[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 137 (Thursday, September 15, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6225-H6228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICA'S SPENDING
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gardner). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is
recognized for 30 minutes.
[[Page H6226]]
Mr. GOHMERT. We're at the end of another week of session here.
You know, the President's been traveling around the country. I know
that costs millions and millions of dollars to put Air Force One in
motion, hopping all over the country. I've also seen what it takes from
a security standpoint to prepare for a President to come anywhere.
Because of the sniper weapons available these days, they have to be so
thorough.
{time} 1500
The Secret Service has to go along and check. Anything they can see,
they have to check out. Well, that takes several days.
So, to the average person, you think, Well, gee. The President just
comes in. He's gone in 30 minutes. No big deal. But for those whose
life's work it is in the government to make sure that things go
properly, it is an extremely onerous task. We owe so much to those who
protect those who are leaving the country, not so much the people in
Congress. I know we had people in Congress who were advocating that we
all ought to have our own security detail; but as one of my
constituents said one morning at 2 a.m. in Wal-Mart, ``Wow, you really
don't have any security,'' and I said, ``No. It's just you, me and the
syrup here.'' I don't think we should have to have security. If it
comes to that, this country is in such trouble that I'm not sure we'll
have it back in any proper form anyway.
In the meantime, I am an advocate of letting people in Washington,
D.C., who aren't prior convicted felons and who meet the requirements,
of being able to carry. Let folks carry. Not here in the Capitol, of
course. You don't need one here. We've got the finest we could hope
for, Mr. Speaker. I know you know the Capitol Police are fantastic.
We've got some up in the gallery who make sure that things are orderly
up there; and as we know from the last 20 years, there are times
they've had to lay down their lives to protect the public here.
So we are greatly blessed, but it all comes back to this, that we're
talking about millions and millions of dollars for the President to go
anywhere. Ever since 1 week ago, we were chastised by the President
here on the House floor, as he spoke from the podium here, that we
needed to pass his bill. Somebody else counted them. I didn't. We've
got to pass this bill right now, right away, right now. Pass this bill
now. It turns out the whole time the President was saying ``this
bill,'' there was no such bill, which brought back memories of exactly
2 years before when at that time the President demanded to come address
a joint session of Congress.
Under the rules of Congress, the laws of the land, no one can demand
to come speak to the Senate or House unless they're invited, but that
was overlooked back in September of 2009. The President was not doing
well in the polling with his health care ideas. He figured, if he came
and spoke here on the floor, because he is such a gifted reader, that
he might be able to persuade people to support a bill they otherwise
didn't like.
So he came and he spoke. He spoke of this bill, my bill, this plan,
my plan. I couldn't find a bill. I couldn't find a plan anywhere. It
was even 2 weeks later that I asked the Cabinet member charged with
Health and Human Services--it's her area--since the President was so
accusatory and said, If any of you misrepresent my bill, I am going to
call you out, I wanted to make sure I didn't misrepresent anything. I
asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services: Where do I get a copy
of the President's bill? She said these words: I think he was talking
about a set of principles.
Ah, it couldn't have been. He said this bill, my bill, this plan, my
plan. He didn't have a plan. He didn't have a bill. He was talking
about a set of principles? How could he condemn us for misrepresenting
a bill or a plan that he didn't have? Not then. It turns out he didn't.
So, as I heard the President say repeatedly to pass this bill, pass
this bill, to do it right now, right now, I wondered if, yet again, 2
years later, he was making the same error--demanding we pass a bill
that didn't exist. It turns out my concerns were well-founded. He had
no bill. He had no plan. He had a speech.
But as we've learned from CBO, generally speaking, unless they're
chastised sufficiently by the President or the White House, CBO cannot
score a speech. If they're chastised sufficiently, then CBO will give
them some sort of scoring because there are pressures that can be
brought to bear from the White House that somehow, apparently, make
them sensitive, which is another whole point. I really don't believe
that we will be able to fix the problems of the massive overspending,
the overtaxing, the dramatic problems with the overvexation, the
overburdensome laws and regulations until we change a number of things.
One of those is we eliminate the Congressional Budget Office and
eliminate the rules under which bills are scored. Those rules were put
in place in 1974 by the same Congress that forced the military to rush
out of Vietnam, leaving, many report, around 2 million people who had
helped us to be wiped out--murdered, killed--because the Congress
didn't care. That same Congress put in rules that would require that a
bill be scored as to the effect it would have on our economy, on
spending, on revenue. It required it would be scored under rules that
do not allow the scorer to take into consideration reality, history,
facts. All they're allowed to do is to consider the formulas--the rules
under which they're bound by that 1974 Congress. That's it.
Now, we've gotten horrible scoring, and it can't be blamed on CBO or
on the Joint Commission on Taxation. It's the rules that are the
problem. But when a group comes back with a score of around $800
billion and then later they have to confirm in reality it's more like,
say, $1.1 trillion, then you realize on an $800 billion bill that the
score really should put boldly that you have to consider that with a 30
to 40 percent margin of error, plus or minus. So here is the score,
plus or minus 30 or 40 percent, and that's about the best we can do.
Since that is the best that CBO can apparently do, it's time to have
some massive changes in this place. It's time to use reality. It's time
to use history and not some 1974 liberal Congress' idea of how we get
the government taking over everybody's lives. That's no way to run
government unless you're in some country besides the United States of
America.
There's an old saying in this town, Mr. Speaker: No matter how
cynical you get, it's never enough to catch up.
In my 6\1/2\ years here in Congress, I've found that's certainly true
because you want to trust everybody. You want to believe that when
people say things in this town it's true, but then you find out, for
example, that you can have a leader of the country tell everybody that
we need to go after the Big Oil companies. They're having massive
profits, and we're going after those companies. Then you find out that
the bill that's produced to go after those companies has no adverse
effect on those companies whatsoever, and in fact, it will make them
even bigger profits than they might have ever imagined.
Now, I know there have been some issues about the bill title,
``American Jobs Act of 2011,'' and yes, I am the one who filed the
American Jobs Act of 2011.
{time} 1510
I think it will be a wonderful thing when we in this body can work
together. We can have our disagreements. I found, in a deacon body,
even though there was a lot of nasty, mean things said, that if we had
prayer together and we came together, we had meals together, we could
work together.
One of the things that's so troubling on this floor is when people
come so close to impugning the integrity of other people. I know some
people that have diametrically opposed views of how this country should
work, but I know in their heart they want the country to work well and
succeed. I just believe from history they're wrong, but there are
people in this body who you might think we were so far from each other
politically that we wouldn't want to have anything to do with each
other.
Dennis Kucinich is one of those people that is quite far afield from
me on so many political issues, but Dennis has never lied to me; he has
always been up front. I find him to be a man of conviction, and I find
him refreshing. Marcy Kaptur and I disagree on many
[[Page H6227]]
issues, maybe most issues, but I know she is a person of integrity. She
has never lied to me; she has never been anything but honest with me.
There are numerous people. Bill Delahunt and I would spar in
Judiciary Committee many, many times, other committees, subcommittees,
here on floor; but I always found Bill Delahunt--what I would call a
liberal from Massachusetts, a Democrat--to be an honorable man, a man
of integrity, and I believe with all my heart that he had a heart for
this country and he wanted to see it work.
We ought to be able to work together when people realize that we have
got common goals, the common goal being the good of the country. So
let's at least find things we could agree on.
When I was engaged in trials--and I have been involved in many trials
as an attorney, and as a judge, and then oversaw them briefly as a
chief justice, but engaged as a lawyer--there were many times when we
started in the discovery process that I told opposing counsel, We can
do this one of two ways. We can fight, scrape and fuss over every
question, over every interrogatory, over every deposition, but we both
know the rules require certain things will need to be produced, that
certain things will need to be disclosed.
So I would prefer to do it that way, amicably, and the people that
win are the clients because they don't have to pay near as much money.
Because it doesn't take near as much time if you can agree on the
things that you know you are going to have to produce and quit having a
motion to compel, a motion to protect, all this kind of stuff.
Sometimes we had attorneys that could work together well, and
sometimes they would hit me with a discovery demand out of the blue
that was so grossly unfair, but not illegal, that you would find out,
okay, this is the way you want to go. I didn't want to go this way, but
I believe so strongly in the interests of the person I am representing
and believe so strongly in the process, itself, that if you want a
fight, you will have a fight.
If somebody is going to travel around the country, condemning me and
other people in this body for refusing to pass a bill, knowing that
that bill does not exist, it is not in existence because legally it has
not been filed, then we are going to do some battle over that. If I am
going to be condemned for a week for refusing to pass an American Jobs
Act of 2011, well, after 6 days or so, it's time to have an American
Jobs Act that we can pass or at least that I could go along with.
I would certainly like, Mr. Speaker, the President and others to know
I am flexible, but the corporate tax is one of the most insidious taxes
that we have in this country because it's not an honest tax.
Governments had represented to voters for years and years that we have
got this tax over here. We go after the mean, evil, greedy
corporations--and some do have greed as a material factor in their
business--but the thing is, that's not what a corporate tax is about.
A corporation cannot stay in existence if they don't have their
customers or clientele pay the corporate tax. So a corporate tax is not
actually a tax on a corporation. A corporate tax is, instead, requiring
the corporation to be the collection agent. Oh, make no mistake, that
tax will come from the rank-and-file people across this great country.
They're the ones that are going to pay that tax. The corporations are a
collection agent. They collect the tax from their customers, and then
they pass it on to the Federal Government.
The trouble is, in this country now, we have the highest corporate
tax in the world, any developing nation for sure, 35 percent; in China,
17 percent, and they do cut deals where they will reduce it to zero tax
for 5 years, I have been told by some people there. You get a deal--
zero tax for 5 years and then gradually work up to 17.
Not here in the United States. We are going to slap a 35 percent tax
on anything a company in America produces. That sure makes it tough to
compete in the global market.
Now that we have got planes, ships that move so quickly, rail that
goes across borders, it is important that we be able to compete in the
global market. And if we are going to slap a 35 percent tariff on
everything an American company produces in this country, they are going
to have to move and go to a country where there is not such a high
collection fee that corporations are required to collect in this
country. They are going to go to a country like China that charges a
lot less for a collection fee from the customers.
But if people could get their mind around the fact that it isn't
making the greedy corporations pay, in fact, the greediest corporations
are the ones that don't pay anything. You know, we found out that the
close cronies of the President at GE are able not to pay any tax, but
the mom-and-pop-type small business corporations, they are having to
pay the tax.
Gibson is employing a lot of people. I got a Gibson guitar when I was
8 years old, a fantastic guitar. We are going to send in armed agents
to harass those people. That's no way to draw business back into this
country.
You reduce the corporate tax. If you reduce it at all, the more you
reduce it, the more jobs are going to come back because that means more
and more corporations will be able to compete in the global market, and
they'll be able to come back here, union members, not the government
union members--and that seems to be where union leadership wants to go
these days. Forget the manufacturing unions. We are driving those jobs
out of America. But any historian will tell you, when a nation that is
protecting other nations--and we are; we are protecting the free
world--that requires that nation to have a military.
Any nation that cannot provide its own military with the things it
needs to protect itself--that means steel; it means all kinds of metal;
it means gunpowder; it means, actually, uranium as we have nuclear subs
and ships; it means wood products; it means tires. We are buying tires
for Humvees from China these days. Excuse me? We have to be able to
have no supply line to be able to provide the things that we in this
country need to defend ourselves and provide them in this country. It's
time to quit driving companies, including manufacturing jobs, out of
the country. This bill drives more jobs out.
You have got to have energy. Those that are familiar with the Battle
of the Bulge can dispel the myth that some think, gee, the war was won
before the Battle of the Bulge.
{time} 1520
Some say they buy into the Russians' explanation that we had whipped
the Germans all by ourselves, we didn't need the allies otherwise, but
if you really study the Battle of the Bulge, what won that for the
Allies was the fact that the Germans were running out of gasoline.
So what does the President do to help us? He said go against and take
the profits of these massive, big oil companies. Instead, page 151
through 154, he rips the heart out of the independent oil and gas
industry.
In order to drill a well in America, you have to raise capital. If
you're one of the majors like Exxon, like British Petroleum, the dear
friends of the President, if you're one of those big companies, you've
got enough money of your own. You're capitalized; you can do these
things. But for over 94 percent of the wells drilled in the continental
United States, they're raising money. They have to raise capital. Well,
this knocks the fool out of their ability to raise capital. Not only
that, it repeals the deductions that are not even available to any
company that produces more than a thousand barrels of oil a day. That's
the majors.
So all this will do is eliminate over 94 percent of the wells drilled
in the continental United States. The result will be a higher cost of
oil. It will make even more profits for the President's friends at
British Petroleum. British Petroleum is friends of the President, they
love the cap-and-trade idea, and they're going to love this bill by the
President.
Also, we know, we've heard complaint after complaint from State after
State, and they're saying, You are giving us so many unfunded mandates.
We just can't take this any more. Stop already. We just can't stand
this kind of help much longer.
So if you look through this bill, you end up finding out there is a
little provision--and, like I say, I was up until about 5 a.m. Tuesday
going through this lovely thing, but there is a provision at the bottom
of one of the pages, rather obscure, and my staff made copies. I've got
the best staff in the world,
[[Page H6228]]
but I don't believe they got my tag back on that page. The title of the
little section is Federal and State Immunity, but then you read the
section, it has nothing to do with Federal immunity. Under the law, the
Federal Government and the State government are immune from being sued,
but in that provision it actually says that, gee, if a State accepts
any money at all from the Federal Government, any money at all, then
they have effectively waived their sovereign immunity and are therefore
subject to suit.
I just found it. It's page 133:
``A State's receipt or use of Federal financial assistance for any
program or activity of a State shall constitute a waiver of sovereign
immunity, under the 11th Amendment to the Constitution or otherwise, to
a suit brought by an employee or applicant for employment of that
program or activity.'' It goes on.
So at a time when States say we can't afford any more unfunded
mandates, the President proposes a bill to let them get sued a bunch
more by people who are unemployed. That's just got to be great news.
And we're seeing the hearings go on about Solyndra. This
administration, it appears from the evidence, we'll get the final
verdict later, but they rushed in to give them $500 million of stimulus
money so crony capitalism could occur and certain people could engorge
themselves, and all at the taxpayers' expense, and it turns out that
probably future generations will be paying for that.
If you like the way that was handled, you've got to be reassured,
because in this bill there are a number of references that green
programs, like Solyndra, will have priority, and we'll rush a lot more
money out there.
There are a lot of things we could agree on in that bill that the
President never had anybody willing to file. There was a provision for
a payroll tax holiday. Well, you would figure I'd support that. I'm the
guy who proposed it 3 years ago and personally explained it to the
President and Larry Summers in January of 2009. But it sure would've
been better if we did it before this administration squandered $4.5
trillion more than we brought in. We could've given everybody in the
United States who pays income tax a tax holiday for 3 years, and it
would've only run up $3.6 trillion. We would have saved $900 billion.
If you don't think that people having all of their own income tax from
3 years would've stimulated this economy, then you need to embrace this
President's bill because you'll love it.
Nonetheless, there are things that we could agree on. Both Houses,
both parties, I think, agree that we were willing to sell some more
broadband spectrum. That's there in the bill, but then he uses that as
a platform to create another bureaucracy, a Big Brother coming into
your computer, because it's the Public Safety Broadband Corporation
that's created and will just really make sure that Big Brother
government intrudes in your life.
When you boil it all down, we have a moral problem in America. The
Founders continually pointed to God and said that's where we need to
have our focus. As Ben Franklin said, without His concurring aid, we
will succeed in our political building no better than the builders of
Babel. We'll be confounded by our local partial interests, and we,
ourselves, shall become a byword down through the ages.
So whether anybody believes in God or not, as the Founders did, over
a third of the Declaration of Independence signers were not just
Christians, they were ordained ministers, to take one's eyes off of
self and put them on something higher and greater avoids the kind of
engorgement, the self-satisfaction, the self-emphasis that we've gotten
into. That's the reason you run up trillions of dollars of debt without
any regard for the children, the grandchildren, and the generations to
come.
I have to make this personal note reference. It breaks my heart to
see that in college football. Nobody loves college football more than I
do. I attended Texas A&M, and I know a lot of people are excited about
Texas A&M perhaps going to the Southeastern Conference for money. All
about money. The traditions of Texas A&M make it unique and I think the
greatest public institution of higher education in the country. I'm
very proud of it, but it's the traditions. And now we see that over a
hundred years of tradition, going back to 1876, are ready to be thrown
away for money. Just money. Greed money. Forget tradition that makes
your institution great. Forget it all. Forget the State rivalries.
Forget it all. We're talking about cash.
Isn't that what got us in trouble in this country in the first place,
when we put cash, greed for ourselves above the interests of the
country or the institutions we represent?
To close with this example, my senior year in the Corps Cadets, I was
the second level below the Corps commander. I was one level right below
the commander. There were four of us at that level, major unit
commanders. There was a Corps commander. He didn't get along very well.
He didn't play very well with others. And the first meeting we had, all
of the senior leaders in the Corps Cadets, he had his staff put
together tables end to end. He got up there with a corncob pipe like
MacArthur, walked up and down and condescended and cajoled all his
classmates like they were 2-year-olds.
{time} 1530
I approached him after the meeting and I said, Man, these guys have
seen you naked. We're all classmates. We're all friends. You need to
try to work together. Don't just condemn everybody. And I think if we
could get to that level in here--not that we run around naked
together--but just where we can work together as friends, disagreeing
on issues.
But unless one person has a 100 percent lock on God's truth 100
percent of the time, we should listen to each other, not condemn each
other; and we can get these things worked out, put greed aside and help
this country last 200 more years.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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