[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 134 (Tuesday, September 22, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H9784-H9790]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ACORN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

[[Page H9785]]

  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do appreciate the time.
  There's so much going on and we've heard so much about community 
organizations, actually in the last year as we heard then-candidate and 
Senator Obama talking about community organizations being the way to 
go. I think it's wonderful--community organizations. I'm a member of a 
number of community organizations. None of them pay me, though. We do 
the things we do in the community organizations I've ever been a part 
of because we care about the community. We have jobs, we work, and then 
on our own time, without being compensated, we try to help others. We 
do it through church. We do it through all kinds of civic 
organizations.
  So this whole thing of community organizations has been a bit of an 
anathema to me, an enigma, a riddle within a riddle; a community 
organization of volunteers who get paid to do some kind of 
organization. It's a strange thing.
  As we've heard more and more about this group ACORN and the vast 
amount of money that it has been receiving from taxpayers, it becomes 
even more of an interesting enigma. Getting taxpayer dollars from the 
government, over 50 million, from people who are working and also being 
part of community organizations and churches and charitable 
institutions and helping their communities, they're working and they're 
paying taxes and they're also organizing and doing charitable work, and 
then come to find out their tax dollars are paying a group which has 
many, many other aspects to it to go around and basically try to undo 
the type of things they've been doing. It's really a strange 
phenomenon, ACORN. And from one acorn, we know that many nuts can grow.
  As we think about and anticipate the work being done by ACORN, we 
find out, well, they go out and help people to know what their rights 
are and sign up for different benefits. I have seen my good friend from 
Iowa (Mr. King) show the photograph he took down in New Orleans that 
had a big 2008 Obama sign in there. Well, wait. Charitable 
organizations, they're not supposed to be involved in politics. In 
fact, any other group seems to have the Federal Government come down 
rather strongly against them if they start engaging in politics. But 
apparently that applies to others and not ACORN.
  I've also been amazed, Madam Speaker, the responses of some within 
ACORN saying, You set us up. You came in.
  Yeah, they came in with a camera and began to ask could they get help 
to set up a prostitution ring of underage children with illegal 
immigrants coming in. At some point you would think people of morality, 
people of ethics who were organizing communities for the good and the 
uprightness, the righteousness, the goodness, the morality, the really 
growth within the community would have immediately said, Do you not 
understand what prostitution does to children? Do you not understand 
that it robs them of their childhood? Do you not understand how abusive 
that is to female children and how that destroys their adulthood as 
women? Do you not understand that you're a parasite if you're living 
off of young children in a prostitution ring? Or women for that matter. 
You're a pimp; you ought to be disgusted with yourself, because we 
certainly are.
  We saw none of that in any of the videos. The reaction seemed to be 
the same: Well, how can we help you to get over and to make money as a 
parasite? It's like this was a parasitic organization trying to help 
someone else also be a parasite.
  The outrage should not have been to anyone who exposed that kind of 
mentality within all these different organizations that are a part of 
ACORN but the outrage should have been, How could this be? How could a 
group like this be getting hard-earned tax dollars?
  I'm pretty sure that most people around the country who have jobs and 
are struggling would like to have their own money back. I imagine they 
would like to have that $53 million back if they had known that it was 
going to be for folks who helped other groups and other individuals 
conduct illegal activity.
  But there was no remorse. You see the video and you wonder, Where is 
the outrage? You're community organizers and you've got no outrage? Do 
you have no soul? Well, of course they do, but they don't show it. Is 
there no still small voice that speaks and says, This is wrong? They're 
talking about prostitution among children. They're talking about things 
that are completely against what we believe in in America; everyone 
fulfilling their great potential and becoming all that they possibly 
could be. Very tragic. Very tragic.
  But then again, we've seen lots of slings and arrows hurled at one 
Member who was sitting right back here in the House who yelled, You 
lie. That was inappropriate. That violates the rule. But when you take 
it in context, the individual that came into this House, as an invited 
guest into the people's House, had just said that critics of the 
President's plan were not engaged in, quote, honest debate; that we 
were using, quote, scare tactics. He said that many of those who were 
hosting him here were making, quote, bogus claims; that we were making 
wild claims; that we were engaged in, quote, demagoguery; engaged in 
distortion, acrimony.

  The President said we were cynical and irresponsible in the manner in 
which we were criticizing his plan. He said that facts and reason were 
thrown overboard. He said we were robbing the country of opportunity; 
we were killing the President's good bill. And he actually used the L 
word right here on the floor just a couple of sentences before the L 
word was used by our friend Joe Wilson. The President said, It's a lie 
plain and simple.
  When you set that tone, you come into somebody else's house as an 
invited guest and you set that tone, what does that tell the people 
around you? You think it's okay to talk like that, to accuse your 
critics of being like that. You set the groundwork of making it okay to 
say those kind of things about people who happen to disagree with you.
  We've seen the footage of the President telling members of ACORN, 
You're going to have a place in my administration; you're going to have 
a stake; you're going to get to participate. There has been plenty of 
involvement with ACORN. It was not like it was a new entity to the 
President as it was to many of us.
  And so you have to wonder a bit about judgment. If that's the 
judgment of whom you want to be the stakeholder, of whom you want to 
give you advice and help you in the administration, then you have to 
wonder, Well, is that the same kind of judgment being used to pick 
people who are czars, who have no accountability to anyone but you? 
Because that seems to be kind of where ACORN was.

                              {time}  2030

  So we've got over 30 czars, and they fall into the same category as 
this lack of accountability. I don't care what group you are, Madam 
Speaker. I don't care where it is or what's involved when there is no 
accountability. We know from the Old Testament that the only man in the 
entire Bible to have been said to have had a heart after God's own was 
King David and that, when he had no accountability, the man who had the 
heart after God's own could commit horrible offenses.
  Well, you have an organization like ACORN, and there is just complete 
unaccountability. There's not only unaccountability. We're going to 
give you all kinds of power. We're going to make you the stakeholder in 
this administration. We're going to let you organize America to fit 
your own image. Well, that's a little scary, but when there's no 
accountability, that's where all of this goes.
  So I am pleased to see friends who are also wishing to address this 
topic. I'll recognize them in a moment.
  I see a sign: ``ACORN Goes Nuts.'' As I just pointed out, from one 
acorn, we know many nuts can grow.
  With that, I would like to yield to my friend from Texas (Mr. 
Carter), Judge Carter.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank my fellow judge and friend from Texas, first off, 
for being here to start this, because I was across town, and was 
fighting the traffic to get back. I apologize for not being here on 
time, but sometimes things don't cooperate around here like they 
should.
  We're starting off by talking about--and I think you've probably told 
people

[[Page H9786]]

we're again addressing what we've been addressing every week now for 
probably 12 or 14 weeks. It's very simple that the rule of law must 
prevail in this country. That means that we have to have rules both of 
this House, of this Nation and of our States. We have to abide by those 
rules. The failure to abide by those rules has to have consequences. So 
we've been talking a lot about internal things that go on with the 
Ethics Committee and so forth here in the Congress. Now, tonight, we're 
talking about some things that are in the news that, once again, are 
under the subject of the rule of law. It puts a bright light on an 
issue that we really need to be concerned about, and that is the issue 
with ACORN.
  I think, probably, an awful lot of people have seen this video, what 
we have right here. I know, if they watch Fox News, they've seen the 
video, but I think now it's being shown on other stations. It's of 
these actors who pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute, who went to 
ACORN and asked for their advice on housing and taxes. They were 
basically given a hand on how to do things--on how to do fraudulent 
activities, on how not to get caught, on how to beat the system, on how 
to be able to run a child prostitution ring, and on how not to claim 
those people as dependents because you don't want people to know about 
them--all kinds of things like that, things from an agency which is 
supposed to be there to help people, an agency which is supposed to be 
law-abiding, which has received $50 million worth of American taxpayer 
money to help fund that organization, and which is standing in line 
right now, based upon bills that have already been passed through this 
House, to pick up another $8 billion--with a ``b''--as a potential that 
could go into ACORN's hands as community organizers.
  This shocking event happened not just at one place but in Baltimore, 
Washington, D.C., New York, San Bernardino, and San Diego. They all 
have videos showing this.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If my friend would yield for just a moment.
  Mr. CARTER. Of course I will yield.
  Mr. GOHMERT. With regard to the $8 billion that is discussed for 
which ACORN may be eligible, actually, if you look at H.R. 3200, which 
is the health care bill that is out here in the House, there is a 
provision that requires that the Secretary provides information about 
the Federal plan and also signs people up for the Federal health care 
plan. That provision is in there, and I haven't been able to find any 
kind of limit on how much may be available. It's typical ACORN-type 
language because it says basically that the Secretary may hire other 
entities to assist in providing information and in signing people up.
  Of course, in the House version, we know there was no enforcement 
mechanism. If it's ACORN that's paid, it could be $100 billion. We 
don't know how much would be allocated under that provision to hire 
people to go out, to spread information and to sign people up. We know 
there was no provision for them to check on whether the people they 
were signing up were actually lawfully here. Yet, for what amounts 
could be spent under H.R. 3200 for ACORN to get them to go out, to 
provide information and to sign people up without checking their legal 
statuses, it could make $8 billion pale with that amount.
  I yield back.
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, the only thing is that the $8 billion 
right now was in the stimulus bill and in some of the other bills, and 
it's available to be played with right now; whereas, H.R. 3200 has yet 
to pass this House. We anticipate it might. If there's a party line 
vote, it might pass this House. You're right. There is additional 
funding in that bill.
  As we talk about this scandal, which is a scandal that has broken on 
national news, let me point out that the Committee on Oversight and 
Government Reform of this House found that ACORN had committed the 
following offenses: voter fraud, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, 
aiding and abetting, embezzlement, investment fraud, use of taxpayer 
funding for partisan political activity, and Department of Labor 
violations.
  Now, these are all things that have been raised by the Oversight 
Committee, the named ``Oversight Committee'' of this Congress. So, as 
we've talked about these various issues that involve the rule of law, 
what we want to do and what, I think, is necessary for this Nation to 
do is to--you know, a lot goes on in the dark, but when you put 
sunshine--sunlight--on an issue, you get to see a clear picture, and 
that's what we're about here. We're about putting sunshine on the issue 
so you can see a clear picture. This clear picture is awful. This 
country and anyone who stands up for this group of people should really 
be having second thoughts.
  So here are some other issues that are listed, and we'll go into 
these, but I see my friend Virginia Foxx is here.
  Would the lady like to claim a little bit of our time?
  Ms. FOXX. Well, I would.
  I want to thank my two colleagues from Texas for beginning this hour, 
and I am glad to talk a little bit about this.
  I think what you're bringing up in terms of the Committee on 
Oversight is extremely important in terms of what it has found out. I 
have found that people have been a little bit fooled in the last week 
about actions having been taken in the Congress, and I thought I might 
highlight that issue a little bit.
  I know I heard several times on the news last week that the House has 
voted not to continue to fund ACORN, that the Senate has voted not to 
continue to fund ACORN and that Congress has voted not to continue to 
fund ACORN. So I think it's important that we explain exactly what 
happened last week because people don't have the full picture.

  What really happened last week was our friend over in the Senate, 
Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, put an amendment on the Transportation 
and HUD appropriations bill. That's what I understand. If I don't get 
this exactly straight, I hope you two will help me get it straight if 
my memory is not as good as I'd like it to be. He put an amendment on 
that bill, an appropriations bill, that said that ACORN would get no 
more funding through the HUD appropriations bill.
  What happened in the House is that we were dealing with a bill which 
I found extremely offensive--the bill that would do away with banks 
being able to make loans to students who were going to college and 
setting up the Department of Education as a banker for students who 
want to borrow money. What we did was to put an amendment on that bill 
to say funding would no longer go to ACORN. That bill passed with a 
large vote, so there are people out there thinking, Okay. Great. We're 
defunding ACORN. What has actually happened is the defunding of ACORN 
in one particular category in the Senate and the defunding of ACORN, 
period, out of the House. Now what has to happen is we have to have 
language that's exactly the same in both Houses.
  So what I explained to some people on the radio show that I was on 
was, yes, it's an easy thing for Members of the House to vote to defund 
ACORN. They know that bill is going to go over to the Senate. They know 
that it's probably not going to be in the Senate version of that bill. 
If the Senate were to pass a bill related to loans for college 
students, it would most likely be very different from the bill that 
passed in the House. The two bills would go to conference. In the 
conference, very conveniently, the section on ACORN would simply 
disappear. As I explain to people, that happens all the time. The folks 
in charge over here let something pass, knowing full well it's never 
going to become law.
  So those who thought that ACORN was going to be cut out of its 
continued funding from the Congress think that based on the news 
accounts from last week, but I think it's important that people know 
that that isn't the case. If they're interested in stopping funding to 
ACORN, what they need to do is to write their Members of Congress and 
say, ``I want you to vote to defund ACORN, and I want you to find a 
vehicle to do that,'' because we can pass lots of bills over here. Then 
people can go home and brag about it and say, ``I voted to defund 
ACORN,'' and then it never happens, and they're given credit for it, 
knowing full well it's never going to pass in a bill that would go to 
the President for his signature. So I think it's important.
  I also want to say that I think ACORN is a symptom of the problems

[[Page H9787]]

with the way Congress is now operating. The Federal Government was 
established to provide for the defense of this Nation, and that's what 
we are here for. What has happened, particularly since the mid-1960s, 
is, I guess, many Members of Congress, to justify their being here, 
thought that the Federal taxpayers were providing a giant piggy bank to 
the Members of Congress. They thought we could take their money and 
could spend it any way we wanted to. We've gotten way off target.
  One of the reasons that ACORN can do what it has been doing for the 
last 15 years is that there is such inadequate oversight, because we're 
simply funding too many different kinds of projects. We need to pull 
this Congress from where it is now--funding lots of things we have no 
business funding--back to the essential job of the Congress, which is 
to focus on national defense. I know it won't be done in this session 
of Congress because there are too many people of a different philosophy 
than of the three of us, but I'm hoping that after the 2010 election 
that we will find more people of like mind with us who will understand 
the reason we have a Congress and who will say to their Members, You 
need to focus on national defense. If there are programs like ACORN, 
community organizations which need to be funded, let's let the local 
and State governments do that.
  With that, I yield back to my colleague from Texas.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. CARTER. Well, I thank the gentlelady for giving a good 
explanation.
  Leader Boehner, Leader John Boehner, the minority leader of the House 
has asked Nancy Pelosi for a stand-alone bill that will clearly define 
no funds go to ACORN from any source. That's going to be difficult.
  Ms. FOXX. It's my understanding there is a stand-alone bill. It is up 
to the Speaker now to call that bill up from committee and then up for 
a vote; is that correct?
  Mr. CARTER. That's correct. There is a stand-alone bill, and he is 
calling on the Speaker to call it up. If the Speaker doesn't call it 
up, he is going to ask for a discharge petition so that we can force it 
to be called up for a vote. If we maintain the vote we got before, then 
we will have evidence that now this Congress overwhelmingly says ACORN 
is through.
  Although I think you have given a very adequate description of the 
politics that may be involved in this issue, let's go back to right and 
wrong, and, unfortunately, you can vote to make things sound like they 
look right when, in reality, the results come out wrong. I think that's 
a perfect point.
  Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman explain a discharge petition? I think 
that would be helpful.
  Mr. CARTER. Yes. If you get enough votes to pass the bill that says I 
want this bill voted on, any Member can file a discharge petition 
asking that that bill be voted on. If he gets enough people to sign his 
discharge petition that it would pass, by the signatures on the 
discharge petition, then it will be called up against the ruling of the 
majority party.
  Ms. FOXX. Would it be safe to say that the true measure of whether 
somebody wants to defund ACORN is whether he or she signs that 
discharge petition?
  Mr. CARTER. That is true.
  Ms. FOXX. Not whether he or she voted for the Republican motion last 
week.
  Mr. CARTER. That's absolutely correct. That is a good point.
  Mr. GOHMERT. It would be typical here in Washington also to have 
public outcry and say we just fixed the problem. We are not going to 
let ACORN be funded with your hard-earned tax dollars anymore where 
they go spend it as we have been finding out how it's been spent, when, 
apparently, there may be a couple hundred related agencies or groups to 
ACORN.
  It's not enough. Now know, if you are treating ants that are just 
killing everything in your yard, it's not enough to just go take care 
of the ants in one area; they move right over to another area. And 
that's what you have got with ACORN. There are so many fingers reaching 
out into so many other pots, it's going to take a full oversight and 
lots of investigation to get to the bottom of just how many 
organizations are tied to this and where all the money has gone.
  Now, it's one thing to say, oh, no, we will do an internal audit, 
which now they have come around to finally saying they will do, but 
that's not good enough when you are using taxpayer dollars. It's never 
a good time to do that, but especially now when taxpayers need their 
tax money more than at any time in decades.
  It's not enough to just say we are going to defund ACORN. They can 
just go right into another entity that they are already related to, 
still continue to get billions or tens or hundreds of millions of 
dollars.
  It's going to take a full investigation into all the different 
fingers that reach out there, and what are they doing? I mean, we have 
seen video on a number of ACORN offices. We have seen the charges 
brought of a criminal nature against, as a friend from Texas said, 
voter fraud, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting, 
embezzling, investment fraud, use of taxpayer funding for partisan 
political activity, Department of Labor violation.
  We know about those with ACORN, but what about all the groups they 
are related to? What have they done, and how much money have they got? 
Those are all things that need to be investigated. We need to get to 
the bottom of it. Before my friends came in, I was pointing out I have 
been a community organizer. I have been a part of community 
organizations that helped to organize community and take people food 
and help them, take them to voter registration, do all kinds of things 
to reach out and help, to visit in the hospitals, to just do 
ministering stuff. But we never had the government pay us to do that. 
It was all voluntary stuff because we deeply cared about the community.
  There is something to be said when the motivation is a paycheck from 
somebody that's out there working and helping the community and yet 
their tax dollars are being taken away from them. It would be called 
theft, except we passed a law to legalize that theft of taking their 
money away from them, even though they don't want to give it up, and 
then giving it to groups like ACORN that are going in an entirely 
different direction and actually working at great odds with the very 
things that people are volunteering to do with their own time.
  Mr. CARTER. Just look at this chart right here. Colorado, vote fraud, 
multiple counts with convictions. Florida, vote fraud, case pending. 
Michigan, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. Minnesota, vote 
fraud, multiple counts with convictions. Missouri, vote, mail fraud, 
identity theft, multiple counts with convictions. Nevada, vote fraud, 
multiple counts pending. Ohio, vote fraud, multiple counts with 
convictions. Pennsylvania, vote fraud, multiple counts with 
convictions. Washington, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions.
  So not only are there allegations of fraud, identity theft and other 
things, there are people who have been convicted by a court of those 
offenses. Realize that American taxpayer dollars go to fund every one 
of those organizations. There are, by the stimulus package and other 
things we have created, there are multiple grant applications out there 
in this spider web that Congressman Gohmert has so adequately described 
where there are all these offshoots, all these 501(c)(3)s out there 
that are nonprofits, with nonprofit status, and yet they can push up 
the money to the mother ship, if you will.
  It's a real issue. It's an issue that, quite frankly, a team of very 
capable people at the Justice Department should be looking into, 
busting up as much of it as they can. But our job, from what we are 
trying to do here tonight, is let people see what's there. It's bad. 
It's awful.
  Ms. FOXX. I wanted to point out one more way that the public could 
hold their Member accountable. We have heard a lot about the issue of 
accountability, particularly from the President, yet we have seen 
almost nothing in terms of real accountability measures being put out 
there.
  But as our colleague from Texas pointed out, Leader Boehner has said 
if the Speaker does not bring up the stand-alone bill that he has 
introduced, he is going to file a discharge petition.
  Well, getting to the point of filing a discharge petition takes a 
long time

[[Page H9788]]

and, again, many people will go home and say to their constituents, 
well, I voted to defund ACORN, but they know full well that that 
provision in that bill will be dropped out in the Senate or in the 
conference.
  But, Leader Boehner has introduced H.R. 3571. It's entitled the 
Defund ACORN Act. If people want to know how their Member really feels 
about this, then they should ask that Member to sign on as a cosponsor 
to H.R. 3571. Then, if H.R. 3571 doesn't get taken up to vote on it on 
the floor, then they should sign the discharge petition.

  Many people have the understanding that all you have to do is have 
218 people sign on to a bill and then it automatically comes up for a 
vote. I have had to explain that to a lot of people that it's 
completely in the control of the Speaker whether a bill comes to a 
committee or comes to the floor for a vote. I have been on lots of 
bills that have had over 300 people as cosponsors and the bills never 
come up for a vote.
  So I would say to any of the public who are watching us tonight, if 
you want to know, again, how your Member really feels about ACORN, then 
do that.
  But, of course, we understand that much of the--I don't want to call 
them mainstream media anymore, because I don't think they are the 
mainstream media. I think the three dominant networks plus one of the 
cable networks, many of the people who watch that, those channels, 
don't know anything about ACORN because those media outlets have not 
been talking about ACORN.
  So we have a real problem in this country with selective reporting of 
things that are transgressions by our colleagues across the aisle. I 
know that we have lots of data on that. We want everybody to be treated 
fairly, and we know that many times when there are shortcomings on the 
part of our colleagues that it never gets reported in the national 
media except for one or two newspapers or one or two TV stations or 
radio stations.
  Thankfully, more and more people are paying attention to those, so we 
are getting the news out. And I just wanted to point that out that if 
somebody is watching and they want to know if their Member is serious 
about doing something about ACORN and they voted for the bill the other 
day, then they should ask them to sign on to H.R. 3571 introduced by 
John Boehner, and already cosponsored by, I think, most of us, and also 
if a discharge petition comes up, to sign the discharge petition.
  Mr. CARTER. Let me point out one thing. You made a very good point, 
Congressman Gohmert, when you said this internal audit thing isn't 
going to get it done. That's right. Let's just look at what Government 
Reform has discovered with the discovery they have done.
  First, ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self-
dealing and aided and abetted the coverup of embezzlement by Dan 
Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
  Second, ACORN has committed investment fraud to deprive the public of 
its right to honest services and engaged in racketeering enterprises 
affecting interstate commerce.
  Third, ACORN has committed conspiracy to defraud the United States by 
using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.
  Fourth, ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue 
Service, the IRS, and the Department of Labor in addition to violating 
the Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA.
  Fifth, ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal 
transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee 
Retirement Income Security Act, ERISA.
  Now, all those things, in addition to what we have discussed, and an 
internal audit has already been done once with no information released. 
Basically they look at their own books and say, We are just fine.
  We should have a full external audit of the books at ACORN and, quite 
frankly, I believe the Justice Department or this House should be 
involved in subpoenaing all the records of all the entities that are 
involved in this, and we should lay this picture out on the table, 
which brings us to another issue that I want to talk about.
  ACORN, we can talk all day and all night, but there is a new thing 
out there that our colleague from Texas, Ron Paul, Congressman Ron Paul 
has brought out, and that is holding the Federal Reserve accountable; 
H.R. 1207, Congressman Ron Paul's bill that's pending before the 
Congress and trying to get the Federal Reserve audited.
  Congress has given 700 billion in the Bush TARP, 787 billion in the 
Obama stimulus funds to the Fed. Congress and the taxpayers have no way 
to independently verify how those funds have been used. The American 
public wants to know what is happening with that money. The American 
public doesn't want any more double standards.
  Quite frankly, this is a bipartisan bill, because, quite frankly, Ron 
Paul points out that 1207 is sponsored by Congressman Paul but has 290 
cosponsors already. Obviously there are Democrats and Republicans on 
this bill. There is going to be a full hearing on this on Friday.
  And I think people back home want to know, in fact, I got asked that 
the whole time I was home in August, and which I, if you recall, had 
said that on the floor of this House more than once, Where's our money? 
Where is it? What's happening to it?
  The stimulus isn't being spent at a rate we were told it would 
stimulate the economy. Special projects are being funded. Where's our 
money?

                              {time}  2100

  And, then, what we forget is the Treasury and the Fed can 
independently pour more money into the economy. And I don't even know 
the number, but it could approach trillions of dollars.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. CARTER. I yield back.
  Mr. GOHMERT. The question, Where is our money, is extremely 
important. And another question is, What have you committed us to? We 
ought to able to know that. You know, the Constitution says that the 
Congress will be the one who holds the purse strings. They felt like 
with two Houses that was a good check and balance to holding the purse 
strings. This many people would be that envious and that careful. That 
was what they thought.
  But I love what our friend Newt Gingrich has said: if transparency is 
good enough for the CIA, it ought to be good enough for Federal 
Reserve. Even more so, of course. But the Federal Reserve is committing 
money, and we don't even know the full extent that they're committing 
it to. And this isn't like in the earliest days with Alexander 
Hamilton--and I just recently finished a biography on Hamilton. When 
they were trying to get the banks going in America in the earliest 
days, guys like Hamilton were broke, yet you see nowadays we've got 
Goldman Sachs had their biggest profit in history in the second 
quarter.
  We don't know all the ties there. We know that, apparently, our 
Treasury Secretary has said it's okay to have someone overseeing the 
spending of the TARP money as applied to Goldman Sachs, who happens to 
own Goldman Sachs stock, and he will waive the conflict there. But it's 
like ACORN: there's so many little fingers going in all these different 
directions.
  We need full transparency. And, goodness sakes, if this government, 
if this Congress cannot force the Federal Reserve to come clean and be 
fully accountable, then we're in a lot bigger trouble than most anybody 
suspects right now.
  But I believe my colleagues are cosponsors. I will let them speak for 
themselves, and yield such time as they may need.
  Ms. FOXX. Let me point out, again--and our colleague from Texas has a 
chart, and I will turn it over to him in a second--but the bill calling 
for an audit of the Federal Reserve, as you have indicated, Mr. 
Gohmert, has 290 cosponsors. That's more than enough to pass that bill. 
Yet Speaker Pelosi has gone very slowly on holding hearings.
  I hope very much that there will be that full committee hearing on 
Friday. I know that Chairman Frank has offered to hear the bill; and I 
hope that will happen, because that's what we need.
  It's obvious that a lot of people in this country are very concerned 
about the role of the Federal Reserve. We're at a stage in this country 
where we owe more money than we have ever owed in the history of this 
country.

[[Page H9789]]

  Our deficit is going to hit almost $2 trillion by the end of this 
month. Our long-term debt is just so large, it's almost inconceivable 
to think of. Our unfunded liabilities from Medicare, Medicaid, Social 
Security, and what this Congress continues to do, in the control of the 
Democrats, is spend, spend, spend. Almost every bill that comes up 
before us is something that will authorize or appropriate money. And 
they passed the largest budget that has ever been passed in the history 
of the country.
  It's really scary because people can't understand where this is 
leading. I know that Chairman Bernanke said he would not monetize debt, 
yet that's exactly what he's doing. The way that things are going in a 
circle around here, we're borrowing money from ourselves day after day 
after day, and it is high time that we had a very, very good audit of 
the Federal Reserve. And I am in very strong support of H.R. 1207, and 
I'd like to yield to my colleague, Judge Carter.
  Mr. CARTER. Well, what our chart here shows, since 1913 the U.S. 
dollar has lost 95 percent of its purchasing power. The Federal Reserve 
has many privileges of government agencies, but many benefits of 
private organizations.
  H.R. 1207 would open the Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. The 
Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency 
of the Federal Reserve. Under H.R. 1207, we would audit the Federal 
Reserve system and the Federal Reserve banks by the end of 2010. The 
Comptroller General would submit a report to Congress within 90 days. 
The report would include recommendations for legislative or 
administrative action.
  On July 30, Ron Paul asked, Why are Wall Street and the Fed so 
hysterically opposed to H.R. 1207? Just what information are they so 
anxious to keep secret? Only an audit of the Federal Reserve will 
answer this question.
  When you really get down to it, when it's our money and they have the 
ability to dump money into our economy by printing it, then with--with 
the help of the Treasury--then what's so unreasonable for asking for an 
audit? I think that's a perfect point.
  I'll yield back to Judge Gohmert.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the point, because you would think it's 
such a matter of common sense but, as people know, sense is not so 
common around this place.
  It was in fact in a hearing months ago that the Federal Reserve, in 
an effort to get the economy going, may have pledged as much as $9 
trillion to get us going. That's what motivated me to inquire how much 
money will be paid in for the whole year of 2008 in individual income 
tax. And I found out the projection was around $1.21 trillion.
  When we heard it was trillions that the Federal Reserve and the 
Treasury was committing us to to get things going in the economy, and 
we're going to receive $1.21 trillion in income tax, individual income 
tax for the year, I thought, Wow.
  Instead of having two guys over Treasury and the Federal Reserve just 
obligating, signing this country's life away through all this money 
here and there, what if they just said, You know what? If you earned 
this money, instead of paying tax, you're going to get it all back? You 
talk about making the economy explode.
  You don't need a guy over a Federal agency trying to figure out what 
to do with trillions of dollars we don't have. If you gave the American 
public their own money back, you would see the economy explode.
  Moody's did an independent study that indicated that would increase 
the GDP more than anything else in one year. Yet we're still playing 
games months later trying to find out what the Federal Reserve and the 
Treasury Secretary have committed us to in the way of debt, just to try 
to, on their whims, get us going.
  Now, we know it's made some people rich, like Goldman Sachs, since 
this big devastation of the economy occurred. But rank-and-file 
Americans have not found that to be such.
  I yield back to my friend from Texas.
  Mr. CARTER. Thank you. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And as we 
talk about all this, we don't want to forget what the President told us 
when we started out in his new administration: I campaigned on changing 
Washington and bottom-up politics. I don't want to send a message to 
the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for the 
powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day 
and paying their taxes.
  And that's what this group--basically, we have taken the President's 
charge, and that's what we're doing every first night of the week, 
talking about helping the President do what he said he wanted to do and 
what he said he wanted to do in his administration: show that there's 
no special treatment for one who is a Member of Congress and one who is 
Secretary of the Treasury versus one who lives in east Texas or one who 
lives in North Carolina. They all should be treated the same, which 
brings us to the fox watching the henhouse.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If I might, before you go to that poster, reclaiming my 
time just momentarily, because we've talked about it, I know what 
you're about to bring up.
  On Friday, I met with a gentleman in my district named Mr.--and he 
said I could use his name--Mr. de la Torre. He said de la Torre is 
Spanish for ``of the tower.'' And he's proud of his name; he's proud of 
his heritage.
  He has a sheet metal fabrication business and employs four full-time 
employees and four part-time employees. And when the economy hit so 
hard and devastated everybody, he did not want to let his employees go 
because they were good, hard workers. But he could get no loan. He had 
no money in his account, and nobody would loan him money.
  And so being as honest and forthright as he was, he notified the 
Treasury that, I don't have any money. Nobody will loan me money. I 
don't want to drop these employees. I want to keep them employed, but 
I'm going to be late making my quarterly payment.
  What the Treasury, the IRS, let him know is, That's too bad. We're 
coming after you. We want penalty and we want interest. And this man, 
who was able to keep his employees, his four full-time, his four part-
time employees, still employed, but he was just late on his payment. 
The credit froze up. He couldn't get a loan. He couldn't get a line of 
credit. He didn't have the money. But he was honest and forthright. And 
what happened in return? They're after him. They have come after him, 
and they're threatening to seize anything he's got. That will put him 
out of business and put his employees out of business.
  With that set-up, I would yield to my friend to talk about special 
treatment for special people that apparently did not include Mr. de la 
Torre.
  Mr. CARTER. Obviously, it didn't include Mr. de la Torre. And Mr. de 
la Torre was not treated the way the Secretary of the Treasury was 
treated.
  I've been talking about others, but I want to go back to the 
Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Geithner. The fox is watching the 
henhouse. He's the guy who's supposed to be watching over our money. 
Let's see what he didn't do.
  He didn't pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for several years. 
The IRS audited Mr. Geithner in 2003 and 2004, finding he owed taxes 
and interest totaling $17,230. The IRS waived any penalties on Mr. 
Geithner. Could it have been because he was in the nomination process 
for Secretary of the Treasury? I think maybe so. I think so. It 
certainly wasn't your friend, Mr. de la Torre.
  In 2008, they found he owed $25,960. He used his child's time at an 
overnight camp in 2001, 2004, and 2005 for tax deductions. Sleep-away 
camps don't qualify.
  Recently, he filed $4,334 in additional taxes and $1,232 in interest 
for infractions including a retirement plan early withdrawal penalty, 
an improper small business deduction, and the expense of utility costs 
that went for personal use.
  Now, this is the guy that's in charge of our IRS. He is the Treasurer 
of the United States.
  Now we talked about the Rangel rule, where Mr. Rangel didn't pay his 
taxes and got no penalties and no interest assessed, which I find 
extremely curious. Now we ought to look at the Geithner rule. Mr. 
Geithner had interest assessed, but no penalties.
  Now, what makes Mr. Geithner more special than Mr. de la Torre, which 
Mr. Geithner had to be found out by the IRS? Mr. De la Torre went to 
the IRS

[[Page H9790]]

and said, Work with me. I have a going business. I have issues. I will 
get my money and I will pay you. And they said, Sorry, Charlie.

                              {time}  2115

  Now what's wrong with this picture? What should an average person 
back in their living room, back home, if they're watching this, think, 
that we've got special treatment for a man who comes from Goldman 
Sachs--is that where he came from?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, he didn't. But he had been the former Chair of the 
Federal Reserve, which is an elected position by the bankers of that 
area.
  Mr. CARTER. He originally was in Goldman Sachs, wasn't he? I think 
everybody who has been Treasurer for the last, I don't know, 20 years 
have been Goldman Sachs people. There's something interesting there, 
something we ought to look into.
  Anyway, I want to know why Mr. de la Torre can't write ``Geithner 
Rule'' across his tax return and ask them to treat him this way, to let 
him be assessed with no penalties and interest which would drive him 
into the poorhouse. This is the kind of question I think the American 
people want to ask. I think they want to know, because the man they 
elected President said that he wasn't going to have a world where men 
and women of power got treated differently than ordinary citizens. 
That's why we are here. We're here fighting a good fight for what 
President Obama had promised this Nation would be the agenda of this 
administration. I think it's time to step up to the plate and start 
swinging because these fastballs are getting thrown at us. They are 
coming in high, hard and inside, and we've got to deal with them. With 
that, I will yield back to Mr. Gohmert.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, in conclusion, I think there's nothing that says 
it better than President Obama did back on February 3, 2009: ``I don't 
want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets 
of standards--one for powerful people, and one for ordinary folks who 
are working every day and paying their taxes.''
  Well, unfortunately that is exactly the message that's being sent as 
the Federal Government and the cronies that have surrounded this 
administration--they're getting away with all kinds of stuff, getting 
away with not paying taxes, not paying penalties. They're not producing 
jobs. They're killing jobs. Mr. de la Torre has a regal heritage. He 
was proud of that. He is a man of integrity. He wants to do what's 
right. Those are the kinds of people that make America great, and that 
is who deserves special treatment, not those who are parasites on the 
system.

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