[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 99 (Tuesday, June 29, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H4963-H4970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT CONTROL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Critz). 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. Mr. Speaker, it's a privilege to have the 
opportunity to address you here on the floor of the House, and a lot of 
subjects come up here. About every imaginable thing has been debated 
here on the floor. I've listened to a lot of the dialogue that's 
unfolded in the previous hour, and I appreciate my colleagues' 
presentation or discussion of especially the economic and the spending 
situation, the dire straits that America is in.
  And it seems ironic to me, Mr. Speaker, that about a year ago, in 
fact a little more than a year ago, I sat in the office in Berlin just 
outside Reichstag and had a conversation with the Chancellor of 
Germany, Angela Merkel, who made the argument to us that the United 
States is spending too much money, that the financial crisis--this, I 
believe, was actually February or March of 2009, and she made the 
argument that the solution for our economic crisis was not the Federal 
Government spending more money, Mr. Speaker, but it was about some 
targeted tax cuts that they had provided for their socialized economy.

[[Page H4964]]

  European socialized economy, government-managed business, public-
private partnerships, that's been some of the problems as to why they 
haven't had the economic vitality that we've had in the United States, 
and still as this financial situation unfolded, brought to the American 
people's attention about September 19, 2008, before the Presidential 
election I might add, and these discussions were taking place in 
February and then again in May of 2009 with representatives of the 
European Union and the leadership over Western Europe, whom I've often 
been critical of because they didn't let free enterprise flourish, had 
too many government regulations, had too many taxes, and because of 
that their economy was bogged down. Entrepreneurs weren't allowed to 
have the prosperity that they would have in the United States. Our 
economy grew, their economy stagnated, and that's what we've seen 
unfold over the last generation or so in the economic comparison 
between Europe and the United States.
  But I found myself in the improbable position of listening to the 
leadership of the European Union and Western Europe lecture Americans 
that we should spend less money, not more money. Their plan, I believe, 
was $480 billion altogether, $400 billion in loans and $80 billion in 
targeted spending. And the advice was America needs to hold down the 
spending and we need to adopt a more fiscally responsible budget, spend 
less money, provide less debt, and not this pass on to the next 
generations.
  Well, that was a year and several months ago when this began, Mr. 
Speaker, and during the last couple of weeks, we've heard that lecture 
again from the same person, Angela Merkel of Germany. I'm glad she's 
making this case. It ought to hit home to our President of the United 
States. It ought to hit all of us here in this country that we in 
America, this Congress, over my vociferous objections and that of many 
of my colleagues voted ``no'' on a $700 billion TARP fund and voted 
``no'' on a $787 billion economic stimulus plan, and in the middle of 
that, while it was framed, we watched the government takeover of the 
three large investment banks and AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 
General Motors and Chrysler and the student loan program. We watched 
the nationalization of our skin and everything inside it in the form of 
ObamaCare, and the government has now subsequently, within that list 
that I've just identified, swallowed up over 50 percent of the former 
private sector activity of our economy and more to come.
  Financial services, reaching out to tap in and regulate every credit 
transaction in America and setting up boards and a whole new regulatory 
shield, another layer of regulation for our financial institutions, for 
our large banks, and to a lesser degree, for our independent banks and 
smaller banks, but not for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac where a lot of 
this problem came from, where the taxpayers of the United States now 
assumed a $7.5 trillion contingent liability if Fannie and Freddie 
should go under. We've dumped billions into them, $40 billion to $50 
billion comes to mind perhaps for each. And if they should become 
insolvent, the American taxpayers have to keep dumping money into 
Fannie and Freddie to prop them up because they're part of the takeover 
where they used to be private. At one time, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 
were private. Then they were quasi-government. Now, they're completely 
under the ownership, management, or control of the Federal Government.
  All of this has taken place in the last year and half or a little 
more. We watched it happen. I've argued against it every step of the 
way, so have some of my colleagues, and quite a number of my good, 
reliable colleagues have come to the floor, Mr. Speaker, and made this 
case, made it over and over and over again.
  But this situation that Europe has where they have loaned money to 
each other, the economy of Greece has gone down and been propped up by 
the European Union, and the economy of Spain has the highest 
unemployment--I think Greece might have eclipsed them, but for a long 
time Spain had the highest unemployment in the industrialized world. 
Their economy is wobbling. Ireland's economy is wobbling, and the 
European Union countries have loaned money to each other. It's almost 
like being in a poker game.
  And let's just say that, because of all the overhead that's taken out 
by government, all the regulations taken out by government, if you all 
sit down in a poker game and the house takes, let's say, 45 percent of 
every pot, sooner or later the people sitting around the table that are 
trying to exchange those dollars are exchanging IOUs instead because 
the house has taken the money.

                              {time}  1900

  Government has swallowed up too much of the proceeds of the private 
sector, and then they have loaned money to each other, and the United 
States is borrowing money from around the world. In fact, the amount of 
money that is borrowed from the Chinese is now approaching $1 trillion. 
And, yes, Americans have invested into American debt. But this debt is 
too hard a burden for us to carry.
  I put a polling question up on my Web site. The news is full every 
day of the environmental calamity in the gulf and it goes on every day, 
and it is sad, and it is tragic, and I think we should turn all our 
efforts to shutting off the leak and cleaning up the mess, Mr. Speaker. 
But I asked in the polling question, what is the greatest threat to 
America, the gulf oil leak or the debt and deficit that this country is 
carrying? And about 80 percent of the respondents in the poll will say 
the debt and deficit is a greater threat to America than the gulf oil 
leak.
  That gives me encouragement. That tells me the American people are on 
target here; that they understand the priorities and they understand 
the long-term implications of the debt and the deficit that we are 
carrying now in this economy.
  But, Mr. Speaker, those are some of the issues that pick up on the 
previous speakers within the previous hour, and some concerns come to 
mind also aside from the economics. And perhaps I will come back to the 
economic side of this, but I think we need to talk about the rule of 
law for a little while here tonight.
  I often come here to this floor and talk about the pillars of 
American exceptionalism, those essential components that have made 
America great. And I have listed them: Freedom of speech, religion, 
assembly, the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition 
the government for redress of grievances, the right to keep and bear 
arms, which thankfully just this week the Supreme Court has reinforced.
  First the Heller case established that it is an individual right to 
keep and bear arms, and in the case that was settled just this week, I 
think just yesterday is when the news came out, is that the Second 
Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, affects not just the reach 
of the Federal Government to diminish the gun ownership rights of its 
citizens, but also the Second Amendment is guaranteed to protect the 
citizen's right to keep and bear arms from the reach of any political 
subdivision in America, whether it be States, municipalities, counties, 
whatever the political subdivisions are.
  So the Second Amendment has been established and strengthened twice 
within this last half a decade or so, first the Heller case and now the 
case that came out this week. The Second Amendment is another pillar of 
American exceptionalism, because we know an armed population can defend 
itself against tyranny.
  So the pillars of American exceptionalism being freedom of speech, 
religion, and the press; the right to peaceably assemble and petition 
the government for redress of grievances; the right to keep and bear 
arms shall not be infringed, and we will go right on up the line within 
the Bill of Rights. Some of them, including the rights to property, 
which have been subverted by the Kelo decision, and I hope one day that 
decision is overturned by a Supreme Court that is more prudent and the 
past Supreme Court that made that decision; the protection against 
double jeopardy and the right to be tried by a jury of our peers--the 
list goes on. But most of those pillars of American exceptionalism are 
within the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
  There are a couple of other components that are part of American 
exceptionalism that are not defined in the Bill of Rights or the 
Constitution, and that is something where one of

[[Page H4965]]

them, one of them, Mr. Speaker, is enshrined in the flashcards that are 
produced by USCIS, the United States Citizenship Immigration Services. 
These flashcards rights are little training cards, like you would 
imagine or see in a classroom that you can learn off of. The flashcard 
that says 2 plus 2, you snap it over and it says 4; 4 plus 4 is 8; and 
the list goes on.
  But the flashcards for learning to become a naturalized American 
citizen ask simple questions, questions that you would need to know the 
answer to if you were going to be a naturalized American citizen. And 
it would start with, who is the Father of our country? And you flip the 
card over, George Washington. Who emancipated the slaves? Abraham 
Lincoln.
  Question Number 11, I believe, is, what is the economic system of the 
United States? Flip that card over, and on the other side it says free 
enterprise capitalism, Mr. Speaker. The economic system of the United 
States. That is a pillar of American exceptionalism.
  If we didn't have free enterprise capitalism, we would not be a great 
nation. Our economy could not have competed with that of the rest of 
the world. We could not have built the industrial giant that supported 
our people and our troops and the military around the world to win 
World War II. We would not have emerged as victors in World War II 
without free enterprise being a driving force that let the industry in 
America fulfill and supply the demand that we had for 16 million mostly 
men and also women in uniform in World War II.
  We went all over the world with our economy, with our people. We 
brought American products everywhere in the world. There was a chance 
for profit. Our factories were running at a fever pitch day and night. 
We were building bombers and tanks and ships and parachutes, and we 
were providing supplies for a lot of the rest of the world whose 
industry had been destroyed. And at the end of World War II, we were 
the only industrialized country in the world that had an intact 
industry.
  And the dollar was golden. The greenback was strong. It was a silver 
certificate at the time. And we saw American culture, American values, 
and American products spread all throughout the world. We provided a 
large share of the world's manufacturing and industry, and a lot of 
that was driven because we maintained intact that pillar of American 
exceptionalism called free enterprise capitalism, that freedom to 
produce and earn, and, yes, get wealthy, if you can figure out how to 
do it, keep some of what you earn, keep a lot of what you earn.

  And, by the way, the unemployment rate at the end of World War II in 
this country was 1.2 percent. And when people argue that we have been 
at historically low unemployment levels and argue that 4.6 percent is 
that, or that that is a normal unemployment level, I point them back to 
the lowest level that we have seen in history, 1.2 percent at the end 
of World War II. And then the number went up when a lot of our soldiers 
came home.
  But free enterprise capitalism is what has driven the industrialized 
might of the United States. It has driven our military. It has taken 
our culture around the world. The desire to trade and market and profit 
from it has taken the American culture everywhere in the world. Free 
enterprise capitalism is an exceptional pillar of American 
exceptionalism.
  And another one of those pillars of American exceptionalism is a 
legitimate, legal immigration system. The Constitution requires that 
Congress establish a uniform immigration system, so Congress is to do 
that. And I would say we have done that. It is uniform. It is 
consistent with the Constitution. We have an Immigration Reform Act 
that was passed here in this Congress in 1996 and signed into law. We 
need to have an executive branch that will follow the law.
  But the beauty of America's immigration system has been that, up 
until the last generation or so, maybe the last generation-and-a-half, 
Mr. Speaker, it has been difficult to come to the United States of 
America. And the legal system that we had actually screened people out, 
those who came into Ellis Island, the millions that came into Ellis 
Island. And I can think of one day that set the record: 11,757 came 
through the great hall at Ellis Island on, I think I can remember the 
year and the date, April 15, 1907. A massive number, just like 11,757 
people through there. But day by day by day they came through.
  About 2 percent of those who had actually been screened before they 
got on the ship to come to the United States, to immigrate into the 
United States, even though they were screened, they were screened for 
good health, for sanity, so-to-speak, they were screened so they had an 
ability to take care of themselves, they arrived here in the United 
States of America.
  America a century ago was a meritocracy. We didn't have a welfare 
system that had at this point evolved into a welfare state. It was a 
meritocracy. We wanted people that were physically healthy, mentally 
healthy, able to come here and get a job and go to work or start a 
business and sustain themselves and provide for themselves.

                              {time}  1910

  They were screened by conditions that we had then before they got on 
the ship, generally in Europe at that time, and they were screened 
again when they arrived at Ellis Island. They were checked physically. 
Sometimes, yes, they were rushed through. But even though they were 
screened before they came, about 2 percent were sent back to their home 
country because they didn't meet the standards here in America.
  But almost all of them who came to the United States, almost all of 
them aspired to the American Dream. And many of them may have believed 
that the streets were paved in gold and gotten here and were 
disappointed to find out they were actually paved in dirt, dust, mud, 
sometimes cobblestones, sometimes horse manure. It wasn't quite the 
beautiful place that was advertised on the brochures in Europe, but 
they came. And some of them went back voluntarily because they didn't 
find the promise that they thought they had.
  But all of them had a dream--almost all of them had a dream. And they 
shared the American Dream. And when they came here, they brought with 
them the dreamer's vitality, the dreamer's energy, the dreamer's stick-
to-it-ive-ness, and the conviction that they could start up a life for 
themselves, make a life for themselves, and leave this world a better 
place for their children than it was for them. It's always been an 
embodiment and a component of the American Dream.
  So the legal immigration that came to America did this, Mr. Speaker. 
And this is the verbal definition of one of the pillars of American 
exceptionalism--legal immigration skimmed the cream of the crop off of 
every donor civilization that sent people to the United States. When 
that happened, we got their vigor, we got their dreams, we got some of 
their capital, we got all of their work, and we've got their 
descendents that grew up here in America with that same dream.
  And even though it might have been first generation immigrants that 
might have lived in a shantytown and worked in a boiler factory 
somewhere, they worked to make life better and they pushed their 
children to get an education and they taught them that America has 
embraced us and we have our freedom, we have our liberty here. And you 
need to defend our country and go out and make sure that you're going 
to grow up in a better opportunity than the first generation had, and 
make sure the third generation has more opportunities than the second 
and the fourth generation more opportunities than the third. And so on 
and so on.
  And so it has been. It's been true with family after family, 
generation after generation. And it's embodied in a way in my family 
where I have a grandmother that came from Germany. She raised six sons 
and a daughter. Of those six sons, five of them put on the uniform to 
defend our country. Some of them went back to Germany in the Second 
World War. One was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. My father went 
to the South Pacific. They didn't hesitate. They didn't hesitate to go 
take on the country that their mother had come from. They knew and they 
believed that they owed this country a debt of gratitude, and they 
demonstrated it. And that's part of the greatness of America, too.

[[Page H4966]]

  But that pillar of American exceptionalism, that vitality of the 
Americans that come here infused with the generational tradition of 
that vitality, and the multiple generations, has been a significant 
part of American exceptionalism. And I look at the roots of these 
causes for American exceptionalism, and I often take this back to the 
Age of Reason in Greece and Roman law and how the knowledge base that 
was established by rational thought in the Age of Reason in Greece and 
the Roman law found its way through the Dark Ages and emerged in the 
Age of Enlightenment, the English-speaking component of the Age of 
Enlightenment, to be specific, Mr. Speaker.
  As those qualities arrived here in the New World, in America, at the 
dawn of the Industrial Revolution and a continent that had at that time 
conceived only unlimited natural resources, low taxation, no 
regulation, a concept of manifest destiny, of having been the 
beneficiary of the Age of Enlightenment at the dawn of the Industrial 
Revolution and had the foundation of our Judeo-Christian values arrived 
here with those immigrants--most of them; that foundation of value 
system that comes from the birth of Christ and the redemption that 
comes with Christ and 1,500 years later also the Protestant reformation 
and Martin Luther that taught the Protestant work ethic that was picked 
up by the Catholics. And the Catholics did pretty good with the 
Protestant work ethic, is my point, Mr. Speaker.
  So we've seen this vitality in this giant petri dish of America every 
component that we can imagine that has been positive has been here in 
this country, put here by providence--the natural resources, the 
understanding of the Adam Smithian component of economic theory, the 
supply and demand invisible hand component of economic theory, the Age 
of Reason from Greece and the Roman law that found their way through 
the Dark Ages and emerged as the Age of Enlightenment, all here in the 
United States of America. It was unlimited natural resources that go 
along with it.

  Those components, driven by the vitality of the immigrants that have 
come here, have been essential to this Nation rising through the 
challenges of the ages and facing off against the world when we didn't 
see ourselves as a world power. We didn't see ourselves as a world 
power when we found ourselves in the Spanish-American War. And so we 
have the legacy of that that exists today. Puerto Rico is one of those 
components. The Philippines is another. That goes around the world 
pretty well.
  We didn't view ourselves as a global power, but we had a global reach 
after having had the Maine sunk in Havana Harbor. America had a global 
reach. Even though we didn't, again, see ourselves as a global power, 
we got in at the tail end of World War I and made a difference and 
changed the balance. And now we were a player in the world that needed 
to be contended with. It's not to go out and find a war to do that. 
They came to us because we had to defend the liberty and the freedom in 
the world and align ourselves with people that believed in the same 
values.
  And a generation after World War I, along came World War II. Now, 
that was a cataclysmic conflict where tens of millions died, and 
America emerged as the world power and the dominant force in the world 
until such time as the Cold War began. And even then, 45 years of the 
Cold War, a Cold War that started I think we can see it with the Berlin 
Airlift, which the anniversary of it just began a few days ago, but the 
United States stood strong and we faced off against the Cold War and 
the Soviet Union, and there was a game going on, a very high-stakes, 
life-or-death game; even a life-or-death for the planet game going on.
  And at the end of it, in about 1984, Jean Kirkpatrick, as Ambassador 
to the United Nations appointed under Reagan, had stepped down from 
that post, and she said as she stepped down--and this will be a 
paraphrase of her quote, Mr. Speaker. She said, What's going on between 
the United States and the Soviet Union--speaking of the Cold War--is 
chess and Monopoly on the same board. And the only question is: Will 
the United States of America bankrupt the Soviet Union economically 
before they checkmate us militarily?
  That race was going on and the Soviet Union was seeking to build more 
and more missiles to try and gain an advantage that would cause us to 
have to concede to them or capitulate on foreign policy, at least, at a 
minimum; but Ronald Reagan came in and pushed the resurgence of our 
national defense, built the missiles back up again, and in the process 
of doing so, November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.
  That's the power of an economy and the power of an ideology over a 
managed economy, a communist economy, a central command economy. That's 
the power of it all, Mr. Speaker. This country has been a powerfully 
strong superpower in the world and the only unchallenged superpower in 
the world in the aftermath of the Wall coming down on November 9, 1989, 
and subsequently the implosion of the Soviet Union. It took it about 
another year and a half to finally get itself wound down.
  But we are standing here as the unchallenged superpower in the world 
in significant and essential part because we have a free enterprise 
economy. Well, we had a free enterprise economy, and now we are getting 
a managed economy that's someplace over there. It looks like it's to 
the left of Europe.
  They're lecturing us, Don't spend too much money. They didn't argue 
we shouldn't do so much nationalization. They're guilty of that, too. 
But there have been a lot more dollars' worth of private sector economy 
nationalized by this President than by Hugo Chavez. And that's not a 
stretch, Mr. Speaker. It's simply a fact that as Hugo Chavez is blown 
away by tens of millions, hundreds of billions of dollars.
  And how do we get this economy back? I'll submit that it isn't going 
to happen under this President. President Obama is not going to let go 
of companies that have been taken over by this Federal Government. I 
asked the question of the Secretary of the Treasury, under oath, and 
actually I presented it in a written form because we ran out of time in 
the hearing. The question is, President Obama was elected at least in 
part because of his challenge to President Bush for President Bush 
allegedly not having an exit strategy in Iraq.

                              {time}  1920

  We've all heard that. That rhetoric is old and we've forgotten about 
it, but it's back there, and the Record is full of it, Mr. Speaker.
  So my question to the Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, was: 
If the President has been elected in part for his criticism of 
President Bush for not having an exit strategy in Iraq, what is the 
exit policy for the Obama administration to divest themselves from the 
takeover of the banks, insurance companies, Fannie and Freddie, the car 
companies that I have listed here earlier in this dialogue, Mr. 
Speaker. What is their strategy for divesting themselves and giving the 
private sector back to the private sector? The answer that I received--
and granted, they're buried, and they're probably short staffed. They 
took a couple of months. I will give the Secretary of the Treasury 
credit. At least he answered my letter. Often I don't get letters from 
the other Cabinet members that we have. And the answer essentially was 
this--a couple of months to get the letter back, a seven-page letter, 
and it boils down to: He would know when the time was right to divest 
the Federal Government from the ownership, management or control of 
these entities that have been nationalized. He would know when the time 
was right. There is no written criteria, and he could make the decision 
then at the right time. In other words, it's really not your business. 
I'm not going to write down a formula. We may or may not have an intent 
to divest the Federal Government from the banks and AIG and Fannie and 
Freddie. They don't intend to let go of Fannie and Freddie. Fannie and 
Freddie have an implicit guarantee--actually, it's now a specific 
guarantee. The taxpayers will bail them out. They are not covered in 
this financial regulatory reform bill, the Barney Frank/Chris Dodd bill 
that's designed to solve our economic woes.
  I have looked down through some of these things that are not very 
well known about what's in the financial regulatory reform bill. Out of 
the House, we know it as H.R. 4173. We

[[Page H4967]]

know that there is a conference report. They found out that even though 
the best judgment of the conference committee produced a result, the 
votes aren't there. So they're going back to change the conference 
report and see if they can find the votes to get it passed. I am 
troubled a little by the procedure, Mr. Speaker.
  But here are some things that are in it, and they're not likely to 
come out. I want to speak to the issue of the focus on special 
provisions for women and minorities that are in the bill. Now I point 
out, Mr. Speaker, that I've dealt with this for a long time, with set-
asides and had to compete against provisions that are written into 
Federal contracts as set-asides. I have spent a lot of my life as a 
contractor doing site development work of all kinds, earthmoving, pipe, 
concrete work, underground work, demolition work. We would do some 
seeding, some fencing, those kinds of things, and some concrete work.
  I bid a lot of contracts in my professional life, and I can think of 
one in particular that I will use as an example. The Federal Government 
has set aside special components. Sometimes a contract is set aside for 
women or minorities, and no one else can bid it. Now, I had a small 
company, and I had to start from scratch. I didn't have any capital to 
begin with. I actually had a negative net worth of $5,000. I convinced 
a banker to loan me enough money to buy me an old beaten-up bulldozer, 
and then I started to work. So I had to build capital with sweat equity 
and moxie and anything else that could be done that was legal and moral 
and ethical. I tried to outwork my competition and outsmart my 
competition and slowly build up an operation where I got a second 
machine, a little capital, another machine, hire another man, buy 
another machine, hire another man, and get some capital underneath me 
to get to the point where I could bond these projects. And there are a 
lot of sad stories along the way. It's a very difficult thing to build 
the capital to be able to bid some of these projects.
  But all the way along the way, I knew that I was disadvantaged. Big 
money had a big advantage over on me. The people that were wired in and 
entrenched, they had a significant advantage over me. I was trying to 
crack into that without the capital, was short on equipment, short on 
manpower, strong on ambition, willing to work and work longer and 
harder hours than anybody else would. But the deck was stacked against 
me. That's why there aren't a lot of people in the business, because 
the system and the structure is set in such a way with capital 
requirements, it's capital intensive with equipment and meeting the 
regulations for employees, et cetera. So I know how hard that is.
  But I would need a project that fit our equipment. It needed to be 
smaller projects. When it got into the millions of dollars, we didn't 
have the ability to bond that, especially in the beginning. And so I 
needed those projects that were down there--$100,000 
project, $3,200,000 project, maybe a $300,000 project. And so I would 
look for the bid notifications to pick up those projects that fit the 
things that we could do, that were small enough that we could bid the 
project. And quite often, I would draw a set of plans and there would 
be a provision on there that would say ``minority set-aside.'' I 
couldn't bid the projects because it's a project set aside for a 
minority or maybe a woman-owned business or sometimes either/or. And I 
have gotten a little sensitive to this.

  I recall a larger project. When I got to the point where I could bond 
the larger projects--and this is a lifetime of work to get to that 
point, by the way. And I drew a set of plans for a sewer lagoon project 
in a city, and I remember right where it is and a lot of the details of 
the specs. But I was familiar with the engineering firm, familiar with 
the specifications, so I sat down to put the project together. I spent 
4 days getting quotes from suppliers and subcontractors, calculating 
the volume and the quantities that are there, putting the bid together 
as best I knew, looking at the project and negotiating to make sure 
that I drew all the best bids that I could from subcontractors, all the 
best bids that I could from suppliers. And when I put that together, a 
man has an honorable responsibility to honor the low bid. I'm bidding 
for a low bid. The people who bid to me as subcontractors and 
suppliers, I want their best bid. I want their low bid, and I will 
honor it, and I will keep it confidential until such time as the bids 
are opened. That's the standard that needs to exist in the industry.
  So I spent 4 days doing that. I got my numbers all together. And 
right before it was time to submit my bid, I gave one last read through 
the specifications, and in there, it said that there was a percentage 
of set-asides for minority contractors. I looked--and I think I could 
guess at the percentage, but I probably better not guess. It is not a 
large percentage. I will say under 20. But to find a minority 
contractor that would do a small part of that project--even if I handed 
it to him--was an impossibility. I went to the list of contractors. I 
worked the phones. I called other people that I knew, suppliers and 
contractors, and said, Where is somebody out here that can do the 
seeding or the fencing or the riprap work or take on any component of 
this job, any part of it? Is there somebody that can, somebody that 
will? The answer was no. There was nobody that could be found. And I 
had to take that 4 days' work and just toss it in the trash and forget 
it because it was set aside for minority contractors, the component of 
it was that I couldn't meet.
  Now, if somebody was a large construction company and they had an 
especially established minority contractor that they used to plug in to 
those circumstances, they had a bidding advantage, and those types of 
situations got set up. They got set up in part because the government 
created a false demand, and we couldn't find people that would do the 
job, and so there were sometimes contractors set up that didn't have a 
desire or a knowledge. They were just a straw man that was used to meet 
regulations.

                              {time}  1930



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  I recall a project that was about $5 million in asphalt paving. There 
was a minority set-aside on the project for a percentage of the project 
that came to a number, I'm going to guess that number was around 
$250,000 to $300,000 of that needed to be set aside for a minority 
contractor. They got bids from a couple of minority contractors who 
know they can inflate their prices because they're only competing 
against each other. And at the end, the prime contractors, the asphalt 
pavers, had to take the one minority contractor and add $100,000 to his 
price because they didn't have enough dollars to meet their requirement 
that was set up by the Federal Government.
  So think of what it would be like if you came in and did bridge 
railings or bridge approaches for large paving projects and you were a 
minority contractor and you could write your own ticket, and your 
conscience wouldn't let you write that ticket any higher. You'd priced 
that out.
  And then to have them say, well, I'm going to take your bid for 
$250,000 to do the bridge railings and the approach here, even though 
it's half again more, maybe twice as high as the going rate would be if 
it were bid competitively amongst the other folks in the business. And 
I'm going to take your price.
  And they wouldn't even tell the minority contractor, they would just 
put the bid in. They'd add the dollars they needed to it. If they got 
the job they'd have to go to the minority contractor and say, we added 
another $100,000 to your price because we needed to have the percentage 
that's required by the Federal Government. An extra $100,000 above the 
asking price.
  These are projects that I've worked with that I know, having been 
involved in them as another bidder on these projects.
  So, imagine getting 10 jobs a year like that and being handed a 
million dollars extra more than you asked for because there's a set-
aside. Now, whatever that does to destroy the work ethic and the 
professionalism of the minority contractor, it is a cheat on the 
American taxpayer, and it's got to end.
  And yet, I lay all this backdrop on here because, Mr. Speaker, I've 
got the sheet on what happens with the Barney Frank-Chris Dodd bill. It 
establishes an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. They will be an 
agency responsible for diversity in management, employment, and 
business activities.

[[Page H4968]]

  Now, I think we ought to have equal opportunity. I've stood up and 
defended equal opportunity, and my voting record in this Congress is 
more consistent with equal opportunity than anyone I know, certainly 
anybody on that side of the aisle because they vote for preferences. 
These preferences, Ward Connerly and I agree, Proposition 209 in 
California, I have sought to establish that as part of the law of the 
land in the state of Iowa, where I believe that the State shall not 
discriminate against nor grant preferential treatment to any individual 
or group on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, or national 
origin. I believe that would be very close to a verbatim quote of title 
VII of the Civil Rights Act and Proposition 209 in California. The 
result of that, Ward Connerly's great work in California, in 1995, when 
they passed Proposition 209 they had quotas. They had set-asides. There 
was an Asian quota at the University of California Berkley. They wanted 
to make sure 12 percent of the students were Asian.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, 5 years later, after the constitutional amendment 
in California lifted and ended the preferences, the student body at the 
University of the California Berkley was 46 percent Asian, not 12 
percent. I think that's a good thing, Mr. Speaker. I think it shows how 
merit rewards people. And maybe it started out in the beginning that 
there would be a 12 percent quota, a racial set-aside for Asian 
minorities at the University of California Berkley or any place else 
out there in California for that matter. But it got turned on its head 
by the ambition of the people. And when the cap came off and the 
Constitution protected the merits of the individuals so that no one 
would be discriminated for or against, shall not discriminate against 
or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis 
of race, creed, color, ethnicity, or national origin. That is a 
beautiful statement. It's legally sound. It's rationally sound. It's 
morally sound. And it's consistent with America because it rewards 
merit. And it says, you will have an equal opportunity with everyone in 
this country, and no one shall discriminate against you, and no one 
shall discriminate in your favor either. Equal opportunity. Compete in 
the marketplace.
  Well, this Barney Frank-Chris Dodd financial regulatory reform bill 
does anything but that, Mr. Speaker. It provides this Office of 
Minority and Women Inclusion.
  If anybody's wondering what the effect is, when you pass legislation 
that says, this legislation shall be set aside, these assets of America 
shall be set aside, these taxpayers dollars that are borrowed from the 
labor of our grandchildren shall be set aside for women and minorities, 
do you know what that says, Mr. Speaker?

  In a rational world, the Greeks would have understood this. They 
would have probably written it in Greek, but it would have said anybody 
but white men. That's what the definition of women and minority set-
asides are. They're set aside for anybody but white men. Now, nobody 
wants to say that out loud, but this legislation is replete with this 
language. Women and minorities, women and minorities, equal employment 
opportunity, and the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the 
workforce and senior management. The gender diversity of workforce. The 
racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the workforce.
  Now, they know they can't do this by law. They know that the Supreme 
Court has ruled that it has to be, in the case of the two cases of 
Michigan, it can't be a formula. It can't be a quota set-aside formula. 
It has to be an individual evaluation if they're going to be able to 
allow for a bias in favor of a particular minority that they might 
define. And even though her last dissenting opinion I agreed with 
strongly, Justice O'Connor's, and that was the Kelo decision--I found 
myself on exactly the same page with Sandra Day O'Connor, I completely 
disagreed with the concept that she wrote in the majority opinion in 
the Michigan case, or cases, but the one that I'm thinking of is when 
she wrote that we could perhaps go back and revisit the equal 
protection clause of the Constitution in 25 years, and maybe our 
society would have matured to the point where we wouldn't need to have 
a built-in, let's say a built-in diversity quotient.
  Well, you don't correct an injustice with another injustice, Mr. 
Speaker. Two wrongs don't make a right, to put it in simple mother-to-
son language or mother-to-daughter, father-to-daughter language. Two 
wrongs don't make a right. You don't correct an injustice with another 
injustice.
  But equal opportunity, Martin Luther King's dream, that's consistent, 
logically, morally, legally. And this bill that is now back in 
conference to be reshaped to try to get the votes to get it to pass, 
violates many of those rational principles that I think are the purest 
principles of America; equal opportunity under the law.
  This bill provides for and requires increased participation of 
minority-owned and women-owned businesses and programs, and in 
contracts of the agency. Increased from what I don't know, but it has 
to be increased. And it requires that they develop standards to 
maximize standards and procedures to ensure--this is interesting 
language--to the maximum extent possible the utilization of minorities, 
women, and minority-owned and women-owned businesses, and all 
businesses and activities at all agency levels. It requires each agency 
to take affirmative steps to seek diversity. Okay. I'm actually pretty 
good with that. I think that message should go out there. I think there 
should be ample opportunity for all people to apply for contracts and 
jobs. That part is all right. They want to partner with the inner city 
which is, of course, a code word. And as I look down through this, it 
reads and drips through with politically correct language. It says at 
the conclusion here, it says section 113, the regulation of certain 
nonbank financial companies.
  And again, Mr. Speaker, this is the Barney Frank-Chris Dodd bill. 
Those two fellows that have put this together, they didn't find a way 
to put any regulation on Fannie and Freddie. But their bill, under the 
section 113 regulation of certain nonbank financial companies, it says, 
the council, the regulating council, should consider, and I'll quote: 
``The importance of the company as a source of credit for low-income, 
minority, or underserved communities and the impact that the failure of 
such company would have on the availability of credit in such 
communities.'' And that means, when determining whether a U.S. nonbank 
financial company shall be supervised by the board of governors and 
subject to prudential standards.
  In other words, this importance of the company as a source of credit 
for low-income minority and underserved communities, and the impact for 
the failure of such company, it means the government's going to look 
differently at these companies if they are serving a minority 
community, which means their capital requirements are likely to be 
less. Their regulatory requirements are likely to be less. They will 
give special consideration; it will not be a balanced, even hand of 
government. That's essentially guaranteed with the language in this 
legislation.
  This justice is not color blind. This lady justice is not color 
blind. And it's written into the law to give preference.
  And so, what it means is, when I read the language, U.S. nonbank 
financial companies shall be--let's see--when these conditions, when 
determining whether a U.S. nonbank financial company shall be 
supervised by the board of governors and subject to prudential 
standards. We also know this legislation allows for the Federal 
Government to determine which financial institutions go into 
receivership, the standards by which they may set the conditions of 
that receivership, they can determine the successor owner.

                              {time}  1940

  So if a financial institution should be shaky or deemed shaky, then 
the Secretary of the Treasury, with the assent of the FDIC and the Fed, 
can close down an institution, they can turn it and sell it, they can 
take it over themselves and run it and operate it as a federally 
operated institution simply by determining that.
  Maybe it's not too big to fail, though they may make that 
determination, too; but it might be an agency, a company that is 
essential to the low-income communities, low-income minority or 
underserved communities. That gives them the latitude to treat it 
differently than any other financial institution.

[[Page H4969]]

  When government gets involved, huge money gets lost. And when 
liberals get involved and progressives get involved, huge principles of 
liberty and freedom are sacrificed away to try to reach some kind of a 
formula of what they think that America should be like.
  Martin Luther King never asked for this. I have read almost every one 
of his speeches, and many of his writings. I heard all of it. I can 
think of nothing in his writings or his speeches that I disagree with. 
He stuck to American principles. But this Congress under Pelosi 
leadership, this President has not stuck to American principles. They 
have gone all the other way to driving America off the abyss, into a 
managed socialist economy, and trying to write formulas in here where 
they pick winners and losers, and giving the Federal Government the 
authority to shut down or subsidize or set the price on financial 
institutions. All of this is anathema to America and the American 
Dream.
  We can't have this vitality of this country if we are going to have 
the Federal Government controlling the movement of our lives in this 
fashion, writing prescriptions for equality of results, and granting 
bureaucrats and actually charging bureaucrats with an obligation to 
produce equality of results as opposed to equality of opportunity.
  You know, it's the outreach part I don't necessarily object to. Go 
ahead and do the outreach. Let the people know in the majority minority 
colleges that there is jobs and opportunities out there. Take it out 
there where they can hear it and understand those opportunities. But 
don't hold it away from the other institutions either. But this 
President has driven an agenda that pits Americans against Americans.
  And I think, Mr. Speaker, that given the time that I have left I 
would transition into this. It's a case that I have raised over and 
over again. It's one I am committed to continue raising, and that is 
apparently the White House has given an order of more than a year ago 
to the Justice Department to cancel the prosecution in the most open-
and-shut case of voter intimidation in the history of America. I have 
spoken about this before on the floor; I have spoken about it within 
the media. I have tracked this case, and I know a little about it.
  The story I am looking at, though, is in yesterday's Washington 
Times. Monday, June 28, 2010, the Washington Times. The title of it is 
``Inside the Black Panther Case.'' The subtitle, ``Anger, Ignorance and 
Lies.'' This is an article written by J. Christian Adams. He writes 
about the New Black Panther case.
  Now, to lay the backdrop and the image for this, many of us have seen 
this on YouTube. In the elections of 2008 in Philadelphia at a polling 
location, the New Black Panthers were organized there, and allegedly in 
other places. These New Black Panthers are not like the old Black 
Panthers. These are, I think, more dangerous than the old Black 
Panthers. But they were there in paramilitary uniforms, including 
berets, standing in front of the polling place, with a billy club in 
their hand, smacking it in their hand, and intimidating voters that 
came in, calling people crackers and many other intimidating components 
of language.
  We've seen that video on YouTube. This is the most open-and-shut 
voter intimidation case in America, and I will say in the history of 
America because we didn't have a voter intimidation law until the Civil 
Rights Act was passed in 1965.
  So this article, written by Christian Adams, who has just resigned as 
an attorney, he is a lawyer based in Virginia, and he served as a 
voting rights attorney at the Justice Department until this month. And 
so we have J. Christian Adams wrote this article into the Washington 
Times. And, Mr. Speaker, I am going to seek to put it into the Record:
  ``On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black 
berets and the jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed 
at the entrance of a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a 
weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers. After the election, 
the Justice Department brought a voter intimidation case against the 
New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice 
attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default 
after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could 
be entered in May of 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the 
case.

  ``The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious 
violation of Federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because 
of the corrupt nature of the dismissals, statements falsely 
characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the 
career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the 
dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice 
attorney.''
  I continue the article by J. Christian Adams, former DOJ attorney: 
``The Federal voter intimidation statutes we used against the New Black 
Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial 
equality in elections. Threats of violence characterized elections from 
the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 
1965. Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote 
and those aiding them were victims of violence and intimidation. But 
unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not 
discriminate. Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of 
their cause. Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs, and in one case 
in Philadelphia, Mississippi, they were buried together in an earthen 
dam.''
  Temporarily close quote and point out the irony of the brutal tragedy 
in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and I have been there, Mr. Speaker, and 
the New Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, the City of Brotherly Love. Philadelphia, Mississippi, 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, City of Brotherly Love, billy clubs, 
calling people crackers, scaring them away from the polls.
  I will continue with the quote: ``Based on my firsthand experiences, 
I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a 
lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still 
within the Department share my assessment. The Department abetted 
wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New 
Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the 
Department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and 
the subsequent 2012 Presidential election. The U.S. Commission on Civil 
Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal of the DOJ's 
skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under 
subpoena to testify, but the Department ordered us to ignore the 
subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo.
  ``The Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Tom Perez, has 
testified repeatedly that the facts and law did not support this case. 
That claim is false. If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute 
voter intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of the 
actual outbreak of violence at the polls. Let's all hope this 
administration has not invited that outcome through the corrupt 
dismissal.
  ``Most corrupt of all, the lawyers who ordered the dismissal--Loretta 
King, the Obama-appointed acting head of the Civil Rights Division, and 
Steve Rosenbaum--did not even read the internal Justice Department 
memorandums supporting the case and investigation. Just as Attorney 
General Eric Holder, Jr., admitted that he did not read the Arizona 
immigration law before he condemned it, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he 
had not bothered to read the most important Department documents 
detailing the investigative facts and applicable law in the New Black 
Panther case. Christopher Coates, the former Voting Section chief, was 
so outraged at this dereliction of responsibility that he actually 
threw the memos at Mr. Rosenbaum in the meeting where they were 
discussing the dismissal of the case. The Department subsequently 
removed all of Mr. Coates' responsibilities and sent him to South 
Carolina.
  ``Mr. Perez also inaccurately testified to the House Judiciary 
Committee that

[[Page H4970]]

Federal rule number 11 required the dismissal of the lawsuit. Lawyers 
know that rule 11 is an ethical obligation to bring only meritorious 
claims, and such a charge by Mr. Perez effectively challenges the 
ethics and professionalism of the five attorneys who commenced the 
case.''

                              {time}  1950

  ``Yet the attorneys who brought the case were voting rights experts 
and would never pursue a frivolous matter. Their experience in election 
law far surpassed the experience of the officials who ordered the 
dismissal.
  ``Some have called the actions in Philadelphia an isolated incident, 
not worthy of Federal attention. To the contrary, the Black Panthers in 
October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had 
indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only 
in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they 
targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. In any event, the 
claw clearly prohibits any isolated incidents of voter intimidation.
  ``Others have falsely claimed that no voters were affected. Not only 
did the evidence rebut this claim, but the law does not require a 
successful effort to intimidate it; it punishes even the attempt,'' to 
intimidate.
  ``Most disturbing, the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness 
infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to 
learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice 
Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants 
on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a 
priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these 
types of cases.
  ``Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used 
against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and 
segregation. Less charitable individuals called it `payback time.' 
Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that 
no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case 
would be brought by the Voting Section.
  ``Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are 
protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending 
on their race. Core American principles of equality before the law and 
freedom from racial discrimination are at risk. Hopefully, equal 
enforcement of the law is still a point of bipartisan, if not 
universal, agreement. However, after my experience with the New Black 
Panther dismissal and the attitudes held by officials in the Civil 
Rights Division, I am beginning to fear the era of agreement over these 
core American principles has passed.''
  That's the end of the article written by J. Christian Adams, 
Department of Justice attorney with considerable experience, and this 
is a case that I've been intimately familiar with for over a year.
  Certainly, like many Americans, I've seen the video, and there's no 
excuse for canceling the most open-and-shut voter intimidation case in 
America, and since 1965, we've not had a case that we know of that's 
been this bad. I don't know what could possibly come forward that would 
render a case worthy of prosecution by the Holder Attorney General's 
office or by the President of the United States.
  We know that there is significant influence from the White House into 
the Justice Department. One of the ways and one of the reasons we know 
that is because Attorney General Holder testified before the Judiciary 
Committee, in the same hearing where he infamously admitted that he 
hadn't read Arizona's immigration law, he also conceded that the 
President had directed him to use the Justice Department to seek to 
invalidate Arizona's immigration law. Now, that's Presidential 
interference and influence, and for the Justice Department, and Eric 
Holder in particular, to testify that day that they're not a political 
operation, they're not influenced by politics, they're only influenced 
by the rule of law, I think this case that was in the Washington Times 
yesterday, expert and written by J. Christian Adams, belies that point.

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