Date: 2012-07-10
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker. the chairman of the Budget Committee. Mr. RYAN. has outlined in much detail how the current lawsome call it ObamaCare. and some call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010does not do what it claims to. In fact. it does not protect the patient. and it does not provide affordable care. He also pointed out that. when this bill was argued on this floor and in the other body. it was denied time and time again that it was a tax. We recall the President of the United States on several public occasions denied it was a tax. Yet he had his administration argue before the U.S. Supreme Court on the question of constitutionality that it was a tax. The American people view the Federal Government as an entity. What have they seen with respect to this as it went from the executive branch to the legislative branch to the judiciary branch? They find that they were played. They find that what they were told at one point was not that which it was at the other point. If you look at the Supreme Courts decision. they had to first consider whether this was a tax under whats known as the AntiInjunction Act. The AntiInjunction Act essentially says you cant contest a tax until it has been visited upon you. The question was. since the individual mandate. conceived as a tax. doesnt come into effect for some time. how could it be before the Court? The Court said. for purposes of standing. it is not a tax. Then they went and analyzed the individual mandate and said. Is it constitutional under the Commerce Clause? No. Is it constitutional under the necessary and proper clause. or the Spending Clause? No. But then they said. We will interpret this mandate. this penalty. as a tax for purposes of constitutionality as argued by the administration. which had denied it when it was arguing that case here in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Is it any wonder people are cynical about this? Is it any wonder that people begin to lose their confidence in a government that will not present facts consistently to them? I will not say there were any intentional lies made. but I will say that the American people have to question if they have confidence in their government when they say one thing at one time and say another thing at another. In fact. now by virtue of the Supreme Court decision. this is the largest single tax on the middle class of America in history. Thats what were talking about. Can we do better? We believe we can. We believe that you can provide affordable health care for the American people without the largest single middle class tax in the history of the Nation. which puts the Federal Government in the position of being between the patient and the doctor. It is the antithesis of patient -centered health care. Thats why were here. Were not here because we believe the present system is perfect. We think it is broken. The status quo is not acceptable. But we believe that this bill. ObamaCare. that is before this Congress right now is unacceptable to the American people because it exacerbates the problems that we find in our health care delivery system. Thats why were here. The fact of the matter that weve voted several times to repeal it and have yet to be successful is no reason for us to give up. We are standing here for the American people against the largest middle class tax increase in the history of the United States. and we will not stop until we are ultimately successful.