[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 114 (Friday, August 2, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5386-H5389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IN REGARDS TO BIPARTISANSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's always such an honor to speak here on 
the floor. Some have said that you'll regret being in Congress. Well, 
it's where the fight for America is.
  I appreciated so much the comments, as I sat here for some time 
listening to the former majority leader of the House, talking about the 
need for bipartisanship, the importance of bipartisanship, the 
importance of working together. The deepest regret I experienced in 
listening to that wonderful speech by my friend from Maryland was that 
I didn't have a transcript of that speech to read him every single week 
that the Democrats were in the majority here on this floor and every 
single time that they came forward with a closed rule allowing no 
amendments. In fact, each time that it came to the floor, the 
Democratic majority, during those 4 years between January of 2007 and 
January of 2011, it was the most closed Congress in the history of the 
country, with the least number of open rules, the least amount of 
bipartisanship. They rammed through the most destructive bill in 
American history in the last 100 years, that being the ObamaCare bill, 
without a single Republican vote. There was no bipartisanship.
  Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the comments from my friend, the former 
majority leader. Gosh, I wish I could have read that back to him over 
and over during the 4 years they were in the majority. He has such a 
great sense of humor, Mr. Speaker. I know he would have laughed over 
and over as I read it to him. In fact, there was a time that the 
majority leader was coming down the aisle and we were about to vote on 
the card check bill, which was going to eliminate secret ballots for 
elections. The secret ballot would have been eliminated for elections 
to be a unionized group or not to be. I was kidding around with my 
friend from Maryland as he came by, and I said, Word here on the floor 
is that you're about to vote against your party and against the card 
check bill so that you're not going to be in agreement to eliminate 
secret ballots. He's so intelligent and has such a great sense of 
humor. He said, The odds of that happening are infinitesimal. I said, 
It's just that everybody here on the floor knows that before Nancy 
Pelosi became Speaker, she had promised John Murtha would be the 
majority leader. And if you hadn't had a secret ballot, John Murtha 
would have been the majority leader instead of you. He laughed. He has 
a great sense of humor.
  So I'm sure if I were able to go back in time and read our former 
majority leader's comments today about the importance of 
bipartisanship, he would probably laugh as he did when he voted to end 
the secret ballot for union elections, even though the secret ballot is 
what got him elected as majority leader.

                              {time}  1430

  But are some amazing things going on. It was huge when this Congress 
did something a few weeks ago that people said couldn't be done and 
that was with regard to the agriculture bill and that was many years 
ago, the agriculture bill, which was quite small, comparatively, 
combined with the food stamp bill. And I wondered when I got here 8\1/
2\ years ago why was food stamps part of the agriculture bill. It was 
explained to me that this is strictly for political purposes, because 
there are not enough farmers that have enough representation in 
Congress to ever get a farm bill passed by itself, and that there's 
enough people concerned about the waste in the food stamp program and 
the abuses in the food stamp program that it might have a hard time 
just passing on its own without having a lot of restructuring and 
efforts to clean up the waste, fraud, and abuse. So by putting them 
together, you combine enough votes from both sides of the aisle to get 
a farm bill with food stamps passed. But if you separate them, you 
won't pass either one, at least not in that current form.
  So it was really historic what was done and why a number of us voted 
for the agriculture bill without the food stamps attached. But we kept 
making it very clear, we're not out to end the food stamp program. We 
know there are people who need food help and we want to help them, so 
we are not for taking food out of the mouths of children that can't 
feed themselves, even though we were continually told that by people on 
the other side of the aisle. It broke my heart because I had a bunch of 
good friends, even though they're at one end of the political spectrum 
and I'm at the other, but they'd come to the floor and say something 
that they surely, surely, I hope they didn't mean. But they did say it, 
that Republicans are trying to take food out of the mouths of children. 
Well, that was rather tragic of them to say that since that was simply 
not true. And the heartbreak of having friends come down and make 
allegations that absolutely, unequivocally were not true came rushing 
back as I heard our former majority leader say that we were trying to 
eliminate food to the hungry when we made the point over and over.
  I know it is tough being in the leadership of either party. You're 
constantly doing stuff. He probably didn't hear where we said over and 
over, We're not eliminating the food stamp program; we're separating it 
from the ag bill, that's all. So I will make sure that our friend 
understands and gets the message. We actually were not out to eliminate 
the food stamp program, but we sure do need to clean it up.
  I took grief for just telling of a constituent that had mentioned 
that he was standing in line at the grocery store behind somebody who 
had crab legs, and he was wishing he could afford to have crab legs and 
he was looking at his ground meat. Anyway, then when that person in 
front of him got ready to pay for the crab legs, he pulled out a food 
stamp card.
  I forget which Washington rag it was, but one of them--and it may not 
have been a Washington rag. But the left wing went nuts talking about 
how I am accusing people of squandering precious food stamp money on 
crab legs

[[Page H5387]]

when that was not the case at all. Then right after that, one of the 
Washington papers did have a front page story, and in part of that 
story was a picture out here where seafood is sold, a massive amount of 
crabs for sale with a big red sign saying, ``Food stamp cards 
welcome.''
  Breitbart, I've got so many great friends there, brilliant people, 
and even though they're really brilliant, they like me okay. They ran 
with the story about how the left wing made a big deal out of it, and 
all they had to do was go to a seafood place.
  Anyway, I also saw a picture that was not in the paper, massive crab 
legs, and there was that red sign that they take food stamps. So, 
obviously, it would seem that the left wing blogs, in their attempt to 
smear me, actually exposed, once again, their ignorance.
  So there are a lot of things that need to be fixed up. We want to 
help people that need food that can't provide for themselves. But if 
they can work, it is a good thing to push people to reach their God-
given potential.
  The problem with that, especially for African Americans--and I think 
they're the worst hit group in all of America with regard to 
unemployment. This President's policies have absolutely devastated 
African American communities in this country with a massive, high 
unemployment rate. And so I sure hope that we can change things because 
the unemployed of whatever race, creed, color, gender, they deserve an 
opportunity. They deserve a chance at pursuing happiness. But these 
policies of this administration are making that increasingly difficult.
  That's why it really focused people's attention recently when the 
President came out in full support and actually made it happen and 
said: You know what, I am just going to speak into being new law and 
cancel old law. I've said before, some of the things that this 
administration, this President have done are so unconstitutional. One 
of the things that ought to end up resulting is a massive class action 
by all of the people who took his constitutional law course to want 
their money back, because for any President to say I rammed through 
ObamaCare without a single Republican vote, we didn't get any input 
from those people, we didn't want it. But you know what, it is such a 
disaster, and I'm hearing from people that I've called fat cats before, 
big business folks, they're saying it's going to devastate their 
businesses. So tell you what, I am going to postpone for a year the big 
business requirement, big business being anything over 50 employees, 
I'm going to postpone their requirements to follow the law, just choose 
not to enforce the law so they can get away with not following it for a 
year.
  Well, I have listened to some of the President's incredible, amazing 
eloquence, some right here from this second podium here, expressing 
concerns for Americans, but especially the poor and downtrodden. Now to 
me, somebody that's making $11,000 has got it tough. It's tough to live 
on $11,000 right now, but that's considered the poverty rate. It's 
right about $11,000. So under the ObamaCare bill that was shoved 
through the House and Senate, unconstitutionally because it included a 
tax and raised revenue that did not originate in the House, and 
hopefully we'll get the Supreme Court's action on that and they'll do 
the right thing unless somebody knows something about Chief Justice 
Roberts that I don't. Anyway, it didn't originate in the House. I think 
we should ultimately get it struck down for that reason. They took a 
bill from the House, deleted every single word and substituted therein 
about 2,500 pages is what my copy was, for a tax credit for first time 
home buyers who were veterans or in the military. So, obviously, it was 
not germane, and hopefully the Supreme Court will still do the right 
thing and strike it down.

  But in the meantime, people are having to make preparation to live 
under it. That includes Congress. Except for the leaders and the 
committee staff members, all of us in Congress are going to be forced 
into the ObamaCare exchanges come January.
  So I've heard the President's speeches about caring so deeply about 
the middle class, and our former majority leader was talking about the 
middle class and what we need to do for them. But here again, I keep 
coming back to ObamaCare. I was shocked when I read in the ObamaCare 
bill that if you cannot afford to buy the minimum health care mandated 
by the Federal Government in ObamaCare, then you're initially going to 
have a 1 percent income tax, but then it is going to go to 2.5 by 2016. 
I thought, that's crazy. My friends across the aisle, President Obama, 
they're always talking about how they care so deeply about those who 
are struggling and doing everything they can to get by. It just is 
shocking to come to realize they have no clue about the suffering that 
somebody making $14,000 is going to have thrust on them by ObamaCare 
when they can't--if they're only making $14,000, it is unlikely their 
employer is going to be able to pay $7,000 for an insurance policy, so 
they will be on their own.
  We have heard over and over that employers are trying to get down 
below 50 employees. I know a restaurant back in Tyler, my hometown, 
they indicated they are going to sell off a couple of their restaurants 
to get under 50 because they can't afford to meet the mandate. So a lot 
of people are losing their insurance, despite the President's assurance 
you wouldn't. That's happening all over the place.
  And it is happening, ironically--and this is kind of rich. It really 
is rich, and I hope America can see the humor. So many of our friends 
across of the aisle said over and over at these microphones, If you 
like your insurance, you can keep it. And then they passed a bill 
without a single Republican vote that says all those people that said 
that, you can keep your insurance, they're not keeping, not one of them 
is going to keep their insurance. So it's kind of rich. It's a little 
humorous if you like sick irony. All these speeches about if you like 
your insurance--they're just quoting the President--you can keep it, 
turns out they're all wrong and every Member of Congress is going to 
lose their insurance come January 1, unless they retire before January 
1, then they actually can keep their insurance.
  And then we find out today that actually there is an issue because 
the way ObamaCare was addressed, it did prevent the leaders of both 
parties, as I read it, and committee staffs from having to be under 
ObamaCare. So the leaders, they're protected. They don't have to be 
under ObamaCare, and the committee staffs won't have to. But all the 
rest of us, all the rest of the Members of Congress, the rank and file, 
we'll be under it.
  And now we find out there is a huge ambiguity because it doesn't say 
whether or not the Federal Government can continue to pay the 72 
percent of the health care costs, the health insurance costs for 
Members of Congress. Right now Members of Congress, we are on Social 
Security, despite what the email that has been going around for 20 
years says. We pay Social Security tax. Despite all this stuff about a 
golden parachute and you can retire and get every dime you make, I 
think that changed during Ronald Reagan's time as President. So you 
don't have a golden parachute. I think most Members have a 401(k)-type 
thing where the government will match up to 5 or 6 percent of what you 
put in, but it is the same retirement program that every single Federal 
worker across America has.
  People forget that Newt Gingrich--and I appreciate my friend from 
Maryland bringing up Newt Gingrich. He's an amazing guy. He is a big 
idea guy, and I like the way he thinks. We don't agree on all his big 
ideas, and he doesn't agree with all of my big ideas, but he comes up 
with some good ideas. In the Contract With America, one of the big 
ideas that was immensely popular, way over 70 percent popular, was that 
Members of Congress ought to live under the same laws that everybody 
else in America does. And that passed. That was part of the contract, 
and they lived up to it. It became law, and so Members of Congress have 
to live under the same laws as everybody else does.
  That's why, after I've been cooking ribs to share in a bipartisan 
manner--and not many days go by when I don't have somebody on either 
side of the aisle ask, Louie, when are we going to get ribs again? 
Well, the Architect of the Capitol found out. I thought he was a little 
overzealous, but he feels like I violate some of the codes that 
everybody else in America has to live under,

[[Page H5388]]

and so I can't cook ribs. We've had all kinds of things. The media 
wanted to come do something on me cooking ribs. President Bush liked my 
ribs.

                              {time}  1445

  People on both sides of the aisle do. They may not vote for anything 
I'm for, but they love my ribs. And it was a nice time.
  But the reason I can't cook ribs anymore is because we're living 
under the same laws as everybody else did. And apparently there's a law 
that said you can't have a fire within 10 feet of wood in a building 
structure, so they shut me down. We're living under the same law as 
everybody else is.
  And then it comes to ObamaCare, and the decision by the--and it 
wasn't by Congress. I was grilling our Republican leaders just earlier 
about exactly what's happening.
  The Office of Personnel Management, under the Obama administration, 
has decided that the Federal Government will go ahead and, come 
January, we won't keep our same insurance. I've got a health savings 
account. They made sure I'm not going to get to keep my insurance, and 
we can't figure out what happens to the HSA.
  I'd like to drop ObamaCare insurance and just put money into a health 
savings account. But they've even screwed us over with ObamaCare to 
prevent that kind of thing from happening.
  So, anyway, it looks like the decision by the Obama administration 
will be that Members of Congress will have 72 percent of our health 
insurance paid by the taxpayers, and what we have to borrow from China, 
of course, or other places.
  Well, that's nice, but if America is not playing under those same 
rules, it doesn't seem fair for us. And I'm hopeful, when we get back, 
maybe we can get a bipartisan bill through that just says everybody in 
America can opt out of ObamaCare and not pay a fine, not pay a tax or 
whatever you want to call it, and provide what they feel like is 
appropriate. But it all ought to be fair across the board.
  And now, the issue has gotten rather large since we find out the IRS 
truly has been targeting, after 2010, when the President said, you 
know, how much they wanted to stop the Tea Party; he felt they were a 
threat to America. They were a blessing to America. They were a threat 
to an oppressive government, because everybody I've run into, I've 
talked to people of all kinds of national origins, all races, from both 
genders, I mean, all kinds of folks at Tea Party events. And the only 
thing I can find they have in common: they're all paying income tax. 
They're all paying income tax.
  And the President felt like this group needed to be gone after, and 
he made comments to that effect. And somebody, and we need to find out 
whom, was the top person in the administration, but it appears it at 
least goes back to the President's own hand-picked council, as far as 
who knew, who participated.
  And of course there's been a denial, just like there was during 
Watergate, but we'll see what the truth is, even though there's a lot 
of obfuscation in the process.
  But with regard to the IRS, the thing's very clear: we should not 
have the IRS involved in our health care at all, ever. And yet they are 
a central part of ObamaCare.
  And then we find out this week, reading the story, it's changed some, 
but basically, a couple were wondering why law enforcement showed up at 
their home, when they had just looked online for a pressure cooker and 
a back pack. Turns out, apparently, at work one of them had looked at 
something else. They were no threat to anybody.
  But the question keeps arising, wait a minute; who's monitoring every 
Web site that every American goes to?
  Well, must be the NSA, apparently. But I did attend a classified 
briefing, so I can't go into anything there.
  But it appeared, before the briefing, very clear to me, and I still 
feel this way, that when you blind yourself as to who the enemy is, as 
we have, purging all kinds of material from our FBI training material, 
State Department, intelligence material, as to who radical Islamists 
really are and what they actually believe, you blind our law 
enforcement, our security people, from the ability to see our enemy, 
we're not protected.
  And then when you have an open border where people are coming across 
at will, and Border Patrolmen have told us three to five times faster 
than they ever have since we started talking about just handing out 
legal status, anybody that happened to be here by a certain date, all 
this talk about amnesty, citizenship, all these other things being 
talked, do they get benefits, not get benefits, all this talk has 
increased the number of people coming in by about three to five times.
  The border's not secure. When you don't control what kind of 
terrorists may be coming into your country, and you don't train your 
law enforcement, your terrorist-discerning folks who it is that are the 
terrorists, and you keep pulling back our ability to see who our enemy 
really is, then it appears the solution is to have the Federal 
Government more intrusive than any of us ever dreamed it would be.
  And then, you couple that with what we found out yesterday, and this 
article's dated August 1, 2013, and it's titled ``Exclusive: Dozens of 
CIA Operatives on the Ground During Benghazi Attack.'' And in part it 
points out CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls 
an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from 
ever leaking out:

       Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's 
     mission in Libya have been subjected to frequent, even 
     monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with 
     deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings. The goal of 
     the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if 
     anyone is talking to the media or to Congress.
       It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat 
     that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information 
     could face the end of his or her career.
       In an exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider 
     writes, ``You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your 
     family as well.''
       Another says, ``You have no idea the amount of pressure 
     being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this 
     operation.''
       Agency employees typically are polygraphed every 3 or 4 
     years, never more than that,'' said former CIA operative 
     and CNN analyst Robert Baer. In other words, the rate of 
     the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare.

  So says the CNN article.
  ``If somebody is being polygraphed every month or every 2 months, 
it's called an issue polygraph, and that means the polygraph division 
suspects something, or they're looking for something, or they're on a 
fishing expedition, but it's absolutely not routine at all to be 
polygraphed monthly or bimonthly,'' said Baer.
  A source now tells CNN that the number, talking about the number of 
people at Benghazi mission, was 35, with as many as seven wounded, some 
seriously. While it is still not known how many of them were CIA, a 
source tells CNN that 21 Americans were working in the building known 
as the annex, believed to be run by the agency, talking about the CIA.
  He goes down, and he talks about Congressman Frank Wolf, a dear 
friend. He says, Wolf has repeatedly gone to the House floor asking for 
a select committee to be set up, a Watergate-style probe involving 
several Intelligence Committee investigators assigned to get to the 
bottom of the failures that took place in Benghazi, and find out just 
what the State Department and CIA were doing there.
  More than 150 fellow Republican Members of Congress have signed his 
request. And just this week, eight Republicans sent a letter to the new 
head of the FBI, James Comey, asking that he brief Congress within 30 
days.
  In the aftermath of the attack, Wolf said he was contacted by people 
closely tied with the CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to 
talk. Then suddenly, there was silence. And I can verify that problem 
as well from some of the people that were going to talk to me and then 
all of a sudden they went silent and said, no, I'm not going to talk.
  ``Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the 
opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you're 
subpoenaed it sort of protects you. You're forced to come before 
Congress. That's all changed,'' said Wolf.
  Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility that U.S. 
agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-
to-air-

[[Page H5389]]

missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of the 
Syrians rebels. It's clear that two U.S. agencies were operating in 
Benghazi. One was the State Department. The other was the CIA.
  The State Department told CNN in an email that it was only helping 
the new Libyan government destroy weapons deemed ``damaged, aged, or 
too unsafe to retain,'' and that it was not involved in any transfer of 
weapons to other countries.
  But the State Department also clearly told CNN they ``can't speak for 
any other agencies.'' And the CIA would not comment on whether it was 
involved in the transfer of weapons or not.
  So perhaps that was going on, but we still have got to get to the 
bottom of why four great, heroic Americans were allowed to be killed, 
were put in a situation like that.
  What difference does it make at this point?
  It makes a difference at this point, or a year from now, or 2 years 
from now, or 3\1/2\ years from now because people need to understand, 
they need to understand clearly.
  When somebody's life is taken, normally, if a criminal law is 
involved, the statute of limitations are a lot longer. And Eric Holder, 
I can assure you, will not be Attorney General for the next 4 years. 
Three and one-half years from now we'll have a new administration. And 
we will hopefully get to the bottom of these scandals.
  And they're not phony. We know that because the President has assured 
us, back when they first arose, he was going to get to the bottom of 
it. And unlike what one of the family members of those killed at 
Benghazi told me, there, at the ceremony, Secretary Clinton said we're 
going to get the guy that did the video. And all they wanted was to get 
justice from those who caused the death of their loved one.
  We owe that to them, Mr. Speaker.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________