[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 55 (Tuesday, April 17, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1911-H1913]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               TAXES, ENERGY, AND OTHER ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times we live in, and 
I've appreciated my friends, my doctor friends. We have got two 
physicians who would certainly like to help heal America, but we have 
people in powerful positions in the Senate, as well as the White House, 
that don't appear to be interested in their prescriptions. I sure am, 
and I appreciate their observations. Also, they alluded to some of the 
energy issues before us in the country right now, and that's certainly 
worth noting.
  First, I want to address something that we are hearing that the 
President, over and over and over, he is spending millions and millions 
of tax dollars running around the country telling people that the cure 
to what ails us and the cure to all unfairness is the Buffett rule. We 
are told that since Buffett may pay a lower percentage than his 
secretary, Warren Buffett and the President are saying we need to tax 
the wealthy more.
  We found out the President pays, apparently, a lower tax rate than 
his secretary, 20 percent compared to a higher percentage that his 
secretary pays, and it leaves some of us baffled. If somebody really 
feels that it's fairness or a moral issue for Warren Buffett and the 
President to pay more taxes than their secretaries, then at least have 
the morality to do it. Don't come to Congress and say we demand you 
pass laws to force us to do the morally right thing because we're not 
going to do the morally right thing unless Congress passes a law making 
me, Warren Buffett, me, President Obama, do the right thing. We can't 
control ourselves and make ourselves do the morally proper thing, the 
fair thing, unless Congress passes a law.
  Really? Is that what we have come to--that the leader of the free 
world just down Pennsylvania Avenue has to have Congress pass a law to 
get him to do what he says is the moral and fair thing to do? Come on. 
Are we in that bad a shape now?
  I have had one of the smarter economists in the country, Art Laffer, 
Ronald Reagan's economic adviser--what a great guy. Served us good 
spaghetti and meatballs at his home in Nashville. I personally got to 
try them out. Wonderful family, delightful family, a brilliant 
economist.
  I have had him explain to me how anybody who says we're going after 
the rich, we're going to go after the rich, and we're going to make 
them pay their fair share, is probably not being honest. They're just 
probably not being honest, because if they think through their 
proposal, if they will look at current history, if they will look at 
immediate past history and long past history, what they find is this. 
If you're a union worker, if you're a mechanic, if you're working on an 
oil well somewhere, if you're working as a waitress, you're working in 
a restaurant, you're working in a pharmacy, you're working in any of 
millions of businesses across America, and you're not rich, you're part 
of the working middle class, you cannot move if you get taxed a higher 
amount because you are reliant on that job.

  Taxes, no matter what kind of tax you put in place, it's most likely 
only going to affect those who are in the middle class, no matter what 
else you do, because only the wealthy are not tied to a restaurant, to 
a car company, to an auto manufacturer, to an auto repair place, they 
are not tied to those. They can own them, and they can live in the next 
State or the next country, but they don't have to actually live at the 
place of business they're making money from.
  When you go after the wealthiest in America and want to make them do 
the morally fair thing because, without Congress passing a law, these 
wealthiest among us can't make themselves do the moral and fair thing, 
according to their own words--Gee, we can't do it unless Congress makes 
us--what you do is tell the wealthy, we're going to slap a big old tax 
on you, and the wealthy can say, no thank you. I look stupid, perhaps, 
but I'm not that stupid. That's how I have either gained or been able 
to hold on to my wealth. So I'm moving. I'm voting on where I want to 
live with my feet, and they pick up and they go to where there are less 
taxes.
  We've seen it in the wealthiest moving from country to another 
country, or island, or buying an island. We have seen that repeatedly. 
If the government says, gee, well, we'll outsmart the wealthiest among 
us. They've moved to another country, so we'll figure out a new way to 
go after the wealthiest. And every time it fails to work.
  So after a while you get the idea, wait, let's look historically, 
every time a city, state, or nation goes after the wealthiest people in 
the world to make them pay higher taxes, unless the whole world 
collaborated at the same time to make it happen, they will simply move.

                              {time}  2130

  The middle class cannot do that. The middle class does not have that 
luxury. If you're very wealthy and gas goes to $4 or $5 a gallon, it's 
an inconvenience and you can't be tied up with trivial details like gas 
going up $1 a gallon or $2 a gallon or, like it has under this 
President, go from $1.80-or-so up to $4. And now we're heading toward 
$5. And in some places I have seen $5--certainly, over $5 for some time 
this year in some of the premium gasoline lines.
  The wealthiest, they're not really bothered. It's an inconvenience. 
They can choose to live in an estate out in the country. They can 
choose to live in a town home worth millions in the middle of town, or 
they can choose to live on an island. They can choose to live anywhere. 
Because of the Internet, the telephone, Internet meetings, the 
wealthiest among us can do their business from anywhere.
  So it becomes very clear that the only reason somebody really 
intelligent that understands what is going on and is willing to look at 
historical precedent, anybody that's really going to be fair, will 
realize the only reason they would say we're going after the wealthiest 
among us is for political gain, because they're going to drive them out 
of the country otherwise, or drive them out of the State or city where 
the taxes are going to be raised dramatically.
  The thing to do that's fair for those of us who want those making 
more money to pay more and those who are making less money to pay less, 
those of us that feel that way, many of us have begun to say, To do 
that, let's have a flat tax. Some, like Steve Forbes, have been saying 
it for a long time.
  The Heritage Foundation has got a new flat tax proposal that looks to 
have wonderful merit. There are a number of flat tax proposals. Steve 
Forbes was at a 17 percent flat tax, it doesn't matter how much you 
make. In my conversations with Art Laffer, he said you can have a flat 
tax and actually even be lower than 17 percent--I'm looking forward to 
getting the full details--and have two deductions, one for home 
mortgage interest and one for charitable contributions. I'm not talking 
about when you give underwear to some charity and say, Congratulations, 
you've now got my undergarments. I'm talking about real charitable 
contributions.
  Make those things deductible, but otherwise eliminate all the 
loopholes, whether it's 12, 17, and the economy would explode. There 
would be more jobs available. And at this time when there are so many 
that are just on the edge of desperation, when they don't know what 
they're going to do, they can't keep paying $4 a gallon for gas, for 
those who have been looking so long, the millions that are out of work 
because they just got tired of looking so they're not counted in the 
unemployment numbers.
  So we realize, gee, the unemployment is probably much, much, much 
worse than the administration is telling folks. For those folks, I 
would like to provide a little hope. It won't be under this 
administration; but if we have a different President and we get a 
different majority in the Senate, it truly ought to be spring time in 
America, figuratively, as it is literally right now.

[[Page H1912]]

  We now know, many of us, we can be energy independent. Seven years 
ago, when I got to Congress, I didn't think so. The natural gas we've 
found is extraordinary. And how have we done it? The technology has 
gotten so good at slanting holes, the technology has gotten so good in 
sealing the hole and fracking a formation. And for those that 
understand how it works, if you do not have a sealed formation there, 
and you frack, then you have lost the formation. There will be no 
pressure to bring the oil or gas up.
  We've also had hearings in Natural Resources--and Chairman Doc 
Hastings has done a great job there--we've had hearings and we've 
discussed a lot of these things. And we have some Chicken Littles in 
the Interior Department, Energy Department, and the EPA running around 
saying, gee, hydraulic fracking keeps polluting drinking water. They've 
shut wells down. And each time when they've brought in the scientific 
study to actually analyze--because there has been some drinking water 
polluted by something--but when they analyze, they find there is not 
anything that was utilized in the hydraulic fracking process that was 
able to make its way through the thousands of feet of rock formation to 
get to the drinking water and that there is nothing in the polluted 
drinking water that could possibly have come from the fracking.
  Yet this President keeps saying, I'm for all of the above. And the 
best I can figure is when he says I'm for an all-of-the-above energy 
process, it means: I'm for anything we don't get out of the ground. So 
we'll give hundreds of millions, actually billions, of dollars to dear 
friends who have bundled money for the President's reelection and 
original election and we'll give them those billions of dollars and 
say, Go try to make solar panels, even though it's not financially 
feasible. It's not a viable enterprise. Go do it and I will help you by 
giving billions of dollars--42 percent of which we're having to borrow. 
We'll give them all that money.

  Some day we should be able to use solar energy; but for heaven's 
sake, we should not be depriving our Social Security funds of money 
while this President is giving away billions of dollars to cronies for 
energy ideas that don't work and that are not feasible and that are 
bankrupting America. And yet that's what's been happening. A 2 percent 
payroll tax cut for workers to divide Americans.
  Seniors have been told, You don't have to worry. This Democratic 
administration is going to make sure we take care of our seniors. And 
the very times that's being said, they are gutting the Social Security 
trust fund. Even though it's IOUs going in there, there's Social 
Security tax money that has been coming in since the 1930s in enough 
sufficiency to pay for the outgoing checks. It was not supposed to be 
for many years that we were supposed to reach that point where there 
was more Social Security money going out than Social Security tax money 
coming in.
  Well, this President doubled down, and in what is a divisive--I 
guess, to use his terminology--divisive, dismissive gesture from this 
administration, we have undercut our seniors. This administration has 
been pushing to gut the Social Security trust fund. And it has done so.
  Now, the friends in the mainstream media, trying to cover for the 
President, are not talking about the fact last year there was 5 percent 
of Social Security payments that we didn't have money to pay from the 
Social Security trust fund payments coming in. So we had to borrow 
around 42 percent of the rest, and we had to take tax money to make up 
the rest. And there's projections that though it was a 5 percent 
shortfall last year, it will likely be 14 or 15 percent this year. 
That's not a good road to stay on.

                              {time}  2140

  It is a road to Greece. It is a road that will so undercut our senior 
citizens, who deserve better from every administration, including this 
one. Seniors have been hurt by this administration, 5 percent last 
year, 15 percent this year, and if we don't get a different 
administration and a different majority in the Senate, it's going to be 
worse after that. It will be 45 percent the next year. If it triples in 
1 year, it could triple again. We're in trouble if we continue the 
policies of this administration.
  Now, since hydraulic fracking has brought us 100 to 300 years of 
natural gas, even at vastly expanded rates of usage, we could be energy 
independent, we could put not merely city buses on natural gas, but 
move cars to natural gas. At the same time, the Bakken play up in North 
Dakota has found a huge amount of oil we didn't realize we had. And in 
northeast Utah, northwest Colorado and southwest Wyoming, we are told 
there are tremendous amounts of energy. We're told there's clean coal 
technology.
  And what's the answer from this administration? Let's shut down any 
use of coal. Why? Because this administration has ``all of the above'' 
as their energy policy, which means they're not going to use coal 
because it comes from underground.
  We in the United States have been blessed beyond measure. We have 
more natural resources and more energy than any nation in the world. 
China, Russia, you name it--we've got more natural energy than 
anywhere. And this administration has continued to put our energy off 
limits. The second-largest coal deposit in the world is in Utah, we are 
told, and it was put off-limits by President Clinton.
  This administration, of all the campaign promises you would hope the 
administration would break, you would hope they would break the promise 
to see energy prices ``necessarily skyrocket.'' I would love to have 
seen that promise broken, yet that seems to be one of the very few 
that's been kept. Energy prices have necessarily skyrocketed. And then 
we find out today, because hydraulic fracking has delivered the ability 
for this Nation to become energy independent, today, the EPA has 
declared war on hydraulic fracking.
  People are desperate. The rich--we've seen how this works. The 
President calls the wealthiest among us, the Wall Street folks ``fat 
cats.'' All they have to endure is a little name calling from the other 
end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and in return, they get richer than they've 
ever been. Most people can endure a little name calling by an 
individual when they know the individual is going to see that they're 
wealthier than ever. Wall Street has done pretty well under this 
administration. It's done a lot better than most of America.
  Americans deserve better. The President says he's going after Big 
Oil, declaring war on Big Oil. Well, this is one of the few areas where 
the President actually does have a substantive plan to go after what he 
calls ``Big Oil.'' Well, we've learned from the way Wall Street has 
been handled, call them names but make them richer than ever. Say 
you're going to war against Big Oil, and what happens? We get this 
proposal in writing from the President, this is his Jobs Act, and 
subtitle D of the President's job act is entitled, ``Repeal Oil 
Subsidies.''
  Well, that word is extremely disingenuous. The President uses it all 
the time, but the word, if you look it up, means a grant or gift of 
money. There is no grants or gift of money. There are tax deductions 
for expenses. So he says he's going after Big Oil, but if you look at 
the specific deductions that he now has in print that he is going after 
Big Oil with, what do you find? You find out these deductions don't 
help Big Oil companies. It's so marginal, it's a drop to them. Who it 
will devastate and put out of business are the independent oil and gas 
operators who drill 95 percent of all the oil and gas wells in the 
continental U.S. There is a repeal in here by the President of the 
deduction for intangible drilling and development costs in the case of 
oil and gas wells. There is a repeal of the percentage depletion for 
oil and gas wells, there is a repeal of the deduction for injectants, 
and there is a repeal of the oil and gas working interest exception to 
passive activity rules.
  Now, if anybody is interested in really finding out the truth, they 
can go to major oil companies and ask them, would these repeals of 
these deductions really hurt you as a major oil company in the world? 
And the answer would be, no, not really. You can go to the accountants, 
as I have, for independent oil and gas operators and say, if these are 
repealed, would it affect independent oil and gas operators who drill 
95 percent of the oil wells in the continental U.S.? And the answer is, 
it will

[[Page H1913]]

devastate them. Not only is he going after the deductions that keep 
them afloat, they're going after the investment in oil and gas wells by 
the mainstream public.
  Now, if you're British Petroleum or Exxon, you don't put out a 
proposal that says, we're drilling a well, and here's the proposal, 
here's the geology, here's the other wells in the area, here's what we 
think it will do. And if you invest X amount of dollars, then we will 
give you X percentage amount of the working interest in this well. 
That's the kind of proposal independent oil and gas companies have to 
make to get investments for people to invest in their oil well. If they 
hit a gusher, hit a huge well, then those who invest and take a 
percentage of the well will do very well. If they hit a dry hole, then 
they lose money. And when you invest in a dry hole and it costs you 
money, you would hope you would be able to deduct your expenses of the 
investment that failed.

  What this President is doing not only is going to destroy the 
independent oil companies by taking away deductions that keep them 
afloat and keep them able to keep drilling another well, he is going 
after their investments.
  So once you begin to see these specifics, you realize--and there are 
some other things in here, repeal marginal well production, repeal of 
enhanced oil recovery--when you see the specifics, you realize, oh, 
wow, maybe he doesn't know that he will destroy oil and gas independent 
operators. Maybe he doesn't know. But it doesn't take a genius to 
realize if you put oil and gas operators out of business who are the 
independents, who are not big enough to have all the employees they 
need to do the drilling, who have so many subcontractors who go out and 
eat and go to the entertainment places and they go invest in things 
around town, and they go buy clothes--those people, those 
subcontractors, their subcontractors, all of those people will be 
without anything to do because this administration says he's declared 
war on major oil, but instead, it's really a war against independents.
  If he stops 95 percent of the drilling for oil and gas in the 
continental U.S., then what happens to major oil? You've eliminated all 
of their competition among the small independents. Well, what does that 
mean? Well, there are only a small number of massive international oil 
and gas companies comparatively, and you've wiped out their competition 
in America. It means they will charge more for gasoline, more for 
diesel, and there's nothing we can do about it because they're the only 
ones that have any energy.

                              {time}  2150

  Right now, before this President finishes driving or trying to put 
independents out of business, we've got to stop this train wreck that's 
coming.
  This should be springtime in America. It should be a time of 
renaissance. People shouldn't have to pay $4 a gallon. And as soon as 
this President takes substantive actions, just to announce that he's 
going to take substantive actions, not to declare war on hydraulic 
fracking as they have now, not to declare war on oil companies in North 
Dakota because there have been eight mallards that died that had some 
oil on them and, therefore, they have the Justice Department under the 
President's thumb who is prosecuting the oil companies for violations 
of the Migratory Bird Act even though they've got windmills they 
support that are chopping them up by the thousands and thousands.
  No, don't go after the windmills. They're above. So when the 
President says he's for all of the above, that includes all of the wind 
being generated here in Washington and other places where there are 
windmills that are driven by the hot air.
  It's time to start saying what we mean, so that when this President 
tells the leader of Israel, ``I have your back,'' the leader of Israel 
doesn't realize he's got to put on something that will stop a knife 
coming from the back. It's time for our allies to know we support our 
friends, and we're going to stop supporting and trying to buy off our 
enemies. It's time to bring peace and prosperity back to the 
continental U.S., all 50 States, all our territories, by truly having 
an all-of-the-above energy policy. And if we want to pursue renewables, 
don't be letting the Social Security trust fund or the tax money dry up 
and leave seniors so vulnerable. Don't take away $500 billion from 
Medicare and hurt the seniors like that as ObamaCare has done. Don't do 
those things.
  If you want to go spend billions giving it to your friends in solar 
energy, for heaven's sake, let's start leasing the Federal land like it 
used to be done, and then use 25 percent royalty, use part of our 
royalty, to throw away on the President's friends, not be borrowing 
from China, not be taxing people to give to his buddies, and we can 
return to springtime in America.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.

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