[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17623-17626]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we are living in interesting times. As I 
understand it, that's a bit of a Chinese curse: May you live in 
interesting times. Well, we're here, not exactly as perhaps the 
Founders would have hoped, where we would have an executive branch that 
just declares, without consulting Congress, that he's going to commit 
American military to an action without knowing really who he's helping 
in Libya, without knowing exactly what's going to happen once we finish 
helping them, and without knowing just how much we're going to suffer 
and just how much our closest allies, like Israel, are going to suffer 
after this President unilaterally, without consulting Congress, commits 
our most valuable asset, American lives, not to mention the Treasury 
and American equipment.
  For those who have ears and those who have eyes, they understand that 
when the President says, Oh, but we're not to worry, eventually we'll 
turn it over to NATO, and then has a grandiose announcement we're 
turning it over to NATO, that actually the United States military is 65 
percent of NATO's military, because there's supposed to be a regular 
order to things. And, in fact, Republicans ran last year saying we're 
going to get back to regular order. One of the things we went through 
for the preceding 4 years with the Democratic majority and Speaker 
Pelosi in charge was the Democratic majority came to the House floor 
over and over with bills that had not gone through committee process, 
and then they were brought to the floor with no opportunity to make any 
amendments whatsoever.
  Well, one of the things we have done this year, we've had lots of 
amendments. We've had an incredibly open process on the floor compared 
to what had happened the preceding 4 years when there were more closed 
rules than there had been in the history of the country, meaning no 
input, basically shutting out almost half of America that Republicans 
represented. It was ``our way and no highway.'' That's not the way 
regular order was supposed to go.
  And we were assured by our own leadership, of course, that, once we 
had the majority, it was back to regular order. And then over and over, 
big things had to be dealt with. Not that they couldn't have been 
foreseen. It could be reasonably foreseen that a continuing resolution 
was going to have to occur. And lo and behold, it came upon us in the 
spring as if it had never been contemplated, and we were told there was 
no time for regular order on these things. We just have to do it. Can't 
have amendments. Can't cut off funding for ObamaCare even though we cut 
off funding for some other things that otherwise would be considered 
legislating; but since it was part of the bill as it came directly from 
committee, we were told it was okay. So the Rules Committee waived any 
point of order objections. Now, that's inside baseball; but the bottom 
line is, even though we have done a better job of allowing amendments 
here on the floor, we still haven't gotten back to regular order. We 
have gone from one crisis to another crisis and have had to tell 
America, gee, this is another crisis so we don't have time to go 
through regular order.

[[Page 17624]]

  As I understand it, tomorrow most likely, possibly Friday, we're 
going to have a balanced budget amendment brought to the floor. It was 
part of the debt ceiling agreement that was negotiated the end of July, 
the end of the summer session before the August recess. We were going 
to have a vote on a balanced budget amendment, but there was no 
specification as to what balanced budget amendment it would be.
  Well, along the lines of the so-called regular order, we have had a 
balanced budget amendment. We've had hearings on it. We've had it 
marked up out of subcommittee, committee, and it came to the full 
Judiciary Committee and we had a long, protracted markup. In other 
words, markup is simply the hearing where anybody can bring any 
amendment and we have debate, full debate, and anybody on the committee 
who has any amendment they want to bring to that bill, they can bring 
it to the bill. That's regular order. We had that in committee on the 
balanced budget amendment. And our good friend from Virginia who has 
been such a long-suffering valiant warrior for a balanced budget 
amendment, it was his bill, House Joint Resolution 1.

                              {time}  2100

  I had an amendment to that resolution that actually changed the cap 
on spending from 20 percent of gross domestic product to a cap of 18 
percent of the gross domestic product, and that amendment passed.
  That's regular order. That's how you do it. Some of us had amendments 
that didn't get passed, but we still had the chance to bring them to 
speak on them, debate on them, have every other Member on the committee 
who wished to speak on every amendment be heard. Those things make for 
long, drawn-out hearings, and that's what we had. That's called regular 
order. That's because everybody who is involved can have input. And 
that's what we had.
  After that long, protracted process, we voted out of committee, 
affirmatively bringing out of committee, voting out of committee with a 
majority of those on the committee voting for the ultimate product. 
After that long, arduous debate and voting process, we voted out of 
committee a balanced budget amendment.
  Now I'm given to understand the Rules Committee has taken up a 
different balanced budget amendment, and we're told we didn't need to 
go through regular order for that. We're bringing a balanced budget 
amendment that did not come out of committee and that was not voted out 
of committee.
  And, gee whiz, it reminds me a great deal of the outlandish hearings 
that the Energy and Commerce Committee had when they came forth with a 
1,000-page health care bill in the last Congress. And there was a lot 
of strong-handedness that brought that bill out of committee, and it 
was clear from the polls that that was not what America wanted. But, 
then, by the time Speaker Pelosi, Leader Reid down the Hall, and 
President Obama had their say, that 1,000-page bill that was voted out 
of committee turned into, ultimately, a 2,000-page bill.
  And that came to the floor not under regular order, because it just 
appeared. Nobody knew who had written it. But when we took the 
majority, we were going to do better. America would be able to see the 
debates, listen to the debates, see who was taking what position, see 
who was pushing what amendments, see what got voted out of committee 
and would have some confidence that that would be what would come to 
the floor.
  Well, this week we're going to take up a balanced budget amendment 
that didn't come out of committee, but we're told we've got to vote for 
it because it's another crisis. We've got to. It doesn't have a 
spending cap on it, not even the 20 percent of GDP that was amended 
down to 18 percent--none of that. Regular order would mean that we 
bring something to the floor that was voted out of committee.
  At some point, we have got to get back to regular order which was 
promised to the American people if they would put us back in charge. 
And it's good politically for both parties because each side gets to 
show in committee and here on the floor what amendments they're pushing 
for. They pushed for them in committee and pushed for them here on the 
floor. So by the time a law gets passed, it's been fully debated and 
talked about.
  That was one of the problems with the last majority. They were 
shoving bills down our throats, down America's throats, without any 
real debate. And that's how you could get a comment from a Speaker 
like, gee, we've got to pass the bill to find out what's in it. That's 
because it never went through a subcommittee process, a committee 
process, came to the floor without full and open amendment debates. No, 
we just bypassed all that.
  And one of the things that has hurt this country and has hurt this 
Congress is we haven't gotten back to regular order like we were 
supposed to. We've done a lot better, a whole lot better, because of 
all the amendment debate. But we haven't gotten back to regular order.
  So we're going to bring a balanced budget amendment to the floor 
that's different from the one that was fully debated, have a full 
opportunity for amendment at committee; but we're not going to have 
that opportunity on the floor. No, sir, not going to have it. We're 
told we can't have a spending cap in the one we're going to have on the 
floor. Why? Well, not because the committee voted it down--they didn't; 
not because the body voted not to have it here in Congress, but because 
we're told that what came out of committee cannot be what comes to the 
floor.
  I recall people previously saying that regular order makes for better 
law and allows the House to work its will. Well, how is it that we're 
not going to be taking up the balanced budget amendment that came out 
of committee? That's regular order. That's the House working its will. 
What staff member decided that we weren't going to get to have a 
spending cap that we could debate and vote on?
  We know that staff members had a lot to do with ObamaCare, or the 
President's health care bill, because there's a provision in there that 
exempted the Speaker's staff from having to be under ObamaCare when all 
the rest of us were going to have to be under it, including Members. So 
you kind of figure they must have staff writing that one.
  Well, what staff member decided that we couldn't bring to the floor 
the balanced budget amendment that came through regular order out of 
committee? That balanced budget amendment was fully debated, a full 
opportunity to amend in committee, but regular order means we would 
have that same opportunity with the whole body here. Well, who was it, 
a staff member? Who was it that just decided we can't do what the body 
decided was the will of the committee and the will of the House? Who 
intervened? I really don't know.
  The right thing to do would be to bring the balanced budget amendment 
with the spending cap. Now, there were all kinds of amendments 
addressing the spending cap. Some folks didn't want it. They lost. 
There was the provision for a supermajority to raise taxes on that bill 
that was voted out of committee. Well, that's not in the balanced 
budget amendment. Why? I don't know why. We're told we're bringing to 
the floor a balanced budget amendment that appeared, and we didn't have 
anything to do with bringing it out of committee. We were told that 
we've got to pass this one because it's the only one that has a chance 
to pass, even though the Senate says they're going to bring it down, 
even though we've got Democratic leadership saying they're going to 
bring it down.
  If people on the other side of the aisle in the House and the 
majority in the Senate say they're going to bring it down, then why 
aren't we bringing to the floor a balanced budget amendment that a 
majority voted for and debated and amended and voted down amendments 
and passed it out to come to the floor in that order?
  How is it that we're trying, once again, in the House, as a majority, 
to strive to pass a bill to hit a mark that we think maybe there might 
be some chance that the Senate may pass as

[[Page 17625]]

well, when we're told that it's not everything we believe in, but we're 
not going to get everything we believe in because we're going to try to 
do something the Senate will do?

                              {time}  2110

  Well, if we've been told repeatedly that the Democrats are not going 
to assist, that the Senate is going to vote it down, then why not bring 
to this floor what we believe in our hearts as a majority ought to be 
passed?
  It's going to make it real confusing a year from now in November for 
voters when the Republican majority in the House is going to have to go 
back, as the Founders envisioned, and face our constituents, and even 
though we were in the majority, we didn't bring to the floor the things 
that we believed in; we brought to the floor things we were hoping 
maybe the Senate would agree to go along with.
  We're bringing to the floor what's called a minibus that's going to 
have some appropriations in it, but actually, it went through the 
conference process. Yet the underlying bill that passed out of the 
House was not a bill that a majority in the House really thought would 
be the best; it was a bill that we thought maybe the Senate would pass. 
So we compromised with ourselves in the majority in the House, thinking 
if we compromised with ourselves in the House that maybe the Senate 
would vote through just what we passed. But no, they didn't; they 
compromised with us further after we compromised with ourselves trying 
to hit the mark that we thought they would pass.
  So it goes to conference committee and we're further required to 
compromise with ourselves. What was the sense of that? And now we have 
to vote on a bill, an appropriations bill where we didn't even start 
out hitting the mark we thought was best, but, rather, hitting the mark 
that we thought, gee, maybe the Senate would pass? It's going to be 
confusing to voters because we're going to say, Here are the things we 
believe in, next year in November, and they're going to say, Why didn't 
you pass that? And apparently the response is supposed to be, Well, 
because we were trying to pass something we thought the Senate would 
pass. And the voters are going to respond, Well, what about the 
principle you told us in November of 2010 you were going to stand on?
  And unless we get back to the regular order in this body, we're going 
to be in trouble, because we need to be able to show the voters in 
America we passed in the House what we believed with all our hearts was 
best for America. We were going to cut spending, so we cut spending. We 
cut over $4 trillion over 10 years. We ought to be able to tell the 
American public that, but instead we have to tell them, Well, no, we 
were trying to hit a mark that wasn't too high because we were hoping 
the Senate would just pass it without the need for a conference. That's 
why it will be confusing to voters, Well, I know you're saying that you 
believed in those things, but that's not what you passed.
  It's time to start passing what we as the majority in the House 
believe is right and force the Senate to pass what they think is right. 
The big giveaway spending bills, force them to pass those. Don't come 
down here and compromise with ourselves and have a spending bill that 
we think--even though it spends more than we think is appropriate--we 
think, gee, maybe the Senate will go along because that looks to the 
American public like we're just like the Democratic-controlled Senate. 
But if we stand firm on principle in this body and we say, Here's what 
we believe in; here's what went through regular order; here's what was 
passed out of the Judiciary Committee; here's the balanced budget 
amendment, and we took it to the floor and we have wide open 
amendments, wide open debates, the American public could see this body 
at work, and we would pass what we believe is right for America and 
then force the Senate to pass what they believe is right for America 
and not continue to give the Democrat majority--who want to spend like 
crazy--in the Senate, we keep giving them cover because we won't stand 
on what we believe and pass that here in the House. That's what we 
ought to be doing.
  And that balanced budget amendment ought to be the one that came out 
of the Judiciary Committee. It ought to have a spending cap. It ought 
to have a supermajority in order to raise taxes. That was on that bill. 
Oh, it was debated. There were efforts to strike that part out. There 
were a lot of amendments--some to strike things like that out, some to 
put other things in, some to make it weak. But we fought those off 
successfully in committee and we came out of committee with a good, 
strong balanced budget amendment, and that's what ought to come to the 
floor, not the weak-kneed one we're going to get. Because a balanced 
budget amendment with no cap on spending unfortunately looks like a 
prescription for spiraling-upward taxes; because we've seen even with a 
conservative majority in the House, it's just tough to cut spending 
because we're told we've got to spend to get the Senate to go along 
with these bills.
  It's time to take the tough stands. America's in trouble. It's in big 
trouble. And as we fight these battles, it doesn't help to have people 
jumping on a bandwagon that really wasn't the bandwagon they showed 
themselves to really believe in previously. And by that, I'm talking 
about Secretary Panetta, Secretary of Defense. He wrote this scathing 
letter talking about how if the sequestration occurs, hundreds of 
billions are cut from defense, it could mean the loss of--I believe it 
was a couple hundred million of our military, which is a little ironic 
coming from the current Secretary of Defense, because the people on 
this side of the aisle believe in a strong defense. We all believe that 
it is our number one job to provide for the common defense, because if 
we don't do that, all these other things just go away and we're 
overtaken by people that want to bring down our way of life.
  But if you look to what Secretary Panetta was participating in back 
in the Clinton administration, you get a little better look at what 
really was believed at the time. You know, we've had President Clinton 
and those touting his time as President claiming, gee, he's the one 
President that actually cut the Federal workforce. No, he didn't. He 
cut the military. He didn't cut the Federal workforce. He cut the 
military. That's the only area he cut. And we paid a massive price 
after 9/11 because we had to gear back up because we once again found 
having a strong defense is important. Reagan tried to warn us about 
that. He said people don't get attacked because they're perceived as 
being too strong. They get attacked when people perceive them as being 
weak. And that's how we were perceived.
  But let's see, in January of 1993, when now-Secretary of Defense 
Panetta started as a part of the Clinton administration, there were 
1,761,481 members of the United States military. In July of 1994, 
Secretary Panetta started as the Chief of Staff for President Clinton, 
and that continued through January of 1997. So let's take a look. From 
the time Secretary Panetta started as a part of the Clinton 
administration, we went from 1,761,481 members of the military to, in 
January of '97 when he left the Clinton administration, 1,457,413 
members. That's a 304,068 drop in members of the military while he was 
part of the Clinton administration. Seems to fall a little bit on deaf 
ears when you have a Secretary crying about cuts to the military when 
he presided over a far more draconian cut to that same military when he 
was in charge or was part of the Clinton administration.

                              {time}  2120

  The problem is, we can't afford massive cuts to our defense. And at 
the very time they're okay with that, the President goes down to 
Australia and says we're going to commit some troops down here too. 
We've got troops this President's committing all over the place, 
without any regard, like in Libya or Egypt, to the outcome of what is 
being done, what's going to happen at the end. And we're going to pay a 
severe price.
  We need to stand for a solid defense. And if we get back to a regular 
order in

[[Page 17626]]

this body, where things are voted out of subcommittee, after full 
chance to amend, voted out of the full committee, with full chance to 
amend and debate, brought to the floor as they come out of committee, 
and fully debated, and fully amended here on the floor, America will 
see who stands for what, and it will be easier for the voters in the 
next election, and it will be easier for all of us to tell what it is 
the American voters are wanting because they will have had a clear view 
of just exactly what they're getting.
  I really enjoyed Mark Levin's book, Liberty and Tyranny. I think it 
ought to be a textbook. Let me just finish with this quote from Ronald 
Reagan that Mark puts in his book:

       How can limited government and fiscal restraint be equated 
     with lack of compassion for the poor? How can a tax break 
     that puts a little more money in the weekly paychecks of 
     working people be seen as an attack on the needy? Since when 
     do we in America believe that our society is made up of two 
     diametrically opposed classes, one rich, one poor, both in a 
     permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead 
     except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in 
     America accept the alien and discredited theory of social and 
     class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the 
     politics of envy and division?

  That's what the President's preaching right now. It needs to stop. 
It's time to provide for the common defense, get back to regular order 
in this body, and the country will be better off for it.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________