[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 4, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6545-H6548]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE PRESIDENT'S AMERICAN JOBS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today, and I certainly 
appreciate my friends enlightening the Chamber and those that may be 
prone to listening.
  I want to add a little bit to the enlightenment, as we've seen that 
the President is out there. And here is an article from the AP, dated 
October 4, saying that President Barack Obama is criticizing House 
Majority Leader Eric Cantor for saying the President's $447 billion 
jobs bill will not get a vote in its entirety in the Republican-led 
House. The President singled out Mr. Cantor. According to the article, 
it says, `` `I'd like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and 
explain what in this jobs bill he doesn't believe in,' Obama said in 
remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday at a Texas community college.''
  And as we know, the President would have been reading those remarks, 
because he wouldn't want to stray far from the teleprompter with 
remarks. We've seen what happens on those occasions, and it isn't 
pretty.
  The article goes on:
  ``Three weeks after Obama sent the legislation to Congress, the 
proposal has run into resistance from Republicans and even some 
Democrats.''
  See, the article's not quite accurate on that, because we know that 
the President came in here, in this very body after he demanded to come 
speak, which requires an invitation. You can't just come speak on the 
House floor unless you're recognized by the Speaker, you're a Member of 
the House, or if the House votes to allow someone to come in who's not 
a Member.
  Some people are surprised when they come in, Mr. Speaker, that the 
President's not up there where you are, but

[[Page H6546]]

the rules make it very clear. This is the people's House. The President 
can only come, just like any other leader that's invited, for instance, 
Prime Minister Netanyahu. They speak from the second podium because 
they're invited guests.
  Well, now, it's a little bit rude to demand to come speak in 
someone's house, and then you come in there and lecture them and you 
state things like repeatedly saying, You've got to pass this bill right 
away, right now; pass this bill, this bill, and it turns out you didn't 
even have a bill. You had the gall to come in here and demand we pass a 
bill and you haven't even got a bill?
  And then on Friday, the President hit the campaign trail. Well, maybe 
not the campaign trail, but whatever you want to call it. He was out 
there spending millions and millions and millions of dollars to go to 
different places around the country and demand we pass this bill. Tell 
Congress, pass my bill, and he didn't have a bill.
  Saturday, Sunday, he's out there saying, Pass my bill right now, pass 
it right away. People, go to work immediately. Never mind that he had 
to take a vacation before he could get around to producing a bill that 
was that important. Never mind that he's going around telling 
everybody, We should make Congress pass a bill that doesn't exist.

                              {time}  1620

  On Monday, I was a little bothered we were being condemned for not 
passing a bill that didn't exist. So we were pushing to try to get a 
copy of this phantom bill. Late that afternoon, we finally got a copy 
emailed. I printed it out that Monday night at around 11 p.m., and I 
started going through the President's bill.
  Now, by Wednesday, when no bill was filed and when the President was 
still running around spending millions of taxpayer dollars, condemning 
Congress for not passing his bill when he was so busy out there telling 
people to make Congress ``pass my bill,'' he forgot to have anybody 
file the bill. For 6 days, we were condemned here in this Chamber for 
not passing the President's bill. He was so busy condemning Congress 
for not passing his bill that he forgot to ask somebody to file it for 
him.
  By Wednesday, I got tired of being condemned for not passing the 
American Jobs Act, so I filed an American Jobs Act. Mine's two pages. 
It's H.R. 2911. It would create more jobs in America than anything that 
the President has ever even talked about because, though you have 
businessmen who are very successful, like Donald Trump, saying we ought 
to slap a 25 percent tariff on everything we buy from China, that 
starts a trade war. I'm sure we don't win. I don't think China wins. I 
don't think anybody wins. It would be messy. China owns so much of our 
debt, unfortunately, that it's probably not a smart move right now 
until we get out from under this debt.
  The Bible talks very clearly about what happens when you allow 
somebody to own your debt. Basically, you become a slave to them. So 
I'm looking forward to the day we don't owe China and we don't owe 
foreign countries, the day we get out of debt because we balance our 
budget; and it looks like it will take a balanced budget amendment to 
do that.
  In the meantime, there is no treaty that would be violated, no trade 
agreement, no court order anywhere in the world that would prevent us 
from eliminating the 35 percent tariff that we put on all American-made 
goods before they're able to sell them abroad. It's called a 35 percent 
corporate tax, the largest corporate tax in the world. It's the number 
one reason that I've heard from CEOs as to why they moved their 
businesses to other countries.
  So my two-page bill, the American Jobs Act--and I do appreciate the 
President promoting the American Jobs Act; that's my bill--reduces the 
35 percent corporate tax to zero. Now, there are some people who never 
really got economics, and they don't understand the way the real world 
works. They think the real world works like CBO's archaic rules that 
say you can't take actual historic precedent to figure out what effect 
a bill will have.
  Never mind even if the same result always occurs after a certain 
thing is done, you can't consider that because the 1974 liberal 
Congress that ran us out of Vietnam and left all our allies there to be 
killed by our enemies put in the rules for CBO to score bills. So you 
don't get a fair look at what really happens with CBO rules, and there 
are some people who think those rules are the way you have to look at 
things. The fact is, if you reduced the corporate tax, especially to 
zero, jobs would come flooding back into America.
  Now, I would think unions would love this bill. If you really want 
union jobs back in America; if you're really willing to say, you know 
what, forget this business about America being nothing but a service 
economy, we really want manufacturing jobs back, then eliminate the 35 
percent insidious tariff we put on American-made goods before they can 
be sold abroad.
  As I've said here on the floor, I'm willing to negotiate, to be 
bipartisan. If the President can't bring himself to get to zero, then 
let's negotiate somewhere in between. We could do that. Herman Cain is 
talking about 9 percent. But then we have the President out there 
demanding that we pass his bill. Then he's saying things about it that 
simply are not factual, not factual at all. I know, because I read the 
bill. I'm very irritated with people who think the President's lying 
about his bill, because I believe I can prove he's not lying about his 
bill. He doesn't know what's in his bill. You can't lie about something 
you don't know, and I believe I can prove the President is not a liar. 
Absolutely not.
  He gave that speech in here on Thursday night. The next day, he's on 
the road condemning Congress for not passing his bill. There was no 
bill yet. Saturday, he's on the road condemning Congress for not 
passing his bill. There's no bill. He was still keeping that up all day 
Monday. Well, it wasn't until Monday that his bill got finished. 
There's no way he could keep giving those speeches every single day all 
over the country and have had the 6 or 7 hours I did between 11 p.m. to 
5 or 6 a.m.--I've said five, but I was still going awhile--but at least 
the 6 hours that I took the night the bill came out to go through his 
bill. He hadn't had that time. There's no way the President could work 
that 6-hour schedule, or time in his schedule, to go through the bill 
like I did. There's no way to condemn the President for not knowing 
what's in his bill when he hasn't had time, when he's been too busy 
condemning Congress for not passing it. How could he know what was in 
it?

  Then today, of course, we see the President's knocking the GOP 
leadership, and he's telling people on the campaign trail--let's see. 
This is an article from Yahoo! News, by Chris Moody:

       President Obama is in Dallas today, urging Americans who 
     support the American Jobs Act to demand that Congress pass it 
     already.
       Though it's been nearly a month since he laid out this 
     plan, House Republicans haven't acted to pass it, and House 
     Majority Leader Eric Cantor is out there actually bragging 
     that they won't even put the jobs package up for a vote--
     ever.
       It's not clear which part of the bill they now object to--
     building roads, hiring teachers, getting veterans back to 
     work. They're willing to block the American Jobs Act, and 
     they think you won't do anything about it.

  Apparently, those are the President's words, according to the 
article, the best I understand this. Oh, this was the President's 
reelection campaign that sent out an email blasting House Republicans 
for not voting on the proposal.
  It's just been in the last hour, while the President is condemning 
Republicans for not passing his bill, that Senate Minority Leader Mitch 
McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, tried to force a vote on the 
President's plan in the upper Chamber on Tuesday afternoon; but Reid 
used a procedural tactic to block the bill from coming to the floor. He 
called the Republicans' insistence on a vote a ``publicity stunt.'' So 
the President hasn't had time to read the bill. He hasn't had time to 
find out who was really blocking his bill. Well, it turns out it's 
really Harry Reid in the Senate.
  Based on the things the President has said, I know he hasn't read 
this, because I know the President would not be dishonest. When he's 
out there and has repeatedly said that we're going to make millionaires 
and billionaires pay their fair share, I know he wouldn't go out there 
and say that if he knew the

[[Page H6547]]

truth about what was in his bill, because in his bill at pages 134 and 
135, it gives the definition of who's rich and who's going to get it 
socked to him.
  The President has been saying repeatedly ``millionaire and 
billionaire''; but bless his heart, if he had time to read the bill--
and I hope somebody will carve out some time for him to do that. I know 
his speech schedule out there of condemning Congress has kept him tied 
up--but if they could work in some time for him to read his own bill 
and just stop condemning Congress for just a little bit and if he has 
enough time to get to page 135, he'll find out that the people he's 
going after that he says are millionaires and billionaires in his 
bill--and it's not a jobs bill.

                              {time}  1630

  Since I have used the name that the President was originally 
plugging, I think his bill would be better called ``the saving Obama's 
job bill.''
  But that may not be fair either because if people really find out 
what's in this bill, I don't think they would be very happy. I'm not 
sure it saves his job.
  But he defines millionaire and billionaire--right here on page 135--
as any taxpayer whose adjusted gross income is above $125,000 in the 
case of a married filing separately return, and that's $250,000 in the 
case of a joint return, married filing jointly.
  And here again this may be something nice he's throwing out for gay 
folks that are living together, so he can tell them actually you're 
better off not getting married, because there's some marriage penalty 
here. If you're the head of a single household, you've got an exemption 
of $225,000; all other cases, $200,000.
  So it really penalizes married individuals and, apparently, according 
to this bill, a millionaire or a billionaire is somebody who makes 
$125,000.
  But if you think this is good news, if you want to get divorced, it 
is good news for you because if you're married and you're filing a 
joint return, you get a $250,000 exemption. Or if you're married and 
filing singly, you get a $125,000 exemption. The good news is, if 
you're thinking about divorce, you can actually get divorced and have a 
$75,000 to $100,000 higher exemption if you'll just get divorced, and 
you can even live together. This is the President's proposal: live 
together and you get a whole lot more of an exemption than if you're 
married.
  Now, of course, the Founders, they all understood marriage to be 
between a man and a woman, and that's the way the history of the 
country has been. Study after study has shown that the odds are 
children will be better adjusted if they have the two-parent home, the 
traditional two-parent home. Obviously, there's some homes that aren't 
good and children are not well served there. But this President, by 
virtue of the power as the old saying, the power to tax, the power to 
destroy, takes a shot at traditional, conventional marriage.
  Then there is an additional AMT amount. That's subsection c, because 
if you are a millionaire or a billionaire, which means you make more 
than $125,000 and you're married, there is an extra penalty for you 
that the President's got waiting for you in his so-called jobs bill.
  I don't know if he's aware--I just don't see how he could be because 
he's been so busy out making speeches everywhere. But if you were to 
look, Mr. Speaker, at the stuff in here, well, he says it's about jobs; 
so I bet the President does not know that here at page 75, we've got a 
new Federal entity, although it's defined on page 76 as a private, 
nonprofit corporation, called the Public Safety Broadband Corporation, 
because this President believes there is danger in people having 
broadband in their home.
  Can you really trust the American people? It has to be the theme of 
this part of the President's so-called jobs bill. Apparently, he thinks 
there's a public safety threat in broadband that people have coming 
into their home and business. So he's created this private, nonprofit 
corporation.
  You might say, well, good, thank goodness it's not government; it's a 
private nonprofit corporation that will control everybody's broadband. 
Good news, is it?
  Because when you look down at section 285, halfway down page 76, you 
see who's on the board of directors. And even though it's a private, 
nonprofit corporation, the board of directors is comprised of--the 
Federal members are the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of 
Homeland Security, Attorney General of the United States, the Director 
of the Office of Management and Budget. I believe those are all 
appointed by the President. How about that? But it's a private, 
nonprofit corporation; so surely the Federal Government wouldn't try to 
control it.
  But the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of 
Homeland Security and Attorney General, shall appoint 11 other 
individuals who serve as non-Federal members of the board.
  Well, isn't that happy news? They're not really Federal even though 
the President's appointees are the ones that will be on the board with 
these folks. They'll owe their appointment to them.
  But it's just interesting. I bet the President has no idea. And, of 
course, I know the President's aware of what a fiasco to our Federal 
budget Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been and the danger that it 
posed to our Federal economic system. Well, he's probably not aware 
that in here his bill creates--I'm sure there's no way he could know 
what's in this bill. He's too busy running around condemning us for not 
passing it. There's no way he could have spent 6 hours reading this, 6 
to 7 hours, like I did.
  Anyway, if you'll double-check, you'll find, Mr. Speaker, that page 
40, whoever wrote this bill thinks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a 
wonderful, wonderful thing. The Federal Government, insuring all these 
home loans and, then, of course, we pass laws.
  I do remember our friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) assuring 
everybody that they're in good shape, not a problem. It turned out they 
weren't in good shape. He didn't know. Mr. Frank wouldn't come down 
here and misrepresent something like that, I know. He wouldn't. He just 
didn't know, just like the President has no clue what all is in this 
bill.
  But if he'll check at the bottom of page 40, he'll find the American 
Infrastructure Financing Authority says it's established as a wholly 
owned government corporation. So if you like Fannie Mae and Freddie 
Mac, you think they've done a great job, you're going to love this 
bill. It's like both of them combined, exponentially increased and put 
on steroids. Because we know houses, compared to infrastructure, don't 
cost all that much. But, boy, you compare them to infrastructure, man.
  This has to be the thinking of whoever put this bill together, and I 
know it wasn't the President because he couldn't have put this together 
and gone around telling people things that are in it, not knowing this 
kind of stuff that is in it. But the American Infrastructure Financing 
Authority--and we could do that like we did the flood insurance. You 
know, the Federal Government says, well, we need a Federal player in 
the insurance business; so we provided a Federal option.
  Well, guess what, the Federal Government runs in the red on the flood 
insurance. Private companies can't keep up with that, and so insurance 
companies quit providing flood insurance in those parts and the Federal 
Government became the insurer.
  It's the same way with student loans. Banks, other lending 
institutions could lend money for student loans, and they were backed 
by the government. But under Speaker Pelosi and this President, Harry 
Reid, the Federal Government decided we're going to take over all the 
student loans.

                              {time}  1640

  Well, that creates a concern for some because if you're as outspoken 
as some of us are, I'm just grateful my daughter has just finished her 
college degree so I won't have to come begging to the President for a 
student loan so my children can go to college. Is that what we want? Is 
that where we want the infrastructure financing to go? Every school 
district, town, county, State has to come begging to the Federal 
Government because we run everybody else out of business, like we did 
student loans and flood insurance?
  Surely the President doesn't know this is in here. This is not a jobs 
bill; it's a government takeover. Same with

[[Page H6548]]

the public safety broad band authority or corporation.
  I bet a lot of folks don't know about the short time compensation 
program. It's a new program, never created before, but it's in the 
President's bill. The participation, it says, is involuntary. But if an 
employer under this program reduces hours worked by employees instead 
of laying them off, and that's anybody who has been reduced by at least 
10 percent, then it says they're eligible for unemployment 
compensation. It gives out the terms for that. I bet the President 
doesn't know that's in there.
  Now I have to agree with him, it is a jobs bill for plaintiff's 
lawyers because we have seen over and over a lot of states doing tort 
reform. It's more and more difficult to sue people. So we have got a 
new program here that will help with lawyers that are out of work 
because here in the bill, we've created a new class of protected 
individuals. So if you're unemployed and you get laid off, you ought to 
see a lawyer if you feel like you weren't hired because you're 
unemployed, because you can sue. You can file a claim, at least, 
against the employer that didn't hire you.
  Now, a practical look at that provision, allowing employers to be 
sued if they fail to hire someone who is unemployed, would make 
employers--I've already heard from them--if that ends up in the law, 
I'm not going to be hiring anybody. I can't take a chance on being sued 
or having claims filed against me. If five people unemployed come in, 
four of them don't get the job and they all four file claims against 
me, I can't afford that.
  So I think once the President ever gets to look at his bill, then 
he'll understand this is not what he's thinking it is.
  And, of course, he's promised America we're going after major oil 
companies. There is no way this President could know that page 151-154, 
the part that goes after oil companies, will not affect his friends at 
British Petroleum, Exxon, Shell. They won't be affected because the 
most important deductions that are repealed here are only for smaller 
producers, the independent producers who drill 94 percent of all the 
oil and gas wells on the land of the continental U.S. There's no way he 
could know that, even if he read this, unless he really understood the 
oil and gas industry.
  So what he'll do, he drives up the capital for companies trying to 
drill wells, and this will be a disaster unless you're a major oil 
company, in which case you'll make more profit than you've ever made 
because you kill off all of the independent competition. That's what 
his bill does, and I'm sure he doesn't know that.
  Now, they have also been out there blaming Republicans for increasing 
the debt. This was in an article. We've got it up on the House Web site 
so people can really see what has happened. It's a great article from 
the Atlanta Journal Constitution. This is one of the diagrams. It shows 
who really increased the debt. We know from the Constitution that it is 
the Congress that holds the purse strings. So really the one 
responsible, most responsible, is the Congress. And who's most 
responsible, the biggest, most powerful body is controlled by the 
Speaker; you, Mr. Speaker--that is while you're pro tempore. This shows 
the increase in debt as a percentage of GDP. And we see what happened 
under Speaker O'Neill. We see what happened under Speaker Jim Wright. 
Didn't really increase much in debt as a percentage of GDP. Under 
Speaker Foley, it increased a great deal. And actually under Speaker 
Gingrich and Speaker Hastert, debt as a percentage of GDP, it went way 
down. And then we got the last 4 years with Speaker Pelosi, and it went 
through the roof like has never happened in this country's history.
  Well, I hope I have provided an adequate defense to those who would 
say that the President is misrepresented because I think I've got 
proof. The President didn't lie about any of this stuff. He hasn't had 
time to read it. He doesn't know what's in it. I hope and pray that 
he'll take the time to do that so he can accurately represent the 
saving Obama's job bill, and I appreciate the President's support for 
the American Jobs Act, which bill is mine.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________