Congressional Record, Volume 156 Issue 65 (Tuesday, May 4, 2010)

[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 4, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3115-H3121]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING ALL AMERICANS

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Halvorson). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King)
is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to be
recognized to address you here on the floor, and I appreciate the
gentleman from Texas' previous hour and his discussion on health care.
By the way, the gentleman from Texas, Congressman/Dr. Burgess'
contribution on this health care debate that has gone on now for months
and months and months, his intensity doesn't let up. He understands the
issue. He is here on a cause, and this cause is to do what we can to
salvage the system that America has had and improve that system and not
capitulate to this system of ObamaCare.
Madam Speaker, I will take us to that, and I will cross a number of
lines into different subjects here this evening. But with regard to the
ObamaCare that we have heard about for the last hour and for the last 9
or so months, we have seen a Congress that has passed legislation that
on the day it passed the House, it couldn't have passed the Senate. On
the day it passed the House, we don't know what kind of bargains came
in that brought about just barely the votes to get it passed, but we
knew the President would sign it. He wanted anything that he could put
his name on.
By the way, the President of the United States is the one who gave
the moniker to this legislation, ``ObamaCare.'' He called it ObamaCare
February 25 at the Blair House at that conference on health care that
seemed to have given the ObamaCare its legs.
I am for 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare. There isn't any part of
that that I want to keep, that I want to hold, that I want to sustain
or expand or continue into the next year or generation.
Most of it is not enacted until the year 2014. There are some small
pieces that are enacted right away, and then slowly over time. The tax
increases, by the way, are enacted pretty soon so they can collect this
money for the first 4 or more years and then charge only 6 years of
expenses against 10 years of revenue and argue that it saves $132
billion.
Now we find out that high-ranking people within the administration
and possibly the President himself understood that the numbers that
came in were not accurate, that ObamaCare is going to cost a lot more
than they represented it to cost on the day that the legislation was
passed.
Now, I don't think that is the reason to repeal ObamaCare. I have
always thought it was going to cost a lot more than they said it would.
The reasons to repeal ObamaCare are great in number and more varied
than that.

{time} 2140

But we're not going to get down to a financial calculation. In the
end, there are enough people in America that think somehow they're
going to get a free lunch, that they're not going to support the repeal
of ObamaCare for that. But they understand this. They understand when
the government runs things, there are lines. There are lines at TSA to
get into the airport. There are lines to get your driver's license.
There are lines outside of Federal buildings. There are lines outside
the Cannon, the Longworth, and the Rayburn Building of just citizens
that want to come in and watch their government function.
Free people don't stand in line. Free people, Madam Speaker, will go
to the next place of business. If the line is too long at McDonald's,
they will go to Burger King. But when they're dealing with government,
it's a monopoly. That's why the line is there. The government doesn't
have any incentive to expedite the passage of people through that
service, except to turn down the noise of the squeaky wheel, because
government doesn't have to compete for its customers. The government
has a monopoly. So free people, they don't stand in line. They go
someplace else. But our freedom is diminished every time the government
takes up a task that the private sector can do, and health care is
certainly one of those.
So, Madam Speaker, here's what I'm watching happen. This has taken
place over the last year and a half. A little bit of it began under the
Bush administration. But I'd start with this: $700 billion in TARP
spending, half of that approved under the Bush administration,
essentially down the lame duck era of his term. The other half of it--
that was right before the election, if I remember right. The other half
of it was approved by a Congress that was elected in November of 2008
and signed in by a President who was elected in November of 2008. That
was President Obama. At the direction of Speaker Pelosi and the
majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, $700 billion in TARP
spending, most of it, in my view, wasted.
And while this is going on, we had three large investment banks that
were nationalized, taken over by the Federal Government. That means
Federal ownership or control, management influence and control, three
large investments banks. AIG, to the tune of about $180 billion. Then
we watched Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac swallow up billions of taxpayer
dollars to recapitalize them for their losses. Then we saw, right
before Christmas, the President issue an Executive order that takes on
all the contingent liabilities of Fannie and Freddie and completely
nationalizes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, all of the markets that are
the secondary loan market of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taken over by
the Federal Government.
Then we saw General Motors and Chrysler taken over by the Federal
Government. At General Motors, the Federal Government stepping in with
61 percent of the shares, bought up the share value of 61 percent; the
Canadian Government, 12.5 percent; and the unions got handed 17.5
percent, even though the secured bondholders got iced out. They had the
secured collateral and they still were iced out in the leveraged
negotiations that took place.
And so we've seen one-third of the private sector activity taken over
by the Federal Government, and along came a $787 billion economic
stimulus plan, and then a along came the resurrection of the dead
ObamaCare. The dead ObamaCare was brought to life, barely squeezed out
of it, on life support, limped out of this Congress, put on the
President's desk in a fashion that it could not have passed this
Congress on the day because the Senate would not have approved it,
Madam Speaker.
And so we saw one-third of the private sector profits swallowed up in
the banks, the AIG, Fannie, Freddie, General Motors, and Chrysler, and
another sixth of the economy swallowed up in ObamaCare, where the most
sovereign and private thing that we have, which is our own bodies, our
skin and everything inside it, taken over by the Federal Government,
called ObamaCare. Our skin and everything inside it, the most sovereign
thing that we have. We manage our lives, we manage our bodies, and now
the Federal Government tells us what we can and can't have for tests,
what we can and can't have for insurance policies, what insurance
policies will be approved and what insurance policies are not approved.
Every single insurance policy in America under ObamaCare will be
cancelled by 2014. Yes, many will be reissued. Some will be similar to
the ones they have. But there isn't a single policy that the President
of the United States can point to and say, This one will be a live,
viable policy in 2015, and it won't have to change. Every one gets
cancelled.
They've nationalized our bodies. And they've done so, the very people
that stood here and--before 1973, but at least 1973--said that, because
of Roe v. Wade, they said that government has

[[Page H3116]]

no business telling a woman what she can or can't do with her body.
Remember when you said that? Remember that debate? Remember those
arguments? You'll make them again. You'll make them again to the end of
the Earth because that's the bumper sticker discussion. But it's not
rational thought. It doesn't substitute for thinking people. A woman
should have an unlimited right to elective abortion because government
has no business telling her what she can or can't do with her body,
while at the same time, now the very same people, men and women who
have argued since 1973 that the government has no business telling a
woman what she can or can't do with her body, now are arguing that the
Federal Government has every business and every right to tell everyone
in America what we can and can't do with our bodies and have taken over
and nationalized the most sovereign thing that we have--our own
personhood.

Our skin and everything inside it managed now by the Federal
Government, by the people who said that government had no business
telling a woman what she can or can't do with her body. The men and
women, most of you sitting on this side of the aisle, have made the
argument, and you don't have a rebuttal for this argument. Not one of
you has risen to rebut this argument that I've made. I've put up the
contradictions here. I pointed out the hypocrisy. I made it clear on
the dichotomy. If you've got an argument to rebut the one that I've
made, please stand up. I'll recognize you. I'll yield time to you. But
you don't. You will sit there and you won't respond because you know
you're wrong.
It reminds me of the statement made by Art Laffer on economics when
he said, They are rebutting arguments that they know to be wrong in
order to curry favor with their political benefactors. Well, Madam
Speaker, that's what's going on. You have people here that realize
where their power base is in order to curry favor with their political
benefactors. They're making arguments that are completely irrational.
And when they're caught in those irrational arguments, they slink away
out of the Chamber with their hands in their pockets, afraid to face
the rationality of it, afraid to face the debate, knowing all the while
I'm happy to yield to, but no, you're gone. You won't stick around this
Chamber. You won't come to a microphone because you're rebutting
arguments that you know to be wrong, because that's what gravitates
towards your political power base, and it's disingenuous to make those
illegitimate arguments in that fashion.
So here we are now. We have come all through this continuum jump of
the nationalization of one-third of the private sector activities and
you add about 17 or 18 percent of health care on top of that. Now we've
gone over 50 percent of our private sector economy taken over by the
Federal Government, including 100 percent of the student loans. And
where are we next? Well, the financial services industry. Why didn't I
see that coming?
If someone had given me the job to, in an Orwellian way, write the
screenplay to a movie of how America could be taken over by a socialist
agenda, I could not have imagined some of the things that have happened
so far. I might have gotten half of these things. I don't think I could
have gotten the scenario down. I might have been able to envision that
the banks could be taken over. That was kind of an obvious one. I'd
have been able to envision the takeover of the car companies because
that's actually on the socialist Web site. It's actually supported by
the Progressives, 77 of whom serve in the United States Congress. They
are the arm and the voice of the socialists in America.
If you just Google Socialists in America, you will go to the Web site
called DSAUSA.org, the Democratic Socialists of America, Madam Speaker.
They're proud to be Socialists. They start out and they say, We're not
Communists. There's a difference. Well, to start out with your
advertisement that you're not a Communist, and there's a difference--
Socialists aren't as bad as Communists is what they're saying. So
they'll argue they don't want to nationalize all the real estate, all
the real property in America. They don't really even have to
nationalize real estate in America. They just want to take over the
Fortune 500 companies. That's on the Web site. It's not a manufactured
thing. It's there. It's on the Web site. Then they say, We don't have
to do this all at once. We can do it incrementally. We can take over
the Fortune 500 companies and these other companies that are
profitable. We can take them over incrementally. We don't have to do it
all at once.
Well, look what's happened. Bank of America, Citigroup. All together,
three large investments banks--AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General
Motors, Chrysler. All of them at one time were all private sector
entities, all now swallowed up and managed by the Federal Government.
Fannie and Freddie, $5.5 trillion in contingent liability. Swallow all
that up.

{time} 2150

Well, they can control them, a large sector of the economy. And I
wondered, why would you want to take over Fortune 500 companies and
manage them for the benefit of the people affected by them? What would
be the motive to do that? What would this be? Well, it's power for one
thing, and it creates a dependency class for another, and it expands
the dependency class. The Democrats in this Congress believe that if
they expand the dependency class, they will also at the same time be
expanding the constituent base that will get them reelected over and
over and over again. Never mind that it's a direct assault on our
Constitution, a direct assault on our liberty, but it diminishes the
vitality of Americans, it saps us as a people and makes us more
dependent, European socialism, something worse than that.
The argument that comes from the progressives in this Congress that
want to nationalize the oil refinery industry in America--Maurice
Hinchey--who wants to nationalize the petroleum industry in America--
Maxine Waters--75 other progressives, the socialists and their website
say, we don't run people on the socialist ticket; we don't have
socialist candidates on the ballot, we have Democrats on the ballot who
are progressives. They are our legislative arm, Madam Speaker.
So I continue to read through the socialist Web site, the Progressive
Web site. And we will see the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison)
come to this floor pretty regularly--maybe not every week, at least
every other week--and he puts up a blue poster that says
``Progressives''--grijalva.com, or whatever that particular Web site
might be--and he's proud of the progressive agenda. But the progressive
agenda, if you go read it, you find it on the socialist Web site;
they're proud of it, too. And they're proud of the progressives
claiming the agenda that the socialists drive. Those are facts. They're
not refutable. And I can flip the pages out here and put them on
posters on the floor of the House without too much difficulty.
Now, Bernie Sanders, who served in this House, a self-evolved
socialist, argued many times at these microphones--and I debated with
him occasionally, although it was nothing particularly memorable that I
can think of--was elected to the United States Senate a few years ago
and became the first socialist in the United States Senate. Bernie
Sanders, progressive. He's the only progressive in the United States
Senate--that's listed at least on the Progressive's Web site. He's
proud of that. He's proud of being a socialist.
And the argument about where the President stands is not an argument
about whether the President is a socialist because the President voted
to the left of Bernie Sanders, the self-avowed socialist. The argument,
if it was going to be made, should have been made by the President. He
should have made the argument that Bernie Sanders isn't a socialist;
he's just masquerading as a socialist.
Maybe a true socialist does something different. Maybe a true
socialist nationalizes even fewer businesses. When I see the President
do his glad-handed, double-armed handshake with Hugo Chavez, and I see
that that same week Hugo Chavez had nationalized a rice processing
plant that belonged to Cargill, a proud Minnesota company that was
taken over by Hugo Chavez, while that was going on, General Motors and
Chrysler were being taken over by President Obama. And I thought, when
I saw those two together with the big grins on their face, that

[[Page H3117]]

Hugo Chavez is a piker when it comes to the nationalization of
business. And the question isn't, is the President a socialist? The
question is, he votes to the left of Bernie Sanders, so what's a better
description than the one that some are using? What's a better
description than the one that Bernie Sanders, the one he uses on
himself, the socialist?
The President votes to the left of a self-evolved socialist in the
United States Senate; I think that's a matter worth note. It's a matter
of fact; it's not a matter for debate. It is a matter for
consideration, Madam Speaker. And I think it tells us something about
America and about where America is being dragged and about where
America will go if we don't turn back around and take this country up
to the heights that are destined for us, that are based upon individual
liberties, rights that come from God--free enterprise capitalism, the
religious foundation and our religious faith--not just the freedom to
worship freely, but the core of our faith that gives us the moral
values that diminish the need for law enforcement to be looking over
our shoulder and sapping our energy.
I have seen a lot of energy sapped out of this country in the last
year and a half of this Obama Presidency, Madam Speaker, and I don't
know how much more this country can sustain. But I do believe that we
have a chance, and we're going to step forward on that chance to turn
this around and take this country back to the heights where she was
intended to be. That's going to mean an election result in November
that's entirely different than the one we had the last couple of
Novembers. And it's going to mean that this Republican party in this
Congress, by golly, better get the planks down on where we want to go.
We had better be unified behind them. And we better step this Nation
forward so that when the election comes people will know what they're
voting for, and they will be able to get behind those things that we
say we're going to do.
I will submit, Madam Speaker, the number one plank in the Republican
agenda has got to be 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare, not 99.9 percent
or 99.8 or 98 percent; 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare. And if there
are Republicans that equivocate on that, if they're afraid that they
don't want to take on the debate, that they don't want to put a Federal
mandate in to provide for and require all insurance to be extended to
age 26 for college kids, for example--I want my kids to grow up; I
don't want to keep them dependent. I don't want to make their bed when
they're 26. I want them on their own well before they're 26.
The law has dealt with it this way: That you are responsible for a
child until they're 18 years old unless you've been divorced, in which
case you might be responsible for that child until they graduate from
college. I think that's a bit of an inequity. But to go to age 26 and
put a Federal mandate in, I'd turn this question back the other way:
Where in the Constitution does it grant the authority for the Federal
Government to establish a mandate that would require that insurance
companies offer health insurance to age 26 as part of every policy,
which certainly raises the premium and means that health insurance is
less affordable rather than more affordable?

Many of these things will take place and unfold in the upcoming next
2 to 3 years, but here's the timing in the sequence in the repeal of
ObamaCare. First, a maximum number of co-signatures on my legislation,
on that of Michele Bachmann's, and others. We are somewhere around 63
or 64 cosponsors, Madam Speaker. And there isn't a good reason why
anybody that voted ``no'' on ObamaCare can't step up and cosponsor
legislation for repeal of ObamaCare. When we net enough signatures on
that, we'll put a discharge petition down here at the well. A discharge
petition with 218 signatures on it requires a bill to come to the floor
for debate and vote without amendments. If we could do that, we could
pass out of the House, and if the Senate could do that we could pass
out of the Senate a repeal of ObamaCare that could then go to the
President's desk. And President Obama would certainly--well, almost
certainly--veto the bill.
Some will argue it's an exercise in futility, but I put on my Web
site--the kingforcongress.com Web site--a polling question that asks
this question: Do you believe that 100 percent of ObamaCare is more
likely to be repealed, or do you think that the Cubs are more likely to
win the World Series? And do you know, we were 2-1, 2-1 of people
answering the poll for predicting that it was more likely that
ObamaCare would be repealed than the Cubs would win the World Series.
Now, I'd be happy to see the Cubs win the World Series. I'm not
coming here, Madam Speaker, to stir up any Cubs fans. I'm just pointing
out that the Cubs went to spring training this year. They're playing
ball. They're throwing, catching, hitting, running; they're practicing,
they're in shape, they're getting their pitching up. They're focused.
And why? Because they believe that they're positioned to win the World
Series this year. They didn't go out with their dobber down. They
didn't think it didn't pay to practice. They didn't skip spring
training; they went to the field. Even though now they know that most
Americans think it's more likely we will repeal ObamaCare than the Cubs
will win the World Series, they're still playing ball. And they're not
out of this at all. It's early. They're not even out of it when it's
late. Until it's mathematically impossible, the Cubs are always in it.
But it tells you the degree of difficulty here. If the Cubs are only
one out of three likely to win the World Series, we can do this, it's
not that hard. It's not as hard as winning the World Series. We can
accomplish this. We can repeal ObamaCare.
By the way, if the President vetoes a discharge petition or we come
back after the elections and Republicans have the majority, we can
perhaps then pass a repeal of ObamaCare, and maybe the Senate will get
that done too--and Senator DeMint is working on this mission over on
the Senate side. And so we set it on the President's desk, and he
vetoes it, and we wouldn't likely have the votes to override a
presidential veto. Fair enough, that's reality. But here's how the
function of this goes: All spending bills start in the House. A
Republican majority in the House with a deep conviction to repeal
ObamaCare in its entirety can shut off all funding to ObamaCare so that
it cannot be implemented.

{time} 2200

No part of it could be implemented or enforced if we say so in
appropriations bills here in the House. And if we do that in 2011 and
2012, we will elect a President in 2012 whose number one plank in the
platform needs to be that the first bill he will sign as President is
full repeal of ObamaCare.
So I just envision this: the inauguration of the President of the
United States out here on the west portico of the Capitol building,
standing there taking the oath of office. And once he is sworn in as
President of the United States by the Chief Justice John Roberts, he
can take his hand down. And the first act as President of the United
States, he can get out his pen, because we will gavel in January 3 of
2013, we can pass the repeal in the House and the Senate. We can set it
up not on the President's desk, let's put it on the podium on the west
portico so when he swears in he can have the pen in his hand for all of
me, put it down, sign the repeal of ObamaCare, and it's gone from
history. Pulled out root and branch, lock, stock and barrel, with no
vestige, not one particle of DNA of ObamaCare left behind. Because that
toxic stew has now become a malignant tumor, and we need to pull it out
by the roots before it metastasizes.
That's our duty to the American people and one of the things that I
came here to do and one of the things that I will work on. And I will
challenge anybody that can make a cogent argument that we have got to
repeal ObamaCare before we can move forward because it is an agenda
that you can find at dsausa.org. That is Democratic Socialists of
America. You can also find that agenda at the progressive Web site that
is advertised so many times by those 77 that are the ones that are run
on the ticket that the Socialists say they support.
That's what's up, Madam Speaker. I wanted to get that out and lay it
out and get it off my chest before I asked my friend, the judge from
Texas, if he had anything on his mind. And if he does, and he has never
been without

[[Page H3118]]

anything on his mind, he was born with things on his mind, but I am
very happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Texas, Judge Louie Gohmert.
Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend for yielding. Steve Forbes was up here
on the Hill a couple of weeks ago. One of his comments was that we
could do a complete repeal, and at the same time we could put some
fixes in there that Republicans had been proposing, that we have had
out there as alternatives at the same time, just one fell swoop, so
that people would realize that we have not been the Party of No, we
have some fantastic ideas that would have revolutionized health care
and gotten it back to where it had transparency, where it was
affordable, and gotten insurance companies out of the health care
management business and into the health care insurance business, where
you insure against an unforeseeable illness or catastrophe down the
road and put patients back in charge of their health care.
I certainly had a proposal along that line that we never could get
CBO to score nearly a year later, I guess about 9 months to be fair,
that they have sat on that to try to help kill--help work for the
Democrats to help make sure that any of the good alternative plans
could not get scored so that we couldn't come in and say here is the
plan that saves money, gives more freedom, and does all these things.
Anyway, it's been a bit of a tough year.
But the problems didn't just start with this President. My friend
from Iowa knows as well. We have been heading in the wrong path for
some time. Of course Republicans lost the majority, rightfully, in
November 2006 because Republicans had gotten giddy after 2001 and had
started spending too much money. And voters held them accountable. And
we hope they will continue that trend this November.
But I recall my favorite President, from Texas that is, George W.
Bush, I think the world of him, he is smarter than most people give him
credit for, but he got sold a bill of goods by a bad Secretary of the
Treasury, and he was told a good way to stimulate the economy in
January 2008 was to have a stimulus bill and have $160 billion, $40
billion of which would just be given to people as a rebate who didn't
pay income tax. They would get an income tax rebate even though they
didn't pay income tax.
And my friend from Iowa may remember as President Bush came down the
aisle here he shook hands with everybody, and made his speech, and then
on the way back up I didn't realize there was a mic open that picked me
up asking him, ``Mr. President, I wanted to ask you how do you give a
rebate to people that didn't put any bate in?'' And that's still a
problem.
And then you come up, and bless his heart, Hank Paulson saved his
firm Goldman Sachs, saved the people that he had worked with and
chaired over and had great personal interest in. He was able to save
them at great cost to the American way of life, to the free market
system. Just created a real disaster. You can't set aside free market
principles to save the free market.

But it all led up to desensitizing people to just how much $700 or
$787 billion is. It is an enormous amount of money. And so here we came
into January of 2009, and right off the bat have a $787 billion
stimulus, most of which has not been spent. Even though we were told
that people didn't have time to read it, you got to just pass it, $787
billion dollars will be thrown out there and we will get the economy
going. Had to be passed so fast, before people could read it.
And then yet the President took several days, kind of like he has
getting fired up to do anything about the gulf coast. So he takes his
time, waits for a photo op to sign the stimulus bill into effect. But
the problem is you can't raise taxes the way this health care bill did
and think you are going to help the economy in the long run. It's not
going to happen.
And then we find out we have moved from the overly high 39 percent of
Americans not paying Federal income tax to now the projection that 53
percent of American adults will be paying all of the income tax. I
think historians all pretty well acknowledge that in a democracy,
including this republican form of government where people can vote for
candidates based upon what they promise to give them in the way of
benefits, once you get past one more than 50 percent of those who are
voting receive benefits and not pay income tax, or not pay the Federal
taxes, you've lost it. You head to the dustbin of history. You're done.
There is no recovery from that, absent a miracle from God.
And of course some of the people that are creating the problem don't
believe in God, so they are really in trouble because they can't even
expect a miracle from God like some of us could.
But 53 percent of Americans to pay all of the income tax. And then I
have heard great disparagement, as my friend from Iowa has, as we have
been to the tea parties and been asked to speak at various tea parties,
including the one down Pennsylvania Avenue a few weeks ago, the one at
the Washington Monument, and you see all these wonderful, peaceful,
law-abiding people, and you talk to them and you find out these are
people paying income tax.
And we also have seen the latest survey that indicated that 28
percent of Americans, up from 20 percent, 28 percent of Americans
identify with the tea party. Well, what that means is since those 28
percent pay income tax, it means that over half of the 53 percent
projected to pay all the income tax this year, those that are really
carrying the load for the country, pulling the wagon for everybody
else, over half of them are tea party members, identify with the tea
party.

{time} 2210

Quite interesting. It's not the marginal group that some would have
Americans believe. We are talking about rank-and-file Americans who are
pulling the weight with income tax.
Now, one of the things that would help a lot is if all of the
President's promises about jobs were to come true. Then we would have
more people able to pay income taxes. I know an awful lot of folks who
would welcome the chance to get back to paying income taxes, but they
can't find jobs. This health care bill is a real jobs killer.
I have had, as I'm sure my friend from Iowa has had as well, people
who've come up and who've said, I lost my job. My sister lost her job.
These folks lost their jobs. After the health care bill passed, they
had to be let go. Others are saying, We've had our salaries cut. We've
been told it's coming.
These are economy killers, and these things in the health care bill
are robbing America of people who would be able to help with that
income tax burden. So it has been tragic, and it just breaks my heart
to hear from these people who have lost their jobs because they had to
ram through this health care deform bill instead of doing what was
really right for America. We didn't have to have people lose their jobs
just to pass a health care bill, but they didn't care about what
America thought.
I want to mention one other thing about the Tea Party folks before I
yield back to my friend from Iowa.
We've heard that people were rowdy at the Tea Party on that weekend
that health care got rammed down America's throat. Some of us went out
and walked and saw the folks. We walked down the street. People were
lining the sidewalks pretty thick. They were yelling and cheering when
some of us came out because they were so vocally opposed to health
care.
On that weekend, as I was going back to my office from a vote over
here and as people had crowded onto the sidewalks and as most of my
friends in Congress were walking through the streets, I decided to get
up on the sidewalk and walk through the middle of the crowd and thank
them. This was not a group for which the SEIU, ACORN, or the Federal
Government paid their way. These were people who had come on their own
money--nobody else's. They'd had to come up with their own money. Some
of them had taken time off from work and from family. They'd made
sacrifices to get here in order to let their voices be heard. So I
wanted to personally make sure I went through the crowd. I shook as
many hands as I could, and I thanked as many people as I could.
As I was going down the sidewalk, people were patting me on the back
and were speaking encouragement to me. I was just saying, Thank you for
coming. Thank you for letting your voice be heard.
About 10 people into the sidewalk, I started to reach for this lady's
hand.

[[Page H3119]]

She probably was 40 to 50 years old. She was pleasant-looking enough.
She said, I'm for health care.
I thought I misunderstood, so I said, Well, I am, too--just not for
this disaster.
But she said, No. I support this bill.
She wouldn't shake my hand, and I thought, well, that's kind of
strange. That's kind of a party killer person right here in the middle
of the crowd; but, oh, well. That's fine. That's America. So I moved
on.
I was shaking hands and was thanking people. They were so wonderful
and encouraging. They were saying ``thank you'' for my thanking them.
It was really very moving at times. Those were some of the expressions
we got.
About 15 feet down the sidewalk, I met a guy who said, I'm not
shaking your hand.
I realized this was another one like the lady. Every 10 to 15 people,
as I shook hands with people on both sides, I ran into people who
wouldn't shake my hand because they were for the health care bill.
When I got to Independence, I had a guy yell, Are you Louie Gohmert?
I said, Yes.
He wanted to know why I hated homosexuals, and I explained I don't.
You know, as a Christian, I am supposed to love everyone, and I try
very much to do that, but it doesn't mean I have to embrace lifestyles
that the Bible says are inappropriate.
Anyway, he used the ``S'' word and some things that I won't use. I
mean I know it's appropriate for Senators like Senator Levin, but I'm
not going to use those words down here. I don't think they're
appropriate here, but I had them used on me out there on the sidewalk.
He was, obviously, also not a supporter of the Tea Party, of me, or of
those who were walking through.
After I got back to my office, I realized, you know, those people
were placed about every 10 or 15 feet in the middle of the crowd. I
don't know what they did after they refused to shake my hand, but there
were certainly people placed regularly throughout the crowd who were
just that--they were placements. They were people who were put in
there. They were observers. Hopefully, they weren't the people who
yelled epithets or things to try to make their conservative folks
around them look bad; but I can verify and I can testify that those
people were out there and that they were amidst the Tea Party folks.
Most assuredly, they were not Tea Party people.
Mr. KING of Iowa. If I could temporarily reclaim my time, I would
just appreciate an opportunity to comment on what you said, Mr.
Gohmert. This phrase comes to mind: Birds of a feather flock together.
That's why it's unusual to see some of those birds that are not of a
feather there in the flock of the Tea Party faithful. Why would that
be?
I think we've seen it here, occasionally, on the floor of the House
of Representatives when we generally sit in a segregated fashion--
Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other side. Yes, we walk
through and we talk to each other and we do business; but generally
speaking, it's Democrats there and Republicans here. Yet on occasion--
and especially on the occasions of the State of the Union addresses and
of addresses of the joint sessions of Congress by President Obama--we
have Democrats who will come over to this side of the aisle and who
will sit in a scattered fashion throughout over here so that, when the
standing ovations begin or when they don't happen, they're blended and
integrated in a different way.

That's by order of the Speaker of the House. It isn't infiltration--
it's public--but it is clearly by order of the Speaker of the House.
They didn't just spontaneously decide to come over and sit here and try
to start standing ovations and, more or less, change the image of the
State of the Union address.
Also, we know that the left has infiltrated or has at least announced
that they were seeking to infiltrate the Tea Party groups. Some of
those subversive tactics come to mind especially in the times that
we've had these rallies--they're really press conferences--over on the
West Lawn of the Capitol. We went out and took pictures of the lawn. I
know on one occasion I asked people to be careful and to pick up their
litter, but I don't know of anybody else who has ever made that
request. I'm thinking of three occasions when the lawn was spotless. We
took pictures. We were trying to find some litter. We were trying to
find a cigarette butt--anything out there on the grass. It was all
picked up and carried away.
The cleanest group of people is the Tea Party group that comes here.
They have the Constitution in their shirt pockets or on their hearts.
They love this country, and they wouldn't desecrate any of the symbols
of our liberty or any of the symbols of our freedom.
Though, if you looked at the other folks, at the people on the other
side of the aisle, at the people who make common cause with the folks
who generally sit over here, on the same day of that major gathering of
opponents to ObamaCare, there was a pro-amnesty rally. The differences
were they were wearing the same T-shirts; they were carrying signs that
came off the printing press one after another, and they left litter all
over this city.
While the Tea Party groups and the anti-ObamaCare groups were here,
they had homegrown signs. They didn't have any commonality of dress.
They wore what they had of their own. There was some red, white, and
blue out there and plenty of yellow hats and flags, but they were not
at all an army that was uniformed, coached, or bussed in. They came in
by their own transportation. They made their own signs. They wore a
whole variety of different clothes. They made up chants on the way, and
they were making signs on the fly. When it was all over, it was as
clean as a whistle. It was as if it were a park that they owned because
they believed--and they do--that they owned that park.
I am proud of the peaceful people who came here. I don't have respect
for the folks who tried to infiltrate that and who caused trouble. When
I saw the rallies against the Arizona immigration law, when I saw the
bottle bouncing off the head of a police officer, when I heard the
stories about refried beans being smeared on the State buildings in
Arizona, and when I heard about a swastika that was, perhaps, painted
there, those are the kinds of activities you would never see happen on
the other side with the Tea Party groups. There is no violence there.
The violence is perpetrated by people on the other side.
The allegation that the ``N'' word, that the ``F'' word, or that
spitting took place could not be substantiated, and I am coming close
to the conclusion that it was fabricated, not substantiated.
As I feel a little better having vented myself on that subject, I
would yield back now to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. GOHMERT. Well, thank you.
One of the other things that comes to mind is we talk about our
freedoms--about the ability to assemble and about the freedom of
speech, which is the ability to say what is in your heart.

{time} 2220

We come to what happened last week in England, where a man who was
not intentionally out being a nuisance, but he was asked by an officer,
according to the article I read, who looks for violations of this type
of law, ethics type of law--and this person apparently was homosexual
in practice, and he asked the individual about the Bible, about sin. He
mentioned drunkenness and a number of things that would be sins as
addressed in the Bible and was asked about homosexuality, and he said,
yes, under the Bible it's a sin. It's hard to look at Romans 1 and
think otherwise. But anyway, this man was arrested. He was put in jail
and now is out awaiting trial on his charges. And it was one of the
things that concerned us greatly about the Hate Crimes Act because we
knew that bill was based on two lies. And there were publications like
Texas Monthly that didn't bother to look into the facts, many
publications around the country that just ran off and jumped on the
train of those who refused to read it, laws to read the facts, to look
at facts that were being cited as basis and find that they were lies.
But the two things on which that bill were based were both lies. Number
one, that there was an epidemic of hate crimes in America. Number two,
that it would somehow have changed for the better the outcome in the
James Byrd case in Texas, the Matthew Shepard case. And the fact is
that those are lies.

[[Page H3120]]

The James Byrd case had two of the three--the two most culpable
defendants got the death penalty. The only effect the hate crimes bill
would have had if it had been in place back then would be that those
guys that got the death penalty would have gotten life in prison
instead of death. I felt like from the evidence that I read and heard
about that they deserved the death penalty. And in the Matthew Shepard
case, they got multiple life sentences; so it wouldn't have affected
those cases.
The FBI statistics show there has been no surge, uptick in hate
crimes, alleged hate crimes, and those include yelling of things
inappropriate.
I don't think my friend from Iowa or any of our friends, and those
that I met at TEA parties would condone nasty name calling. None of the
people I met. But we get into a very dangerous area. There were
Founders that fought and died for this country and for that thing that
would later become the First Amendment. It didn't exist during the
Revolution, but they believed the concept of freedom of speech. And
they often cited Voltaire as the source. Some disagree, but Voltaire is
usually given as the source for the saying ``I disagree with what you
say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'' That helped
form a basis for this country. Yet now we have evolved in this country
to where the thought police have a slogan that is more apt to be, I
disagree with what you say, and I'm going to destroy your life because
of it. I'm going to see you're fired. I'm going to see that you lose as
much of your assets, hopefully all of them, as I can. I am going to
destroy your life.
So we have come a long way from those days when the Founders were
willing to fight and die so people could say things they thought
reprehensible but at least they had the liberty to say them.
One of the things that gets very dangerous is when you start putting
a lid on people's freedom of speech, as the PC police around here, as
the thought police have begun to do. When you prevent people from being
able to say what's in their heart and vent a bit, then you build up
steam. If you don't allow people to vent, they build up steam, and then
you have an explosion. So I know there are those that say, well, talk
radio is hateful and whatnot. And actually talk radio, most of it, is
not hateful at all.
But you go back to the President's own statement that we're not a
Christian Nation. Well, I am not going to debate that. I know that we
were founded by people who professed to be, although history is often
rewritten nowadays, including in the early 1800s an early biography of
Washington that was a complete fraud.
But if my gentleman friend from Iowa would allow me, this has just
been on my heart because I go up from time to time to the Lincoln
Memorial, and I stand there and read those profound words from that
selfless man. And on the north inside wall is his second inaugural
speech. And it brings me to tears every time I read it because this is
a man who is wrestling with how a just God could allow the pain and
suffering to go on that he did. And it is a beautiful theological
discussion. If it would be all right with the gentleman from Iowa,
these are Abraham Lincoln's words in his second inaugural. It's there
carved into the marble, and he was talking about the North and the
South, trying to make sense of how you could have friends and family
fighting on two sides of an issue. He said:
``Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes
His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare
to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat
of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The
prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been
answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.''

Then he quotes Scripture, and he says: ``Woe unto the world because
of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that
man by whom the offense cometh.
``If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses
which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having
continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that
He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to
those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure
from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always
ascribe to Him?
``Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge
of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until
all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall
be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago,
so still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether.'
``With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in, to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves
and with all nations.''
Powerful, powerful words. And having lost my brother a couple of
weeks ago, sometimes it is a struggle when you believe in God to know
the kind of hurt and suffering that goes on.

{time} 2230

But as Lincoln said, and so it must still be said, ``The judgments of
the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'' And I do believe, and I
don't try to push my religious beliefs on anyone else, that God
normally allows us to suffer the consequences of terrible decisions. If
you follow the rules, you do what we are told allows your nation to be
blessed, and your nation gets blessed. If you follow the things that
cause your nation to be cursed, it just seems throughout history, that
is usually what happens.
This is such an important time in our history. We have got people who
would gladly destroy everything we believe in, all the liberties we
have, and yet we have people who are at the same time striking at our
freedoms of speech, striking at our liberties to assemble as we wish.
Those things need to stop. We need to stop those who by terror and by
warfare would try to take away those things that the Founders and all
those who have fought and died since have put at our feet and given to
us as a gift, and we need to fight those from within who attempt to
take them away through misrepresentations of what are truly the facts
in order to pass bills that actually are based on lies and hurt the
country.
I appreciate my friend so much yielding to me.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Texas. I was deeply
engaged in that presentation, and much of it I reflect upon, having
stood there many times at the Lincoln Memorial and read the second
inaugural address. It has been too long since I have been back down
there. I need to go back.
As the gentleman from Texas talked about Voltaire, another statement
of his, even though he was a bit of a Utopianist and not necessarily
one whose teachings would fit the beliefs that I follow, there is one
of his quotes that stands in mind for me, and I think it is appropriate
here in the United States.
I've watched us turn from a nation of rugged, can-do, highly spirited
people to a nation that is slowly, and I shouldn't say slowly,
dramatically turning into a nanny state.
I grew up in a society where we understood we had freedom, and we
exercised that freedom, and the prohibitions were was there a law that
prohibited us. The gentleman from Texas and I have exercised that
American freedom, that American freedom, pretty interestingly, in the
country of Tibet, when it was the idea of Judge Gohmert that we should
climb a mountain in the Himalayas.
So we set about from Lhasa, Tibet, to go do that. But we had Chinese
minders. The Chinese minders' job was to mind us, to make sure we
minded them; that we didn't get out of line; we didn't go do things
they didn't want us to do; that we didn't see things that they didn't
want us to see; and we didn't hear Tibetans or Chinese tell us things
that they didn't want us to hear. So they presented themselves often as
the interpreters, the protectors.
So when we said, we are going to go climb a mountain in the Himalayas

[[Page H3121]]

here, they said, well, no, you can't. You are not authorized to go up
there, and so you can't.
Well, China and Tibet is a society where it has to be permissive for
you to act. America has been a society where you have got permission to
do everything that is not prohibited. We don't ask the question, do we
have permission? We ask the question, is there a law against it?
So we told the Chinese minders, well, you may say we are not going,
but we are Americans. We are going to go climb this mountain in the
Himalayas. And that is what we did, because we didn't realize, I don't
think, we were in a country where you had to have permission, because
we have got the American spirit.
We went to the top of that mountain. And it is something that I will
never forget, that experience going up, being there, looking at that
vista of snow-capped peaks all the way around the horizon, the huge
glacial lake down below, that spot on the globe. I am so glad we
stepped forward and did that.
I don't know if there are any other people on the planet that would
have just gone up to the top of the mountain, because that is what we
do. We don't wait for permission. If there is not a law against it and
we think it fits within our moral standards, we go.
Well, this can-do America that we are has been an America that came
in, and by the sweat of our brows we built a nation for hundreds of
years, that can-do entrepreneurial spirit with free enterprise and
freedom and the liberties that are laid out that come from God, that
are in the Declaration, most of them, not all of them.
Voltaire said back during that period of time, History is the sound
of hobnailed boots storming up the stairs, and silver slippers coming
down.
That describes a lot of what goes on. The ascendency of history are
the people that work hard, that are industrious, that produce, that are
competitive, and sometimes, Madam Speaker, combative. And when people
get a little too soft and they are sitting on the silken pillows and
they have the waiters bringing the grapes to them and popping the grape
in their mouth while they fan them a little bit, like Ahab the Arab,
the sheik of the burning sand, that is kind of the image of what
happens when a person lays back on the silk.

What has happened with the Voltaire statement was hobnailed boots
storming up the stairs, silver slippers coming down. And a lot of the
French elite, the aristocracy, were the silver slippers, and they came
down the stairs, because they got too lazy and they got too laid back
without being competitive. They lost their sense of where they were
going or why.
I don't want to do that as a nation. I don't want to watch the
hobnailed boots come up the stairs. I don't want us to be the silver
slippers coming down. I want us to step forward and compete. I want
free enterprise. I want freedom, I want liberty, I want a strong
national defense. I want to have a tax policy that stops punishing
productivity, and it can tax consumption, because that is an incentive
for more consumption. I want that strong national defense, as I said. I
want school choice, so kids can be raised at the will and the wishes of
their parents with real American history and real American values.
If we can do all of those things, we can take this Nation to the next
level of our destiny. And should we fail, we will trail in the dust the
golden hopes of men.

=========================== NOTE ===========================

May 4, 2010 on H3121 the following appeared: will trail in the
dust to build on the

The online version should be corrected to read: will trail in
the dust the golden

========================= END NOTE =========================

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.

____________________