[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7258-7264]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             SO MUCH MONEY TO GIVE AWAY AND SO LITTLE TIME

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times we are living 
in. It just seems like the motto we hear in Congress is, so much money 
to give away and so little time. Wow.
  How can we give away more and more money? Well, to give it away, we 
have got to tax, we have got to borrow, and we have got to print more 
money. All of these are not good things to be doing. And how ironic 
this week to see an article in national papers that, as Mr. Geithner is 
encouraging other countries to follow our lead and spend and spend and 
tax and spend and borrow and spend, Europe, of all places, is saying, 
we are not sure that this idea of spending and spending more and more 
money is such a good idea. Whoever would have thought that Europe would 
be the ones to give us a lecture on overspending not being the way to 
go? But these are the people that have been overspending. They know, it 
doesn't work. Yet, here we are, trying it ourselves.
  Now, we keep hearing about the deficit. When I was here as a freshman 
in 2005 and 2006, I was upset about the overspending. I was upset about 
the deficit going up. And it wasn't the tax cuts that created the 
problem. The tax cuts created the greatest revenue coming into the U.S. 
Treasury in American history, more money than ever coming into the 
Treasury. That wasn't the problem. But as it came in faster and faster, 
we were spending even faster than that, and there were some of us who 
were upset about it. The American people were upset about it. So as our 
friends across the aisle kept pointing out, you have got to cut out 
this deficit spending, the voters heard them. They said, they are 
right. The Democrats are the ones saying don't be spending and running 
up the deficit on our children and grandchildren. The voters were 
right. The Democrats were right to say that, because we were 
overspending. Many of us in the Republican party were saying the same 
thing. But that was not what carried the day. There was overspending.
  As a result, we got this comment after the election in November of 
2006 from our now Speaker: ``The American people voted to restore 
integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to 
lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in the 
history.''
  In fact, we even voted a few weeks ago in here that we would not even 
vote or take up this horrible spending bill, spendulus, porkulus, 
whatever you want to call it, until we had at least had 48 hours to 
review it. We voted on that. The vast majority, it seems like it may 
have been a super majority, voted that we would not vote on that bill 
until we had seen it for at least 48 hours. Then it gets on the web at 
11:00 or 12:00 at night. I got my copy to review the next morning about 
9:00, and we are debating at 10:00. And we are told, people are losing 
their jobs every minute you are delaying passing this bill. We have got 
to pass it. You don't have time to read it, you have just got to trust 
all the people, the staffers and everybody that put this together. We 
don't know what is air-dropped in there; we don't know what all is part 
of it, because we don't have time to read it, either. Nobody on either 
side of the aisle read it, but we had to pass it.
  It doesn't exactly match up with the transparency and the openness 
that was promised. It doesn't match up with the President of the United 
States, President Obama, promising there would be no bill that would be 
taken up and voted on unless we had 5 full days before he signed it to 
have comments, 5 full days. Well, we were told we had to pass it, we 
had no choice, people are losing their jobs. And the thing is, people 
were hearing things that were supposed to be in the bill, and yet the 
very week that this bill was being brought to the floor to vote on, 
there were tens of thousands of jobs every day being lost because 
businesses were giving up hope. They were trying to hang in there, hang 
on to their good employees. So many of those jobs lost were good union 
jobs. They were trying to hang in there. But then, from what they were 
hearing it didn't sound like this so-called stimulus or spendulus bill 
was going to allow them to come out from under the trouble they were 
in, so they gave up and kept laying jobs aside. People, families were 
hurt. So we were told, ``It has got to be fast. Don't read it, just 
vote on it.'' So it was passed, and 4 days later it gets signed into 
law.

                              {time}  1515

  Now, how is that an example of being open, honest and transparent? As 
a young attorney, I always advised people, if people want you to sign 
off on something but say, ``you don't have time to read it, just sign 
it,'' then it is even more important to read before you sign off on it, 
before you put your name on it. And here we had the Congress of the 
United States put their names on a document that they were not allowed 
to read all because it had to be passed immediately. And then 4 days 
later, once we get the press and all of that going on, have the photo 
op there in Colorado, then the bill gets signed. And I'll bet the folks 
there, I'll bet the President had not read the bill. Of course he 
hadn't. He hadn't had time.
  I am joined by my dear friend from Indiana, Mr. Dan Burton. I would 
love to yield time to him such as he would use and do so at this time.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I'm 
happy to stick around here tonight with you to go into some of the 
things that I think ought to be explained to our colleagues and to the 
American people if they happen to be paying attention here tonight to 
what we are doing.
  The people really do have a right to know where we are spending this 
money. And we had people from the Treasury Department appear before the 
Senate Banking Committee last week. And Senator Shelby, as I recall, 
asked where some of the money was being spent. They actually would not 
even tell him where the money was going. And we are talking about $700 
billion that was passed by the House and the Senate. There was supposed 
to be transparency so that we knew where the money was going.
  Now we did find out, and I mentioned this in a previous Special Order 
tonight, we did find out that some of the money that was given to the 
financial institutions to get the economy moving again was used to help 
other countries. Now this is $700 billion that was supposed to be used 
to help the American people, help the American economy and help the 
financial institutions to be able to survive. And yet $8 billion, 
$8,000 million, was loaned by

[[Page 7259]]

 Citigroup to Dubai, $1,000 million was loaned by JPMorgan Treasury 
Services to India, $7,000 million was loaned by the Bank of America to 
the China Construction Bank Corporation, and a whole lot more. There 
were 297 other entities that got the money, and they would not tell us 
where the money went.
  Now we are the representatives of the people. The Senators are the 
representatives of the people. And we have a right to know where the 
money is going when we vote to spend it. That is one of the reasons why 
I voted against almost every one of these spending bills this year 
because we haven't been able to understand where the money is going to 
be spent or why it is being spent, and there hasn't been any real plan. 
We have just thrown money at it, like that is going to solve the 
problem.
  If we are going to spend taxpayers' dollars, in my opinion, they have 
the right to know where the money is going, number one. And number two, 
we need to see the plan, as representatives of the people, so that we 
know where the money is going to be spent, how it is going to be spent 
and whether or not it is going to be spent wisely. And so far, every 
single one of the spending bills that I have looked at--and I think my 
colleagues looked at it as well--not one of them really gives us a plan 
on how to work our way out of this morass that we are in.
  I went into some of the things that I have mentioned in the past. And 
we are looking at trillions and trillions of dollars that we have been 
spending. And when I talk to the American people out in my district, in 
the Fifth District of Indiana, about all this spending, and you talk to 
them about $1,000, they understand, $1 million they understand, $1 
billion they start to glaze over. And when you get to $1 trillion, it 
just does not register because it is so much. That is a thousand 
thousand million dollars, $1 trillion. And we are spending money in the 
trillions. The budget that is coming up here after we have already 
spent trillions of dollars is going to be almost $4 trillion in 
addition to that. And today we found out that the Speaker of the House 
has indicated we might have another stimulus bill, which means we will 
probably add another $1 trillion on top of that.
  Now I brought a chart with me tonight, Mr. Gohmert. I can't talk to 
the American people, because we are in the well. But if I were talking 
to them, I would like for them to take a look at this chart just like 
my colleagues do. And it shows what happens when you inflate the money 
supply. And when I talk about ``inflating the money supply,'' I'm 
talking about when we spend all these trillions of dollars that we 
don't have. We have to either borrow it from countries like China or we 
have to borrow it from countries like Japan. And we owe Japan over $600 
billion. We owe China over $700 billion. And it will soon be over $1 
trillion. And when we borrow that money, it is supposed to help out the 
problem. But we have to pay them interest on that money. But the money 
that we cannot borrow, we have to print. And I hope my colleagues are 
listening to this. We have to print the money. And so far, we have 
increased the money supply by almost 300 percent. That means if we were 
buying something 1 week ago or 1 month ago, such as a car, in the 
future, when this money starts getting into circulation, because we 
have increased the money supply 300 percent, we are going to have a 
heck of a rate of inflation. That means the cost of everything is going 
to go up and up and up. That means college educations, cars, 
refrigerators, homes, the price of everything will go up.
  If my colleagues doubt this, I hope they take a look at this chart. 
It shows the money supply and how it has changed over the years. And 
you go all the way to 1990 and you start to see a rise. And then you 
see in 2000 it goes up more rapidly. And then you go to where we are 
today, and you see the money supply is going straight up. I mean it is 
going up straight. It is not going at an angle anymore. It is going 
straight up. And that means we are continuing to spend more than we are 
taking in. And we are printing that money.
  We had this problem back in the 1970s. Mr. Gohmert remembers. I think 
you're old enough to remember that. Back in the 1970s, we had this 
problem when President Carter was in office. And we ended up with 
double-digit inflation. We had 14 percent inflation and 12 percent 
unemployment. And they ended up raising the interest rate to slow the 
inflationary trend at 21 percent. And that put us into a deep, deep 
recession.
  What we are doing today is going to bring those days back in spades. 
It is going to be worse because we are increasing the money supply and 
spending much more rapidly than they did in the 1970s. And that was a 
tragic experience. Ronald Reagan came in and cut taxes across the 
board. And we ended up working our way out of the economy, and we had a 
long period of time of economic growth. But we are digging such a hole 
right now with this spending that it is going to be much, much more 
difficult to dig ourselves out of that than it was back in the 1980s 
when Reagan was President. So I really appreciate Mr. Gohmert taking 
this special hour. He is one of the real stalwarts as far as fiscal 
responsibility is concerned.
  Unless we get our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to start 
paying attention to what we are doing and not just thinking, ``oh, my 
gosh, we don't have to worry about the spending, it will take care of 
itself,'' then we are going to continue to dig ourselves into this 
hole.
  And I just wish the American people, Mr. Speaker, would call every 
one of their congressional representatives and their Senators and say, 
hey, let's start being fiscally responsible. Let's cut spending. We 
want to know where the money is going, and we don't want to waste it. 
And we certainly don't want to have hyperinflation.
  This will be passed on to our kids and our grandkids in our 
posterity. They are going to pay more in taxes. They are going to be 
paying more in inflation. And their quality of life is going to go down 
if we don't change this stuff pretty dog-gone quickly.
  With that, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate 
being with you tonight.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. I'm so grateful to my friend from Indiana. I 
always learn something every time I hear him speak. And I appreciate 
him any time he wants to speak while I've got time, he is welcome here. 
It is interesting though. It just seems like we do not learn the 
lessons either of history from other countries or of our own history. 
We keep trying the same things over and over again.
  For one thing, though, we had this massive bailout back in September. 
And there were a few dozen, I think maybe 60 Republicans that joined 
with the vast majority of the Democrats and passed that bailout bill. I 
thought it was a huge mistake. I knew it was a huge mistake. I begged 
my colleagues across the aisle, this side, please don't do this. And 
yet, we did. Seven hundred billion dollars. It was an outrageous 
amount. It may be that only $250 billion of that--only--only $250 
billion of that was spent before the new administration came in. And 
they immediately asked for the other $350 billion, another $800 billion 
in a stimulus, spendulus, porkulus whatever you want to call it bill, 
and then followed that up with over $400 billion on top of that. We 
only get $1.21 trillion in from income tax, from individuals for the 
entire year of 2008. And yet, just in a matter of weeks, $1.6 trillion, 
$1.7 trillion, an incredible amount of money.
  I have said this before, people I think are getting the idea, you 
want to increase the economy and help the economy? Let every taxpayer 
know they can keep their own tax dollars. Now originally my bill 
proposed 2 months. But for the kind of money we have been spending, we 
would be better off to tell everybody you have the whole 2008 tax year 
off with no taxes. If you send it in, you're getting it back. If you 
haven't paid it, then don't. We would have been better off. Cars would 
be bought. Homes would be bought. Homes would be built. Businesses 
would be built. American Dreams would be made all over.

[[Page 7260]]

  It is interesting to hear a study this morning that we went from an 
American Dream of having our children have it better than we have to 
now the current American Dream, the majority American Dream is to own 
their own business, to have a small business. Then also know that 
American businesses, small businesses, that is, have 70 percent of the 
employees in the country. You want to help the country? Help small 
business. And yet all we are hearing is we are going to hammer the 
people that may make more than $250,000, the very people who I've heard 
from who have said, ``I would like to hire at least one or two 
employees, but if I'm about to get hammered with a tax, I'm going to 
have to pay that in taxes. I can't afford to hire anybody. So I'm 
waiting back here to see if I'm going to get hammered with more taxes. 
And if not, then I will hire more people. And if I am, then I'm not 
hiring anybody. I will just kind of hang on to what I've got.''
  One of the things we learned back in history classes was that the 
power to tax is the power to destroy. That is so clear. Over and over, 
no matter what country you're in, the government has the power to tax, 
unless it is a socialist country, in which case all money comes into 
the government, and they pay everybody, so they just own everything, 
which kind of seems to be the way we are going right now, but if you 
tax something, you get less of it. If you want more of an activity, 
then not only don't tax it, but give it an incentive to have more of 
that.
  There is no better example than in the 1960s when the people in this 
body, in the House of Representatives, had a big heart, a tender heart, 
and wanted to help single women who they knew, there weren't that many, 
but there were some who were having to deal with deadbeat dads, who 
were not helping raise the children and were not helping with funding. 
They said, let's help those women. Let's give them a check from the 
Federal Government for every child they can have out of wedlock. They 
meant well. But now, 40 years later, we have gotten what we paid for. 
We have gotten a Nation in which nobody would ever have dreamed at this 
time that so many of our children would be born out of wedlock. Some of 
the greatest contributors to this country have come from single-parent 
homes. And I just have great praise for the single parents who try to 
raise kids and have done so effectively. It is a tough, tough job. But 
studies indicate, generally speaking, kids end up better off if they 
come from a two-parent home, as long as there is not abuse, things like 
that, we know that. As a former judge, I sure do.
  Well, then if you look at some of the things we have taxed, we still 
have a marriage penalty. If you're married in America, and you are both 
working, then you're going to pay a higher tax than you would if you 
were living together in what used to be called in the Bible Belt, 
``living together in sin.'' So what does the government do? The Federal 
Government, this body, because this is the only body that can do it, 
this body taxes marriage. Well, you get less marriage when you tax 
marriage.
  Now, we have heard over the last few decades all kinds of solutions, 
we are going to try to fix the marriage penalty, we are going to lower 
the tax here, fix this, do that and have less of a penalty, oh, we 
think we have fixed it. I have gotten sick of hearing those messages. 
And I intend to have a bill filed in the next couple of weeks as soon 
as we get it back from legislative counsel. It is very simple. It just 
says, if you're married, then you have got a choice. You can file 
married jointly or you can file as a single individual, whichever is 
better for you. Boom. No marriage penalty. That's the end of it.
  Now that is how you deal with a marriage penalty. You give people who 
are doing a good thing, being married, you don't penalize them, you 
help them.

                              {time}  1530

  And then we hear in the President's budget, his plan, we are going to 
disallow charitable contributions beyond a certain extent. It will be 
interesting to see how it ends up shaking out. But we are going to 
disallow tax advantages beyond that and allow that income to be taxed.
  Guess what? If you are going to start taxing that money instead of 
allowing the charitable deduction for the full amount, you are going to 
get less charitable deductions. I have said all along that this 
President is a smart man. I think he is. I wish that he would leave the 
teleprompters alone because the things that we need and what we need to 
fix America will not be found in a teleprompter. I wish he would look 
us straight in the eye and talk to us.
  In any event, if you are really, really smart and you are pushing to 
provide less tax incentive for charitable deductions, charitable 
contributions, you are going to get less of them. If you are really 
smart, you know that. You know you will get less. So what can you be 
meaning? What can your thoughts be?
  Well, the inevitable conclusion is that you intend to have fewer 
charitable organizations because you intend to do all of the charitable 
giving by the government. That is the only conclusion that can 
logically be drawn. You think you're better at giving charitable 
donations to the right places than the American public could be, and 
that the government will do better with those donations, we call them 
taxes when they are to the government, than those charitable 
organizations will be.
  As I have traveled around the world as a Member of Congress, I 
haven't done it but a few times, but what I see, the best work for 
individuals suffering in other countries doesn't come from the U.N. It 
doesn't come from the United States dollars. When the United States 
gives, it has to go through another country or through the U.N., and 
all these people get their cut of the action. And sometimes we prop up 
corrupt governments by trying to help their people. No, the best work 
gets done by charitable organizations that go straight in and help the 
people directly. That's where the greatest good gets done.
  Now with this President's new budget, he is proposing to cut that 
back so the government will be the end all charitable donor. That is so 
offensive. That is so offensive.
  I am delighted to be joined by one of the greatest Members of 
Congress that we have here. We were delighted when she joined our ranks 
a couple of years ago because this is someone who comes from the heart, 
incredibly sincere, and it is hard to beat somebody who is both sincere 
and very, very intelligent. I would yield to my friend, the gentlewoman 
from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas, Louie 
Gohmert, and I want to thank you for the great idea that you proffered 
to this body earlier on, which is if we want that true stimulus, Mr. 
President, I recall you saying, Mr. Gohmert, then why don't we let the 
American people keep that stimulus dollar directly, pull the United 
States Government out as the middleman and let's prohibit the 
government from skimming off its portion to go into a bureaucratic 
cliff that no one knows where the money goes, let's let the American 
people keep their money. That was the Louie Gohmert plan.
  People all across America have said to me, Do you know that Louie 
Gohmert? Have you heard of his plan?
  And I tell them, You bet I know him.
  I can't imagine a more stimulative impact.
  As a matter of fact, I was with two ladies yesterday, women who don't 
necessarily think about politics day and night, and I told them about 
the Louie Gohmert stimulus plan. They said hey, I would love that. I 
would love to have of that money because, as the gentleman from Texas 
knows, in the last 50-52 days under the current Obama administration, 
the average American family has just had placed on their shoulders an 
incredible debt load of over $18,500 per family. That is just in the 
last 52 days. I don't know about you, my family cannot afford these 
current spending policies.
  What we have seen in the last 52 days, out of a Democrat-controlled 
House, a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Democrat-controlled White 
House, is spending at historic proportions: $18,500 per American 
family.

[[Page 7261]]

That's on top of the debt load that we already have.
  What has been the response of the American people? In the month of 
January, the American people were spooked about what is happening in 
this economy. What did the American people do? Their personal savings 
rate has elevated to 5 percent. You know what that savings rate was 
before, Mr. Speaker, that savings rate was minus 1 percent. The 
American people are so afraid of these historic levels of spending, 
they are holding on to every dollar they have, and the personal savings 
rate has increased to 5 percent. I think that it is great that the 
American people are going down a savings route. It shows that 
inherently the American people are prudent with their own money.
  But what has been the Obama plan? The Obama plan has been to raise 
spending to such historic levels that it will force the United States 
Government to continue to borrow more money from China, and the Chinese 
right now are a little skittish about buying more American debt. So 
skittish are they that our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, 
had to go to China about 2 weeks ago and practically beg the Chinese to 
continue buying American debt. Our Secretary of State wouldn't be in 
that embarrassing position if the Obama administration wouldn't be so 
bent on spending this level of money.
  Well, if we don't have to spend this kind of money, then we don't 
have to borrow from China. We don't have to have punishing high tax 
increases, and that is what is amazing to me in the President's budget. 
He was just here in the Chamber about 2 weeks ago with his State of the 
Union address, and he said that he plans to tax the American people 
under the new cap-and-tax plan.
  Under this tax plan, which is hard to believe, I know, in the midst 
of a recession, adding to the burden of the American people $646 
billion in new energy taxes. Well, we all remember how much fun it was 
last July to pay over $4 a gallon for gas, that is the road we are 
heading down again. In fact, some estimates say that the average 
American family will see an increase in their yearly energy bill of 
over $1,400 a year in their utility bill because of this energy tax. 
Why do we have to have this tax? Because spending is out of control. As 
a matter of fact, it won't just stop with the utility bill, it is also 
the gas bill when you go to your local gas station and fill up. The 
energy tax will impact the price of food. It will impact the price of 
goods at Wal-Mart. If you go to a local clothing outlet like Target, it 
will increase the cost of things there. Everything we touch will be 
impacted by the energy tax. We wouldn't need to do this if we didn't 
have these historic levels of spending.
  One thing that was alluded to by our colleagues, Mr. Burton and Mr. 
Gohmert, is the fact that what we will see happen, other than punishing 
tax increases and going to other countries to borrow money, we will 
have to resort to inflation. What's that? Inflation occurs because the 
Federal Reserve is printing money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 
putting that money into the money supply. If we have $100 in the money 
supply and the Federal Reserve puts another $100 into the money supply, 
what does that do to the $100 we have now? It means that our $100 is 
actually worth half of what it was before.
  The cruelest tax of all is the tax of inflation, especially for 
senior citizens and especially for people who have spent their entire 
life trying to create wealth, and that is the genius of the United 
States of America, freedom. Freedom is the genius of our country. And 
with freedom, we have been able to amass private wealth creation.
  Now I'm not just talking about billionaires, I am talking about my 
grandparents who lived through the Depression. My grandfather made a 
dollar a day working as a meat cutter, $7 a week. He had seven children 
that he had to feed on $7 a week. But they wanted to create as much 
private wealth as they could in their family. My grandmother and 
grandfather never became wealthy, but what did they try to do 
individually, they tried to save as much money as they could so that 
someday they could afford to buy a home.
  My little grandmother was eventually able to buy a one-bedroom home. 
She was so proud of that home. She took such good care of that home 
because she wanted to make sure that my mother and her six brothers 
would one day have an inheritance. And at the time of her death, she 
was able to give them $10,000 each. That was her goal, to transfer to 
them some of her private wealth. And that is what I am so worried 
about, Mr. Speaker. That is what I am so worried about, that we are 
going to take away the right of the American people to amass private 
wealth no matter how much because they want to be able to use it to be 
able to pass on to their own kids.
  They cannot do that, Mr. Speaker, when this body continues to spend 
money on the most worthless projects imaginable. We could spend the 
next hour in this Chamber going after worthless project after worthless 
project. We just saw in this body this week, President Obama signed it 
yesterday, almost 9,000 earmarks; 9,000 earmarks. And that is after 
President Obama campaigned and said I will be a new President. I don't 
want to see earmarks; I don't want any more earmarks. And what did he 
do in the first 52 days, putting a burden on the American people of 
over $18,500, including wasteful projects, 9,000 of them, and having 
the audacity to say to the American people, This is the end of the old 
way of doing business. From here on out, it is the new.
  It is not the new, Mr. Speaker, not when you are looking at continual 
rampant spending to have continual rampant taxing. That is what is 
around the corner.
  This horrible energy tax is going to forever change our American way 
of life, and now is our opportunity to stop it.
  I know, Mr. Speaker, that Representative Gohmert and I were talking 
about that earlier today. The opportunity that we have between now and 
May when the Obama administration wants to make sure that the American 
people are saddled with this horrible new tax, and how do we know that? 
He has already built it into his budget. He has already assumed that 
you are going to be paying $4,000 per family in new taxes to finance 
these boondoggles that all of us come up with here in Washington, D.C.
  I didn't vote for any of this. I am more proud every day that I voted 
against every one of these wasteful spending programs. I know that 
Representative Gohmert feels the same way.
  With that, I would like to hand it back to Representative Gohmert, 
and I would be happy to talk about that with him.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, and great points all. I was enjoying the 
points you were making.
  But what came back to mind was the story about Davy Crockett in the 
House of Representatives. Some people don't know he was a 
representative, and yet there is a great story, a true story about him 
going back home to Tennessee and somebody, one gentleman just lowered 
the boom on him and was really fussing at him because Congress had 
decided to give money to help some business that had burned. The 
gentleman was telling Davy Crockett, if you want to help somebody or 
some business because it is a noble cause, give them your money, don't 
give them my money. And Crockett came back here and told about the 
incident as part of the Congressional Record, telling his colleagues: 
How about for once we don't just force the taxpayers to give up their 
money and give it to where we think it ought to go. If we think that 
this business deserves some charitable help, then let's give it out of 
our own pockets.

                              {time}  1545

  They took up a collection. Can you imagine if the debate here on the 
floor were along those lines these days, that the children need our 
help, so I'm passing the hat and would like for everybody to kick in 
their own money here on the floor so that we can help these children? 
No, that's not what we hear.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield. I'm familiar with that

[[Page 7262]]

story as well. Davy Crockett did come back to this Chamber, he did go 
to his fellow representatives and ask for money. And the disgraceful 
thing is that Members did not want to give money personally out of 
their own pocket to be able to help--it was a widow, I believe, they 
didn't want to give that money to the widow.
  I have only been in this body for 3 years, but if there is anything 
that I have learned it is how easy it is to spend other people's money. 
It is so easy to be generous. But one thing that this body needs to 
remember, one thing that President Obama needs to remember, we are not 
a philanthropic society, we are not the family, and we certainly are 
not the church. And when government tries to be the church, when 
government tries to be the family, and when government tries to be a 
philanthropic society, we distort everything and usually mess it up.
  If you look today, the news just came out that Freddie and Fannie, 
which were the engines behind this failure on the housing mortgage 
meltdown, Freddie and Fannie need another $30 billion of infusion of 
money because, guess what? They're now nationalized; they're owned by 
the American taxpayer. They can't stop spending money. They're 
addicted. As a matter of fact, our government charged Freddie and 
Fannie with making more loans to people who can't even afford to put 
down payments on houses. The government hasn't learned its lesson, and 
it seems unwilling to learn its lesson. I don't know why in the world 
we would want to take more money out of the hands of people who get how 
to save it and how to spend it and bring it here to Washington to 
people who have proved for all time that they have no clue how to spend 
it.
  I yield back.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. Actually, I guess it was right at the end of 
1 year, my freshman year here, there were so many of our friends across 
the aisle quoting Scripture. And it was being used in a way to say 
things like, well, Jesus said take care of the widows and orphans. And 
some of you guys, you want to just neglect the widows and orphans and 
help your rich friends. And others would say, Jesus said that we should 
be good Samaritans and help those less fortunate. Somebody else said 
Jesus had said to them that we're to love our neighbors as ourselves, 
``the golden rule.'' When a lawyer asked him what is the most important 
commandment, he said, love your neighbor--those were the two, love God 
and love your neighbor.
  But anyway, we were getting beat up over that, that we ought to be 
taxing people, taking from other people and giving to these folks that 
were in need. And I had to point out that night that Jesus never said 
go ye therefore, use and abuse your taxing authority to take somebody 
else's money to help them. He said, you do it. You do it. He was 
talking to the individual. He was talking to the individual heart. And 
the individuals who were supposed to do it, not go and abuse taxing 
authority, take somebody else's money, and yet that is what has 
happened. And a great example was Zacchaeus. Because if you look at 
what Zacchaeus did after he met Jesus, he went and cut taxes. Not only 
did he cut taxes, he gave rebates to those he over-collected from. And 
that is what would be called a tax holiday.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. And if the gentleman would yield. We could go to the 
Old Testament as well and look no further than the Ten Commandments. 
The Ten Commandments say, ``Thou shalt not steal.'' And whether it 
comes from government or whether it comes from an individual, we are 
not to steal from our neighbor.
  That's what has me so concerned about this new energy tax from the 
Obama administration because it literally will be widows and orphans 
that will be in the worst possible position. Because this energy tax 
will hit every aspect of American Society, it will forever lower 
America's cost of living and our way of life. We need look no further 
than Europe. Europe has already instituted this energy tax. It is 
continuing to lower the standard of living in Europe, and it is 
creating job losses all across the United States. Why would we be cruel 
to widows? Why would we be cruel to orphans?
  This will not work. It has been a disaster. And now is the time for 
the American people to raise up, contact their Member of Congress, and 
say, please shield me from this Obama energy tax, I can't afford it. 
Why would we do this when we see crushing debt loads?
  Earlier this week, Mr. Speaker--I was sharing this with Mr. Gohmert--
I met with people from the furniture industry. And I don't know if the 
American people know yet, the furniture industry, if you look at their 
stock value, the stock value of the American furniture industry has 
dropped 90 percent. So if you have people who spent their life working 
in the furniture industry and that's what their retirement was made of, 
they have lost 90 percent of the value of their wealth assets. Why 
would you impose a cruel energy tax where we are going to require more 
jobs to flee from this country?
  I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. GOHMERT. That is such a great point. And it goes right along with 
the corporate tax. We have people come in here and say the corporate 
tax is the way to go because these mean, cruel, greedy corporations, 
let them pay the tax. Well, if a corporation does not pass that tax on 
to its customers or its clients, then it goes out of business. So that 
is so deceptive. And I think it is so wrong to say, we all know in here 
we're going to stick it to the little guy, the guy that is just working 
and doing all they can to stay up, or the seniors who are on Social 
Security, we're going to stick it to them, but we can't just stick the 
tax to them any more than we already have, let's tax the corporation, 
and then they will have to pass it on. But it won't say ``tax'' when 
it's passed on because it's from us to them, and it's our way of 
sticking it to the little guy without them knowing.
  But at some point the American public is going to wise up. And I've 
looked into this as well because there are some that say we need to 
erect tariff barriers and say, if you're going to sell stuff in this 
country, your country may be subsidizing this kind of thing, but we're 
going to put a tariff. Well, that triggers so many penalties. It would 
trigger a tariff war around the world if we did that. Whereas, what I 
have looked into is, what if we said we are not going to allow Congress 
to stick it to the little guy by popping the tax on the corporations 
that they have to pass on. Let's just say no corporate tax.
  Corporations that have fled this country because of the high 
corporate tax rate have said, our manufacturing jobs will be back in 
America. The furniture jobs, even though labor is cheaper elsewhere, it 
would open them up. And some would say, well, that's subsidizing. But 
the nice thing is it would not trigger any penalty or any tariff war, 
no trade agreements, penalty provisions would be triggered by doing 
away with corporate tax so that the people in America wouldn't be taxed 
further.
  But how much more insidious could it be than what President Clinton 
did as soon as he took office with a Democratic majority when he raised 
this massive tax on Social Security benefits? These people have worked 
their whole life, paying taxes on what they made, putting a little bit 
into Social Security, and actually they're only getting back about one-
fourth to one-third of what they would have been if they could have put 
it into their own private retirement account. But anyway, here it is, 
they're getting so little as it is, and now you're going to put a tax 
on top of that? To me, that was pretty insidious. And it continues. 
There's talk about even possibly increasing the Social Security tax. I 
think it's outrageous.
  We have been joined by my good friend from Iowa. It is always a 
pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to see him here on the floor. I yield to my 
friend, Mr. King.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I appreciate the judgment of the good judge from 
east Texas. I was listening to this dialogue, and I thought I would 
come over here and engage in it. And I appreciate you recognizing me 
and yielding.

[[Page 7263]]

  The point that the gentleman from Texas makes that--I'll say it 
succinctly--corporations don't pay taxes, corporations collect taxes 
that are imposed upon their bookkeeping system and aggregate the money 
from people and customers and flow that money to the Federal Government 
into the Treasury. That's how the corporations function, they are tax 
collectors for the government. But it is always the people that have to 
pay the taxes, it is always the customers that have to pay the taxes. 
And by the way, neither do LLCs pay taxes, neither do sole 
proprietorships, or partnerships, or any other business configuration 
that has customers out there pay taxes. They have to transfer those to 
their customers. They have to add it in and calculate it in.
  I made payroll out for 28 years. I transferred a lot of those costs 
onto my customers. I had to. And if you didn't do that, in the first 
place you couldn't cash flow a business; you would never get it started 
in the first place. You would never get it to expand. You've got to 
have capital. By the way, Adam Smith made this real clear. This is 
something I like to tell the people that will not respond to this 
charge. There are two components to the cost of everything we buy, it 
is the cost of capital and the cost of labor. And the capital cost is 
included in everything that we purchase.
  And so if we are going to have policy in this legislature that raises 
the cost of capital--which takes place easily when you see the tax 
increase--if you increase taxes on businesses that are doing business, 
that are investing, that are holding mortgage-backed securities, there 
is a capital cost to that. If you raise the cost of capital, then you 
are putting more burden on the economy.
  And the other component is labor. Adam Smith wrote it this way: ``The 
price of gold plummeted in Europe as the Spanish galleons began 
arriving on the continent from the new world.'' Adam Smith didn't say 
that because they stole the gold from the Incas and the Aztecs. He 
described it as they lowered the cost of labor for getting that gold 
out of the ground and getting it into the marketplace. And that's how 
this economy works. But corporations have been demonized by the people 
on the left side of the aisle because they don't understand that simple 
equation; the cost of capital and the cost of labor is the sum total of 
all of the things that we buy, and that the businesses in the country 
have been enlisted, by law, to collect those taxes from people, impose 
them on people. And what do we do? We impose the acrimony on top of the 
businesses that are the tax collectors for the government. I'm with 
Louie Gohmert; let's take the tax off of all these corporations. Let's 
take all the tax off of productivity, actually.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I would. I think I like where you're going.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I would like to add to the stunning Steve King from 
Iowa for his comment. He is absolutely right that the cost of a good is 
labor and capital. But the third component is the added cost of 
government. That's the third component that goes into an item. And that 
cost is getting exceedingly high. And I know that my colleague from 
Texas, Louie Gohmert, knows this very well because, if you look at the 
energy industry, at oil and gas production, the amount of money that 
companies make in profits is exceeded dramatically by the amount of 
money that the corporations pay in taxes to the government.
  People think that oil and gas companies have obscene profits, but 
they pay even more obscene levels of taxation. Literally, they have 
spent trillions of dollars that they've paid over to government in 
taxes, while they've kept billions of dollars in profit. But out of 
that profit pool, that is where the oil and gas companies have had to 
take that money to invest back into the business so Americans can enjoy 
more energy.
  I am so pleased about the positive solution that's been offered by 
one of our colleagues, John Shadegg, and also Mr. Bishop, and also 
Senator Vitter, and it is the No Cost to the Taxpayer Stimulus Bill 
that says, very simply, let's open up and legalize all forms of energy 
production all across the United States--wind, solar, biofuels, oil, 
gas--all of them, let's open all of them up--in fact, I say hamsters 
running on cages. No matter what it is, let's make sure that we 
legalize the source of energy. And that is zero cost to the taxpayer. 
It relieves the American people's burden on dependable gasoline at 
affordable prices. Let's do that.
  I know I was absolutely astounded, Senator Obama, during the 
campaign--and I will yield back after this quote. This is a quote from 
our now President. He said, during the course of the campaign, ``What 
I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is 
as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. 
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just 
that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge 
sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.'' He is admitting 
that his plan will bankrupt coal companies.
  ``When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, you know, under 
my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily 
skyrocket.'' That's the future that the American people have to look 
forward to, and I think that's audacious.
  I yield back.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I would yield to my friend from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman.
  When you describe this, this cap and trade tax that is on everything, 
I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that we illuminate this for the American 
people. Think if America were a continent unto itself, what if we were 
a planet unto ourselves; would we manage ourselves this way? And I 
would say no. Because we are wasting all kinds of resources; we are 
wasting labor, we are wasting capital--we're not even using sound 
science--if we were a planet unto ourselves. But we have to compete 
with the rest of the planet. So this cap and trade proposal ties our 
hands, ties our legs. And we are like Gulliver tied up by the 
Lilliputians with the cap and trade legislation that looks like it's 
coming down the pike which will immobilize America's economy while 
India's and China's are growing. And not only are they growing, but 
they're emitting CO2 gas and greenhouse gases at an 
accelerating rate.

                              {time}  1600

  So our little piece of this pie that we could possibly effect is so 
minimal a century from now that it really can't be measured by science. 
Sound science doesn't support this. Sound economics doesn't support 
this. And there are many better solutions, even if there was a 
prediction that could be made accurately.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank Mr. King and I thank Mrs. Bachmann.
  That's such a great point about energy. We have been blessed in 
totality with more natural resources in the United States of America, I 
think, than any other country. It's just been fabulous. And yet we 
continue week after week, month after month with the Democratic 
majority to continue to put more of our natural resources off-limits.
  One of the things some of us have been advocating, and I have got my 
staff working on a bill we talked about yesterday that would be in 
conjunction with our friend Mr. Shadegg, with Senator Vitter, but we 
all agree: We want all-of-the-above energy. Use it all. But make sure 
we protect the environment. And that can be done. But open up the OCS 
to drilling. Put litigation on a fast track so they can't tie it up for 
10 or 20 years and just keep repeatedly bringing them to court. But 
let's go use it if it's legal, if it's proper, and it will be if it's 
done right.
  And then something that had been negotiated before that could be done 
is that the Federal royalty that could be obtained by leasing the OCS 
would be more than traditionally a property owner gets from leasing 
their land to produce oil and gas. Traditionally that's been one-
eighth. One-eighth of the royalty is what the owner normally got. We 
could get at least three-sixteenths. We could split it with the

[[Page 7264]]

States. We've got States coming up here like California saying, please, 
give us some money. I'm so proud they worked on their budget. They 
still need money.
  You've got all kinds of money sitting in the vault, sitting in the 
bank, right off your coast. Use what you've got. If it's solely in the 
State's territory, it's yours. If it's out beyond that and in Federal 
territory, we will split the money with you. And then my feeling is, 
and this is what I've talked to the staff about in a bill, we'll take 
half of the Federal part of that because we should share it with the 
States, but then with our half, take half of that and devote it 
completely to research for alternative fuels. You don't have to tax 
anybody else. You don't have to add more costs to the already 
hardworking people that are paying to sustain this unwieldy government. 
But you could fund our own alternative research so that as things run 
out, we've got it.
  And it's really beginning to appear very disingenuous, this stuff 
about the global warming, and that's why we are no longer hearing 
``global warming.'' They're not using that term. They are using 
``climate change.'' Climate change happens four times a year. It's the 
seasons.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, in Minnesota that's 
true.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Thank you. I think we see two separate agendas at work 
here. The American people want low-cost energy that's dependable. We 
need that. Not only just individuals but also businesses, we need low-
cost, dependable energy. But the Obama administration has taken a very 
different view on energy. Then Candidate Obama said he wants high-cost 
energy. Why? Because he wants to force the American people to have to 
pay the carbon tax that's about to come down the pike. We wouldn't need 
this terrible carbon tax that will completely damage our economy, 
especially in this time of recession, if the Obama administration 
wasn't addicted to spending. Because they are so addicted to these high 
levels of spending, President Obama, in his State of the Union address, 
said what he wants to do with that money. He wants socialized medicine. 
Is that what the American people want? The American people aren't 
crying out for socialized medicine, but that's what President Obama 
wants to give to the American people.
  Not only that, but in his State of the Union address, he said his 
vision for America is that government's hand would be in the hospital 
room of a brand new baby with a brand new mother. He wants, from cradle 
to career, the Federal Government's hand on the life of that child. I 
don't know about you, but the people in the Sixth Congressional 
District of Minnesota, moms and dads want to have one of the parents at 
home with that baby to be able to love that child, rear that child. 
They don't want to send that little baby off to a government daycare 
center from the day that baby is born. That is President Obama's vision 
for child rearing, that the Federal Government would be involved in the 
cradle stages of a child's life. Massive spending demands a way of 
taxation.
  This cap and trade isn't going to solve our energy problem. It will 
add to our energy problem because, again, it's going to take out of the 
pockets of the middle class of this country to put into the pocket of 
the Federal Government.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to my friend from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I would add to this. Again, take it back to a big picture, and that 
is this is about freedom. It's about preserving the freedom we have, 
defending the freedom we have, and, in fact, we should be expanding the 
freedom that we have.
  Our freedom has diminished generation by generation since the 
founders established this country. When you move to the left, it always 
includes an increase in taxes and an increase in government 
interference in every aspect of our lives, from raising our families to 
micro-managing energy to sticking their fingers into education, every 
aspect of our lives. So when you expand the role of government, you 
expand also the taxation and you diminish the freedom.
  And whether you do it insidiously by saying I'm going to take your 
child now at age 3 or 2 or 1 as opposed to 5 or 6, as it used to be, or 
whether you do it in a blatant way by saying we're going to impose this 
Draconian regime on everybody in America and we're going to confiscate 
your income, the point that's been made by this administration and this 
majority, not in so quite many words is this: You're not really 
entitled to the money you earn, in their view, but the people that 
claim they have a need are entitled to the money that you earn.
  That's the philosophical divide that's been turned. When you go to 
the left, you give up freedom and it's diminished. When you move policy 
to the right, you expand freed and it's enhanced.
  We need to be about expanding everyone's freedom in this country. 
That's the foundation of America, and that's where our vitality comes 
from. That's why we are the unchallenged greatest Nation in the world, 
because our vitality comes from our freedoms. Acts that diminish it 
diminish our vitality and handicap us.
  I thank the gentleman from Texas for his indulgence.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Iowa's (Mr. King) help.
  I would be willing to yield for any final comments to my friend from 
Minnesota.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Texas. I appreciate that.
  I would just like to expand on what Mr. King said. When you look at 
this body of the House of Representatives and when you look at the 
United States Senate and when you look at the White House, one thing 
that we all do when we come in is we take an oath and we pledge our 
allegiance, not to the American people, not to an issue; we pledge our 
allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.
  Every time this House acts in contravention of the Constitution, we 
cause a distortion of freedom and we cause a diminution in the freedom 
of the people. We cause a diminution in the prosperity of this great 
land. That's the problem. Our founding principles are all contained in 
the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln republished and 
reaffirmed this Nation to a new foundation grounded in the Declaration 
of Independence.
  And, of course, we know what that beauty is. The beauty is that our 
rights were given to us from a Creator. Those rights are not from 
government, the rights of man. The rights come from a Creator God. And 
that Creator gave those rights to every human being on the planet. 
Among those rights are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Those 
are rights that only God can give. Government can't give them; 
government can't take them away. And our government was instituted for 
only one reason, and it was to secure those unalienable rights.
  None of us in this Chamber with an election certificate has any right 
to violate those rights because we are here only by the consent of the 
governed. And when we act in contravention of that, that's how we get 
into the soup we're in. And today we are in some kind of soup. So if we 
return to our Constitution, we're in good shape.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Texas has 
expired.

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