[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11830-11833]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          BALANCING THE BUDGET

  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. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  There are a lot of things going on right now. One of them should be 
the business of the country. This body this week passed what many have 
said was truly historic. A truly historic bill passed the House of 
Representatives. It was not exactly what I wanted. I thought there was 
too much in it in the way of debt ceiling increase. I thought there was 
not enough in the way of budget cuts.
  But what we found in the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill was that it 
included a provision that, before the debt ceiling would ever be 
increased again, we would have to have a constitutional amendment pass 
the House of Representatives with two-thirds and pass the Senate with 
two-thirds, which would not send it to the President for him to veto, 
as apparently he wants to do, but it would send it to the States 
directly. There's no provision for the President to sign a 
constitutional amendment after it passes the House and Senate with two-
thirds of the vote. It goes to the States. If three-fourths ratify it, 
it's a part of the Constitution.

                              {time}  1230

  But in order to get the debt ceiling raised, we would have to have a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution pass the two-thirds in 
the House and Senate. That seemed like an appropriate thing to do 
because, as many of us have said, the only way we're voting for a debt 
ceiling increase is if there is a real game changer as part of that 
that we can't get any other way that will set this country on the 
course to being fully fiscally responsible.

[[Page 11831]]

  One of the reasons so many of us on both sides of the aisle ran for 
Congress was to come try to make sure that the liberties and the 
opportunities that we had growing up would be available to future 
generations. The only reason that I was born in the greatest country in 
the history of mankind was because prior generations did smart things, 
did things that the Bible would say are blessed things. They did things 
that caused future generations to be blessed. It wasn't because I 
deserved it. I'd done nothing in my mother's womb to deserve to have 
the liberties and opportunities I'd had, but it was because prior 
generations sacrificed. So many laid down their lives so that we would 
have these opportunities.
  So we have an open process.
  It's supposed to be.
  We've got people in the gallery, Mr. Speaker. We've got people who 
are free to come to the U.S. Capitol because we're in the people's 
House right now. There are people across Capitol Hill--Members who have 
their televisions on. People don't come to the floor like they once did 
to listen to speeches here, because they can sit in the comfort of 
their own offices and do other work and have C-SPAN on and listen. That 
has been going on for 30 years, and it has been a helpful thing. You 
can see what's going on on the floor and not just around Capitol Hill 
but all over the country. Most of us came here to try to make sure that 
those same opportunities are afforded to others.
  There are a lot of different motivations, a lot of noble motivations 
for running for Congress, but I think most of us came here for that 
purpose. We disagree on the way to do it, but it is shocking that there 
could be so much disagreement over the absolute historic, unwavering 
principle that any nation that continually spends more than it brings 
into its government will cease to exist as a government. There is no 
historic element contrary to that. You can't find it. If a country, if 
a government, keeps spending more than it brings in, it is going to 
cease to exist.
  The only question remains: When does that happen?
  There are movements around the world to try to end the dollar as 
being the world's reserve currency. When that happens, the dollar is 
going to fall farther than it ever has, and it may not recover. That's 
why I think some countries want to see that happen. That's probably why 
George Soros wants to see that happen. We also are told that our rating 
of our indebtedness, our bonds, may be downgraded if we don't get our 
indebtedness under control. It only makes sense that that would happen 
if we don't get our spending under control.
  It should be a no-brainer, but apparently that is a malady that 
exists here in Washington. Under the rules of the House of 
Representatives, I certainly can't say that there is anybody in the 
House or Senate who has no brain. We know, biologically, you have to 
have a brain, but it is possible that you can have a brain and not use 
it fully. I don't know how you explain the vote that took place right 
through that door and down that hall at the end of the Senate today. I 
don't know how to explain that. It's not that the Senate today had too 
much work to get done or too many bills to take up that they just 
didn't have time to try to save the country from ceasing to exist 
because it can't stop spending.
  So it wasn't because there are too many other bills to take up. They 
have no bill to deal with the financial issues of this country. There 
is no bill down there that is going to be brought to the floor that 
will save this country from its own government's stupidity. According 
to the House rules, it's not that there is anybody stupid here in the 
House and Senate, but as a group, sometimes we do very stupid things. I 
would submit that what has happened today, from an historic standpoint, 
is a statement that, although nobody in a body, according to the House 
rules, is stupid, a body can do a stupid thing.
  So, even though there are no other bills being brought to the Senate 
floor to take up and vote on today, even though there are bills that 
have been filed to take care of this very issue, there is a Cut, Cap, 
and Balance bill in the Senate that has been filed to address this 
issue. Many have signed onto bills that will address these issues. 
They're down there, but they're not bringing them to the floor. There's 
not an overwhelming amount of work to be done on the Senate floor 
today, so they bring up the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill--not for debate.
  Why would anybody be afraid of debating a bill that so many believe 
could help us save the country for future generations? Why would you be 
afraid to bring that up?
  If you don't want to talk about it, if you don't want to have a 
debate on the House or the Senate floor on some bill that so many 
believe will help us save the country for future generations, you make 
a procedural move called a ``motion to table,'' and that is what 
happened in the Senate today.
  What courage that took.
  It must have taken a lot of courage, and I'm not kidding about that 
when you know that there are so many people in the Senate body who want 
to talk about a game changer, who want to talk about what they believe 
with all their hearts could set us on a course to fiscal 
responsibility, that could save the country for future generations. You 
know all those people wanted to talk about it. It takes a lot of 
courage to stand up and say, ``I move to table that bill.'' Now, I 
don't know what the motivation is that would cause someone to stand up 
and say, ``I move to table. I second that.'' I don't know. I don't know 
why you would move to table.
  I don't know the motivation, but I know it takes courage when right 
at half of the 100 people in the Senate want to take this bill up and 
talk about it and debate it and maybe amend it--because I would love to 
amend it. I would love to knock down the $2.4 trillion in debt ceiling 
increase. I'd love to raise the amount of cuts. There are a number of 
things I'd like to tighten up in that bill, but it was the best bill we 
had available. What a great idea. Bring it to the floor. Let's talk 
about it. Let's amend it. Let's get it done.
  The thing is, when you're in the majority of the House or the Senate 
and if you don't like a bill and if you bring it to the floor on an 
open rule, you can amend it on the floor. You can have the debate on 
whether or not it ought to be amended. We just went through that, and 
we voted for and against a lot of different amendments this week, many 
of which I didn't think we necessarily needed to vote on, but that's 
part of the process.
  Why would anyone in the Senate be afraid of having that process on 
the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill?
  I don't get it.
  I know it took courage to move to table when all the polls show 
America is concerned about its future. Poll after poll shows that 
American adults in around the 70 percentage area believe that the next 
generation will not have the opportunities that our generation had. You 
know those feelings are out there in America. You know that there is a 
group that wants to change the way we do business in Washington, so we 
have to live within the amount of money that comes in and not spend 
more than that. You know that feeling is out there. You know that this 
is a bill that could change the way we do business.
  Why wouldn't you want to even allow it to the Senate floor to talk 
about it?
  It took courage to move to table. Here are the courageous Senators 
who voted to table, which means to prevent debate on the Cut, Cap, and 
Balance bill in the Senate. It truly took courage for these people in 
the face of 60, 70--some have indicated 80--but 60, 70 percent of 
America that wants us to get our financial house in order. There is a 
bill that will mandate that we do that. So it takes courage to prevent 
that bill from coming to the floor, not for a vote on the bill, but 
just to debate the bill, to talk about it in front of God and everybody 
on the Senate floor. It took courage.

                              {time}  1240

  I don't know the motivation for all of these people voting to prevent 
debate and prevent the bill from coming to the floor. I just know that 
these people had

[[Page 11832]]

courage to prevent what the majority of the American people believe 
needs to be discussed and debated and voted on.
  And these are the Senators with that courage to prevent what the 
majority of the American people wanted done:
  From Hawaii, Senator Akaka; from Montana, Senator Baucus; and from 
Alaska, Senator Begich; from Colorado, Senator Bennet; from New Mexico, 
Senator Bingaman; from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal; from 
California, Senator Boxer; from Ohio, Senator Brown; Washington State, 
Senator Cantwell; from Maryland, Senator Cardin; from Delaware, Senator 
Carper; from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey; from North Dakota, Senator 
Conrad; from Delaware, Senator Coons; from Illinois, Senator Durbin; 
from California, Senator Feinstein; from Minnesota, Senator Franken.
  And then these are the people who had the courage to say: We will not 
allow the debate on the floor of the Senate that might lead to a 
balanced budget amendment being passed. We're not going to allow that 
to come to the Senate floor.
  So let me go through the remainder of the Senators.
  Senator Hagan from North Carolina, Senator Harkin from the State of 
Iowa, Senator Inouye from Hawaii, Senator Johnson from South Dakota, 
Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, Senator Kohl from Wisconsin, Senator 
Landrieu from Louisiana, Senator Lautenberg from New Jersey, Senator 
Leahy from Vermont, Senator Levin from Michigan, Senator Lieberman from 
Connecticut, Senator Manchin from West Virginia, Senator McCaskill from 
Missouri, Senator Menendez from New Jersey, Senator Merkley from 
Oregon, Senator Mikulski from Maryland, Senator Murray from Washington.
  And again, I attribute nothing but courage to these people for voting 
to prevent what a vast majority of American people want to have debated 
on the Senate floor. They were able to have the courage to say: We're 
not going to allow debate. We're not going to allow the chance that you 
might get this bill passed that could save America for future 
generations.
  Further courageous Senators: Senator Nelson from Florida, Senator 
Nelson from Nebraska, Senator Pryor from Arkansas, Senator Reed from 
Rhode Island, Senator Reid from Nevada, Senator Rockefeller from West 
Virginia, Senator Sanders from Vermont, Senator Schumer from New York, 
Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire, Senator Stabenow from Michigan, 
Senator Tester from Montana, Senator Udall from Colorado, Senator Udall 
from New Mexico, Senator Warner from Virginia, Senator Webb from 
Virginia, Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island, and Senator Wyden from 
Oregon.
  It took a lot of courage to take a stand and vote in the Senate that: 
we will not allow debate on this floor over a balanced budget 
amendment. We're not going to allow it despite the vast majority of 
Americans knowing that we have to get our fiscal house in order, 
knowing that a balanced budget amendment would force this body and the 
Senate body to do just that, knowing that that would prevent the White 
House from ever demanding that we spend $3.8 trillion when we're only 
bringing in $2.1 or $2.2 trillion, knowing that it would force Congress 
and the government to live within their means. They had the courage to 
stand up and say: We're not going to allow that debate. We're not going 
to allow the risk that you might pass a bill that forces us to be 
fiscally responsible. It took a courageous stand, and they stood and 
took that stand.
  Now, to have the President of the United States stand before the 
American public and say, I can't guarantee that seniors will get their 
Social Security checks, just requires a little bit of research to find 
out that apparently the President, just like all of us in Congress, we 
rely on our staffs; we rely on those around us to get us information so 
that we can speak truthfully from the information we glean for 
ourselves that our staffs help us gather.
  That tells you, though, that whoever is helping the President is not 
giving him truthful, accurate information because the fact is the 
President is the only person in this country who can guarantee that 
Social Security checks will go out just as the law requires. I can 
guarantee that the money is there and that it will be good even if this 
Congress does nothing for 3 years. Even if everything else falls apart, 
we can guarantee that the Social Security trust fund has, right now, 
$2.6 trillion in treasury notes in the Social Security trust fund that 
can be converted to cash, that can, by law, only be used for Social 
Security benefits and expenses.
  So, the only reason that I or anyone else here in the House could not 
absolutely unforeseen guarantee that seniors will get their Social 
Security checks is because there is one element that could prevent that 
on the 2nd or 3rd of August, and that's if the President or Timothy 
Geithner ordered that checks would not go out, knowing--well, I don't 
know if the President knows. He may not have been given accurate 
information. I know Timothy Geithner knows that there is $2.6 trillion 
in the Social Security trust fund, that in 1985 there was a shortfall, 
and there was not enough cash to pay Social Security payments, and so 
they sold some of the treasury notes to get cash to make sure all of 
the Social Security checks were paid. 1985.
  Some were apparently concerned that might not have been legal. So in 
1996, a Republican majority in Congress passed a law that basically 
says, hey, if there is a shortfall some month, then since there are 
trillions of dollars in the treasury notes in the Social Security trust 
fund, the administration can sell those treasury notes, just enough to 
make up the shortfall and assure that Social Security checks will go 
out. They made that a matter of law so that the administration may do 
that.
  What I've been proposing that we should make as a part of a 
prioritization bill that passed--we bring before the House and pass it, 
bring before the Senate, and these same courageous people would 
probably table that, too, but it would say not that Social Security is 
a group of bills with others that must be paid, because by law Social 
Security is separate. By law, it is paid with Social Security payroll 
taxes; and by law, if there's not enough cash to do that some month, 
you may take the treasury notes and sell just enough to make up that 
shortfall.
  Since the United States bonds and treasury notes are still about the 
most desirable financial bond note to be purchased in the world, 
especially when you look at the alternatives--Greece, Portugal, Spain, 
France--not a lot of good choices. So they're buying our notes, and 
they would. That would continue at least until we quit paying our bills 
properly.

                              {time}  1250

  But I think the law ought to be changed to say not ``may'' but 
``must,'' so that in the future no President could ever go before the 
American public and say, ``I can't guarantee Social Security checks 
won't go out,'' because he is the one person in America that is the 
only person in America, he and his Secretary of the Treasury, that can 
stop them from going out, and if we make that ``may'' a ``must'' or a 
``shall,'' then he has no option. Then we can guarantee that Social 
Security checks will not be interrupted, because then we would know 
that the President has no option. He cannot interrupt the money that is 
there from going to Social Security recipients. It has to go, or he 
violates the law, and that could be grounds, if he stepped in--heck, if 
he stepped in even now and said, ``look, the money's there in the trust 
fund, but I want to make a political issue out of this and I need a 
crisis in order to do that, so I'm going to step in and prevent the 
Social Security checks from going out this month,'' there would have to 
be action taken against the President. That is just irresponsible. I 
think it's totally inappropriate for a President to scare our seniors.
  I also think it's totally inappropriate to scare our military, and 
that's why I've been pushing for months a bill to ensure that people in 
harm's way never have to have it cross their mind that their check may 
not go home to their

[[Page 11833]]

families. They should never have to have that cross their mind, never 
have it be a thought. I thought about that a month or so ago as I 
accompanied the body of one of our heroes from New York to Gladewater, 
Texas. The family, the military member, should never have to worry that 
their check won't be there. If there is a shutdown, if the government 
decides, we've got money here, but we're not going to pay our bills, 
well, we ought to make sure that a number of things get done.
  We keep being told that, gee, what if we default? There is 
absolutely, unequivocally no reason we would default on our debt unless 
for some strange reason the President and the Treasury Secretary, 
either/or, decide that they want to create and instigate such a 
financial crisis that they get whatever they want. That's the only 
reason there would be a default.
  As Steve Moore from the Wall Street Journal said yesterday, there's 
nothing that magic about August 2. There is no way that the President 
or Tim Geithner would be insane enough not to pay what we owe as it 
comes due. It's one thing for Secretary Geithner not to pay his taxes 
for 4 years in a row. It's quite another to put a nation at risk by 
refusing to send out the payments for the debts as they come due for 
the U.S.
  It should also be noted that there are hundreds of billions of 
dollars that the United States owes to the United States. So if the 
United States doesn't pay itself, what are we going to do--send out a 
notice that the United States didn't pay the United States, so we're 
deadbeats now? I mean, come on. There is so much political gamesmanship 
going on, and we were sent here to deal with the critical issues of 
this country, and being financially responsible is one of those things.
  Now, I doubt that very many people actually look at the back of their 
dollar bills, and I know they're having more and more trouble getting 
those dollar bills; but if you look at the back of the dollar bills, on 
either side, you see the two sides of the United States great seal that 
was adopted initially in the first version around the time of the 
revolution. The eagle has changed a little bit over the centuries but 
was basically this by 1790.
  Some people think that ``e pluribus unum,'' which is on the light 
fixture up here, Latin meaning ``out of many, one,'' come from all over 
the world and come to America, we become one people, we speak one 
language, we become one people, ``e pluribus unum.'' Some think that's 
the national motto. It's not. It's part of the great seal and has been 
since the Revolution. ``E pluribus unum'' is on the ribbon that runs 
through the eagle's mouth.
  You've got 13 stars that cause us to remember the 13 original States.
  You've got a pyramid symbolizing this masterful, huge work, and above 
the pyramid is an eye in a triangle with a glow around it. The eye was 
put in the great seal back in the 1700s to symbolize the eye of God, 
the all-seeing eye of God. It's why there's the halo, the glow, around 
it. And above those words in Latin are the words ``annuit coeptis.'' 
They're also above one of the doors in the Senate, so that every 
Senator can look up, and if they know what the Latin means, they should 
be deeply touched and should be reminded of how important our job is, 
because ``annuit coeptis'' on the back of every dollar bill everywhere 
in America means this: He, God, has smiled on our undertaking.
  The reason that the Senate desired to have ``annuit coeptis'' above 
one of the doors is so Senators would be reminded that at this 
country's inception, He, God, smiled on our undertaking. I can't help 
but wonder, today, as the all-seeing eye of God symbolized here looks 
at what is going on with our financial irresponsibility and our refusal 
to even debate becoming financially responsible in the Senate, if He, 
God, continues to smile on our undertaking.
  Some bank, for a joke at one time, had said, ``In God we trust. From 
all others, we accept cash.'' In God We Trust is our national motto. 
And as I mentioned to Prime Minister Netanyahu as he came down the 
aisle before he took the podium here and spoke recently, I said, ``Keep 
in mind the entire time you're addressing us, our national motto is 
above your head.'' He said, ``I had already thought about that.''
  Everybody in this body ought to think about it. Our trust is in God, 
but does He have any trust in us after what has been done, spending so 
much more than the amount we've been entrusted with as stewards? We've 
got to do better.
  Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 1 minute remaining.

                              {time}  1300

  To close, I want to finish with a short prayer that was prayed by the 
U.S. Senate Chaplain in the 1940s, Peter Marshall:
  ``May our prayer, O Christ, awaken all Thy human reminiscences, that 
we may feel in our hearts the sympathizing Jesus. Thou hast walked this 
earthly vale and hast not forgotten what it is to be tired, what it is 
to know aching muscles, as Thou didst work long hours at the 
carpenter's bench. Thou hast not forgotten what it is to feel the sharp 
stabs of pain, or hunger or thirst. Thou knowest what it is to be 
forgotten, to be lonely. Thou dost remember the feel of hot and 
scalding tears running down Thy cheeks.
  ``O, we thank Thee that Thou wert willing to come to Earth and share 
with us the weaknesses of the flesh, for now we know that Thou dost 
understand all that we are ever called upon to bear. We know that Thou, 
our God, art still able to do more than we ask or expect. So bless us, 
each one, not according to our deserving, but according to the riches 
in glory of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.''
  From the Senate history.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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