[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 135 (Tuesday, September 13, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6135-H6137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HOW IT ALL FITS TOGETHER
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gowdy). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is
recognized for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this is a tough time in our American
history. I was a history major at Texas A&M. I knew I owed the Army 4
years for the scholarship I had. I had been really inspired by American
history in high school by Sam Parker, my teacher, my Scoutmaster. So I
know a little bit about our history. I know a lot about world history
as well. And it's important to take things in perspective, especially
speeches here in Washington and take them from the perspective of how
it all fits together.
Now, we have been in this Chamber, and I was sitting right back there
on the aisle, and we had the President of the United States standing
right there. I was on a direct line of sight to eye-to-eye with the
President, except his eyes cut right into the teleprompter each time he
looked my way so I don't think we ever made eye contact. But he kept
telling us over and over, 16, 17 times, I didn't count them, I've been
told, but he said we've got to pass this bill right now, right now.
This bill, right now.
Well, unfortunately, last Thursday, when the President was saying
we've got to pass this bill right now, there was no bill. There was no
plan. He talked about his plan. He talked about his bill. They didn't
have it quite ready yesterday until later. And we kept harassing the
White House, saying we want to get a copy of the bill. We need a copy
of the bill. You've said pass the bill now. Do we not get to even have
a copy of the bill before we have to pass it, or would it be okay if we
could, you know, see it before we pass it? You know, it might be a good
idea to file it at some point if we're going to pass a bill. That's
just my thinking.
And so the White House was kind enough, late yesterday, to e-mail a
copy of the bill. We got it up on our Web site at gohmert.house.gov.
For others who are intrigued by the promises that have been made and
what it actually does, let's see. It's called Saving Obama's Job. No,
I'm sorry. American Jobs Act is the name of it.
It's interesting to hear somebody talk about their bill and then get
it and dig through. I think I finished about 5 this morning going
through all 155 pages of the bill. And it's most interesting. Some of
these things I'm going to have to talk to people who have more
expertise in particular areas. Some things it's pretty obvious what
they say.
Page 6, he gets right into payroll tax relief. And again, as the
person who came up with the idea for a tax holiday as a way to
stimulate the economy back nearly 3 years ago, and as a person who, in
January of 2009, told the President personally about my idea for a tax
holiday. Moody's rated a tax holiday as increasing the GDP. It looks
like more than other stimulus proposals. That was back in 2009, before
this President squandered $4.5 trillion above and beyond the amount
around $2.2 trillion or so a year that was coming in. It's shocking
that we could go through that much money.
{time} 1620
Of course we had 2 years, the first 2 years with the same party in
power in the House and Senate as is in the White House. And as I found
in my first term in 2005 and 2006, sometimes when you have the same
party in the White House and in the House and Senate, if the people in
Congress are not adequately restrained and cannot adequately restrain
themselves, there ends up being a big spending frenzy.
In 2006, again, my second year in Congress, we spent over $160
billion more than we took in. Democrats across the aisle rightfully
tore after Republicans. How could you spend $160 billion more than what
we had coming into the Treasury? And they were right to do so. We
should not have spent $160 billion more than we had coming in.
Ironically, President Bush in 2008 had a bill passed by the
Democratic-controlled House and Senate, a stimulus bill that opened the
door a bit to these stimulus frenzies. And $40 billion of that $160
billion, as I recall, was going to be going to people who didn't pay
any income taxes, as a rebate, which caused me to ask the President
down here on the floor after the State of the Union, How do you give a
rebate to people that didn't put any `bate' in?
Then after that we had TARP. President George W. Bush is a good man.
He is smarter than most of the people in this town wanted to give him
credit for. One of the wittiest people you'll ever want to be around.
But he made the mistake of listening to, until now, the worst Treasury
Secretary in the history of the country, Hank Paulson. And Paulson
said, Look, give me $750 billion; I can fix things.
Well, that was a mistake. Anybody that read that bill would
understand that was not a bill that should have ever passed; and if
more people on the House floor had read the bill, I am confident, I
know they couldn't have brought themselves to vote for it; but they
didn't read it, many didn't.
Well, that's why I spent most of last night going through the
President's jobs bill. He does have some payroll tax relief. But
compared to the payroll tax relief I was proposing, we were told it
would be close to--if you just gave people all of their tax money in
their check, it didn't need to come back from Washington. It would be
in the check. If we passed it and the President had signed it on a
Thursday, it would have been in their Friday check. All of the money,
all of the taxes they paid.
That would have stimulated the economy, and we wouldn't have needed
the government to say, Hey, let's bail out GM and let's bail out
Chrysler, because if people had had their own money, they could have
gone down and bought a car from the car manufacturer and dealer that
they wanted to buy from instead of just throwing money at the car
industry.
I appreciated the GM commercial saying, We paid our money back.
Unfortunately, that was not true. It was a misrepresentation. Still
money owed. Anyway, I guess he would do well in Washington with that
kind of mentality.
The payroll tax relief provided here is just a fraction of what I was
suggesting in late 2008, 2009. The President, in fact, when I told him
the idea in January of 2009, said, That's a great idea. Have you talked
to Larry? Talking about Larry Summers, who was right behind him at the
time. I said, I'd love to talk to Larry Summers about it.
Summers reached around and gave me a card. The card said, Give me a
call. He never took my calls. I waited a week, and then he didn't call
me. I felt hurt, you know, like high school days when you're trying to
ask somebody on a date, and they say, Let me get back to you. Well, I
was snubbed. He didn't get back to me. Okay. Well, not the first time.
So I relentlessly called, and I was given eventually to some young
man who sounded like his voice was still changing, telling me to leave
a message, and I didn't leave messages. And ``Larry,'' as the President
referred to him, never got back to me. And I understand he's not over
there now.
But they called a tax holiday back in those days that got just a few
bucks in people's pocket. Nothing like the stimulus would have been if
people had been able to keep their own money, all of it, for a couple
of months.
Now, this wasn't my motive. My motive was to stimulate. But there was
a secondary occurrence that would have happened had we had a real tax
holiday, even for 2 or 3 months. It would have been that workers across
America, including union workers, would notice, many of them for the
first time it would really come home, how much money they're sending to
Washington every month and how much better their lives would be if they
didn't send that much money to Washington every month, if they had
their own money to give to their own charitable causes, they had their
own money to bail themselves out, their own money to stimulate their
own household. Everybody would have been better off.
But that's not the tack the President chose. He got what was
originally touted to be an $800 billion stimulus, and he also had about
$450 billion of the original TARP that he and Secretary Geithner were
able to find ways to squander.
[[Page H6136]]
We were told if we did not pass the President's stimulus package back
in early 2009, he said the unemployment rate, Mr. Speaker, might go as
high as 8\1/2\ percent. That 8\1/2\ percent sounds pretty good. People
remember him saying, Well, gee, if you'll pass this, unemployment will
be around 8 percent at the worst. Wrong. But if you don't pass it, it
could go as high as 8\1/2\ percent. I'd take that 8\1/2\ percent right
now and have everybody that got that money give it back because it was,
for the most part, wasted.
Now, people back then were told by the President, It's a stimulus
bill. It's all about infrastructure. We're going to have this money go
to infrastructure. Well, there was only a tiny pittance of what may
have been more like a trillion dollars that went to infrastructure.
That goes through page 16 with that part.
We get into first responder stabilization, and there is $5 billion
for one program, $4 billion for another program, $1 billion for the
Attorney General first responder stabilization fund. Oh, I guess $4
billion's for the Attorney General to carry out the competitive grant
program.
It keeps being lost on people here that America's better off if you
don't force people at the point of imprisonment, and IRS persecution,
to give all of this money to Washington and then we'll dole it out as
we see fit. The economy does better when you let people keep their own
money and only bring just as much as necessary. Don't try to run
everybody's lives.
But at page 17, we're going to give all of this money to the Attorney
General's Office and let them dole it out as they see fit. And we've
seen that if you're a friend of the administration, you're going to do
well. If you're not, they're going to sic on you all of the power of
the bureaucratic, whether it's EPA, all of these administration's tools
and you'll pay a price. We're finding that out in Texas.
Now, you go to the next page, page 18. You've got elementary and
secondary schools. They're supposed to get money. But, of course, it's
going to come through Washington because we know best. And we're going
to dole some money to the States. We're going to dole some to State and
local applications as indicated on page 19.
But you can't miss this. It's throughout the bill. Page 20, here we
go again.
{time} 1630
We saw it with the Solyndra fiasco in California and this
administration giving away $500 million that can't be accounted for
now--just squandered. Well, we're going to do that some more. Maybe if
we keep throwing money at a bad idea it will somehow, someday, in some
way get a little better. So page 20 has got us prioritizing green
practices kind of like a bankrupt Spain has done.
Now, there is money in here, page 21. This is nice--money even for
private schools, but only if they have a child poverty rate of at least
40 percent. Then we've got community college modernization and more
green jobs within the colleges, Page 23, and you go on and on. I mean,
I went through this. It does go on and on.
Then we're told we're going to invest. This time we really, really
mean it. We said we really meant it back in January of '09 that we're
going to have infrastructure, and that's going to bring us up. We said
it. We didn't spend it on infrastructure. We squandered it on ACORN and
all these different groups, but this time we really, really, really
mean it. Let's see. That looks like it's $2 billion for that program,
and on and on.
It's interesting. We've got all this money we're going to put toward
highways and whatnot. Now, anyone, Mr. Speaker, who believed this was
all going to go straight to infrastructure missed the point, because
then we get over to page 40, and you get to the real jobs. This is
where the jobs are really created. It starts on page 40. It's called
the American Infrastructure Financing Authority. If you love Fannie and
Freddie, you're going to love the American Infrastructure Financing
Authority.
On page 41, you'll find out there are seven voting members appointed
by the President. Well, he's good at creating jobs--look at all the
government jobs he has added--so that's who I want having appointed. I
mean, he has appointed all these people from universities who have
never created jobs in their lives, so they're perplexed as to why their
programs aren't working. He does have the head of GE who's helping him
with that jobs program. China is grateful. China is very grateful to
the head of GE because he has created lots of jobs--they're just in
China and not here. Maybe he'll get to be on this board as well. But
it's another government program.
Let's see. I want to make sure I get this right. The board of
directors' first appointees will be deemed the incorporators of AIFA--
that's the American Infrastructure Financing Authority--but that will
make for some good reading. I wouldn't read it right before going to
bed because you might not be able to go to sleep.
Then we get over to page 56. This talks about the funding of the
American Infrastructure Financing Authority and the administrative
fees, which is section 257. Then we get into that it has hereby
appropriated AIFA to carry out this act for the cost of direct loans
and loan guarantees except for the limitations under section 253 and
for administrative costs of $10 billion that remain available until
expended. Then you've got some other moneys there, but that's good news
because you can spend that for administrative costs. Fortunately, in
Washington, we don't run up much in the way of administrative costs.
Now, one thing that some people have talked about to raise a little
bit of revenue is to sell some of our broadband spectrum. Then we also
know that there are those in Washington who are not happy that the FCC
has not been able to have a Fairness Doctrine so they can dictate what
goes on the air. Well, not to worry because people, it seems, are going
more and more to broadband than to radio waves and television waves.
We're getting more and more broadband stuff. So we have the answer to
the lack of a Fairness Doctrine that the FCC has wanted under this
administration, but we've been able to avoid it so far.
There is nothing about a Fairness Doctrine in here, but fortunately,
you get to page 75, and you find out we're going to establish--I love
this name--a Public Safety Broadband Corporation. On the next page, 76,
you find out it has established a private, nonprofit corporation, and
you're going to have some members who know how to run a government
operation and create government jobs. Of course it killed jobs in the
private sector, but it's creating government jobs. That's down here.
You've got the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Homeland
Security, the Attorney General--we're talking real job creators here--
and others who will be on that board. So people can feel better about
that. If you don't think we have enough government control of things,
well, this bill, you're going to love it: more government control, more
government corporations.
The thing that many missed--and it jumped out at me as I sat back
there and the President spoke--is when he said we want to work side by
side with business. For people who have ears and can hear, that means
this President wants to be your business partner. That scares some
folks, and that's why I think you saw the market go down the next day.
People who understand how real jobs in the real world are created know
that the government being partners with people trying to generate jobs
is a job killer. We don't need a government to be partners, side by
side, working with business. The government, as designed by the
Founders and as we're supposed to be carrying out, is supposed to be a
referee to make sure people play fair. If the government had made sure
people were playing fair instead of dictating every detail of their
existence, then they would have noticed that Bernie Madoff was cheating
people, but the government--our bureaucracy--was too concerned with
dictating how people live, and they forgot about their job as referee.
I highlighted so much stuff as I went through the night, but I won't
bore you with all of this, Mr. Speaker. Let's see: Public Safety
Roaming and Priority Access. The FCC is going to get the report on the
efficient use of public safety spectrum. Oh, extended benefit
provisions. There's good stuff there.
I've been a fan of retraining people when there are jobs in one
sector and people have lost jobs in another, and there are no jobs with
the training
[[Page H6137]]
they have. That's a good idea. It's better money than just throwing out
unemployment reimbursement if you can train people to have real jobs.
This bill spends billions of dollars. We've got the Reemployment NOW
Program. That's a new Federal bureaucracy, a new Federal program. We've
got the State Plan at page 98. We've got the Bridge to Work Program at
page 99. We're going to retrain people for jobs. We don't have jobs
that they can fill, but we're going to spend a lot of time training
them for jobs that don't exist.
Wouldn't we be better off encouraging the real job creators, the
small business folks, to create jobs and then train them for that? But
no. We're going to suck more capital out of the financial community and
into the government so we can retrain people for jobs that don't exist.
Then we have, on page 106, the Short-Time Compensation Program. The
Short-Time Compensation Program means a program in which the
participation of the employers is voluntary and the employer reduces
the number of hours worked by employees in lieu of layoffs. Such
employees whose workweeks have been reduced by at least 10 percent are
then eligible for unemployment compensation. If you lose 10 percent of
your work time, guess what? We're now opening up a new avenue for
unemployment compensation. Ten percent reduced is all it takes.
Employers--I've talked to so many--say, I don't want to fire anybody.
I'm asking my employees to hang on. We're all reducing what we're
taking in, and we're going to try to get through this without firing
anybody, but everybody has had to take a cut.
{time} 1640
Well, this will make them eligible for unemployment compensation,
which raises their unemployment insurance rates they have to pay, which
means they are going to have to lay off somebody in order to pay the
additional unemployment insurance rates.
Of course, then you have got temporary financing of short-term
compensation agreements at page 109. Oh, we've got grants. We've got
subsidized employment for unemployed low-income adults. You know,
instead of sucking all this capital out of the private sector, it seems
like we would want to help create more jobs.
Well, if you're not satisfied with all the jobs that are created by
the new government programs, new government agencies, wonderful that we
have got something better than Fannie and Freddie for infrastructure
financing, that's great, but I understand that lawsuit filing is down
significantly around the country. Our Constitution tells you, and we
know in our hearts that it's wrong to discriminate against people based
on race, creed, color, national origin, gender, those things make
sense. We shouldn't discriminate, and those are protected classes.
We've also added, no matter what your sexual preference, your sexual
orientation, no matter what you're oriented toward sexually, because
the Democratic majority would not allow us to define sexual orientation
to exclude illegal activity. We know sexual orientation is a protected
class now. We are adding in this bill a new protected class called
unemployed. The title, on page 129, ``Prohibition of Discrimination in
Employment on the Basis of an Individual's Status As Unemployed.''
It says right here in the findings that we ``find that denial of
employment opportunities to individuals because of their status as
unemployed is discriminatory and burdens commerce.'' It goes on and
explains this in the preceding pages.
So the good news is, if you're unemployed and you go to apply for a
job, and you're not hired for that job, see a lawyer. You may be able
to file a claim because you got discriminated against because you were
unemployed.
Now, some would point out, legitimately, that will discourage people
from doing interviews of people unemployed, because if they do, they've
got a claim or may have a claim to make against the employer for
discrimination based on the fact that they were unemployed.
I think that this will help trial lawyers who are not having enough
work, because it can open the door. We heard from our friends across
the aisle in the preceding hour, 14 million people out of work, that's
14 million potential new clients that could go hire a lawyer and file a
claim because they didn't get hired even though they were unemployed.
We've heard the President demonizing billionaires and millionaires.
You know, why are the Republicans so strong on trying to bail out their
rich friends?
Well, what we've learned here in this town in recent years is that if
the very wealthy don't mind being called names, they will be enriched
and even engorged. For example, we know that Wall Street executives
have been called fat cats by this administration and demonized.
Yet the little secret behind the scene's joke is, don't mind being
called names; this administration has brought more profit to Wall
Street than Goldman Sachs has ever seen in their history. Wall Street
executives and their families gave to President Obama 4-to-1 over John
McCain, so, of course, they've got a good little deal going on there.
And also, demonize the oil and gas industry even though, you know, you
love British Petroleum because they were going to endorse the cap-and-
trade bill, and you demonize them, and then you stick provisions in
this bill that have no effect on the big major oil companies.
They will only affect, these provisions at the back at pages 151,
152, 153, they will not affect the big majors like British Petroleum
except that because they will destroy the ability of independent
producers that produce much or maybe most of the oil and gas in the
continental U.S., it will drive them out of business. It will dry up
investment.
This is repeal of the oil and gas working interest exception, the
passive activity, so there are things in here that are going to dry up
the independent oil company's ability to function.
And the pay-for--we were told over and over this is all paid for--is
on page 155. Here it is, get ready: The Budget Control Act of 2011 is
amended by striking $1.5 trillion that the supercommittee is going to
have to find in cuts and inserting $1.95 trillion.
He's saying, It's all paid for. It's all paid for. And the way it's
all paid for is the new supercommittee is now ordered under the
President's bill to find another $450 billion to pay for his bill. So
it's all paid for, hallelujah, amen.
Now, there are so many more problems I haven't had a chance to get
to, and there are probably some things that I probably missed even as I
went through this, but there is such bad news for America in here.
Union workers, watch out: This may be the end of your jobs. But it's
okay because the unions are growing by getting more government
employees, not the hard-working folks in the regular unions. These are
the government unions. It should say, instead of American jobs bill,
saving the President's job bill, but this is a disaster for every other
thinking person in America.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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