[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 31 (Thursday, March 3, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H1558-H1563]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICAN POLICIES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are serious times in which we are
living. Supposedly there is a Chinese curse that says may you live in
interesting times. We certainly do.
I have really been shocked that the mainstream media has not done
more in the way of stories on the Americans, the four Americans, on a
boat that were hijacked and then killed. Of course it made some news on
February 22 when it happened, but it appears it didn't survive much of
a 24-hour cycle.
This was an act of war against America. This was an act of war
against four peace-loving people who apparently had the gall to travel
around and offer Bibles to different places and apparently were
spending American blood and treasure in places like Afghanistan and
Iraq, only to find out that they were persecuting Christians in a
manner that is reminiscent of why people came to Europe and tried to
create a country in which Christians could worship freely without being
persecuted, tortured, imprisoned, or killed simply for their religious
beliefs.
[[Page H1559]]
In this case, though, it was a matter of Barbary pirates. I know that
most people apparently in Washington have not learned enough from
history, but there are so many history lessons that make very clear
what Ronald Reagan used to say when he said no country ends up being
attacked because they are too strong.
{time} 1450
What Barbary pirates have seen and what people around the world have
seen, including those in Libya, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran, is that we
have been promoting weakness in the United States and promoting a very
weak vision of ourselves around the world.
This story from February 22 indicates that the pirates fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. Navy destroyer that was following
the hijacked yacht with four Americans on board. Then gunfire erupted,
and four Americans who had been taken hostage were fatally wounded.
They were killed.
I don't know what this administration needs to see in the way of
current events or why this administration will not learn from the
myriad of lessons from history that when you're dealing with pirates,
when you're dealing with religious fanatics--people who want to destroy
you and who could care nothing about your life, your pursuit of
happiness--you don't placate them; you don't try to negotiate with
them; you don't show that, gee, we don't know what to do--or what you
will get is more piracy, more terrorism.
There is only one way to respond, which is the way that the United
States did in its early days, in the early 1800s, with Thomas Jefferson
as President. Some don't go back that far and learn history. All they
want to do is look at a fictional approach to U.S. history that says,
in essence, gee, we're mean; we're colonialists; we have subjugated
people all around the world to our imperialist whims. Unfortunately,
despite all the hyperbole and the rhetoric, what we have done is expend
American blood and American treasure in the name of freedom, not just
American freedom but the freedom of Iraqis, the freedom of Muslims in
Eastern Europe, the freedom of people all across Europe--in France,
Germany, Belgium, Holland, Poland. All across, Americans have given
their lives in the name of freedom. All across the Pacific, they have
given their lives, their last full measure of devotion, for freedom.
With no racist view but absolutely, as Jesus said, ``Greater love has
no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.''
In the case of Americans, we've lain down lives for people we didn't
even know because the concept of freedom was so important.
In our earliest days, Washington, of course, was quite concerned
that, in having won the Revolution, we were still not strong enough to
survive. So often you'll see in a new government's trying to arise in a
country that it overcommits to other obligations with regard to
military, and they lose their young nation. Washington was afraid of
that. Through the 1790s, we had Barbary pirates. We had pirates off the
coast of North Africa who were capturing American ships and taking
American sailors hostage. They would either kill them or they would
torture them, but they would ransom them if they had not killed them.
At one point, I'd read that as much as 18 percent of the American
budget was being spent to pay ransom to get American sailors back.
At one point, Thomas Jefferson was the one who was sent over on
behalf of the United States to negotiate with these Muslims about why
they were attacking American ships. The discussion apparently included
the question:
Why would you attack American ships? We've not harmed you in any way.
We're no threat to you. We're not threatening you.
One history lesson indicates that Jefferson was told: Well, under our
religion, if we are killed while we are taking action against an
infidel, like Americans, then we go straight to paradise, and we're
rewarded.
Jefferson was shocked because, as a man who was so well-read, he
couldn't believe that any world religion would encourage the killing of
innocent people and that the killing of innocent people would gain you
a trip to paradise. So he got his own English copy of the Koran, which
is still over in the Library of Congress. He couldn't believe it. He
wanted to find out for himself.
American history students will know that we finally created the
United States Marines. Those who are not familiar with the history may
still be familiar with the Marines' Hymn that says, ``From the Halls of
Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli . . . '' Well, it was the shores of
Tripoli to which the marines were sent with the message:
We can't continue to pay ransom to bloodthirsty religious zealots,
and so we are at war with you until you stop.
It was only then when Americans showed strength that they could not
be pushed around, that they would not be taken hostage without a
response, and that there would be American blood and treasure spent in
the name of freedom to anyone who tries to threaten the freedom of
Americans on the high seas or on American soil.
Because the marines fought so valiantly and fiercely and fearlessly,
those pirates, the Muslim pirates, learned a valuable lesson of, gee,
maybe we ought to leave these people alone for a while--and they did
for a long time.
Yet in 1979, after the Carter administration had welcomed back the
Ayatollah Khomenei as a man of peace, as one who would bring great
peace to the region, the Carter administration had snubbed its nose and
abandoned a man who didn't seem to be a very nice man--the Shah of
Iran--and rather put all our eggs in one basket with this wonderful man
of peace, the Ayatollah Khomenei, who it turns out would also like to
see the United States destroyed, and viewed Americans as infidels as
well as the original Barbary pirates did.
I was in the Army at Fort Benning when the hostages were taken. No
one at Fort Benning that I knew of was dying to go to Iran, but most
everybody I knew at Fort Benning was willing to go and thought we
should go because an act of war had been committed against the United
States. Under everyone's interpretation of international law, when a
United States Embassy or a United States compound is attacked in any
nation, it is an attack on that nation's own soil. It is an act of war.
This is under everyone's interpretation of international law.
If you go back and if you review the television footage of the day--
and I'm relying on my memory of those days because we were certainly
paying attention--we didn't know who might be sent. It turns out none
of us were sent from Fort Benning because the Carter administration, as
eloquent as President Carter was and as peace-loving and as well-
meaning as he was, felt surely these people in Iran will see how much I
care. They'll see how much I really love them, and we'll negotiate.
They'll be impressed by our words. They'll be impressed by our
negotiations, and they'll let our people go.
But that's not the way those folks who view us as infidels and who
need to be killed work.
In fact, if you go back to your own experience--back to a
schoolyard--if a bully is picking on you or especially if a smaller
person is picking on a bigger person and you don't defend yourself but
instead say ``let me pay you money if you'll leave me alone,'' not only
does that smaller person not have respect for the bigger person, but
the smaller person will have nothing but hatred, and now you've added
contempt because he can't believe somebody is such a coward and so weak
when he appears to be so big and strong that he would pay someone who
hates him to leave him alone.
{time} 1500
So you get hatred, you get contempt, and you get more violence. And
that is what we've seen. We have continued to this day to pay the price
for the message that was sent in 1979 and 1980 for appearing to be so
weak and helpless in the face of Iranians--we were told initially
students--who committed an act of war and then gave our hostages to the
Iranian Government.
Now as I watched all this unfold, it appeared to me, as a young man
in the Army, that--you know, the Ayatollah's spokesman kept coming out
and talking about the students--the students attacked, the students
have the hostages. That seemed to me, as an inexperienced person in the
way of foreign policy but someone who had studied a great deal of world
history, that that
[[Page H1560]]
was their back door for Iran, that was their way of saying, look, we
don't know if the United States is going to be the powerful country
we're afraid they might be or if they're really the toothless tiger
that we saw tuck their tail between their legs and run out of Vietnam.
So let's just test. Let's talk about the students taking the hostages.
Let's talk about the students committing the atrocity of invading the
embassy. And if America steps up and says you either get our hostages
back from the students within 48 or 72 hours or we're coming in and
we're addressing this act of war against the United States of America
and we're getting our hostages back, and if you kill them, we will be
at war with anybody who condoned that action, and that would include
the Iranian Government that allowed this to happen and did not
intercede when they could have. That's what you have to do and that's
what we didn't do.
So it appeared, as it all unfolded, that after 2 or 3 days the
Ayatollah realized America is as weak as we hoped they were. This
President Carter, he thinks he's a man of peace, we see him as a man of
nothing but weakness, as the poorest leader the Americans could offer.
So they quit talking about the students have the hostages, the students
attacked the embassy, and they started talking about we have the
hostages because they gave us time to show whether or not we would
react with strength and they saw we reacted with weakness. You can't
negotiate with people like that. You instill more contempt on top of
the hatred.
And of course I filed, in all three Congresses I've been a part of--
and this Congress will be no different--my U.N. voting accountability
bill that basically says if you vote against the United States more
than half the time in the U.N. in any year, you will receive not one
dime of financial assistance from the U.S. in the subsequent year. Now
some say, gee, that seems so heartless. Well, the fact is we have been
paying money to prop up regimes like Mubarak's. Is it any wonder that
the report is he has billions of dollars in the bank when we've been
paying Egypt billions of dollars that doesn't appear to have really
gotten to the people and helped them? We're doing it all over the
world. We're paying tyrants who hate us and would like to see our way
of life destroyed with American treasure. It doesn't buy love, it
doesn't buy happiness, it buys contempt. And as I've said repeatedly,
you don't have to pay people to hate you, they'll do it for free.
In a time when the United States is struggling so with economic
issues of just staying afloat, why should we be paying tyrants that
hate us and paying people who have not helped their people? I mean, you
look at the money that we poured into the Palestinian group and see how
much of the money we paid in to help the homeless Palestinians has been
paid toward building homes. It should be a no-brainer. Palestinians, so
many of them, hate the Israelis because they have no homes. So they're
told, well, blame the Israelis. So they do, and they grow up hating
them. Well, why not, with the billions and billions of dollars we've
paid out of this country to the Palestinians, why have they not used it
to build homes so those people won't continue to hate Israelis and hate
Americans?
It's no secret, we're not buying affection with the billions of
dollars we're spending overseas. It makes no sense to these countries
who hate us that we keep giving them money, but they figure if we're
that stupid, sure, they'll take our money, and all the while the dollar
gets weaker and weaker and you have more and more claims from people
we're giving money to to get rid of the dollar as a reserve currency.
And when that happens--if it ever happens--then our economy is in for
just the fastest spiral down anyone could possibly imagine. Dollars are
required to buy much of the oil in the world. We keep showing this kind
of stupidity in our foreign policies and there will be consequences.
There were consequences for four Americans who were hijacked and then
killed.
As a former judge and State Chief Justice of a Court of Appeals, when
I hear stories, I'm constantly looking for evidence so that I can find
out, is there any substance to the story that's been heard? Now we see
that there was a naval destroyer following, shadowing the hijacked boat
of these Americans who were simply going out trying to help people in
the world. They were not a threat to anyone, they were providing Bibles
and hope from what we can find out.
Well, how does that compare to the incident of the captain of the
Bainbridge being taken hostage by three pirates and how it concluded?
There were conservative talk show hosts that said, hey, we disagree
with so much that President Obama has been doing to this country and in
our name, but it looks like he got this one right. Well, a story was
circulating--and I was curious whether it had truth to it--that when
the SEAL team was deployed, the order was a little different than
normal, where instead of the order saying go rescue their hostages and
they put together their own game plan for how you go about achieving
the goal that's ordered, that this order was a little different, it
just said go to the ship and receive further orders there, a little
different for a SEAL team, that's what we were hearing, and that they
did the drop at night. They had the SEAL team there, and for basically
3 days they had a bead on all three of the pirates in the boat with the
captain they had taken hostage, and that at any moment they could have
taken out all three pirates for that 3-day period. But the story went,
what was circulating, was that the President's order said do not use
deadly force under any circumstances unless the life of the captain is
in imminent danger of immediately be taken. Only under those
circumstances are you to use deadly force.
{time} 1510
Well, when a pirate group attacks a ship, it is an act of war by
those pirates. And this administration's response here is just to have
a Navy destroyer tag along and try to negotiate.
And they were in the process of trying to negotiate, apparently, when
the rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the Navy destroyer and then
the four hostages were killed.
Well, the story was the administration didn't want to take any action
against the pirates. We'll just negotiate our way through this.
And it's one of the problems with being one of the most gifted
orators in American history, if you're that gifted of an orator, the
temptation arises for you to think you can talk people into anything.
People that hate your country, when they see that you really sympathize
with them and not your own hostages as much--certainly there's sympathy
for the hostages--but if they perceive that there is sympathy for the
pirates or for those attacking Americans, then, sure, they're willing
to negotiate, but it appears to be weakness.
And, obviously, these pirates in February were not impressed with
America when they took the Americans hostage, committed an act of war,
and even had a naval destroyer behind because they perceived we were
weak.
Well, the story about the captain of the Bainbridge that was going
around was that for basically 3 days, the SEALs were not allowed to
take out the pirates, that they could have at any time. And then we
heard on the news during that that the captain, while the pirates may
have been falling asleep, was able to get out of the boat, get into the
water.
As soon as I heard that, I thought, Wow, he was trying to give the
SEALs clear shots at the pirates. He must have figured, as I did, that
they surely would have taken an open shot if they knew they wouldn't
jeopardize the American captain. And so by his jumping out of the boat,
it gave them a clear shot to take the pirates out without jeopardizing
the captain; but no shots were fired. That surely had to perplex him.
It sure did me and many others. Why didn't they just take out the
pirates before they drug him back in the boat?
But our American SEALs did nothing. Not because they couldn't or
wouldn't; but the story was they were doing that because the President
had issued an order that they were not to use deadly force. And the
story was going that the captain, when he went out of the boat and
these guys came to their senses, that they put their guns down to grab
him and put him back into the boat and therefore he was not under
immediate threat of death so the SEALs were not allowed to kill him.
[[Page H1561]]
It must have perplexed the captain that nothing was done when he got
out. But nothing was done. The story went that these SEALs were
following orders.
And then came an occasion when one of the pirates that had a gun on
his arm or over his shoulder waved his weapon in the direction of the
captain and that that's when the SEAL team commander realized he's
waving his weapon at the captain, we cannot take a chance. The order to
shoot was given--that could have been given anytime for 3 days and
ended that terrible ordeal--was given not by the President but by the
commander on the scene. And our well-trained SEALs did a remarkable job
in taking out two of the pirates and rescuing the captain.
The story went it could have happened anytime, but the order of the
President restrained them from doing that because he was convinced they
could just surely know how good and loving and peaceful we were and
they would eventually let these folks go.
Because this administration apparently had not learned the lesson
that Thomas Jefferson had to learn. You can't deal with peaceful
negotiating efforts or even paying people money or snubbing your allies
and friends to try to convince them that you're really a great person
they ought to love. Those things don't work. You have to go to war
against them and let them know when they attack Americans, when they
attack America that we are coming after them.
We don't have to be at war with a country. We don't have to be at war
with an entire race or group of people. There's no need in that. But
you go to war with the people that are at war with you, and this
administration has not done that.
We have four Americans who are dead. Obviously, this administration
didn't want Americans to die. Of course they didn't. That's a terrible
thing. And they didn't want it--would loved to have avoided it,
certainly. But it's not enough to intend good consequences. You have to
study your history lessons and do so objectively, learn from history so
you don't repeat the mistakes of the past. And that's what we've been
doing.
And as much as I respected and think Ronald Reagan was one of our
greatest Presidents, in 1983 when our Marine barracks was blown up and
we withdrew from Beirut, it appeared to be further evidence of
weakness. And I can't help but believe from people I've talked to that
were part of the administration that if he had to do it all over, he
would do it in a different manner.
But he had advisers telling him accurately we're in Lebanon on a
peacekeeping mission. We have finished the mission. There is no need to
keep staying there. Let's go ahead and get out. There's no reason.
We've finished our job. Let's get out before any other Americans get
killed.
The problem was when we did, it appeared to be follow-up weakness
added to what President Carter had shown on behalf of this country.
And now we see it on the high seas.
We have a naval destroyer. We have SEAL teams. We have Army, Navy,
Marines, Coast Guard, we have Air Force that can achieve things nobody
in any prior service could have ever dreamed could be accomplished. We
have a better military than I ever dreamed we could have had back when
we had just gone to an all-volunteer Army and I was concerned about our
national safety. Amazing military. Smart, motivated. And yet despite
that, we're showing weakness.
Now, the story that was going around was that the captain that
ordered the fire got a hot call from the White House saying--really
chewing him out, that the SEAL team around didn't know what was being
said but they knew that their commander was getting chewed out royally.
And supposedly the story that was circulating was that he eventually
said, That's fine, sir, and that apparently wasn't the President but
said, You can tell the President that if he wants to continue this
rear-chewing of me and my team, we're going to arrive at Andrews Air
Force base, wherever they came in, at a certain time and the media
knows, and you can dress them down there. Or you might want a good
photo op and you could be there--told the President he could be there
to congratulate them. And of course there was a wonderful photo op, and
these great heroes were welcomed by the President as he should have.
That was the story going around back after the attack on the
Bainbridge.
And so ever since then, I've been looking--I'd heard this story. I
was wondering is there any evidence of similar activity that might give
substance to that story. And how we handled these four Americans, these
loving, caring Americans being killed on the high seas seems to be that
kind of evidence, that this is our mode of operation. You commit an act
of war against Americans, you commit an act of war against our ships,
and we're going to send a Navy ship to follow you and try to offer you
bribes to leave us alone and leave the people alone, but you don't have
to worry much.
{time} 1520
But after the rocket-propelled grenade was fired, it all went bad and
four Americans are dead. It's shocking. We need to show strength.
And I was a year ago in April in West Africa with a group called
Mercy Ships that brings healing. The lame walk, the blind see. They
bring a ship into a port of a country that needs health care and they
provide treatment to thousands of people. And I had gone to see this
for myself.
And before I left the ship after the days there over the Easter
break, some of the West Africans wanted to visit with me. And the
oldest, a wonderful, wonderful man, I don't know how much education,
but a smart man, great wisdom, he said, in essence, we wanted to make
sure you understood as Africans we were excited when you elected a
black President. We were excited. We thought it was wonderful. But
since he has been President, we've become very concerned and a bit
afraid because we see him showing weakness for America. And we need you
to please convey in Washington that America is the hope for people,
Christians like him. People who want peace around the world, we're
their hope. And if you show weakness, and if you weaken America, we
don't have hope in this world.
As Christians, they knew where they would go in the next life. But
they also knew that America stood for hope in this world. And when we
show weakness, as we have been doing, then it signals the tyrants to
have their way. And we've got to stop that.
Now, may I inquire how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 25 minutes left.
Mr. GOHMERT. I wanted to shift gears because we have been doing so
much talking about the continuing resolution, which is just an ongoing
funding of the way things are going, except for amendments that have
been adopted to the CR. And we have talked so much about health care
and the President's bill that many call ObamaCare.
And in the CR that was debated for over 90 hours, with an open rule
until a unanimous consent agreement was reached, you know, 80 hours or
so into the debate, it was the first open rule we have had like that in
years. Certainly we didn't have such an open debate and an open rule
during the last 2 years during the Democrats' control of the majority
in both the House and the Senate. We didn't have an open rule here. And
we were advised that it was the first time in America's history that
there was not an open rule where you could bring, anybody could bring
amendments to the floor and offer them to a bill.
Now, it's not a pretty thing to watch, all that debate going back and
forth. And I know I hear some people say, you know, you guys shouldn't
bicker so much back and forth, but they show a lack of knowledge about
what the Founders intended. And Justice Scalia put it so well to a
group when one asked do we have more freedom in America because we have
the best Bill of Rights in history. And Scalia, as only he could do,
abruptly said, basically, well, no, even the Soviet Union had a better
Bill of Rights than we do. And I had forgotten, but back in college,
during one of my history and world courses, I had written a paper on
the Soviet Government and their Constitution, their Bill of Rights.
And Justice Scalia was exactly right, they had more promises in their
Bill of Rights than we do. But as Justice Scalia so aptly pointed out,
the reason we have more freedoms in America
[[Page H1562]]
than any country in history is because the Founders did not trust
government, so they put as many impediments in the path of creating
laws as they could. Because they knew if they made it too easy to pass
laws, then it would be too easy to subjugate Americans and take away
their freedom and have government get bigger and bigger until they
basically took away people's freedom and their way of life to which
they had become accustomed. They knew that. They had seen that. They
learned that from their vast reading of history.
They had such great knowledge of the writings of the philosophers and
historians. They understood all that. They did not trust government. So
they were not going to be satisfied to have one House as a
representative body because it might be too easy for one body, one
group to take over control of that one House and then ramrod through
all types of oppressive legislation like ObamaCare, for example.
So they were so worried about that they created a second House of
Representatives, ended up being called the Senate. And they were
selected a different way, by the State legislators, so that they would
be responsible to the State legislators so that they wouldn't end up
taking away States' rights, and certainly wouldn't allow the House of
Representatives to take away a State's rights.
So they thought, gee, two Houses. But even that wasn't good enough
because they realized, you know, we could do like as has been done
before and have a Prime Minister elected by the legislative body, and
he would be the top executive. It's not good enough. It's not enough of
an impediment or an obstacle to passing laws. We still want to make it
harder to pass laws. So let's create a separate executive branch and
have the Executive, the top Executive, the President elected by the
entire country, and at least elected by the entire country's
Representatives. But that was going to be a different format.
And then they set up the judiciary branch. And both the President
could veto and even the judiciary, as it turned out, was going to be
able to veto things if it got through the House and Senate and yet took
away some constitutional right. They thought they created a good enough
system that wouldn't be as abused as the entire system was in the last
few years.
They could not have imagined that a 2,900-page bill, ObamaCare, could
have been crammed down the throats of American citizens that poll after
poll showed did not want it. They would never have imagined that the
Senate would not be independent enough and would be so taken over by
one political extremist group that they would pass through such an
oppressive bill that would force a government takeover and government
control of everybody's health care, that would force every American to
have their medical records sent to a central repository that supposedly
General Electric would handle because they are good cronies with this
administration; and they would take care of every American's records
because the Federal Government would have control of all of that.
And not only that, they would take control over all the health care
insurance companies. They would take control over ordering what would
be allowable under health care, what would not be allowable under
health care, all in this massive bill that would provide for supposedly
hundreds of thousands of regulations that would follow to interpret
those 2,900 pages.
They could never have imagined that it would get that bad in this
country that the system they created to throw obstacles in the path of
government creating laws that the American people did not want, and
certainly not that a majority of Americans didn't want, and by golly,
they got it through. They rammed it through. They used carrots. They
dangled benefits. They added all kinds of pork to bills.
{time} 1530
They threw in something for the big pharmaceuticals. They threw
something in for the trial lawyers. They threw something in for the
AMA. They certainly threw a big juicy bone in there for AARP--well, a
bunch of juicy bones, actually. They threw all these things in for all
these interest groups except for the one who poll after poll said we
don't want it. Don't do this.
You promised us you would negotiate a health care bill on C-SPAN and
we would be able to see who was out for the people. So all the people
could assume was that because none of that was done on C-SPAN, other
than a dog and pony show after it was basically done and about to be
crammed down the Republicans' throats anyway, we had a little summit
and it got crammed down our throats anyway and Americans didn't want
it.
Well, I did go through the original 1,000-page bill. I went through
the 2,000-page bill. I put off going through the 2,900-page bill
because who knew if there would be a fourth or a fifth on top of that.
I didn't want to end up going through yet another bill that wasn't
going to be the one that really was the one that was seriously going to
be made law, so I put it off.
And when I got around to going through and reading the 2,900-page
bill, you know, I will admit, I was wanting to look at what the
sections did, their effect. And so I was struck by finding, really,
ingenious or insidious language and drafting provisions, depending on
your viewpoint, for example, with abortion. There was a section there
saying, you know, you couldn't have Federal funds for abortion, but
over in the section that was going to allow it, instead of mentioning
the word ``abortion,'' it just referred to the section. So if you went
online and did a word search for the word ``abortion,'' you wouldn't
see all of the provisions that allowed for abortion in Federal funding;
you would only find a restricted group, that kind of really clever
hiding what was going on.
I passed over a lot of the numbers that were utilized. So it was a
bit surprising to find out here recently, and going back through, and
Ernie Istook, a former Member here I served with, now with the Heritage
Foundation, yesterday provided me with copies of specific pages of the
bill. Again, this is public law 111-148 and 111-152.
But if you looked at, let's see, consolidated print -26, here it says
down here: Hereby appropriated to the Secretary out of any funds in the
Treasury, not otherwise appropriated, $30 million for the first fiscal
year.
And it goes on, and another page says: There are hereby appropriated
to the trust fund, the following, and it appropriated 10 million for
this, 50 million for that, 150 million for that, another 150 million,
another 150 million.
And you go through these, and it's staggering how much money was
actually not authorized, but they used appropriating language. Because,
as many people know, and I am finding more and more that are watching
C-SPAN, but they know, gee, normally you have a budget. Well, there was
no budget last year. The majority didn't want people to see exactly how
the money would be budgeted, so they didn't bother with one in election
year. First time in decades, as I understand it. But we didn't have a
budget. And then we had this, beginning of this continuing resolution
stuff. But normally you will have a budget. You will have an
authorization for expenditure, but then it had to be followed up with
an appropriation.
Well, ObamaCare went straight to it and appropriated vast amounts of
money. In fact, in this first year of 2011, fiscal year 2011, there is
$4.951 billion appropriated in the bill. They apparently not only
overran all the obstacles and hurdles that the Founders put in our way
to come up with so that we would not come up with legislation that
Americans did not want, they overcame that. Then, just to make sure
that it would be difficult to ever stop this by unfunding it, they
actually didn't just authorize, they appropriated $105.464 billion in
this ObamaCare bill, over $105 billion from 2011 through 2019, $105
billion.
Now, the rules get a little complicated around here, and any
amendment that seeks to rescind a prior appropriation is going to be
subject to a point of order objection and not be allowed because it
legislates in an appropriating bill, and under our rules you can't
legislate in an appropriating bill.
So the only way--and these people that put this language in here,
they knew it. When they were telling America we know we are broke; we
have got to rein in spending, all the while they were sticking in $105
billion of spending in one bill, not authorizing, not saying, gee, you
may not be able to afford this
[[Page H1563]]
5 or 6 or 7 years from now. So, instead, they just said we are
appropriating it and you can't do anything about it, because under the
House rules you try to bring up an amendment to rescind that, it's
subject to a point of order objection and we can keep it from coming
out.
The only way that I understand that this $105 billion that's now been
appropriated by the last Congress, the only way that can be taken out
is to have a provision in the original bill from the appropriators, not
an amendment, a provision that rescinds this $105 billion of
appropriations in this prior law from last year, and it's in the
original bill. And then the Rules Committee waives any point of order
objections to that rescission being in the appropriating bill. My
understanding is that's the only way we can get it done.
The amendments we were trying to do and that we got done apparently
are not going to accomplish that. We are going to have it in an
original committee bill rescinding all of this massive amount of money.
Right now, we will be borrowing 42 cents of every dollar of that $105
billion. It's irresponsible. It's almost inconceivable, except here it
is in black and white in front of us.
America deserves better than this.
I told some folks back home, I have mentioned before, it strikes me
that this government in this last not just 4 years, but even going back
into the last few years and especially the TARP bailout that was such a
disaster and should never have been passed, that this government became
like a parent who had an overwhelming desire to spend and could not
control their own spending.
So the parent goes to the bank and says, You have got to loan me
massive amounts of money. And the bank says, How are you going to pay
it back? You are not going to live long enough to ever pay this back.
And the parent says, No, but I have got my children here, and they are
going to have children and those children will have children. So my
children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, I am pledging they
are going to pay back all of this self-centered massive amounts of
money I am throwing upon me and my friends, and I am pledging and
promising my children will be indentured servants for the rest of their
lives because I can't stop spending.
Now, in a case like that, you would probably have the Child
Protective Service come swooping in and say you are an unfit parent.
You have no business having children when you are selling your
children's future for your own use of money now. How irresponsible that
is. Do you care nothing about the children that you can't quit
lavishing all that money and paying your friends for doing nothing?
{time} 1540
You can't control your spending, so that your children, grandchildren
and great-grandchildren can have freedom like you had it? You can't
control that? You're an irresponsible parent, and you shouldn't even
have these children if you're going to do that. I've heard the Child
Protective Services in Texas come in on a lot weaker claims to take
children away from parents than that. It's irresponsible what we're
doing. And to pass a bill that was against the vast majority will of
the American people and to stick in $105 billion of spending is just
irresponsible. It's got to stop.
On one final note before my time concludes, having been a judge and a
State chief justice, I'm sensitive when I hear judges threatened. And
especially in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the loss
of life in Arizona, we really should not be provoking actions to the
point of violence or threatening actions. And I have certainly had my
share of death threats as a judge. But it was usually only when they
included my family that it got serious. And we have a group that's held
itself out for years now, Common Cause, as this wonderful nonpartisan
group. And yet you see over and over, like you did here recently with
the rally they held in California with Van Jones--such an impassioned
socialist--speaking and stirring people up against Justice Thomas and
Justice Scalia.
Justice Thomas himself, after one of the most embarrassing episodes
in American history, the way he was treated as he went through the
hearings for confirmation to the Supreme Court, he said himself, it's a
modern day lynching, high-tech lynching. And in his book, ``My
Grandfather's Son,'' where he describes coming out of poverty, severe
poverty, and making it on nothing but hard work and his brilliant
intellect he achieved the great heights he has. And I have heard him
say himself, he started out in college as an angry black man and left-
wing extremist who came to realize more oppressive government is not
the answer. But he also came to see firsthand, as he has described it,
that if you're an African American and you spout the words that the
liberal left tells you to say, then they love you. But if you dare--as
he points out, otherwise I wouldn't use these words--but he says if you
dare to step off the plantation and think for yourself, then here comes
all the groups that come after you. And we have seen that with this
attack from Common Cause that they are using to fundraise this attack
after Justices Thomas and Scalia.
And, again, I look for evidence, are they nonpartisan? Well, it seems
like they only come after conservatives, mainstream Americans, but they
encourage left-wing extremism on a wholesale basis. But to be attacking
Justices Thomas and Scalia and stir up sentiment, they sent out the e-
mails urging people to come, they sent out the notices of what they
were doing, urging people to come. They knew who they were sending
those to. They urged these people to come. And what they got was the
friends that they had invited saying that they wanted to string up,
basically lynch, one of the most honorable people in the America,
Clarence Thomas, that came from the most oppressive background and
fought and worked his way up, as he would tell you, with the help of
loving grandparents to the status that he has, and they want to do a
high-tech lynching of him now.
Except the people that they stirred up aren't going to be satisfied
with high tech. They want to lynch him, and they want to lynch his
wife. And when you look for evidence, well, have they been saying this
all along about other incidences that were similar? Well, when we got a
national leader of the ACLU, they never mentioned one word about
perhaps she should recuse herself from things that involve the ACLU,
and our sympathies go out any time anyone loses a spouse, but when
people on the Supreme Court who came from leftist backgrounds had
spouses that had direct interests that were affected, Common Cause was
silent. Oh, no, they raised their money on going after people that are
mainstream conservatives and believe in the Constitution meaning what
it says.
And after bringing this up at a press conference this afternoon, we
get word that Common Cause has come out and said, we apologize. We
never meant for them to say that. No, actually, that's not what they
said. They came out and said--this is laughable--they didn't come out
and condemn people that want to lynch a Supreme Court justice or
justices and their spouses, family and torture them and do these
terrible things. No, it didn't say anything about that. It just said
this is laughable because they are still raising money. And it is time
the Justice Department started being fair about justice and not ``just
us'' at their Justice Department but look into Common Cause and look at
whether they really deserve to be called ``not for profit'' and
``nonpartisan'' because what they are doing to stir up Americans
against honorable Americans is intolerable. America deserves better.
The adage is, Democracy ensures--America, any country--Democracy
ensures that people are governed no better than they deserve. My hope
and prayer is we deserve better in the next election.
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