[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 99 (Thursday, July 11, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H4476-H4481]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPENDENCE ON THE GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Today, despite all of the diatribe, all of the allegations, so many
of which shocked me, this bill passed. There were things in the farm
bill I was not crazy about, but what an extraordinary day for this
reason: over the last 40-50 years, Members of the other party have
increasingly made the United States a welfare state where more and more
American people are dependent upon this government for their
livelihood. Having been at a Harvard orientation course, I was shocked
to have a dean there with charts that showed that since welfare began,
and assistance to single moms, a check actually for each child that any
woman could have out of wedlock, they would get a check from the
government. Now, it was well intentioned.
Back in the sixties, there were deadbeat dads that were not helping
with their obligation to help their children, and so the government,
people here in Congress thought, wow, why don't we help these poor
single moms by giving them a check for every child they have out of
wedlock. At that time we were around 6-7 percent of children being born
to single-parent homes. And after 40 years--actually after 30 years, as
economists will tell you, you will get more of what you pay for. And so
we are to date now past 40 percent and moving toward 50 percent of
children born in American to a single-mom home because we got what we
paid for.
Now, it doesn't matter how well intentioned the program was. What I
saw happening in the nineties as a judge was single moms coming before
me for welfare fraud, and the stories were usually the same that they
presented to me. So often they were bored with high school, and someone
said, hey, you can just have a baby and the government will send you a
check. And then you can live, and you don't have to work. You don't
have to finish high school.
And those well-intentioned Members of Congress back in the sixties
ended up in effect luring smart young women away from finishing high
school into having a child out of wedlock and away from reaching their
full potential.
Now, even for those of us who are Christians that believe God created
heaven and Earth and that God created at one time a Garden of Eden from
which man fell for disobedience, even in that scenario when the world
was perfect, Adam was given a job. In a perfect world where everything
was fantastic--before childbirth pains, before briars, before thistles,
before all of the things that frustrate farmers, at that time he had a
job: tend the garden.
{time} 1600
In a perfect world, people will have a job to reach their God-given
potential, and there is a good feeling from doing a good job in what we
do.
That's one of the things I miss about working in the yard or working
out on a farm or working with your hands. When you finish, you see
you've done something good.
When we work here, we try to do the right thing, on both sides of the
aisle, but we never know for some times decades whether we did more
good than damage.
And I would humbly submit that the program that began to lure young
women away from their potential, away from finishing high school, away
from time in college, was well intentioned, but this government should
never be in the business of luring people away from their potential,
from luring people into results from which they cannot seem to
extricate themselves.
And they'd come before me for welfare fraud, felony welfare fraud, as
a district judge. And normally the scenario was that they realized,
after a number of children, they couldn't live on that little bit of
government subsistence; and they would think, well, maybe if I get a
job, and I don't report it to the Federal authorities, maybe I'll
finally have enough income that, combined with what the government's
giving me, then I can get ahead and I can get out of this hole, this
rut.
And so when the Republicans took the majority, in 1995, one of the
things that they wanted to do was welfare reform. And I was at that
Harvard orientation seminar and was surprised when they brought out the
big poster graph of single mothers' income over the 30-or-so years
since that program had first begun.
Single moms' income, when adjusted for inflation over that 30-year
period, was flat-lined. All those years, the average single mom never
got ahead. She was flat-lined because she was lured into that
government program.
I'm not sure what the right thing was, but I think it's time to have
the debate about it.
So I know that those people that passed the bills in the sixties,
they had the best of intentions, but those poor single moms were flat-
lined for about 30 years of what they were bringing home. That's
tragic. I know both sides of the aisle would want them to do better and
do well and every year to do a little better. I know that feeling is on
both sides of the aisle, but we disagree with how you get there.
But what really shocked me today, and I've got to say, in some cases
broke my heart, is to hear friends talk about how Republicans wanted to
take food out of the mouths of children. I would never insinuate or say
such a motive on the part of friends across the aisle, even though I
believe that that welfare program, back from the sixties, did exactly
that.
I would never ascribe that motivation to friends across the aisle
because I know that's not their heart. They really do want to help.
They just went about it in the wrong way in the sixties.
And so, in 1995, when Newt Gingrich led the Republican Revolution,
had the Contract With America, they put in a requirement for work. If
you could work, you had to work. And it pushed people who had been
subsisting on welfare, barely getting by, it pushed them into the
workforce.
And this graph, about 9 years later, showed that single moms' income,
when adjusted for inflation, after welfare reform, had single moms
making
[[Page H4477]]
more money. Every year that graph showed their income went up. And
surely that is what both sides of the aisle would want.
And when we took up this farm bill today, I voted against it for the
first vote, previously. But if we are ever going to get down to truly
reforming what has become a welfare state that lures far too many
people away from the job they could be doing, and from the good feeling
of actually accomplishing something, and the good feeling of knowing
you're reaching closer, ever closer to your potential. I was willing to
vote for this today because we were going to take the food stamp
program out of the agriculture bill.
And I don't know what the Senate's going to do, and I can't help what
they're going to do. But I know this: today, we had a first step in the
right direction. And I agreed with my leadership, if you will separate
out the food stamp program so that we can have a separate debate on the
food stamp program, and even though I don't agree with a number of
things in the farm bill we voted on, that was such a big deal, a
tremendous stride forward.
People said neither the House nor the Senate would ever, ever
separate the food stamp program from the Ag bill because in either the
House or the Senate, you had to have them tied together to get enough
people from both sides, or either side to vote for the bill because
you'd never get enough Republicans by themselves, you'd never get
enough Democrats by themselves and you'd never get enough together
unless you put the food stamp program with the farm program.
But by doing so, it prevented us from looking closely at the farm
program because the food stamp program made 70 to 80 percent of the
budget; and you couldn't look effectively enough at the food stamp
program because it was linked with the farm program.
This was a big step, and I know there are a number of groups that I
thank God for that are doing a great job. And I have friends in these
groups and they've said this was a major mistake today. And I would
submit, very humbly, hide and watch. This was a first major step.
And my goal, and I hope I live to see it, and I hope this country's
around long enough that we can do it, is to take every form of public
assistance, every form of public assistance, and put it into one bill,
in one subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, and they deal with
all welfare, all types of public assistance. And once that happens, we
can have major reform.
But the reason we have trouble having reform of this ever-growing,
ever-bloated welfare state is because the public assistance programs
are found throughout all the committee's budgets, throughout all the
appropriations. So if over here in the farm program you say, wait a
minute; we need to reform the food stamp program. They go, oh, you hate
children. You want to starve children, you want to starve mothers or
veterans or military. You must hate all these people.
Why?
Because they're willing to say things that are not right to come in
here and say. And that's what broke my heart today over and over,
hearing people that surely know I would never want to take food out of
the mouth of someone who could not provide for themselves. I don't know
any Republican who has ever said that or would ever want that.
We want to help people who truly cannot help themselves.
And my friend across the aisle, Mr. McDermott, at Rules, when I made
a proposed amendment to separate the food stamp program from the farm
bill, he said, so do you want to completely eliminate the food stamp
program?
And I pointed out, no, I did not. Of course, that didn't stop the
mainstream press or the left wing blogs from spouting lies. They're
accustomed to that. And God bless them, they have the freedom to do
that, and they should be able to do that without this administration
grabbing up all their phone records.
But it was not true, and I pointed out to Mr. McDermott what was
true. No, I don't want to end it. I want to separate it out. And one
day I want to have all of the public assistance in one committee, where
we can see all of the ones that are redundant, those that duplicate
services already provided, those where the most waste, fraud and abuse
is taking place, because the thing we know, we're over $50,000 for
every child of debt before they ever even have a chance to start making
a living.
And we have done that, and it is immoral what we have done to future
generations, loading them up with debt, just because we can't get to
the bottom of waste, fraud and abuse, get to the bottom of what helps
this country more than hurts it. And there will be a price today to pay
someday for our negligence.
But it's not too late. We can still fix it. But a start happened
today. This was a big deal, to separate the food stamp program out so
we can look at it.
And a good example of what I'm talking about, how these different
types of assistance are spread out through so many different budgets,
was pointed out by my good friend, Dan Webster from Florida, first
Republican Speaker of the House, as I understand it, down in Florida,
was reluctant to run, did run, is elected here.
He decided to get to the bottom, just one little tiny aspect of this
Federal, bloated bureaucracy. How many Federal programs are there that
are responsible for getting people to appointments?
So far he says he's found 87 programs responsible for getting people
to appointments, and most of them are in the same cities, and most of
them have the vans that are the same size, same kind of vans. And on
average, when they do take somebody, they'll maybe average three people
per trip.
Well, when you take up one committee's budget, or one appropriations,
and you were to take one of those 87 programs and say, you know what,
let's combine this with these other programs, then we will hear, as
we've heard today, oh, you hate children, or you want to take food from
people's mouths.
If it's all 87 programs in one bill, then we can come before this
body and say, no, we love children. We want to help this country. In
fact, we will do more good for children of the future than what you've
proposed because you're loading them up with debt, while we lavish it
on our generation, and going to make future generations pay for
lavishing ourselves. That is just wrong.
But if you combine them all into one bill, then we can say, no, we
care every bit as deeply and perhaps more than you do, but we don't
need 87 programs. We don't need all the duplication. Let's eliminate
the redundancy.
Let's get down to what we really need as a Federal Government,
because this administration was certainly shocked. They talked about
all the horrors of cutting the budget with the sequestration.
Well, the sequestration made too many cuts in defend. Some were
appropriate, but it did some in the wrong places. As I told my
leadership 2 years ago this month, you never put your security on the
table.
{time} 1615
You can make cuts but you can never gamble your national security or
your home. By putting defense on the table, my leadership did, and I
was promised that those sequestration cuts would never happen. I was
sure if that bill passed that would happen, and it would be a
disastrous mistake and we would be blamed even though it was the
President's idea. It all happened. Sometimes it's just not fun being
right.
But here, today, we did something good. We started a step toward that
goal one day of having all the public assistance in one bill, one
budget, one committee, where we can get in and analyze without all of
the false statements that people want to make about others wanting to
take food from the mouths of children, from my friends saying that we
wanted to do that, that I wanted to do that. Come on. Mr. Speaker, that
is just wrong.
On our side of the aisle, yes, we will complain ObamaCare is going to
hurt health care. We're now seeing that. We're seeing it all play out
just as we said would happen. And maybe it wasn't a death panel. Call
it what you want, but it is a panel under ObamaCare that will say that
you're a little too old; you've had a good life; your hip is killing
you. Before ObamaCare, you would have gotten a
[[Page H4478]]
new hip. But now we, the government, say, No, you don't get a new hip.
Yes, you can use a new knee, and you might have 20, 25 good years with
it, but we're the government and we say you've had a good knee for long
enough so you're not getting a new knee. Or, as the President pointed
out in his town hall meeting when a woman asked about a pacemaker that
her mother had gotten, Will you consider the quality of life in
deciding who gets a pacemaker and who does not? Since my mother has
lived 10 years after getting a pacemaker, I'm concerned she wouldn't
get one under ObamaCare. He beat around the bush but then finally said
that maybe we're better off telling your mother to just take a pain
pill, and that means die without your pacemaker.
That's what ObamaCare is going to do. But I would never, ever ascribe
to any one of my friends across the aisle the intention to want people
to die. Well, they might tell me that sometimes, but not to the public
that they are charged with protecting, because I don't think they mean
to do that. I just think they're motivated to do the right thing, but
it's being done in the wrong ways and people are being hurt. And that's
the way we look at it.
So today, to hear dozens and dozens of friends across the aisle come
up here and try to vilify Republicans, saying we want to take food out
of the mouths of children, that this is going to destroy these poor
people that can't provide for themselves and this is what we want to
do, most of those things were said in ways that it would have done no
good to ask that their words be taken down because they would ascribe
it to Republicans in general or to a big group so that you couldn't say
that violated the rule of saying a specific person had a specific evil
motive; but it was, nonetheless, just as hurtful.
That's, apparently, the difference. One side is willing to accuse the
other of wanting to push Grandma off a cliff and let her die bouncing
down a cliff, and the other side, we think you're going to cause
Grandma to die early, but we know you don't mean to do that. In fact,
ObamaCare will do that very thing because of what we've seen.
And I heard Bette Midler and Michelle Malkin are good friends. I
heard she tweeted something to the effect that if we had lost the
Revolution, everyone would have universal health care. Well, I have
three daughters and a wife that's been married to me, God bless her and
help her, for 35 years. Four women in my life in my immediate family.
Sometimes children do things that break your heart. Sometimes they
bless you beyond anything you could imagine.
What I think Ms. Midler didn't understand is, if we had England's
health care, they have a 19 to 20 percent lower survival rate from
breast cancer than we have in the United States because our health care
is that much better and you get treatment that much quicker here. You
didn't have to wait until you felt a lump. You could get a mammogram.
There were groups that could help if you didn't have the money. But in
England, you had to get on a list for everything you did.
And so, when you think about one in five women with breast cancer, I
can't imagine anyone would want England's health care if they realized
it means we're going to lose 20 percent of the women with breast cancer
in this country.
I mentioned before that one of my constituents came from England. She
said her mother died of breast cancer because she lived in England and
was on list after list to get the diagnostic care to find out if she
had cancer, and then when she found it, she went on another list. It
took too long to get surgery, get help, get treatment. Her mother died,
she'd said, because she lived in England. She said, On the other hand,
I'm in America. I'm a secretary here and I don't have much money, but
I'm alive today because when I was found to have cancer, I didn't have
to go on a list. I was able to get treatment when I needed it, whether
I could afford it or not.
And those who yearn for the ObamaCare days, where we look like
England's health care, where we have 20 percent less survival rate of
women we love with all our hearts, like the four women in my life, if
you've got five women, which one of them do you want to die so we can
have health care like England?
The disagreement here on the floor was not about anybody wanting
children to not have the food they need. But we have seen the results
of welfare reform, and the results of welfare reform in the Republican
revolution of 1995 resulted in single moms having more income after
inflation than ever before under the giveaway programs of the Great
Society.
So, in that scenario, who cares more: those that pushed through the
Great Society, that lured women into a rut that so many of them
couldn't get out of, or those who pushed through a bill that forced
them to start meeting their potential?
I spoke at Texas College, the oldest college in Tyler, Texas, my
home, within the past few months. It's a great college. It changed my
opinion about colleges that began as all one race. Now they're all
different races. But it's basically an African American college still
today. The people in charge are Christians, and they care deeply.
And I spoke to a combined sociology class there at Texas College and
I laid this issue out before them. As one single mom told me, You've
got to clean it up. You've got to clean these programs up. I'm now,
after so many years later, coming to college to try to better myself.
And I wish it had been otherwise, but you need to make people work. You
need to make people finish high school. And if they can, have them do
some college. You need to incentivize that. You do not need to just
give people a check. She said too many people even spend it on drugs
instead of their kids. She also said, You need to reform the system so
that I don't waste years trying to get to college. And others chimed in
and they said similar things.
These were people who understand the system better than I do. But as
a judge, as a citizen, I've seen it from different angles. And though
we care equally on both sides of the aisle, one way leads to the end of
a Nation. And it's the broad path and it's wide, because every Nation
in the history of the world has gone down that path and come to an end.
Unless the Lord comes before, we will, too.
So my goal by running for Congress, the goal of so many people I know
here, was to come try to make a difference, to prolong what some called
a little experiment in democracy, to prolong what Ben Franklin said.
It's a republic, Madam, if you can keep it. That's our goal. That's
what we hope to do.
I really believe today we made a step in that direction toward
reforming the system and starting down the path of eliminating the
duplication. I realize it may not all happen in this farm bill by the
time we agree with the Senate, but then we can expose those in the
Senate that did not do the right thing and we can expose those in the
House that didn't. I think it will end up giving us a majority of those
who will do the right thing. Not that everybody doesn't have the right
motivation, but we need more who will do the right thing, even under
pressure from friends or enemies to do something else.
I think we did a good thing today.
With that, I yield to my friend from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).
The Syrian Conflict
Mr. FORTENBERRY. I thank the gentleman from Texas, if you would allow
me a few minutes of commentary.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to add to Mr. Gohmert's conversation today. I
wanted to add a few words on the Syrian conflict, which has been
unfolding with just horrific consequences.
In my office this week, I read the accounts about Father Francois
Murad, a Franciscan priest who was shot dead in northern Syria by
rebels engaged in the Syrian conflict. He was killed in a Christian
village where he sought to serve. He did not deserve the death that he
was dealt.
Mr. Speaker, I just simply firmly believe that the United States
Congress cannot allow American taxpayers to become complicit in this
killing and the other brutality that is occurring there in Syria.
What began as a very hopeful exercise of the Syrian people
petitioning their government for redress of grievances and their basic
rights has spun into a dreadful civil war with terroristic elements and
other rebel groups fighting this brutal Assad regime. But the bloodbath
in Syria has spared no
[[Page H4479]]
one. The regime and many of its rebel opponents have killed wantonly,
without discretion, murdering civilians and combatants alike. Men,
women, and even innocent children have not been spared. No one there is
safe.
We have no place imposing our notions of democracy in a place where
we cannot distinguish who stands for what. We cannot become complicit
in barbaric attacks on civilians. We have no business shipping weapons
that could end up in the hands of those who would raid convents and
murder innocent people. Neither America nor Syria can possibly be
served by this.
Mr. Speaker, true to our principles, the United States remains the
largest donor of humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria, with a
total of more than $800 million given since this conflict began in the
spring of 2011. That's where our efforts belong.
Mr. Speaker, I think for Father Murad, whom I referenced earlier,
this would probably be the outcome that he would want to see:
humanitarian help, giving people some hope, possibly even stopping the
shipment of arms into that country. That would be a legacy worthy of
his sacrifice.
A hundred thousand persons have died, Mr. Speaker. No U.S. military
engagement in Syria.
I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Nebraska. A wonderful point.
I know that there are people on both sides of the aisle who are
motivated, again, by doing the right thing. But when you know that you
have a tyrant on one side in charge of the country and you know that
now perhaps it would have been different if we'd gotten in earlier, but
at this point al Qaeda or the most radical Islamists, brutal killers,
are driving the rebels, there is no good reason for this country to
expend any blood nor any treasure to get in the middle of that
conflict, and I appreciate so much my friend pointing that out.
{time} 1630
It points to the problem in the Middle East with regard to the
American position. This President had his administration help the
rebels in Libya when we knew--hey, people were saying it right here--we
know there are al Qaeda supporting the rebels. We're not sure how
extensive it is, so let's get to the bottom of it before you just
launch in and eliminate Qadhafi. Because Qadhafi was giving us more
information on terrorist elements in the world than most anybody but
our best friend, Israel. He was being helpful. And though he had blood
on his hands for which he should have paid, you have to choose between
the lesser of two evils.
As Secretary Gates said at the time, there is absolutely no United
States national security interest at stake in this Libya crisis, in the
rebellion, and yet this President went headlong. And when you know, as
one Egyptian paper reported, bragging, they have six Muslim Brotherhood
members that advise this administration--and there are a lot more
people sympathetic to Muslim Brotherhood that advise this
administration than that. When you know that that is going on, then it
makes sense, they're going to make stupid decisions. They're going to
always, like they did in Egypt, say, well, let's rush in and help, even
though it allows the Muslim Brotherhood to take over Egypt.
I've heard so many people say they've talked to people from Egypt who
have said we don't want the radical Islamists in charge, we don't want
the Muslim Brotherhood. We don't want them in charge. We want a
moderate Muslim government so that we can live in peace and not
tyranny, like Afghanistan did under the Taliban. And now, to the
disgrace of this Nation--this, the greatest Nation in the history of
the world--this administration is about to leave Afghanistan--which we
should have done probably in 2002, but now we're about to leave it in
the hands of the Taliban.
If we had left in 2002, the Taliban had been totally destroyed. They
were gone. The people that were members were in such disarray they did
not have any real presence in Afghanistan. Why was that? It wasn't
because tens of thousands of American troops went into Afghanistan and
wiped out the Taliban. No. It was because of the heroic sacrifices of
those within the tribal groups called the Northern Alliance at that
time.
General Dostum led those troops, and the United States provided less
than 500 special ops intelligence people in Afghanistan and provided
them air cover, gave them some weapons. And they routed the Taliban
within a matter of 3 or 4 months. In the last famous battle with
General Dostum leading, these Northern Alliance tribesmen, on
horseback, with weapons, riding uphill into the strong area where the
Taliban was located, with bullets, RPGs flying all around them, killing
many on horseback, but they never stopped. They went up there to the
fortress and they defeated the Taliban.
Now this administration says, as a result of how forceful those
Northern Alliance were in defeating the Taliban, well, those are war
criminals. No, they know how to fight the Taliban. Clearly, we don't
because the Taliban has come back.
I would submit that this administration releasing Taliban leaders to
go back and be in charge is not a good thing. Because we had four
Americans that were killed at the same time this administration was
pleading, oh, please, please, come talk to us. You don't have to have
any preconditions, just talk to us. We look weak because this
administration gives every appearance of being weak because it's
getting terrible advice.
In that part of the world, they don't understand turn the other
cheek. As Christians individually--individuals of us here that are--you
are to turn the other cheek. But as a government official, you provide
for the common defense. And you make sure if others do evil to people
in this country or threaten this country, that they are punished
because the government is not given the sword in vain. People
misunderstand that and think, oh, if we will apologize enough for all
of the Americans who have laid down their lives--not for some great
empire, but for other nations to continue to speak their language, to
continue to have their own identity, and to continue to have freedom
that was taken away. This country has sacrificed for freedom like no
one in the history of the world.
In the past, there were some selfish, very selfish motivations. Our
selfish motivation has normally been that we want these people to be
freer so that we can be friends and freedom will be catching. But as
we've seen, if you are not educated in how to sustain a democratic
republic where you actually could govern yourself, if you don't
understand how to do that, you will lose it. We've watched in Turkey,
which, after Ataturk made those great changes to the government--yes,
Islam is the most widespread religion in Turkey, but it was a secular
government where other people could also worship. We see that being
removed little by little in Turkey. And I hear from Turkish friends who
are frightened of what's happening.
Now our government seems to be on the wrong side in each of these
disputes. We're out there trying to work with the Taliban while they're
killing Americans. Shouldn't that at least be one precondition? Would
you stop killing our American soldiers that are training your farmers,
training your government officials, could you stop killing them long
enough for us to have our talk? Because what needs to be done is you
kill an American, we're going to wipe out a whole bunch of your folks
because we are about protecting ourselves.
I still feel guilty for 1979, being in the United States Army when we
were attacked. It was an act of war against our embassy in Tehran and
we looked weak to the world. And it's still used as a recruiting tool.
Forget Abu Ghraib--the best recruiting tool is the way we left Vietnam,
the way we did nothing to avenge or even to truly get our people out of
Tehran after that act of war.
I love the leadership of Ronald Reagan, but in 1983 he had a
Democratic Congress. People that worked with him, when I blamed him for
withdrawing from Beirut after attack, that showed weakness, they said
the Democrats made clear he didn't have a whole lot of choice. But that
gave a sign of weakness.
USS Cole, we basically did nothing. Nobody paid as they should have.
If we're going to protect this Nation, we have to take care of things
at home. Stop all the waste, fraud and abuse so
[[Page H4480]]
that people who truly need help get it, and those who can work have the
opportunity to work, not with some do-nothing government program but
with a real job where you make real money and you accomplish real
things. Because one other thing that ObamaCare is doing is a disaster
to our American friends.
I've been told by people, look, I used to work full time at
McDonald's, and now, because of ObamaCare, they cut me to part time. So
now I don't have the benefits I had before, and I have to go back and
forth between Burger King or Arby's and McDonald's because everybody's
cutting to part time because of ObamaCare.
Regardless of the incentives for passing the bill, regardless of all
the desire people express about giving people better health care,
they're having worse lives. It's the slowest recovery, the worst
recovery in American history--other than from the Great Depression. And
like Morganthau, the Secretary of the Treasury, said in 1940 in his own
handwriting, he said, we have spent more money than anyone in history
trying to end the Depression, and we created nothing but debt. No
better off, they were no better off.
It was not until World War II began and we got drawn into that by
Pearl Harbor being bombed and seeing liberty under attack through our
European friends, we got drawn into it. And then the government started
doing their number one job--provide for the common defense--and lo and
behold we came out of the Depression. The government did the most
important thing for it to do: provide freedom, protect Americans so
they can grow the economies, so they can be entrepreneurs.
When the government does the most important job--provide for the
common defense--it ended the Great Depression. Now we have people in
government that think, though they may not have ever been successful in
business, that they can tell people who have been and who are how to
run their business so much better, and it's hurting this economy. Oh,
not with companies like General Electric, those who have gotten plenty
of crony capitalist help.
I would also advise those who don't want to see reform of welfare--
that I think can only occur when we get all public assistance in one
appropriation, in one committee, then we can get real reform. And we
will save so many billions and billions and billions--heck, maybe
trillions of dollars over a 10-year period. We will save so much money
that they will be able to throw it away on many more thousands of
Solyndras. They can have all kinds of crony capitalism with the money
we can save by providing incentives to get back to work, by providing
incentives to finish high school and to go to college if you need to.
But not everyone needs to go to college. You don't have to get a
college degree to learn how to weld.
I was over in Marshall, at the TSTA facility, the institution there.
They're teaching welders, and they're making great money when they
leave. And it's true of other institutions that teach those kinds of
vocational training. But instead, we now have more people on food
stamps than ever in history.
What has happened to this country when those of us who want to get
the country back running by reforming welfare are vilified and accused
of wanting to take food out of the mouths of children? How wrong that
is. We want more children with more food. The same way I've been
vilified for saying children need to be taught English. Even if they're
just newly arrived from Mexico, teach them in English. Maybe they need
some beginner courses to get them there. But don't teach them in
Spanish, help them move into English. Why? Not because I or people like
me hate those Hispanic children, it's because we love them. And we know
that if you teach them in English, as my friend, Commissioner Ramirez,
former City Councilman Ramirez, said, his parents from Mexico said they
couldn't speak Spanish at home. His father said you can be anything in
America you want to be but you've got to speak good English. It was
true. And I am thrilled to death that Gus' new restaurant in Tyler is
working out so well. But he wasn't allowed to speak Spanish at home,
and the sky is the limit.
For someone born in this country, they can be President of the
country. Instead of being a manual laborer speaking Spanish, they can
be president of the company. So who really cares more about people?
Those who rail against us who want to reform the entitlements we're
told they are, that were supposed to be a hand up, not bait to be lured
into a rut they could not get out of. That is immoral.
{time} 1645
I know for some people--Star Parker, and there are others--who talk
about how they have pulled themselves up, they're an inspiration. But
there are too many that did not have the ability to pull themselves up
or the wherewithal, and shame on us for luring them into a rut they
couldn't get out of. It is time to reform that.
But I can also say, as the attacks on the Christian religion have
grown and grown exponentially, this country is in deeper and deeper
trouble and will continue to be. The assault and the intolerance upon
Christianity is incredible.
People came to this country in the early days, Founders, Columbus
when he discovered--he didn't know he was in a new country or a new
continent. He thought he found a new way to Asia. But he claimed the
land for his king and queen and also his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
He wrote in his own journal it was the Lord that put it into his mind
that he could sail west and get to the east, and it was the Holy Spirit
that comforted him all the way.
And you look at George Washington's writing, the father of this
country, without whom there would be no country today as we know it, a
noble, honorable, honest man. Faults, yes.
This country didn't begin to start really reaching its potential
until we dealt with the blight of slavery and the horror that was in
America. There has not been any kind of blight on our soul like slavery
in American history until we started killing babies. Slavery had to go.
After we did away with slavery and more people were encouraged to be
entrepreneurs and we came into the 1900s, we still needed a civil
rights movement to set things straight. And Christian leaders like
Martin Luther King, Jr., who had studied the Bible and wrote touching
things like those letters from the Birmingham jail, they knew Christ
was their salvation and they knew they were supposed to ensure that
brothers and sisters treated brothers and sisters as such.
There were vile Christians, but I would submit those weren't really
Christians. They didn't understand Jesus' teachings. But it was the
church that was behind the revolutionary movement. It was the church
that was strongest behind the abolition movement. It was Christian
leaders who were strongest behind the civil rights movement.
Now this Nation, our government at least, seems to be at war with
Christianity. We can have a little group complain that, Oh, we didn't
feel comfortable in the military because of the prayers that were said
or crosses worn or things that were said about Christianity. We have
examples of someone being told you can't give someone a Bible when they
need one because you may be prosecuted or thrown out of the military.
Under the rule some are trying to push through, if you have a dying
friend that asks you, ``Is there a God?'' under the order some would
have, you couldn't even tell them what you know with all your heart.
It's gotten to be a problem.
I love Ronald Reagan's quote back in 1984. He said:
The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking
religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance.
Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of
religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our
lives.
The teachings of Jesus would allow people to make whatever choices
they wish--choose not to believe in God; choose to be an atheist;
choose to be an agnostic and say, ``I just don't think there's enough
evidence''; choose to be a Buddhist; choose to be a Muslim--because all
children are acceptable in God's eyes.
I believe God's will is not for any to stumble, that they will all
come to eternal life. But the war that has been declared, as it appears
to be, the gloves are off against Catholicism as a form of
Christianity, all these different religious beliefs against abortion,
those who have beliefs religiously against birth control, those who
have beliefs
[[Page H4481]]
about marriage being what it has been for most of the world's history
and without which marriage between men and women we would not have had
the future generations that even exist today. You say, ``I support that
traditional marriage,'' and now you are to be drummed out of your job,
drummed out of having friends, eliminated from the public sector.
Ronald Reagan was right: the real intolerance, the real hatred is
from those who choose to impose their beliefs and force them onto
others.
Mr. Speaker, today still, nonetheless, was a good day. We made a big
move toward what will one day, if we are faithful, allow us to take
some of the burden that we have been putting on future generations and
the $50,000 or so we have already humped onto the backs, shoulders of
children that don't have jobs yet. We made a first step toward the day
when we can reform them; we can start encouraging people to their God-
given potential instead of luring them into ruts.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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