The debate over health care has reached a fevered pitch in our nation’s capital.  Over the last several months, millions of Americans have spoken out at town halls, have called and written in to the White House, and have even made personal visits to their members of Congress to express their strong opposition to government run health care.  Yet Speaker Pelosi has once again ignored their voices.

Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill H.R. 3962 was drafted without committee hearings or markups behind closed doors by Speaker Pelosi and a very limited number of her inner-circle.  Weighing in at more than 2,000 pages, Pelosi’s bill will cost the American taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.

Real reform of our health care system is needed.  We must help those who want health insurance but cannot afford it.  We must expand access to health care in rural America.  We must fix our medical malpractice laws so that doctors can focus on saving patients rather than paying lawyers.  And we must expand our investments in preventative care.  However, that doesn’t mean we should throw out the car because it has a soft tire.  This country still has the best doctors, the best treatments, the best researches, and the best hospitals in the world.  Improvements need to be made, but not at the cost of potentially destroying our current health care system, saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, decreasing our standard of care, and burdening American families and small businesses with $729.5 billion in new taxes.

I will continue to oppose Speaker Pelosi’s government run health care legislation and any legislation that comes before Congress that includes a public option.

Congressman Frank Lucas represents Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District.  For more information, visit his website at www.house.gov/lucas.

One trillion, four hundred twenty billion dollars.  It’s an astounding number.  It’s more than the entire economy of India and enough to give every man, woman, and child in the United States $4700.

It is also our country’s federal budget deficit for 2009.  That means that in the fiscal year 2009, which runs from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009, the federal government spent $1.42 trillion more than it took in.  To put this in perspective, last year’s deficit was $459 billion – still an astounding number, but less than half the deficit for this year.

When our nation runs with a deficit like this year, we increase our national debt – or the total debt we owe over the life of our country.  Our current national debt is $9.1 trillion, and climbing every day.  The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that, under President Obama’s spending plans, our national debt will rise to $17.1 trillion by the year 2019, meaning an increase of $8 trillion over the next ten years.  Most of this debt is held by foreign countries.  China, not known for their great relations with our country, holds the most – more than $800 billion.

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Promoted from the diaries by AE.

I was disturbed to discover that President Obama requested the religious symbols in Gaston Hall, most notably the inscription “IHS” that symbolizes the name Jesus, at Georgetown University be covered during his economic address earlier this week.  This follows his comments in 2007 that America is “no longer a Christian nation.”  While the President continues to quote the scripture and reference his faith, it seems the White House is subtly attempting to remove God from our every day lives. 

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According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the President’s budget proposal for 2010 will produce a $9.3 trillion addition to our current deficit over the next ten years.  As with a person or company that borrows money, the federal government must pay interest on all borrowed funds.  To do this, the federal government sells U.S. Treasury bonds and bills to people, companies, even foreign countries.  Because they were considered the safest product on the market- after all, what other investment could be more sound than the United States government- the bonds were sold at a very low interest rate, giving rise to a low borrowing cost.  The United States would primarily sell these Treasury bonds and bills to Asian markets and countries in the Middle East, but in addition they were sold to companies and people all over the world. 

As the United States deficit grows, however, our need for additional borrowed money grows.  Unfortunately, our two largest customers- Asian markets and Middle Eastern countries- have also been experiencing a market decline and falling oil prices, decreasing their ability to purchase these bonds and bills.  Even more importantly, as our national debt continues to grow, investors will be less enticed to purchase bonds and bills backed by a government that seems intent on wracking up debt without paying it off.

All of this leads to one clear fact: sometime shortly, we will no longer be able to continue to sell as many Treasury bonds and bills as we need to run the government.  So what happens then?

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Yesterday, Congress passed H.R. 1106, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act. Supporters hope this legislation will restore liquidity in the housing market and assist those homeowners who are in foreclosure. While this is a lofty goal, the bill just passed may not achieve it.

There are certain aspects of the bill that I can support. For example, permanently raising the FDIC insurance limit from $100,000 to $250,000 will provide additional assurances that our banks are safe, which will encourage investment.

On first blush, it may appear that giving judges this power will be helpful, however the long-term results are unsettling. The most troublesome provision grants bankruptcy judges the power to write down the principle on a mortgage while lowering the interest rate and extending the terms. Known as “cramdown,” this provision would cause mortgage interest rates for the average American consumer to skyrocket, making homeownership harder for all Americans. Compounding this problem, cramdowns will be costly to investors who have invested in mortgage-backed securities and will cause them to demand a higher interest rate on all further mortgages. The result is grim: in a time when we need to restore confidence and liquidity to the housing market, this bill will actually discourage investment and decrease lending, perpetuating the current freeze on credit.

I am sympathetic to those Americans who are struggling with their mortgage payments. However, approximately 90 percent of homeowners are paying their mortgages on time. The federal government cannot continue to bailout the irresponsible choices of a few at the cost of many. Americans are suffering from bailout fatigue. It is time for Congress to come up with serious solutions to the serious problems we are facing instead of continuing to throw money we don’t have at every problem that presents itself.

Frank Lucas represents Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. For more Frankly Speakings, please visit Rep. Lucas’ Blog at http://www.house.gov/lucas/frankly-speaking/index.shtml.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the “Pelosi Pork Package,” a massive spending bill disguised as a stimulus plan.  I joined every one of my Republican colleagues and 11 of my Democrat colleagues and voted against this obscene bill, standing up for the American taxpayer and our future generations. 

The total cost of this spending bill is a whopping $820 billion.  However, this country already has a $10.6 trillion deficit, so we must borrow this money.  The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that we will have to pay an additional $347 billion in interest, racking up the total cost of this bill to over $1.1 trillion.  With this one vote, if it is passed by the Senate, Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team will have increased the national deficit by almost 10 percent.

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Today, the House of Representatives passed the Senate-amended reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by a vote of 290-135.  This is a federally funded program that is supposed to provide health care to low-income children whose families cannot afford private health insurance.  While I believe that this is a good program and I support initiatives to bring health care to children who need it, I cannot support this reauthorization.

To begin with, applicants are not required to present proof of their identity, other than a verbal presentation of their Social Security number.  This weakens the standards to determine which children are eligible and opens the program up to abuse and fraud.  In addition, families making up to $88,000 per year will be deemed eligible for free healthcare at taxpayer expense.  Maybe in the Speaker’s hometown of San Francisco $88,000 a year is considered “low-income,” but I think most Americans would agree that is not true.  Before we expand this program to middle-class children and adults, we must ensure that proper health care is provided for low-income children.

Finally, under the reauthorization, the expansion of SCHIP will supposedly be funded by an increased tax on tobacco products, including cigarettes and cigars.  However, the use of tobacco products has dramatically dropped in the last few years and studies show that another increase in price will cause that number to drop even further.  This means that in order to fully fund SCHIP for the next ten years this country would need 22.4 million new smokers.  If that is not accomplished, then an additional tax will have to be levied on the American taxpayer making this bill a regressive tax in disguise.

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