[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23622-23628]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ACORN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, for about the last 3 to 5 months I have been 
down here pretty regularly talking about maintaining and restoring the 
rule of law to certain areas of our activities as a government. And I 
think this is important. I've stated it over and over and over. We 
created a Republic by creating a Constitution that set up that form of 
government.
  But our Founding Fathers knew that the moral underpinnings of a 
Republic were required for that Republic to succeed. And they knew that 
there had to be implanted and instilled in the hearts and minds of 
Americans who would be--would maintain this Republic, a certain inbred 
understanding that there were rules that governed our society and our 
behavior and that there were morals and ethics which should be applied 
to what we do as we operate this Republic.

[[Page 23623]]

  You will recall that when Benjamin Franklin was asked, when he walked 
outside of the Constitutional Congress, and they said, ``Mr. Franklin, 
what kind of government have you given us?'' He said, ``We have given 
you a Republic.''
  Now, God help us that we can keep it. And the whole purpose of that 
statement is to point out that he was fairly confident, as was every 
one of our Founding Fathers, that at that point in time in the United 
States of America there was a moral and ethical underpinning of 
society, and that if we would maintain that moral and ethical 
underpinning of society, we would be able to keep our Republic.
  But I don't think any Founding Father envisioned a society in which 
individuals thought they would make the choices as to which rules 
applied to them and what rules did not apply to them, and they would 
not abide by the rules that society had set but rather the rules that 
they had chosen to govern their own lives. Because that's not a 
Republic; that's anarchy.
  Now, we've been talking about some things that are going on in our 
society and in this Congress that have to concern everybody. And they 
have to concern them in a big way because they affect the attitudes of 
those who govern here in the Congress and those who are involved in 
this governmental process.
  I've tried to raise and point out some things that I think are of 
dire concern, and I will continue to do this because I spent most of my 
entire adult life basically following as best I could and trying to 
enforce those rules that this society has established for itself to 
operate in.
  And when I came to this Congress as a new Member of Congress almost 8 
years ago now, I was told there were rules that govern this body--all 
of the people who serve in the United States Congress--and I very 
quickly tried to do my best--as I am sure every Member here has--to 
learn what those rules were. And they were not only just parliamentary 
rules, but they were fundraising rules, they were political rules, they 
were reporting rules, they were tax-paying rules. There's lots of rules 
that govern the activities in this body.
  I had started talking about this because I see a trend, and I see 
things that are happening that make me concerned that there are those 
who don't think certain rules apply to them.
  I am going to point out what the President of the United States said 
as he started out his term: ``I campaigned on changing Washington and 
bottom-up politics. I don't want to send a message to the American 
people that there are two sets of standards: one for the powerful 
people and one for the ordinary folks who are working every day and 
paying their taxes.'' This was stated by Barack Obama to CNN February 
3, 2009. And it's a noble statement by the President.
  That's sort of what I am trying to talk about right now.
  And I've got a laundry list that I went over last week, and this list 
is pretty much the same list but with some exceptions. I've added some 
things and taken up another subject.
  But I want to start with something that's made the headlines here 
very recently, and that's this organization known as ACORN, which we 
discovered by watching television and seeing events on television, that 
people who were established to do certain things under the rules in 
fact forgot those rules and did others. And this House voted 345-75 for 
an amendment to bar the Federal funding to ACORN after these undercover 
investigators uncovered four ACORN offices engaged in blatant mortgage 
loan fraud and aiding and abetting prostitution.
  In my opinion, that was the right vote. I am proud of my colleagues 
who voted for it, and I think we need a stand-alone bill--not a bill 
that's an amendment to another bill--that would restate the very 
obvious: That no Federal moneys should be distributed to those who 
would blatantly commit mortgage fraud and aiding and abetting 
prostitution. And many of us saw that, saw it live and in color on 
television.
  But in addition to those videos, we have had our bodies here in this 
Congress out doing some investigations of ACORN, and they have found a 
lot to be concerned about.
  They found a nationwide history of crime--most of it relating to the 
last election, but not all of it; some of it relating to mortgages and 
other things that they were supposedly there to advise the uneducated 
and the uninformed as to what was available for them, especially the 
poor and the underprivileged, so that they might attempt to prosper in 
our society. They sounded like a good cause.
  But if you will examine with me this list for just a moment, these 
are things that our Oversight Committee has found and brought forward. 
There are things that have been brought forward by the press, and there 
are things that have been brought forward by court records.
  In Colorado we had allegations of voter fraud with multiple counts 
with convictions. So people were convicted of that crime. In Florida, 
voter fraud with cases pending in the courts; in Michigan, vote fraud 
with multiple counts with convictions in the State of Michigan; 
Minnesota, vote fraud with multiple counts with convictions in 
Minnesota; Missouri, mail fraud and identity theft, multiple counts 
with convictions in Missouri; Nevada, vote fraud, multiple counts 
pending; Ohio, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; 
Pennsylvania, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; Washington 
State, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions.
  Notice how many times the words ``with convictions''--which means--I 
think everybody knows what that means. It means a finder of fact and a 
ruler of law made a judgment that these people had violated the law, 
and they convicted them of breaking that law, and I assume they 
assessed some form of punishment against them.
  So this is a case, I would argue, of just what I was talking about 
when I started talking today, that someone--and I would argue a whole 
group of someones--have made a decision that certain laws don't apply 
to them and therefore, they blatantly--across the United States in a 
very short period of time, basically the last election cycle--they went 
out and violated these laws and these rules because they made their 
personal judgment that the law that we as a society established didn't 
apply to them.
  This is moral relativism run amok, and it's done with $55-plus 
million of United States money because that's how much money we have 
heard that we have allocated and given to ACORN to do their business.
  And by the way, we have bills that have passed this House that the 
Democrat majority have put in other funding mechanisms to the tune of 
$8 billion, and that's why when we address this very issue that we 
would no longer fund ACORN, we need to make sure that that includes 
those things already approved for sources of revenue for ACORN. Because 
if you're not going to follow the rules of law, there needs to be 
consequences in our society.
  So we start off with this supposedly great helping organization 
called ACORN.

                              {time}  2115

  The next thing I want to address here tonight, and I see that I'm 
joined by one of my good colleagues, and if he would like to have some 
of the time, I would be sure glad to give him some, is the fact that 
Dr. Ron Paul has raised an issue before this body that I think we ought 
to be concerned about and that we ought to think about, and that issue 
that he has raised is that we have turned over an awful lot of money to 
the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve has independently of this 
body issued an awful lot of additional indebtedness and printed an 
awful lot of additional money, and we would like an accounting of what 
is going on.
  I think it's kind of important, and I would venture to say that if 
anybody walks up to anybody who serves in this House of Representatives 
and says, Where is the money we put in the TARP bill? Can you account 
to me where that TARP money is? Can you tell me where the stimulus 
money is and what has happened to it? I have been asked the question 
all the time. How much have we spent? Well, what we know is that the 
press says we've

[[Page 23624]]

spent this or the press says we've spent that, but we should know that. 
I mean, we are the people that were sent here by the American folks to 
take care of their business.
  The Federal Reserve has been designed because it has an effect on our 
economy. The theory is you've got to keep their activities sort of off 
in a dark mist so nobody really knows what is happening so you don't 
cause a run on one part or the other of the economy. And I don't have a 
problem with that.
  But it comes down to the fact that this Congress has turned over $1 
trillion worth of American indebtedness, basically money we don't have, 
money we are borrowing from other nations like China and others that 
are buying our paper so that we can issue these huge amounts of money. 
And if you take the TARP and the stimulus bill, it's $1 trillion, well, 
you've got to ask--and there's more than that, you've got more than 
that--but we ought to know.
  So Congressman Paul has introduced H.R. 1207, and he is asking that 
we look into what's going on with our money. He says that we've given 
the Fed $700 billion in Bush TARP funds, and the Congress has given 
$787 billion in Obama stimulus funds, so that's $1.4 trillion and some 
change that we've given to the Fed, and yet the taxpayers and the 
Members of Congress have no way to independently verify what in the 
world the Fed has done with this money or where it is or who it went to 
or anything.
  Now, we read about it in the newspapers. I used to tell juries when 
they would come before me, I would say, now we've got a case on trial 
here today that may be in the newspapers or on television or on radio, 
or there may be something out there in the news about this case. But I 
don't want you to listen to any radio broadcast, view any television 
programs or read anything in print about this case because, believe it 
or not, they don't always get it right. And we want you to only base 
your opinion on the evidence you hear in this courtroom under the rules 
of evidence. I'm sure my friend, Mr. Gohmert, Judge Gohmert, has done 
exactly the same instruction. And the reason is, you don't really know 
if the newspapers know what they're talking about. I like to hear what 
they have to say, but you don't know.
  So why should the people that sit in these chairs around this whole 
big room, why should those people not have an answer to that question, 
Where is my money? Who is spending it? Where is it going to? How much 
is left? I think the guy that owns the garage on the corner down the 
street from me, he pays his taxes, he is entitled to know. His 
children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are inheriting the 
debt we have created for them. They ought to be able to know what we 
are doing with it today.
  And do you know what? That kind of number is a potential for disaster 
if somebody is crooked. Because it's such a big number, how are you 
going to know? There can be people stealing billions of dollars, and we 
don't know. So we ought to know.
  I think Dr. Paul has a good bill here. Let me ask my friend, Louie 
Gohmert from east Texas and a fellow judge, I will yield such time as 
he may wish to spend on this subject of the Federal Reserve and the 
fact that we probably ought to have an audit that is reported back to 
this Congress.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend yielding.
  This is a very important issue, and actually if you go back to the 
original bailout bill a year ago, as I read through it, and I did, I 
didn't read the extra pages that were added for pork at the end, but 
one of the things that caught my eye was here was a bill for $700 
billion for bailout, basically a slush fund for the Treasury Secretary; 
but in the bill it raised the debt ceiling $1.3 trillion. Now that 
caught my eyes, because I know $700 billion is less than $1.3 trillion. 
So I went back through reading again for any loopholes that might allow 
for the expenditure of more than $700 billion.
  Well, we know that before the bill finally passed, there was about 
$100 billion in pork added in order to get enough votes so that it 
would pass. That still leaves half a trillion dollars between what the 
debt ceiling was raised and how much was appropriated in that bill. So 
I went back through, and one of the things that intrigued me was a 
provision that allowed the Secretary of the Treasury to hire, utilize 
whatever personnel was necessary in order to carry out the intentions 
of the bill.
  Well, I was impressed and went to one of the Treasury people 
privately and asked, what does that mean? Are we going to have a new 
department of asset management? Are we going to set up a whole new 
bureaucracy here in Washington? Is there going to be $500 billion spent 
setting up this kind of extra bureaucracy? And the answer I got was 
basically, and it was unofficial and informal, but was basically, look, 
we will hire some people, but ultimately this is going to be so much 
work we'll have to outsource it.
  Well, I don't know if my friend from Texas noticed, but it turns out 
that the favorite firm of the former Secretary Paulson and the current 
Secretary Geithner had its biggest profit in the history of Goldman 
Sachs in the second quarter of this year.
  So when my friend talks about transparency, wouldn't it be nice to 
know how much of that $3.44 billion in clear profit that Goldman Sachs 
made came from taxpayers, came from the United States Government? But 
do you know what? There is only one way we really get to know exactly 
where all that money came from and how much went from the Federal 
Government. Sure, Goldman Sachs will have to file reports and whatnot, 
but it would really be nice to see from the government's own reports 
just how much Federal money is going Goldman Sachs' way, and how much 
money is being funneled from here in Washington to Wall Street. That 
would be important to know.
  I think one of the things that we have seen, especially in the last 
several months, is that just because it's good for a Wall Street firm 
doesn't mean it's good for the stock market and it doesn't mean it's 
good for rank-and-file Americans who are paying their taxes to keep 
this government running who also were called upon as they saved and 
scrimped and tried to meet the demands of the day to be called on to 
bail out the Wall Street firms. And so it would be nice if maybe they 
would share a little more than what we are able to see.
  I also want to point out the subject of transparency is so important. 
There is not much that is more cleansing than sunshine. Sunshine, you 
get enough of it, the mold and mildew just dries up and dies. You get 
enough sunshine, and things clean up, you get rid of all the mold and 
nastiness. And yet what we get around here is people are left in the 
dark and fed lots of manure. Well, that will grow plenty of mushrooms, 
but that is not what we are supposed to be about here in Congress.
  So the rules of the House, the rules of the Federal Reserve it seems 
like right now, they are just being played fast and loose, which 
parenthetically that gives rise to a situation we have right here 
tonight this week where we played fast and loose with the rules so you 
have a Defense appropriation, a defense authorization bill where you 
bring in a hate crimes bill, and I know there's a lot of agreement over 
what its effect will be; but clearly, one of the effects will be that 
it will make homosexuality and transgender a protected class.
  The elderly were rejected. We weren't going to give them any added 
protection. Of course, some of us fought for the elderly. If you're 
going to give anybody protection, how about the elderly? They are 
commonly sought out. But, no, they weren't protected. And they 
certainly hadn't been protected in this administration's proposals for 
Medicare cuts, half a billion--I'm sorry--half a trillion basically in 
Medicare cuts. So I guess the thinking is we're not going to protect 
the elderly as much as homosexuals, transgender or even pedophiles. We 
tried to have an amendment that would exclude pedophiles from a 
protected class under the hate crimes bill, and that was rejected along 
party lines basically. So anyway we are not going to protect elderly as 
much as these sexuality lifestyle groups.

[[Page 23625]]

  And then we turn around and we tack that hate crimes bill on to the 
military or Defense appropriation or Defense authorization. We've got 
soldiers out in the field needing this bill, and we're going to play 
fast and loose with the rules. We will not be allowed to amend this on 
the floor; we will not be allowed to change anything about this. It's 
take it or leave it. And I just think it is so outrageous while we have 
soldiers in the field to use this Defense authorization bill that's 
going to help our soldiers protect us, it's going to protect them while 
they protect us, and you tack on a hate crimes bill to the Defense 
authorization? Just how much disrespect can somebody have for the rules 
of this body and for procedure to do that kind of thing? It is just 
outrageous.
  But then as you see these kinds of things coming into play, you see 
the lack of what really is strong morality in our financial laws, in 
our transparency. And it was Chuck I heard earlier this year was 
pointing out that when you lose morality, you're going to have economic 
chaos; you're going to have economic instability. And when you lose 
economic stability, people--and this is so tragic--but people 
throughout history, when they have economic chaos are always willing to 
give up liberties to gain economic stability. You lose morality in the 
Federal Reserve, in the Treasury of the United States, and in ACORN and 
all the voting laws and the procedure of this body. You lose what is 
just right. You lose that, and it contributes to economic instability, 
and then that gives rise to economic chaos. And people always give up 
their liberties trying to get economic stability.
  So I think we get back to that sense of morality when you start 
having transparency, when you're able to see what's going on, when it's 
not behind closed doors, when it's not some private group with an 
agenda out there drafting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act who has 
their own lifestyle agenda, when it's not some group behind closed 
doors saying let's push through this stimulus bill, it may not 
stimulate America, it won't spend money, most of it for 2 years, it 
really won't do what we are saying is stimulus, but, boy, will it 
enrich our friends.

                              {time}  2130

  We have to get away from that or we are going to lose this country. 
We cannot continue down this road with a lack of candor, with a lack of 
openness and honesty. We have got to return to transparency. That will 
help address the issues of this country. Sunlight always has a way of 
doing that.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank my colleague for his passion. You know, it is 
very simple: We expect the Fed to look at our banks back home and make 
sure that they are handling our money right. I don't think anybody I 
know has close to a billion dollars in the bank, and yet we expect the 
people that we put in charge of our money to have somebody looking over 
their shoulder to make sure that they are doing the right thing.
  This is the largest chunk of money on the face of the Earth right 
here, and I don't think it is too much to ask somebody to look over 
their shoulder and decide what is going on.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If my friend would yield, this is such an important 
point.
  Through the economic downturn over the last year or so, a lot of 
people across America have confused community banks and investment 
banks. They have just lumped them all in together, and there is a major 
difference. You have community banks who have to have complete 
transparency. They have Federal regulators who come in and check every 
dot and tittle. They have to make sure that everything is just the way 
the Federal regulators want it. Some of us have been concerned that 
over-aggressiveness by Federal regulators in the most stable of our 
financial institutions, the community banks, has helped dry up a great 
deal of the credit.
  So imagine the hypocrisy to have Federal regulators just swarm in 
like locusts to community banks which are the most stable and have been 
the most careful in Federal banking, and they are being regulated by 
people who will not open their books to this Congress. That in itself 
is such an outrage that it alone ought to be a basis for getting Ron 
Paul's bill here to the floor, get it passed, and let's open them up. I 
love what Newt Gingrich said: If transparency is good enough for the 
CIA, it really ought to be good enough for the Federal Reserve.
  Mr. CARTER. That is very good.
  I am going to change gears here because I have serious business on 
the floor of this House tomorrow. For every week of this year, just 
about, I have come before this body and I have discussed with them the 
fact that we have serious allegations that have been made against the 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel. I have asked 
repeatedly that Mr. Rangel do the right thing and resign his position 
as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee until such time as 
these allegations have been dealt with by the appropriate authorities. 
A lot of this is supposed to have been dealt with and we have been 
promised would be dealt with by Speaker Pelosi. She told us, by the end 
of 2008, the Ethics Committee would have resolved Mr. Rangel's issues.
  So I am going to just go briefly over a few.
  Mr. Rangel admits to underreporting income and assets for 2007 by 
more than half, including failure to report income from his Caribbean 
resort property again. By the way, I say ``again'' because that's the 
allegation that started all of this information about Mr. Rangel.
  Mr. Rangel's aides have now also filed amended disclosure forms 
revealing similar underreporting by them.
  The Committee on Standards is still investigating Mr. Rangel's lease 
of multi rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; his use of the House 
parking spot for long-term storage for his antique Mercedes; his 
failure to report and pay taxes on rental income on his resort villa in 
the Dominican Republic; an alleged quid pro quo trading legislative 
actions in exchange for donations to a center named for Mr. Rangel at 
City College of New York; a gift rule violation on trips to the 
Caribbean sponsored by the Carib News Foundation in 2007 and 2008; and 
now Mr. Rangel has the audacity to push through a bill in this body 
today increasing tax penalties on his fellow taxpayers on the heels of 
Secretary Geithner's crackdown on UBS depositors for failure to pay 
taxes.
  So, you know, tomorrow I will be offering to this body a very 
important piece of legislation, a document called a privileged 
resolution, asking this body to consider what Mr. Rangel refuses to do, 
and that is the right thing.
  We cannot have the chief taxing authority of this body with the 
allegations, and there are many more than these, these are just a few. 
There is another full page just like this of different allegations. We 
cannot have the chief of values over the IRS, the man who writes the 
tax laws for this House of Representatives, as the chairman of the Ways 
and Means Committee. It is a travesty of justice for him to serve as 
the chairman of that committee when the American citizens back home, 
they realize that he has been getting special treatment on his tax 
problems and those problems he has not faced, the onerous issues that 
they have to face when they have the IRS finding that they haven't paid 
their taxes, and he is doing, we are seeing just what President Obama 
said he didn't want to see, and that is people of power being treated 
differently than the ordinary American citizen. That is why I have 
raised this issue.
  When I read what the President said, that gave me the incentive to do 
this. It does not please me at all to raise issues against any Member 
in this body, but I am telling you, this gives an appearance of 
wrongdoing and an appearance of impropriety at the least on behalf of 
Mr. Rangel, and good governance tell us he should not be in this 
position of power until the issues are resolved.
  I will be the first to say if they are all resolved and concluded to 
be irrelevant and not any kind of wrongdoing or breaking of the rules, 
I will be the first

[[Page 23626]]

to say Mr. Rangel ought to be the chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee. He ought to be put back in there. But it is not right for 
him to be there.
  So tomorrow, I will ask this body to remove him from that position.
  Does the gentleman wish to comment on the issues with Mr. Rangel?
  Mr. GOHMERT. It goes back to the issue of transparency. Everybody 
needs to be accountable under the same rules no matter who it is. And 
actually, this weekend, I had a number of people commenting on how 
unfair it was of Congress to be judged by one standard, and 
specifically mentioning the chairman of the Ways and Means, and the 
rest of America to be judged by another standard. It is difficult for 
the American people to understand.
  If that were me, I couldn't do this. I would have had to pay the 
penalty and interest. I mentioned to my friend previously about my 
constituent, Mr. de le Torre, and he was very proud of his Hispanic 
descent. He said de le Torre meant ``of the tower.'' Apparently he had 
some royalty back in Spain some centuries ago.
  But here he had four permanent employees, four part-time employees, 
and he had a sheet metal business, and he had no problem with me 
mentioning his name and his own situation. And with the downturn in the 
economy, he wanted to protect his employees. He did not want to let 
them go. He knew they were struggling, and he certainly was struggling. 
And, of course, he is the last one to get paid. He didn't have any 
money. And yet the quarterly payment had to be made for the portions of 
Social Security and the Federal tax on that payroll, and he did not 
have the money. And because of the additional pressures being brought 
to bear by the Federal Reserve, who will not be transparent against 
community banks, which are doing everything they can and have been 
transparent, he wasn't able to get a loan. He could not get a loan or a 
line of credit to make his payment, his quarterly payment to the 
government.
  So he notified them, filed how much he owed, but said, I don't have 
any cash. I don't want to fire any of my employees, and I can't get a 
loan or a line of credit to make my quarterly payment.
  They let him know you owe penalty and interest. We are coming after 
you. He was telling me that he has since been notified that they are 
going to start seizing his accounts and his assets, sell them off if 
necessary, but seize his assets if he does not make his penalty and 
interest payment.
  So it is kind of hard for a guy like that who is being loyal to these 
people, the eight people who work with him and for him, how a guy that 
is chairman of the committee that writes the tax laws can do far worse 
and not be open, not just be completely transparent in what has 
happened.
  The chairman of the committee doesn't have to pay penalty or 
interest, and yet this poor man does. It is hard for him to understand, 
and it is hard for rank-and-file Americans to understand. It is not the 
standard that this Congress should be establishing. I so hope that we 
can get back to being a Congress that leads by example.
  You know, I think about the words of George Washington. He was a man 
who had incredible bravery. We would not have the Nation as we know it 
if it were not for his humility, his willingness to resign and go home 
after winning a revolution. His words, his exact words were, ``A people 
unused to restraint must be led; they will not be drove.'' And that was 
okay English back in those days.
  I look at what we are doing now. We are dealing with a country that 
is not used to restraint, and yet the financial taxation laws are 
restraining Americans like never before, not so much because of the 
percentage but because of the actual effect on Americans. And we are 
not leading as Washington implored. We are trying to drive Americans to 
do what this Congress has not done and should be doing, and that is 
lead by example.
  And we were promised by the Speaker that this would be the most 
transparent and open and accountable Congress. That simply has not 
happened. In fact, to the contrary. I don't know that there has ever 
been one that has been more closed and protective of its own, and that 
really has to change.
  I yield back to my friend.
  Mr. CARTER. I agree. There will be more about Mr. Rangel tomorrow.
  I want to bring up something else. We have had a lot of issues to do 
with automobiles in this country, and now we have somebody at least 
that is trying to say, you know, the United States Constitution, 
section 10, says no State shall pass any ex post facto law or law 
impairing the obligation of contracts or grant any title of nobility.
  This is the Auto Dealers Economic Rights Restoration Act, and this 
bill prohibits automakers in which the Federal Government has ownership 
interest or which receives loans from the Federal Government from 
depriving an auto dealer of its economic rights.
  What they are talking about is it seems that these automobile 
dealerships when they were in the bailout position with the Federal 
Government--and, quite frankly, General Motors stands for ``Government 
Motors,'' as far as I am concerned, and Chrysler is sort of in the same 
boat. I understand Fiat was buying some of that. I am not sure that 
they made the purchase.
  These people went out and made choices to break contracts with one 
auto dealer and award his customers to another auto dealer. There have 
been allegations made that these were political decisions. I have no 
evidence of that. But it is, you know, a right of contract, and they 
had a contract with these dealers, and because they were pressured, I 
would argue that they breached contracts with one group of dealers to 
put their sales into the hands of another dealer. For what reason is 
beyond my understanding.

                              {time}  2145

  But I think this is a good law because it says, this is a violation 
of the Constitution. This is not the way we do business in the United 
States. And you know what? We did the Cash For Clunkers, and oh, boy, 
the government was involved and the money was flowing and all's right 
with the world, although the government hasn't even started to pay for 
the clunkers yet. They're still out there processing the deals. And, 
you know, I think that's a great example, Cash For Clunkers is the 
perfect example. Do you really want the government running your health 
care if they can't even pay for junk cars on time? My Lord. I mean, but 
anyway, that's all part of another tangent.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If the gentleman might yield on that point.
  Mr. CARTER. I will yield to my friend.
  Mr. GOHMERT. On the Cash For Clunkers program we know that there are 
many foreign vehicles that are manufactured here in the United States, 
and the American workers do a fantastic job. But it is worth noting 
that in this program that was rushed through so quickly without going 
through the proper order, without getting the proper scrutiny through 
committees and through proper chance for amendment here on the floor, 
where you can take a law that may have some problems and make it 
better, we're not allowed any of that opportunity.
  And so what we got was a Cash For Clunkers program in which four of 
the five top vehicles that were purchased were foreign vehicles. Now, 
some of those were made in America, but most of them were made in 
foreign countries. In other words, the Cash For Clunkers vehicles 
helped foreign governments and foreign companies more than it helped 
American companies. And they want to run my health care. My goodness. 
Is that sad? If it weren't so tragic, how much we help foreign 
companies over our own U.S. companies, it would be a comedy. It's just 
outrageous.
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time for just a moment. I will also point 
out that, to date, according to my auto dealers, they still haven't 
paid all the dealers for all the clunkers that they bought. So you 
know, that program has closed out, finished out, done, and there are 
some dealers with millions of

[[Page 23627]]

dollars owed to them and the government hasn't processed those dollars 
in that thing. The important part of this bill is----
  Mr. GOHMERT. If I might, on one other point. Unforeseen consequences 
too. Because we didn't have a chance to go through the proper channels 
and really look at this legislation, the Cash For Clunkers bill, one of 
the effects has been that the working poor in America have been the 
hardest-hit, because they were not able to come in and buy a brand new 
car with this attractive program because they didn't have the money to 
make the payments after that.
  So it really didn't help the working poor in the United States. And, 
in fact, it hurt them because what happened under this Cash For 
Clunkers program is thousands of vehicles, used vehicles that would be 
sold cheaply to the working poor in America, cars they could afford, 
were just fixed to where they could not be run, could not be operated, 
could not be sold. That drives up the price of the used vehicles that 
the working poor in America really need to get to and from their jobs. 
So it hurt those who needed help in America the most and helped foreign 
companies over domestic companies. Now that's a government program that 
we're going to use, I'm sure, to model health care after.
  Mr. CARTER. And you know, reclaiming my time, the reports this week 
have been that the sales from our two bailed-out automobile firms that 
are now part of Government Motors, are tragically low, and there's a 
lot of talk that they don't know if General Motors can even pull this 
out. So it's important. Mr. Gohmert has hit upon something that's very 
important. It's important that we follow procedures and follow the 
rules. That's what we're talking about, the rule of law, follow the 
rules. We need to follow the rules of this House so we give a proper 
examination of every bill and every idea that passes through these 
halls.
  And that's why we've got a bill by Greg Walden and John Culberson and 
Brian Baird that says how about us following the rules that are written 
into our book that was written by the Honorable Thomas Jefferson in the 
rules of this very House of Representatives, that says we're supposed 
to get three days to read a bill? And as Mr. Gohmert pointed out, just 
the Cash For Clunkers bill didn't go through any committees, rushed in 
here. We saw it when we were voting on it and, bam, it was out there. 
And has it done any good for the automobile industry?
  Maybe there was an idea sitting in one of these chairs that would 
have been a little bit better than the idea that came from who knows 
where, because it didn't go through a committee system to get through 
floor, and none of us had time to read it or come up with an idea or 
amend it, because the rules didn't allow us to amend it.
  And that's what's happened on every bill that's been offered this 
year of any importance. It is brought to us, crammed down our throat, 
and we're not given the chance to even read it. The American people 
have made an outcry, and they're making an outcry about bills that are 
hard to read. I'll admit they're hard to read. But they're saying, why 
don't you read the bill that's going to change health care in America 
permanently? And so many of us struggled through it and did. But we're 
not enforcing a rule that says we should have 3 days to read this bill. 
We should.
  If Americans send us to Washington to be their voice and cast their 
vote in Washington, D.C., and we are handed a document that may be 
2,000 pages long and spend $700 billion, and it gets to us at midnight 
and we're expected to vote on it at 10:00 the next morning and they 
drop in amendments after that, how in the world can we do the job the 
American people sent us to do here?
  So this bill right here, the 3-day reading rule, is just ordinary 
good courtesy and common sense in a place where we spent, in the last 
year, in the last 6 months we've spent more than we spent in the 
history of the Republic. So maybe we should slow down. Maybe we should 
follow the rules and give us 3 days to read these bills. Sorry, but 
that's kind of a passion, I think, Mr. Gohmert. I'll yield.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. And the point about having time to read the 
bill could not be illustrated more clearly than on the stimulus bill 
that was basically crammed down this body's throat. We were promised by 
the President back when he was running for office that he was going to 
have, what is it, 4 or 5 days it would be up on the Internet, where all 
America could read these bills for days before we voted on them. But it 
gets a little hard to take the administration, the President, leaders 
of this body seriously when they all parroted that stuff and how they 
were going to do that.
  And then on the stimulus bill we were told over and over, we didn't 
have time to read the bill. We just didn't. It was filed, I think, 
after midnight. We're voting on it, over 1,000 pages. There was no time 
for anybody to read it. We were told that there were thousands of 
people losing their jobs every day. It had to become law immediately. 
There's no time to read it; just do it. Just do it. Just vote on it. 
Well, some of us still wanted to see what was in it. We voted against 
it, and yet it passed on that Friday, and so because it was such an 
emergency, they said, and we didn't have time to read the bill, we 
passed it on Friday, and then Saturday came and went, and Sunday came 
and went, and Monday came and went, and Tuesday, when the photo op was 
set up in Colorado for the President to sign the bill, he finally got 
around to signing the bill.
  Why couldn't we have had those 3 days and voted on it on Monday if it 
was such an important bill and if the President had been serious and 
the leadership of this House had been serious about the importance of 
reading bills? Why couldn't we have had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and 
then debated on Monday? But we were denied that, even though the 
President never had any intention of signing that bill for 4 days after 
it was signed. So it gets a little hard to take some of the acrimony on 
the floor seriously, as in that case, when we were just ridiculed for 
not being willing to sign it immediately and for wanting to read it 
when there just was no time to waste. Four days later, the President 
signed it.
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, I call that the Chicken Little 
syndrome. The sky is falling. We've had the sky falling in this Chamber 
on more than one piece of legislation. Oh, my God, the sky is falling; 
the banks are dropping off a cliff, the economy's going to hell in a 
handbasket, and you've got to vote now. Don't bother to read it. Don't 
ask any questions. Give us the money. Trust us. Sign the check.
  Well, and I'm telling you this, the same thing happened in the last 
waning months of the Bush administration, and I didn't support that 
then, and I won't support it now, because the sky's not falling. We're 
sent here to do a job, and we ought to be given the chance to read 
these bills. And I think this is a good bill. And I hope our leadership 
will let us bring this up. I'm coming down to the last thing I want to 
talk about tonight, and that is, we are setting history, because we now 
have more czars by twofold than the Romanovs in all the history of 
Russia, Imperial Russia.
  And so we have a couple of bills, both of them dealing with czars, 
which say that they want to--Mrs. Blackburn wants to deal with the 
czars. And we'll start with Mr. Scalise. Mr. Scalise defines czars. We 
have now, and I may be corrected by my friend, Judge Gohmert, but I 
believe we're at 34 czars, or maybe 36 czars have been created by this 
administration, which is like head and shoulders above any bunch of 
czars we've ever had. We've got czars for everything in the world.
  In fact, the compensation czar today announced some compensation 
rules which were kind of interesting, and I think there's going to be 
some contract law matters that will probably come up on that. But we 
have a compensation czar. We have a czar probably, you know, furniture 
polish czar, for all I know. But sunset the czars. In other words, 
let's look at them, see what

[[Page 23628]]

they're doing. If they're not doing anything worth having or they're 
duplicating efforts that are done by the people who've gone through the 
Senate appointment process and been vetted by the Senate, the 
secretaries of the various departments of this government, maybe we 
ought to just eliminates the czars.
  Then our friend, Marsha Blackburn, has a bill that the President is 
to report the responsibilities and qualifications that authorizes the 
special assistance of czars. The President will certify that the czars 
will not assert powers beyond those granted by the law to a 
commissioned officer on the President's staff, and Congress will hold 
hearings on the President's report and certification within 30 days.
  In other words, Mr. President, tell us what those folks are going to 
do, how qualified they are to do the job. We're going to pay them 
somewhere between $175,000 and $200,000 a year to do the job. And the 
Congress ought to be able to see that report and have the ability to 
deal with it. Both of these are good laws, and both of these have to do 
with czars. My friend, Louie Gohmert, has been here with me for almost 
the full hour. We're about 5 minutes from conclusion, so I'll yield a 
couple of minutes to my friend, Louie Gohmert.
  Mr. GOHMERT. With regard to the czars, we've seen over and over 
examples of people who have been placed in these positions, and it 
doesn't do me any good or anybody in America any good to say, well, you 
know, prior presidents have used czars. Not to this extent. Not ever, 
and I never really cared for them, no matter who the President was. I 
didn't like the bailout last year. I thought, until this 
administration, it was possibly the worst domestic action that's been 
taken in the last 50 or 60 years. That is, until this administration 
just left $700 billion in the sand as it blew through more and more 
money. But then, to have this massive spending spree that's, while 
we've got people appointed by the White House, not properly vetted, and 
the more we find out about these people, the more we're concerned they 
should never have been in those positions in the first place.
  And as we know, we've already had one recently step down, he should 
have never been there in the first place, whereas, if you went through 
regular order there and had advice and consent of the Senate, it 
doesn't mean they're going to be perfect. Nobody is. No process is. But 
there was real ingenuity in the process that was set up by the 
Founders, and the advice and consent is an important issue. But the 
whole reason our Founders set up a President outside the main stream of 
Congress, unlike the parliament that elects a prime minister from this 
body, it was going to be from outside this body so that there would be 
more checks and balances, and the czars have done nothing but create 
Scars upon Thars--with all deference to Dr. Seuss--scars across 
America, as they have been unaccountable to the Congress, to the 
courts, to America. And that really has to be changed.

                              {time}  2200

  We need the sunlight. We need transparency. We don't need czars.
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, I agree with my friend and fellow 
judge from Texas. We don't need czars that don't answer to the people. 
We intentionally designed the executive department to stand with checks 
and balances over it, just like the legislative department is designed 
that way. We intended it. This is not the way our Founding Fathers 
intended this country to be run.
  We've been talking tonight about the rule of law. It's about the rule 
of law. It's about following the rules. You know, if we don't hold each 
other to the standards that are required by this body, if we don't hold 
our colleagues to the standards that are required by this body, then 
why would we expect the American people to trust us? I will tell you, 
all of us need to be worried about the issue of trust. So I will 
continue to raise these issues, and I will be glad to be joined by 
anyone in this discussion to discuss following the rules and obeying 
the law.

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