[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 22, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H4669-H4674]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES
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.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's always an honor to be here and to be
speaking on the floor where so many who have served this country so
honorably and well have done the same
[[Page H4670]]
thing. I never lose sight of that fact. It gets a little discouraging
at times.
It's interesting to hear the stimulus is working because that's what
George W. Bush was doing. And as I recall, in 2006, the Republicans
lost the majority because Democrats convinced them that it was the
wrong thing to do. And you know what? The Democrats were right. They
appropriately won the majority because, as they said, we should not be
deficit spending, you're killing the country, you're killing the
economy by running up this kind of debt, and they won the majority in
2006 because they were right. We should not have been deficit spending
like that. But that went on.
{time} 2130
So it's interesting to hear, just 4 short years later, that it turns
out that what President Bush was doing and was encouraging to be done
is actually the good thing. Though, I still tend to go back and think
of those of us on the Republican side who agreed that we needed to get
out from under the deficit spending and that we needed to get spending
under control. Having compassion and spending money to a deficit level
is not the same thing. It's the Federal Government, like a parent, who
is just throwing money at their kids, thinking that's going to make
them happy and that everybody will be loving and caring.
I happen to agree with my friend Jim Dobson, who knows a lot about
raising children. He said, You show me a child whose parent never said
``no,'' and I'll show you one messed up kid.
More and more, we keep seeing people run to Washington. ``Give us
money. Give us money. Yeah, let's don't deficit spend, but give us
money.'' It has got to stop. It has got to stop. When the Democrats
promised they would stop the deficit spending if they were given the
majority in November of 2006, they diagnosed the problem correctly, but
then they didn't use the treatment they promised when they took over
the majority.
It's interesting. I went back, and I found an article and speeches
from early 2007 when we were talking about how well the economy was
going at that point. Yet, at that time, those who promised to stop the
deficit spending instead dramatically increased the deficit spending.
It is amazing to see how the economy took a nosedive once the Democrats
took the majority.
So I didn't plan to talk about the stimulus this evening, but I've
heard from enough people who have been begging for us to, please, stop
the deficit spending. When the Federal Government runs up such an
enormous deficit, they suck up all the capital in the world, and the
businesses that would like to hire people can't keep their lines of
credit open anymore. You have got this administration's regulators
telling banks, Now, you'd better not keep extending that line of credit
to that business because, even though it's still hiring people and
seems to be doing well and has never missed a payment, we're concerned
that maybe someday it will, and you don't want your bank to be under
the heightened scrutiny that we will put on it if you keep extending
lines of credit to this company.
So companies lose their lines of credit. They can't borrow money, and
they can't grow their businesses. As we have often seen, if you're not
growing, then you're usually dying. So it's just interesting. It's
interesting.
I've heard my friends on the other side of the aisle yelling and
fussing about, you know, a $100-$200 billion deficit in 1 year--that
it's just outrageous, that it's unconscionable, and how could we do
those kinds of things. They're right. We shouldn't have been deficit
spending, but I really expected them to stop. This year, it is expected
we'll have a $1.3 to $1.6 trillion deficit by the Federal Government in
1 year. Who would have ever dreamed that the same people who said just
some short years ago that a $160 billion deficit was reprehensible
would today be saying that 10 times that much of a deficit is really a
good thing and that the country is doing better?
I don't think there is any better indication of just how well things
are going in the private sector than last month, because we got good
news. There were 431,000 new jobs created last month. That was great
news. 411,000 of the 431,000 jobs were temporary of census workers. I'm
not sure that's news that's quite as good as we originally thought.
So we have an administration and a majority who are ecstatic in
thinking that the emperor, though naked, has regal clothes on and that
the economy is doing great and that the stimulus is working so very
well because we created 411,000 jobs last month for temporary census
workers. That emperor has no clothes on. It's not a great economy. Now,
it should be. It's trying to be. It's trying to come back. Yet, as the
private sector tries to do better, boom, we hit them with a health care
bill that is going to cost them so much more money than it had cost
them before.
It's telling businesses, if you've got over 50 employees, then you're
going to get hammered with a $2,000-per-employee tax. So, you know,
we're hearing people say, Well, we had 56. We had to let them go. We
had to let people go. We can't be over that cap. We have people being
let go because the health care costs are now going to be so much, and
the added taxes are hitting. We have people who are selling homes and
who are seeing there are going to be added taxes for them.
This was supposed to be a health care bill that helped the working
poor. Yet, a few weeks ago, when I was at a jobs fair in Marshall,
Texas, I had one gentleman tell me, Look, we're giving, you know,
entry-level jobs, but we're giving them really good health insurance.
Well, unfortunately, once the full extent of this health care bill
kicks in, under the bill, he won't be able to do that anymore. They'll
have to go on Medicaid.
If you make 133 percent of the poverty level or less, under that
wonderful bill, you'll get forced into Medicaid, like it or not, even
if you've got an employer who is willing to provide you health care.
Oh, by the way, if you're above 133 percent of the poverty level and
you can't afford the great health insurance policy that is dictated by
this Zeus of a Congress and President, then bad news. You're going to
pay extra income tax. You can't afford the health care insurance we've
mandated? You get an extra income tax. Good news. Good news all the way
around.
I did want to address something that has caused me a great deal of
concern. All of this actually does, but this hit me as I was seeing
more information about the 9/11 conspirators. I use that term because
they had filed documents indicating that they were 9/11 conspirators.
This is an article I saw on Sunday. The headline from Politico, which
is a newspaper here in Washington, reads, ``Chances dim for swift 9/11
decision.'' This was by Mr. Josh Gerstein on 6/20/2010.
It reads, ``Attorney General Eric Holder said the decision over where
to hold the trial for alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was
`weeks away' 3 months ago.
``Now advocates on both sides of the issue say they expect the Obama
administration to punt the decision until after the November midterm
elections--when the controversial plan could do less damage to the
political fortunes of endangered Democrats and might face less
resistance on Capitol Hill.
``Holder, last week, explicitly denied the midterms had anything to
do with the timing but would only say discussions are continuing. The
White House had no comment.''
So the article goes on, and it discusses at quite some length the 9/
11 trial and its problems and about figuring out what to do about it.
Then, while I was looking this weekend, I saw some great news. This
is from The New York Times. This is exactly quoting from The New York
Times' article:
``Five charged in 9/11 attacks seek to plead guilty.''
So they are going to plead guilty.
``Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: The five Guantanamo detainees charged with
coordinating the September 11 attacks told a military judge on Monday
that they wanted to confess in full--a move that seemed to challenge
the government to put them to death.''
Man, that's great news because we had this article on Sunday, saying
the Attorney General and this administration can't decide what to do
about the trials. It's great news. They're going to plead guilty.
[[Page H4671]]
{time} 2140
Another quote from the article said that at the start of what had
been listed as routine proceedings Monday, Judge Henley said he had
received a written statement from the five men charged, saying they had
planned to stop filing legal motions and to ``announce our confessions
to plea in full.'' Great news. They're agreeing to plead guilty to
confess everything. Awesome news. Awesome news.
The trouble is, the date of this New York Times story was December 9,
2008. The 9/11 conspirators, as they are self-confessed, agreed to
plead guilty to the atrocities regarding 9/11. They were not going to
file any more pleadings. They were throwing in the towel. They were
ready to be sentenced to death. And if you go back and look at this
article, Mr. Speaker, it talks about how they're ready to accept
martyrdom. Isn't that something? They told a military judge they wanted
to confess in full. They were ready to be put to death for their
crimes. Isn't that something? It said they planned to stop filing legal
motions and to announce our confessions to plea in full.
But a strange thing happened on the way to the five 9/11 charged
conspirators for plotting and carrying out--seeing that it was carried
out, at least--the 9/11 atrocities. This administration took office a
month after that story and said, You know what? Basically, in essence,
You guys, don't plead guilty. We want to bring this to New York and
create a circus out of it. Put the island of Manhattan in great danger.
Probably cost them--one estimate was a hundred million dollars they
don't have. They're trying to figure out where to come up with the
money for their own budget right now. Yes, they're going to bring them
to New York and put on a circus.
So the guys withdrew their indication they were going to plead
guilty. They were ready for the big show. And now we're told that there
probably won't be a decision until after the November elections. They
were ready to plead guilty, and now we have to wait 2 years because
this administration wanted to jump in and make a circus out of justice.
You don't do that. It's not justice when you attempt to make a circus
out of it.
I had a rule in my courtroom. I would allow one camera remain in
place, could not be moved, and the moment I saw one juror look over at
the camera, the camera was out. Everybody knew the rules. It had to be
a pooled camera. So all networks pooled from that one camera. And the
first one to file the motion to bring the camera or use the camera were
the ones that got to put the stationary camera in there and everybody
else pulled footage from those. Because when you're talking about
justice, when you're talking about court proceedings, you cannot talk
about making a big show out of the trial. It's no longer justice. It's
now a circus.
And, in the meantime, we have over 3,000 people who lost their lives
in the 9/11 attacks, who see justice frittering away yet one more time.
It's heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. These guys were ready to plead
guilty, as announced in this article December 9, 2008, in The New York
Times. And now we're talking 2 years later before we ever even think
about, figure out what we're going to do. They were ready to plead
guilty but for this administration's meddling with the third branch.
And for those that think that the Congress does not have the
authority to create military commissions, I understand their
ignorance--there's a lot of it out there, but that's been going on for
years--called the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Because under the
Constitution, this body had the authority to create the UCMJ, which we
did, long before I was here, of course. But they did. And that's why.
Now when the Bush administration tried to create a military
commission without coming through Congress, that was not
constitutional. That's not the President's job. It's the Congress's job
under the Constitution. So when the Congress came back in 2006, created
the Military Commissions Act, then it was certainly upheld, because it
was appropriate. Of course, in that bill it referred to those who are
at war with America as enemy combatants, a term that's been around for
at least 70 years. But that got changed last year. We had an amendment
to the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The term ``enemy combatant''
has now been changed officially in the act that President Obama signed.
We wouldn't want to offend these poor enemy combatants that want to
kill us and destroy our way of life. So they're now referred to under
the bill as unprivileged alien enemy belligerents. Four words now.
Anyway, that's where we are with regard to the 9/11 attackers, the 9/
11 plotters; and if you go back and read the pleading filed by Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed on behalf of himself and the four others charged that
should have pled guilty in January of 2009, but for the intervention by
the executive branch through the Department of Justice and the White
House, but for their meddling, these guys may well have already been
put to death, since that's what they were willing to accept. And I just
know that they have a very rude awakening awaiting them in the next
life. But, unfortunately, that will not be experienced by them for some
time still to come. Really tragic.
And then we see not only has there been that interference with the 9/
11 plotters and the intervention of the White House and the Department
of Justice. And, I don't know, maybe the name should be changed from
Department of Justice to Department of Procrastinated Justice, because
it should have happened by now, but for this group intervening. Then we
see what's happened down in the Gulf Coast, what continues to go on.
We've got video every second reminding us of that. And the more you
read, the more disconcerting it gets.
Now we've heard one of the all-time experts on global warming finally
admit early this year that, well, actually, there's no evidence of the
planet warming since 1995. And, yes, in the last few years it's
probably been cooling; and, yes, the Middle Ages were a lot warmer in
the Northern Hemisphere than it is here now. Of course, I'm sure it's
easy to remember from history the Middle Ages, the Nords, all those
folks. They had some pretty high-powered automobiles which are creating
all the global warming back in those days. But, apparently, it was such
a wonderful thing to this administration and to our friends across the
aisle that British Petroleum was onboard with global warming and they
were going to, apparently, make a lot of money in the carbon credit
business. They were excited about it. And they were the Big Oil
advocate teamed up with the Democrats in the Senate and with this
administration.
And so people wondered why this administration didn't come out much
more quickly and condemn British Petroleum. Well, they were still
hoping they were going to salvage their crap-and-trade bill. But they
also knew if their big ally, British Petroleum, was not onboard, then
it might be more difficult to convince others that it was going to be
such a good thing for the energy business. So they really didn't want,
apparently, to condemn British Petroleum too roundly too quickly
because they were still hoping they could salvage a passage of the
crap-and-trade bill.
And they really at the time thought they needed their ally--their
very, very close ally--British Petroleum. And there was an article
indicating that in fact Senator Kerry on April 22, when the Deepwater
Horizon blew, that Senator Kerry was communicating with British
Petroleum about trying to get that global warming bill passed.
{time} 2150
Things got put on hold, obviously, after that explosion took place.
And yet still over 60 days later, the Jones Act has not been suspended,
so the Netherlands could come in, as they had offered. They have got
some amazing machinery that would help with the separation. They could
build island barriers, save so much of the pristine beaches, and still,
no Jones Act suspension. Obviously that was a bill to give
protectionism to unions, and certainly the unions did not want to see
that bill suspended.
But for all the criticism of President Bush, within 3 days of
Hurricane Katrina occurring--August 29 was when it occurred, September
1 is when President Bush had signed an order suspending the Jones Act
so that foreign vessels could come in and assist us in our time of need
after Hurricane Katrina. Over 60 days later, this administration still
has not done it.
So I hear all the talk about, We're doing absolutely everything we
can.
[[Page H4672]]
How about putting a signature on the suspension of the Jones Act? Just
do it 19 days like President Bush did, and you'll be able to have all
this outside assistance come in.
One of the things that I've seen--and it's been hard for me over the
years, when somebody wants to come help me after I've had some family
tragedy or something, is, I just don't like to accept--I don't want
anybody to put themselves out. But what you find out is, if you've done
something for somebody else, it blesses their heart when they get to do
something nice for you.
You know, we have done some very nice things for so many countries,
as is reflected in the cemeteries all over Europe, in American soldiers
that have been buried around the world, where they gave their lives--
not so that we could be an imperialist nation, because if we were,
France would be speaking English, the Netherlands would be speaking
English, Germany would be speaking English. But that was never our
goal. Japan would be speaking English. That was never our goal. It was
a goal to bring liberty and freedom, bring the very gift that we have
in this country to others. It's such a wonderful inheritance. But the
problem is, though we are endowed by our Creator with certain
unalienable rights, among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness, like any inheritance, any gift, if you don't fight for it,
then mean, evil people will take it away.
So the Jones Act has not been suspended, and we have a fund that was
created with--you know, British Petroleum said, We were going to do it
anyway. And it sure sounds like, from what we've been hearing, British
Petroleum deserves to pay a great deal more than that. But one of the
great things the Founders did was create three branches of government
so that when a responsible party has done something wrong, you don't
have the Congress or the President come in and say, Here's your fine.
Here's your fee. This is what you've got to pay. We don't have that. We
have hearings and trials in court. And if you want to avoid having a
long drawn-out trial process, then you can come in and work out a
settlement agreement.
Some companies have found out, after they've done wrong and harmed
people, that they actually end up better off creating a fund on their
own, something that is acceptable to others so that they can be
compensated for the harm that's been done without protracted
litigation. That's all a very noble thing. Having a fund supplied by
British Petroleum, that's a very good thing. But when you take it out
of context, of the three branches of government--and this is more a
judiciary issue--and you allow either the legislative or the executive
branch to just say, Here's what you owe. Put up the money, and we'll
appoint our pet person here to dictate who gets what, then you have
broken down the Constitution. That's not supposed to happen.
Because the same President and Attorney General who sit down with
somebody at the very time that they are investigating criminal
charges--and they've made a big deal in the media about investigating
criminal charges. They said, By the way, we're investigating you. I
mean, it goes without saying. They've said it all in the media, We're
investigating you for criminal charges. We think you need to put this
money up. The same executive branch that can dictate creating a fund
like that--no matter how willing the perpetrator is to put up the
fund--that same executive branch can also say, And by the way, why
don't you just take the blame for everything? Why don't you just take
the blame for everything? Let's don't even get into what the government
might have done wrong, what our administration didn't do, what our
Department of Interior didn't do, what our Minerals Management Service
didn't do, or the fact that we just made a big splash in June of 2009
about our deputy assistant secretary coming in to this department who
worked for British Petroleum ever since she left the Clinton
administration in January of 2001, and never mind that she knows more,
according to the previous Inspector General, about why that price
adjustment language was cut out of the 1998 and 1999 offshore leases
that made--I thought originally hundreds of millions, now apparently
it's billions of dollars for her employer, Big Oil. But it cost the
Federal Treasury billions of dollars that went to big oil. Let's just
avoid all of that discussion about the cozy relationship between this
administration's regulators and British Petroleum. Let's just avoid all
of that, and you just take all the responsibility.
There's a reason that an executive branch is not supposed to do that,
because it opens the door to abuse. And, in fact, there are Federal
laws--just like I'm familiar with State laws in Texas--that say,
basically it's a crime for a prosecutor in Texas to call in a defendant
and say, I will not indict you, or I will drop the indictment if you
will put x number of dollars into the fund that I dictate. Well, that's
a crime. You can't do that. There's a reason that we have three
branches of government.
I heard someone ask once of the brilliant Justice Antonin Scalia,
Don't you think the reason we've had more liberty in this country than
any other country in the world is because of our Bill of Rights? And I
just love Justice Scalia. He is so brilliant and yet so forthright. He
said, no. And I'm sure my answer will not do justice to his. But my
recollection is, basically, no. The Soviets had a much better Bill of
Rights than we have. And it hit me. I remembered. I studied the
Soviets' Bill of Rights, and they actually did. It was a great Bill of
Rights. But he said, No. The reason you've got more liberty in America
is because the Founders did not trust government, so they wanted to
make it as hard as they could for government to pass any laws, to force
anybody into anything.
{time} 2200
You set up three branches as the Founders so that you couldn't just
quickly pass a law. And even if you did, you have an executive branch
that is elected outside of Congress. So it's not like a prime minister,
where we elect one of our own in here to be the leader, similar to a
President. We've got an executive branch.
And that's not enough. We set up a judicial branch that's appointed
in the Federal system so that all of these things would help create
gridlock. Today you hear people say, I'm tired of gridlock. The
Founders thought it was the best gift they could ever give is a way to
clog up the government so they wouldn't rush in and make laws unless
they were absolutely necessary. We've gotten away from that. It's
gotten too easy.
As we saw when the Republicans in 2001 had the White House, House,
and the Senate, spending started like it hadn't before. Compassion was
equated with giving away money. Whereas, if you go back to 1995, when
Republicans took Congress as the majority, finally you started having a
balanced budget, because this body creates the budget and the Senate
eventually, hopefully, agrees. And then you've got a way to control
spending.
We had a balanced budget once the Republicans took the majority, and
things went great. And it's amazing to me--well, it's humorous,
actually, to hear President Clinton taking credit for a balanced
budget. He didn't do it. The Congress did. And in some cases, he was
brought in kicking and screaming, but the Republican Congress balanced
the budget.
It wasn't until they got giddy by having their own party in the White
House that the brakes came off and spending increased so that we had
$100 billion, $200 billion in deficit in 1 year. And that was so
outrageous until this last year, when it was over a trillion, and this
year maybe as much as $1.6 trillion in 1 year. It's unbelievable. It's
really irresponsible.
And now we read today in the paper that our majority leader is saying
they are giving up all hope of passing a budget, too politically
difficult. And as we heard one of the Democratic leaders say in 2006
before they won the majority, if you can't provide a budget, you can't
govern. There's a lot of truth in that.
So we need to get away from the executive branch being the Congress,
being the executive branch and the judicial branch. We saw that with
the auto task force. This body created the bankruptcy laws. Bankruptcy
is something provided for in the Constitution. But it wasn't created
until the early 1800s, where the courts actually set up the system of
bankruptcy.
And it was set up because the Founders believed that apparently
nobody, no
[[Page H4673]]
business or body should ever be too big to fail. Because if you are
failing, you can go through bankruptcy. And, in fact, if you are too
big to fail, it is absolutely essential that you go through bankruptcy
and reorganize and downsize so you will never put this country at that
kind of risk again because you are still too big to fail and, in fact,
have gotten even bigger. And that's what we've seen with Goldman Sachs.
They've gotten even bigger. They should have been allowed to fail
previously.
Well, I tell you, there is a brilliant man named Thomas Sowell. And I
didn't vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but I sure would have voted for
Thomas Sowell. His article says quite a lot. His editorial says here,
and it's just been posted this week, but he says, ``When Adolf Hitler
was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s,'' and I am quoting from
Thomas Sowell in his editorial, ``leading up to his taking power in the
1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally
pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to
his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to
Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his
assumptions or his conclusions. `Useful idiots' was the term supposedly
coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his
dictatorship in the Soviet Union.''
And this isn't in the article, this is my comment, but we do have
useful idiots today who are heard to say, Wow, what we really need is
for the President to be a dictator for a little while. They know not
what they say.
Anyway, back to quoting Thomas Sowell. ``Put differently, a democracy
needs informed citizens if it is to thrive or, ultimately, even
survive. In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by
piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in
Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it. The
President's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of
people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being
done to the fundamental structure of this Nation goes far beyond
particular counterproductive policies.
``Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say
that a President has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a
private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he
deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere. And yet that is precisely what's
happening,'' and he goes on.
And I will tell you, there is a reason we have to rely on the justice
system, because if we didn't have that branch of government that could
be the final arbiter of disagreements between groups, then there would
be people like me who have seen the damage that rushing through, taking
the cheaper way to drill in such a difficult area, seen the damage, the
loss of lives, those whose lives are still in jeopardy because of their
grave injuries, the damage to the environment--and I just drove from
New Orleans to Panama City. And there is anticipation of doom and gloom
coming to many places, yet those people, the beaches are beautiful.
From Panama City through Alabama through Mississippi, they are
beautiful. But people aren't showing up to the beaches. They could at
least come and enjoy them.
But BP just did an unconscionable thing. And if we did not have a
justice system, if we were back to the days, as Israel once was, of
just having a judge and I were the judge, you know, the tendency would
be some people would be horsewhipped that cut corners and did all this
damage. But there's a reason we don't have a judicial dictatorship so
one man can't say you ought to be horsewhipped for what you have done.
What they've done is outrageous. And you can't help but think,
because they had such good friends in the administration and in the
majority, they thought they were bulletproof. They thought they could
do whatever they wanted. And the President, their big buddy, Senator
Kerry, the majority, especially in the Senate, they would cover for
them. They would take care of them. They didn't know that when they did
something this outrageous they would be thrown under the bus. But we
should not have one branch that does that kind of dictation. It's not
good. It's not good at all.
And then we have the problem with Israel being accosted by its
enemies, and we are siding with the wrong people. I had a teacher in
elementary school. She always took up for the bullies when they beat up
the little guys. I know because I was a little guy in elementary
school, and she always sided with the big bullies that had flunked a
couple of grades and were bigger than the rest of us.
{time} 2210
I will never forget those guys took my brand-new football I got for
Christmas, and I went to get it back and my nose was bloodied, my face
was pulverized, but then, as now, I don't run from a fight. And when
the teacher was told by other students I was trying to get my nose to
stop bleeding, she came into the boy's restroom, grabbed me, took me
down to the classroom, marched me in front of the class and said, See,
now, class, this is what happens when the little boys try to play with
the big boys,
Well, that's kind of what's going on here. We've got bullies trying
to bully Israel. We're siding with the wrong guys. There will be a
price to pay if this continues. Israel's our friend. They have great
value for human life, like we do in this country. If they were not in
the Middle East, we would spend trillions of dollars trying to protect
ourselves in that area from the things that are growing right now. We
owe them more than a thank you, and yet the U.S. voted to force them to
disclose their nuclear weaponry, if any. You don't do that to friends.
It's what Hezekiah did. He showed Babylonians all his armaments, his
treasury and Isaiah told him, as a result, it is all going to be taken
away. You don't show your enemies all of your defenses because they
will figure out a way to overcome them.
I was just downstairs, in fact, in a little supper with Shaun
Alexander, played football for Alabama, and was MVP with Seattle in the
Super Bowl, just a great guy. But he mentioned four verses of scripture
that really meant so much to him, and one of those was, he said,
Deuteronomy 30:19, and I'm quoting from the most quoted book in this
history of the Congress. In fact, our first 150 years, oftentimes our
legislators were afraid to file a bill without having some scriptural
basis to back it up. But Shaun quoted from Deuteronomy 30:19, I call
Heaven and Earth to witness against you today that I've set before you
life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order
that you may live, you and your descendants.
Verse 20 goes on: By loving the Lord, your God, by obeying His voice
and by holding fast to Him, for this is your life and the length of
your days, that you may live in the land that your Lord swore to your
fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give to them.
He also quoted from Matthew 5:24, No one can serve two masters, for
either he will hate the one and love the other or he will hold to one
and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and man. You know, these days, some want to
serve a constituent and they get pulled away because they're torn.
They'd like to serve a tremendous power in this country, torn between
constituent service and power. And then in some cases, as we see here,
apparently George Soros has made more money probably than anybody in
this country because of British Petroleum and the moratorium and what
all has happened there. Of course, this country apparently is standing
for $2 billion to help Brazil do deep exploration, and that will make
hundreds of millions for Mr. Soros. I'm happy for anybody who make lots
of money, but sometimes people in this body are torn between their
constituent service or being a part of a powerful team.
It's why people in here are often gotten to move their vote one way
or the other. I was told that before I got here. One of the hardest
things is not when people come to you and say, yes, you're going to do
this, you're going to vote this way, because most in this body are
stubborn enough to say, no, I'm not going to do that. But where they
get you is they say, come on, we thought you were a team player, we
want you on our team, we want you one of the good guys on our team. And
they hit you up on the team player thing.
[[Page H4674]]
And so good people in this body, in the Senate, even in the judiciary
apparently when they allowed the auto task force, taking without due
process in violation of the Constitution, turned bankruptcy upside
down. They even convinced the judiciary to even look the other way and
let the Constitution and the bankruptcy laws be turned upside down. So
there are people who want to be part of the team, you know, and they
forget the Constitution; and when that happens we break down what so
many have fought and died for to give us this gift.
I heard my colleagues in the prior hour talking about how well the
stimulus is going. I keep coming back, and Mark Levin quoted this in
his book, ``Liberty and Tyranny,'' and it ought to be a textbook, it's
so good. But he quotes from Henry Morgenthau, the Secretary of the
Treasury under Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1939 Secretary Morgenthau was
testifying--well, actually he wrote this. He said, We have tried
spending money. We have spent more money than we have ever spent
before, and now after 8 years, we have an unemployment rate that is
just as high today as it was when we started, and we have an enormous
debt to boot.
Human nature has not changed much since the 1930s. When the
government starts spending money, then ultimately you're going to have
a choice. You're going to have to keep borrowing or printing, and then
ultimately you get in a position the Soviet Union was in. You can't
print it fast enough to pay your debts, you can't borrow it fast
enough, nobody will loan it to you anymore. So you have to go up and
announce you're bankrupt as a nation and out of business.
By the way, one other thing I wanted to mention, and this happens
when you refuse to enforce the laws. We had a President who just
decided he was going to impose a drilling moratorium; and so the
judiciary came in, considered the Constitution, considered the action
after it viewed all the excuses and everything for imposing it, said
this is arbitrary and capricious, you can't do this, there's no basis
for a moratorium of all of these.
If you want to go after BP--he didn't say this, I'm saying it--you
want to go after BP, say they're suspended until you make sure they're
not cutting corners on other rigs, because we know they cut them--it
sure looks like they cut them at least on Deepwater Horizon, that's one
thing. But to do it on all the rigs when indications that we saw
somewhere there were 750 safety violations for BP and in the same
period I think Exxon, maybe Shell, had one? There's a reason maybe you
could justify doing that with a BP rig but not all of them.
So the judge struck it down, and here already today the Secretary of
the Interior says he's appealing it. Apparently, he likes the idea of
having one branch of government run everything. Big mistake.
Then, not only that, a lot of folks may not know, Mr. Speaker, but
there is, as I understand it, under Federal law the right of the Border
Patrol to come into private landowners' land up to 25 miles from the
border, anywhere, any of our borders to enforce our border. Everywhere
around the border, they have that right up to 25 miles to come into
private property if they need to to enforce our border.
Well, lo and behold, there is one place they can't, and that's on
federally owned property like the national park in Arizona. There is
apparently about 32 miles of border with Mexico that's a park that has
now been announced to be closed to American citizens because there are
too many illegals going across that land and tearing it up, and some
have gotten violent and killed even law enforcement people in that
area.
{time} 2220
We can go on private property to protect our border, but we can't go
on Federal land? That's outrageous. Rob Bishop has a bill to deal with
that, and so do I. Rob has really done great research on this, he has
really been the leader in the area of bringing this stuff out. We've
got to do something; that is outrageous. We need defense, and we need
to give a 25-mile, at least, area to the border patrol to patrol and
just say that's not going to be national park wilderness area because
our border means too much. We've got people wanting to come in here and
destroy our way of life.
But I see my time is running shorter now. There were a lot of things
I wanted to cover. But there are just so many people who do not
understand, Mr. Speaker, where we came from and why there needs to be a
firm foundation under this country. President Harry Truman--some may
recall he was a Democrat--he said this: ``The fundamental basis of this
Nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount.'' The fundamental basis
of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and
St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that
enough these days. If we don't have a proper fundamental moral
background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which
does not believe in rights for anybody except the State. Boy, was he
prophetic.
James Madison, given credit for writing the most in the Constitution,
he said this on November 20, 1825: ``The belief in a God all powerful,
wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to
the happiness of man that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn
from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the
different characters and capacities to be impressed with.''
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, ``The skeptics and the cynics of
Washington's day did not believe that ordinary men and women had the
capacity for freedom and self-government. They said that liberty and
equality were idle dreams that could not come true. You know, they are
like the people who carp at the Ten Commandments because some people
are in the habit of breaking one or more of them.'' A lot of truth
then.
Patrick Henry said this: ``Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is
impossible that a nation of infidels and idolaters should be a nation
of free men. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their
chains.''
So much, so much truth in our heritage. And I just want to conclude
with this, Thomas Jefferson's own words: ``God who gave us life gave us
liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we
have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the
people that these liberties are the gift of God, that they are not to
be violated but with his wrath. Indeed, I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just, and his justice cannot sleep forever.''
This government is not God, and the only protection from those who
think they might begin to be is the enforcement of the three branches
of government and their separate powers, and we've got to get back to
that to save this Nation.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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