Tom Price

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I appreciate that so much, because that is exactly right. Anybody that is opposed to extending these tax decreases is in favor of, in fact, a tax increase. And what could we expect from continuing the tax decrease? Well, I would expect, just as I know my colleague would, that the revenues to the Federal Government will increase, more than enough, I am certain, to continue the appropriate programs that we should at the Federal level, and, in fact, what we ought to be able to anticipate is the opportunity to further continue those tax decreases. Now, I have some other examples of what happens when you decrease taxes that I would like to share with my colleagues. Remember, 2003 is when the tax decrease went into effect, and this chart here shows the amount of growth by each quarter, the amount of growth by each quarter before the tax cuts took effect and after tax cuts took effect. What you will see very clearly, this is as vivid as it gets, before the tax cuts took effect, you had kind of variable growth. We had the difficulty, as the gentleman mentioned, of the challenge of 9/11, the extreme hardship that we faced at that point and the difficulty of recovering from that. The tax cuts were put in place and they took effect at the beginning of 2003, and since then, since then we have had 10 straight quarters of plus 3 percent or more growth in GDP. In fact, every one of those quarters is greater than every one of the quarters before when the tax cuts were not in place. That is the kind of remarkable growth that occurs when you put more money in people's pockets. It increases the amount of economic activity throughout our country. This is the remarkable chart that demonstrates again what happens with tax cuts, with tax decreases. This chart demonstrates the change in employment. These are the jobs across our Nation. Again, this line in the middle is when the tax cuts took effect. Before that you see from January 2001 through the beginning quarter of 2003, before the tax relief occurred, you see decreased job growth. Again, 9/11 took an incredible toll, but decreased job growth. What happens when the tax cuts takes effect? You have increased job growth, with 4.4 million jobs created since the tax cuts took effect. Every single quarter you have job growth. Sometimes less, oftentimes a lot more. This past month, we had 215,000 new jobs created across our Nation. So what happens when you cut taxes? You increase revenue to the government, you increase the economic productivity and growth in this Nation, and you increase jobs. That is what happens when you cut taxes. Would my colleague agree with that?

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, while home over the past 2 weeks, constituents kept asking me, when are we going to do something about illegal immigration? When are we going to take this problem seriously? Congress should act now, and one thing is critically clear: Our borders must be secure. Before we do anything else, we must stop the flow of illegal immigrants, and this must be done now. A hard deadline is important, a date after which we will tolerate no violation of the border, and that is exactly what H.R. 3693 does. It ought not be too much to ask to bring accountability to the prevention of illegal immigration. For that is what it is all about, is it not? Accountability. Those who break our immigration laws should be held accountable. Those who hire illegal aliens should be held accountable. Those who turn the other way and claim there is no problem should be held accountable. Mr. Speaker, we have a large and a growing crisis in our country. It is our responsibility to act on behalf of our constituents and our Nation. Simply put, if our borders are not secure, then our Nation is not secure. The time to act is now.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be a Republican. I am proud to be a Member of the party of Lincoln, who knew and understood that you cannot build up the poor by tearing down the rich. The class warfare being waged by the other side belittles a once-proud party. What we are trying to do here is to renew our commitment to hard- working American taxpayers, reforming the process, cutting red tape, and setting priorities. This is smart spending, and it is what we should be doing in every area of government. And contrary to what our colleagues say, there is more money for education. We know and understand how difficult it is for some to get funding for college. I, myself, was the recipient of student loans during my education, and this bill gets more money to students. It simplifies the process, gives greater flexibility, and protects taxpayers. There are no cuts. Student aid money increases. All you have to do is look at the numbers. Increase in Federal loans, increase in Federal grants, increase in Federal work study money, and increase in education tax benefits. That is more money, that is not less. We are providing common-sense proposals to reform and strengthen student aid for education. That is more money for students. To characterize this as anything else is demagoguery and deception and does a disservice to all Americans. I urge all of my colleagues who are truly concerned, truly concerned about education, to support this positive move in the right direction with more money for education.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, our economy is continuing its move up, with the housing market in the driver's seat. Since the 1990s, the housing market has been on the rise, and last quarter this increase was even bigger, reaching record-breaking growth. This is good news and something that we all should applaud. Mr. Speaker, this housing boom should be creating a lot of news, and there are a few facts that you may not have seen in your morning paper. New homeowners have been able to build hundreds of billions of dollars in equity in ownership. Consumer spending has increased, putting more and more dollars back into our economy. New jobs, that is an increase in jobs, has occurred in each of the last 25 months. And, of course, the increased rate of homeownership to record levels have helped millions of Americans realize the American dream. With a stronger economy and an increase in jobs, the trend of continuous economic growth should only grow stronger in the months ahead. As we approach Thanksgiving, we should all give thanks for the incredible opportunities we have in our Nation, opportunities that give every American greater hope and optimism about their future.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, here is a quote: Others have talked about this threat that is posed by Saddam Hussein. Yes, he has chemical weapons. He has biological weapons, and he is trying to get nuclear weapons. That is not President Bush. That is Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi. But now what we are seeing is some revisionist history, and this Monday morning quarterbacking is a disservice to all of America. Remember Secretary Colin Powell's testimony in front of the U.N. on February 5, 2003? One of the things that was never questioned was a tape that he played. It was between an Iraqi colonel and an Iraqi general. The colonel says, About this committee that is coming, and he is talking about the U.N. nuclear weapons committee. And the general says, Yeah, I am worried that you have got something left. And the colonel says, We have evacuated everything. We don't have anything left. Now, what were they talking about, Mr. Speaker? What were they talking about? It is no wonder that both Republicans and Democrats both voted to go to war. Both had the same intelligence and both saw the writing on the wall. Disagreeing about current policy is one thing, but changing historical fact is the tired, old, petty, partisan politics of the past.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, contrary to what some of my friends on the other side of the aisle do, I like to take this time, morning hour, and share a little good news with the American people, because this is an exciting day. It is a new day for health care in our Nation. It is a day of great opportunity for seniors all across our Nation. Today is the first day that seniors all across America are able to sign up voluntarily and participate in the new Medicare part D prescription drug program. As many members of Congress know, I am a third-generation physician, and the things that were available to treat patients by my father and my grandfather have changed so significantly. The kinds of things that I was able to use to take care of patients were remarkably different than those that my father and grandfather were able to use. Medicine is an evolving science, and it changes almost daily. But the Medicare program, like most government programs, has not kept up. When Medicare started 40 years ago, there really were very few medications that were able to be used to significantly alter the course of a disease or to prevent disease. But a lot of things have changed. Over the past 40 years, there are wonderful opportunities that have been created with the use of drug treatments and medications to prevent and cure diseases. Yet Medicare, until now, has not covered a single medication. None. The Medicare system would cover, for example, the incredibly expensive surgery to take care of an ulcer, but it would not cover the medications to prevent the ulcer in the first place. That Medicare would cover, for example, the expensive hospitalization or potential surgery to treat an individual who had a stroke but would not cover the medications that were available to prevent a stroke, itself, does not make any sense at all. But all that is changing, and all of that is changing beginning today. I want to stress that this is a voluntary program, a voluntary program for all seniors. Most seniors, if they look at the options available to them, will be helped significantly and assisted in their purchase and the ability to purchase medications by this new program. Some might argue that much of this will be confusing, and it may be at the beginning. All kinds of programs that start anew oftentimes have many things that are confusing in them. However, I encourage my colleagues, both in Congress and in the medical profession, to assist in educating seniors about the options that are available to them. I have held a number of meetings around my district with seniors in an effort to try to educate them, and they have wonderful questions, will this program help me, how do I know that it will cover the medications that I have, how do I sign up, how do I get that information. If I may pass along a couple of items, the first is the Medicare number: 1-800-Medicare. There are many individuals available at that line to be able to help seniors. Also, the Web site, www.medicare.gov. I was on it just this morning and it has a wealth of information available to folks. In these meetings that I had, I always had somebody available from CMS, or the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with me to be able to help answer questions. But what I was most impressed with, in Georgia at least, the vast majority of seniors will be able to have a program that is better for them, covers more of their medications than they currently have with this Medicare program. There are some important dates to remember. Today is the first date that is important. Today is the first day that seniors are able to sign up for a program whose coverage begins on January 1. This window of opportunity, that time to sign up, is between now, November 15, 2005, and May 15, 2006, even though the program begins on January 1. Many seniors are currently receiving some prescription drug coverage now through a Medicare plus program or a supplemental program. I think it is important again for most seniors to appreciate that this program, the Medicare part D program, will be better for them than the current program that they have. Again, 1-800-Medicare is the phone number. The Web site is www.medicare.gov. It is important that seniors look at the list of medications that they are currently taking and the list of medications that are available through the plans that are available to them and select one that is able to meld those that is going to cover the medications that they have. It is an exciting time. It is a great opportunity for all seniors across our Nation. I encourage every senior to look at the options available to them and make certain that they are selecting a program that suits them best. I am hopeful that this will help improve the health care and the healthful status of all seniors across our Nation. I look forward to watching this program as it unfolds and as it evolves, and hopefully this will be an impetus to allow Medicare to be a much more nimble program.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, can you imagine an insurance policy that paid thousands of dollars for the most expensive treatment for a disease but not a few hundred dollars for medicine to prevent that disease from occurring? Well, that is what Medicare has been, until now. Today is the first day that seniors all across our country can join Medicare part D. As a physician, I am keenly aware that medications are a mainstay of the treatment and prevention of disease and, with this new prescription drug benefit, Medicare will now assist seniors in obtaining medicines that can prevent serious illness. Seniors should get more choices and better treatment, and America will get a Medicare system that moves into the 21st century. In my district, I have held senior education seminars, trying to give seniors helpful information about this new and exciting program. This is not about politics, this is about helping those eligible for Medicare to select the plan that is best for them. I encourage all of my colleagues in medicine and in Congress to help seniors as they have the opportunity to participate in a new health program, one that should result in a more rewarding and healthier life.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we celebrate Veterans Day to honor America's most courageous men and women of the past and the present. In conflicts around the world, those serving in our military protect our country and safeguard the values that Americans hold dear: safety and freedom and democracy. The Defense Department has a program allowing a recorded phone call so that soldiers from my district serving overseas can listen to it and then contact me. The opinions of those serving our country are so very important, and I encourage all Members of Congress to participate in this program. Veterans Day is often marked by parades. However, we in Congress must remember that the celebration of our veterans is more than just a once- a-year event. Over the past 5 years, we have increased benefits to veterans by over $20 billion, from the GI Bill to VA home loan guarantees to benefits for disabled veterans, widows, and dependents. However, dollars and cents cannot measure the sacrifice of our soldiers. We enjoy our freedoms today because of what they do every day of every year. To those who have served, a grateful Nation says thank you.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, last March Atlanta experienced one of the worst instances of courthouse violence on record. A defendant overpowered a courthouse security guard, grabbed her weapon and shot a judge dead in his own courtroom. The defendant then escaped, setting off a massive manhunt until he was captured a short while later. Incidents of courthouse violence are spreading. Chicago, Illinois, and Tyler, Texas, have also experienced vicious crimes against our judicial system. Many States are working to prevent this from happening again by improving courthouse security. This is a step in the right direction. But we must do more to protect judges, attorneys, jurors, and other courthouse employees from ever having to confront this kind of danger. We must not allow criminals to compromise our judicial system. Today we have an opportunity to act to strengthen penalties against those who commit courthouse violence and protect Federal judiciary employees from falling prey to criminals attacking their personal finances. Madam Speaker, the Secure Access to Justice and Court Protection Act is before us today, and I urge my colleagues to support this important initiative to preserve and protect our system of justice.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 585 I was inadverently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, while watching the nightly news last night, I was shocked by the stories being reported or, more accurately, by those stories that were not being reported. What, you say. Well, during the month of October we added over 50,000 jobs to our economy. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma wreaked havoc in cities across our gulf coast, displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and jobs. During this time, our economy was still able to continue to grow in the face of these tragic events. Our Republican policies worked to stimulate the economy. Job creation averaged 194,000 per month for the year prior to Hurricane Katrina. Third quarter GDP increased by 3.8 percent, capping 10 quarters of growth in a row. Yet you would not know it unless you searched deep past the front pages of your local papers. There have been increases in new and existing home sales, declines in unemployment, and increases in business investment. All good news. Mr. Speaker, an examination of the facts makes it quite clear. Republicans have a plan to reform the Federal Government and increase savings for all the American people.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 3146.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, our brave men and women in the military are accompanied by other brave men and women who work hard to protect us. They are our border agents who guard our international boundaries, and they are now often serving in what amounts to a war zone. In the fiscal year just ended, over 650 border agents reported being assaulted, the highest number since they began tracking these incidents in the 1990s. Compare that to last year's total of 354, and you have to wonder just how secure our borders are. Even with sensors and cameras and fences, that is not enough. Incidents have increased from San Diego to Nogales, Arizona to the banks of the Rio Grande in Texas. It is clear we are not getting the job done, and our efforts need to be strengthened. If our agents have to dodge bullets, then who is controlling our borders? Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff said last week that when it comes to illegal immigration, time is not on our side. Mr. Speaker, Congress should take action now to secure our borders. Our Nation is not secure until our borders are secure. That is the necessary and first step to any immigration reform. H.R. 3693 is legislation that America needs now.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, if you were to listen to many folks in this Chamber, you would think there was absolutely no good news to be heard anywhere. With the challenges this Nation has faced over the past couple of months, the economy ought to be in awful shape. Right? Madam Speaker, there is news that you just will not see on the major television stations or read in the newspapers, the one success of our economy, the amazing American economy. The gross domestic product, the most clear measure of our economic activity, rose by 3.8 percent in the third quarter. That is an increase of 3.8 percent. That is in spite of Katrina and Rita and all the damage that they brought to our shores. The past 10 quarters have been phenomenal. That is 2\1/2\ years. Growth during that time has been greater than 3 percent in every quarter and more often more than 4 percent. That is good news. And the deficit? Well, that has improved as well, decreasing nearly $100 billion in the last fiscal year alone. That is good news. Madam Speaker, Republicans have a plan to reform the government in order to achieve savings for the American people. I urge my colleagues to embrace the good news in our plan.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, the fifth amendment to the Constitution states that ``no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.'' Thomas Jefferson said: ``The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.'' However, that was then. We have heard a lot of talk about the Founding Fathers; and they are not turning in their graves, Mr. Chairman, they are spinning. Jefferson warned: ``A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything you have.'' It looks like we are at that stage. A school does not generate tax revenue. A church does not generate any tax revenue, but that does not mean that a school ought to become a Starbucks and that a church ought to become the next Costco. Thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision on eminent domain, the fifth amendment has been vastly expanded. In the past, public use meant projects for the common good, not for the bottom line. With this decision, no citizen's property is safe and the American dream of owning your own home is now at risk. Private ownership of property is a pillar of our freedom and our prosperity. The Private Property Rights Act, H.R. 4128, will begin to right the wrong that was wrought on our Nation this past June. I urge all Members of this House to support this important legislation.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, Thomas Jefferson said that ``the true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property,'' and the fifth amendment to the Constitution states ``nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.'' Thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, the fifth amendment has been vastly expanded so that it now means ``for the bottom line.'' Public use has been redefined to say simply that tax revenues are more important than neighborhoods. The Founding Fathers did not mean ``public use'' to be defined as potential future economic development to increase tax revenues. Private property rights of our citizens are now competing with tax revenue and private developments. The Constitution is meant to protect the rights of our citizens, not compete with the bottom line, and certainly not to provide the government with an excuse to seize our property. Our system only works with appropriate checks and balances, and this week Congress should exercise its check on a wayward Supreme Court decision and pass legislation that will demonstrate that increasing tax revenues should not trample the rights of private property owners.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today, I had the privilege of joining the President for his speech at the National Institutes of Health where he discussed the avian flu and a potential pandemic. He talked about our Nation's strategy to protect outbreaks, expand domestic vaccine protection, stockpile treatments and prepare our response. The take-home message of all of this is preparation, not panic. It is important that we bring calm to the sea of sensationalism about the bird flu. Is this a threat? Yes, potentially. Do we need to be prepared? Absolutely. What the President outlined is a strategy for Federal, State and local governments and communities, neighborhoods and families. All must play a role. This cooperation is vital to the strategy and success. As a doctor, I understand and appreciate the importance of prevention. It is the most efficient and cost-effective way to treat diseases, any disease. That is the goal and the plan, to have a structure in place to rapidly detect outbreaks anyplace in the world, have the medicines and vaccines necessary to treat everyone and respond at every level. Mr. Speaker, I applaud the President for outlining a proactive, successful course, preventive measures to ensure the safety of all Americans.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, there has been a whirlwind of news lately, from Supreme Court nominees to hurricanes and natural disasters and the cost of gasoline. If you were to listen to many folks in this Chamber, you would think that there was absolutely no good news at all, anywhere. I, like most Members of Congress, go home virtually every weekend. When I am home, I try to take every opportunity to listen to people, what are their concerns and what are their interests. They have been worried about a general sense that we here in Washington have gotten distracted from the real issues. I gain strength from those discussions and from those folks at home. The wonderful news about America is that hardworking men and women across this country are doing just that--they are working hard. To all of them, we owe an incredible debt of gratitude, because they really are the real heroes. Day in and day out, they are the real heroes. With the challenges that this Nation has faced over the past couple of months, including the record destruction from the hurricanes across the gulf coast and in Florida and the remarkable increases in gas and oil prices, the economy ought to be in the tank, or at least flat, right? It ought not be growing at all. Hold on, Mr. Speaker. This news, you have not heard in the major media, you have not heard it read in the newspapers, and that is the good news of the wonderful success of our economy, the amazing American economy. This chart shows the gross domestic product, which really is kind of the benchmark of how our economy is performing. This chart demonstrates that in the last quarter, in the third quarter of 2005, the economy grew at a rate of 3.8 percent. That is an increase. This is in spite of Katrina and Rita and all the damage that they brought to our shores. Economists have estimated that if those events had not occurred, this economy would have grown at about 5 percent in the last quarter. The good news is that this economy continues to grow. The question that most thinking people would ask, how can this be when most of the media, financial and otherwise, keep saying how awful this economy is, how it has no staying power, how it has no energy at all? I am reminded of the old adage that says that even a broken clock is right twice a day. If people keep predicting that there will be a recession, sooner or later they are going to be right. This chart demonstrates that the past 10 quarters have been phenomenal. That is 2\1/2\ years. Growth during that time has been greater than 3 percent for every single quarter and in some of those quarters it has been greater than 4 percent. Again thinking people would ask, What happened 10 quarters ago to bring this about? What began this growth cycle? Curiously, that is about the time when the tax cuts on dividends and the tax cuts on capital gains and the tax cuts on income taxes were clear that they were going to take effect retroactive to January 1, 2003. That is all good news. What is more, real business investment has grown at an average annual rate of 9 percent over that period of time, nearly twice the rate of the overall economy. This investment in business is exactly what the tax cuts were meant to address. The evidence is very, very clear. The tax cuts have had the effect that they were desired to have. How about the deficit, you ask? Well, that has improved as well, decreasing by nearly $100 billion over the past fiscal year alone. That is good news, Mr. Speaker. How could that be, lowering tax rates, increasing tax revenue and decreasing the deficit? That is exactly what lowering taxes does. I have heard my colleagues on the other side say, well, nobody else is being lifted up. In fact, the unemployment rate reached 4.9 percent in August 2005. Most economists will tell you that an unemployment rate of 5 percent is full employment, because people are changing jobs and moving. That is good news surrounding our Nation as it relates to the economy. Soon Congress must decide whether to make these tax cuts permanent or they will expire. I think the evidence is extremely clear. If we wish this good news on the economy to continue, the tried and true policy of decreasing taxes will result in an increase in economic growth, more money in people's pockets and more financial success for more Americans. Just look at the evidence. This is the evidence that decreasing taxes works for all Americans, 10 straight quarters of economic growth. I urge my colleagues to embrace this good news and act expeditiously to make certain that the tax cuts be permanent.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, have you seen the headlines: Bird Flu Anxiety Spreads Across Europe. Bird Flu Could Kill 150 Million People. WHO Warns of Dire Flu Pandemic. Media should report facts, not create panic. Unfortunately, today many of the stories we see and read are short on facts and long on panic. It is time we brought some sanity to all the sensationalism. No one should doubt the potential of the bird flu. However, responsible people are working diligently to be certain that we are prepared for any threat and are able to respond quickly. Certain facts are important to keep in mind. This Avian flu virus has been around since at least 1997. It is not a new phenomenon. The CDC states that ``the current risk to Americans is low.'' So there is cause for concern, but not panic. Our real concern should be expanded. We need to address our ability to respond to any infectious disease. Providing incentives to U.S.-based companies for vaccine production and building a routine adult immunization program are just two of the positive steps we should take. Importantly, these actions should move forward in an environment of concern, not panic.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I just want to say how honored I am to join you this evening for what is such a contrast to what is being offered on the other side of the aisle. The calm and reasoned and logical and thoughtful approach that you and others have taken I think is just so wonderful and heartwarming, frankly, to all Americans to know that there are individuals that are as thoughtful and logical in their approach to, truly, the challenges that we have. Before I begin, I do want to make a comment about what has seemed to become a nightly ritual, which is a level of personal attacks from the other side that frankly does a disservice to the discussion and the debate, and it really is a shame to see. We have really a once-proud party on the other side of the aisle that has degraded into what may be known as the ABC game, which is accuse and blame and criticize, really with no positive outlook and no positive proposals for the future. When they do offer alternatives, as my colleague from Texas just mentioned, what their alternatives do is significantly increase the tax burden on Americans, significantly increase the size of government and the scope of government; and as was mentioned, they have offered some significant increases just of late. So I would like to share with the Members, Mr. Speaker, a couple of graphics that will demonstrate that. This demonstrates if the other side had their way, just so far this year in their proposals, for the next 5 years the amendments that they have offered would have added an increase in the amount of spending of over $67 billion. This is actually out of date a little bit because we have not got another bit to share with the Members something that happened today in committee, but $67 billion of increased spending. What about the increase in taxes that they have proposed? As was mentioned, the only alternatives that they truly put on the table are an increase in the amount of spending and an increase in taxes, which certainly increases the size and scope of government. The amount of increased tax revenue that they have recommended to date, $392 billion. Even in Washington, that is a lot of money, and many of these taxes obviously come out of small business and other business, which means jobs. I think it is important that people recognize and remember what happens daily here and what has happened during this session alone. We had a really very lean budget that was adopted by Congress, without a single vote, without a single Member of the other side, the Democrat Party, voting in favor of that budget. In fact, they were instructed by their leadership not to support it, and one of the members of their leadership bragged, I guess in essence, quote, they will not get a single vote on this budget. Now that is the kind of leadership that they are offering. The level of change that we have to fight for here, although it is significant because it is moving in the correct direction, is really not huge, and there is a great graph that I have. This graph I think says so much. Pictures really can say so much more than just words. This is the proposal for Medicaid changes that we have recommended, the savings in Medicaid, frankly, that increase and empower individuals; but you see the blue line here is without reform. The reform measures that we adopted and recommended you see are the red line. That is the difference over a 5-year period. That is what their screaming is all about. That is the hyperbole that they refer to when they talk about the kind of reform that we offer. Today, in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, we were struggling with how to provide appropriate moneys to allow the 300,000 students who have been displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita the opportunity to go to school wherever they may now find themselves. The proposal that we put on the table had about 7 to $9,000 per student, which is relatively consistent with the kinds of moneys being spent around the Nation. The Democrat proposal that they put on the table in our committee, and it was defeated, but the Democrat proposal was to spend over $26,000 per student, adding literally billions to the cost of government. I do not know anybody that believes that that is a reasonable amount to spend on something that is as needed; but certainly, we do not need to increase the size and scope of government to do so. The record of fiscal responsibility of the Republican Caucus and this Republican government really is very, very strong. What that fiscal responsibility has done is cut the budget significantly. This year alone, the fiscal year 2005, which is already done, this is not projection, this is already done, cut the budget by nearly $100 billion, cut the deficit by nearly $100 billion, from $412 billion to $319 billion. So it is a remarkable demonstration of the resolve that we have. When we have the challenges that we have had with the hurricanes and the like, I think it is important for people to appreciate that the Republicans always return to principle. Always, and first and foremost in the area of government spending for our side, as a principle, is that the taxes that Washington collects are not government money. They are the people's money. So we need to be absolutely as responsible as we can be with that. As I mentioned, we decreased in 2005 the deficit by nearly $100 billion. What other results are there that we can point to that demonstrate that fiscal responsibility? Nondefense, nonhomeland domestic discretionary spending this year in the House is on track to be below last year's level, and that is for the first time since the Reagan administration. That is true fiscal responsibility. House Republicans have passed legislation trying to find 35, and hopefully 50, billion dollars in savings in the mandatory programs. This is the first time since 1997. House Republicans have recommended zeroing out the budget, the funding, for 98 Federal programs that are wasteful, that duplicate services, and that are out of date. Anybody in America, if they were to look at the kinds of programs that are offered, I am certain would agree that there are government programs that are certainly wasteful, that there are government programs that offer the same thing that another program does, and many, many programs are out of date. We have identified 98 of those Federal programs, and we are trying to make it so that we zero the funding for that so those programs are no longer on the books and no longer have that government waste. These savings themselves would save about $4.3 billion. For the first time since 1994, Congress has temporarily funded the government at the lowest level that is possible by law as we complete our work on the budget process; and last year we held the growth in nonsecurity discretionary spending to 1.4 percent, less than inflation. So that is true, I believe, fiscal responsibility; and the record is clear. The record shows that the party of fiscal discipline is the Republican Party. You say, well, what kind of results are we seeing in the economy with those kinds of policies? The gentleman from Texas alluded to many of the positive items that we are seeing in the economy. Real GDP grew by 3.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, but what we are seeing is the strongest growth performance and one of the strongest growth performances in the past 20 years. Payroll employment, that was mentioned, is up by nearly 3.7 million jobs in the past months. That is 3.7 million people that have employment that did not have it before. The unemployment rate is down to 4.9 or 5.1, depending on the month, over the last quarter. We used to learn in economics that an unemployment rate of between 5 and 6 percent was full employment because you have got folks that are either moving or they are changing jobs or the like, make it so that 5 percent unemployment is essentially full employment. That 5 percent is less than the average for the decade of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. Again, fiscal responsibility and true results from that kind of responsibility. Manufacturing industrial production is up 3.4 percent over the past year and by 9.5 percent in the last 2 years. Real business equipment investment has increased by 13.5 percent at an annualized rate over the past 2 years. That is the best sustained growth in over 6 years, truly a remarkable performance, and the economy is the beneficiary of the programs that have been put in place by this Republican Congress and this Republican administration. One of the things that I think is so incredibly important, when we look at how does it get down to the community and down to those people on the street, what we are seeing in terms of personal homeownership, it is at an all-time record rate, 70 percent or thereabouts. That record rate stretches across all demographic categories of our society. So the results of this fiscal responsibility are very clear. The results of the policies that have been put in place by this Republican Party, this Republican Congress, and this Republican administration have demonstrated clearly there is greater success for greater numbers of people. So I am proud to stand before my colleagues tonight and to participate in this discussion of what is truly fiscal responsibility in a thoughtful and a reasoned and calm manner, and I commend the gentleman from Texas for organizing this hour. I look forward to being back to talk about these issues and more.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, we are at a financial crossroads. My Republican colleagues and I are committed to fiscal responsibility, while Democrats merely propose slogans and catch phrases to hide behind their tax-and-spend policies. Over the past 3 years, Democrats have offered amendments totaling tens of billions of dollars of additional spending and $392 billion in additional taxes. That is more taxes. A lot of these proposed spending increases were to be financed by raising taxes on small businesses, which means fewer jobs. Earlier this year not a single Democrat House Member supported the lean budget that passed Congress, not one. Before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, our economy was surging, and deficits were shrinking. Fact: The budget deficit shrank last year from $412 billion to $319 billion, a decrease of nearly 25 percent. We had 25 straight months of job growth, falling unemployment, and strong growth in the economy. Madam Speaker, Americans deserve and expect us to work together. I urge my Democrat colleagues to move from slogans to solutions. We would welcome their productive contributions. The American people are waiting.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Deputy Sheriff Patrick Neal of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department. He was recently named the Top Cop by the National Association of Police Organizations, and yesterday I had a chance to meet this hero. His exemplary actions took place in August 2004 when he tracked a wanted felon to a suspect's neighborhood and found him standing by his truck. The criminal took out a pistol and opened fire on Deputy Sheriff Neal from nearly point-blank range. In the exchange, Deputy Sheriff Neal was shot six times. The criminal was shot four times, falling to the ground, causing him to lose his weapon. However, he tried to crawl and gain his gun again, determined to kill Deputy Sheriff Neal. Having been struck in the face and nearly blacking out due to blood loss, Deputy Sheriff Neal mustered everything he had and fired one last time, ending the confrontation for good. Mr. Speaker, modern-day heroes are very rare. Deputy Sheriff Neal is as close as they come. His selflessness and courage under fire epitomized what it means to be a public servant hero. On behalf of my constituents, I thank Deputy Sheriff Neal for his dedicated service to his community, our State and our Nation.

Mr. PRICE

Mr. PRICE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Price-Miller resolution, which we have introduced today, to require the President to submit to Congress a plan for the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq in the wake of the October 15 constitutional referendum, beginning with an initial drawdown. This is not a requirement I propose lightly. As many in this Chamber and in my home State know, I have been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq, and I voted against giving the President authority to invade Iraq, regarding it as an abdication of congressional responsibility. I have supported funding for troops in the field and for Iraqi reconstruction, while calling for an exit strategy, including benchmarks to which the administration should be held accountable, and major policy changes that would increase the probability of achieving at least some of our goals. But there is no evidence that President Bush has heeded anyone who does not accept his glib assurances and his stay-the-course rhetoric. As a result, the mistakes that have marred this effort from the beginning, poor or nonexistent planning, for example, and weak international participation, have been compounded. Such failures must not become a rationale for extending our occupation of Iraq. In fact, our presence itself is a target of the insurgents and a magnet for international terrorists. And it may be encouraging some elements of the Iraqi leadership to defer essential decisions and compromises that are necessary if their country is to assume responsibility for its own future. So we must leave. How we leave does matter: in a away that spares the lives of American troops and Iraqi noncombatants, in a way that minimizes the chance that Iraq will descend into massacres, ethnic cleansing or civil war, and in a way that maximizes the chances for Iraqi self-defense and self-government. But we must end the occupation, and the approval of the Constitution offers us an opportunity to begin that process. It is an opportunity we must seize. There are no guarantees in this enterprise. Iraq could rise to this challenge with the Kurds and the Shia more fully accommodating the essential interests of Sunnis in changes to the Constitution early next year, based on input from a newly elected Sunni Parliament after December, or Iraq could further descend into sectarian violence. Our country cannot absolve ourselves of responsibility for creating this quagmire, or for helping avoid the worst-case possibilities going forward, but we must understand, and the President must tell the world we understand, that a sustained American military presence is not part of the solution. It is not feasible. In some ways it exacerbates the difficulties, and it must be ended. Our resolution draws in concept and content on one introduced in the Senate by Mr. Feingold on June 14. It updates that resolution by taking explicit account of the constitutional referendum and proposing an initial immediate drawdown of troops. Mr. Speaker, we should never have started this war. We should have and could have utilized other means of containing and controlling whatever threat Saddam Hussein represented. No ideal option is available to us now in ending it, but the October 15 vote offers the best opportunity we are likely to have to begin the process of withdrawal credibly, and hopefully to turn the responsibility for Iraq's future over to the Iraqis themselves, and to repair the diplomacy and foreign policy from which the invasion of Iraq has been such a tragic departure for our country.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, because they are just so appropriate, and I think it is a shame, but they are visionary, that it ought to be the system that we currently have in terms of personal responsibility and an opportunity to select the kind of health care that we have. But, sadly, that is not the case. We will talk a little bit about that and how we got to where we are today in our health care system. But let me mention, once again, why I think it is so incredibly important that we discuss health care. It is a significant portion of the Federal budget but, more importantly, it is without a doubt the area where the most personal decisions are made. And as we talk about health care, I think it is important that we always try to remember who is making those decisions, or who should be making those decisions may be a better question. Who should be making those personal decisions as they relate to health care? My passion for this is, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) mentioned, I am a physician, I am a third generation physician. My grandfather and father were physicians as well. My grandfather graduated from medical school in 1908, so he saw a transformation in the field of medicine that was absolutely incredible. He practiced for over 30 years nearly without any antibiotics at all. When you think about that as being a different kind of world, it really was a different kind of world, a different kind of health care. He practiced medicine until he was 94 years old. So I remember well when I was a young boy, some of my first memories are of visiting my grandfather and going on what were rounds with him, and rounds at that time meant house calls. Some people remember those, but we would get in his car or walk through the neighborhood and visit patients. And one of the things that I remember so well is the love that was poured out when he would come to a house, because it was a very personal relationship, the relationship that the patients had with their physician, then my grandfather. My father was a physician as well and came and practiced during the 1960s and the 1970s, and it was a different time then also. It was a time of great transformation for health care, in a direction that has kind of led us to where we are right now. He initially practiced internal medicine and then moved into becoming one of the first professional physician groups of emergency care. He worked in an emergency room in a hospital, and that was part of the transformation that medicine was going through, to try to answer some of the real challenges of caring for people with new technology and a new society that was having challenges in the way that people were accessing health care. Many suffered from trauma, which had not been the case in the past, primarily related to the automobile and the kind of traffic that began sprouting up in so many urban areas across our Nation. In the 1960s, we saw the changes that came about with the institution of Medicaid and Medicare. And when we talk about health care in the United States, it is impossible to talk about health care without talking about Medicare, because Medicare has truly transformed, for better or worse, the whole method of how we deliver health care in our Nation. The vast majority of private insurance products today as they relate to health care are tied in some way to Medicare. Most folks do not talk about that, many do not know that, but it is why the discussion about Medicare is so incredibly important. There are a couple charts that I have here that I would like to share with the body that kind of bring some of that into perspective. This first one comes from the Center for Health Transformation, and that is an organization that has come about in the past couple of years. It is headed by some wonderful people. Speaker Gingrich is leading this charge. He recognizes that the aspects of health and health care and the costs of health care to our Nation must be transformed in the way that they are being delivered right now. And this information comes and demonstrates the national health care expenditures as a percent of gross domestic product. So how much are we in this Nation spending on health care as it relates to the entire domestic product that we have? How much money do we have and how much are we spending on health care? In 1965, that amount was about 6 percent. In 1965, that amount about was about 6 percent. It happens that 1965 was the year that Medicare began. And there are a variety of reasons for why we see the curve go up the way it does, but suffice it to say that we have significantly increased the amount of our domestic product that we are spending on health care, now to about 13 percent, and the projections are that in the relatively near future, we will be at 17 percent. Some of that is, I would suggest to the Members of the House and folks who are watching, some of that is as a result of governmental involvement, and we will talk about that some. Some of that is a result of technology, no doubt about it. But the trend is disturbing. The trend is disturbing, because we cannot go too much further, and we may be at that point now, where we are not able to provide for other priorities that the Nation has. So we have gone from about 6 to 13 percent as a percent of gross domestic product. Now, it is also important to look at who is paying. I often talk about the golden rule. Most folks know the golden rule. There are a couple golden rules. The finest one is the golden rule that says do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but in Washington the golden rule is he who has the gold makes the rules. And this chart demonstrates clearly one of the challenges that we have as it relates to health care. This chart shows the percentage of health care expenditures that are privately paid or paid for by the government. And one of the dirty little secrets that is not really a secret is that whenever the government pays for anything, whenever Washington pays for anything, there are all sorts of rules and regulations and requirements that are in place that go along with that. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are not, but they have to be complied with. Otherwise, you do not get the money. Now, in 1965, remember that other chart that we had, which showed the amount of money that we were spending on health care. This chart shows in 1965 that government paid for about 25 percent of all of health care expenditures in our Nation. And the private sector, individuals and the private insurance, paid for about 75 percent. So about 3-to-1 private sector to government. Over a relatively short period of time, we are seeing a significant change in who is paying for what. Right now we are in a situation where the government is paying for about 45 percent, and it continues to tick up, of health care expenditures, and the private sector or the private market is paying for about 55 percent. That is important not just because this side is oftentimes on the backs of hard-working Americans, but it is important because remember that golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules. Washington, when they are paying for health care, make rules that may and oftentimes may not be to the benefit of the system. When I say ``the system,'' I do not mean the folks providing the care; I mean the folks receiving the care. This system is set up not to serve patients, and that is the problem. This type of graph demonstrates that those individuals who are most, remember, the most personal decisions that we make are health care decisions, and this system is set up to not be one that is the most helpful to patients. My colleagues may say, well, can you give an example of that? Well, there are all sorts of examples of that, but what I would like to talk about briefly is an example that clearly points out why Washington is not the place to make these decisions. We are about to begin a new part of the Medicare program on January 1 of 2006, it is part D Medicare program which will start January 1, and that program is a program that for the first time since 1965 when the program was instituted, for the first time will cover prescription drugs, will cover medicines. Now, one thinks of a health care system that has incredible ramifications for the entire health care system of our Nation, and it has been in place for 40 years, and it has not covered a single medicine, not one antibiotic, not one drug for diabetes, not one drug for hypertension or high blood pressure, not one drug for cancer; it has not covered any of them. That is the way that Washington works; that is, slowly and with a lack of perspective on who is being affected by the decisions. Remember, patients are the ones that are affected by the decisions that we make here in Washington as it relates to health care all across the spectrum. And we have a system in place that is not changing; that is, the structure of the bureaucracy in the government, that is not nimble, it is not nimble like the private sector. So we have a Medicare program that for 40 years has not covered a single drug. Now, thank goodness we are moving in that direction. There are some challenges I think we have in that program. But we have a system of government in Washington that cannot respond to the remarkable changes that we have had in the area of progress in science and technology. The private sector is so much more adaptable, so much more flexible, so much more nimble. So when patients need improvements, they ought to be able to look to the private sector for those improvements, because they come about so much more rapidly. But the sad story is, they have to look to Washington. So I think what we need is a transformation of our health care system so that patients can make those kinds of decisions. The health care model that we have right now really harms people, because it is not responsive to the needs of patients. It is responsive to a bottom line. It is responsive to a bottom line. In fact, the individuals way back in 1965 who wrote Medicare, the Medicare law, in this body knew that. They knew that Washington could not be responsive. They knew that it ought not be in charge of health care. And how do I know that? I know that because what they wrote in the law at that time, and this is a quote from the changes to the Social Security Act which put in place the Medicare program: ``Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any Federal officer or employee to exercise any, any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided.'' Did you hear that? Nothing shall be construed to authorize anybody in the Federal Government to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided. Well, I say to my colleagues, I will tell you, and you know this, that all sorts of things that Medicare does and all sorts of things that we do specifically, specifically, either supervise or control the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided. We violate this law all the time, all the time. And why do we do it? We do it because we are not patient-sensitive or quality- sensitive as it relates to health care. Washington, by its very nature and by its very being is bottom line sensitive, it is bottom line sensitive. So we have a model that is in place that cannot, I would suggest cannot provide the kind of services that are needed for the patients. Think of the contrast. If you think about the ways that our society has changed over just the past 20 or 30 years, the way that we do so many everyday things, and if you compare that to how health care is provided now and how it has changed or not changed, then you have a very clear idea I think about the challenges that we have in the area of health care. Some common, everyday things: buying gasoline at the gas station. Now, regardless of what it costs, the way that we used to purchase gasoline is that you would pull up at the pump and you would roll down your window and somebody would come out, and they would say, would you like us to fill it up? And then they would go ahead and put the amount of gasoline that you wanted in your car, and you would pull out a dollar or two or more and you would pay for that gasoline. Now, how do we put gas in our car? We pull up to a pump, we never see anybody, we take our credit card out of our pocket or purses and we put it in the pump, we select the gasoline, we pump the gasoline, and many of us, I am told almost half of us, do not even ask for a receipt any more because we trust the system. Because we trust the system. It is easy. It is more efficient. It is a system that has changed drastically over the past 20 or 30 years. And if you compare that to health care, that is stuck in a paper society that is no longer existent in so many aspects of our society. The same is true of travel right now. If you want to purchase an airline ticket, an increasing number, in terms of percentage of folks, are now going online. They can go to their home computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They pull up the site of the airline that they want to utilize, or they can go to something like Travelocity and it will pick the different airlines for you. You plunk in the starting city where you are going to leave from; you plunk in the designation city. It will send back to you, in a matter of seconds, seconds, what kind of flights there are, how much it costs, whether there is a seat, and then you can purchase your ticket right there. And you can, within 24 hours of your travel date, you can sit at your home computer or at your office and print out your boarding pass. The efficiency of that, if you think about it, is mind-boggling. It is incredible. You as an individual are interacting with the entity that can provide a service that allows you to do what it is you want to do in terms of travel. Now, why is it that in health care we do not have any of those things? We do not have any of those things. Think about what happens when you go to your doctor. What happens is that you walk in the door, and what are you met with? You are met with a pile of paper. You are met with a pile of paper. And you read through that paper, or most folks go right to the back end of that paper, and you sign. And you wait and you get into the clinic room or the exam room, and your doctor comes in, and he or she has what in their hand? A chart. A paper chart. That may have the last notes from your office visit. It may not. It is a system that is antiquated. It is a system that is inefficient. It is a system that is unresponsive to the needs of patients in a way that the rest of our society has transformed completely. So health care is stuck in the past. It is stuck in the past century. It will take a significant length of time to just catch up to where we are, not get into the 21st century, but to catch up to where we are. Now, how do we progress from here? What do we need to do to move forward and transform health care? I want to talk about some principles, and I want to talk about a resolution that I have introduced, H. Res 215. It is kind of a 30,000-foot view of health care. What it says is that we ought to move as a matter of national policy from a system as it relates to health care of defined benefits to a system of defined contribution. Now, what does that mean? Right now most individuals get their insurance through their employer, or their previous employer, or through the government, though Medicare or through Medicaid. And all of those systems, by and large, have what is called a defined benefit plan. That means that somebody, in the case of Medicare and Medicaid, some government employee, bureaucrat, has gone through and decided what ought to be included in that insurance plan, in that package, and what you can be treated for and where you are treated and by whom you are treated and how are you treated, often times. What diseases are covered, what diseases are not covered. Somebody else has decided all of those. That is a defined benefit. There is a defined package of benefits that are provided to the patient. This is true for individuals receiving their health care through Medicare and Medicaid. It is also true for most employer-provided health insurance. Someone else, the human resources officer or someone in the company is deciding what ought to be covered in terms of health care. And what that does is remove the patient from that decision-making process. It also sets up a system whereby the patient, if the patient is frustrated, oftentimes that is the case. I heard a statistic the other day that I found fascinating. Four percent of the public is accessing the health care system at any point in time. Four percent of the population is accessing the health care system, having some interaction with the health care system. Half of those folks are frustrated in some way. So you say, well, why has the system not changed? Well, if only 2 percent of the population is mad at any point in time, it is a small amount. It is a small amount. But what that defined benefit system has in place is a system where patients cannot be the ones who are affecting insurance plans easily. Because, you know, my colleagues know and patients around the Nation know that when they dial up the insurance company and say, hey, this plan is not working for me, I cannot get this disease treated, or I cannot go to the doctor that I want to go to, or I cannot get the medicine that I want, the insurance company says, well, you will have to talk to your boss. Right? Talk to your human resources officer. Or if you are a Medicare patient, you cannot even get through on the phone most of the time. But what happens is that the patient is removed from that decision-making process. Now, that is not right. These are the most personal decisions that people make in their lives, the most personal decisions; and they are removed from that process. So moving from a defined benefit system to a defined contribution system says that whoever is paying the cost for the health insurance, whether it is the Federal Government through the Medicare program or the State government through Medicaid, or the employer through employer-provided health insurance, or the individuals, regardless of who is paying for the insurance policy, the patient owns the policy. The patient owns the policy. And that is a sea change, because what that means then is that patients can vote with their feet. If they do not like what one insurance company is doing because they own the policy, they can change to another insurance company. And if they do not like what that company is doing, they can change to another. It also makes it easy so that when the patient gets on the phone with the insurance company, the insurance company has to be responsive to the patient. Why? Because the patient has power. The patient has control and ownership of the insurance policy. It changes the whole dynamic for health care. It will not change anything overnight; but over a period of time, what it will do, if we are bold enough to transform health care in this way, it will allow patients to have the power over the kind of insurance policy that they have. Now, this Center for Health Transformation is really doing some incredible, incredible work. And what they have done, I think in a very succinct and appropriate way, is to identify kind of the principles of our current system of health care, and compare them to what a 21st-century health care system would be. And I would like to just touch on a few of these. The current system is provider-centered, or I would say more correctly, it is insurance- or government-centered. Remember that the patient is outside of the control process, outside of the power process for this. The system is price-driven. What that means is that it is more interested in the bottom line than it is interested in quality, or, said another way, it is more interested in money than it is in patients. And that ought not be a system that we tolerate. That ought not be a system that we tolerate. Medicare is a classic example. Remember, I mentioned that Medicare is important to talk about as it relates to health care, because so much of our entire health care system, even in the private sector, is driven by the decisions that are made in Medicare. Medicare has a system that they compensate or pay physicians and other providers with. It is called an RBRVS, or a Resource Based Relative Value Scale, RBRVS. And what that means is that Washington, the Federal Government, decides how much money it is going to spend on health care for seniors. It decides what that pot of money is going to be. And it may or may not bear any resemblance to the amount of health care that needs to be provided, so that when patients go to their doctor, they may or may not be able to get at what they need because the decision-making is all based on cost; it is not based on need. It is not based on quality of care. It is based on how much money we have. That is a model that is fraught with problems and, frankly, fraught with extreme difficulties for patients. So a price-driven system just does not work. It ought to be something completely different. That has been defined by the Center For Health Transformation as values-driven. We will talk about that in just a minute. The current system is knowledge-disconnected. There is not a good way to get knowledge between those folks providing the care, slow diffusion of innovation. It takes years, literally, for a new drug that is out to come on the market, to get to the market. It takes an average of 5 to 7 years, 5 to 7 years from the time when a new procedure or a new type of treatment for a specific disease is described in the literature, in the medical literature, to get to be used in the clinic or exam room or in the operating room. Five to 7 years. That means that the kind of health care that we are receiving right now the individual who described the new innovation did so 5 to 7 years ago. That is not a system that is responsive to patients. It is a system again that is not patient-oriented. The current system is dysfocused, instead of being focused on prevention and on health. The current system as we talked about is paper-based instead of utilizing the technology that is available today. The current system is a third-party controlled market, and that is a fancy way to say that the patient is out of the loop. Remember, the Federal Government or the State government or the employer, by and large, is making decisions about what kind of health care is being provided, not the patient. The process is focused on government. As I mentioned, it is the government that is making these decisions has limited choices. You know this, Members of the House and all of our citizens know this, that often times if you get sick, what is the first thing you do if you have not been to a doctor in a while? Well, you do not do what you ought to do, what you ought to be able to do, and that is find the highest quality physician you can. You open up your book and see who you can see. Someone else is making that decision about who you can see. That is not a system that provides the greatest amount of choices appropriately for patients. The current system is a predatory trial lawyer litigation system. The lawsuit system, the lottery system of the courts that we have as it relates to health care right now is driving up the cost of medicine. It is making it so that folks are receiving all sorts of tests and the like that they frankly do not need. And the problem with this is not the malpractice insurance costs that doctors are having to pay, although that is a minor portion. The bigger problem is what is called defensive medicine. That means that your doctor, when you go see your doctor, he or she often times is ordering a test or doing a procedure or something in order to make it so that they are less likely to be sued and cover themselves, not necessarily because you need them. And you say, well, that is crazy. But it happens all of the time. I am an orthopedic surgeon. When someone comes into my office with back pain, almost regardless of their complaint, if I have not seen them before, every one of them gets an x- ray. Now, they get an x-ray because if I did not do an x-ray and they went out of the office, and they went to another physician and that individual took an x-ray and on that x-ray was found to be something astronomically wrong, then I could have been sued for not picking that up at that very first office visit. You say that is probably the right thing to do. Well, 90 percent, 90 percent of individuals with back pain, standard back pain, will get well within a period of 3 weeks. They did not need an x-ray. But everybody gets one. Everybody gets one. So you make it so that that 3 weeks is not lost for the minimal percentage of individuals who have a significant problem. The legal system is just phenomenal as it relates to health care, and it drives this practice of defensive medicine to an incredible degree. Overall cost increases. We have not seen the kind of savings in health care we ought to see. You remember the graph that showed the increase in percent of GDP that we are spending on health care? It was 6 percent in 1965. Now it is 13 percent, soon to go to 17 percent. We have not seen any of the savings in health care that we have seen throughout all other sectors of our society. What is a 21st-century system? It is centered on the patient. It is values-driven, knowledge-intense. It allows for a free flow of information between physicians and other providers. It is prevention- and health-focused. Electronically based. It gets away from that paper system that frankly results in more errors and more problems because it is a paper system. The Center for Health Transformation calls it a binary mediated market. What does that mean? It means that the patient is in charge, the patient and the provider are the ones making decisions. Outcomes focused on government. Increased choice. That is exactly what needs to happen. The patient needs to be in charge. And a new system of health justice. All of these things would result in a significant decrease in the cost of the health care and making it so that the quality of care and quality of life is increased all across the Nation for all, frankly, because of a transformation in our health care system. So what we need is a new vision for health care, one that has more choices, more control by patients resulting in higher quality and lower costs. And I look forward to working with so many of my colleagues in the House on both sides of the aisle who are interested in positive solutions, productive solutions, making it so that those personal decisions as they relate to health care are able to be made by patients and individuals. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be joined now by one of my colleagues, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry). We thank the gentleman so much for coming, and I look forward to the gentleman's comments as they relate to health care.

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for her leadership and really stalwart stance on the issue of budgetary reform and fiscal responsibility. She is one of the champions here as it relates to that. I just wanted to mention a few other items that we have had presented by the other side of the aisle over the last hour; and again, I think the misinformation that is being presented is truly astonishing. It does a disservice to the American people. It does a disservice to the debate because if folks are not interested in being honest and open about the debate, then you cannot have a real debate; and when you are dealing with folks really who want to distort things so incredibly, it is phenomenal. My colleague from Tennessee mentioned that the Democrats were concerned because they had not been invited to participate. Let me tell you what their leadership said when we discussed the possibility of opening up the budget that we agreed to in the spring in order to find savings to cover the costs for the displaced citizens down in the gulf coast after the hurricanes. What the Democrat leadership said, well, you may do that but you will not get a single Democrat vote. Now, there is leadership for you. There is leadership for you. We also heard from the other side recently, just earlier today, that they looked for third-party validators, some objective body that would say, yes, what you are saying is absolutely correct. As an example of the third-party validator, they brought an editorial from the Washington Post. Folks in my district, if you had a microphone in their living rooms right now, you would hear them guffawing. To consider that the Washington Post editorial is a third-party objective body is just phenomenal, but it is the backdrop for all of the discussion that they have, and that is, to distort and to give a lack of credibility to those things that are truly occurring here in Washington. I want to point out this chart right here because this is a chart that talks about the percentage of Federal personal income tax paid by different sectors of our society. All the time you hear the other side talking about the wealthy are not paying their fair share and it is all on the backs of the poor and on and on and on. Sometimes the picture is worth a thousand words. What this chart shows is that the top 1 percent, this column right here is the top 1 percent of our population in terms of income. The top 1 percent of our population in the United States today pays 34.27 percent of the total taxes, 34.27 percent by the top 1 percent. So you tell me whether you think that is the right amount or the wrong amount. I do not know. All I do know is they are certainly paying their fair share. The column way over on the other side, way over on the other side is the lower 50 percent of income individuals in this Nation, and the amount that those individuals are contributing to the total revenue is 3.46 percent. You see the difference, the lower 50 percent, that is half, 50 percent, that is half, compared to the top 1 percent, 3.46 percent, 34.27 percent, 10 times as much by the top 1 percent as the lower 50 percent. As I say, you may say that that is not the right amount, but you certainly cannot say with a straight face that the individuals who are in the top 1 percent are not paying their fair share. That is just nonsense, and really, makes it so that you have to be suspect about every other word that comes out of their mouths, especially when it is talking about budgets. So I would hope that what they would do is to engage productively, to engage in the process and come with positive solutions and positive discussions and not just a just-say-no attitude, which is what their leadership has told them as it relates to budgetary issues. Let me shift gears a little bit because I did want to thank, once again, the leadership for allowing me to participate in this hour and wanted to talk about one of the most important aspects and areas of every single citizen's life, and that is the area of health care. Few things are more important to any individual's life than health care; and certainly, the decisions that an individual makes about health care are some of the most personal ones that one will make. I am joined today by one of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), my good friends and colleague, who is going to discuss a little bit about individual responsibility as it relates to health care; and then we will talk about some other items as they relate to Medicare and other issues and health care. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) and ask my colleague to talk a little bit about individual responsibility in health care.