Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I apologize. I didn't hear your gavel earlier. So even though it's abrupt, I am happy to yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. To the gentleman from New Jersey as to his question on the doughnut hole, I understand. Under the current circumstances of the doughnut hole, there are many people in the lowest incomes who are not affected by it.

Mr. KING of Iowa. To compress my response, I think it's a bit unclear because we don't know how the Secretary of Health and Human Services may respond when the funding is shut off.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on HHS, Congressman Rehberg, for yielding. I want to declare my support for this amendment, and I think he is happy if I refer to it as the Rehberg amendment. I also want to thank Denny Rehberg for the work that he has done on this. America will never know, Mr. Chairman, how much work went into crafting this amendment to get this fix that does a little bit to take us down the road. And, boy, it is important to me to see $100 million cut out of the resources that would be used to implement ObamaCare. Mr. Chairman, I am also very confident in declaring it to be ObamaCare. I listened to President Obama address it as ObamaCare on February 25 of last year at the Blair House during the health care summit. I thought that was the source of the moniker ObamaCare, was the President himself, and if anyone thinks otherwise, I think they should look back and check the record. ObamaCare is this: It's not $1 trillion in deficit over 20 years if we don't go through with this atrocity; it's $2.6 trillion in spending in the first full decade, according to the chairman of the Budget Committee, Paul Ryan--$2.6 trillion in spending. We are here in this CR to cut spending. We know that we have to go into a national era of austerity because of the overspending that has taken place over the last 4 years in particular and the last 2 years in a hugely significant way. We're looking at a budget now that has a deficit proposed by the President of $1.65 trillion. And if you roll back to the full Federal outlays in 1997, $1.6 trillion. The on-budget items in 2002, $1.6 trillion. And we have that much deficit proposed by the President. We want to shut off $2.6 trillion worth of irresponsible spending. We want to preserve the liberty and the freedom of the American people and the best health care system in the world. That's why you see sheikhs' planes landing in places like Rochester, Minnesota to get health care that they can't get in other places in the world. If Michael Moore thinks Cuba has the best health care system, I suggest he swim there. This country, we need to preserve the system we have and expand it. The Rehberg amendment helps slow down this implementation that is going on in an aggressive fashion by the Obama administration. I happen to have in my hand, Mr. Chairman, an excerpt from a CRS report that tells you how duplicitous this bill once one picked it up and read it, the 2,500 pages. And in here are multiple places, over 50 places where ObamaCare actually not just authorizes, but it also appropriates--not completely unprecedented, but it is the largest, most substantial effort to trigger automatic spending that goes on in perpetuity, Mr. Chairman. The number here is not $100 billion. The number on this CRS report is $105.5 billion over the next 10 years. And in the balance of this fiscal year, it's $4.95 billion that we're having trouble getting at. Thanks to Denny Rehberg, we're getting at $100 million. I believe this amendment will pass today and it will go on this CR and it will become a significant leverage point over in the United States Senate. Other components of this that need to be ripped out that--oh, wait a minute, I forgot to remind you. Again, H.R. 2, full repeal of ObamaCare. I was pleased to see language that I had worked on and drafted for all those months went over to the Senate where every Republican voted to repeal ObamaCare. Here we had bipartisan support for the repeal of ObamaCare--three times the bipartisan support described by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And we sit here now with Americans that have--two-thirds of them by the polling--rejected ObamaCare. In this bill, another piece that reads deceptively is this: ``The authority for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to do interdepartmental transfers in any amount greater than the 2008 budget bill,'' which means slush funds all through that Department to aggressively implement ObamaCare. The Rehberg amendment shuts off some of that--probably not all of that, but it gets at it and it lays the point out. And I hope that we can do better on some of the others into the future. We also need to understand that when America has rejected a piece of legislation that so upsets all of our lives and takes away so much of our liberty and freedom, takes away our ability to buy a health insurance policy that is high deductible, high copayment, and low premium, that we have many more good solutions that will unfold here. This bill is unconstitutional in four places at least, two Federal courts have ruled, so we know that it will eventually get to the Supreme Court. And we can never say with certainty what the result will be, but we know the certainty of the two Federal courts, Mr. Chairman. We must have the Rehberg amendment so the American people are dealt with respect and honor of their opinion. H.R. 1 cuts the funding; H.R. 2 repeals. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman from Montana.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, amendment No. 266 is the amendment that has had a lot of discussion around the Chamber and around this country. And what it does is it recognizes the results of the CRS report, Mr. Chairman, this report dated just last Thursday, February 10, 2011. It took a long time to put all the numbers together in an official document that identified the money that is automatically appropriated in ObamaCare. In digging that out, there are dozens of locations that automatically trigger appropriations that go on in perpetuity. And the total in this report is $105.5 billion. And here we are in this continuing resolution that the CRS reports at $105.5 billion. I had been working on that for some months, and finally we came with a total. But if we are not able to shut off all of the funding that is automatically appropriated in the ObamaCare legislation, both components of it, the reconciliation package and the bill itself, then forever this money goes forward, and the administration aggressively uses it to implement ObamaCare. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, this amendment No. 266, someone put the moniker on it ``The Silver Bullet Amendment.'' And as much as we have all worked here to try to find the right way to shut off all of the funding to freeze in place the implementation and enforcement of ObamaCare, many of us have worked in a number of different ways. This is the amendment that looks at the pattern that was set, that I understood, back in 1974, when there was a CR before the House of Representatives that shut off all funding that would go to the Vietnam War for offensive or defensive operations, in the air, over the land of, the seas adjacent to, or the countries adjacent to it. That language covered everything, and it stopped bullets on the dock from going into the hands of people to defend themselves. I disagree with the policy. But the foundation is here in multiple places in the history of this Congress. This is the language that shuts off the funding of ObamaCare until such time as H.R. 2 becomes law. That's the repeal legislation that becomes law. This is H.R. 1. It's completely appropriate--and H.R. 2 and H.R. 1 are married together-- that we shut off the funding for implementation of ObamaCare, all of it, the entire $105.5 billion that was slipped into this report that we just got back last February 10. So I urge the adoption of this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, this is a point of order that has been raised on my amendment that I referred to as the silver bullet amendment. I think it does not consider a duty that we have here in the House of Representatives, and that is we stand here and take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, each one of us. I bring in my Bible to do that. And I take it very, very seriously when we take an oath to uphold the Constitution. We don't take an oath to uphold a rule, but we take an oath to uphold the Constitution. And as I look into this Constitution and read through it, Article I, Section 5 reads in pertinent part: ``Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings.'' And because each House can determine the rules of its proceedings here in this Constitution, you have in your hands the gavel, Mr. Chairman, and the power and the authority to determine those rules, at least to make a strong recommendation to this body. I would urge that we understand that two Federal courts have found this bill, ObamaCare, to be unconstitutional, and it is immoral and unjust and irresponsible to waive any opportunity to shut off the billions of dollars that are automatically appropriated in a deceptive fashion and continue for the implementation of ObamaCare because we might think somehow that a rule would trump the very Constitution itself.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, this amendment No. 267 is an amendment that is narrowed in its scope in anticipation of the point of order that was raised by the gentlelady from Connecticut, and I can't help but reflect on what it must have been like before in this body before the invention of television. But my Amendment No. 267 says this in pertinent part: ``No funds made available by this act may be used to carry out the provisions of ObamaCare.'' So what this does is, for the appropriations that go on outside of the scope of this continuing resolution, we have lost that point of order. But this amendment goes to those funds that are appropriated within it, down the exact same path as the Rehberg amendment, except it goes to the outside of the particular Department of Health and Human Services as the narrower scope of the Rehberg amendment. So this goes broader than just HHS, but it does go directly to shutting off all funds within this CR that would be used to enforce or implement ObamaCare. I have made my arguments, Mr. Chairman, on that. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the doctor from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming).

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the amount of time remaining for each side.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I really take issue with the gentleman that declared this to be nonsense. This is not nonsense. This is very, very serious business. This is the largest taking of American liberty in the history of this country. And the shenanigans that went on to put this bill in place, you could not have sent this bill out on the floor of the 111th Congress and had it pass if it were all packaged up together in one big stack. It was two pieces of bills. And we listened to Dr. Burgess earlier about all of the things that took place to represent this bill in one place or another, to put it together, including a promise of an executive order that was designed to trump the very Congress itself. And here we are, with the first opportunity to put the brakes on ObamaCare--yes, we've passed the repeal, H.R. 2. This is H.R. 1. It's here because it's more important to the Speaker than H.R. 2. And that means that we must shut off this funding to ObamaCare. This CRS report, $105 billion automatically appropriated over a 10- year period of time that goes on in perpetuity, sending the tentacles of this malignant tumor down. It is metastasizing as we speak, and American liberty is being strangled off by ObamaCare. This amendment is the amendment that shuts all of the funding within the CR. It must be passed by this Congress to keep faith with the American people. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, amendment No. 268 goes to the end of the bill. It simply says that none of the funds made available in this act may be used to pay the salary of any officer or employee of any Federal department or agency with respect to carrying out the provisions of ObamaCare. It is that simple. It is one additional way to slow down the implementation and the enforcement of ObamaCare until such time as we see that day that the full repeal is signed by, hopefully, the next President of the United States, unless the one we have today has a reconsideration. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the judge and Congressman from east Texas, Mr. Louie Gohmert.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Chair, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chair, I recall back at the beginning of the Obama administration when President Obama said that we are in an economic calamity, an economic mess, and we couldn't fix our economic problems unless we first fixed health care. And so his solution for spending too much money was to spend a lot more money, $2.6 trillion on health care. So if we couldn't first fix the economy unless we first fix health care, let me take that philosophy and turn it this way. We can't fix health care unless we first repeal ObamaCare. That's where this country is today. We can't put the replacement in place, we can't put the fixes in place until we pull this thing out by the roots. And the only way to do this today is to shut off the funding. The repeal is over there in the Senate. The House voted in a strong way to repeal ObamaCare. H.R. 1 is the unfunding of ObamaCare. It is the vehicle to do it. This amendment is one of the vehicles that contributes to that cause. Again, I thank Denny Rehberg and the people that did this work and all those people that worked on this cause. I urge adoption. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield myself 30 seconds. It's a little bit amazing to me that the gentlelady can get so focused on this. I'm the one that should be focused on it in that way and animated. The taxpayers should be animated by this. They should understand that, when the Federal Government sets union scale and drives the price up and the taxpayers can't afford it, it's not about a race to the bottom. The quality of work for my workers was always there. We take care of our people 12 months out of the year with a benefits package. We're not hiring them out of a union hall for a day, but you make us pay the price as if we were. We uphold our workers. We take care of them. We have the quality there. It's a matter of fact and it's proven, Mr. Chairman.