[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 10, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H10949-H10954]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       GIVE AMERICA A TAX HOLIDAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure to be here on the floor 
where so much history has been made since the House moved down here 
around 1858, 1859.
  Recently I saw an estimate that our Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 
Henry Paulson, and the Fed Chair may have committed or are in the 
process of committing an estimated $7.7 trillion. I couldn't believe 
it, $7.7 trillion?
  So I wanted to know how much do people pay each year in income tax? 
The estimate I got was $1.21 trillion from individual income tax 
payments is what is estimated for the year 2008. Six and a half times 
less than what our bureaucrats here in Washington, two people, have 
committed us to or are trying to commit us to to get the economy going 
and to make credit more available so people who are lagging behind on 
their mortgages can catch up? I couldn't believe it. Six and a half 
times more than individual income tax that's going to be paid in this 
year? It's outrageous.
  My first thought was we'd be better off if we had an entire tax 
holiday for all of 2008, that everybody that paid in money so far this 
year gets all of their money back. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, people 
around this country starting to think about how much money they would 
get back that they have already paid into the Federal treasury this 
year, how much they wouldn't have to pay in for the rest of the year? 
It's an incredible amount of money. Think about the cars that would be 
bought, how many automakers would be bailed out as people

[[Page H10950]]

bought new cars. Think about all of the mortgages, all the new home 
sales that would take place, new homes built, new businesses built. An 
extraordinary amount of money. And yet we've got bureaucrats trying to 
get the economy going, obligating six and a half times that much money.
  Now, I understand that some of that $7.7 trillion is an investment. 
We have heard people say here in Washington, leaders I care a lot 
about, but they've said only the Federal Government has enough patience 
to hold private assets for years until they meet full maturity. Now, I 
am finishing my 4th year here, but just in the 4 years I have been 
here, I can tell you there is no patience in the Federal Government. We 
can't even keep the same tax incentives in place from year to year, and 
here we're supposed to hold these administration to administration?
  The bailout bill in September was a fiasco. Even those who supported 
the idea of a bailout bill, when you look closely at the bill, should 
have known this was not the thing to do. We have never in the history 
of the country since the Constitution came into play in 1787, as it 
came into being, we have not given one man this much unrestricted, 
unfettered authority to just obligate hundreds of billions of taxpayer 
dollars just however he feels it ought to be spent.
  So you look at the way Secretary Paulson has obligated the first $350 
billion. Well, it's been squandered when you look at the effect it was 
supposed to have. For one thing banks we hear are starting to use the 
money to buy up competition. What does that do? It monopolizes banking. 
It kills the community bank for sure. And this is the same Secretary of 
the Treasury who back in September used his emergency authority to say 
we're going to stand good dollar for dollar for every dollar you've got 
in money markets, but we are not going to say the same thing for the 
good, safe community banks. They're only good for $100,000. He didn't 
say it. He didn't have to. They knew it. So he knowingly, and it had to 
be knowingly because I can't believe he's that ignorant otherwise--he's 
a very intelligent man. He had to know that he was intentionally 
creating the biggest 1-day run on banks in American history as people 
went in, pulled their money down to the $100,000 level that had that 
much, and moved it to money markets. Maybe that was the intent. Since 
he comes from Wall Street, he wanted to take it out of the community, 
the safe, commercial banks, and send it to his friends on Wall Street. 
Maybe that was the point, but he did that.

  Now, others for whatever reason have gotten money and all of a sudden 
decided to tighten up credit. I have a friend, a constituent in 
Nacogdoches, Texas, who has a restaurant there. He went down to Wells 
Fargo, he tells me this week. He went down, I believe it was last week, 
to Wells Fargo in Houston and asked for a loan, and they said you're 
just a little late. Apparently after Wells Fargo, they said, got their 
money from the Federal taxpayers, they tightened the screws on credit 
and now they could no longer lend it to him. They could have if he had 
been there sooner before the Federal Government gave Wells Fargo the 
money. But now that Wells Fargo got the money, it's time to pull the 
plug and not lend to good borrowers anymore.
  That was not the intent. I was against the bailout, voted against it 
both times. Did not support it. You read it. We should not have given 
that kind of authority to one person and especially the provision that 
allowed him to hire whatever advisers and whatever managers, whatever 
he wanted when he was going to outsource that. And now I hate to be in 
a position of saying I told you so, but it wasn't a good bill and now 
we have seen that.
  Now, because he was doing all this fear mongering for 2 weeks, you 
know, the financial sky is falling as he ran around, he scared the 
stock market into paranoid schizophrenia. That's why it's up, it's 
down, it's up, it's down. The least little thing sets it off because he 
scared it into that. You cannot have a national leader go on television 
and say we're about to have a worse depression than the 1930s. We're 
about to have a stock market crash like 1929. You can't do that. You 
have to be the one that says ``we have nothing to fear but fear 
itself.'' Calm down, it's going to be okay. And it turns out all the 
while I read something that indicated that we had more home sales in 
September than any month since the year 2003. So things were going 
pretty good until we got all that fear mongering.
  The other thing was he said he was going to buy troubled assets, buy 
the mortgage-backed securities. And if I understood right, before the 
Senate he testified he was already thinking by the time it passed the 
House that he was going to have to do something else. Maybe it was the 
next day. If he were to have been considering doing something else 
other than what he represented, going back to my days as a judge, if 
somebody, whether it was the Secretary of the Treasury or anybody else, 
comes in and gets money based on false premises or false promises that 
he knows he's not going to follow through on, you get into some 
interesting doctrines, whether it's a promissory estoppel, fraud, 
different things like that. The bottom line is it's time to end his 
authority.
  Now, I've had people in this Congress tell me, no, what was 
negotiated with the Treasury was that we will get a strict up-or-down 
vote before Paulson can spend the other $350 billion. That's not what 
the bill says. The bill basically says that before he can squander the 
other $350 billion, and ``squandering'' is my word and I paraphrase 
based on his prior performance, that before he can get that $350 
billion, all he has to do is propose a plan, and if Congress doesn't 
vote to disapprove the plan within 15 days, he gets the money. They 
could do that over Christmas. People not get back in time to have a 
vote, and he's got the money.
  So it's time to end that. That's why even though my first thought was 
a whole year tax holiday, and imagine what that would do for the 
economy, it would be extraordinary, there were not a lot of supporters 
for that. I love and cherish and appreciate the support of the great 
congressman from the State of Arizona, John Shadegg. John has been a 
confidant. He has been a helpful source and resource. He liked the idea 
and was telling me tonight he may go ahead and file that anyway. But in 
looking at the $350 billion still unspent of the original $700 billion 
that this Congress allocated for him to spend, let's cut that off and 
let's see what we could get instead. Instead of letting Mr. Paulson 
spend that money, let's let the taxpayers keep their own money for 2 
months. What you would do under this bill, and we filed it yesterday, 
H.R. 7309, it would allow for the months of January and February a 
complete tax holiday. This isn't by and by in the sky. This is real 
time. In January if this bill were to be brought to the floor--and I 
feel sure if it gets to the floor it will pass because otherwise people 
would be afraid to face the voters if they voted not to let taxpayers 
spend their money but to allow Paulson to continue to have that 
authority or some other Secretary of the Treasury. Let there be no 
Federal withholding for the months of January and February. Not only 
would there be no withholding, the tax rate, as it says in the bill, 
for wages received for services performed during the period beginning 
January 1, 2009, ending February 28, 2009, shall be 0 percent. On down 
it indicates self-employment income for services performed during the 
period beginning January 1, 2009, ending February 28, 2009, the 
percentage shall be 0 percent.

                              {time}  2145

  So, basically, getting a two-twelfth or 16\2/3\ percent tax cut for 
the year 2009, now, that will help get the economy going. Why not let 
somebody have that substantial amount of money being pulled out of 
their check and sent to Washington for Paulson to squander, why not let 
them have it, let them catch up on their mortgage?
  Because I know, I have heard a number of people say we fell a little 
behind back when gasoline was $4 a gallon. I can't get my breath. I 
can't catch a breather. Let them get the breather by getting their own 
money, getting their own FICA. Because that means even people who are 
on the lowest wage-earning scale, who don't make enough to pay income 
tax, they still have FICA withheld for Social Security and all from 
their paycheck.
  This would let them have that back, give them a boost. Since they are 
not

[[Page H10951]]

having to take anything out for FICA, the employer would not have to 
match that for 2 months. That will allow the employer not to have to 
fire anybody for a couple of months, give them a little breather to 
catch up.
  Then at the end of the year you have 2 months for which you did not 
have income that's taxable. Now, the reason we had to word it the way 
we did was because people were saying, man, if that were about to 
happen, we will just postpone Christmas bonuses and put them in January 
or February. Well, that's not what this is for. This is for wages 
earned, for services performed during those months, and that would make 
it work.
  Now, I have been joined by my friend here from Georgia, Dr. Paul 
Broun, who it is an honor to serve with. I would like to yield such 
time to my friend, Paul Broun, as he may use.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Gohmert, for introducing this 
very innovative legislation. I would like to ask a couple of questions 
if you don't mind, if that's all right with you, have a little colloquy 
with you.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Certainly.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. If I remember correctly, John F. Kennedy, when 
he became President, lowered the tax rate, the top tax rates, which 
were extremely high at the time, but he lowered those. If I remember 
correctly, didn't that stimulate the economy, and didn't we have a 
stronger economy when President Kennedy, a Democrat, actually lowered 
taxes?
  Mr. GOHMERT. It absolutely did, no question.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I kind of remember also that Ronald Reagan did 
the same thing, and we had one of the fastest growths of economy in the 
history of this Nation, is that not correct?
  Mr. GOHMERT. You remember correctly, yes, sir.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. And I think also when President Bush proposed 
cutting capital gains taxes and the death taxes and other things, gave 
us an increase in child tax credits, I think that also stimulated the 
economy?
  Mr. GOHMERT. It certainly did.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. That's the thing about your bill that I see. 
This will lower the tax rate for everybody. It's time to bail out the 
taxpayer.
  It's time to bail out small business, and we are not doing that. We 
have been bailing out the Wall Street bankers, the big insurance 
companies, now the Big Three automakers, but the car dealers need a 
bailout. Small business needs a bailout. Working people need a bailout, 
and the best way to do that is pass your bill, in my opinion.
  Actually, I think our mutual friend, John Shadegg, did introduce his 
bill this evening, is what I understand. He came up to me on the floor 
and did introduce the bill. I am honored to be a cosponsor of that 
bill, as well as yours. I applaud you for the idea, because you brought 
it up, and John Shadegg took that idea.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I am a cosponsor on Mr. Shadegg's bill as well, because 
I love the idea. It would get the economy flying so high, going to 
strong. Who knows if and when it could ever come down, it would move it 
so quickly. Thank you.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Gohmert, the thing I see about your bill 
that I see is that what it will do is it will put dollars in people's 
pockets.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Absolutely.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. And they will be able to go and help pay off 
their mortgages. They will be able to go and help buy a new automobile. 
So that will bail out the car dealers, which this bailout deal that we 
passed, that the House passed tonight, is not going to do.
  In fact, there is nothing in this bill that guarantees the car 
dealers are going to have their warranties recognized. There is nothing 
in this bill tonight, from what I understand, that's going to give them 
their hold back that the car companies are keeping from the car 
dealers.
  So, actually, the car dealers are working on a float--I mean, the car 
manufacturing companies are working on a float from the car dealers, 
which is totally unfair. It's something that your bill will actually 
give people dollars in their pocket. That's going to stimulate our 
economy, I believe, and I think you believe the same thing too.
  It will stimulate our economy, because what we have to do to create 
jobs is for people to have money, to be able to invest it, whether they 
save it and put that money in the bank or in some financial 
institution, so the financial institution that then, in turn, can loan 
that money out to someone else, it will put money in the hands of small 
business, so that that will be stronger. That will create jobs, which 
creates a stronger economy every time we have seen a lowering of tax 
rates throughout this country, by Democratic as well as Republican 
Presidents, Democratic and Republican Congresses.
  We have seen a growth of the economy of the United States. Everybody, 
everybody has benefited, from the lowest wage owners to the highest 
wage earners. It also creates jobs so that this brings people who are 
unemployed into the job market. We have seen a greater income to the 
Federal Government because of the increase in the economy.
  I was asked today at your news conference, by one of the members of 
the press, is your bill one that's going to create a bigger deficit? 
Frankly, I told the young lady that asked me that that, no, I don't 
think it's going to create a deficit. If you scored by static scoring 
then maybe. But if you do dynamic scoring, which is real live scoring, 
then the Federal Government will get more money in because of greater 
economic activity in America.
  We will see a greater growth of our economy. We will see jobs 
created. We will see people catching up on their mortgages. Are people 
going out and actually buying houses?
  So we will see a tremendous economic growth throughout America. 
That's the reason I have cosponsored your bill. I applaud your efforts. 
I have also cosponsored John Shadegg's bill, which is actually your 
bill, and I congratulate you on that also.
  We have to bail out the taxpayer. We have to bail out the working man 
and woman in this Nation. We have to build small businesses, because 
that's the engine that drives the economy of the United States. That's 
where most jobs are created in America.
  It's absolutely critical for us to lower taxes, not raise taxes. It's 
absolutely critical for us to stop borrowing money from our 
grandchildren, not only our children, but our grandchildren, and that's 
what we are doing. We are creating greater Federal debt, greater 
deficits, and we are borrowing that money, actually, today, from China 
and foreign entities, and our grandchildren will have to pay for that. 
It's criminal, it's immoral, in my opinion, that we are doing that as a 
Congress.
  So, Mr. Gohmert, I highly applaud what you have done in this bill. I 
highly applaud your very innovative thinking, your thinking outside the 
box, if you will, to use a trite phrase.
  But what you have done is you have brought a piece of legislation 
that if the American public will just understand how important this is 
to them, how this will put dollars in their pocket, it will help them 
pay their bills. It will help them to catch up if they are behind.
  It will help create new jobs. It will help create a stronger economy. 
Your bill and John Shadegg's bill is the kind of spark plug that we 
need to have a greater economy, and to stop these doldrums that we have 
today.
  I deplore what Hank Paulson has done. I think it's just horrible that 
he has created this tremendous fear throughout our Nation, so people 
are holding on to their money, those that even have it. There are 
segments of our society that are doing fairly well economically. But 
there are many segments of our society that need some help, and your 
bill will help everybody at all levels, from the lowest-income people 
in this country to the highest.
  It will help create a stronger economy. It will help create economic 
growth. It will help create new jobs. It will help do the things that 
we desperately need to do to put this country back on the right course 
from an economic standpoint.
  So, Mr. Gohmert, I highly applaud what you have done, and I want the 
American taxpayers to be able to control their own money, not Mr. 
Paulson, or whoever the new finance czar might be. We have set up a 
finance czar in this country, and I think that is extremely dangerous.
  As you said in your opening remarks, we are federalizing banks. We 
have created an environment where the

[[Page H10952]]

megabanks are buying up smaller banks, so we have less competition. The 
marketplace is the best way to control quality, quantity and cost of 
all goods and services.
  So we need to defederalize the financial institutions, we need to put 
money back in the pockets of the taxpayers, the workers of America. We 
need to put money back in the pockets of small business owners so that 
they can create a stronger business and thus create more jobs, and your 
bill just does exactly those things.
  So I highly applaud what you are doing with this bill, and I call 
upon the American taxpayers, the American public, to contact your 
Member of Congress and demand a vote on the Gohmert bill.
  What is the number, Mr. Gohmert?
  Mr. GOHMERT. It would be H.R. 7309.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. H.R. 7309; is that correct?
  Mr. GOHMERT. That's correct.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. H.R. 7309, so I hope that the people watching 
tonight will contact their neighbors, their friends, their family 
members, contact everybody they know and say there is a bill in 
Congress, right now, today, that can be voted on, that will lower our 
tax rate by 16\1/2\ percent, right?
  Mr. GOHMERT. That's correct.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. And it will put dollars back in people's 
pockets. It will help stimulate our economy, and it will help us to get 
back on the right track economically so that America can be 
economically secure.
  So I applaud what you are doing. I highly recommend to other Members 
of Congress to get on your bill, and I highly recommend that the 
American public contact their Member of Congress in the House and the 
Senate and demand a vote on Mr. Gohmert's bill, H.R. 7309, which will 
lower your tax rate, put money in your pocket, and let you control your 
economic destiny.
  Mr. Gohmert, I thank you so much, and I appreciate this time that you 
have yielded to me.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I sure do thank my friend from Georgia. I appreciate 
those comments very much.
  This poster pretty much says it all. This is what boils down H.R. 
7309 into a nutshell. You have the Secretary of the Treasury Paulson 
here on one side, and then they have got you, the taxpayer, all the 
taxpayers across America on the other. The question is, who do you want 
to spend your $350 billion, because it hasn't been spent very well.
  When you hear that there are executives that may get millions in 
bonuses for running their business into the ground, and, sure, the 
government has some culpability in that, we sure do. Things haven't 
been run very well. But, obviously, they haven't run them very well 
either, and they want bonuses while the taxpayers they are taking it 
from have none and are cutting back on Christmas presents. Because of 
the way things are going, it is really tragic.
  My friend from Georgia mentioned the automakers bailout that we voted 
on tonight is a mistake, it's not properly done. It is only a temporary 
fix that's going to lead to more and more and more. It sounds like a 
placation to the UAW.
  I am much more concerned about car dealers than the UAW. I am very 
concerned about the auto workers and all these plants all over the 
country.
  Because one of the things I found when we went to China a few years 
ago, a number of bipartisan groups went, talked to different CEOs from 
industry. Why did you move your industry to China?
  Over and over we heard them say, well, our quality control was better 
in America. I thought perhaps they would say we moved because of the 
cheaper labor. They said, yes, labor is cheaper, and no unions to deal 
with. But that's not the reason we kept hearing that they moved. It was 
that we have a corporate tax that's over twice what China has, and then 
apparently they are willing to negotiate with some corporations, 
depending on what they bring to China.

                              {time}  2200

  So I am not as concerned for organizations as I am for the 
individuals; the workers in these plants, the workers at the car 
dealers, all these people that will be hurt if the automobile makers in 
America go down. But I don't think that will happen, even through a 
chapter 11.
  But I am extremely concerned any time any entity has money that 
belongs to other people and they hold on to it as if for ransom, and 
that is what we are hearing may be happening with some of the hold-back 
money, the rebate money that is owed by the auto makers to the dealers. 
And it is just not right.
  You come in here to Congress begging for money and you are not even 
going to live up to your side of the bargain? Regardless of what your 
religious beliefs are, and I never seek to impose mine on anyone else, 
but Jesus did refer to such a situation in one of his parables, like as 
in one person being forgiven their debts, and then they go and lord it 
over someone under them.
  We are seeing that kind of thing, and it should not be happening, and 
there should not be a dime provided to the auto makers until they 
provide the money that is owed to the people that they have, that 
should be going to these dealers rather than holding them up for the 
money they are properly owed. I don't think they ought to get a dime 
until they are properly reimbursed themselves out in the dealerships.
  Anyway, we have bureaucrats in Washington picking winners and losers. 
The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, 
wrote an article this past week, and I quote from it: ``The bankruptcy 
of the current Washington political establishment makes Representative 
Louie Gohmert's new proposal for a tax holiday proposal intriguing.''
  He went on to say, ``What Pelosi and Paulson are proposing to pour 
into crony capitalism is more than what it would cost to give every 
American taxpayer a total Federal tax holiday for 2 months.'' It is a 
great article and I would commend that to you. ``A people stimulus 
package, a tax holiday instead of a bailout.'' He has a website at 
Newt.org.
  Also American Solutions has some wonderful information about the 
proposed tax holiday. And Jeb Babbin of Human Events, the publisher 
there, has a tremendous article on this. He has been extraordinary in 
his support for this idea. At one point he says, ``Most Americans were 
opposed to the bank bailout last fall, and neither they nor the markets 
themselves have confidence that any of the bailouts or `stimulus 
packages' will work. They will have confidence in Gohmert's plan 
because it is an economic stimulus that has been proven by history. Tax 
cuts mean more spending, savings and investment. They pave the way to 
economic recovery. Government bailouts do not.''
  He said, ``Gohmert's tax holiday plan is eloquent in its 
simplicity.''
  Mr. Speaker, that is all I know to do, is come back with simplicity.
  ``Every American taxpayer would pay no Federal income or FICA taxes 
for the first two months of 2009. For the typical American family 
earning about $50,000 a year, that would mean they would keep about 
$2,000 that would otherwise be paid to the government. People making 
that kind of money could certainly use $2,000 more than someone getting 
a multi-million dollar bonus.''
  ``In any event,'' he says, ``Gohmert's plan doesn't pay for Wall 
Street bonuses or let banks use bailout money to buy other banks or pay 
dividends. It doesn't rely on bureaucrats to pay money out to the right 
people at the right time or try to stimulate the economy with token 
payments to people who don't pay taxes. Most Americans pay about 25 
percent of their income in Federal income tax and another 7.25 percent 
in FICA, Social Security and Medicare taxes.
  ``Computing how much money Gohmert's tax holiday would leave in your 
family's checkbook is very simple. The fact is, you can just look at 
your paycheck. Look at the stub. It will tell you how much has been 
held out of your check. You see how much has been held out of your 
check for a month for Federal withholding and for FICA. That is what 
you would get back.''
  I would like to point out, there was a quote decades ago from John 
Kenneth Galbraith about economists. Opinions of economists have been 
bantered about over and over again. But I think about Galbraith's quote 
when he said there are only two kinds of economists: There are those 
who don't know, and

[[Page H10953]]

those who don't know they don't know, and I think our Treasury 
Secretary is in the latter category.
  An interesting article published, ``Less Government is More Better,'' 
by Ted Nugent. The guy is amazing. He is a rock star, and he is an 
amazing rock star when it comes to political philosophy as well, and I 
am quoting from his article.
  He says, ``That is right, a 2 month, $350 billion tax holiday, and no 
income tax for January and February 2009. This would be massive wads of 
your money staying in your pockets where it belongs, surely doing more 
for the sagging economy than using it to bail out Wall Street or the 
automotive industry.''
  He also says, ``Fedzilla,'' apparently that is his term for the 
Federal Government here in Washington, ``has just gotten bigger and 
bigger. Of course, Fedzilla,'' he says, ``bureaucrats such as Speaker 
Pelosi and others, will fight Congressman Gohmert's proposal because 
they believe Fedzilla knows how to better spend your money than you do. 
But this arrogant attitude by Fedzilla-addicted zombies is always the 
problem, never the solution.''
  He said, ``Fedzilla rarely gets anything right. Need proof? Quick, 
name three specific things Fedzilla has spent your money on which you 
believe was a wise use of your tax dollars.''
  He says, ``Taxpayers are partially to blame for the financial mess 
created by Fedzilla. We have sat idly by and drank the bureaucratic 
Kool-Aid brewed by Fedzilla and slowly surrendered our financial 
independence to big government bureaucrats. Shame on us,'' Ted Nugent 
says. He says, ``We should have been snarling watchdogs of the 
bureaucrats with our tax dollars stuffed in their bloated wallets, 
instead of solace, disconnected, apathetic accomplice lapdogs.''
  You have got a quote here from Thomas Jefferson. Ted Nugent quotes 
Jefferson saying, ``I predict future happiness for Americans if they 
can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under 
the pretense of taking care of them.''
  Boy, if that doesn't apply. Of course, Ted Nugent says, ``You 
think?'' Sounds like my sister's response. ``You think?''
  In any event, this is a simple bill. And I know some people have 
said, won't that hurt Social Security? Section 3 deals with that, and 
requires the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Commissioner of Social 
Security as appropriate, to determine what impact the nonpayment of 
FICA for 2 months would have on the Social Security trust fund and the 
Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund, Federal Disability 
Insurance trust fund, Federal Hospital Insurance trust fund, and they 
have to make sure the difference is made up.
  We have already allocated $350 billion, so shutting them down from 
using that and saying the taxpayers get it instead sounds like a pretty 
good deal. I hope it would.
  We have got to get back to the roots of what America was founded on. 
It broke my heart back in September when we had this bailout proposed. 
On that first Monday we took the vote, some of us knew it was going to 
be tough in the stock market. Why? Because the Treasury Secretary had 
forecast a self-fulfilling prophesy that the stock market would drop 
unless he got his $700 billion slush fund.
  Well, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you promise the market 
is going to drop unless something happens, it usually happens the way 
you say it, because the market is fragile. It relies so much on 
confidence. So it dropped 777 points. Something Biblical about that, 
777. Or I guess if you are into I guess slot machines, something 
intriguing about that as well, 777.
  But it also broke my heart to see so many people, they knew the 
principles of this country, they knew what it was founded on. They knew 
what started the Revolution. They had their history. They knew that the 
people in the colonies, in what back then were the colonies of America, 
did not want the king's government, any government, owning all that 
they held dear in this country.
  When the king, the government, started exhorting too much power and 
control and ownership over things in the colony, it started a 
revolution. When the signers of the Declaration of Independence signed 
that document, they knew that King George would see it. It was posted. 
It was made available. It was read out. People knew who had signed it, 
and so would King George III. They knew if the Revolution failed, their 
lives were over.
  You look at the end of the Declaration of Independence. They said 
``we pledge our lives, our fortunes,'' and many of them lost both. Some 
lost their lives, some lost their fortunes, some lost their families, 
but they believed it was worth it to have a country in which people 
could be free to decide what to do with their own property.
  You know, the pilgrims tried this idea of basically socialism. They 
had a beautiful compact when they came to this land here, the ``New 
World'' they called it. The compact was they would all share the land, 
they would all produce from it, they would bring into the common 
storehouse and then they would share equally.
  After the first winter, when so many died of starvation, they 
realized we got to go do something different here. First of all, if you 
don't work, you don't eat. Sound familiar? That is what the Apostle 
Paul had to order after the New Testament church tried the idea of 
everybody bringing into the common storehouse and then sharing it 
equally.
  The other thing they did was provide private plots of land to each 
individual so they could eat what they produced and then share what was 
left. That is the way America got started. Those were lessons that the 
founders knew. And they knew that if individuals had the ability to 
succeed and flourish as private individuals without government control 
and government constant intervention, that this could become the 
greatest country in the world.
  If you read one of John Adams's letters to Abigail after the signing 
of the Declaration, you can just virtually feel the excitement. He 
said, ``This is a great day.'' My paraphrase is, this is a great day. 
We have within our grasp in this country something that the 
philosophers and the dreamers have only dreamed about, and that is 
within our grasp. This day ought to be celebrated throughout this 
Nation's history with picnics and parades, and he mentioned firing of 
guns. We substitute fireworks. He knew how important it was, because of 
the ideal that people could have a government, this experiment in 
government, where they would control the government and govern 
themselves.
  And somehow we have wandered so far from that that in September of 
this year, we could have a bill that so many would vote for that would 
allow one man, a king of a treasurer, to buy private assets, let the 
government take them and make money.
  Let me just say, when you hear somebody in the government say we are 
going to take taxpayer money and make money with it, then the response 
should be, it is none of your business. Taxpayers always make more 
money with taxpayer money than the government could ever do. That is 
not their job. It is called socialism when the government buys into 
banks, buys stock in the banks, buys stock in insurance companies, and 
stock has been offered in the car companies.
  We have a bill that will make a Car Czar. Can you imagine? I mean, 
Ted Nugent called the government ``Fedzilla.'' Can you imagine the kind 
of creation Fedzilla would come up with if it starts being the Car 
Czar, designing cars and telling Detroit what they have to produce? I 
wouldn't want to buy one of those. We saw those kind of cars. Not that 
many people bought the Yugos or the other Russian cars produced over 
there designed by a government-controlled car company.

                              {time}  2215

  People didn't want them. They wanted American cars if they could get 
them.
  But, in any event, we've come to this time when, in American history, 
people would willingly vote to socialize a segment of the economy. I 
was told, well, this couldn't be socialism, this was before the final 
vote, because I only know three socialists in America and they're all 
against the bailout bill.
  Well, it turns out they didn't like the idea of giving Wall Street 
all this money. They just wanted the government to take over the 
financial sector. But hearing one of them on television

[[Page H10954]]

after the bailout, he said, you know, this actually ends up being a 
great day because we've federalized, socialized whatever you want--he 
didn't say that, but it's basically socialized a segment of the 
financial economy, the financial sector. And now we just need, 
according to him, to take over the rest of it and then we spread it 
across the country.
  That sounds good. And I heard somebody call into a talk show and say, 
what's really wrong with socialism?
  Well, let me explain it to you this way. When I was an exchange 
student in the Soviet Union back in 1973, I spent the summer over 
there; went out to a collective farm, and there were some farmers who 
were sitting in the shade, you know, mid-morning.
  Well, I've worked on farms, ranches, growing up in East Texas, and I 
know, during the summer, like this was, you start your work as quick as 
you can after daylight, and you want to be finished before the sun gets 
too hot. I've worked in 104, 105-degree heat with lots of humidity and 
it isn't fun, so you try and finish before it gets that hot.
  These guys were all sitting in the shade. And I spoke a little 
Russian back then and I asked them, trying to be nice, when do you work 
out in the field? And they laughed at me, at the question. And one of 
them spoke and said, I make the same number of rubles if I'm out there 
or if I'm here, so I'm here. That's why socialism never works, because 
when people find out that they can get just as much as the person that 
works from sun up to sun down, then it falls apart.
  Now, the Soviets set a record of having socialism for 70 years. And 
the only way they could make it work was to have a tyrannical central 
government that could kill you or imprison you if you didn't play 
along. But it was doomed to failure.
  Socialism is always doomed to failure. And this country, if it were 
to continue going down this road, would not make 70 years unless it 
went to a tyrannical government as well; and God help us if that were 
to happen.
  In any event, I would rather the prayers be that God continue to 
bless America; that we get back to our founding principles; that we 
embrace the principles that made America great, and not the principles 
that brought about the Revolution.
  My bill, H.R. 7309, helps get us back a little bit on track. And you 
know what a great healthy by-product would be? When people start 
realizing how much money they're sending to Washington, they might 
demand a little better accountability, the kind of accountability we 
have not gotten from the first $350 billion that have been squandered 
for who knows what. It hasn't helped.
  But with that, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the patience. I would 
encourage, Mr. Speaker, people all across America to call your 
Representative, call your Senators, let them know that the taxpayers 
should be the one to spend the $350 billion, not the Treasury 
Secretary.

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