Scott Garrett

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. May I inquire of the Chair the amount of time remaining on both sides?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Chair, can you advise the time remaining on both sides.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I now yield 2 minutes to a gentleman who is leading the fight against this bill, which perpetuates taxpayer- funded bailouts and the loss of millions of jobs, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo).

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Chair, I now yield 3 minutes to another leader in the fight against this bill which perpetuates the idea of continued taxpayer-funded bailouts, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey).

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I will yield the gentleman another 2 minutes.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lee).

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I'm sorry, I thought you wanted a response.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. You yielded me 2 minutes, I believe.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Page 3 of the Judiciary Committee's self- executing amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. It says, on page 291, after line 4, Insert the following new subsections: Conversion to Bankruptcy (1) Conversion: The corporation may at any time, with the approval of the Secretary-- meaning the Treasury Secretary--and after consulting with the council, convert the receivership of a covered financial company to a proceeding under chapter 7 or chapter 11 of title 11, United States Code, by filing a petition against the covered financial company under section 303(m) of such title. The corporation may serve as the trustee for the covered financial company. Basically, what you have established here is a political decision by the Treasury Secretary to take an institution that they decide they are going to put into receivership--which you said before would be the end game--and allow them to convert back into 7 or 11 bankruptcy. So your statement before--and this goes to my opening comment, which you responded to, why are we so concerned with such a large bill? The reason we are so concerned with such a large bill is because obviously the Chair and Members of your side of the aisle have not read the entire bill. The reason we presented a much smaller bill was because obviously you have not read our bill either. I know our opening comment----

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. You yielded it to me, so I am responding.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Hopefully I answered the gentleman's question.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. You were being too generous.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Those numbers are just so mind boggling you can't get your arms around it. But you know what you can get your mind around is something that's happening to everybody right now, and that is, I'm getting phone calls to my office with regard to the swine flu situation that's going across this country, and they're saying, We can't get the swine flu vaccine. This is something that's supposed to be administered by this administration, that they promised would be out there for everybody who needed it, and in my counties, my district, you can't go to a doctor or a county clinic or to a county hospital and get that. But you know who is getting it? People who work at the Federal Reserve in New York, people who work for some of the largest financial institutions in this country. And the people who absolutely need it are not getting it. The people who are in jail down at Guantanamo are getting it as well. I just use that as a real life example of the administration running a program for health care and not getting the job done. I yield back to the gentleman as the time comes to an end.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate the opportunity to join you, and I commend the gentleman for leading tonight and also for those very interesting quotes from the White House with regard to the Web sites that are out there. I think the American public are asking some very basic questions-- Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability? Where are the jobs?--on all this legislation that's coming through. And when they see this, when they see Web sites that you just pointed out talking about congressional Web sites that don't even exist, when they see about job creation that doesn't even exist. You probably recall that the majority leader was on this floor back in the early part of this year when he was exclaiming that we had to vote for a seven or $800 billion stimulus bill and you had to vote for it today. Why? Because it would make or create 3 million new jobs, not next year but this year. And, of course, we now know what the facts are. What are the facts? Instead of making or saving 3 million new jobs--and I never did quite get an explanation of what is saving a job--but making or saving 3 million jobs, we, of course, have lost upwards of 3 or 4 million jobs, just the inverse of that, just the opposite of that. So the people are asking, where is the honesty in that aspect of things? Where is the accountability with the job creation? They're also asking about, and you're talking about all the money that we're spending, the trillion dollars with regard to the health care legislation and the like. Actually, I think the number was a little bit larger than what you were saying as far as the discrepancy with the projections with regard to Medicare which was created back in the mid sixties. They said by 1990, that program would cost around 10 or $11 billion. It actually cost $112 billion, so it was off by a factor of 10.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. You raise a fascinating point, and I posit two questions to you. If the Congress were to pass this bill, we know what some of the ramifications would be. It's going to be raising premiums. That is according to the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office. It's going to reduce health choices. It's going to cause delays and denials of care. Here is the one where I'll put a question to you: $500 billion in Medicare cuts. Why would it be in the best interest of senior citizens, which I presume are who AARP would supposedly be looking out for--why would they suggest that they would be looking out for seniors when they're going to be cutting benefits to seniors for $500 billion? That's not my number that I came up with. That is language right out of the bill, and it can be verified with the CBO. So it's counterintuitive that any organization would be doing something against their measures unless--and I just came in at the point when you were saying this--an organization is, maybe, making more money out of the deal for themselves than for the people whom they represent. I'll yield.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. You raise another interesting point. Again, we have to start from the premise with what is in the bill right now, what the CBO has told us and what the bill will do, if they do pass it tomorrow or Monday, what it will do is raise our premiums for insurance, it will reduce our health choices, it will delay or deny care, it will take away half a trillion dollars from our seniors in Medicare, and it will raise taxes by $729 billion. We know those are the facts. That will happen if this bill passes. But you were saying with regard to the delegates, the doctors out there, the real doctors that you and I have are fighting back and saying that they may take back the endorsement from the AMA. But it may be too late; which raises this question, then: What is the rush? What is the rush to judgment? Why are we doing this on a Saturday or maybe a Sunday? We have only ever voted on a weekend when it's an emergency situation, like for a war resolution or things dealing with the military or what have you. Is there any reason why this bill could not lay over for a week while the Members go back to their districts for Veterans Day and meet with veterans, meet with seniors, meet with doctors, meet with the other real folks? I cannot think of one reason why Speaker Pelosi would not allow us. I would ask, I am sure she is up at this hour--and we have a few minutes left--I would appreciate it if Speaker Pelosi could come down here right now and explain to us why we can't have a week when the veterans and everybody else gets to comment on this.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. We are indeed going to be placing a huge debt. This is going to be an intergenerational travesty for the next generation, for our children and their children as well, and that is the interesting thing. Just yesterday, Thursday, at noon, there were literally tens of thousands of people outside, just outside the steps of this Capitol, people who are interested in freedom and liberty coming down here to have their voice heard. That despite the fact, I might add, I know there were some reports in the paper from Members of the other side of the aisle, the Democrat side of the aisle, that said, basically paraphrasing, I am not sure why people are coming to Washington and why people are calling, because they have made up their mind already, which is also a travesty.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Right. I think you are being overly generous to the other side of the aisle when you said the bill has been out there 8 days. In reality, of course, as we sit here or stand here on the floor of the Chamber of the House of Representatives, the People's House, upstairs right now is the Rules Committee still debating, or not even debating, just listening to the Republicans make their arguments against the bill. The final bill, as you are well aware, has not been created. The final bill, as you are well aware, has not been put to text. The final bill has not been presented to the American public, which is really strange when you think about it. Because back on September 24th, Speaker Pelosi said to the media and to the American public that she would give the American public 72 hours to be able to read the final version of the bill before it came to a vote.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Cynical, or maybe overly generous to the other side of the aisle, that the majority and Speaker Pelosi would be so kind to allow the American public even that much time, when she specifically made the promise of 72 hours. Seventy-two hours, what is that? That is 3 days. And even at that, 3 days is a short period of time, I think we all would agree, to read 2,000 pages and get through it. Remember back just several months ago, when was it that we had the cap-and-trade bill on this floor. That was the end of July, I believe, or August.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona yielding, and I will be listening on the edge of my seat to hear your written comments momentarily. But I wish to join in with the discussion. I commend your work. I have been watching for the last 45 minutes your discussion, and I know you have begun to make the shift over in the comparison with regard to No Child Left Behind. In reality, of course, maybe you have already said this, with the huge burden, intergenerational burden that this bill will create, of course, what we are really talking about is no child will be left a dime.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the truth has now come out, and the fact is that you can go to jail if you do not buy into the Speaker Pelosi health care bill. One of the most onerous provisions of the Pelosi health care bill is the so-called ``individual mandate.'' This is a provision that will force every single American to buy into their health care plans whether they want to or not. Back when Bill Clinton was President back in 1994, the CBO said, ``A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase insurance like this would be an unprecedented form of Federal action.'' And how does the government force this mandate? If you don't buy their insurance plan, they will fine you 2.5 percent of your entire income. And what happens, you may ask, if you don't pay that fine to them? Now we know the answer: You could be sent to jail, literally. Section 201 of the code says that. That's right. The Joint Committee of Taxation has declared that you will be eligible to be fined up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to 5 years if you do not comply with this new plan. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad bill. It will hurt consumers. It will hurt families. It will hurt everyone else. And it may send Americans to jail.