[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H68-H71]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 AN IMPORTANT TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY

  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.

[[Page H69]]

  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to thank my colleagues for 
bringing such an important issue to the floor for discussion.
  This is an important time in American history for so many reasons. 
Foreign policy is just in terrible shambles right now. But today is 
January 8, and it is generally recognized that 50 years ago, on January 
8, 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared a war on poverty.
  There is an article today from The Washington Times entitled: 
``That's rich: Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record,'' by 
Dave Boyer.
  It says:

       Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion 
     taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of 
     impoverished people in the United States has declined only 
     slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama.
       Aides said Mr. Obama doesn't plan to commemorate the 
     anniversary Wednesday of Johnson's speech in 1964, which gave 
     rise to Medicaid, Head Start, and a broad range of other 
     Federal antipoverty programs. The President's only public 
     event Tuesday was a plea for Congress to approve extended 
     benefits for the long-term unemployed, another reminder of 
     the persistent economic troubles during Mr. Obama's 5 years 
     in office.
       ``What I think the American people are really looking for 
     in 2014 is just a little bit of stability,'' Mr. Obama said.
       Although the President often rails against income 
     inequality in America, his policies have had little impact 
     overall on poverty. A record 47 million Americans receive 
     food stamps, about 13 million more Americans than when he 
     took office.
       The poverty rate has stood at 15 percent for 3 consecutive 
     years, the first time that has happened since the mid-1960s. 
     The poverty rate in 1965 was 17.3 percent; it was 12.5 
     percent in 2007, before the Great Recession.
       About 50 million Americans live below the poverty line, 
     which the Federal Government defined in 2012 as an annual 
     income of $23,492 for a family of four.
       President Obama's antipoverty efforts ``are basically to 
     give more people more free stuff,'' said Robert Rector, a 
     specialist on welfare and poverty at the conservative 
     Heritage Foundation.
       ``That's exactly the opposite of what Johnson said,'' Mr. 
     Rector said. ``Johnson's goal was to make people prosperous 
     and self-sufficient.''
       The President's advisers defend his policies by saying they 
     rescued the Nation from the deep recession in 2009, saved the 
     auto industry and reduced the jobless rate to 7 percent from 
     a high of 10 percent 4 years ago.

  Further:

       The President last month declared the widening gap between 
     the rich and poor as ``the defining challenge of our time,'' 
     and Democratic candidates are expected to pick up that theme 
     on the campaign trail rather than debate deficits or the 
     complications of ObamaCare.
       In spite of the administration's antipoverty efforts, 
     however, the government reported this week that poverty, by 
     some measures, has been worse under President Obama than it 
     was under President George W. Bush. The U.S. Census Bureau 
     reported that 31.6 percent of Americans were in poverty for 
     at least 2 months from 2009 to 2011, a 4.5 percentage point 
     increase over the prerecession period of 2005 to 2007.
       Of the 37.6 million people who were poor at the beginning 
     of 2009, 26.4 percent remained in poverty throughout the next 
     34 months, the report said. Another 12.6 million people 
     escaped poverty during that time, but 13.5 million more fell 
     into poverty.
       Mr. Rector said the war on poverty has been a failure when 
     measured by the overall amount of money spent and the poverty 
     rates that haven't changed significantly since Johnson gave 
     his speech.
       ``We've spent $20.7 trillion on means-tested aid since that 
     time, and the poverty rate is pretty much exactly where it 
     was in the mid-1960s,'' he said.
       The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in 
     a report that some trends have helped reduce poverty since 
     the 1960s, including more Americans completing high school 
     and more women working outside the home. But the group said 
     other factors have contributed to persistent poverty, 
     including a tripling in the number of households led by 
     single parents.
       Mr. Rector said too many government antipoverty programs 
     still discourage marriage, factoring into statistics that 
     show more than 4 in 10 children are born to unmarried 
     parents.
       ``When the war on poverty started, about 6 percent of 
     children were born outside of marriage, he said. Today, 
     that's 42 percent.'' A catastrophe.

  So it is rather interesting. Fifty years after the war on poverty was 
declared as an actual war, $20.7 trillion, according to Mr. Rector, has 
been spent on means-tested aid since that time, and basically we 
haven't changed anything except we have got more children being born in 
broken, single-parent homes.
  It is certainly noteworthy that, since the beginning of 2009, we have 
had 12.6 million people escape poverty, but 13.5 million fall into 
poverty. That means we have had just under a million people worse off, 
falling into poverty, than were there when this President started with 
all the giveaway programs--$900 billion in so-called stimulus that 
turned out to be nothing more than crony capitalism, spending money on 
so-called ``green'' programs that turned brown rather quickly after 
millions and hundreds of millions and billions of dollars were spent.
  He claims he saved the auto industry. Actually, there was a proposal 
by many economists, led by an FDIC former Chairman named Isaac, who 
made a proposal in late 2008, an alternative to TARP, and it could have 
been used to do a more effective job of getting the auto industry on 
its feet.
  The proposal was, instead of nationalizing Wall Street, having the 
government buy private assets, which is nationalizing, government 
takeover, by another means rather than the government nationalizing the 
auto industry, taking a big hunk of the auto industry, telling dealers 
which ones had to close their doors without due process of law. They 
were an unconstitutional taking. And to the embarrassment of this 
country and the great Justices--those who were great on the Supreme 
Court and the ones that are great on there now--to their total 
humiliation, this Court stood by and watched unconstitutional takings 
and did nothing.

                              {time}  1930

  Now, it is true that, during the unconstitutional, illegal turning of 
the Bankruptcy Code upside down during the so-called saving of the auto 
industry, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to her credit, put a 24-hour stay on an 
auto deal that was proposed, but the stay lapsed and the Court did 
nothing, which should have been to their incredible embarrassment.
  They knew that bankruptcy laws had been completely eviscerated, 
completely ignored, turned upside down. There were no proposed plans by 
creditors. Secured creditors were treated as unsecured and, against the 
law, they were made unsecured. They had their security taken away. The 
government gave security, illegally, under the law, to unsecured 
creditors, and the Supreme Court didn't do anything but a 24-hour stay.
  I had hope for the Court. I had hoped that they would do the right 
thing, do the constitutional, the legal thing, and they sat by. Some 
say it was because they were privately scared by the administration, 
that if they put longer than a 24-hour stay on the auto bailout, the 
auto plan, that everybody in any way connected to the auto industry 
would lose their job, and it would all be the Supreme Court's fault.
  So what did they do?
  Nothing. They should be humiliated that they did nothing. Violation 
of the law, violation of the Constitution by unconstitutional takings 
of dealers, auto dealers, sounded like the bankruptcy court was used, 
weaponized a bit, as the IRS has been.
  We had an auto task force with a czar. What a lovely name, coming 
from old Russian days of dictators. We had an auto task force czar and 
an auto task force.
  At one time, I believe, as I recall, no one in the auto task force 
had ever been involved in auto manufacturing, the auto business, and as 
I recall, it may have been a majority of them, a big majority didn't 
even own cars.
  Regardless of whether they did or didn't, though Congress, some here, 
asked for transcripts of the meetings, who decided what dealers would 
lose their dealerships, we were never provided any transcripts, and 
that should be to the embarrassment of Congress.
  We should have demanded, we should have defunded White House activity 
until they came forward and produced what Federal money that Congress 
appropriated, had produced. What had they done? We have the power to do 
that. We should have.
  The American people were owed answers, and especially, those car 
dealers who lost their dealerships.
  Save the auto industry.
  If we went back to the proposal that Isaacs and other economists 
made, it was rather interesting. You had a number of us in Congress 
that thought it was the best idea we had heard proposed; basically, 
that we knew there was at least $700 billion, now some say

[[Page H70]]

clearly more than $1 trillion, owned by American citizens, American 
companies, that was earned in foreign countries and put in foreign 
banks.
  Taxes were fully paid in those countries where it was earned, where 
it was banked, but they knew if they brought it into the United States 
that a greedy Federal Government was going to yank another 30, 40 
percent, plus penalty and interest out of them, and they would lose 
most, much of the money, if not most of the money that they had earned 
and paid taxes on where it was earned. So the money was sitting on the 
sidelines in foreign countries.
  So basically, the proposal was, instead of nationalizing, 
socializing, whatever you want to call it when the Federal Government 
buys private assets and becomes the boss of private industries, instead 
of doing that, basically, in essence, the proposal was, why don't we 
have Congress just say, if you bring that money, if you are an American 
citizen or an American company, and you bring money in a foreign bank 
that would otherwise never come into the United States, bring it in 
here and invest, whether it is in Wall Street, whatever Congress 
decided, or the President suggested was a troubled entity, if you will 
invest in that troubled industry, particularly the auto industry, then, 
obviously, you get ownership of stock.
  You become a player in that corporation, and the government gets to 
stay as a referee, not as a player and coach and referee. We would stay 
as referee, and American citizens would bring their money in and bail 
out the auto industry. They would also own stock, which means they 
would change the directors, change the officers, in all probability, 
and you would get a change of direction in those companies.
  If they needed to go through bankruptcy, they would go through 
legitimately, so that secured creditors remained secured, unsecured 
creditors were treated as unsecured creditors, contracts that were 
destroying the automobile industry could be renegotiated in bankruptcy, 
and we really would have saved the auto industry, far better than this 
clumsy effort that was done.
  Now, I had a Fiat during the 4 years I was in the Army. But why 
couldn't we have an American manufacturer owned by Americans?
  How embarrassing. That is what this administration pushed. Let's turn 
over, let's push an American auto industry into foreign hands.
  Yeah, right. You saved an American auto industry, when, actually, 
under--we had Democrats in control of the House and Senate when the 
President took office, and he pretty much got anything he wanted.
  I would submit, the auto industry would be a lot stronger today if 
commonsense solutions like those that former FDIC Chairman Isaacs 
proposed and other economists--and this economy would be much better on 
its way.
  Then, instead of 12.6 million Americans climbing out of poverty, 
while another 13.5 million climbed into poverty, fell into poverty, 
because of this administration's policies, we should have been already 
on track.
  I know this administration loves to brag about how oil and gas 
production are up, but it is no thanks to them. They have used again, 
weaponized the EPA, OSHA, Department of Justice, the Interior 
Department, they have become as big an impediment as they possibly 
could to the oil and gas industry in America.
  What a lot of Americans don't understand, and frankly, I was a little 
surprised myself to find out that, in the Continental United States, 94 
to 95 percent of the oil and gas wells are drilled or operated by 
independent oil and gas drillers, American companies.
  So when the President, for the last 5 years, has talked about how he 
is going after Big Oil, if you look at his proposals, he wants to 
eliminate tax deductions, the elimination of which would bankrupt most 
independent oil and gas operators.
  So what would that do?
  The 94 to 95 percent of the oil and gas wells in America would either 
cease, or they would fall into the hands of the big, major oil 
companies that the President decries.
  Well, isn't that strange?
  You bash and bad mouth Big Oil, and yet, everything you propose and 
try to do seems like it is making them richer and getting rid of their 
competition.
  We hear a President call Wall Street executives fat cats, and 
determined to do something about them, and yet, when you look at the 
real books and the real story, four out of five gave money to 
Democrats. About 80 percent of them, of Wall Street executives, donate 
to Democrats and the President over Republicans.

  Well, that's strange. Why would he call them fat cats? I don't know.
  Why have they gotten richer and richer and richer and expanded the 
gap between the ultra-rich and the ultra-poor during this 
administration's last 5 years?
  The distance, as this President has pointed out, has gotten worse. 
What he has failed to do is say, because of my proposals, the things I 
have pushed, the things I have done, the poor and the rich have grown 
further and further apart.
  My rich friends, my rich donors have gotten richer than they might 
have ever dreamed, and we have had more people fall into poverty than 
were able to climb out.
  That, 50 years after Johnson's speech.
  If it weren't for the policies in this war on poverty declared 50 
years ago, it may well be that I would not have ever run for Congress, 
because what got me thinking about it first, as a State district judge 
back in Texas, was seeing more and more young women, single women, 
coming before me, single moms, charged with welfare fraud under State 
law, a felony, so they came before me as a felony judge.
  I heard the story over and over and over, how, as a young girl in 
high school, she was bored with high school, and someone suggested, 
well, why don't you just drop out of high school and have a baby? Then 
the government will send you a check, and they will send you a check 
for every baby you have out of wedlock.
  Drop out, have a baby out of wedlock, get the check from the 
government, and the ones that came before me would normally explain, it 
wasn't enough. So I thought, well, maybe if I have another baby and get 
another check it will help me get out of the hole. But it didn't.
  One woman had had 15 kids, didn't even know where they all were. That 
was the most that I ever dealt with.
  It began to really eat away with me that, in the sixties, the Federal 
Government, desiring to help poor moms who were dealing with deadbeat 
dads that weren't helping, decided, we will help. We will give a check 
for every child you can have out of wedlock, when the statistics made 
clear then, and make clear now, and every point in between, that a 
young man or a young woman has a better chance of a financially 
successful life if they finish high school.
  Normally, kids have a better chance of financial success if they 
finish college. That was until more recent days, and I am not sure what 
the statistics on that are now. We know that, clearly, people are 
better off if they learn to read, they finish high school, have a high 
school diploma, or at least a GED.
  That is why, with most of the women, I didn't send any of those women 
to prison. I put them on probation. I would normally give them a 
tremendous amount of, I think it was about 800 hours you could give as 
community service, and then give 750 hours credit if they got a GED or 
got a high school diploma, because I knew that was better for society 
if they finished high school, and if it was better for them, it would 
be better for society, and they could be more successful.

                              {time}  1945

  After Republicans took over the Congress in the 1994 election, sworn 
in in 1995, one of the things they did was welfare reform, and they 
started requiring people to work who were on welfare.
  And when I was a freshman at Harvard, we were given a presentation--
and I was shocked it was at Harvard--which showed that single moms' 
income since the war on poverty began, when adjusted for inflation from 
the mid-sixties until 1995, was flat-lined.
  That incredibly expensive war on poverty didn't help single moms one 
iota in the long run. Oh, sure, it helped them buy groceries and things 
at the time, but look at what happened. They were lured into ruts from 
which many of them could not extricate themselves

[[Page H71]]

successfully. But after there was a requirement for work that was put 
in after the Contract With America, it was a contract for America, the 
graph showed that over the last nearly 10 years, income for single moms 
had taken a sharp rise upward over that entire period.
  And what happened when President Obama came in? He wanted to waive, 
and did waive, the work requirement. Could he do that? No, not legally. 
Did he do that? Yes, he did. Could he rewrite immigration law and say, 
We will legalize these folks meeting these requirements? No, not 
legally. Did he do it? Yes, he did. And what did Congress do about it? 
A bunch of us complained. But the Senate was going to protect the 
President no matter what he did is the way it appeared and the way it 
continues to appear.
  So when the President brags about saving the auto industry, the auto 
industry would be a whole lot better off today if the bankruptcy had 
been done in accordance with bankruptcy law and the Constitution and 
dealers had not had dealerships jerked away from them. For heaven's 
sake, it is not like the dealerships were costing the manufacturers 
anything. Dealers have to pay for their own expenses. Yet he cost them 
royally.
  And now we know, because so many people have gotten desperate and 
have just given up hope of getting employment, we actually have more 
people not working now than ever. So we have those who are listed as 
unemployed and those that just have given up hope, and they are not 
even counted in the unemployed anymore.
  The war on poverty has been a disaster. The best thing for Americans 
is that they have a home that is a nuclear home, and there is at least 
one or two people in that home who have a job making money.
  America has always been about greatness. Give us your tired, your 
poor--but not so we can put them on welfare and lure them into a hole 
they can never get out of. It was so that they could get a job and earn 
a decent living and raise a family; and, instead, we incentivized 
single homes. So that after the war on poverty began, we went from just 
over 6 percent--between 6 and 7 percent of all children being born to 
single moms--to now over 40 percent, continuing to head toward 50 
percent.
  Why do the children have to suffer for the ignorance and stupidity of 
the government and those who meant well but just did stupid things? It 
is tragic. It shouldn't have to be that way. We owe the people of 
America so much better. Nuclear family homes are a building block of 
this country that has made it successful; and by the grace of God, I 
hope and pray we can pass legislation that gets us back to strong homes 
and jobs and not more government giveaways.
  And I keep wondering, Mr. Speaker, wouldn't it have been better in 
the sixties to say, you know what, we realize you are dealing with a 
dead beat dad. We know you would be better off with a high school 
education. So instead of giving you a check for every child you can 
have out of wedlock, how about if we give you some day care for that 
child so you finish high school and you are on the right track to 
getting a job. That would have made a difference for more Americans.
  And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________