[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5121-5124]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    A VOICE NO LONGER--SURRENDERING THE ROLES AND RIGHTS OF CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I rise today to address the House on issues that all of us may not be 
paying attention to but that all of us should feel are extraordinarily 
important. We have at this time in our Nation's history eased into 
constitutional concerns for our future. Those constitutional concerns 
arise in many different areas.
  For instance, you might not be aware of it, but there is a policy to 
establish different things which Congress is supposed to establish. 
Yet, right now, agencies are taking over those responsibilities, 
agencies that are taking away the roles and the rights of this 
Congress. What that means to our citizens who vote is that they will 
not have a voice any longer in the policies of the United States. If 
they don't have access to unelected bureaucrats, they are not able to 
effect policy that comes from agencies because they can't elect or 
unelect those people. In the House of Representatives and the Senate, 
we are surrendering that capability to pass legislation.
  A good example is that the Forest Service is closing roads in forests 
across the country. They are declaring these roadless rules that put 
off limits much of our Nation's forests. If you were to Google the 
words ``forest'' and ``roadless,'' you would find that all of the 
articles deal with killing and doing away with timber jobs. The people 
who are in the agencies have adopted an extreme point of view regarding 
jobs in this country. They do not want any timber to be harvested, so 
they declare what sounds to be a friendly policy of roadless rules, but 
the offshoot is that we have no timber industry. In New Mexico alone, 
which I represent, we used to have 20,000 jobs in the timber industry, 
and today we have zero.
  As we look at the problems of this Nation, we have to understand that 
the great pressure economically that we face is that our revenues to 
the government have diminished. That's because people are out of work. 
They're no longer receiving income and wages, and they're not paying 
taxes on those. So we're now at a deficit in our government where we're 
spending more than we bring in. Simultaneously, we're killing jobs in 
the forests.
  You could say, Well, we like the wilderness. We like roadless rules. 
Our government has a process by which this body and the Senate are 
supposed to declare the wilderness areas. Now, instead, the head of the 
Forest Service can actually just declare that those areas are going to 
be roadless. They are then made into de facto wildernesses, which shut 
down jobs. Even more, they shut down near access.
  Recently, the Forest Service decided they would simply declare 95 
percent of the Gila National Forest off limits because they're closing 
the roads. If you aren't able to backpack in 35 miles, then you 
probably will never see parts of this forest. When the law was passed, 
the forests were created for ``our enjoyment''--those are the words--
and then it was also to use the resources in the forests. So with an 
agency that is allowed now to establish these rules without 
congressional oversight, you would say, Aha, that's a constitutional 
thing that we should be a little bit concerned about.
  Simultaneous with that particular endeavor, there has then come along 
the wildlands. That's a policy just recently announced by Secretary 
Salazar. Secretary Salazar has created the wildlands policy that allows 
him to create a de facto wilderness in BLM lands. BLM lands are a 
source of great production of oil and gas. So for our voters, for the 
constituents, for the citizens of this country, they are seeing their 
gas prices now climb to $4, and we are limiting access to lands where 
that price could be diminished and lowered. We have an agency that is 
killing the jobs and putting off limits the drilling for oil and gas on 
American soil.

[[Page 5122]]

  I saw the President of the United States just recently travel to 
Brazil and encourage the oil and gas company there that is creating 
offshore jobs. While he is encouraging the leaders of Brazil to develop 
their offshore production, he is killing offshore production here. 
There is a disconnect that is causing great problems in our country. 
Those great problems in the country are basically this:
  Our Nation is faced with a $3.5 trillion budget, and we are bringing 
in $2.2 trillion. Now, you cannot live that way in your home. You 
cannot live with this kind of disparity in your home budget, and 
neither can the Federal Government. It doesn't work. It's not going to 
work. We are having to borrow the money. When we run a deficit--and you 
can do the math here--of 3.5 trillion spending and 2.2 revenue, and 
those are taxes paid by citizens and by corporations--that gives us a 
deficit of $1.3 trillion. As that deficit then is accumulated and as it 
goes into our debt barrel, we owe $15 trillion worth of debt. That's 
the black barrel you can see there.
  Since our Nation's inception, since George Washington, we've 
accumulated $15 trillion in debt. You can see the green sludge running 
over the barrel because we have actually more debt than we're willing 
to count in Washington, so we absolutely just quit counting at $15 
trillion. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the green sludge 
that has poured over the sludge of the barrel. We don't declare it as 
debt anymore. We are going to pay it; we owe it; we've made promises 
about it, so we just don't talk about it. It's so uncomfortable and 
it's so large. That's $202 trillion we owe. We call that now the 
``fiscal gap.'' That's the difference between what we're bringing in 
and what we owe, $202 trillion. That's 100 years' worth of revenue. 
That's 100 years to pay off what we have made promises for.
  The U.S. Government is making promises for things that it cannot do. 
It is paying out money that it does not have, and it's doing it all on 
credit. The credit, itself, would be alarming enough except now there 
is a small wrinkle that's developing here. If you were running this 
sort of deficit and debt in your home, your banker would come to you 
and knock on the door and say, We need to visit. This is not 
sustainable. It's not workable.
  Our banker is called China and Japan. They buy Treasury bills. Those 
Treasury bills are the way that our government borrows money to fund 
this deficit. As you have seen with the recent problems in Japan, Japan 
will not be buying Treasury bills from us anytime in the near future.
  Also, China twice in the last year has knocked on the door and said, 
We really are alarmed at what you're doing here. We're alarmed at this 
situation. We're alarmed that you're taking on more debt than you can 
pay out ever--ever--and we're afraid that your currency is not going to 
sustain itself. So when the Premier of China recently visited the White 
House about 3 weeks ago, you might have heard him say--maybe you missed 
it--that they're concerned about the currency. Since they're concerned 
about the currency, they do what your banker would do to you. They 
simply say, We're not going to lend you any more money. We're not going 
to do this anymore.

                              {time}  1510

  Now, then, we're in real trouble. But our government again, working 
outside the Constitution, is printing money to make up the difference 
for what we can't borrow overseas. So the Federal Reserve is in the 
process of buying the debt for the U.S. We here in Washington give the 
Federal Reserve money, and then they turn around and they lend the 
money back on this hand. Now, that would be cool if you could do it for 
long, and we all dream of the situation where we have an unlimited 
supply of money coming to us where we can lend it here and borrow it 
here, and that is what we are doing to ourselves.
  This entire sequence, then, is made complete if you look at the chart 
in the upper right-hand corner, and we see that the whole game fails. 
Just as the Soviet Union collapsed economically, President Reagan 
viewed that if he could cause them to spend more than they brought in, 
he could collapse their economy. President Reagan assisted and helped, 
with the rest of the world, in the collapsing of the Soviet economy and 
the ultimate collapse of that entire country, the breakup of the Soviet 
Union.
  And so now, then, we are doing it to ourselves. We are making those 
promises that we cannot keep. We're killing jobs that should not be 
killed on behalf of roadless rules and on wilderness, and we are 
accomplishing the funding of a government by the Federal Reserve which 
has basically no oversight by Congress. So you, as citizens and 
taxpayers, contemplate what that means for you.
  When the government prints money, it begins to devalue the currency 
that you have in your pocket. If you have $100 in your pocket and the 
government prints $2.6 trillion, let's say, then the money in your 
pocket becomes worthless. That is: We have not created any more wealth 
in the country; all we created is more paper money. It's like in the 
Monopoly games when you suddenly start getting more and more 
properties, you know that is Monopoly. Well, this has become Monopoly 
money that our government is doing here.
  You will notice, if you're watching, that the price of food is going 
up both in this Nation and worldwide. In fact, many of the disruptions 
in other countries--Egypt, Libya, other countries in Africa--those 
disruptions were caused by the shortages of food, and people were 
suddenly finding that the cost of food was outside their reach. All of 
us are going to demonstrate in the streets when we are not able to feed 
our kids, and that's what is happening there. The price of food is 
escalating because they're doing the same thing. They're living on 
borrowed money. They're living on money that no longer is available, 
and so they begin to print it. You're seeing the price of gasoline rise 
to $4 a gallon. It's not because gasoline is worth more to you today 
than yesterday. It's that the dollars in your pocket are worth less.
  Vegetables to you have no greater value today than yesterday. It's 
that the dollars in your pocket have less value, so it takes more of 
them to buy the food. The price of gold and silver are going up, 
skyrocketing. That's not because silver is used for any more 
manufacturing today than last week or the week before. It's because the 
dollars in your pocket have become worth less because we're doing this, 
because we're spending almost twice what we make, because we have a 
deficit each year of over $1 trillion. It's going into an accumulated 
debt that we owe long term, and to solve the problem our government is 
printing money.
  Now, you could object to it, but you can't object to anyone that 
listens, which takes us right back to the Constitution. The 
Constitution is very clear on who should create the money and the value 
of money. The Congress ceded that authority away, and when it ceded 
that authority away, they gave away the responsibility, then we have no 
control over it. There is no process by which I can ask Mr. Bernanke, 
Please, don't keep buying this debt.
  This is taking away savings accounts for our seniors. This is taking 
away the ability for families to make ends meet. This printing of money 
is sustaining a problem that is not sustainable, and it's making 
believe that we can make it work and just passing the buck down the 
road one more week, one more month, one more year.
  The real sadness is that if we begin to do the things that are within 
our reach, if we simply begin to allow the cutting of timber--and I do 
not diminish the need to protect our environment one bit. I don't think 
we should clear-cut. I don't think that the spotted owl should be 
allowed to go extinct, but I do believe that we should create jobs and 
simultaneously protect our environment and simultaneously protect the 
species.
  It's a false choice that we've been given the last 30 or 40 years 
that says you've got to give up the jobs in order to protect the 
species. That's management of our entire country for a single species. 
I think that's a mistake. That mistake is playing out here as we export 
jobs overseas that traditionally

[[Page 5123]]

would have been here in this country. Oil and gas production is one. 
Timber production is another. If you read the quote above me, Daniel 
Webster, on the wall above us said, ``Let us develop the resources of 
our land.'' That's a quote that is here on the wall of this House. They 
are visualizing, in an earlier period in our history, that our great 
resources are there to be developed, and that's what will make us jobs. 
That's what will make us be able to have homes, be able to move into 
new forms of transportation.
  Whatever this country has done has been available because we had jobs 
and we had economic status in the country. And yet some believe that 
that economy should be diminished and given away around the world. I 
don't believe that we should average our standard of living down to the 
rest of the world. I believe that we should average the rest of the 
world's standard of living up toward ours.
  But if we were simply to create jobs, then a magic thing happens--
it's not magic at all. But every person that comes off of unemployment 
does not receive these government checks; instead, they're down here 
making a wage and paying taxes. So every time we hire one more person 
incrementally, we decrease the amount that our government is spending, 
and we increase the amount that our government is taking in. So 
employment, the creation of jobs, is not sort of a random possibility 
for us. It is an absolute necessity if we're to avoid this breakup of 
our economy that's projected down the road because of the way that 
we're living now.
  The Constitution is the agreement between the people and the 
government. Our Founding Fathers came from Europe where they were 
living under monarchies. Our Founding Fathers came from Europe where 
they had seen the excesses. They had seen the monarchies rule every 
single aspect of their lives. When they got to this country, they were 
fearful of a government that was too strong, so they visualized this 
contract called our Constitution between the people and the government. 
The purpose of that contract was to keep the government in check, to 
keep the government's powers limited and small and to increase the 
powers of the individual that gave us the liberties that we have so 
well trumpeted and used as a guiding light for the rest of the world.
  Liberty and freedom are the great assets of this country. It's not 
our wealth. It's not the houses that we live in. It's the ability to 
choose for ourselves. That is what our Founding Fathers wanted to 
protect in this contract called the Constitution, and that is what 
right now in Washington agencies are walking past that Constitution as 
if it has no meaning. When it has no meaning, the individual, the 
voter, the person who just goes to work every day begins to have less 
and less rights and the government begins to take more and more rights 
away from them.
  We see an alarming case in the issue of Libya. Now, I don't support 
Colonel Qadhafi at all in his reign, in his service, but I do wonder 
about a nation that will step aside from the rule of law and take the 
fight to Libya.
  We have, in this country, an act called the War Powers Act, which 
describes circumstances that say there are issues when a President 
might be able to want to commit troops. But our Constitution doesn't 
quite give him the right without congressional approval, but we're 
going to allow it in certain instances and then he can come back to 
Congress for approval.
  Just last week, we heard the administration, Secretary Clinton came 
and addressed Members of this body, and Secretary Clinton said that 
they had fully complied with the War Powers Act. Now, that's untrue 
because there are three very definite requirements for the War Powers 
Act, and we're not facing any of those. There were no U.S. soldiers 
that were attacked.
  The President said, with all respect, that this country is different. 
Well, this country is different because we have a rule of law and we 
have a Constitution, and we abide by it and we transport freedom. And 
when we begin to walk away from that freedom, then we walk away from 
the essence of the country.
  So he committed troops from the U.S. into actions in Libya with no 
clear and apparent reason, with no constitutional basis for doing it, 
and even the rule of law was simply ignored.

                              {time}  1520

  If they were using the War Powers agreement, which Secretary Clinton 
said that they were, in order to justify this action, then the War 
Powers Act actually says that they should come to Congress within 60 to 
90 days, 60 days under one circumstance, but we could extend it for 
another 30. She said they have no intention of coming for a 60-day 
authority, that they are well within their rights to accomplish the 
actions.
  So by itself, it would be alarming, but when you put it into context 
of agencies who are willing to create de facto wilderness and the 
roadless rules of our forests, the agencies that are willing to say we 
are going to create wildlands, that is de facto wilderness, without 
congressional approval in the BLM, and now we're going to go to war 
without complying with the Constitution or with the laws that are on 
the books of the land, now then that should be an alarming trend no 
matter which party you're in. Now, then, this is about America and that 
essential agreement between the people and the government called the 
Constitution.
  The rule of law is what differentiates this country from other 
countries. The rule of law is what protects the rights of citizens. The 
rule of law is the essence of what made this Nation great because the 
government can not come in and take private property from individual 
citizens. They can't just go out on their own and begin to make rules. 
And yet that's what we're finding is happening at an alarming trend 
right now.
  The downside to all of that is economic. You can say, Well, I'm not 
much interested in all of that constitutional stuff and the Founding 
Fathers. That might be possible. But you cannot ignore what is going on 
in the personal lives of individuals right now struggling with the 
economic situation that is cast on them by decades of spending in 
Washington that is beyond our ability to sustain.
  If we're to look at this debt, this $15 trillion in the barrel, it's 
instructive for us to consider how that debt originated. You could take 
the time from George Washington up to President Bush and we 
accumulated, you can say that we basically accrued about a $5 trillion 
debt in that whole period of time from George Washington up until 
President Bush, II was sworn in.
  President Bush, II, with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and Katrina 
and those problems, ran up about $5 trillion in his time in office. So 
almost the equivalent in 8 years to what we had done from the founding 
of the country. But then in the 2\1/2\ years since President Obama came 
in, we've now bumped it up almost another $5 trillion.
  So we see that this filling of the debt barrel is now accumulating at 
a much more rapid pace, which simply means that our economy is going to 
fail at a period closer to us, not one further away from us.
  And all the while, Americans are saying, How does the Constitution 
affect this? The Constitution affects that because we're seeing 
different industries simply sent to other countries because it's too 
hard to do business in this country anymore. We make it against the 
law. We make the regulations too high. We make the circumstances too 
difficult. People would say, Now, in what ways do we make the 
circumstances too difficult?
  One way that we should be creating jobs right now would be the 
medical field. Baby boomers are moving to retirement. Retirement is a 
very expensive age in anyone's life. And retirees are very expensive 
for governments to attend to. So baby boomers are moving to that area 
very quickly. They should be demanding tremendous amounts of medical 
service. And yet we find that those jobs that should be created in the 
medical field are frozen in place, unable to move forward because of 
uncertainty. And so rational people would say, What uncertainty?

[[Page 5124]]

  That then leads us to another chart that shows the ability of 
government to make life more complex.
  This is the medical system now since the passage of ObamaCare, since 
the passage of that 2,200-page bill. It created new agencies, new 
institutions. You can consider yourself at one end of the chart and 
your physician at the other end. And you have to make your way through 
and touch the appropriate agencies before you get to see your doctor.
  Now, this is the reason this chart would cause anyone to sink back in 
horror and say, That's not what I wanted. I just wanted a checkup to 
see if I'm okay with my local doctor. It is this chart that has been 
creating uncertainty in the minds of the health care field, and they're 
saying, We're not sure how this chart affects us so we're simply not 
going to get into that new line of work. We're not going to expand and 
put money into research to create those jobs in the medical field 
because we have to go through so many pieces of this equation, and we 
are just going to let itself sort itself out. This is always the 
problem with government. Government will build in processes that just 
simply can't be overcome.
  And so this country, which has been the source of so many good 
medical inventions and medical jobs, this country that has been 
outsourced now is being burdened down with regulatory agencies that 
simply say we're going to impose this in your life, and companies are 
saying okay, we're just going to wait it out.
  Other companies are saying we're going to have to lay off other 
people. We've got 9\1/2\ percent unemployment--8 percent, whatever it 
is today. We've got unemployment, we need people to work, we're running 
at a deficit because we're spending more than we're bringing in. The 
last thing we need to do is put more people on welfare and unemployment 
and put them out of a job. And yet people in New Mexico, I'm hearing 
employers say, ``Well, we've got to cut employees to get down below the 
caps required in this bill.'' So people are voluntarily terminating 
employees in order to comply with some aspect of this bill that says if 
you have more than this, then you have to jump through different hoops.
  So we, in many ways, our government, again, is creating the distress. 
It is man-created distress. It's government-created distress that is 
causing this 3.5 and 2.2.
  This is the root of the problems that we face economically.
  As our government is then spending more than it brings in, as it 
kills jobs so that we are bringing in even less and driving more people 
to unemployment and to welfare, the disparity grows greater, the 
government has to print more money, the money in your pocket becomes 
worth less, the uncertainty in the Nation increases, and uncertainty 
again causes business owners to say, ``I don't believe I'll create jobs 
right now. I'm afraid they're going to go up on my taxes to try to make 
this balance.
  When the government creates that mood on the part of employers, then 
they simply stop the creation of jobs, and that's what we're finding 
going on.
  You would say, ``Well, uncertainty is not really that big of a deal 
for a company.'' And I would simply ask you, do you put money in the 
stock market when you aren't pretty certain you're going to get a 
return? If you think it is just a roll of the dice to put your savings 
into the stock market, you would do that very hesitatingly. Well, 
companies are doing the same thing. They don't want to pour money into 
a venture and then have something regulated to end on them, to have the 
taxes go up, to have it made to where they can't get their money back. 
So companies are making the same decision that you would make 
personally.
  Now, recently the President complained about 6 weeks ago about 
companies hoarding cash. He said it as an accusation. It is a true 
thing that companies have tremendous amounts of cash right now, but 
they're afraid because of the regulatory environment, they're afraid 
because of the prospect of taxes, they're afraid because of the 
prospect of new regulations to put money into industries. And so 
therefore jobs are being frozen again by the actions of our government.
  Two things would cause this situation to begin to balance.

                              {time}  1530

  Number one is not raising the taxes, but lowering the taxes. There is 
a truism that says when you increase taxes you kill jobs, and when you 
decrease taxes you create jobs. So it is counterintuitive that if we 
want to increase the 2.2 and lower the 3.5, then we need to lower taxes 
to where there is more certainty that the people can say, ah, I will 
invest in that. I am pretty sure I have got enough money for next 
year's tax bill. I'm sure that I have got enough money in the bank to 
pay for this new equipment to hire a new person. On the other side, 
then, the regulations have to match also.
  A friend of mine in Artesia, New Mexico, Bill Sweatt, recently said 
to a group that was asking what does it take to create a job; there is 
all this speculation in Washington what does it take to create a job if 
we want to increase the 2.2. Mr. Sweatt says, I will tell you what it 
takes to create a job. He has a company that runs bulldozers. He said 
it takes $340,000 for me to create a job. That's what new bulldozers 
cost. He said, by the way, I have to have a pickup truck because they 
just frown on me driving the bulldozer down through the main streets of 
Artesia to get to the location, so I actually have to leave it out 
there on a truck and drive a pickup through town. So he said, basically 
$400,000, I can put a new employee on.
  As we tax away money from businesses, it takes longer to accumulate 
the $340,000. It takes longer for jobs to be created when we tax that 
money away. So our tax policy will cause Mr. Sweatt not to hire a new 
worker as soon as he would otherwise. That causes our economy to be 
stagnant. That's happening to businesses across the country.
  But then the bigger thing is if the government passes, say, a new 
regulatory framework that is similar to this, the regulatory framework 
again alarms him, and he says, I can't make my way through that 
government regulation. I believe I am just not going to do it. Those 
two aspects are creating the great imbalance here between jobs and 
between our economy. Those can be balanced and should be for the sake 
of our future.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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