[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5136-5140]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. A lot has been going on this week and certainly worthy 
of discussion here at the end of the week. One of the important topics 
that has been discussed at both the Senate end and the House end is the 
issue of immigration--legal immigration and illegal immigration.
  Back when my friend Steve King and I were meeting with people from 
the British Government about their handling of immigration, they were 
offended by the term that Steve and I were using of ``illegal 
immigration.'' We were told that that's not appropriate in England. I 
asked what words they use, and I was told the appropriate terminology 
is ``irregular migrant.'' I was concerned that sounded too much like 
some kind of body function. I hated to use that term. Anyway, when 
people immigrate into a country illegally, it's illegal immigration. 
And it is a problem.
  Anyone that goes down to the end of this Hall just outside these two 
doors here and heads onto the Senate floor, immediately what is seen 
above the President of the Senate's chair are the words ``e pluribus 
unum,'' Latin meaning out of many, one. I have heard a colleague before 
say it means out of one, many. But we all get mixed up at times. But e 
pluribus unum means out of many, one.
  For those of us that attended public schools when and where I did, we 
were taught that it was immigration and the process of out of many 
people becoming one people, becoming Americans, is what made us strong. 
And the terminology for much of this country's history was that we were 
a ``melting pot.'' I believed it then, I believe it now, and I believe 
that that has been one of the great strengths that has made this 
country the greatest country in the history of mankind--greater than 
Solomon's Israel--with more liberties, more conveniences, more input 
into the government and into the way the government works.
  My friends on this side of the aisle and everybody I know of agrees 
we want immigration to continue. Our country allows more immigrants 
into this country than any other country in the world. No other country 
comes close to allowing the number of people to immigrate into this 
country, to come with visas into this country. Nobody comes close. We 
are an extraordinarily generous country. And for those who have 
wondered about whether they should be proud of our country in the past, 
one of the greatest pieces of evidence would probably be the fact that 
people all over the world, those who hate us, those who admire us--at 
least a billion, maybe 1.5 billion in estimates have been made--want to 
come to America. There's no other country in the world that so many 
people would like to come to and enjoy the freedoms we have.
  Unfortunately, there are many who want to come to this country to 
destroy the freedoms we have because they look at our country and they 
say, No, unless you have something like sharia law or a country in 
which you have a powerful, benevolent dictator, be it religious leader 
or be it a benevolent secular dictator, they think we would not be 
nearly so decadent. I prefer our government--a government, as Lincoln 
said, that, under God, was of the people, by the people, and for the 
people. There's never been one like us.
  Now, I have heard a guy call into the show of my friend, Sean 
Hannity, and he knew just enough history to be dangerous. He talked 
about our history being founded on the proposition e pluribus unum--out 
of many, one. He said there was never anything about God in our 
beginnings. This young man apparently showed his ignorance and the 
weakness of teachers in whatever school he grew up in. Because the fact 
is e pluribus unum was never our national motto, as this person 
thought.
  From the beginning, from the 1700s, it was part of the Great Seal. 
The Great Seal had two sides--and still does. It's still the Great Seal 
of America. And on one side we have the eagle. I like the way the eagle 
has differed over the years. I like the way it is now better than the 
skinny little eagle that was there back in the 1700s. But the eagle has 
a ribbon through his beak and on that ribbon has always been the Latin 
phrase e pluribus unum--out of many, one. That's on one side of the 
Great Seal.
  On the other side of the Great Seal is a pyramid. And that pyramid 
represents one of the greatest works of man. And there was a reason. 
Because if you read the Founders' writings, read their journals, read 
their letters, they believed they had within their grasp what 
philosophers like John Locke, Montesquieu, and so many philosophers had 
only dreamed about--that we might be able to govern ourselves.

                              {time}  1330

  They viewed it as a little experiment in democracy. They believed 
that if we did it right, that nations around the world would want to 
follow our example. So it was important. They recognized that this was 
a great achievement of man if it was done properly.
  If you look on the back of a dollar bill, a one-dollar bill--if 
anybody still has one, Mr. Speaker--you note one side with the eagle 
and the e pluribus unum on the ribbon through the beak. In fact, the 
shield up here above the House floor doesn't have the ribbon through 
the beak--it's beneath the eagle--but it has those words there.
  But on the other side, seeing the pyramid--you know, here's a great, 
well-done work of man. Above that pyramid is a triangle, and in that 
triangle is an eye. There is a glow around that eye to represent the 
all-seeing eye of God looking at the work of man. Above that is a Latin 
phrase that's above one of the exits down at the Senate, the Latin 
words ``annuit coeptis.'' Taken together, it means He, God, has smiled 
on our undertaking.
  Beneath the pyramid are the Latin words ``novus ordo seclorum,'' 
meaning new order of things, new order of the ages--not new world 
order, as some tried to say. But the way the Founders looked at it, if 
we did this right, if we governed ourselves effectively and created the 
most free Nation in the history of the world, by the grace of God, God 
would smile on our undertaking and it would be a new order of things 
because of the other nations that may follow our example. And it is 
good.

[[Page 5137]]

  I don't try to push my religious beliefs on anyone else, but it is a 
part of who I am. As a matter of fact, I believe it was 36, at least--
most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence weren't just 
Christians, they were ordained Christian ministers. It's hard to 
imagine if over half of the Congress now, as the Continental Congress 
was in those days, was made of ordained Christian ministers--and I'm 
not advocating that at all, I'm just historically making the note. 
That's where we came from. That's who was inspired to start this little 
experiment in democracy, not just Christians, but ordained Christian 
ministers. They knew if they did it right, this place would be blessed, 
and it would be a source of blessing for the world.
  They did like the idea ``out of many, come one nation.'' That has 
continued today, as most of us strongly support the idea of allowing 
more immigration into this country than in any other country in the 
world. Mexico doesn't allow near the freedom for immigrants that the 
United States of America does. So at times it goes down a little tough 
to be criticized by the leaders in Mexico who demand more rights for 
immigrants into the United States than they would ever consider 
affording United States citizens who are going into Mexico. But it's 
true around the world.
  Now, I'm told that some students are taught that we're not really a 
melting pot; we're more of a tossed salad, where people retain their 
individual natures and don't really become one people so much, we just 
retain individuality. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you, having studied 
history and continuing to study history, that is a recipe for the end 
of a nation. People need to come together as one people.
  I find from data--and my Hispanic friends, some of them have pointed 
out--that actually in the Hispanic community a vast majority support 
the idea of having English as the official language. One of my dear 
friends in Tyler, whose parents immigrated from Mexico, started one of 
the most successful restaurant businesses there, and my friend has just 
branched off and started another restaurant, he said that his parents 
were adamant: you will speak only English in our home. Now, to be sure, 
his parents spoke Spanish between themselves, but his father told him: 
you can be anything in this country, but if you're going to be 
everything you can possibly be, you have to speak good English, and in 
doing so, you can be anything. He was right. Gus has been a city 
councilman, a county commissioner, he is a leader in the community--a 
good guy, a friend.
  That's why it breaks my heart when I hear people--and it's normally 
of the liberal political persuasion--who say, no, no, no, we need to 
educate Hispanic immigrants in Spanish. Because when you study what 
happens in those cases, you are compelling children who could end up 
being President, if they're native-born Americans, President of the 
United States. They could be President of the country. But when you 
teach them in Spanish rather than English, you are relegating them to 
be manual laborers when they could be president of the company, not 
working out in the field for the company.
  So that's what conservatives believe in. We want everyone to have the 
sky as the limit for what can be achieved. We even want, at the White 
House right now, we would prefer that women be compensated on an even 
par with men, which is not happening right now. We want everyone to be 
treated with equal opportunity, not to be treated equally, but with 
equal opportunity. Because when you take away the incentive to work 
hard and do well and achieve, you again are compelling a country down a 
path that leads to the dust bin of history.
  I've related this numerous times, but in the Soviet Union, when I was 
an exchange student there one summer and visiting a collective farm, 
communist farm, a collective, socialist farm--a progressive farm, if 
you would prefer that, as some of my friends prefer not to be called 
socialists, but prefer to be called progressives--it was a progressive 
farm, where everyone was treated equally and everyone was paid the same 
number of rubles.
  I was shocked, having worked on farms and ranches around east Texas 
growing up, because I had learned, heck, if you're going to work out 
like that--and back then, if you were lucky enough to get to drive a 
tractor instead of walking through the field hauling hay or working 
with cattle or horses, we didn't have cabins over the tractors. We 
thought it was pretty terrific if you got to drive the tractor instead 
of walk along and working. But here I was at this progressive farm--
socialist farm, communist farm, whatever you want to call it--and most 
of the farmers were sitting in the shade. I had a couple of years of 
Russian at Texas A&M, and I spoke my best Russian at the time and asked 
the question, here was mid-morning, When do you work out in the field? 
I looked out in the field; I couldn't tell what they were working and 
what they hadn't. It didn't seem to be a whole lot of difference.
  I couldn't really tell what they were even growing out there. It 
looked kind of greenish brown; none of it looked too good. This was the 
middle of the summer. I knew from my work that you want to start early 
and try to finish by three or four at the latest before the sun gets 
its hottest, and here they were in the middle of this shady area, not 
working; didn't look like they'd worked all morning.
  The people there laughed, and I thought, oops, maybe I didn't say it 
properly in Russian. And one of the guys responded for the group: I 
make the same number of rubles if I'm here in the shade or if I'm out 
there in the hot sun. And he said: So I'm here.

                              {time}  1340

  And there, in a nutshell, is why a progressive farm will not ever 
really work. Because when you give people the same amount of money to 
work and sweat and produce as you pay them to sit in the shade and not 
do anything but laugh and joke and cut up and have fun and eat snacks, 
then I don't care how dedicated you are, at some point you'll quit 
working out in the hot sun and you'll sit in the shade and no one will 
have food to eat. That's why socialists or progressive societies always 
fail.
  So how does a free enterprise system fail? Free enterprise systems 
always fail when they become so progressive, so socialist, that they 
begin to reward completely the same amount for working as they do for 
doing nothing.
  This administration has been at the head of destroying the welfare 
reform that was done in 1995-1996. And, yes, I'm pleased President 
Clinton takes credit for it now. He certainly didn't at the time. He 
fought the Republican majority over it over and over. He vetoed it. And 
when finally there were enough votes to override the veto, President 
Clinton signed it, and now he takes credit for it. But it was welfare 
reform.
  And what you learn from that, if you go back and do the studies--and 
I was surprised, knowing the liberal bent of Harvard, to be at Harvard 
for a seminar and have a dean have charts that said, since the Great 
Society legislation started in the sixties, here is a chart of single 
mothers' income when adjusted for inflation; and the graph showed a 
flat line when adjusted for inflation. Single mothers, since the 
sixties when the Great Society and all the giveaway programs began, the 
welfare system, the welfare state began here in America, single moms 
flatlined. When adjusted for inflation, they never improved their 
situation, on average. Some did, but, on average, it was flatlined.
  And then he said, since welfare reform where people were required to 
work who could work, here is what has happened to single mothers' 
income. That was since people were required to work who couldn't work. 
And then adjusted for inflation, there was a huge rise for those 10 
years in the income for single moms.
  Well, now, I know the people that passed the Great Society welfare 
legislation in the sixties, they wanted to help. I know they did. I 
know friends on the other side of the aisle, they want to help single 
moms. They want to help anybody who needs help.

[[Page 5138]]

  But there is a question of how much do you help when you incentivize 
people to never reach their God-given potential, and how much do you 
help when you incentivize working and producing and becoming productive 
and participating in society; who helps more? I know the intentions are 
equal on both sides, but who actually helps more?
  And it's never been more graphic than when you look at the income for 
single moms after welfare reform and for the 30 years before welfare 
reform. And now this administration has taken the best thing that Newt 
Gingrich did as he led to a Republican majority and led in balancing 
the budget, but even better, he helped single moms more than anything 
that any Democrat had done for the 30 years preceding that majority by 
elevating their income and beginning to have them feel some self-worth 
because they could do jobs and they had value and they had worth that 
they did not feel when they were flatlined and just taking the doles 
that the government provided.
  The Romans learned the hard way: you provide bread and circuses, and 
eventually you kill off incentive. Once Caesar decided, gee, this is 
not good for the people not to work when they can work; let's cut off 
the bread and circuses, and he did. And there was so much massive 
rioting, like we've seen in Greece, like we've seen in other places in 
Europe that are broke.
  Once you have degraded as a society to the point that more people 
have been convinced to sit back and just accept what the government 
gave them instead of using their God-given potential, then you are not 
likely going to ever get back to your greatest days again; you're done. 
It's just a matter of how long until you hit the dustbin of history.
  The reason I'm still in Congress, the reason I've continued to run, 
is because I've still got hope. I've still got hope we can preserve, 
perpetuate for more generations the greatest gift that any group of 
people have ever been given as a secular nation, and that is the gift 
of this country, a country that saw its Founders coming over, Pilgrims. 
Right down the hall in the rotunda, there is the great painting, that 
massive painting, of the Pilgrims having a prayer meeting, praying for 
the land that they would come to.
  That famous prayer meeting that they had on board the Speedwell--they 
had two ships, the Speedwell and the Mayflower. A lot of people don't 
know that. But that prayer meeting was in Holland, before they left 
from Holland to go to England, and then from England come to America. 
Some think it may have been a bit like Gideon's army being whittled 
down to just the strongest among them.
  But the Speedwell, when they got ready to leave from England to come 
to America, began to take on water, so they had to cut their group. The 
Mayflower was smaller than the Speedwell. They had to cut their group 
down in size and get the hardiest and the most likely to be able to 
plant that settlement in America where Christians could have prayer 
meetings, where they could say what they believe, where they could say 
without fear of retribution that I believe marriage is between a man 
and a woman. They could say all of the things they had been taught in 
the Bible, all of those things they believed as Christians, and have a 
land where Christians would not be persecuted. Other groups came as 
Christians seeking that land that God would allow them to live in 
without persecution.
  Now, Jesus said, ``You will suffer for My sake.'' I didn't suffer for 
Jesus' sake growing up as a Christian, because people who were 
Christians didn't suffer. But now we're persecuted. And now if you 
point out that Jesus sanctioned marriage, he intended a marriage 
between a man and a woman, if you point out that in Genesis God 
ordained marriage, he saw a man alone and said, that's not good, so I 
will give you a helpmate, a wife, you start talking about those things, 
then as a Christian you're about the only person, the only group in 
America that it's politically correct to actually persecute and condemn 
and discriminate against and say, as my friend, Rick Santorum, was 
told, Gee, oh, you believe what's been the history of great societies 
for thousands of years that a marriage is between a man and a woman. 
Because biologically by nature, even if you don't believe in God, by 
nature, that's how a species continues is by marriage between a man and 
a woman. And now we're persecuted for that.
  We're persecuted because we say, you know, I believe a baby is a life 
deserving protection. ``Well, that's some Christian nonsense. You ought 
to be a criminal. You ought to be put behind bars, don't try to 
protect.'' And all the while where some of those folks are saying we 
need to protect the most innocent among us, is there any more innocent 
being in the world than a child ready to be born? They've done nothing 
wrong. They just want to live.

                              {time}  1350

  We want immigration. We need immigration in this country. I want 
Hispanics coming to America. I want people coming from any nation where 
they want to come together and become one people and be part of that e 
pluribus unum. But I also want them not to tear down my history and act 
as if it never was true. Or act as if when you look to the west and you 
see the Washington Monument, that when that was finished over 100 years 
ago, after the whole nation was contributing and they finally brought 
it to a conclusion and finished it off, they capped it with a capstone 
and on that capstone there's writing on three of the four sides of that 
capstone that's made out of what was an extremely valuable and rare 
metal back at the time called aluminum. But on the side facing the 
Capitol, by design, they wanted two Latin words, ``laus Deo,'' meaning 
praise be to God.
  Don't tell me that that's not the case. Don't tell me that's there by 
mistake. Because over a hundred years ago and back to the days of John 
Adams and his son John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln, or going back 
to George Washington when he resigned from the military and his prayer 
was that we would be following the divine author of our blessed 
religion, without a humble imitation in these things we can never hope 
to be a happy nation.
  I understand things have changed, but don't tell me that is not our 
history. It is. Don't tell me those words are not up there. They are. 
And even though the Park Service for a time took the capstone that 
tourists could see and turned it to where you couldn't see ``laus 
Deo,'' it doesn't hide the fact that up there on the top of the 
Washington Monument, those words are there.
  And why are they facing the Capitol? It's certainly not because we 
can look out from the Capitol and read ``praise be to God'' in Latin on 
the top of the Washington Monument. No, it's because they knew that 
would be the highest point man had constructed in our Capital City, and 
they wanted to ensure as the first rays of God's sun illuminated 
anything in this town, it would be the words, praise be to God. That's 
why it's there.
  As a Christian, I'm supposed to turn the other cheek. I'm not always 
good at it, but that is what I'm supposed to try to do. But as a part 
of the government, we have an obligation to protect this country, to 
provide for the common defense, to make sure that whether enemies are 
foreign or domestic that we protect what has been entrusted to us as 
servants to protect, and that's not happening sufficiently right now, 
because there are people coming into this country that want to destroy 
what we have. They want to bring us down before a monarch that they 
want to set in place. There are some who simply want to come for 
benefits.
  I'm so grateful that most of the people that come want to come to 
enjoy the freedoms and to get a job, and I'm so thankful we have so 
many immigrants, first generation immigrants, who come wanting to work. 
They are of an incredibly immense help to this country still being 
productive, especially after 50 million abortions. We're needing people 
to help. But I want them to have a chance to be president of their 
company and, if they're born here, to be President of the country.

[[Page 5139]]

We need to be one people, and we need to have people come legally. 
Since we're allowing more immigrants to come in legally than any other 
country in the world, why not make sure the people that are coming are 
going to be helpful to America and not hurt America and not end this 
great experiment in democracy? That's part of our job.
  And then we have this article from Friday, April 12, 2013. This is 
from radio WOAI:

       The debate in Washington on immigration reform has had no 
     political impact, but the debate is having a major impact on 
     south Texas.
       Officials say the number of people entering the U.S. 
     illegally is way up and, tragically, the number of 
     undocumented immigrants who have been found dead in the 
     unforgiving Texas brush country is way up and is on path this 
     year to best last year's record for the number of people 
     found dead in the ranch country.

  So why are more people dying in the harsh brush country of Texas?
  The article goes on:

       Linda Vickers, who owns a branch in Brooks County which is 
     ground zero for the immigration debate, pins the blame 
     directly on talk of ``amnesty'' and a ``path to citizenship'' 
     for people who entered the United States illegally.
       She recalls one man being arrested on her ranch not long 
     ago.
       ``The Border Patrol agent was loading one man up, and he 
     told the officer in Spanish, `Obama's gonna let me go.'''
       Border Patrol agents report that immigrants are crossing 
     the border and in some cases surrendering while asking, 
     ``Where do I go for my amnesty?''
       ``When you have amnesty waving in the wind, you're going to 
     get an increase,'' Vickers says. ``And when you get an 
     increase, especially with this heat, you're going to get an 
     increase in deaths.''
       She says the current increase in illegal immigrant entries 
     began last summer, at almost exactly the same time as 
     President Obama unilaterally announced plans to no longer 
     deport young people who came to the U.S. as children with 
     their illegal immigrant parents.
       ``Washington is directly responsible for these deaths,'' 
     she said.
       Brooks County routinely has the largest number of illegal 
     immigrant deaths each year because smugglers come up U.S. 281 
     from the Rio Grande Valley but kick their human cargo out of 
     the truck before reaching the Border Patrol checkpoint in 
     Falfurrias.
       ``If that individual, illegal immigrant, can't keep up, 
     they are left behind,'' she said. ``And you are going to die 
     out in this heat if you can't find water.''

  I know none of my friends on this side of the aisle want people to 
die like that. I know that. I deeply care about so many, just as the 
Democrats do. As a Christian, I'm supposed to love all people. I don't 
want them to die in the Texas brush country. And if the administration 
or people in Congress promising amnesty is luring people out as so many 
are indicating in that area who appear to have firsthand knowledge, 
then we should not be luring them to their deaths.
  We need to talk about one thing right now: let's have a secured 
border, so when the report came out 2 or 3 weeks ago that there were 
over 500 people that entered illegally at one place and that not even 
180 or so were actually picked up or seen by cameras by the Border 
Patrol, and fewer than that were picked up, and there were over 30 
people bringing drugs into this Nation that would poison American 
children, American people, then we're not ready to talk about resolving 
the issue of the people who are here. Because until the border is 
secured--not closed, I don't want it closed, we need it open for people 
to come in legally--but until it's secured so we can control who comes 
in, we should not be talking about a pathway to anything but 
deportation.

                              {time}  1400

  Let's secure the border, and then people will be amazed at how fast 
we have an agreement on what to do about the people who have come into 
this country illegally.
  I've got a lot of restaurants and hotels and people who have 
businesses who say, I need those immigrants to keep my business open.
  Fine. Let's secure the border, and then we can work this out. We 
surely can--we absolutely can--but until that's done, we're luring 
people to their deaths. We're learning what one article says--and this 
is from townhall.com--that border crossings are up two to three times 
what they were because of all this talk.
  Then there's the talk that the President has given about how we're 
not going to be able to secure our border because of the sequester. 
We're not going to cut golf trips, and we're not going to cut any of 
these other things, but by golly, we're not going to protect the border 
unless you give us amnesty for the people who are here. Well, let's 
secure the border. Oh, no. We're going to hold that hostage. We're not 
going to do our job that we took an oath to do until you grant amnesty 
to the people who are here.
  People who are here in this Congress need to understand what it does 
to those who did everything lawfully to come into this country, who 
have followed every part of the law. It is absolutely demoralizing to 
most of those people to have the talk of amnesty of people who didn't 
follow the law as they did. Once we have a secured border--not held 
hostage, but just do the job that the oath was taken to do. Once that's 
done, let's talk about a pathway to a green card or a pathway to being 
here as a permanent legal resident. A pathway to citizenship needs to 
have people who believe in the rule of law because, if that is not the 
case, we will become like the nations those people left because they 
couldn't find jobs. They didn't have adequate freedom. There was graft 
and corruption because they did not believe in the rule of law as a 
nation, so they had to leave that nation and come to our Nation.
  So don't destroy a Nation that, for the most part, believes in the 
rule of law and in following the law--and that includes me and other 
Members of Congress. We need to show respect for those who follow the 
law and for those who say, It's Christian to help all immigrants. Well, 
it's Christian to help all people and to love all people just as Christ 
did, but as a government we need to make sure this country is going to 
be here, and we cannot do that unless we make sure that people here--
immigrants who have come in, people who are Native Americans, those who 
are here in America--are protected against all enemies who may come in 
and want to destroy us. That's part of our job.
  I want to make a point about gun control since cloture was voted on 
down the hall. I've not always been terribly complimentary of our 
friend Senator McConnell down the hall, but he made some very, very 
important points that people need to understand about what is being 
proposed for gun control. Under what has been proposed in the Senate 
for gun control--and I'm quoting from Senator McConnell--he has it 
right:
  ``An uncle giving his nephew a hunting rifle for Christmas.'' That's 
someone who, under the law being pushed in the Senate, will be a 
criminal. Someone else who would be a criminal under the law being 
pushed in the Senate is ``a niece giving her aunt--'' he says ``aunt,'' 
but it could be her grandmother even ``--a handgun for protection.'' 
Another criminal under the Senate proposal would be ``a cousin loaning 
another cousin his hunting rifle if the loan occurs just 1 day before 
the beginning of hunting season.'' Another criminal under the proposal 
would be ``one neighbor loaning another a firearm so his wife can 
protect herself while the husband is away.''
  Senator McConnell said, ``The people I am describing are not 
criminals--they are neighbors, friends and family--and the scenarios,'' 
he says, ``I am describing are not fanciful. They happen countless 
times in this country.'' As he says, ``The Schumer bill would outlaw 
these transfers, and it would make people like these, criminals.''
  Any time a bill is rushed to the floor before people have a chance to 
read it, examine it, amend it, discuss it, it's not going to be good 
for the American people in all things.
  Thomas Jefferson was not part of the Constitutional Convention. He 
was part of the Continental Congress. In fact, he did most of the 
drafting of the Declaration of Independence, but he wasn't there for 
the drafting of the Constitution, itself. He wrote this letter after 
the Constitution was promulgated--an incredible document.

[[Page 5140]]

  He said:

       If I could add one thing to the Constitution, it would be a 
     requirement that every law had to be on file for 1 year 
     minimum so everyone could read it, everyone could make 
     comments on it. You'd have plenty of chances to think of 
     amendments that might make it better and a stronger, more 
     effective law.

  Have it on file for a year. That may not have been such a bad idea if 
it had been included. As incredibly and, I believe, divinely inspired 
as the Constitution was, so many of the Founders said they got their 
inspiration for provisions in the Constitution from the Old Testament, 
but as fantastic as it was, it was written down by men who make 
mistakes.
  This Congress better not put into law a gun control bill or an 
immigration bill or any other important bill that has not had adequate 
scrutiny because, if that happens, Americans will suffer just as surely 
as they are beginning to as ObamaCare is being implemented around the 
country and as people are being turned away from treatment, though they 
were promised: if you like your doctor, you can keep him; if you like 
your health insurance, you can keep it. Now they've found that was 
completely untrue--and Joe Wilson was right. It's not true what was 
said about the Affordable Care Act. People have lost their doctors, and 
they've lost their insurance. That will continue to occur, and we're 
going to destroy the best health care in the history of man.
  There are doctors, medical historians, who have indicated that they 
think it was just after the turn of 1900--maybe 1910 or so--when for 
the first time in human history a person had a better chance of getting 
well after seeing a doctor than he did of getting worse after seeing a 
doctor. You get your mind around that. For thousands of years of the 
existence of man, where we have recorded history of man, think about 
that: only in the last hundred years have you had a better chance of 
getting well after seeing a doctor than of getting worse. You think 
about how far we've come. Now we're radically going to change health 
care so people can't get the treatment they once did? We needed to 
reform health care--it needed reform--but it didn't need a government 
takeover, and it still doesn't. The reason for that is that life is 
important. Life has value.
  I'm going to read a story--I won't read the whole thing--that was in 
the New York Daily News from Thursday, April 11.

                              {time}  1420

       Ashley Baldwin said she saw the puppies moving on five 
     occasions after their spines were snipped.
       The doctor is charged in the deaths of these puppies and in 
     the death of the mother. The gruesome testimony at the 
     ``House of Horrors'' trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell continued on 
     Thursday, with two former employees describing scenes that 
     strained the imagination.
       Ashley Baldwin, who began working at the cash-only clinic 
     in west Philadelphia when she was just 15, said that she 
     routinely assisted Gosnell with these procedures, on five 
     different occasions, saw puppies moving following the 
     procedure.
       In one case Baldwin, who is now 22 and a dog owner, 
     testified that she witnessed a puppy ``screeching'' after the 
     procedure.
       She said, ``They looked like regular puppies.''
       When asked about a particular puppy described in court as 
     ``puppy A,'' who the prosecution contends was nearing its 
     birth date, Baldwin recalled how large the unborn puppy was 
     following the procedure.
       ``The chest was moving,'' she testified Thursday.
       Gosnell trained his employees to cut the necks of the 
     puppies to sever their spinal cords, both Baldwin and Lynda 
     Williams, another former employee, testified on Wednesday.
       Williams testified that she saw her former boss snip the 
     necks of more than 30 puppies.
       John McMahon, Gosnell's attorney, has argued that his 
     client did not kill any puppies by snipping their spines and 
     that they were already in the death throes because of the 
     drugs he had given the mother dog.
       Gosnell is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths 
     of seven puppies, as well as murder in the death of the 
     mother undergoing its procedure.

  Now, the reason the mainstream media has not reported this story and 
continues to refuse to report this story about little innocent puppies 
having their necks cut and killed after they're born alive is because 
they are not puppies; they're human beings. They're boys and girls, and 
it doesn't fit the agenda of the mainstream media to report on little 
boys and little girls whose spinal cords are cut by a doctor. They 
would be sure to report if these were puppies, but they're not; they're 
little boys and girls.
  And as a father who held our first very premature child in my hands 
and heard her gasping for air, heard her efforts to live, and knowing 
that we did all we could to help her live and that she's 29 years old, 
I can't imagine anyone thinking not only is it not a big deal but it is 
not worth reporting when a doctor snips the neck of someone's little 
child.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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