[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14164]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
  It's always an honor and privilege to speak in this body. There has 
just been so much information about the American Jobs Act that the 
President has touted that he demanded that we pass here in this room, 
and at the time he had no American Jobs Act.
  The next day, Friday, he had spent millions of dollars, taxpayer 
dollars, running around the country demanding that people pass his 
bill. On Saturday, the same thing, all weekend, running around telling 
people to pass his American Jobs Act when there was no such bill.
  Monday afternoon, very late, there became a bill. It's hard to 
believe that this is what came out of the White House because it does 
not represent what the President said he wanted to do, said he believed 
in. I'm sure he doesn't have time to go through and actually read and 
see that the things he's saying in his speech are completely opposite 
of what he's doing in his so-called American Jobs Act, but that's why, 
after 6 days of being beat up verbally by the President for not passing 
his American Jobs Act and finding that there was no such American Jobs 
Act on file here in the House, I felt like I needed to help the 
President by creating an American Jobs Act that really will create 
jobs. So I filed a two-page American Jobs Act that will do more than 
anything the President has talked about or put in writing to create 
jobs in America.
  But just since the President is obviously not aware of what's 
actually in his bill based on what he's saying, in the limited time we 
have here, I wanted to touch on some of these things.
  For example, the President said over and over and over that he wants 
to go after these greedy, big oil companies like British Petroleum, 
Exxon, Shell, those big companies, and that his American Jobs Act, his 
bill, actually will do that. It will go after their profits. He 
probably has no clue that the fact is the three pages of deductions 
that are eliminated for oil companies, they're basically for oil 
companies that produce less than a thousand barrels of oil a day. They 
don't even apply to the people that the President says he's going after 
for these unseemly profits they're making.
  I'm sure he's also not aware, but the fact is that over 94 percent of 
all oil and gas wells drilled on the continental U.S. are done by 
independent oil producers who these three pages will devastate and put 
most out of business. And so the President, by these three pages, that 
I'm sure he doesn't really understand what they do, but the fact is 
they'll put the independent oil producers out of business.
  They will affect the major oil companies because once over 94 percent 
of all oil and gas wells in America and the continental U.S. are 
stopped, then the major oil companies that he's demonized will actually 
make more money than they've ever made in their history, and it will be 
the middle hardworking Americans that will pay the biggest price. 
They're the least able to afford dramatically higher gasoline prices, 
but that's what will happen.
  We are also told that we're going to go after the millionaires and 
billionaires that have all this money and not paying their fair share. 
Now, to me, if we're going to make sure everybody pays their fair 
share, and you've got somebody like Warren Buffett that pays a 15 
percent capital gains tax, why don't we make everybody's tax 15 
percent? Everybody in America ought to have some financial interest in 
seeing this government is accountable. That's what should happen.
  Instead, at pages 134 and 135 of his bill--and, again, it has to be 
filed in the House because it's a revenue-raising bill and under the 
Constitution he'll have to start here--it's not on file. There hasn't 
been one Democrat willing to file this disaster of a bill that the 
President is out there beating us up over. Actually, he's just saying 
pass the American Jobs Act, which is my two-page bill that really will 
create jobs.

                              {time}  1110

  But people need to know, Madam Speaker, that the definition in here 
apparently of a millionaire and billionaire is anybody who's married 
and makes over $125,000 a year. For some of us, $125,000 a year is not 
a millionaire or billionaire or gazillionaire. This is somebody who is 
paying taxes. They're paying their fair share. They're paying over 30 
percent of their income in taxes. Well, why shouldn't we just say, all 
right, ultra-rich like Warren Buffett, quit fighting not to pay the 
billions of dollars you already owe in taxes, just write the check.
  I think if people will go read the President's bill, they will find 
out we need to pass the American Jobs Act that's on file with the 
House. That's my bill.

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