Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Oregon. This is what we talk to our small business owners about. When I go back home, small business owners that I talk to aren't saying that they want the government taking over health care. What they're saying is these policies, these policies are what are causing them to hold back or to look at divesting and just getting out. But there's so much money on the sidelines because of the actions being taken by President Obama and the liberals that are running Congress that are literally stifling the ability for businesses to create jobs. The American people know that because the American people are looking at these policies. And they've got good common sense. And they're saying, If you've got tough economic times, the first thing you should be doing is figuring out how to help businesses create more jobs. And so then they look at this health care bill. Here's a bill that, first of all, spends over a trillion dollars. A trillion dollars in new Federal spending. But then how do they get that money? Well, they go and they cut Medicare to the tune of about $500 billion, and our senior citizens know how bad that would be. But then they also turn around and they add over $700 billion in new taxes on the backs primarily of small businesses. And so, on one hand, the President's holding a job summit, but, on the other hand, he's got a bill that would add $700 billion on the backs of small businesses with the government takeover of health care. Then, on a third hand, he's got this cap-and-trade energy tax, which literally is a tax on any company in this Nation that manufactures goods.

Mr. SCALISE. Absolutely. In fact, the National Association of Manufacturers said the cap-and-trade energy tax would run at least 3 million more jobs out of this country. Now, of course, this is a President who, since the stimulus bill, he said it was going to create 3 million jobs. Our economy has lost about another 3 million jobs since his stimulus bill, but then his policies would run millions more jobs out of this country. Of course, the President says we need to do all of this because we've got to save the planet. Well, just earlier this week they finally have exposed some of the corruption involved in this whole argument behind cap-and-trade.

Mr. SCALISE. And I guess that's a good place to finish, kind of where we started. The American people are saying, Who's manning the store? And they're also saying, Where are the jobs? And they're looking at these policies and they're looking at this cap-and-trade energy tax, they're looking at this government takeover of health care with the $700 billion in new taxes. They look at what happened today here on the House floor. Speaker Pelosi's top priority was a bill that actually puts into law a permanent 45 percent tax on death. A tax on death. And so that's their answer. Their ideas are actually leading to increased unemployment, running millions of more jobs out of this country, and the best that they can say is, Who knows? There's no accountability. But, don't worry. The President is still saying, There's old Joe. He's manning the store, because nobody messes with Joe. They think that this may be some kind of joke, but the joke is on the American people. And the American people are tired of it.

Mr. SCALISE. By the way, he just stepped down through the embarrassment of the exposing of this scandal. So for anybody to say, Oh, this isn't anything real, this is all being trumped up, this guy just stepped on down out of embarrassment over this scandal. But we're now calling for an investigation to look into the millions of dollars of Federal grant money, U.S. taxpayer dollars, that have been either obtained through corruption or, when they got the Federal tax dollars, they went and conducted studies that they manipulated the data, corrupting the data, again, using that taxpayer money, and we want our money back and we want criminal charges to be filed against these people that actually went out and corrupted data to try to pass a national energy tax in this country that will run millions of jobs. And you wonder why small businesses feel like they're walking around this country with a bull's-eye on their back.

Mr. SCALISE. In fact, we're now asking for an investigation to be conducted into not only----

Mr. SCALISE. I'm talking about Climategate. Climategate just hit. This is something that's been going on internationally for over for 10 years. It just got uncovered because some of these emails came to light. Of course, to pass the cap-and-trade energy tax, they said man is destroying the Earth and we've got to limit carbon emissions. Of course, the two biggest emitters in the next 10 years are going to be China and India, and China and India have already said they're not going to comply. So you're not only running millions of jobs out of this country, you'd be running them to countries that actually emit more carbon to do the same thing. So it actually is counterproductive. But then let's look at the science behind what they're saying they need to do. You've got Al Gore out there who's been running around for years now--he's won Nobel Peace Prizes and Academy Awards--saying the scientists are virtually screaming from the rooftops, Now the debate is over. This is former Vice President Al Gore. The debate is over. There's no longer any debate in the scientific community about global warming. And what he's saying is all of these charts and graphs he's been talking about for years and in his movie ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' a very famous chart he used to show talking about global warming was called ``the hockey stick chart.'' That's this chart right here. It's showing over thousands of years they've documented that our Earth is going through cooling periods, our Earth is going through warming periods. We had more warm temperatures than we have today thousands of years ago when there was no combustion engine, there were no fossil fuels being burned. Mother Nature just has a way of going through different cycles on her own. And so what they were showing was over hundreds of years you had this normal trajectory down, and all of a sudden there's this increase in the Earth's temperature that they showed. The problem is, we just exposed through Climategate, they got to this huge increase that Vice President Al Gore said we need to change our entire national economy over by corrupting the data. These are some of the things that came out in the email: I have just completed Mike's nature trick to hide the decline. That was Phil Jones, who's one of the lead scientists for a group called the University of Anglia in England. This is a group that writes all of the documents that our scientists in America have used to say we need a cap-and-trade energy tax. They phonied up the numbers. They corrupted the data. And here's the email. And there are many, many more emails, talking about how they use tricks and that they hide the declines that don't prove their argument. In fact, there are many scientists who have said we're in the seventh year of a cooling period, but they won't show any of that data because they literally have hid the data, and now we've exposed it through Climategate and these emails. So you've got Vice President Al Gore still running around out there saying we need to have this cap-and-trade national energy tax. The President's going to be going to Copenhagen in about a week and a half, and I guess, just like he went there to try get the Chicago Olympics, a lot of us are hoping he comes back empty-handed in Copenhagen, because what he wants to do is sign an agreement that would literally lead to the destruction of millions of jobs in America based on corrupt science.

Mr. SCALISE. Well, I want to thank my friends that are talking about this important subject because, you know, when I go home, people want to know the same things that you've been talking about. They want to know where are the jobs. They surely don't want the government getting involved in all of these areas of our lives that the government doesn't belong. And even more importantly, they don't want the government going off on these wild spending sprees, spending money that we don't have. And so they look at the record of this administration since President Obama came in in January, and they recognize that right after President Obama came in, he had this great idea that he was going to have this stimulus bill. And he said, we're going to make sure that unemployment doesn't go over 8 percent.

Mr. SCALISE. And the chart that you show that shows the lofty goals, the lofty promises. And in fact, those of us who actually want to fix the real problems, want to solve the problems in our country, we met with the President. We said, Mr. President, we've got some ideas on how to create jobs, because we agree, our economy should be focusing on creating jobs. And we actually laid out a recovery plan that the Congressional Budget Office scored that would create way more jobs than they projected to score and a whole lot less money than they were projecting to spend. Of course the President discarded our ideas. He went around the country telling people that we were just the party of ``no,'' failed to mention that we actually had a solid plan that is still as solid today. So he just put his blinders on and said, We don't want Republicans. We just want to go on a wild spending spree. Unfortunately, the President got his way. And Speaker Pelosi rammed the bill through the House, Harry Reid rammed the bill through the Senate, and they spent $787 billion of our children and grandchildren's money--money that we don't have--claiming we need to do this because this was going to stop unemployment from reaching 8 percent and it was going to create 3 million jobs. And then he stood here, right behind you, here on this House floor, right at that podium I'm looking at right there. President Obama said, We're going to track every dime, and Joe Biden, Vice President Joe Biden is going to be in charge of tracking every dime because nobody messes with Joe. That is what the President said. Nobody messes with Joe.

Mr. SCALISE. So if you lived in the Eighth Congressional District and you're hearing all of these jobs that were created with taxpayer money that we don't have, that was borrowed from our children and grandchildren, you might be going, Well, I want to see what those jobs were. Of course people in Louisiana know, there is no Eighth Congressional District because we have seven congressional districts. So we dug deeper and we found out there were 15 different congressional districts in Louisiana that they were claiming they created jobs in using stimulus money.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Florida for his leadership on this. Mr. Speaker, the American people across the country are asking, Where are the jobs? And all they see from this Democrat-controlled Congress is more bills that will actually kill jobs and run jobs out of the country. And make no mistake about it: the death tax will kill more jobs in this country. To place a permanent 45 percent tax on death is immoral. Think about this: the small businesses in our country are hit the hardest. The actual job creators in this country are hit the hardest by the death tax. When a family member dies, the biggest decision they make after that death should not be about how they have to sell their family business because they can't afford to pay the taxes upon death. And that's what happens under this death tax. And here they have a bill to enshrine the tax at 45 percent. Now, if anyone wonders where are the jobs, as the President is holding a jobs summit, while unemployment smashed through the 10 percent mark earlier this year, all they have to do is look at the policies President Obama keeps bringing up. It started with the stimulus bill that didn't create jobs and just added more debt to our children and grandchildren. And then they brought the policies like this energy tax, the cap-and-trade energy tax, and then the government takeover of health care. And here we are today debating a bill that is going to enshrine a 45 percent tax on death. And Speaker Pelosi wouldn't even allow us to bring an amendment to the floor that would repeal it. There is a clear contrast between the two parties on this issue. When we are in the majority, we will repeal the death tax, and here they've got a bill that will enshrine it at 45 percent permanently. Taxation without respiration should not be the law of the land.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank my friend from Missouri for pointing that out. And when you go back to those comments by Henry Morgenthau, the Treasury Secretary for FDR, the comments that he made in 1939, there's an old saying: history repeats itself. And the unfortunate part of that is we're standing at a very critical point in our Nation's history. We're at one of those crossroads. And are we actually going to be here in Congress and try to perpetuate the great legacy of America, and that is that every generation has inherited a better Nation than the one that was passed down to them by the previous generation. And that's a great tradition our country has always enjoyed. And that tradition is at risk right now. It's at risk because of the spending and the borrowing that's being perpetuated by the liberals that are running Congress right now. When you show that comment from FDR, it's very telling because when this administration came in, President Obama made a point everywhere he went, and he still talks about it today, saying he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression. Well, first of all, if you go back and look at the Great Depression and the signs there, they were much worse than the signs he inherited. The signs he inherited weren't as bad as what Jimmy Carter created that ultimately led us to Ronald Reagan. When Jimmy Carter was President we had double-digit unemployment, we had double-digit interest rates, and double-digit inflation. In fact, they created a new term for it called ``stagflation.'' When President Obama came into office, we were less than 8 percent unemployment. So it was single digit. It was still a high number, but it was a single-digit number. We had very low inflation and very low interest rates. Right now, because of President Obama's policies, these policies like cap-and-trade, like the spending and the stimulus bill and the health care government takeover, they have led us now to double-digit unemployment; but what we're starting to see are the telltale signs also of creeping up interest rates and inflation because of the policies of President Obama. So when he talks about this being the worst economy since the Great Depression, I think what he was trying to do was set up an event so that he knew his policies probably would create double-digit unemployment and double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates, because history does repeat itself. So he tried to set the stage that he was walking into something worse than what he walked into, but he's created an economy that virtually is leading us back to the 1930s, when we did have the Great Depression, and it's because of his policies that are spending, taxing, and borrowing our country into oblivion. I yield back.

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my friend from Missouri. We have been having these discussions for I guess the past few Wednesdays for a few months now. I appreciate the gentleman for hosting this hour that's become a regular tradition, not only to talk about the things that are happening in the country, but really to focus in on the actions that have been taken here in this Congress by this Democratic leadership that have actually led us to the decline in jobs that we're facing today. Of course, so many Americans remember now back in the beginning of this year when President Obama stood right there, right there on that well behind you, and talked about the need for a stimulus bill, a bill that spent $787 billion of money that we don't have, money that was borrowed from our children and grandchildren, and he said it had to happen so that we would stop unemployment from exceeding 8 percent. Now, of course today, as we look at 10.2 percent unemployment, the American people are asking, Where are the jobs? And, of course, when the White House came out with this Web site, and the White House and the President bragged about the transparency, and, in fact, the President talked about the fact that the American people would be able to track every dollar, and even said that Vice President Joe Biden would be in charge of tracking the money, and the American people would be able to go to a Web site and see where that money from that stimulus bill is being spent and how it's creating all these jobs. Of course you and I opposed that bill because we knew it wouldn't create jobs. In fact, we knew it would help actually lead to more unemployment because it would add so much more money to our national debt, money that we couldn't afford to spend, and money that was going to hurt small businesses and in fact did hurt small businesses.

Mr. SCALISE. Well, in fact, they created a Web site called recovery.gov, and this is where the President said people could go and find out and track every dollar that's being spent, and it's going to be fully transparent. I guess maybe the White House didn't think that people were actually going to take him up on his offer. But of course the American people did. As people started going to that Web site, we had uncovered this about 2 weeks ago. When you would go to the Web site, we found out, first of all those of us in Louisiana found out that we had about 45 congressional districts because they actually had a listing of how many jobs were created in Louisiana's 45th Congressional District. And, of course, they showed that more jobs were created from the stimulus bill in Louisiana's Eighth Congressional District than in the district I represent, the First Congressional District. The only problem with that is Louisiana only has seven congressional districts. And so many people in Louisiana were not only asking, where are the jobs, but where is this Eighth Congressional District?

Mr. SCALISE. Not only that--and maybe this would be a comedy if it was fiction. The problem is, this is not fiction. This is reality. This is what the White House actually had on their Web site that was supposedly showing the transparency and accountability for all the tax dollars that they said that they would display how that money was being used. And so we had actually inquired about this and our local newspaper, the Times Picayune of New Orleans, did a little digging of their own and called the White House and said, How is it that you can have this Web site and you're showing districts that don't even exist, showing jobs created in places that don't exist? What is really going on here? The first thing the White House said is, We're not certifying the accuracy of the information. That was the quote from the White House. The group that said they would be the most transparent administration in history, when finally tasked with showing the American people where billions of dollars of money that we don't have is being spent, their answer was, We're not certifying the accuracy of the information. And then, if I can follow up, they actually went further and they said, Okay, wait. Hold on a second. Okay, let's say you're not certifying the information, but you're actually showing on your Web site districts--and this just isn't in Louisiana. We found this in Arizona and Kentucky. Probably Missouri.

Mr. SCALISE. They were showing districts that didn't exist all across the country, and they were bragging about the jobs that were created in those districts that didn't exist, those phantom districts. So they said, Well, how is it that you can show on your Web site a district that doesn't even exist? The answer from the White House--and that is riveting, because this is taxpayer money, this is money our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay back, money that you and I said should not have even been spent in the first place because it was money we don't have, and it wasn't going to create jobs--and they asked the White House to follow up, and they said, How is it that you can show information that's false on your Web site? The White House's answer was, Who knows, man, who really knows. That was the best they could come up with, and the American people deserve better.

Mr. SCALISE. Some of the economic experts are actually saying that the true unemployment number right now is probably closer to 17 percent because there's so many Americans that just stopped looking for work because of the tough economic times. And so what we had pointed out back then in February, 10 months ago when they first brought this stimulus bill, we pointed out that you don't create jobs by growing the size of government. You don't create jobs by borrowing money from our children and grandchildren. You create jobs by helping small businesses enjoy a climate where they can actually go and create jobs. Because it's not government that creates jobs, it's small businesses out there. The small businesses create about 70 percent of all the jobs in this country. They are our job creators. And what they've been saying and what American families have been saying is: Government, stop all of these policies that are literally shutting down companies and running jobs off to countries like China and India. And so what we've had this year, we have seen this cap-and-trade energy tax. That's been one of their answers that literally would run millions of American jobs out of this country to other countries. Then they came back with--of course, they had the bailouts and then they had the stimulus bill and then they had the budget that doubled the national debt in 5 years. And then after cap-and-trade they came with the health care bill, the government takeover of health care, which they're still putting as their top priority. Of course, President Obama is using that as his top priority when the American people are saying, We don't want a government takeover of health care; we want you to reform things that are broken. And we've presented legislation to actually fix the problems--to lower costs, to address preexisting conditions--the real problems American families are having with health care. But what American families don't want to see is the government take over all of health care and literally shift the hundred million more people onto a Medicare system that's already struggling to make ends meet. And senior citizens know that. So what they're asking is: stop dealing with all of these policies that are actually running more jobs out of our country. Go and help create jobs in small businesses by lowering tax rates. And guess what's going to happen here on the House floor tomorrow? The Democrat leadership is actually bringing a bill to make permanent the death tax at a 45 percent tax rate. That's going to kill small businesses in this country. And that's their priority instead of creating jobs.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the House to ask the question that many Americans are asking, and that is, Where are the jobs? Over the last few months, the American people have been saying very vocally that they want this Congress to address the big problems that are affecting them today--and there are a number of problems. But the top problem I hear from my constituents--and I am hearing from so many of my other colleagues that their constituents are saying the same thing--is that they want this Congress to be focused on creating jobs. Unfortunately, we're seeing just the opposite happen in terms of the policies that are being brought forth by the liberal leadership of this Democratically controlled Congress. It started back with the first bill that came out, the so-called stimulus bill. This was a bill that added $787 billion of debt that our children and grandchildren have to pay--money we didn't have--but the White House said, Don't worry. We've got to roll this thing through quickly, ram it through. Don't let anybody have the opportunity to read it, and it's got to go quickly because we need to stop unemployment from breaking 8 percent, and this bill's going to do it. And then they said, When this bill passes, there's going to be so much transparency, you'll be able to track every dime, there won't be any waste, fraud, and abuse; and you can even go to a Web site and track where that money is going. So, of course, after that bill passed, a bill that many of us opposed because we knew it wouldn't create jobs--in fact, it would actually make our economy worse because it was all borrowed money, money that our children and grandchildren have to pay. But what was worse is now that we're starting to try to find out where that money is, where is that money? We know when we're asking where are the jobs, we can't find the jobs because millions more Americans have lost their job since that bill passed. So it actually had the opposite effect that the American people were promised when the President stood right here on this podium. But now as people across the country are trying to track down and say, Where is that transparency? Where are those billions and billions of dollars that have been spent going to?, we just find out the other day when you go to the White House's own Web site, Recovery.gov, you can't actually track those jobs. You can't track where that money's gone because there's an incredible amount of fraudulent information on that Web site. Now, those of us in Louisiana were waking up on Tuesday going to that Web site, and maybe some people would think it would be good news that we found out that we had 15 congressional districts, according to the White House's own Web site. They actually tracked districts that don't exist. Of course, in Louisiana, we only have seven congressional districts. So a reporter from our local newspaper called the White House. And first of all, they said, How can you possibly have all this accurate data on your Web site? You're telling the American people that jobs were created in congressional districts that don't even exist. And the first response from the White House was, ``We are not certifying the accuracy of the information.'' Now, these are the people who said this would be the most transparent administration in history. Now they are not certifying the accuracy of the information now that they have got their hands on the money. So then they followed it up, and they said, Well, how can you actually have mistakes made that are this big where you have a State that only has seven congressional districts, and when we go to your Web site, there is a District 45, and it actually says how many jobs were created in that district that doesn't exist? How can you actually have a system that is set up that allows that kind of inaccurate information to be reported? And the White House's spokesperson actually said, ``Who knows, man? Who really knows?'' Mr. Speaker, this is unbelievable and an insult to the American people who are still asking, Where are the jobs? Now, maybe it's fitting that the White House is showing jobs created in districts that don't exist because their stimulus bill was passed using money that doesn't exist. It is all money that is borrowed from our children and grandchildren, not a dime that was paid for. And, of course, the latest that the President was talking about just 2 days ago, he said, if we keep on adding to this debt, even in the midst of this recovery, at some point, people could lose confidence in the United States' economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession. So here you have the President of the United States admitting that all of this debt spending, this deficit spending that they are on this road to continue going down, is a bad thing and actually could lead to a double-dip recession, and yet their answer from day one has been a stimulus bill that adds another $787 billion of debt. Then he came back right behind there with another bill, his budget, his budget that doubles the national debt. And then they went on with the bill called ``cap-and-trade,'' a national energy tax, a bill that adds hundreds of billions of dollars. You wonder why people are still asking, Where are the jobs? We need to get back to fiscal sanity. We need to actually have real transparency.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Right. And what the American people are really asking is, where are the jobs and where is the accountability? And when the White House actually goes out and made these statements back months ago and they told the American people that that stimulus bill needed to be passed, we said back then it was a mistake, we shouldn't do it because it wouldn't create jobs. We proposed alternatives.

Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Missouri. You're talking about these tricks, and, of course, the American people are saying Halloween's over, we're tired of all these tricks. In fact, for most American people right now, the only treat they get is when Congress adjourns and during those times when Congress isn't trying to pass all of these policies that literally are adding millions and billions of new taxes on the backs of American families, adding billions of debt onto the backs of our children and grandchildren, and running millions of jobs out of our country. All of this happening under Speaker Pelosi's leadership. The public's had enough of the tricks, and like I said, that's the only treat they want. But one trick that they just found out about the other day, this goes back to the stimulus bill, something that we talked about a long time ago. We opposed that pork-laden bill, that bill that massively grows the size of government, over $787 billion of money we don't have. But the White House promised the American people there would be a full accounting of the money. And now we find out, in fact, that people just in the last few days went to the White House's own Web site that was set up to track the spending in the supposed job creation, which they initially said it was going to create all these jobs and then they changed the wording and said there will be jobs created or saved, and there's no definition of a job saved. I guess every job that's out there they can try to claim they've saved. But then what we've seen is we've only had millions more jobs lost since that massive spending bill that grew the size of government. But now talk about another trick on the American people, just Monday night when they would go to the Web site that the White House had set up, and maybe this was good news for States like yours, mine. In Louisiana, we found out, according to the White House's Web site, we had 15 congressional districts.

Mr. SCALISE. Fifteen, according to the White House. In fact, Louisiana's Eighth Congressional District, according to the White House's own Web site, created more jobs than the First Congressional District that I represent. That all sounds really good until you realize Louisiana doesn't have 15 congressional districts. Louisiana only has seven congressional districts. So we did a little bit of research, and some people did some calling around on their own and they actually called the White House. And they said, Can you explain to us, you said there would be all this transparency. You said there would be accountability. How is it, how is it that somebody can go to the White House Web site and pull up in Louisiana Congressional District 26 or Congressional District 45? And the response from the White House was, ``Who knows, man, who really knows.'' That was Ed Pound, who is the spokesperson for the White House's recovery.gov Web site. The best he could come up with was ``who knows.'' And then he further went on to say, ``We're not certifying the accuracy of the information.'' That's the White House's spokesperson on the stimulus bill actually saying that they're not going to certify the information after they said they would be so transparent. So when the American people say what happened to $787 billion of money that was borrowed from our children and grandchildren, money we don't have, money that surely hasn't done anything to create jobs because it was going to cap unemployment at 8 percent and now we've got unemployment at 10.2 percent, and then you go to the White House, what about that accounting that the American people deserve to know where their money is being spent, and the best the White House can say is, ``Who knows, man, who really knows,'' well, the American people have had enough.

Mr. SCALISE. If this was just a mistake limited to Louisiana, maybe you could understand their excuses. But, of course, this was all across the country. I talked to a colleague of mine from Arizona where they claim there was a 99th District from Arizona. But one final word on that. President Obama himself just yesterday said, and I'll quote another quote from the President: ``If we keep on adding to the debt, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double dip recession.'' Now, of course, those words ring true to us. They would really ring true to the American people if it weren't for the fact that this is the same President that passed a budget just a few months ago out of Congress that doubles the national debt in the next 5 years. And yet here he is quoted just yesterday saying, If we keep on adding to the debt, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double dip recession. Now, I would agree with that. The only problem is, the President needs to start living up to the comments that he's actually making and pull back his bill that doubles the national debt and actually work with us to balance the budget, which is what we've said from the beginning needs to happen, not only to create stability in our economy, but actually to go out and start creating jobs as opposed to his policies that are running millions of jobs out of our country.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my colleague from Baton Rouge--in fact, both doctors from Louisiana who have exhibited so much leadership on this broader issue of health care reform. But I think, as you've pointed out, what so many Americans are finding out now as they are looking at more and more of the details of that 1,990-page bill that we opposed but unfortunately passed the House a week and a half ago, is they're realizing not only all of the taxes, as you pointed out, over $700 billion new taxes that would cripple small businesses and families, the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare that our seniors know will lead ultimately to rationing of health care and other devastating consequences. When this whole debate started, it was about lowering costs of health care. Now they're realizing that Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-page government takeover of health care will actually lead to increased cost for health care, which is the ultimate irony and really the ultimate kick in the teeth to the American people who want--as we want--real health care reform to lower cost. In fact, the alternative bill that we presented here on the House floor where we had a record vote here on the House floor that same day that Speaker Pelosi's bill passed, our bill actually would have reduced health care cost by 10 percent scored by the Congressional Budget Office, would have had no absolutely no tax increases, no cuts to Medicare; but on the other side, we're seeing more and more now how many costs are now increasing. In fact, we just saw a report come out earlier this week that showed that prescription drug prices have increased this year by 10 percent because some of these drug companies that supposedly are going to help out with lowering costs, what they did was they jacked up their costs 10 percent this year to accommodate for the increased cost down the road by Speaker Pelosi's government takeover. So not only are all of our families across this country that have health care that they like, realizing that the bill will actually take away, potentially, their health care, it will also lead to higher health care costs overall and even higher prescription drug costs. So it is really a double whammy for American families who were expecting something completely different from this Democratically controlled Congress. Unfortunately what they're seeing is a 1,990-page government takeover of health care that raises taxes, cuts Medicare, and they'll increase costs for health care, which is just the opposite of what Americans were promised. So it is a very big disappointment as more details come out. Hopefully, we can stop this from actually becoming law so that we can do real health care reform to address pre-existing conditions, to bring in more competition so families can buy across State lines, have true competition, have portability to take their health care with them, and have medical liability reform which we actually put in our bill which would have reduced costs saving American families millions and millions of dollars every year.

Mr. SCALISE. On that issue of jobs, we are seeing more and more on the stimulus bill, the so-called stimulus bill that we also opposed, a bill that added another $787 billion to our national debt, was completely financed on the backs of our children and grandchildren. I noticed and I am sure my colleagues from Louisiana will be happy to find out, when you go to the White House's Web site, Louisiana has 15 different congressional districts and they talk about the jobs that were created by the stimulus bill in Louisiana's Eighth Congressional District, and the only problem, and you are laughing and it is almost comical, while they talk about on the White House's Web site all of the jobs created by the stimulus bill in Louisiana's Eighth Congressional District, Louisiana only has seven congressional districts. In fact, when we looked across other States, we were seeing the same exact thing. So there is a whole lot of not only deception, but fraudulent numbers being reported on the White House's own Web site about jobs that were created in districts that don't even exist in this country. And it was using money that doesn't exist because it was borrowed from our children and grandchildren.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the ranking member from Texas for yielding. I rise in opposition to Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-page government takeover of health care. Weighing in at nearly 20 pounds, this bill comes out to over $530 million of spending per page. And where does this bill spend that money? Well, first of all, it fails the American people. It fails those small businesses and families that are going to have to pay the $730 billion in new taxes in this bill. It fails our seniors who have to deal with over $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. And it fails many of President Obama's own pledges and promises he made right here on this floor, like when he said, If you make less than $250,000 a year, you won't pay any new taxes, ``not a dime.'' In this bill, there is over $20 billion of new taxes just on people who have no insurance. The President has said multiple times, If you like what you have, you can keep it. Unfortunately, this bill fails the President's promise because it allows the health care czar to take away your insurance even if you like it. It's so bad, that even when we brought our amendment to say all Members of Congress have to abide by this bill, they actually refused to allow a vote on that amendment. We need to defeat this legislation and do real reform.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, today is the showdown on a government takeover of health care. And while there are still deals being cut to try to round up the last few votes in the dark of night behind these closed doors, what the American people have said is they want transparency, and they don't want a government takeover of health care. The American people want to fix the problems that are broken like we do in the Republican alternative we will be presenting that actually lowers costs. The CBO score says 10 percent reduction in health care premium, addressing preexisting conditions, and, yes, we actually do real medical liability reform to lower the cost of health care and stop all of these tests that are run just for defensive medicine purposes. Just a little while ago, one of my friends on the Democratic side said that he wants to redefine freedom. Well, with all due respect, I think the Founding Fathers got it right. We don't need to go and rewrite freedom and have a government takeover of health care. Let's fix what's broken, but don't break all the things that make medical care work so well for many Americans in this country.