[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 188 (Thursday, November 16, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H9418-H9423]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BIG DAY FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this has been a big day.
  There are so many people who have suffered in this country, 
especially since the passing of ObamaCare. It is difficult to call it 
the Affordable Care Act. There is a small percentage that supposedly 
has done better.
  Usually, when my friends across the aisle and most of the media talk 
about how much better off Americans are under ObamaCare, they ignore 
the real results, and, instead, they point and say: There are so many 
people--millions of people now--who have insurance now that didn't have 
it before.
  Well, the reason they could say that was because ObamaCare forced 
people to buy insurance. We went through this with some family members, 
helping them make the calculation: should they pay the penalty through 
additional income tax, or should they buy insurance that they will 
never, ever be able to use?
  On some occasions, you are better off paying the extra tax, which 
means the government wanted your money a lot worse--well, not worse 
than the individual--but the government has the power to steal from 
people and call it legal, and then it is legal.
  There was a massive amount of legalized stealing under ObamaCare that 
took place. This bill we passed today would end so much of the stealing 
from individuals that the government has been doing legally since 
ObamaCare passed.

                              {time}  1415

  But, yes, there will be millions of people, I would suspect, that 
when we legally end the individual mandate, they are not going to 
continue to pay for insurance, huge amounts every month that they can't 
afford--people making $25,000, $30,000, or so, who couldn't afford to 
pay for health insurance who were required to do that.
  Do you want to pay higher income tax? Are you going to pay for health 
insurance that you are never going to be able to use? The premiums cost 
you more than you can afford, the deductible is so high. Clearly, you 
are young. You are never going to use it. The odds are 99.99 percent 
you will never use it. But the government forced them to pay more taxes 
or pay more for insurance they couldn't use.
  The good news for those people is that now you will be able to--well, 
once this becomes the law, and it does need to pass the Senate. The 
Senate has a little different version, and there are a few things in 
the Senate version I like better than ours, but there are a lot of 
things in our bill that I like better than the Senate.
  If the Senate will go ahead and do their job like they did not do on 
repealing at least part of ObamaCare, they will do their job on this, 
the American people are going to benefit. We are going to see the 
economy take a big jolt forward and upward, more jobs coming to 
America.
  Nobody gets everything they want. I believe what the President really 
wanted was going to be best for the country. If we could hold to a 15 
percent corporate tax, I wanted to see that across the board for S 
corporations, C corporations. But as the President knew--I know he knew 
because we talked about it more than once--that 15 percent would 
undercut the corporate tax that China has. If we undercut the corporate 
tax that China has, then it means we were going to be getting 
manufacturing jobs back to America.
  We have had so many manufacturing plants pick up and move to other 
places--mainly China, Mexico, other places. We need to be manufacturing 
here.
  I know there are those elitists who have been educated with degrees 
far beyond their intellectual capacity to absorb. They got the degrees, 
but they didn't get the wisdom. And some have ventured to say: No, we 
don't need to be a manufacturing country. We have evolved above being 
these lowly manufacturers. That is for developing countries, not a 
wonderful country like ours is.
  Obviously, they spent too much time in other places than studying 
history. This is something else I have talked about with the 
President--he knows it just from his business acumen; I know it from 
studying history--that any nation that is a powerful nation in the 
world that cannot manufacture the things that that country needs in a 
time of war will cease to be a great nation after the next war. And be 
assured, there will be wars.
  Jesus, the wisest to ever walk this planet, said there will always be 
wars and rumors of war. And that is true because this planet has evil: 
people who will do evil, countries that will do evil, people who get 
jealous when some other country has more freedom, more assets. And 
there is going to be evil in this world as long as this world exists.
  We saw that down in Sutherland Springs. Some lunatics--again, many of 
them educated well beyond their ability to be wise--had popped off and 
said, well, if prayer worked, those people would never have been shot 
in a church where they were praying and worshipping.
  As long as people are in this world, there is going to be evil--not 
that God wants evil to prevail. He doesn't. He doesn't want that any 
should stumble. But as a parent knows, you could force your child to 
say, ``I love you'' or to throw their little arms around your neck, hug 
you, and say, ``I love you.'' You could force them to do that. It 
doesn't mean a whole lot. But when you give people the free will to 
choose to love you, to choose to follow your rules, it is overwhelming 
to a parent when a child freely chooses to do that.
  So we have freedom of choice. Some choose to do evil. Some want 
governments to be all powerful because, in their lack of wisdom, they 
think that the government needs to be in control of everything and 
everybody.
  The late Justice Scalia, who could make me laugh--he loved good jokes 
and stories like I do. There have been a lot of unpleasant memories, a 
lot of unpleasant fights, a lot of fights that I haven't won, but I 
stood up for what I believed was right.
  When I would get around Justice Scalia, having lunch together or 
breakfast together, we would get to telling stories and jokes, and he 
was so clever. It was often hard to find a joke or a story he had not 
heard, but it was just fun to be around him.
  But in one of those, I think it was a lunch that time, he said: You 
know, back when I was working for the Attorney General--and I don't 
remember which Attorney General it was back in the 1970s--he said: We 
had a weekly meeting, and one morning the Attorney General came in, and 
he said: Well, I was at a cocktail party last night, and for the first 
time I heard a definition that explained the difference between 
Democrats and Republicans.
  He said: I actually think it is pretty good. I think it is very 
descriptive.
  He said: What I learned was Democrats are people who want to control 
everybody and everything, and Republicans are people who don't want 
them to.
  Well, I found that rather amusing. Actually, that is pretty accurate. 
Some people on the Republican side of the aisle go: Why don't we plot 
and plan as well as the Democrats do? They are always trying to figure 
out how they get power, how they get over on this and that, and we just 
want people to live and let live. We want as little government as 
necessary to keep order but allow people to succeed with no ceiling, no 
limit.

[[Page H9419]]

  But to succeed, you also have to have the opportunity to fail, just 
like Edison did. In the hundreds of things he tried, finding a 
filament, the element that would heat up and not burn in two to make a 
light bulb, he knew it would work. Somebody asked him about all those 
failures, and he said, no, each time he tried something that didn't 
work, it wasn't a failure. He just learned that that is one less thing 
that might work.

  But Fisher, who came up with the space pen--I love those space pens. 
The email still goes around that says that Americans spent $4 million 
to develop a pen that would work in outer space, government money. 
Russians just use pencils. Not a dime of government money was used.
  With an intellect like Fisher, he knew there had to be a way that you 
could develop a pen that would write in gravity and with no gravity, 
underwater, above the air--or above the Earth's atmosphere, so he came 
up with it. But he knew he was going to have to pressurize a pen, and 
this is such a cartridge.
  So he sealed it, put about 30 pounds of pressure. But the trick was 
finding an ink that didn't explode out when you put 30 pounds of 
pressure on it or that was not so thick that it wouldn't work when you 
tried to write. Eventually, he was able to do that.
  Lots of failures, but you have got to allow people a chance to fail 
if they are going to have a chance to succeed. If the government puts 
its thumb on the scales, it is not real success, it is not real 
failure, and, eventually, those cards are going to come falling down.
  Well, what we have done today with our tax bill, it is a huge step 
because I know, Mr. Speaker, most folks here are well aware, it is hard 
to get a majority agreement on much of anything, but we did today. We 
had a significant majority that agreed. It isn't perfect. Nothing any 
human ever does will be, but it moves the ball down the road.
  One of the things I love about my friend from Texas, Kevin Brady, is 
I would hear from people back home--and talk to Kevin. He is open to 
talking not just to Texans. He will talk to everybody. And I found that 
with so many members on the Ways and Means Committee. My friend David 
Schweikert was always available to answer questions, and he was doing 
his homework thoroughly.
  One of the things that has deeply troubled many Americans, and 
especially seniors, either seniors in poor health or younger Americans 
who had severe health problems, is, in the ObamaCare bill that was so 
unaffordable, it changed the deductibility of medical expenses.
  Before, it was, if you had medical expenses, you had a really bad 
time of it, then our hearts go out to you and we want your life to be a 
little easier when you are going through so much difficulty with bad 
health, so the deductibles were any medical expense over 5 percent of 
your adjusted gross income.
  In order to come up with the billions and billions of dollars that 
ObamaCare, I would submit, wasted, they had to cut out some of the 
deductions like that, so they ended up raising the threshold from 5 
percent to 7\1/2\, 10 percent. So it has been 10 percent. You had to 
have more than 10 percent of your adjusted gross income in order to 
deduct it, but we still had a lot of, especially, seniors who had more 
than that.
  I had accountants from home send me information about seniors, 
particularly seniors who had been paying a great deal of medical 
expense because, no, Medicare didn't take care of them.
  And of course we know AARP jumped on the bandwagon for ObamaCare--not 
because it was going to be good for the seniors. In fact, it was 
extremely violent to the finances of seniors and to their health, as 
well. But AARP was more interested in the massive amount of money they 
could add to their coffers, even though they are considered a 
nonprofit. So they jumped on board, and, of course, companies that sold 
other policies had to pay a 2 percent tax on each policy.
  AARP got the sweetheart deal. Their policy they embraced didn't have 
to pay the 2 percent tax. And I haven't seen the provision, but I am 
told there was a provision that exempted their executive so they didn't 
have the normal cap on their executive income.
  So the people at the top of AARP, they did great. Seniors really got 
harmed, losing $716 billion in cuts to Medicare. But for all those 
seniors who got harmed, couldn't get the surgery, couldn't get the 
medical help they need, just keep in mind, AARP was able to sell a lot 
more policies and make a lot more money even though it did a lot of 
harm to some seniors. Just remember, AARP came out great out of that.
  But nonetheless, for those of us who were very sympathetic to seniors 
having hundreds of billions of dollars cut from Medicare, they heard 
the President say: Now, this isn't going to affect you seniors at all. 
It is only going to cut some of the profits from healthcare providers--
basically, what was said.
  But many of my seniors in east Texas figured out: Wait a minute. If 
you are not going to pay the healthcare provider for my medicine, for 
my surgery, for what I need, then I am not going to be able to get the 
procedure, the surgery, the healthcare that I need if it is not going 
to be paid for.
  So I have had many seniors talk to me about surgeries being delayed 
or that they couldn't get the same thing they had before ObamaCare 
passed.

                              {time}  1430

  So we haven't repealed ObamaCare, but in this bill, we repealed the 
ObamaCare mandate, the individual mandate. That means that some people 
who were forced to pay a higher income tax--they didn't get one of 
these ridiculous insurance policies--they are going to have that much 
money in their own pocket. If they were paying for a policy that they 
knew was never going to help them out, they won't have to buy that.
  And, of course, the Democrats, for all the Main Street media, will 
say, ``Oh, look at how many people don't have insurance,'' when the 
truth is so many of those people chose not to buy insurance because 
they knew it was a terrible deal.
  I still want to see a reform of healthcare, a real reform of 
healthcare, but that would mean getting away from either insurance 
companies or the government being between us and our doctors, our 
healthcare providers. The way you do that is that you make it so 
attractive to put money in your own health savings account--and I 
expect us to pass something to make it much easier and much more 
attractive. It is not in this bill. This was a tax bill--but I am still 
hopeful that we are going to do a reform of healthcare and repeal, at 
least most of ObamaCare. I had that hope. And I hoped that today was a 
start, not only toward getting tax reform and getting tax relief for 
Americans and seeing the economy get going again, but also put back in 
motion true repeal of ObamaCare and getting healthcare laws in place 
that will be good for Americans.
  But how can you have competitive prices in healthcare if nobody knows 
what these procedures or medicines cost? You see, you get a notice from 
the healthcare provider--your insurance company--that something costs 
$12,000, but you don't know that the insurance company satisfied that 
$12,000 payment demand with an $800 or $900 payment. But if you knew 
that if you were paying cash out of your health savings account, a 
$12,000 procedure would only cost $800, you wouldn't be so big on 
paying $2,000 a month to a health insurance company.
  And these health insurance companies still don't see that, under 
ObamaCare, their days are numbered. It was designed to fail. And 
America gets so mad at health insurance companies because it was built 
into ObamaCare. Not only were they going to have record profits, like 
some of them did last year, but they were going to get bailouts on top 
of their record profits.
  It was going to make America so mad at the insurance companies that 
even conservatives would say: Well, I never thought I would say this, 
but anything has to be better than what we have with these insurance 
companies. Why don't we have the government just take over everything?
  Then, voila, we then have VA healthcare for all Americans, except 
much worst than the VA provides, because everybody is forced to be in 
it.
  I was amazed, as an exchange student in the Soviet Union, to see the 
type of medical care that was in the Soviet Union in the seventies. I 
just thanked

[[Page H9420]]

God that we didn't have that kind of socialized medicine, and we were 
so much more advanced.
  But it was clear that physicians, back in the Soviet Union in the 
seventies--I am sure there were some that were really dedicated, but, 
for most, it was an 8-to-4-, 9-to-5-type job--the fewer people they 
could see, the better they liked it. But that meant a lot of people 
waited in long lines, didn't get seen, had to come back and come back, 
and they didn't get the procedures that they needed.
  Or, like in Canada, a fellow, named Tyler, told me that his dad died 
of a heart attack after he had been on the list to get bypass surgery 
for 2 years.
  I said: Two years? It really took that long?
  He said: Well, they kept moving people in front of him.
  I said: Well, now wait a minute. I understand it is a crime to pay or 
do anything to get yourself moved up the list.
  He said: Oh, yeah, that is the way I understand it, too. But we had a 
board that would pick and choose among the American citizens who would 
go in front, and they kept putting people in front of my dad, who 
finally had the heart attack and died because the board kept putting 
people in front of him.
  That goes back to what Sarah Palin said. She called it a death panel. 
She was speaking with hyperbole, but the truth is--whether you want to 
call it a death panel or not--they were making decisions over who would 
get what; that would mean they lived or died in some occasions, or it 
meant whether they were going to live in pain or live in comfort. These 
were government boards making these decisions, just like they used to 
do in the Soviet Union before it fell.
  So I see this tax bill today as not only a step in the right 
direction to get people more money in their own pockets they can use to 
make the economy grow, but I see it also as a step in the right 
direction toward reforming healthcare again because we eliminate the 
individual mandate.
  I still would like to see these further reforms, like I am talking 
about. I put in a bill, I filed years ago, that healthcare providers 
would have to post, at least at their facility, but certainly online, 
if they were online--and now it ought to be a requirement--post exactly 
what you charge an individual paying cash, an individual with Blue 
Cross, or Aetna, or whatever it is. Let people know exactly what things 
cost. Don't send a $15,000 bill for going into the hospital that you 
know you are going to accept $1,000 as payment in full from an 
insurance company. If you are going to accept $1,000 for a $15,000 
bill, then say it costs $1,000.
  If we could require everybody to post exactly what things cost, they 
wouldn't be in such an all-fired hurry to make sure that they had 
insurance, other than catastrophic, really catastrophic insurance. 
Because instead of paying $2,000 a month to an insurance company--
$24,000 a year--well, they would be better off paying $1,500 as payment 
in full for $15,000 in charges.
  We still have a good ways to go, but you don't get anywhere until you 
take that first step, and today was a giant step, in my opinion.

  I didn't realize, until I saw this notice from the Farm Bureau, but 
the headline says: ``House Poised to Take up Farm Bureau-Supported Tax 
Bill.'' It was good to see that.
  Another article from Heritage Action: ``House tax plan propels reform 
forward.''
  FOX News has an article, by Newt Gingrich: ``House and Senate tax 
plans have more in common than you think.'' That makes some excellent 
points.
  It is good news all the way around. It is a step in the right 
direction.
  I am hopeful that some of the things we disagree on, we are going to 
be able to work out with the Senate. One of those things, like I 
mentioned, the Senate, as I understand it, their bill currently has an 
allowance for deductions of medical expense beyond 10 percent. 
Hopefully, we can eventually do better than that and get it back from 
where ObamaCare put it, maybe back to 5 percent, at some point.
  But we have seniors on fixed incomes, and Medicare doesn't cover what 
they are needing in the way of healthcare, and they are being 
overwhelmed by medical expense. Once again, I think if we can get some 
reforms in--it doesn't have to be a total reform of healthcare, but 
just get some things in there--even if we can't get the total repeal 
because of the Senate's recalcitrance, at least let's get some reforms 
to get people the help they need.
  I would also like to address the issue of the Roy Moore allegations. 
Having prosecuted sexual assault crimes, I have even been forced 
against my will--but you get an order, and you follow the order to 
defend sexual assault crimes--in one case finding that a trumped-up 
case against my African-American client was totally bogus, trumped-up, 
and we were able to prove irrefutably as such.
  But sexual assault allegations are a very dangerous thing. We have in 
America what we call statute of limitations on most crimes. The reason 
we have statute of limitations on most crimes is because if you are 
going to be accused of something, it needs to be made in a timely 
manner, so that if you are going to accuse somebody of committing a 
crime, they have a chance to find witnesses.
  One of the very reasons that there are statutes of limitations on 
crimes like sexual assault is that if you wait 38 years to accuse 
somebody of a sexual assault, it is almost impossible to prove exactly 
where you were. And I have heard some people in the Senate say: Oh, 
well, there are just so much specifics coming out that it just seems 
irrefutable.
  Well, usually people's memories wane over the period of three to four 
decades on times and exact places. And I know, from my days as a judge, 
sent many rapists and sexual assaulters to prison for many years, 
including life, I was particularly hard on people who committed sexual 
assault crimes because they violate so much more than just a physical 
violation. It is an abominable crime.
  But we have limitations. So if somebody makes an allegation against 
you that you did such and such at 2 in the afternoon on such and such 
afternoon, and it was at this particular location, and these people 
were not around, I mean, if you put a bunch of specifics in there, 
within a year, then the individual being charged can go back to his 
calendar, or her calendar, and see: Okay, on that day, oh, I wasn't 
even in that city, I was over here in this city, I was in court across 
town, I was not even where that happened. So I can bring in and show--
not just raise a reasonable doubt--but show absolutely for sure that 
never happened. That is why we have limitations.
  I would just encourage people that when they hear alleged factual 
allegations that occurred decades previously, no matter how many 
specifics are thrown in, reserve judgment, and give it a chance to get 
all of the facts in.
  That is why, in every single case I have tried as a judge--and there 
were thousands of felony cases that came before my court--but in every 
single case I tried, after the prosecution finished, I then turned to 
the defense for their chance to submit evidence. It is why, after every 
witness testified for the prosecution, I turned to the defense attorney 
and gave them a chance to cross examine.
  And there were times I heard charges that, in my mind, were so 
outrageous, but I knew we have a system in place to protect innocent 
people from spurious allegations, and we have to go through the 
process, including an appeal, after the trial. And I have reviewed many 
appeals as an appellate chief justice.
  You have got to let the process play out. And any time somebody comes 
running in and wants somebody tried in the court of public opinion, and 
they are only going to give them 3 or 4 weeks, then immediately that 
should be suspect. Not that it can't be proved out as true, but it 
should immediately be suspect because these people tried to game the 
system. They didn't want to give enough time for the ones allegedly 
committing an offense to prepare a defense.

                              {time}  1445

  They didn't want to give adequate time to investigate, even after 38 
years. How do you go back 38 years later and say: Gee, where was I? I 
don't have a calendar that goes back that far. I don't know if I was in 
town, if I was out of the country. I don't know where I was. Gee, it 
seems like around that

[[Page H9421]]

time. Maybe I was here or there. I don't know.
  The odds of being able to mount a proper defense three or four 
decades after something allegedly happened is just almost impossible.
  So all you can do to defend yourself--and I am speaking 
hypothetically. If somebody, hypothetically, made outrageous 
allegations against you, and, you know, I know I never did that, how do 
I prove it?
  Well, you are not going to be able to find witnesses to say where you 
were at that specific moment in time because you don't even remember 
where you were. How will you find a witness that will back you up?
  And if you do find a witness who can say, ``Oh, I remember that very 
second,'' 38 years later, ``this is where he was,'' then that witness 
becomes suspect because you just don't remember like that.
  So I hope, Mr. Speaker, that people will allow an election to go 
forward with the parties the people have chosen and give time for all 
the facts to come out.
  I like Roy Moore, and I appreciate the man of faith that he is. I 
think the election needs to go forward just as it is. I think we should 
not intervene in Congress, and we should let the people of Alabama 
decide, based on proven facts, not on some last-minute attack.
  We should give time for all of the facts to come out, not just the 
facts that have been set up over the last several months, in all 
likelihood, in preparation for being able to blindside a candidate, so 
you have all the facts and you can keep slipping stuff out day after 
day; because it could very well end up just like Ted Stevens' case, 
where at least one FBI agent and a prosecutor created a case that not 
only had reasonable doubt about it, but it was absolutely false.
  Senator Ted Stevens was not the most lovable guy. He was kind of a 
crotchety guy when I was around him. It wasn't very often. They accused 
him of not filing notice about a hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars gift 
improvement onto a home he had.
  The FBI--at least some in the FBI, as was borne out by the affidavit 
by an FBI officer who actually had a conscience, not like his superior 
FBI agent lead investigator. They fabricated evidence. They hid 
evidence. The evidence that they had gotten when they served warrants, 
went to his home, took every piece of paper, every bank record, 
everything he had, computers, all this, raided the bank, got all their 
information, got any notes and things, he didn't have the evidence to 
defend himself because the FBI got it all.
  A guy named Robert Mueller was the head of the FBI. This was probably 
the biggest case that went through the FBI while he was Director, at 
least one of them. He saw to it that the FBI agent that blew the 
whistle and pointed out that they have evidence that shows that Ted 
Stevens not only did not get a free hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars, 
$600,000-, $700,000-addition to his house, that he paid hundreds of 
thousands of dollars more than that. Apparently, there was some 
communication between the contractor and Senator Stevens saying: You 
are overpaying. Quit overpaying.
  Senator Stevens said: No. No. I am strong-willed in the Senate, so I 
have always got people looking to try to make something up, so I have 
to overpay.
  The man overpaid.
  The FBI, under Mueller, fabricated a case. They tried it the week 
before the election, and there was a reason for that. They tried it the 
week before the election. They got a conviction. He lost the election, 
I think it was by 1,200 votes or so.
  After he had lost the election, there was no way to rewind that 
clock. He was out of the Senate. The Democrats got the seat. They sure 
didn't care that they won the seat based on a lie, a fraudulent case 
brought by the U.S. Government. They didn't care. They were glad to 
have the seat.
  It is kind of like Senator Harry Reid said after he made false 
accusations against Mitt Romney that he hadn't paid any taxes, and when 
he was asked about it later after Mr. Romney lost the election, his 
response was basically: Well, it worked, didn't it?
  He had no remorse for destroying a man's reputation falsely without 
any evidence or with manufactured evidence, lies. No remorse, just: It 
worked, because we got the seat.
  And I have a feeling that, when the smoke clears and we find all of 
the evidence that is left after 38 years, we are going to find that 
there was a problem not as much with Roy Moore as there was with the 
accusers, but we need to wait and see. Nobody needs to be rushed to 
trial.
  We have a system of government that prevents somebody from being 
punished by the government, but the fact is the government is being 
used to try to punish Roy Moore.
  Let's say, hypothetically, you were an establishment leader in the 
Senate and you have been pushing for amnesty. You didn't want illegal 
immigration stopped, because there are donors that give a lot of money 
that want illegal immigration to continue. You wanted amnesty, and you 
know in the Attorney General's Office you have a guy there, regardless 
of things you disagree on, who has really cracked down on illegal 
immigration.
  You know you have got a guy that just won the primary in a State, and 
you spent tens of millions of dollars trying to destroy the guy in the 
primary and it didn't work. He won. So it looks like he is about to win 
the election, the general election, even though you are in his same 
party.
  I am just thinking hypothetically. Certainly none of this would be 
true, surely, but, wow, what a great deal if somebody made accusations, 
true or not true, against the guy that you tried to destroy with 
millions of dollars, that, you know, if he is elected, he is going to 
come in. He is not going to be your best frien because you called him 
everything in the book; you tried to destroy him.

  So, wow, even though he is in your own party, maybe you would be 
better off if you had a Democrat you feel like you could work with that 
was more establishment than the guy that you tried to destroy, that, if 
he would have gotten along with you--probably not now because you went 
after him so strongly--what if you could have that guy taken out with 
allegations, whether true or not, and then you could kill a number of 
birds.
  You know that Steve Bannon has said he is going to war after you. 
Wow. And Bannon went all in to support this guy in his primary and this 
election, so if his candidate gets destroyed, you have just destroyed 
his ability to raise money.
  And then on top of that, if you could talk the unsuspecting President 
into talking his Attorney General into leaving that post to try to go 
to the Senate, wow, you get rid of the guy that has gotten tough on 
illegal immigration, you get rid of the guy that has been raising money 
and going against the establishment, and you get rid of the guy that 
you tried to destroy with tens of millions of dollars even though he 
was in your own party--I am just saying, hypothetically.
  Maybe it would make for a good fiction novel someday, and maybe there 
is somebody out there writing that novel, but I am just saying, what 
if. Wow. What a novel piece of fiction that might be some day. Maybe we 
would see it in a movie someday. Maybe the Senator would even be from 
the South.
  I also know, having been a district judge, I signed everything 
original. I know there are some judges that don't sign their orders; 
they just let somebody stamp.
  I made clear the day I became a district judge that nobody is 
stamping my signature on anything; if it is a stamp, it is going to be 
clear that it is a stamp, that anything that has got to be originally 
signed, I am going to sign it.
  Now, as I understand it, Judge Moore signed things originally, but on 
other things, on copies--we would put a stamped signature and note that 
it was a copy. But his, they either stamped or his assistant wrote his 
signature, and because the assistant's name had initials D.A., put 
``D.A.'' out beside his name to denote that he didn't originally sign 
this. This was the assistant on his behalf. So litigants would normally 
get a copy and not the original, of course, unless you make multiple 
originals.
  I wondered when I saw in the yearbook the picture of the signature, I 
thought: DA? I didn't think he was ever a DA.
  Well, he wasn't. He was assistant DA. He was a district judge. He was 
a chief

[[Page H9422]]

justice of the supreme court there in Alabama. He was never the DA.
  It is interesting, if someone believed that a guy molested their 
minor daughter and that person later had a divorce pending in that 
guy's court, I know I would certainly ask for a different court. There 
is no way I would let a judge who molested my child have any 
jurisdiction over my divorce. If I had never brought out about the 
alleged molestation before, I would certainly do it then. People would 
need to know that the judge in that court, and particularly the judge 
on my divorce, was a child molester. They would need to know.
  If you don't let people know at that point, you are basically an 
accomplice. You are allowing this assaulter out there to continue 
whatever he may be doing to others. You need to come forward and report 
it. It is not a crime not to report it, but it needs to be reported, 
and certainly if that person goes on the bench.
  It must have been quite a realization for Judge Moore when he saw 
that ``D.A.'' and realized: Somebody has forged what they thought was 
my signature, when it was really my assistant, and that is why the 
assistant put ``D.A.'' out there, to denote that I didn't sign that.
  Wow. That must have been quite a feeling for the judge.
  There is a story from Joel Pollak on November 16, ``Gloria Allred's 
Blunder on Roy Moore's Yearbook Challenge,'' that talks about that.
  There is another story by John Nolte, also November 16, ``Journalist 
Leann Tweeden Accuses Senator Al Franken of Fondling, Kissing Her 
Without Consent.'' I don't know where that is going to lead. I don't 
know whether the same people will demand his ouster or not. Maybe we 
need to wait and see if the photograph is forged or if it was 
photoshopped, something like that.

                              {time}  1500

  There is just so much going on, but the bottom line is, today, we 
have taken a big step toward making America great again. It is not the 
15 percent tax I had hoped it would be. In fact, people have got to 
understand that my friend, Steve Moore, who used to be the senior 
economics editor for The Wall Street Journal, helped President Trump as 
an economic adviser. Steve told me a number of times that he likes my 
definition of corporate tax better than any.
  But my definition describes what a corporate tax really is, 
especially the U.S. corporate tax: 35 percent. It is the largest tariff 
any modern country has ever put on its own goods or services, because, 
let's face it, when we put a corporate tax on a company, and 35 
percent, they are going to have to put that on their products. If they 
don't collect that tax on top of the cost of the product, they are 
going to go out of business. That has got to be added to the cost of 
the goods or services.
  When you look at all the businesses and all the huge manufacturing 
plants in America that have closed down, and you look at what they were 
doing before they closed down and you deduct that 35 percent corporate 
tax or, I would submit, tariff, they could have been selling their 
product competitively not just in America, but probably in places all 
over the world. Instead of having to close their doors, they could have 
kept producing and expanding, but for that huge tariff that was put on 
their own goods.
  Most countries are smart enough not to put a tariff on what their own 
companies make before they ship them out. But we have been doing that.
  So why have we been doing that?
  Because it was a great way, people in Congress thought, to raise 
revenue.
  You tell people this mean, evil corporation was paying this tax. We 
really put it over on this corporation. We made them pay all this tax.
  No. What you did was add 35 percent to the cost of their products 
that they had to figure in somehow to cover that, in addition to what 
it cost to manufacture; and you have made them noncompetitive, here or 
abroad, and that is why they had to close.
  That is why I love the idea of either eliminating the tariff or at 
least getting it down to 15 percent so we undercut the 17 or so percent 
that China has. If we undercut their tariff on their own goods, goods 
produced in China, then those manufacturers are coming back.
  I have been amazed that reporters have asked, when I would talk about 
this publicly: But how are you going to make up for all of that lost 
income?
  They didn't understand, yeah, you are not collecting it as corporate 
tax, but now you are collecting directly from the people. So it is not 
a hidden, insidious tax. There are more jobs, and they are paying more 
money, and the economy is growing and hiring more people. There are 
more jobs, more income, and more income tax, and it is better for 
everybody.
  But the forces of greed around this country and around this town like 
to try to convince people they are really sticking it to somebody else, 
when the truth is that the individuals are going to end up paying it, 
wherever it is, or the company is not going to stay in business. I 
would rather them stay in business, add jobs, and give raises.
  Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Faso). The gentleman from Texas has 10 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. GOHMERT. So in the last 10 minutes I have here, this will be the 
last session before Thanksgiving Day. I am greatly disturbed that we 
have so many young people in America who can't explain what 
Thanksgiving Day is, why it was originally started, who thanks was 
given to. Many thought it was to the Indians, but it was not.
  This is a declaration, May 2, 1778, to troops at Valley Forge: ``The 
Commander in Chief directs that divine service be performed ever Sunday 
at 11 o'clock in those brigade to which there are chaplains--those 
which have none to attend the places of worship nearest to them. It is 
expected that officers of all ranks will, by their attendance, set an 
example to their men.
  ``While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and 
soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties 
of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be 
our highest glory to laud the more distinguished character of 
Muslim''--I am sorry. It says, ``Christian.''
  George Washington said that the highest glory of a patriot soldier 
would be the more distinguished character of a Christian. It was an 
order he gave.
  So I know people are saying this is totally appropriate now, and they 
wonder why evil seems to keep growing in America. But as we look where 
we came from and we look at what prior leaders did to defeat the forces 
of evil that are here in this world--and will be as long as it is here 
in this form--it seems like there is a correlation between when the 
country is praying to God and asking for his protection and blessing, 
and when evil seems to be growing.
  Thomas Jefferson, in 1781, noted, and it is engraved in his memorial: 
``The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a 
nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a 
conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift 
of God, that they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
  ``Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, 
that His justice cannot sleep forever.''
  That is Thomas Jefferson.
  John Quincy Adams, on September 26, 1810, wrote a letter to his son, 
the U.S. Minister at Saint Petersburg: ``So great is my veneration for 
the Bible, and so strong my belief that, when duly read and meditated 
on, it is of all books in the world that which contributes most to make 
men good, wise, and happy.''
  Former President nominated Supreme Court by James Madison, and this 
on March 30, 1863, by Abraham Lincoln, a great Republican. Lincoln 
said: ``It is the duty o nations, as well as of men, to own their 
dependence upon the overruling power of God to confess their sins and 
transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine 
repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime 
truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that 
those nations are only blessed whose God is the Lord.''

  This is Lincoln's written word: ``We have forgotten God. We have 
forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied 
and enriched and strengthened us. And we have vainly imagined, in the 
deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were

[[Page H9423]]

produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated 
with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the 
necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God 
that made us.
  ``It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended 
power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and 
forgiveness.''
  That was a national proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. Thank God that a 
majority of Americans participated in that and prayed to God.
  In his second inaugural, he is talking about North and South. It is 
inscribed on the inside north wall of the Lincoln Memorial. About half 
to two-thirds of the way through there, in the middle, he is talking 
about North and South. He said: ``Both read the same Bible and pray to 
the same God. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of 
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 
`Woe unto the world because of offenses. . . .' Yet, if God wills that 
it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of 
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with 
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 
3,000 years ago, so still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord 
are true and righteous altogether.' ''
  I want to finish with this from John F. Kennedy. He was talking at 
the lighting of the Christmas tree; but at a time of Thanksgiving, it 
is certainly appropriate. He said: ``With the lighting of this tree, 
which is an old ceremony in Washington and one which has been among the 
most important responsibilities of a good many Presidents of the United 
States, we initiate, in a formal way, the Christmas season. We mark the 
festival of Christmas, which is the most sacred and hopeful day in our 
civilization.
  ``For nearly 2,000 years, the message of Christmas, the message of 
peace and good will towards all men, has been the guiding star of our 
endeavors.
  ``This morning, I had a meeting at the White House, which included 
some of our representatives from far-off countries in Africa and Asia. 
They were returning to their posts for the Christmas holidays. Talking 
with them, I was struck by the fact that, in the far-off continents, 
Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, as well as Christians, pause from their 
labors on the 25th day of December to celebrate the birthday of the 
Prince of Peace.
  ``There could be no more striking proof that Christmas is truly the 
universal holiday of men. It is the day when all of us dedicate our 
thoughts to others; when all are reminded that mercy and compassion are 
the enduring virtues; when all show, by small deeds and large, and by 
acts, that it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is the day 
when we remind ourselves that man can and must live in peace with his 
neighbors, and it is the peacemakers who are truly blessed.
  ``In this year of 1962, we greet each other at Christmas with some 
special sense of blessing of the peace.''
  Mr. Speaker, this period of Thanksgiving that we will have in the 
next week will, hopefully, be a time when we will come back together 
more as a nation; when we will bind our hearts in prayer and 
Thanksgiving and ask for God's protection, as our greatest Presidents 
did. And I know those prayers will be answered.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward a sitting Senator.

                          ____________________