[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 145 (Tuesday, December 2, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H8263-H8267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA
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. Mr. Speaker, well, it has been quite an interesting
couple of days coming back from Thanksgiving, and this morning, there
was an interesting conference, what to do about a President who, for a
number of years, a couple dozen of times or so, has made very clear he
is not a king, he is not an emperor, he would rather not have to deal
with Congress, Congress is a messy thing to deal with, but he can't
just do what he wants regarding immigration without following the
Constitution and that means, under the Constitution, article I, section
8, Congress has sole authority when it comes to issues like
naturalization and immigration.
Prior Congresses have passed laws and made it clear what it takes to
become a United States citizen. Now, those laws need fixing. There is
no question about that, and despite all of the rhetoric, our friends on
the other side of the aisle, when they controlled the majority in the
House, majority in the Senate, with President Obama in the White House,
chose to absolutely do nothing about correcting immigration problems,
securing the border--not even amnesty. Why? Because they know, they see
the polls, and the polls make very clear that the American public did
not want any type of amnesty.
The President knew were he and the Democrats in the House and Senate,
when they had the majority during their 2 years, to have done something
like an amnesty bill like the bill the President passed without going
through Congress, then they would have surely lost the majority, and
the President would definitely not have been reelected in 2012.
{time} 1630
And they did not think it was worth risking the majority over an
amnesty when the vast majority of Americans did not want it. Why?
Because the vast majority of Americans have to comply with the law, and
fortunately those same vast number of Americans think everybody else
should as well.
Now, we still see emails saying, you know, if we could ever get
Congress under Social Security, Congress living under the same laws as
everybody else did, then a lot of our problems will be fixed, and that
forgets the fact that actually Members of Congress have been paying
into Social Security for years.
No Member of Congress has a benefit that every other Federal employee
doesn't already have. One of the promises that Republicans made, that
they said they would do if they got the majority in November of 1994,
is to make sure that Republicans have and Democrats in Congress have to
live under the same laws everybody else does.
Now, I was told when I was prevented from continuing to cook ribs
that my friends across the aisle, Democrats, and Republicans love--
everybody that is not a vegetarian tells me they loved my ribs; and my
dear friend Louise Slaughter had told me that her late husband, before
he passed, as a vegetarian had even eaten two ribs of mine she brought
home. So my ribs were a big hit with everybody but the Architect of the
Capitol. He told me I couldn't continue to cook because of a violation
of the fire code, and that was something Republicans actually changed
to make sure that we in Congress had to live under the same laws
everybody else does. So we do.
We are supposed to live under the laws everybody else does, but then
it comes to amnesty, and some here in the minority think it is just
fine for a President to legislate since they are not able to do that
while they are in the minority. Didn't do it when they were in the
majority. The President didn't do it before his reelection in 2012.
So it is a bit of a conundrum when the President of the United States
asserts, as an alleged former constitutional professor, apparently an
instructor, all these years he cannot do anything about the immigration
problem because the Constitution doesn't allow it. Then, immediately
before the grand jury acted in Missouri, the President acts, knowing
what was about to happen in Missouri, Ferguson, and knowing
Thanksgiving was coming up and a lot of people would take their eye off
of what was happening with regard to amnesty, and then the President
speaks a new law into existence.
The law is very clear: if you are not legally in the United States,
you can't legally hold a job. The President changed that law with a
pronouncement and a stroke of his pen, but that is not a legal law.
So we have got to stand up for the Constitution. For a President to
avoid taking such action before an election because he knew it would
cost him a second term, it would cost his party dramatically in the
Senate and House, then to wait and do it immediately after the election
and right before Thanksgiving when he thinks people will lose interest,
well, Americans are not losing interest. They are still concerned.
Now that the President has taken this unconstitutional action,
America is looking at Republicans: You said you were against it. You
ran and we elected you to the majority in the House and Senate, and you
were saying you would not abide such an unconstitutional action. So
what are you going to do about it?
Well, one of the things being proposed is my dear friend Ted Yoho--
sometimes people say ``dear friend'' around this body and they say it a
bit tongue in cheek, but that is not true of Ted Yoho. He is a great
American, and I am very, very proud he is my friend. But in H.R. 5759,
titled, Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act, my friend
Congressman Yoho has a bill that declares that the President does not
have the authority to exempt categories of persons unlawfully present
in the United States from removal. Any executive action seeking to
exempt these categories of person is a violation of the law and has no
legal effect.
The bill goes on to make clear this is a permanent solution that will
apply to executive actions that attempt to circumvent the law. Further,
this does not affect any appropriation, so it does not risk any
government funding or shutdown issues.
It is a constitutional separation of powers issue. So any reform or
change to the law must come from congressional legislation, not
executive fiat, and basically makes clear an executive fix of the law
is unconstitutional, temporary, and establishes a dangerous precedent
that could be abused by Presidents of both parties for any area of the
law they disagree with.
So that is a great first step, but the problem is, if we do not
eliminate the funding for the President's unconstitutional action, then
it may be carried out anyway. There is some talk about extending
funding to next March. Well, by March people will already have been
provided work permits that the law says may not legally have work
permits, and it is not likely anything would be done at that point to
stop it. Now is the time to stop unconstitutional action.
As the President keeps saying, Congress didn't do anything. It shows
that he is getting terrible advice. We had a knock-down, drag-out
session the last week of July in this Chamber, and two floors below
this Chamber, in the House office buildings, we were fighting it out
because, as the President has said, dealing with Congress can be messy.
That is the way the Founders intended it. They wanted it to be
difficult to pass laws. And Jefferson, thinking it would be a good
idea--though he wasn't there at the Constitutional Convention, so he
didn't get this in. It would be a good idea if laws had to be on file
for a year before they could even be brought up for a vote. Things done
in haste in this body or the Senate are not a good idea.
Yet we must do something to stop the unconstitutional action. The
President wants a border bill. We passed one in the House. Somebody
needs to advise President Obama's advisers that we passed a good bill.
It was not a good bill on Thursday, but by Friday at 10 p.m. or so when
we passed it, it was a good bill. Still had more to do. There is much
more we can and should do. There is a lot of reforms that must be done,
but until the border is secure, then we are just going to have to keep
[[Page H8264]]
reforming immigration, reforming immigration, giving amnesty, giving
amnesty, until the country is not the country people wanted to come to.
How ironic that people have to leave countries--they believe--because
there is graft, corruption, violence, because the rule of law is not
enforced fairly across the board, and they want to come to America
because, with all the down economy, over 92 million people having given
up hope of finding a job, not even looking anymore, this is still one
of the greatest economies in the world because we still pretty much try
to enforce the law across the board.
So people come from countries where the rule of law is not observed,
not enforced fairly across the board--too many friends or people with
particular interests of the leaders, they get special privileges, they
get exempted from the law. So they come here where we are not supposed
to do that, and once here, say, ``Look, now that we are here, having
come illegally, we want you, United States, to just forget about the
law, ignore your Constitution, ignore the laws on immigration, and just
waive them and forget about them,'' when, in so doing, we would become
like the country they felt they had to leave because we don't enforce
the law fairly across the board anymore.
The old saying, capital is a coward, talking about money to be
invested, it is a coward. It goes to areas where it feels safest, where
the laws will be most fairly applied so that there is something that
can be counted on, that laws mean things.
So we have had a lot of investment in the United States of people
from China, from Russia, Africa, South America. People around the world
have been willing to invest in the United States because we have been a
country where capital could be comfortable.
But when mass amnesty is applied, which will ultimately throw however
many people are given illegal work permits to work legally, you are
going to throw that many million people out of jobs. You will depress
the working wage rate.
Mr. Speaker, it can't be overemphasized that what happened since this
President has been in office or in power is what we normally say about
monarchs, but what has happened for the first time in American history
never happened under any prior President.
But this President's policies, as he talked about the fat cats on
Wall Street, though he received more donations from them than
Republicans did; as he bad-mouthed the oil companies, but he had
friends that were doing favors for him; as he bad-mouthed capital
cronyism as capital cronyism was exactly what was occurring in this
country and from this administration, actually for the first time in
our history, 95 percent of all income in America went to the top 1
percent of income earners. It has never happened before.
I know--I know--this administration, everybody in it talks about the
fat cats and going after the rich, and yet, amazingly, as they talk
about going after the rich, it is as if there is a wink and a nod: We
are going to talk bad about you, call you fat cats, but you are going
to get richer than you have ever been. Just don't forget us when it
comes to political contributions. Oh, yeah, we will trash the Koch
Brothers, but they can't hold a candle to the fat-cat Democratic
contributors.
But when you try to get your head around 95 percent of the income
going to the top 1 percent in America, it is extraordinary. The
President himself acknowledged, September a year ago, that this was
happening on his watch.
{time} 1645
Again, people can talk about the middle class getting bigger and
wages being suppressed. Their solution is to bring in 5 million new
workers willing to work a lot cheaper, without health insurance, to
compete with Americans that need a little more in order to live and
that need health insurance.
And the solution is to bring in 5 million people more? Do you really
want to see minority unemployment go even higher than its current
skyrocketing position?
That is not fair to Americans. Our oath is to this country and the
people in it, and the way we do that is by defending the Constitution
against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is time the poor and the
middle class in America were helped by having a better wage, by not
continuing to leave the borders open, by not winking and nodding and
unconstitutionally allowing 5 million people to work illegally but with
the stamp of approval from the White House. It is time to stop it
before we lose the Constitution altogether.
Here is an article from Steven Camarota and Karen Ziegler. The
headline, ``Immigrant Families Benefit Significantly from ObamaCare,''
and the subheadline, ``Immigrant Families Accounted for 42 Percent of
Medicaid Growth Since 2011.''
The article says:
A key part of the Affordable Care Act is Medicaid expansion
for those with low incomes. A new analysis of government data
by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that immigrants
and their U.S.-born children, under age 18, have been among
the primary beneficiaries of Medicaid growth. The data show
that immigrants and their children accounted for 42 percent
of the growth in Medicaid enrollment from 2011 to 2013.
Immigrants benefited more from Medicaid expansion than
natives because a much larger share of immigrants are poor
and uninsured.
It seems almost certain that immigrants and their children
will continue to benefit disproportionately from ObamaCare,
as they remain much more likely than natives to be uninsured
or poor. The available evidence indicates that Medicaid
growth associated with immigrants is largely among those
legally in the country.
Nonetheless, immigrants, this points out:
The number of immigrants and their U.S.-born children on
Medicaid grew twice as fast as the number of natives and
their children on Medicaid from 2011 to 2013.
Immigrants and their children accounted for 42 percent of
Medicaid enrollment growth from 2011 to 2013, even though
they accounted for only 17 percent of the Nation's total
population and 23 percent of overall U.S. population growth
in the same time period.
About two-thirds of the growth in Medicaid associated with
immigrants was among immigrants themselves, rather than U.S.-
born children of immigrants.
It is an interesting issue because when my friend Steve King and I
were in England in recent years, we were told there that the law is
very clear. They know that their country would fail if they just say
everybody that comes in is immediately entitled to every Federal
subsidy the British Government offers, so they have a requirement in
England that you are not entitled to any benefit, we were told, until
you have paid into the British system for at least 5 years.
Well, that kind of makes sense, and having just been over there and
had a chance to address members from the House of Commons and House of
Lords, having spoken at Cambridge and Oxford, they are trying to save
their country over there, but there was a great deal of welfare that is
hurting the system and their economics. Even so, they have a law that
says you can't even get these kind of benefits until you have paid into
their system for 5 years.
Why isn't there something like that in the President's new law that
he spoke into being? Perhaps that ought to be the first reform that
both Houses take up. You can't receive any kind of benefit from the
U.S. Government unless you have paid into the U.S. Government for at
least 5 years, and that does not include getting more money back year
after year than you pay in.
An article yesterday indicated one woman in Virginia had been largely
using people that were illegally in the country to file for child tax
credits so they can get back $4,000, $7,000, $1,500 more than they paid
in, and it was a scam.
If one woman in Virginia can be accountable for $7,000 in child tax
credits being paid out more than people paid in, how many people are
there across the United States that are doing that same thing, while we
have workers across the country, like in my district, that have said
that because ObamaCare changed the definition of part-time work, it
forced them into a situation of having to work two part-time jobs, not
having health insurance anymore, and just struggling just to survive,
just to live; yet when it comes to people that have not paid a dime
into the system, all of a sudden, we are just going to bend over
backwards and violate the Constitution for them.
There is an article in Breitbart today from Tony Lee that said:
One in three illegal immigrants over the age of 25 in
America do not even have a high school education, according
to a New Migration Policy Institute report.
[[Page H8265]]
The Migration Policy Institute estimates there are 8.512
million illegal immigrant adults 25 years of age or older.
The study found that while 49 percent of illegal immigrants
25 years or older have at least a high school diploma or a
GED, 17 percent have some high school education, while 33
percent do not have any high school education.
Of course, we have got people of all races, national origins, and
both genders trying to get into this country. They have been trying for
years and years to do so legally. They could fill needed specialized
positions to help our economy grow; yet they can't get a visa. They are
not about to get amnesty. We have got things completely backwards.
We know, of course, when the President talks about amnesty and legal
status--along with other people here in Washington--our border
patrolmen make clear over and over that that increases the number of
people coming across our border.
Thank God Texas has stepped up. The State of Texas has been paying
tremendous amounts of money to have additional people on the border. At
night, you can see their profile--DPS troopers, Texas Rangers, game
wardens--where they can call people in speedboats that Texas has paid
for to rush up and try to catch the coyotes bringing people across
illegally.
The coyotes don't want to be caught. The people do. They want to turn
themselves in as quick as they can. The coyotes don't want to be
caught, so they are not going to come across if they think they are
going to get caught before they can get across with their raft.
One of the other things that ought to scare law enforcement
dramatically is the fact that I have heard a number of people say, as
they were questioned by our border patrolmen out in the middle of the
night, and they are asked--it's not on the standard questions, but they
have been asked many times by our border patrolmen, ``How much did you
have to pay the gangs or the drug cartels to bring you across?''
Sometimes, it is $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, or $8,000.
Sometimes, a followup question is asked, ``Where did you get that
kind of money in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or wherever you came
from?'' Often, the answer was, ``Well, some of the friends or family in
the U.S. sent money. We have been trying to collect money in our home
country.''
Every now and then, you get a response that scares me and is probably
at the bottom of many of the people's payments to come and be brought
in illegally by drug cartels and gangs. They have confided, ``They are
going to let us work some of the rest of it off.''
Well, what does that mean? It means when Health and Human Services
picks people up and transmits them across the country--with scabies, as
we have seen happen, and whatever disease they may bring in--as some
have pointed out, that means every State is a border State, thanks to
Health and Human Services shipping them around the country.
As they build up their numbers in different cities around the country
and they owe the drug cartels that are ruthless, unscrupulous, and
don't mind torturing and killing, we hear more and more about Mexican
drug cartel activities around the country and our cities, how
horrendous it is that the United States Department of Homeland Security
and the United States Department of Health and Human Services being
complicit in helping ship agents for the drug cartels and gangs around
the country that can be intimidated and reminded, ``Remember, you still
owe us $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, and here's how you will work it off.''
Is it sex trade? Is it drugs that are poisoning more of our American
teenagers and young adults with the Mexican drugs being brought in?
If the drug cartels are getting promises from people coming into the
United States illegally that they will work off the rest of the money,
then you can bet the drug cartels are going to see that they do.
I have been told by border patrolmen that you don't cross the U.S.
border without some drug cartel, some gang, some organized crime being
in charge of the area of the border where you crossed, and you dare not
cross across Mexico into the United States without the permission of
whatever organized criminal group is in charge. They say they will come
after them.
We are bringing in agents of drug cartels and shipping them around
the country where they can work for the drug cartels. It is what they
have said there on the border. ``Yeah, they are going to let me work
this off.''
Well, in talking to the border patrolmen there in the middle of the
night down on the border, they tell you some interesting things. As I
have been told by the border patrolmen, ``You know what the drug
cartels call us Federal agents here in the U.S.? They borrow from a
commercial on television and say, `We're the logistics.' ''
The United States Federal employees are the drug cartels' logistics.
All they have to do is get their agents that are going to work for the
drug cartels into the United States, and then the United States
Government ships them around the country for the drug cartels.
All they have to do is say, ``This is where I've got somebody--a
family member, a loved one--and that's where I need to go,'' and we
ship them free of charge. The U.S. Government makes it free of charge
at least to the immigrant coming in illegally.
Of course, there is no free lunch, as Phil Graham used to repeatedly
say. Somebody is paying for it, and to a limited extent, it is American
taxpayers. To another extent, it is our children and grandchildren who
are incurring the debts that will be paid with income they have never
even figured out what job they will be deriving the income from. It is
immoral.
{time} 1700
Here is an article from Politico saying, the DHS chief, short-term
funding a very bad idea. So it turns out Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson warned Tuesday that a short-term funding measure for his
agency will be ``a very bad idea,'' telling Congress such a bill would
hold up everything from hiring Secret Service agents to paying for
border security.
Well, we still have people that are saying, though, you know, in a CR
and an omnibus, we really can't put restrictions on the Federal
Government in there. And yet, here is a report regarding the last
omnibus highlights where there were 17 different restrictions on
agencies' use of fees in the last fiscal year.
This was done with the help of the Congressional Research Service
that reviewed the previous spending omnibus. And Senator Jeff Sessions,
dear friend, great guy, he has been able to identify 17 separate
restrictions.
One was a restriction in section 543 on the United States Citizenship
and Immigration Services that said, notwithstanding section 1356(n),
title VIII, U.S. Code, of the funds deposited into the immigration
examinations fee account, $7,500,000 may be allocated by U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services fiscal year 2014 for the purpose
of providing an immigrant integration grants program.
There is one for the Department of Agriculture, Department of
Justice, Transportation Security Administration, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Federal Communications Commission, Security and Exchange
Commission, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation Enforcement, Copyright Office, Export-Import Bank of the
United States.
So we know it can be done. It has been done. The restrictions have
been made in past omnibuses, even just last year. So we can do that,
and we should do that.
If we don't do that, then the President's unconstitutional act is
going to be a harbinger of terrible things to come. Once you no longer
have a Constitution that means anything, then Presidents can pretty
much do as they wish.
That is what happens in Third World countries. That is why we have
lasted over 200 years, because the Constitution meant something. It
took a civil war to make the Constitution more enforcing of what it
said. It took someone like Dr. King giving his life to ensure civil
rights for everyone, as the Constitution guaranteed.
But once we have moved into this post-constitutional era, where the
Constitution no longer is enforced, it is just a document, then there
is no skeleton on which to hang muscle and the might that makes a
strong country, and we become, figuratively speaking, a blob of a
nation without structure that can't defend itself adequately, that has
drug cartel agents throughout
[[Page H8266]]
the country, that continues to have people sending wives in to have
children in the United States free of charge and leaving to go back
home with, actually, a U.S. passport as an American citizen.
I think that is how Anwar al-Awlaki, whom the President was so
concerned about he blew him up with a drone strike--he was an American
citizen. His parents came over from Yemen on visas, and he was born
here, but taken back, grew up learning to hate America.
The deputy leader of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, his wife came to the
U.S., had a child that, no doubt, is being taught to hate America.
Palestinian Islamic jihad leader Sami Al-Arian, his wife came to the
United States, had a child, American citizen.
Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, who is doing 23 years in prison for
supporting terrorism, financing terrorism, his wife had a child here in
the United States, an American citizen.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, even has confessed to
that in his own written pleadings and said, if our act of terror
created terror in your heart, then praise be to Allah. Basically, in
his six-page pleading, he said, you had it coming.
I think there is possibly a chance he would raise a child to hate
America.
And then the Muslim Brother President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, his
wife came to America. Irony of ironies, he thought he was being very
clever to have an American citizen daughter, yet the Egyptian people
didn't think it was so clever. They didn't like the idea.
When he became such an unconstitutional actor as a President that he
could no longer be tolerated, be allowed to be left in office, 20
million Egyptians were reported in the streets of Egypt demanding his
removal, followed by another demonstration of 30 million to 33 million
Egyptians, moderate Muslims, Christians, Jews, secularists, out in the
streets demanding, we don't want a radical Islamist in control of our
country, Egypt.
Amazing. Such a huge event in the realm of human history in Egypt.
God bless the Egyptians. We need to pray for them, we need to help
them.
But not this administration. This administration says, oh, so you
ousted the Muslim Brother, part of the organization that wants to bring
down America, and you ousted him?
Well, if you don't put him back in power we are not going to send you
the Apache helicopters you are using to keep the Suez Canal open. We
are not going to send you what you need to deweaponize the Sinai that
Morsi saw weaponized.
No, we are going to hold back any weapons that will help you clean up
the radicalization in Egypt and Sinai that Morsi oversaw, which is why
some of the moderate Muslim leaders in the Middle East and North Africa
continue to ask, why do you keep helping your enemies?
Do you not understand that the Muslim Brothers are your enemy?
Do you not understand that the Muslim Brothers want the United States
as part of a caliphate?
Well, the Department of Homeland Security and this administration and
mainstream media belittled me for the last couple of years or so as I
continued to point out that they had an adviser on their top Homeland
Security Advisory Council who had used his classification that Janet
Napolitano gave him in an inappropriate way; that he had spoken--he was
listed as a speaker paying tribute to the Ayatollah Khomeini as a man
of vision; that he defended the Holy Land Foundation principals who
were convicted of supporting terrorism; failed to properly file the tax
forms that would allow his foundation to remain a 501(c)(3). Didn't
file them. And yet, he is a top adviser.
Well, even the Obama administration had to finally let him go and,
yes, go ahead and accept the resignation when he tweeted out that the
international caliphate is inevitable so we need to get used to it.
Even the Obama administration had to let him go after that. So he has
resigned. He is no longer a top member advising this administration.
But it is time for Americans to wake up. Ignoring the Constitution is
not helpful. After over two-dozen statements by this President that he
doesn't have the power to, in effect, do what he just now did right
before Thanksgiving, demands congressional action. We must stand up and
defund the illegal activity of this President.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is also important to note that our Republican
leaders got duped in July of 2011. I tried to warn. I told people back
then, told our whole conference, this supercommittee will not be
allowed to reach an agreement by the Democrats.
I was assured, oh, sure they will because it cuts a whole bunch of
money from Medicaid and an automatic sequestration if the
supercommittee doesn't reach an agreement. So the hundreds of billions,
the gutting of our military will never happen because the
supercommittee will reach an agreement because they don't want the cuts
to Medicare.
Well, it seemed very clear to me, and as I told my Republican
friends, no, they are going to prevent the supercommittee from reaching
agreement if we pass this bill because they want the cuts to Medicare
because they cut over $700 billion of Medicare funding in ObamaCare
without a single Republican vote.
So the only way, in 2012, they will be able to run commercials
saying, we love our rich friends more than we love seniors, is if they
prevent the supercommittee from reaching an agreement.
The cuts to Medicare are only a fraction of what ObamaCare did but,
nonetheless, cuts to Medicare will happen.
And the President has never cared much for the military anyway, and
this allows him, basically, to gut our military to pre-World War II
levels. So it is a win, win, win all the way around for the
administration if we pass that bill creating a supercommittee.
Well, we did, and the President got the military gutted, Defense
Department gutted. The sequestration happened.
And now I am concerned, if we say, all right, we are not going to
fund Homeland Security unless you agree, you sign a bill that defunds
your illegal activity in providing amnesty to 5 million people, I think
we need to be careful about that, Mr. Speaker, because it just may be
that the President would like to blame Republicans and say, you know
what? Well, I would like to have Border Patrol securing the border, but
the Republicans cut off the funding, and so, gee, there is no Border
Patrol on the border. It is all the Republicans' fault because they
wouldn't fund it.
I think we need to be rather careful about saying we are going to
bank on not funding Homeland Security, only fund them for a short time,
and then threaten the President, if you don't sign off on a bill
defunding your illegal activity, then Homeland Security won't be
funded.
As one of my Republican friends pointed out, kind of like the old
adage, if you are going to take a hostage, you need to take somebody
that the other side doesn't want to see killed. And there is some
concern that if we take hostage, figuratively speaking, the Homeland
Security Department in order to defund the illegal activity of this
President's amnesty, it just may be that the President, figuratively
again speaking, will say, go ahead, take out your hostage; completely
defund Homeland Security. That is okay with me.
{time} 1715
No, that is not the way you negotiate.
If we are going to stop the President's unconstitutional amnesty, it
is going to require funding everything that needs funding, but to go
after something the President really wants but doesn't need. Good
grief. When we are spending the trillions of dollars we are, we can
certainly afford, for example, to do away with the czars, to do away
with the, say, public transportation to golf outings.
We can save millions of dollars just on that alone. This is what you
do in negotiation. For those of us who have negotiated multimillion-
dollar deals and multimillion-dollar settlements, that is what you do.
You have to find something that is very important to the other side,
but that is really not necessary, so that the other side, when you are
negotiating, knows you mean business. I don't think Homeland Security
is the place to threaten.
We have got to defund the illegal activity, or of those who fought to
defend the Constitution, who picked up the Stars and Stripes in
representing our
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Nation--our constitutional Republic--and carried it as fellow soldiers
were killed and who advanced freedom here in America, their blood will
be on our hands because we wouldn't even stand for the Constitution
when there were no bullets being fired. We have got to stand up for
America and for our Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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