[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.
____________________