[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9711-9715]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2310
                            LEGAL CESSPOOLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for the balance of the time until midnight as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  There are certain requirements of this body that the Constitution 
sets forth. This is the body that controls the purse strings of the 
country. This body has an obligation to make sure that we act 
cautiously and carefully in spending the money that we legally steal 
from those who produce it. It would be theft except we are authorized 
to pass laws to make it legal theft when we take it from people who 
produce that money in this country, but it should come home to folks 
around this body that we have an obligation to those people to be 
conscientious in the things we do; and, accordingly, it is the 
obligation of this body to prepare a budget in order to have control 
over our appropriations.
  The people who I serve with, who have been here for years, say this 
is the first year they recall ever not voting on a budget in the House 
of Representatives. There is no budget. When politics is more important 
than actually protecting the country that we are sworn to protect, then 
from a political viewpoint, it's easy to see why someone might want to 
do this for the first time in so many years and avoid putting forth a 
budget. Because if a budget were brought forth in this election year 
with so many people already upset--with tea parties so angry at the 
vast overspending--they would be able to see exactly how off the charts 
this body's spending has been and is projected to be with that money 
that we legally steal from people who produce it in the country.
  So we haven't had time or the political fortitude to step up in this 
body and to prepare a budget as is required. We have an obligation to 
protect private property; but as we have seen with the gulf coast, that 
hasn't happened.
  We heard this week from the Minerals Management Service and from 
those with the Department of the Interior that they have been on guard 
since day one, since this spill happened. Well, why wouldn't they have 
been on guard since day one when drilling commenced?
  We know from the records and from the hearings we've had that, when 
the Deepwater Horizon platform was put in place back in 2001, for the 
first 40 months it was in place, every month, as is supposed to occur, 
there were offshore inspections done. From there, it gets very fuzzy. 
We find out that MMS can't tell us exactly how many inspections there 
have been since then of the Deepwater Horizon platform and of their 
drilling operations.
  We did hear in our hearing and during the question-and-answer time--
it was part of the public record yesterday

[[Page 9712]]

in Natural Resources--that they're not really sure how many times the 
inspections occurred, but what some of us, through some digging, had 
found out is that there is one entity, and one alone, in the Minerals 
Management Service that is allowed to be unionized, and that is the 
offshore inspectors.
  Now, that struck some of us as strange because the offshore 
inspectors seem a bit like our Armed Forces. You know, they stand 
between our homeland and bad things that could destroy or harm our 
homeland. So who would have thought that something, some entity, with 
obligations similar to our uniformed services, which are to stand 
between our homeland and harm, would have union contracts?
  Well, we couldn't find out from DOI, the Department of the Interior, 
or from the MMS yesterday in our hearing exactly what is in those union 
contracts. Normally, union contracts would have limits on travel, 
limits on the number of hours that could be worked, limits on all kinds 
of things. You put limits on how much those standing between us and 
harm can serve and can travel to get between us and harm?
  Yet we've done nothing about that. No.
  In fact, what has happened is we've now learned that the Department 
of the Interior, Secretary Salazar, has decided and this administration 
has decided that MMS has not been functioning very well, so we're going 
to divide it into three separate entities.
  I don't care that it's not a new problem and that it goes back a 
number of administrations. The fact is it's a problem now, and 
unionizing people who stand between us and harm allows there to be 
limits on just what kind of service we can expect from those standing 
between us and vast amounts of harm. It should never happen. That 
shouldn't be allowed to take place. What we heard yesterday was, 
actually, that we are going to possibly let unions take hold in all 
three of these entities. We don't really know right now. We may let 
everybody in all three of these things unionize.
  But what kept coming to mind for me, having grown up in east Texas, 
is that I've been around stagnant ponds that stunk to high heaven, that 
became so stagnant, nonmoving, with no water coming in. They just stunk 
so bad you could hardly stay around them. It seems that MMS has been a 
bit that way.
  The things that have gone on in MMS stink to high heaven. They are 
repugnant to anybody with any type of moral fiber: the investigations 
going on, the bribes that have occurred, nobody's knowing when or if 
they actually did the inspections they were supposed to, whether they 
observed or not testing that was supposedly done. We found out 
literally there may have been inspectors who were in bed with people 
they were supposed to be inspecting, that there were favors, perks, 
gifts potentially given, bribes to look the other way.
  We don't know what all happened on Deepwater Horizon. The 
investigation, we're told, is ongoing; but we really haven't done a lot 
about that yet. Here we have this stagnant cesspool where so much has 
not been done that was supposed to have been and where so much may have 
been done that was illegal. Rather than deal with the issues, it sounds 
like this body is just going to go along and divide it up into three.
  Well, now I know, having seen stagnant, stinking cesspools, that if 
you divide them up, they still stink; they're still repugnant. If you 
just completely clean them out and put fresh water in, then you've got 
something to start from, but we're not doing that. We're dividing it up 
into three groups, and we're going to add to the stagnant cesspool, but 
we're not going to clean them out. Not only that, we're going to allow 
the situation to even grow bigger with the potential unionization of 
people so they can have their travel and hours and things limited so 
you can't expect as much from them as you would from somebody who is 
standing between us and great harm.

                              {time}  2320

  So we are not doing our job in so many of these areas.
  You look further at the kind of money that has been appropriated and 
you find out that we are appropriating billions of dollars to countries 
that don't like us. We provided, I believe, $100 million to Somalia. We 
know just in the last couple of days there is a potential threat that 
is arising from Somalia, we have been told. We have given them $100 
million.
  We have given Yemen $100 million, $200 million, I am not sure exactly 
of the number. There has been a big deal made here that $3 billion was 
given to Israel, but when you look at all the money added up we have 
given to the enemies of Israel, it is appears that it is more than 
that.
  So I have a bill that we call the U.N. Voting Accountability Act. I 
am sure it will not see the light of day in this Congress. But it 
simply says countries that vote against the United States more than 
half the time do not receive any financial assistance the following 
year.
  The report comes out each March 31st. We have got the report from 
last year that came out March 31st of this year, and we see that the 
vast majority, most of the countries in the U.N. that we give money to, 
billions of dollars total, they voted against us the vast majority of 
the time. Some of them voted against us 90-95 percent of the time, and 
we are just lavishing money upon them.
  What occurs to me repeatedly is, you don't have to pay countries to 
hate you. They will hate you for free. And yet this body just keeps 
throwing money at that.
  We have thrown money at Wall Street. I had begged people on this 
floor, in private conference, around this Hill, read the bill, read the 
bill. I begged people. I have implored people. Because if they read the 
TARP bill, they would have seen that Wall Street was going to have a 
slush fund, and that has been continued by the current Secretary of the 
Treasury, a slush fund, bail out your buddies.
  Goldman Sachs had the biggest year they have had in history. We can't 
find out how much of their billions of dollars they made last year came 
from the United States Government, the U.S. taxpayers, or money we 
borrowed from China that our great-grandchildren will eventually pay so 
that people could engorge themselves right now on Wall Street.
  We are not really taking care of that issue. We are looking the other 
way, because we find out, gee, Wall Street is donating four-to-one to 
the Democrats, so why should we really clean up? We will call them fat 
cats, we will talk about how rotten they are, but when push comes to 
shove, we have a financial so-called reform bill that is more of a 
financial deform bill that is going to empower the very people that are 
being objected to in ways some of us can't imagine.
  We are going to have people in the government pick winners and 
losers. We are going to say, you are a systemic risk as a bank or a 
company, which means we won't let you fail. You can run your 
competition out of business, but we are not going to let you fail. So 
we are picking winners and losers, and that is in that financial deform 
bill.
  We are not doing our job around here. But we can come in here today 
and we can go meddling with the greatest military that mankind has ever 
seen. The men and women of our uniformed services are unrivaled up to 
now.
  No, we haven't had time this year to do a budget, and we apparently 
are not going to do one. No, we haven't really done much of anything to 
protect private property. No, we haven't done anything, absolutely 
zero, to bring down the price of energy. In fact, we are going to 
skyrocket that.
  But one thing we are all so proud of is when it comes to health care 
and the seniors that were counting on Medicare, we are cutting $500 
billion out of Medicare. And as the President himself said, and this is 
a basic quote, whereas in the past when you went to the doctor and got 
five tests, now you will go to the doctor and get one test.
  Well, it took several tests, many tests, to find my mother's brain 
tumor, and by virtue of their finding it we had 15 extra years with my 
mother, and I cherished them all.
  But no, we are not going to do that for the future, because, you see, 
some

[[Page 9713]]

seniors, they just cost too much. So we are going to cut $500 billion, 
and we are going to call it waste, fraud and abuse. But we are not 
really doing anything in the bill to clean up the waste, fraud and 
abuse. That is going to be ongoing. But we are going to cut that money.
  Then we have got our willing lackeys over in CBO. They will score 
anything that this administration and this majority sends over. I was 
told last summer, the CBO will not score anything that is not in final 
bill form. Then we find out, well, that is if it comes from a 
Republican. Because if somebody in the Democratic Party just sends over 
a few notes, oh, they will score it, and they will give them the score 
they need. And if it doesn't work out, well, we will have a meeting at 
the White House or here at the Capitol, and then before you know it, if 
the majority leadership says it is going to be under $1 trillion, they 
will ignore this amount of money, $250 billion here, they will ignore 
$150 billion here and wait and suddenly find that 30 days after the 
bill passes. Their willing lackeys will help them.
  We have to do away with the CBO. They are not fair. I am sure, 
talking to Director Elmendorf, I really believe he means well. I 
believe he is trying to do the right thing. But the fact is they are 
funded by the majority in Congress, and they know that. You are not 
going to ever get an appropriate score, and that is the reason you have 
over 600 bills from the majority scored by CBO and just barely over 100 
scored that were Republican. Over 600 scored, and only about 100 were 
Republican.
  A former speaker told me when I described my health care alternative 
plan, he said, you got to get that scored. That could absolutely 
transform the debate over health care because it would save money and 
give control to patients. Medicare patients would have control over 
their own health care, yet it would be financed by the taxpayers. They 
have the best of both worlds. And yet it would be cheaper than what we 
are spending now. I could not for a year now, nearly a year now, have 
not been able to get CBO to score it. It is a travesty.
  But, oh, yes, we come back again to the military. We don't have time 
to do the jobs that the Constitution requires this body to do, but, 
boy, we sure are going to meddle with the greatest military mankind has 
ever seen or heard of. It is phenomenal.
  When I compare the state of the military right now to the way it was 
when I was in the Army after Vietnam, there is no comparison. This 
military today is phenomenal. They are incredible. And yet we found 
something that wasn't broken, and we decided to mess with it and see 
what we could do, not intentionally, of course, but this majority 
decided they were going to fix something that wasn't broken.
  ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' it was called. And what it meant when 
President Clinton instituted that program was that whatever you are 
drawn to sexually, you keep it private, you don't let it get out and 
become open with regard to your military service, and we want you in 
the military. That is what it comes down to.
  But that hasn't been good enough. We have too many people in here 
that did not have good history teachers. They don't know the lessons 
from history, and so we are destined to repeat them. And that is what 
we are doing now, we are repeating the lessons of history.
  Historians would have a hard time going back and finding any great 
nation, even to the earliest city states, that achieved greatness, and 
then toward the end of their existence they forced homosexuality to be 
accepted in areas like the military. Why have we not learned this? Why 
couldn't we let the military do their jobs?
  Frankly, with as much respect as I have for our majority leader, I 
was shocked in the debate over Don't Ask, Don't Tell to hear the 
Americans with Disabilities Act brought up, because I think most 
everybody on this floor agrees that the Americans with Disabilities Act 
that made this Nation accessible to so many wonderful people who just 
happened to have disabilities was a good thing. It really was a 
wonderful thing. It makes you feel good to know the accessibility that 
there is, and there continues to be, and there will be until the Nation 
is gone.
  So, why would we want to hasten the demise of this great Nation? Why 
would we want to mess with the entity that stands between those who 
want to destroy us and our homes?
  Well, we haven't had time to do a budget. We haven't had time to 
protect our homeland adequately by doing adequate oversight over the 
Minerals Management Service, or the Immigration Service, or Homeland 
Security or the Federal Reserve. No, no, no. We just let them run 
themselves basically.
  But, boy, we have found time to work on social engineering to please 
a political left in an election year, just so some people have their 
base happy when they come to November.

                              {time}  2330

  We're following the footsteps of nations that have walked to the dust 
heap of history.
  Now, I know people think this is such a grand and glorious job in 
Congress. They have no idea. But it is an honor and it is a privilege 
to get to serve in these hallowed Halls, and we owe our predecessors so 
much better than what we've done.
  We've had time to make sure that we continue to allow the unborn to 
be killed. We've had time to make sure that Federal tax dollars can be 
taken from taxpayers who believe that it's murder to kill a helpless, 
unborn child and put that into a health care bill and call it health 
care.
  We've had time to cut $500 billion from the health care for seniors.
  But we've learned nothing, apparently, about preserving liberty. As 
Chuck Colson said a little over a year ago in a Bible study: you have 
morality, you've got economic stability, and you've got liberty. And 
when you lose morality, you lose economic stability and you get 
economic chaos.
  Well, folks, we've lost economic stability because we've accepted the 
loss of morality. We've looked the other way when you had the Madoffs 
engorging themselves. We've looked the other way when the Paulsens and 
Geithners were seeing that their friends on Wall Street were enriched 
and engorged. We've looked the other way.
  We've looked the other way when the bankruptcy laws were just 
completely disregarded that required secured creditors to be protected 
and unsecured creditors to be on the short end of the stick, flipped 
the laws upside down because the unsecured creditors included the 
unions. So we give the unions ownership interest in the auto companies. 
We take a big ownership interest, and we violate some of the very 
principles on which this Nation was founded.
  And it doesn't matter whether it's a Democrat or a Republican 
President that says we're going to make money for the taxpayers. It's 
not their job; it's not the job of this Congress. It's the job of 
taxpayers to make money with their money, not this body and not the 
White House.
  And it was a shame on the Supreme Court when they allowed that auto 
task force, illegal, unconstitutional order to go through. Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg, to her credit, stayed it for 24 hours, and then the Court 
looked the other way and allowed that illegal, unconstitutional bill to 
go through, because, apparently, the White House convinced them that if 
they didn't let this illegal, unconstitutional bill go through, people 
in the auto industry would all lose their jobs. Hogwash. They would 
have been forced into reorganization. The union contracts would have 
had to have been renegotiated. It would have all gone through a 
reorganization process. It would have come out leaner, meaner, more 
efficient. But we couldn't allow that because there were political 
paybacks to those that helped the majority and the President get 
elected.
  There are some who've said maybe it's a good thing for us Republicans 
that the health care bill got passed because it was so harmful and 
detrimental to America that, gee, it'll help us get back in the 
majority.
  As I've said on this floor before, I'd rather stay in the minority 
than see a

[[Page 9714]]

bill that devastating to America, to the principles of private property 
and of sanctity of life just be frittered away. I'd rather stay in the 
minority than have my party helped by such a devastating bill.
  Didn't have time to do the right thing and all that. Didn't have time 
to read the stimulus bill--$787 billion. Didn't have time to read that. 
The ``crap and trade'' bill, didn't have time to really read that. We 
had 300 pages of amendments that were added in the wee hours of the 
morning when we were to vote on it; and even when we voted on it, as I 
pointed out, the Clerk hadn't even got the whole 300 pages enmeshed and 
included with the bill so you could read it and know what it really 
meant.
  But we had to pass it. We didn't have time to wait. We didn't have 
time for any of these important bills that will devastate America.
  But, boy, we have time to meddle with the United States military.
  We heard some isolated cases of someone who ended up having to leave 
the military because they couldn't control their sexual hormones to the 
point that they could keep their sexual orientation private.
  But what about the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people in 
the military who have now been betrayed?
  They were promised we're going to have a study, and we're going to 
make sure that we don't do anything to harm the military. But a little 
problem came up in this body keeping its promise to the military. That 
problem is the November election's coming up. And the problem is that 
some of the solid base, left wing of the majority were not happy. They 
didn't feel like enough had been done to suit them, and so we had to 
break our word to the military, rush this bill in here and eliminate 
Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
  But, oh, no, we heard from people that, gee, we're going to roll back 
Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Sure, of course we are. But we're going to wait 
until we find out what the study says about how devastating it'll be to 
the military.
  Yes, the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff both said they would follow the order of their superior officer, 
the Commander in Chief. But those who were not politically appointed by 
the Commander in Chief sure didn't go along with it. They didn't agree 
to it. You'd find a commander every now and then that would. But we 
have hundreds of thousands and millions of people who have served, who 
hope to serve, who are serving now that we have betrayed. And it breaks 
my heart. I'm so sorry that this body broke its word for political 
gain.
  Now, under the scenario this majority and this administration have 
pursued, we're in trouble.

                              {time}  2340

  The one thing you find historically after Nations on their way to the 
dust heap of history take after passing things like we just did today, 
you see a great deal of cockiness arise to belittle those who have 
studied history and know where this all goes. And we seek to destroy 
them.
  When this Nation was founded, one of the most popular slogans, some 
quote Cicero, some quote Voltaire, but the same slogan, ``I disagree 
with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say 
it.'' We have obliterated that as a hallmark of this Nation's founding 
and its existence today so that now the slogan is more truthfully, I 
disagree with what you say, and I am going to destroy you. I am going 
to get you fired. I am hoping I can get you put in jail.
  We have passed laws in this body that will help do that and have 
already allowed arrests of some, even though, as was pointed out, well, 
they dropped the charges. Putting people in jail because we disagree 
with what they say. So we don't defend to the death any longer their 
right to say it. We want to destroy them. And the people in power will 
make sure that happens. You disagree politically with the party in 
power, you have a right to be concerned.
  We didn't have time to do a budget; we didn't have time to read these 
big bills that we have run through and voted on, but we have had time 
to take over the student loan business. That's right. If you need 
student loans for your children, Mr. Speaker, those in America to get 
their kids through college, as my wife and I have because we gave up 
the private sector and went into public service, we needed student 
loans and we took them. Thank God I got our kids through college, was 
at graduation of my youngest Saturday with my wife, a proud moment. 
Thank goodness we got her graduated before the only source for a 
student loan was to come begging to the government to let me have a 
loan for my child to go to college.
  You think politics could ever come into play in who gets a student 
loan and who doesn't? Gee, it sure came into play in who got to keep 
their car dealership. Gee, it sure came to play as to which States get 
more government facilities taken away and which have more facilities 
added. It's certainly come into play in all kinds of things. So why 
wouldn't it come into play eventually in who gets a student loan?
  Now we have taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You would think if 
it were somebody serious in leadership about reforming the financial 
sector that we would first reform the two entities that brought this 
Nation to the brink of ruin, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But instead, 
we are not going to reform them. Goodness no. We are going to make 
matters worse because we are going to give the government even more 
power and more control over everyone's financial situation.
  Certainly part of the health care bill. Yes, sir, we get to now tell 
you what private products you buy and can't buy. This is a time of 
tragedy. I realize that we have been less than moral as a Nation and we 
are paying a price. I realize that when you begin to kill 10 million, 
20 million, 30 million, 40 million, 50 million sweet little innocent 
babies--I know our first was prematurely born, and she held onto my 
finger for hours as the doctor said, ``She's drawing life, she's 
drawing support from you.'' Those sweet little innocent children. We 
have supported their being killed.
  And as I was at the Lincoln Memorial a couple of weeks ago again--I 
try to go regularly. I find it inspirational. Reading those words on 
the inside north wall of the Lincoln Memorial and think about the 
unborn being killed, the sweet, innocent children doing anything they 
could to cling to life. My baby could not see, as the doctor said, but 
she knew enough to hang on. She wanted to live. She struggled to live. 
And I love her dearly, and I am proud she is my daughter.
  And as I read those words on the north wall, I thought about all the 
shed blood through the death of innocent children. And the words of 
Abraham Lincoln were these as he tried to make sense of the destruction 
and the almost complete destruction of this grand experiment in 
democracy, and how families could fight families and kill family 
members, how a Nation could turn against itself. But they had been 
allowing the unthinkable. They had been allowing slavery. They had been 
allowing brothers and sisters to treat others by putting them in chains 
and bondage and outrageous treatment.
  And as Lincoln sought to make theological sense of it and he thought 
about the North and South and the destruction of each other, he said, 
you know, ``Both read the same Bible, both pray to the same God, and 
each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any 
men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread 
from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be 
not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither 
has been fully answered. The Almighty has his own purposes.''
  Lincoln adds as a quote from Scripture, quote, ``Woe unto the world 
because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe 
to that man by whom the offense cometh.'' Lincoln went on, ``If we 
shall suppose that American slavery,'' or nowadays American abortion, 
``is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs 
come, but which, having continued through His appointed time,

[[Page 9715]]

He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this 
terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we 
discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the 
believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, 
fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war,'' and I would 
pray abortion, ``may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it 
continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of 
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and every drop of blood drawn with the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 
years ago, so still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true 
and righteous altogether.'
  ``With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the 
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the 
work we are in; to bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do 
all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among 
ourselves, and with all Nations.''
  Lincoln knew about sacrifice. He lost a son. He believed it was 
punishment for not ending slavery more quickly. I don't know what the 
future holds, but I know what has happened to Nations when they have 
pursued the exact course that we have in the last 20 years in this 
Nation.

                              {time}  2350

  We need to get on track because, as Coulson said, When you lose 
morality, you get economic chaos. And when you get economic chaos, you 
get those who are always willing to sacrifice liberty to get economic 
stability. No greater example than Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. They 
had a little guy with a mustache who was evil who promised economic 
stability. And he delivered it at the price of their liberty.
  It is time to stop the madness. It's time to stop passing bills that 
have not been read. It's time to stop meddling with the greatest 
military that the world has ever known and trying to disrupt it by our 
own social engineering. I couldn't believe I heard the majority leader 
bring up the Americans With Disabilities Act in the context of talking 
about open homosexuality in the military.
  So immediately I am thinking, what does that mean? We did a wonderful 
thing when Congress passed the Americans With Disabilities Act, but 
does that mean next this body is going to force the military to accept 
the disabled on the front lines? We're going to have to make--as a 
former prisoner of war said, What, are we going to make our ejection 
seats wheelchairs so that they roll when they hit?
  The military has one purpose, and we need able-bodied people to do 
it. And we need nothing that detracts from their military mission. It's 
not a place for social engineering. It's a place for people with 
single-mindedness, single focus, to be on the military mission, to 
prevent those who would destroy this country and our freedoms from 
being successful. And if someone can't control their sexual hormones, 
then that's a distraction to the military no matter what gender, what 
sexual orientation. It's a problem.
  Don't destroy the military that has been the greatest its ever been.
  This still has to pass the Senate, but we haven't seen a great deal 
of courage on this issue down the hall, and there may be those down 
there who believe that it will help with the next election. I'm telling 
you again I'd rather stay in the minority than have things like this 
that hurt our country and hurt the chances of its survival.
  Let's do the right thing. We didn't do it today. And it breaks my 
heart to hear the applause over the fact that we broke our word to the 
military who trusted us.
  So it is with a very deep, broken heart, Mr. Speaker, I yield back 
the balance of my time.

                          ____________________