[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2620-2621]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                VOTERS MADE A MISTAKE TRUSTING DEMOCRATS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, there is something awry in this House. You 
know, we have heard for the last 2 years I have been here in Congress 
about how if the Democrats were allowed to be in the majority, there 
was going to be openness, Mr. Speaker, there was going to be 
transparency, there was going to be bipartisanship; and yet right here 
the first rattle out of the box we have 3 weeks where the Republicans 
are not allowed any input whatsoever. Oh, we can come to the floor and 
fuss about it, but that is not input, there are no amendments, there 
are no changes that were allowed to be

[[Page 2621]]

made. But now this week, we are beyond the 100 hours. And of course 
that was pretty ironic because promises, pledges, I assure you we are 
going to have openness, we are going to be bipartisan, well, when they 
saw around election time it was, gee, they had a chance of taking the 
majority, what did they do? Well, we don't want to keep that bipartisan 
promise, so let's change that. How can we do that? Oh, we will make a 
new promise. We will promise we are not going to keep our prior promise 
and we are just going to ramrod some things through in the opening days 
of Congress. Then they found out they enjoyed that, they liked that. 
Don't let them have any input. That is not right to Americans that 
nearly half of Americans are not allowed input into what goes on.
  But this week takes the cake. Unbelievable. We have a bill that has 
only, as far as we can find out, had input from Congressman Obey and 
Senator Byrd, it is the Obey-Byrd $463 billion earmark. Now I have got 
some folks up here from my district from Lufkin, Texas; the mayor is 
here, the city manager. In fact, nine of my 12 full counties had never 
voted for a Republican for Congress before, they are conservative 
Democratic counties. They don't run their counties and cities this way. 
They don't say the mayor is going back in the back rooms and is going 
to put together the budget for the next year. We are not going to have 
any kind of hearings, we are not going to allow any input. And here in 
Congress, in the past we have had review by subcommittees, and then the 
subcommittee hearings and taking testimony, and then we had a voting it 
out of subcommittee called a markup. Then we had review by the full 
committee. Then we had input from both Democrats and Republicans. Then 
we had a voting it out of committee. And then it went to the Rules 
Committee, and then the Rules Committee considered it. And then it came 
to the floor. And then there were opportunities for amendment, not on 
$463 billion of American taxpayer money, no, not here. There is no 
subcommittee, no committee, no Rules Committee. Well, they may take it 
to Rules, but I am not sure about that because it won't matter. It is 
coming to the floor tomorrow for a vote on the $463 billion Obey-Byrd 
earmark. That is not openness and transparency. I don't care how many 
new promises you make to break your old promises, that isn't right to 
the American people of my county, my county seats, Gilmer, Jefferson, 
Tyler, Longview, Marshall, Carthage, Henderson, Nacogdoches, Center, 
Hemphill, San Augustine, Lufkin; they would never run their city 
governments like this, they would never run their county governments 
like this. People would run them out of office if they tried to do what 
is going to be done tomorrow with $463.5 billion of America's taxpayer 
dollars. That is just not right. That is not right.
  You know, Democrats had kind of run the budget process in the ground, 
and people had enough. They saw the way Senator Byrd cost us hundreds 
of millions or billions of dollars building an FBI facility in West 
Virginia. They saw the way the earmarks got out of hand under 
Democrats, so they voted in Republicans in 1994. Republicans did a 
great job, welfare reform, bringing the budget to where it balanced. 
And then they got a little complacent, some of my colleagues got long 
in the tooth and forgot why they were there, and so we got voted out. 
And the Democrats said, trust us, we have learned our lessons, we are 
not going to let this happen again. And all I can think about over and 
over again is that line in Animal House where after the senior 
fraternity members had wrecked the young freshman pledge's car, the guy 
put his arm around the young freshman and said, in effect, well, you 
messed up, you trusted me. Well, voters trusted Democrats with the 
majority. And now, as we consider $463 billion Obey-Byrd earmark that 
didn't have input from our friends across the aisle or Republicans, you 
messed up, you trusted them.

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