[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 17, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3520-H3524]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2300
                    TAKING US IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foster). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. 
Foxx) is recognized for the remaining time until midnight.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleagues on the 
great job that they have done this evening in presenting information 
about the budget, the deficit, the challenges that we are facing in 
this country, and I particularly want to agree with Congressman Carter 
from Texas for the statement he made about the fact that we live in a 
wonderful country.
  In fact, I tell my friends all the time, the first thing I do in the 
morning when I wake up is say thank you, Lord, for letting me live in 
this country. And the last thing I say, before I go to sleep

[[Page H3521]]

at night, is thank you, Lord, for letting me live in this country.
  We are the most blessed people in the world, I believe that God has 
given us tremendous opportunities and responsibilities. And for those 
of us who have been here tonight and other nights and other days 
talking about what's happening in our country, we are really motivated 
by the fact that we know we live in the greatest country in the world, 
and we want it to remain that way.
  And what we see happening in this country is people taking us in the 
wrong direction in order to maintain the greatness and the 
opportunities that this country has always had and always presented.
  One of the things nobody said tonight is the fact that we, as 
Republicans, we, as conservatives, I would say--not all Republicans are 
conservatives, but those of us who are conservatives and who have been 
here talking about these issues are not alone. There are many Democrats 
who share our concerns too.
  I want to just share some quotes from some of our colleagues who have 
expressed their own concern and their own apprehension about the 
proposals that have been made by this Congress and by this President.
  Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana. ``I do think that before we 
raise revenue we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut 
back on spending.'' As for the tax increases on high-income earners 
called for in Obama's plan, Bayh said, I do think that before we raise 
revenue, we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut back 
on spending. This was in Politico March 3, 2009, ``Moderates Uneasy 
With Obama Plan.''
  Again, Republican conservatives are not the only ones that are 
worried about the direction that we are going. Senator Ben Nelson, 
Democrat of Nebraska, ``I have major concerns about trying to raise 
taxes in the midst of a downturn of the economy.''
  Then he says, ``On the one hand, you're trying to stimulate the 
economy. On the other hand, you're trying to keep money from going into 
taxpayers' pockets. It's very difficult to make that logic work.'' 
Again, Politico, March 3, 2009.
  Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat, Nevada.
  ``Representative Shelley Berkley, (D-Nev) called the proposal `a 
nonstarter,' telling Geithner, `I'd like to think that people give out 
of the goodness of their hearts, but that tax deduction helps to loosen 
up their heartstrings.' Outside the hearing, Berkeley said the proposed 
tax increase was `the number one issue on the minds of her constituents 
over the weekend. Reminded that the provision is intended to raise 
hundreds of billions of dollars to finance an expansion of health 
insurance coverage, Obama's top domestic priority, she said, `We can 
find another way.' ''
  We know that going in this direction, and these Democrats know, that 
this is not the way that we should be going. We should not be taking 
more money from the American people. Cutting back spending would be the 
appropriate way to go.
  I have a couple of other articles that I want to share, actually 
three articles that I want to share pieces of, because, again, they 
show, I think, the direction or the concern that people are having 
about these proposals that have been made in the last 50 days.
  This article is from Stewart Taylor, Jr., it's in the National 
Journal, March 7, 2009. Stewart Taylor is known as a very strong 
liberal. He has been described in other terms even stronger than that, 
in terms of his liberalism, but I am just going to call him that 
tonight.
  The title of this article is ``Obama's Left Turn.'' It reads, 
``Having praised President Obama's job performance in two recent 
columns, it is with regret that I now worry that he may be deepening 
what looks more and more like a depression and may engineer so much 
spending, debt, and government control of the economy as to leave most 
Americans permanently less prosperous and less free.
  ``Other Obama-admiring centrists have expressed similar concerns. 
Like them, I would like to be proved wrong. After all, if this 
President fails, who will revive our economy? And when? And what kind 
of America will our children inherit?
  ``But with the Nation already plunging deep into probably necessary 
debt to rescue the crippled financial system and stimulate the economy, 
Obama's proposals for many hundreds of billions in additional spending 
on universal health care, universal postsecondary education, a massive 
overhaul of the energy economy, and other liberal programs seem 
grandiose and unaffordable.
  ``With little in the way of offsetting savings likely to materialize, 
the Obama agenda would probably generate trillion-dollar deficits with 
no end in sight or send middle-class taxes soaring to record levels or 
both.
  ``All this from a man who told the Nation last week that he doesn't 
`believe in bigger government,' and who promised tax cuts for 95 
percent of Americans.
  ``The President's suggestions that all the necessary tax increases 
can be squeezed out of the richest 2 percent are deceptive and likely 
to stir class resentment. And his apparent cave-ins to liberal interest 
groups may change the country for the worse.''
  Then he goes on to say, ``Such concerns may help explain why the Dow 
Jones Industrial Average plunged 17 percent from the morning of 
Inauguration Day (8,280) to its close on March 4 (6,876). The markets 
have also been deeply shaken by Obama's alarming failure to come up 
with a clear plan for fixing the crippled financial system--which has 
loomed since his election 4 months ago as by far his most urgent 
challenge--or for working with foreign leaders to arrest the meltdown 
of the world economy.
  ``The house is burning down. It's no time to be watering the grass.
  ``This is not to deny that the liberal wish list in Obama is 
staggering $3.6 trillion budget would be wonderful if we had limitless 
resources. But in the real world, it could put vast areas of the 
economy under permanent government mismanagement, kill millions of 
jobs, drive investors and employers overseas, and bankrupt the 
Nation.''
  Let me say again, these words are not being written or spoken by a 
conservative, they are being spoken by a person who calls himself a 
moderate but is described by most people as quite a liberal.
  He goes on to say, ``Meanwhile, liberal Democrats in Congress are 
racing to gratify their interest groups in a slew of ways likely to do 
much more harm than good: Pushing a union-backed `card check' bill that 
would bypass secret-ballot elections on unionization and facilitate 
intimidation of reluctant workers; slipping into the stimulus package a 
formula to reimburse States that increase welfare dependency among 
single mothers and reduce their incentives to work; defunding a program 
that now pays for the parents of some 1,700 poor kids to choose private 
schools over crumbling D.C. public schools; fencing out would-be 
immigrants with much-needed skills.

  ``Not to mention the $7.7 billion in an omnibus spending bill to pay 
for 9,000 earmarks of the kind that Obama campaigned against: $1.7 
million for research on pig odors in Iowa; $1.7 million for a honey bee 
factory in Texas; $819,000 for research on catfish genetics in Alabama; 
$2 million to promote astronomy in Hawaii, $650,000 to manage beavers 
in North Carolina and Mississippi; and many more.''
  The article goes on and on as I said, but I want to share, not all of 
it, but a couple of more pieces of it, because I don't want to spend 
all the time reading from this article.
  I want to skip over to where he says, ``Small wonder that liberal 
commentators who complained about Obama's initial stabs at 
bipartisanship are ecstatic about his budget. And small wonder that 
some centrists, who have had high hopes for Obama--including New York 
Times columnist, David Brooks, my colleague, Clive Crook, David Gergen 
and Christopher Buckley--are sounding alarms.
  ``In a March 3 column headed `A Moderate Manifesto,' Brooks wrote, 
`Those of us who consider ourselves moderates--moderate conservative, 
in my case--are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not 
who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is 
inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that 
should put every centrist on notice. The only thing more scary than 
Obama's experiment is the thought that it might fail.''

[[Page H3522]]

  Then I will share the end of the column, ``I still hold out hope that 
Obama is not irrevocably `casting his lot with collectivists and 
status,' as asserted by Peter Wehner, a former Bush aid and a leading 
conservative intellectual now with the Ethics and Public Policy 
Center.''
  ``And I hope that the President ponders well Margaret Thatcher's wise 
warnings against some collectivist conceits, in a 1980s speech quoted 
by Wehner: `The illusion that government can be a universal provider 
and yet society still stay free and prosperous. The illusion that every 
loss can be covered by a subsidy. The illusion that we can break the 
link between reward and effort, and still get the reward.' ''
  Again, my point in sharing this is that it isn't just conservatives 
who are concerned with the direction in which we are going in this 
society.
  There is another article on an Internet Web site called GOPUSA that 
many people who use the Internet and use e-mail will be familiar with. 
The title of it is ``George Orwell Would Be Impressed With Barack 
Obama,'' and it's written by Doug Patton and it's dated March 2, 2009.
  ``There he was, standing before a joint session of Congress, 
promising America the Moon 1 minute and sounding like a deficit hawk 
the next. President Barack Obama and his Democrat cohorts had just 
rammed through the biggest pile of pork in the history of the republic, 
and yet there he stood, before the whole Nation, telling us he was 
going to go through the budget `line by line' finding ways to cut 
waste. In fact, he intended to `slash the deficit' he `inherited' by 
almost exactly the amount he and his Democrat Congress had just spent. 
What a coincidence.''
  The article goes on to say, ``Obama is a combination of Ronald Reagan 
and Big Brother--by which I mean that he uses his considerable 
communications skills to sell the agenda of the huge, intrusive 
government, and that he does it in a ``Newspeak'' that would impress 
George Orwell.
  ``Those who have read Orwell's prophetic little tomorrow, `1984,' 
will recall that `Newspeak' was a language in which the line between 
contrary concepts was so blurred that words either had no meaning at 
all or could be used to create concepts that were contrary. When words 
no longer had meaning, the concept of truth was not far behind.''
  I want to say to those who are watching this tonight, if you have 
never read ``1984,'' or if it's been a long time since you have read 
it, I will urge you to reread it now, because I think you will be 
startled by it and by the analogies that are being made by this author 
here tonight.
  So what will Obama's America look like if he gets all that he wants? 
It won't happen overnight, but if he has his way, eventually it will be 
a very dreary place, much like the old Soviet Union. Having followed 
the old Marxist axiom of making everyone equal, Obama will have brought 
about the same kind of quality instituted by the old Soviet Politburo. 
Gone will be the quality of opportunity we have enjoyed for more than 
200 years, the right to experience life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness. In Obama's America, as in the failed Soviet State, a quality 
of outcome will be the preferred result. The idea is to make everyone 
equally prosperous.
  This sounds good in theory until one considers that the only way 
governments have ever accomplished this is by making men and women 
equal in their poverty, misery and squalor.

                              {time}  2315

  And how does the President pay for it all? It doesn't seem to matter 
to most Americans. He talks about taxing the rich in order to pay for 
his schemes. Yet, if our government confiscated 100 percent of the 
income of everyone in this country making more than $75,000 a year, he 
would barely have enough to cover this year's budget. And we don't even 
have universal health care yet.
  Human beings are endowed with our rights by our Creator. Our Founders 
recognized that principle. This President and the majority in Congress 
believe our rights come from them. No one, until now, has been able to 
sell that idea to the American people. Barack Obama is doing his best 
to sell it to us now, and George Orwell would be very impressed.
  The last article I want to share is an article from the Saturday-
Sunday March 7-8, 2009, Wall Street Journal. I think another thing that 
hasn't been clear to the American people is that there are many things 
said by the President, by the leadership in this Congress, that if you 
look behind the curtain, as we do in the Wizard of Oz, you will see 
that what is being said and what is actually being done are not exactly 
the same thing.
  More and more people are beginning to talk about this, but few have 
brought out really good examples of it as well as this article in the 
Wall Street Journal does.
  The title of it, and it's an editorial, the title of it is: Obama 
Channels Cheney. ``The Obama administration this week released its 
predecessors post-9/11 legal memoranda in the name of transparency, 
producing another round of feel-good Bush criticism.
  ``Anyone initiated in President Obama's actual executive power 
policies, however, should look at his position on warrantless 
wiretapping. Dick Cheney must be smiling.
  ``In a Federal suit, the Obama legal team is arguing that judges lack 
the authority to enforce their own rulings in classified matters of 
national security. The standoff concerns the Oregon chapter of the al-
Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi Arabian charity that was shut down 
in 2004 on evidence that it was financing al Qaeda. Al-Haramain sued 
the Bush administration in 2004, claiming it had been illegally 
wiretapped.
  ``At the heart of the al-Haramain case is a classified document that 
it says proves that the alleged eavesdropping was not authorized under 
the Foreign Intelligence Service Act, or FISA.
  That record was inadvertently disclosed after al-Haramain was 
designated as a terrorist organization; the Bush administration 
declared such documents state secrets after their existence became 
known.
  ``In July, the ninth circuit court of appeals upheld the President's 
right to do so, which should have ended the matter. But the San 
Francisco panel also returned the case to the presiding district court 
judge, Vaughn Walker, ordering him to decide if FISA preempts the state 
secrets privilege. If he does, al-Haramain would be allowed to use the 
document to establish the standing to litigate.
  ``The Obama Justice Department has adopted a legal stance identical 
to, if not more aggressive, than the Bush version. It argues that the 
court-forced disclosure of the surveillance programs would cause 
exceptional harm to national security by exposing intelligence sources 
and methods. Last Friday, the ninth circuit denied the latest emergency 
motion to dismiss, again kicking matters back to Judge Walker.
  ``In court documents filed hours later, Justice argues that the 
decision to release classified information is committed to the 
discretion of the executive branch. And is not subject to judicial 
review. Moreover, the court does not have independent power to order 
the government to grant counsel access to classified information when 
the executive branch has denied them such access.
  ``The brief continues that Federal judges are ill-equipped to second-
guess the executive branch. That is about as pure an assertion of 
Presidential powers as they come, and we are beginning to wonder if the 
White House has put David Addington, Mr. Cheney's chief legal aid, on 
retainer.
  ``The practical effect is to prevent the courts from reviewing the 
legality of the warrantless wiretapping program that Mr. Obama 
repeatedly claimed to find so heinous, at least before taking office.
  ``Justice, by the way, is making the same state secrets argument in a 
separate lawsuit involving rendition and a Boeing subsidiary.
  ``Hide the children, but we agree with Mr. Obama that the President 
has inherent Article II constitutional powers that neither the 
judiciary nor statutes like FISA can impinge upon. The FISA appeals 
court said as much in a decision released in January, as did Attorney 
General Eric Holder during his confirmation hearings.
  ``It's reassuring to know the administration is refusing to 
compromise core executive branch prerogatives, especially on war 
powers. Then, again, we

[[Page H3523]]

are relearning that the ``Imperial Presidency'' is only imperial when 
the President is a Republican. Democrats who spent years denouncing 
George Bush for spying on Americans and illegal wiretaps are now 
conspicuously silent. Yet, these same liberals are going ballistic 
about the Bush-era legal memos issue this week.
  ``Cognitive dissonance is the polite explanation, and we wouldn't be 
surprised if Mr. Holder released them precisely to distract liberal 
attention from the al-Haramain case.
  ``By the way, those Bush documents are Office of Legal Counsel memos, 
not political directives. They were written in the immediate aftermath 
of a major terrorist attack, when war seemed possible, and it would 
have been irresponsible not to explore the outer limits of war powers 
in a worst case scenario. Based on what we are learning so far about 
Mr. Obama's policies, his administration would do the same.''
  ``I think, again, it's important that even late at night, when maybe 
not too many people are paying attention, we reveal some of the 
cognitive dissonance that exists in this administration and in this 
Congress in ways that it discussed the previous administration, actions 
of the previous administration, and the things that it is doing now.
  ``We have to hope that once he became President, President Obama did 
learn that there are some things that the President must do that he may 
have railed against as a candidate, and hope that there's a maturity 
there that will service us all well.''
  I want to end my comments tonight on a totally different subject. 
Today, we passed a resolution celebrating Women's History Month. I was 
not able to be here during that time. But I often point out the 
situation with women in the Congress and with the role that they have 
played in our country over the years, and celebrate that role, as I 
think it is important to our country.
  Most people know very little about the history of women in our 
country; about the history of women and their voting rights. So I am 
going to share just a little bit with you on that issue. And I have 
learned some of these things since coming to Congress.
  Some people may not know that in 1790, the New Jersey colony granted 
voting rights to all free inhabitants. But then, in 1807, they took 
back from New Jersey women the right to vote.
  In 1869, the Wyoming territory gave women full suffrage; 1870, Utah. 
And it goes on and on with other States, other territories giving women 
the right to vote. In fact, the first woman who was elected to Congress 
was elected in 1916 before women in this country had the right to vote. 
She was from Montana--Jeannette Rankin.
  She was elected there, and women got the right to vote in the West 
because women were valued much more in the West in the early days of 
our country, and that was one of the ways to attract women to come out 
West.
  Let me give you a little history of the women in the Congress. 
Thirty-seven women have served in the United States Senate. Only 37. I 
don't have the total number of the men who have served, but I have been 
told that approximately 12,000 men have served in the Congress. Only 37 
women in the Senate. Seventeen are currently serving.
  Two hundred twenty-nine women have served in the U.S. House of 
Representatives. Seventy-four of them are currently serving. That 
totals 266 women that have ever served in the United States Congress; 
91 currently serving. So 12,000 men, 266 women.
  I am the fourth woman from the State of North Carolina. The first 
woman was elected in a special election in 1946. She served 1946 and 
1947 and didn't run in the general election for re-election. Eva 
Clayton from the first district was the first woman to serve. She was 
elected in a special election. Sue Myrick, who's currently serving, was 
the second woman to be elected. North Carolina has had two women 
Senators; Elizabeth Dole, who served from 2003 to 2008, and Kay Hagan, 
who is currently serving.
  I think most of us wish we would have more women serving in the 
Congress on both sides of the aisle because we believe that it adds to 
the Congress in terms of the perspectives that we bring, is as it adds 
to the Congress that we have men serving who have been in many, many 
different professions and had many, many different experiences.
  I see that my colleague from Texas has joined me. Before I yield back 
my time, I would like to see if he has some comments that he would like 
to make. This is Mr. Gohmert from the great State of Texas. I would 
remind him that he and I are the only two things standing in the way of 
adjournment tonight.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I do thank my dear friend, Ms. Foxx, for the things that 
she's pointed out tonight, Mr. Speaker, and also for the good that 
she's done. I hadn't realized. I guess we don't notice gender around 
this body, but apparently one of the few women. I didn't realize there 
had been that few. But what a powerful contribution, Mr. Speaker, that 
Ms. Foxx has made, and is making. It makes me very proud to be serving 
with her, as we came in together.
  But there is something that we have discussed and have in common, and 
that is a concern about the morality of this Nation. Chuck Coulson 
talked about in a recent Bible study group we had, quoted Michael 
Novak, using the metaphor of the three-legged stool on which a 
government and a country like ours is seated.
  Now many have used the metaphor of the three-legged stool, but he was 
pointing out that really the three legs are composed of morality, 
economic freedom, and political freedom, and that you need all three 
legs.
  What we have seen in this country is a breakdown of the morality leg. 
As we look at the struggles in our economy, it seems that there has 
been a real problem with this nagging issue of greed and jealousy and 
envy, covetousness. People see what others want and they want that and 
they want more.

                              {time}  2330

  And as we have seen greed take over good sense, then it affects the 
economic freedom. And as that has impacted the economy and the economy 
has gotten in trouble, what we see throughout history is that when 
people have a choice between order and freedom, they will give up 
freedom just to have order, and that it puts our entire political 
freedom at risk when we have had a breakdown in morality affecting the 
economy, and then the third leg goes, our political freedom.
  I have been visiting with a group tonight, and I know the rules of 
the House are that we don't call attention to anyone in the gallery so 
I will not do that. But I have been visiting tonight with friends from 
Lufkin, Texas, Mayor Gordon and his wife, and Paul Parker and his wife 
and their grandson, Josh. They understand this issue of morality. They 
understand that a country cannot be perpetuated where you lose that leg 
of the three-legged stool.
  We even see it in Washington, where people get envious: Well, 
somebody got something in their district, I want something in mine. And 
if they put what they want or their district's wants over the needs of 
the Nation, then we come in here and we pass bills that have 9,000 
earmarks in them that don't help with the stimulus, they don't help the 
country go in the right direction. And it is really kind of a moral leg 
that is affected there as well, which affects the economy because it 
doesn't stimulate the economy, which can throw the economy into chaos, 
at which time people are willing to give up political freedom in order 
to have the security of some order in this Nation.
  I have been inspired by some of the words of our President, President 
Obama. But as we have found, leadership is not found in the lines on a 
teleprompter; leadership is something you have got to do, how you live. 
And George Washington, we know, struggling as we was to win freedom, he 
knew that his life had to be transparent, that he had to be humble, and 
he had to be a man of complete honesty; otherwise, it wouldn't survive. 
And his quote was: Men unused to restraint must be led; they will not 
be driven. And that is what we need more of, not just pretty words that 
are read from a teleprompter. We need leadership. We need people not to 
say we are not going to allow greed to get $165 million worth of 
bonuses after driving a country into the dirt. Not at all. No, we need 
leadership that doesn't just say these things. They follow through, and 
make sure he appoints honorable men, honorable people. And by that I

[[Page H3524]]

mean generically men and women, because of the contribution.
  We were just down to Statuary Hall, and I was pointing out the first 
woman to address a group in Congress was a Christian evangelist, I 
think it was before 1820, that delivered the Sunday nondenominational 
Christian sermon down in Statuary Hall back when it was the House of 
Representatives. But men and women have inspired this place, but they 
don't inspire anyone unless their life is transparent enough so that 
people know that they mean what they say.
  So as we continue to have these issues arise of the lack of morality; 
Ms. Coleson once said: You can't have the morality of Woodstock and not 
have tragedies in this country. If you have the morality of, ``If it 
feels good, do it,'' then you are going to have some catastrophes, 
because some people will want to see how it feels to do different 
catastrophic, greedy, terrible things. So we have got to get back to 
our moral underpinnings and moral anchoring so that we can move 
forward. But we need leadership from the White House to the Senate to 
this House to be in order so that they can lead by example, and not put 
earmarks in that may help some people but not help the economy and not 
help the Nation move forward and not help the generations to come.
  Ms. Foxx has heard me say, Mr. Speaker, before. As a judge, I know if 
a parent were to have come before me and that parent had been to the 
bank and said, I can't control my spending, I just can't stop spending, 
so please make me a loan; and my children and my grandchildren, maybe 
my great grandchildren who aren't even born, will pay it all back some 
day because I can't and I can't control my spending. Well, that parent 
wouldn't get to keep the kids much longer, and especially if the kids 
had kids. That raises issues.
  But in any event, we have got to get back to morality of good leaders 
here. We don't spend our children's money, we don't spend our 
grandchildren's money and our great grandchildren's money. That is 
irresponsible. And if we are going to do the business of this Nation 
with which we have been trusted, we have got to just reestablish the 
moral leg, the humility, the strength of character that Washington 
displayed, and that I have seen in my friend, Ms. Foxx. I appreciate 
your yielding and I appreciate the chance to speak here.
  I have seen that same moral strength in a group that is here at the 
Capitol tonight from Murray State University, a group of Christians 
that are here.
  So thank you for yielding and allowing me to speak tonight. And thank 
you for taking this time.
  Ms. FOXX. I want to thank my colleague from Texas for coming in 
tonight and sharing this time with me and ending the evening on the 
appropriate note.

                          ____________________