Washington D.C. - Congressman Dan Lungren (R-CA) during floor debate in the House today, gave a speech concerning the severity of unemployment in America. During his speech he touched on the details of the Majority's health care plan and what he is hearing  from constituents in his district. The following is a video and transcript of today's speech:

"Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, said that this is a propitious time for the travel promotion bill to be considered on the floor because of the discouraging news we received today about unemployment. 10.2%. That's the highest unemployment rate experienced in this country in 26 years.

"10.2%. In my home state of California, we haven't received the most up-to-date figures, but the figures as of last month were 12.2%. Over 10% for the nation, over 12% for my state... my district is even higher than that, I believe.

"A propitious time to consider this bill since we have lost, by some estimates, as much as 200,000 jobs in the travel industry, but is this a propitious time for us to be considering a health care bill which, by objective analysis by a number of different observers, will cause us to lose millions of jobs?

"I have been home to my district and I realize that by the Gregorian calendar -- Gregorian calendar we have 12 months out of the year. But by the Pelosi calendar we only have 11 months of the year because we have been told to ignore august. It didn't exist. Just as we are to ignore those thousands of everyday Americans who showed up yesterday, just as presumably the leaders in the A.M.A. are ignoring their rank-and-file doctors who are today bringing forward a vote of no confidence against their board of directors for supporting the health care bill that's going to be presented to us some time this week.

" That's the bill that we are going to vote on in June, July, August, September, October, November, yesterday, today, tomorrow, maybe the next day. The president of the United States was going to come up here and we understand speak to our colleagues on the majority side yesterday.  Then today we understand now it's going to be tomorrow. the reason I bring this up is that when I speak to my folks back home, and I was on a tele-town hall meeting last night and spoke with thousands of them, the first thing on their mind is jobs.

"The first thing on their mind is the economy. The first thing on their mind is whether or not they can take care of their families. And at this time, this propitious time, this time when we have received with a thud the report that the unemployment rate is 10.2%, at this time we decided that we must consider a bill with very few if any amendments allowed, creating a new government takeover of health care, that's going to cost trillions of dollars.

"Someone on my tele-town hall last night said, "Congressman, can you explain to me why in the bill that you're going to vote this week, the benefits, so-called in it, are not going to take place for several years?" And I had to explain it's because you want to bring the costs down when you explain it to the public. So you start the taxes in year one but you won't start the benefits from the program until year four or five. At the end of 10 years the net costs will be less than they would be if it were fully implemented.

"Maybe I take this a little personally because part of what they have in here is a 2.5% tax on medical instruments. Medical equipment, including, by the way, new hips, so now in this country if you have a new hip, as I did a year ago, you will be taxed for the privilege of having that operation done in the united states. 2.5%. I thought we were concerned about bringing costs down.

"Wheelchair, you are going to have an extra tax on that. I don't understand why we are doing this. Oh, yes, we are going to have taxes of huge amounts on business, small businesses, medium-sized businesses are going to have taxes imposed on them in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And so as the gentleman from Massachusetts said, this is a propitious moment. We are being confronted with the magnitude of the economic downturn that affects each and every one of our constituents. And so what are we giving them in return?

"We have a bill that's going to create 111 new programs, boards, bureaucracies, and commissions.

"I have had town hall after town hall, tele-town hall after tele-town hall. Not a single member of my constituency, not a single average everyday American has said, please create 111 new programs. Please create 111 new boards, bureaucracies, and commissions, please put another $1 trillion or $2 trillion on our backs, please add new taxes. By the way that doesn't include the $200 billion doc fix that's going to be put in another bill so that we pretend it is not there. 2.5% tax on individuals who fail to purchase health insurance.

"2.5% excise tax on medical devices - 5.4% surtax on quote-unquote high-income filers. Over 50% of which are small businesses and file as individuals. 8% tax on employers who can't afford to purchase benefits. A propitious time, yes. I happen to represent a district in which we have 42,000 seniors, people over 65, who have made the voluntary decision to sign up for Medicare Advantage - 42,000 seniors in my district alone, millions around the country. This bill cuts over $150 billion from that program.

"$150 billion from that program, when I speak to people in my district, they tell me, it will cut that program. So as we consider a bill here dealing with travel, at the propitious time of confronting the unemployment rate, one has to ask oneself, why would we be forced to vote on a bill that will have an immediate short-term and long-term impact of killing jobs in this country? It does not make sense. I also wonder whether any bill has had more uses of word -- of the word shall than the bill we are going to consider this week.

"By my count there are 3,425 uses of the word 'shall' in the bill that we are to be presented. For those who don't fully appreciate statutory construction, the word shall means, mandate - means 'you must'. There's no discretion. So 3,425 times this bill, if it becomes law, will command people, including average everyday American citizens, to do something. They will have no discretion about it.

"They will be required to do that. 3,425 instances of that. So, Mr. Speaker, as we all, I hope, support the bill that is before us at this time, providing direction for the capitol police in a more efficient operation of their force, and as we have combined it with the travel promotion authority, which many people believe will help us deal with the loss of jobs in the travel industry, I still have to ask, why would we be running pell-mell towards voting towards a bill that will take over 1/6 of the economy of the united states and by outside objective analysis will result in the loss of millions of jobs in this country, primarily in the small business community?

"It defies logic and while we're allowed to bring up anything on the floor, the majority is allowed to bring up anything on the floor, the prevailing rule for these several day, martial law, doesn't have to be germane to anything else, you would hope there would at least be the concept of consistency.

"If we're truly concerned about the unemployed in America if we know that 50.2% is much more than a -- that 10.2% is much more than a number, it reflects real, live human beings who have lost their jobs, and remember this doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of discouraged workers, those who are so discouraged by the current economic situation, they're no longer looking for jobs, and therefore they're not counted in this number, and we know we've lost hundreds of thousands of those people as well. But they are people with children, people with wives, people with husbands, people with grandparents and parents, people who have bills to pay.

"These are the people who are hurting. For us to do something in this house which is going to even cause them more difficulty is beyond me. and so I would just ask this, this is -- this is a propitious time for us to consider a travel promotion bill because of the unemployment that's faced by that particular segment of our society, is it not a propitious time for us to acknowledge that maybe we ought to withdraw, go back to the drawing board, come up with a bill that deals with the concerns, the legitimate concerns about the shortcomings of our health care system, but that does not at the same time destroy jobs? That may be a rhetorical question.

"But the answer to that question is very real to the people back home.

"Once again, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues on the majority side for having worked so closely with us on this bill before us now and I would urge support for this bill and reserve the balance of my time."