[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 14, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H722-H724]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Benishek). 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, happy Valentine's Day to you. Thank you for 
this time.
  There is so much going on. We have had in recent days the testimony 
of the director of CBO, Congressional Budget Office, making 
projections. We've had the White House dictating what religious beliefs 
people could observe and practice and which they could not, and then 
what was said to be a compromise so that individuals--actually 
institutions--could practice religious beliefs, the insurance companies 
that they utilize will have to provide the coverage that the President 
dictates even though it is against the religious beliefs, and then 
naturally the way things work, the insurance companies will spread out 
the costs, and they will pay for them anyway, which will be, once 
again, in breach of their religious beliefs.
  It's quite interesting. I've been trying to take this all in, Mr. 
Speaker, as we have seen ObamaCare basically rammed down the throats of 
Americans with the vast majority not wanting that bill passed, with the 
vast majority in Congress not having read the bill, and with Speaker 
Pelosi at the time saying, we'll have to pass it so we can find out 
what's in it. Well, as people are finding out what's in it, they're not 
terribly happy.
  And when you realize, as some of us did before it passed, as some of 
us were arguing here on the House floor before it passed, that if the 
President's health care bill passed, it would be such an intrusion into 
the rights of Americans that as I said here on the floor, it would be 
about the GRE, the government running everything, that means every 
aspect of people's lives. That includes setting aside people's 
religious beliefs when that came into conflict with the President's 
health care bill. We knew that it would run up tremendous debt. We knew 
that it would cut Medicare by $500 billion--something our friends 
across the aisle don't like to talk about a whole lot.
  Before the supercommittee fiasco ever occurred, the Democratic 
majority in the House and the Senate passed a bill a majority of 
Americans didn't want passed that would wrest control away from 
Americans in so many different areas and would take control and give it 
to the Federal Government in a way that was never anticipated in the 
Constitution.

                              {time}  2120

  So as we have seen this White House dictate to the Catholic Church, 
to Catholic hospitals, what they would be allowed to practice in the 
way of their religious beliefs, it's been quite interesting. We've 
heard many Catholic leaders who have said, you know, gee, we supported 
President Obama when he was Senator running for President. We thought 
he would do all these wonderful things. From conversations, as 
President Jenkins at Notre Dame had with President Obama, he just never 
anticipated that there would be this type of usurpation of religious 
practices and the ability to practice one's religious beliefs.
  This isn't about contraception. Anybody in America that wants 
contraception can get it. That's not an issue. In fact, it's been 
interesting to hear people say people have a right to have 
contraception provided. When I look at the Second Amendment of the 
Constitution, there is a right to bear arms, but I don't remember 
anybody who was pushing for the government to basically provide 
whatever people want in the way of health care, paid for by somebody 
else. I don't remember them saying, well, the Constitution mentions the 
right to bear arms, so the Federal Government must provide everybody 
guns. There's all kinds of things that are ensured under the 
Constitution and under the Bill of Rights, but it doesn't mean the 
government's supposed to buy them for everybody.
  But in view of the White House's position, President Obama's position 
on what religious practices he would allow the Catholic Church to 
observe, Mr. Speaker, I figure we really need to make an addition to 
the Constitution. Since the President has already taken these actions, 
then I think maybe we need to just observe some language that we insert 
into the shadow of a penumbra. So where it says in amendment one to the 
Constitution of the United States, ``Congress shall make no laws 
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof,'' I think in order to make the President's actions 
and the White House actions consistent, as those reflected by Secretary 
Sebelius, we need to insert there a line that comes up and says, But 
only if you are a religious institution and your beliefs agree with the 
President of the United States. Because if your religious beliefs come 
into conflict with Secretary Sebelius or the White House, unless the 
White House is willing to make some insurance company deal with your 
practice, then you're just going to have to set aside your religious 
beliefs.
  So apparently the parenthetical has been inserted into the 
Constitution. I'm hopeful that on this issue the Supreme Court will 
strike down ObamaCare, say there are so many aspects of this bill that 
are unconstitutional--the mandate to buy a product for the first time 
in American history is only one of them. But that mandate, of course, 
is central to the bill itself.
  But then the way it supercedes the religious institution's beliefs, 
why we would say ``religious institutions'' is because the President 
and Secretary Sebelius in their so-called ``compromise'' had not been 
willing to recognize an individual's beliefs, which I've always 
understood the Constitution was talking about.
  No, they say it is confined to the religious beliefs and practices of 
a religious institution. Because under this White House's 
interpretation of the Constitution, if you're an individual and you are 
Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, whatever it is--although the FBI has 
apparently been meeting with named coconspirators for funding terrorism 
and trying to eliminate any kind of language that might in any way 
offend people that have supported terrorism, we don't want to offend 
those who want to kill us, of course.
  But other than that, this White House sees it that if you're an 
individual and not a religious institution, then you have no right 
under the First Amendment to practice your religious beliefs if they're 
in conflict with what President Obama or Kathleen Sebelius want to do. 
You'll have to set them aside. It's only under their interpretation of 
the Constitution--and of course we know the President was an 
instructor--not a professor, but an instructor--at a law school at one 
time, so I'm

[[Page H723]]

sure he understands the Constitution--but under their beliefs, you've 
just got to set them aside. If you're not a religious institution, you 
have no right to demand to put your practices into use. So apparently 
the First Amendment, according to them, only applies to religious 
institutions.
  I never learned that in law school, because we were taught that if 
you read the Declaration of Independence and how that ended up by the 
end of the Revolution opening the door--of course first for the 
Articles of Confederation, then 4 years later for the Constitution--
that all this worked together. There was a belief at that time in the 
rights of an individual--not of a religious institution--the rights of 
an individual. That's why one of the statues here in the Capitol, one 
of the two from Pennsylvania, is for a Reverend named Muhlenberg. The 
statue is of him taking off his ministerial robe because he believed, 
as the Declaration of Independence said, that we were endowed by our 
Creator with certain inalienable rights, and there comes a time when 
people have to stand up for those rights.
  So Reverend Muhlenberg was preaching from Ecclesiastes and he was 
talking--I believe it's chapter 3--that there is a time for every 
purpose under heaven. When he got to the verse--I believe it's verse 
8--``there is a time for war and a time for peace,'' he took off his 
ministerial robe, and there he was in an officer's uniform and in 
essence said, ladies and gentlemen, now is the time for war. He 
recruited people from his church to join him in the fight in the 
Revolution, they recruited people from the town, and by the end of the 
war, Muhlenberg was a general.
  His brother was also a reverend. There's a story told that his 
brother did not agree with him recruiting from the pulpit; but after 
his church was burned down, he got active and ended up being quite a 
participant in the Revolution and actually ended up being the first 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. Those who know where the term 
``separation of church and state'' came from know that it came--not in 
the Constitution, it's nowhere in here, not at all. Nowhere before the 
end of the Constitution do you find the words ``separation of church 
and state,'' nor do you find the words ``wall of separation.'' Those 
are both contained in a letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury 
Baptists.

  So in the Constitution, you don't see any prohibition against them 
dating the Constitution itself with these words: ``Done in convention 
by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of 
September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and 
eighty-seven.''

                              {time}  2130

  They apparently did not think it offended the Constitution to date it 
as being done in the year 1787, that being in the year of our Lord, 
1787. So imagine the Founders' surprise to learn that the Bill of 
Rights that they put together, when it said the government would never 
prohibit the free exercise of religion, would somehow base beliefs on 
something unwritten in the Constitution as giving the President of the 
United States and his appointed representative, Kathleen Sebelius at 
Health and Human Services, the power to order people to disregard the 
religious beliefs, set them aside and do what the President ordered. 
For people, as Dennis Miller said, that were willing to go to war over 
a tax on their breakfast drink, they would probably have been even more 
riled up if King George had taken this kind of action.
  So, we're told that everyone in America must pay their fair share; 
yet we're told by the President he does not mean to divide America. And 
yet I would hope that by the end of this year, before the election, he 
would put the law where his mouth is and say, You know what? I've been 
saying for so long now that everybody should pay their fair share. I am 
finally going to go along with the Republicans who say we ought to have 
a flat tax. It doesn't matter who you are, Warren Buffett or whomever, 
we're going to have a flat tax.
  Steve Forbes said it could be done with a 17 percent flat tax, even 
allowing for a mortgage interest deduction, even allowing for 
charitable deduction. And that way, if you've got a flat tax, then 
Warren Buffett would not have to sue, or his company would not have to 
sue, as it is now, to avoid paying the millions or billions in taxes 
that are alleged to be owed. He wouldn't have to fight the IRS so hard 
at the same time he's saying he doesn't mind paying more. There 
wouldn't be any question.
  It's a flat tax. Just take your income, multiply it by the flat tax--
no matter who you are, how much you make--and that will be your tax. 
Because with 53 percent of Americans being the only ones that are 
paying more in income tax than they get back, we'd better act in a 
hurry; because once we cross that line where people who are voting get 
more from the government than they pay in, we're not coming back, 
absent a miracle of God.
  So I'm hopeful that the President's going to realize that all the 
speeches he's been giving about paying fair share really lead you to 
one, unavoidable conclusion. It's time to quit saying some don't have 
to pay any tax. It's time to say, look, everybody pay their fair share. 
Everybody has a percent of their income.
  Now, of course, Steve Forbes proposed, under his flat tax, that in 
order to shield the poor, and of course we could debate on what poor 
is, but in the United States, his proposal was that if you're a family 
of four, I believe it was $46,000 and less, you wouldn't pay any tax. 
How could anybody argue with that? A flat tax could do that.
  In the meantime, we have a proposal from the President for a budget 
for this year, and it's quite interesting. There's a Wall Street 
Journal article, and I'll quote from this. It's entitled, ``The Amazing 
Obama Budget,'' and it's dated today, Valentine's Day 2012. It says:

       Federal budgets are by definition political documents, but 
     even by that standard, yesterday's White House proposal for 
     fiscal year 2013 is a brilliant bit of misdirection. With the 
     abracadabra of a tax increase on the wealthy and defense 
     spending cuts that will never materialize, the White House 
     asserts that in President Obama's second term, revenues will 
     soar, outlays will fall, and $1.3 trillion in annual deficits 
     will be cut in half like the lady in the box on stage.
       All voters need to do is suspend disbelief for another 9 
     months. And ignore this first 3 years.

  It says ``4,'' but it's the first 3 years of his administration.

       The real news in Mr. Obama's budget proposal is the story 
     of those years. What a tale they'll tell.

  It says down further:

       All of this has added an astonishing $5 trillion in debt in 
     a single Presidential term. National debt held by the public, 
     the kind you have to pay back, will hit 74.2 percent this 
     year and keep rising to 77.4 percent next year.
       Economists believe that when debt to GDP reaches 90 percent 
     or so, the economic damage begins to rise, and this doesn't 
     include the debt that future taxpayers owe current and future 
     retirees through the IOUs and the Social Security ``trust 
     fund.''

  Anyway, it goes on to say:

       Mr. Obama's chief economic adviser, Gene Sperling, reported 
     that the President wants a new ``global minimum tax.''

  Talking about a new tax that's a global minimum tax. Wouldn't it be 
easier just to say, You know what? We're just going to have a flat tax. 
Everybody needs to pay their fair share.

  I don't have this in a blowup, but the debt boom, according to the 
Office of Management and Budget of this White House shows that for 2012 
and 2013 we go from a Federal debt held by the public as a share of 
GDP, around 35 percent, just spiking up, as The Wall Street Journal 
points out, to between 75 and 80 percent. Pretty dramatic.
  There's an article from Jeffrey Anderson today that said:

       According to the White House's own figures, the actual or 
     projected deficit tallies for the 4 years in which Obama has 
     submitted budgets are as follows: $1.293 trillion in 2010, 
     $1.3 trillion in 2011, $1.327 trillion in 2012, and $900 
     billion in 2013.

  That's because that's the year that hadn't happened yet.
  Further down it says:

       To help put that colossal sum of money into perspective, if 
     you take our deficit spending under Obama and divide it 
     evenly among the roughly 300 million American citizens, that 
     works out to just over $17,000 per person--or about $70,000 
     for a family of four.

  That's just the debt that has accrued with President Obama at the 
helm.
  I think it's also important to note that, under the bill that I was 
against but it got passed anyway, the debt ceiling extension back last 
summer to give

[[Page H724]]

the President all the debt ceiling authority he would want, that should 
carry him clear through the election, it's already appearing that that 
wasn't near enough.
  And of course we had the supercommittee that was going to protect us 
and take care of us and make the cuts that were necessary. And now that 
those haven't happened, we're gutting our own defense, gutting our own 
defense.
  Anybody that studies history knows you never put your national 
security on the table for negotiation, and we've done that.
  Now, this chart is pretty telling, and it's based on the testimony of 
the CBO Director before the Senate Budget Committee. It makes it pretty 
basic. The Director of CBO in the projections for this year has 
projected the U.S. tax revenue will be $2.523 trillion.

                              {time}  2150

  The head of CBO in his February 2, 2012, testimony projects the 
Federal budget this year will be $3.61 trillion, approximately. That is 
a deficit for 1 year of $1.079 trillion. Our national debt currently 
appears to be $15.348 trillion. According to the director of CBO, our 
budget cuts from 2010, when coupled with the ones projected for 2011, 
actually amounted to around $41 billion.
  So that's kind of hard for some of us to understand when you're 
talking about numbers with so many zeroes. So it may be far more 
effective--and my staff has done a great job of putting this together 
for me--by removing eight zeroes from all of those trillion dollar 
numbers. It makes it more easily discernible if you say, All right, 
let's look at it as a family budget.
  A family budget. They're bringing in $25,230 for 1 year, but they're 
going to spend $36,010 in that same year. That's going to increase 
their debt that they're going to owe by $10,780. So $10,780 on the new 
credit card.
  Well, we already have a credit card balance of $153,480. That should 
put it in perspective.
  As a country, it's basically like being a family making $25,000, 
spending $36,000, not once, but 4 years in a row under this President. 
And we already had $153,000 in debt, and we're only bringing in 
$25,000. This is like credit card debt. It's not secured by a home--
except for America.
  We have put our future, America's future, our children, 
grandchildren's future all in hock for this much, and we can proudly 
say--those that don't understand, I get sarcastic from time to time--we 
can proudly say that since 2010, 2011, if you take away the eight 
zeroes, we have cut $410 of our spending.
  We've got a lot of work to do. We owe the American public better than 
we've done. It's time to take a stand.
  We've been told, of course, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, 
that when you're elected as a freshman, your odds of being defeated in 
the first election you stand for as an incumbent, are 10 to 20 percent. 
That means there were some fantastic freshman Republicans that were 
elected in this last election. Ten to 20 percent of them may get 
defeated in the next election. What will they have to show unless we 
stand up and say enough is enough?
  Mr. President, Senator Reid, we're standing on our principles so that 
we can leave the next generation as good or better a country than we 
inherited. But we're going to have start moving and we're going to have 
to start standing on principle very quickly. Easy to do.
  Some say, Oh, it will be so hard making all of these cuts. No, it 
won't. We can go back to the 2008 budget that the most liberal Congress 
in history had passed. Didn't hear a lot of complaints about not enough 
spending that year. Go to that budget. That knocks out a trillion right 
there.
  Enough of the games. It's time to stand up for America, stand up for 
a responsible budget, cut the wasteful spending, stop the crony 
capitalism for groups like Solyndra, and let's get this economy going 
back again--strong, stronger, strongest ever.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________