Health Care

Floor Speech

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Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for taking this Special Order to come talk about the health care bill that, regardless of what anybody says, is actually being rammed through the process. And the reason it's being rammed through, as I think my friend from Texas mentioned, the American people are not in favor of this health care bill. It also, I believe, is unconstitutional that we're going to require our citizens to buy health care. That should be a choice that every individual makes on whether they buy health care or don't buy health care. They may be in an economic situation to where they don't need it, or they may be young and they may be doing health savings accounts. We need to be promoting the health savings accounts and other ways that young people can do things to provide health care for themselves without their government forcing them to buy a health insurance program.

The other thing that I think is interesting is the unions get a special break out of this. You know, I thought that everything that we did in this body was supposed to be fair to everybody, but what they're doing is they're making a difference in this health care proposal that if you have neighbors living beside one another and one is a union employee and the other is a nonunion employee and they're making the same amount of money, their health benefits are going to be taxed differently. Now, why should that be? I mean, I think that's one of the disservices that has come about through this bill is there is so much inequity between individuals. It all depends on how much money you make, where you live.

There is also going to be a czar that we don't know who that's going to be and we don't really know what his or her full capability is going to be and what they're going to regulate. But I would say to my friend from Texas that they may tell you that the current health care plan that you have that you're happy with does not meet the Federal requirements.

This plan also establishes about 111 new commissions, boards, and agencies that we have no idea what their responsibility or what their rules or what their regulations are going to be and what other type of impact they're going to have on our freedom and our privacy.

The interesting thing is that the leadership continues to talk about how many jobs this is going to create. If it creates any jobs, they will be government jobs. We need to create private sector jobs. We need to be concentrating on the economy. All the political capital that has been spent on health care--and not only on health care, this most open, honest, ethical Congress that we were promised by then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, now Speaker Pelosi, is the fact that they've been tied up with ethics investigations of Congressman Rangel. We've had the tickle wrestling controversy that just came up lately about young people being allowed to be subject to sexual harassment.

Now, we need to be concentrating on jobs. Most of my constituents are calling me saying, look, where are the jobs? You passed a $787 billion stimulus package that was supposed to keep unemployment from going from 8 percent any higher, well, it's at 9.7. The only jobs that have been created have been government jobs. We created about 5,000 jobs with Cash for Clunkers. We have created over 120,000 government jobs since this President has been in office. We need to be concentrating on our economy and on creating jobs from the private sector. We need to be freeing up credit. We need to be making it so small business has an initiative to hire people.

The jobs bill that we passed through here was really a joke. And my friend from Texas, I'm sure you talk to many of your small business people who said, Congressman, do they really think that I'm going to go out and hire somebody for $30,000 or $35,000 a year to get a $1,000 tax credit? Do they not understand that you can't survive in small business doing something that silly? I said, well, the problem is only about 7 percent of the people in the President's administration have ever even had a private sector job, and I don't know how many or what percentage of that ever created any jobs or actually was responsible for job creation.

What we have got to do is remove the uncertainty that's out there to the small business world, to that employer that is ready to create, to expand, to put infrastructure in our communities. We've got to make sure that he has some certainty. The small business people I talk to go, look, I'm not going to do anything until I have some certainty, and the one thing that the 111th Congress has brought to the American people and to the people that create jobs in this country is uncertainty. They don't know what their energy cost is going to be; they have no idea. Is cap-and-trade going to pass that would raise, just on individuals, energy costs of about $3,200 a year? Is that going to pass? I don't know.

Are we going to raise taxes on the small business people? Are we going to raise taxes on the people who make over $250,000 or over $200,000 or over $150,000? Most of these subchapter S corps that create the jobs are under those individual guidelines.

They ask, Am I going to end up paying more taxes? I don't know.

I can't answer that for you.

What are our health care costs going to be? Are you going to mandate these health care prescriptions on us?

I don't know. I can't answer that.

We don't know about any free trade agreements. This administration has refused to act on free trade agreements. We need to remove the uncertainty for business in this country. We need to crank up our economic engine without starving it for the fuel that it needs to stand and to create those jobs that we so desperately need.

So this health care plan is going to be rammed through regardless of what you say. The rules are going to be adjusted to fit what they need to do. But I've got something to tell the majority: The American people are not that stupid. They understand smoke and mirrors and hocus-pocus when they see it. I promise you they're not just going to hold the majority accountable; they're going to hold every Member of this body and every Member of the body across this Capitol accountable for taking this country in a direction that the majority of people does not want to see it go.

With that, I yield back my time to the gentleman, my friend from Texas.

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