford. Well, Madam Speaker, there they go again. Once again, we are being forced by the Democratic Leadership of the House to vote on a bill that exists almost exclusively to help Democrats score political points against the President. We're going to sustain the President's veto today, and we're going to do it because the President did the right thing by vetoing this poorly written expansion of federalized health care that leaves the poorest kids behind. Anybody who cares about needy children can vote against this bad bill proudly. I'm both proud and concerned that Republicans had no part in writing this legislation. Proud because this bill is an embarrassment. Concerned because we're all supposed to be legislating on behalf of children, and as everybody knows, no Republican Member of this House was even asked for an opinion, much less invited to participate in writing the Democratic SCHIP bill. I don't even think the Democrats who wrote it understand what they've done. I challenge the supporters of this bill to look people in the eye and say that they understand all of the provisions that are actually in this bill. Because I have some questions for you. Madam Speaker, it would be a compliment to say that the so-called process which produced this bill is an abuse of our democratic system of Government. It was so much worse than garden-variety abuse. It was pathetic. Yet, I'm sure that some will show up here with a handful of talking points from your Democratic staffers who actually constructed this legislation, and you will explain to us that it is not an abomination at all, but a wondrous triumph of bipartisanship. Give me the name of one Republican in the entire House of Representatives who directly participated in these discussions. Name just one. I know that the authors of this bill certainly did not consult with either Mr. Deal or myself, I know that they have not included any Members of the Republican Leadership in the House; and I'm not aware of a single Republican Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee being invited to participate in this process. And although we were excluded from the negotiations and the Democratic Leadership has repeatedly refused to hold a legislative hearing on this bill, we have learned a few facts from the official projections produced by the Congressional Budget Office, and from what I've read, this bill isn't something that I could ever support. For example, we know that the vast majority of the people added to the SCHIP program under the Democrats' bill will either already have private health insurance or they live in families with incomes too high to be eligible for SCHIP coverage today. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects that H.R. 976 will lead to over 1.2 million new enrollees will be added to SCHIP as a result of an ``expansion of SCHIP and Medicaid eligibility to new populations.'' This means that these 1.2 million children live in families whose incomes are too high to qualify for the current SCHIP program. On the other hand, CBO projects that only 800,000 currently SCHIP eligible kids will be enrolled as a result of H.R. 976. This means that 50 percent more higher-income kids will be enrolled than currently SCHIP eligible kids. And who will be paying for this expansion of SCHIP eligibility to higher-income families? Well, according to the Congressional Research Service, the vast majority of the $70 billion in additional tobacco tax revenues will come from low-income families. In fact, the Congressional Research Service said that tobacco taxes are ``the most regressive of the federal taxes.'' So, with H.R. 976, the Democrats really are taxing the poor in order to give to the rich. In their defense, I guess it is difficult for the Democratic Leadership to know exactly what is in their own bill since it has neither been subject to a single legislative hearing nor conferenced by the House and the Senate. Madam Speaker, I wonder if someone can explain to me why the Democratic Leadership decided to wait until just days before SCHIP expires to bring their reauthorization to the House floor. We have known for well over 10 years that the current SCHIP authorization would expire on September 30, 2007, and the Democratic Leadership in the House and the Senate have known since early November of 2006 that they would be in charge of actually producing a bill to reauthorize this vital health care program for low-income, uninsured children. Yet, here they were, a full 10 months later, jamming a bill through the House with fewer than three legislative days before the entire program expires and children's health care stops. Well, Madam Speaker, I was not sent here by the 6th District of Texas to be quiet and do what the gentle lady from San Francisco instructs me to do. I was sent here to represent my constituents' best interests and I demand the ability to do what I have sworn to do. We all know that the President promised to veto this version of the bill, so why did we waste precious time on a bill that we all know didn't stand a chance of ever becoming law? While we are down here on the floor participating in this Theatre of the Absurd, the Democratic Leadership is in the back rooms trying to figure how they will extend the SCHIP program for another 6 months or a year. We all know this to be a fact, but I guess the Democrats want to pick a fight with the president so they can pretend that he is against children, and only then will they permit everybody to do the right thing and extend SCHIP. Madam Speaker, I'm sorry it's come to this. The pettiness of this transparent political strategy to damage and weaken the president is a new low. I'd hoped that we would not engage in this game, and it's still not too late to stop it. We could start debating how to best extend the SCHIP program so that we can actually do the job people sent us here to do. We still have a chance to write a responsible, long-term reauthorization of the SCHIP program. Now, it's true that writing a solid, bipartisan bill will not give the Democrats the ``political victory'' that they are hoping for, but that's the price that Democrats will have to pay. Given that millions of needy children are depending on us, it doesn't seem like a big price. I am ready to start today to sit down with the Majority and reach a compromise bill so we can reauthorize this program expeditiously. Short 6-week extensions are irresponsible. We can and should come up with a compromise that can be signed into law and that ensures that low income children continue to have access to the SCHIP program. We should not drag this political process out any longer than today. Let us dispense with politics and commence with legislating. Here's a way that will get me to call the President and urge him to sign up fast. Require that States find and enroll 90 percent of the kids under 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level before they go looking for more people with higher incomes. States should be free to spend their own money, of course, but Federal taxpayers in 49 States shouldn't be made to subsidize the health care premiums for one State making $80,000 a year. No adults except pregnant women, please. No more childless couples and, beginning in 2009, and Medicaid-eligible adults should move to Medicaid. Let's preserve the requirement that States document the citizenship and identity of Medicaid applicants. Just writing down a Social Security number doesn't make you a citizen. A bipartisan effort could pass this bill in a week, and doing so would make sense to poor kids, their families and nearly everybody outside the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, is it acceptable under the rule that we are operating under, as long as we control time, to recognize a Member more than once as long as you control the time?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Walden of Oregon.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken down.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Congressman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mrs. Blackburn of Tennessee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent, of the 30 minutes that I control, I yield 15 minutes of that to the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McCrery of Louisiana, to control.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Deal of Georgia.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I just have two speakers left, the distinguished minority leader and myself. I'm prepared to do the mini-close. I assume that Ms. Pelosi is going to close for the majority, so we're kind of in a holding pattern here.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my 2-year-old hasn't needed a time-out yet.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Madam Speaker, there is politics being played in this body this afternoon, but it's not by the President of the United States. When the SCHIP bill was up for reauthorization back in early September, people like myself asked that we have a regular process, have some time to review the bill, have some markups, learn what was in it, since we had gotten it the night before about midnight.