[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11420-11425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      DEPENDENCE ON THE GOVERNMENT

  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. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Today, despite all of the diatribe, all of the allegations, so many 
of which shocked me, this bill passed. There were things in the farm 
bill I was not crazy about, but what an extraordinary day for this 
reason: over the last 40-50 years, Members of the other party have 
increasingly made the United States a welfare state where more and more 
American people are dependent upon this government for their 
livelihood. Having been at a Harvard orientation course, I was shocked 
to have a dean there with charts that showed that since welfare began, 
and assistance to single moms, a check actually for each child that any 
woman could have out of wedlock, they would get a check from the 
government. Now, it was well intentioned.
  Back in the sixties, there were deadbeat dads that were not helping 
with their obligation to help their children, and so the government, 
people here in Congress thought, wow, why don't we help these poor 
single moms by giving them a check for every child they have out of 
wedlock. At that time we were around 6-7 percent of children being born 
to single-parent homes. And after 40 years--actually after 30 years, as 
economists will tell you, you will get more of what you pay for. And so 
we are to date now past 40 percent and moving toward 50 percent of 
children born in American to a single-mom home because we got what we 
paid for.
  Now, it doesn't matter how well intentioned the program was. What I 
saw happening in the nineties as a judge was single moms coming before 
me for welfare fraud, and the stories were usually the same that they 
presented to me. So often they were bored with high school, and someone 
said, hey, you can just have a baby and the government will send you a 
check. And then you can live, and you don't have to work. You don't 
have to finish high school.
  And those well-intentioned Members of Congress back in the sixties 
ended up in effect luring smart young women away from finishing high 
school into having a child out of wedlock and away from reaching their 
full potential.
  Now, even for those of us who are Christians that believe God created 
heaven and Earth and that God created at one time a Garden of Eden from 
which man fell for disobedience, even in that scenario when the world 
was perfect, Adam was given a job. In a perfect world where everything 
was fantastic--before childbirth pains, before briars, before thistles, 
before all of the things that frustrate farmers, at that time he had a 
job: tend the garden.

                              {time}  1600

  In a perfect world, people will have a job to reach their God-given 
potential, and there is a good feeling from doing a good job in what we 
do.
  That's one of the things I miss about working in the yard or working 
out on a farm or working with your hands. When you finish, you see 
you've done something good.
  When we work here, we try to do the right thing, on both sides of the 
aisle, but we never know for some times decades whether we did more 
good than damage.
  And I would humbly submit that the program that began to lure young 
women away from their potential, away from finishing high school, away 
from time in college, was well intentioned, but this government should 
never be in the business of luring people away from their potential, 
from luring people into results from which they cannot seem to 
extricate themselves.
  And they'd come before me for welfare fraud, felony welfare fraud, as 
a district judge. And normally the scenario was that they realized, 
after a number of children, they couldn't live on that little bit of 
government subsistence; and they would think, well, maybe if I get a 
job, and I don't report it to the Federal authorities, maybe I'll 
finally have enough income that, combined with what the government's 
giving me, then I can get ahead and I can get out of this hole, this 
rut.
  And so when the Republicans took the majority, in 1995, one of the 
things that they wanted to do was welfare reform. And I was at that 
Harvard orientation seminar and was surprised when they brought out the 
big poster graph of single mothers' income over the 30-or-so years 
since that program had first begun.
  Single moms' income, when adjusted for inflation over that 30-year 
period, was flat-lined. All those years, the average single mom never 
got ahead. She was flat-lined because she was lured into that 
government program.
  I'm not sure what the right thing was, but I think it's time to have 
the debate about it.
  So I know that those people that passed the bills in the sixties, 
they had the best of intentions, but those poor single moms were flat-
lined for about 30 years of what they were bringing home. That's 
tragic. I know both sides of the aisle would want them to do better and 
do well and every year to do a little better. I know that feeling is on 
both sides of the aisle, but we disagree with how you get there.
  But what really shocked me today, and I've got to say, in some cases 
broke my heart, is to hear friends talk about how Republicans wanted to 
take food out of the mouths of children. I would never insinuate or say 
such a motive on the part of friends across the aisle, even though I 
believe that that welfare program, back from the sixties, did exactly 
that.
  I would never ascribe that motivation to friends across the aisle 
because I know that's not their heart. They really do want to help. 
They just went about it in the wrong way in the sixties.
  And so, in 1995, when Newt Gingrich led the Republican Revolution, 
had the Contract With America, they put in a requirement for work. If 
you could work, you had to work. And it pushed people who had been 
subsisting on welfare, barely getting by, it pushed them into the 
workforce.

[[Page 11421]]

  And this graph, about 9 years later, showed that single moms' income, 
when adjusted for inflation, after welfare reform, had single moms 
making more money. Every year that graph showed their income went up. 
And surely that is what both sides of the aisle would want.
  And when we took up this farm bill today, I voted against it for the 
first vote, previously. But if we are ever going to get down to truly 
reforming what has become a welfare state that lures far too many 
people away from the job they could be doing, and from the good feeling 
of actually accomplishing something, and the good feeling of knowing 
you're reaching closer, ever closer to your potential. I was willing to 
vote for this today because we were going to take the food stamp 
program out of the agriculture bill.
  And I don't know what the Senate's going to do, and I can't help what 
they're going to do. But I know this: today, we had a first step in the 
right direction. And I agreed with my leadership, if you will separate 
out the food stamp program so that we can have a separate debate on the 
food stamp program, and even though I don't agree with a number of 
things in the farm bill we voted on, that was such a big deal, a 
tremendous stride forward.
  People said neither the House nor the Senate would ever, ever 
separate the food stamp program from the Ag bill because in either the 
House or the Senate, you had to have them tied together to get enough 
people from both sides, or either side to vote for the bill because 
you'd never get enough Republicans by themselves, you'd never get 
enough Democrats by themselves and you'd never get enough together 
unless you put the food stamp program with the farm program.
  But by doing so, it prevented us from looking closely at the farm 
program because the food stamp program made 70 to 80 percent of the 
budget; and you couldn't look effectively enough at the food stamp 
program because it was linked with the farm program.
  This was a big step, and I know there are a number of groups that I 
thank God for that are doing a great job. And I have friends in these 
groups and they've said this was a major mistake today. And I would 
submit, very humbly, hide and watch. This was a first major step.
  And my goal, and I hope I live to see it, and I hope this country's 
around long enough that we can do it, is to take every form of public 
assistance, every form of public assistance, and put it into one bill, 
in one subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, and they deal with 
all welfare, all types of public assistance. And once that happens, we 
can have major reform.
  But the reason we have trouble having reform of this ever-growing, 
ever-bloated welfare state is because the public assistance programs 
are found throughout all the committee's budgets, throughout all the 
appropriations. So if over here in the farm program you say, wait a 
minute; we need to reform the food stamp program. They go, oh, you hate 
children. You want to starve children, you want to starve mothers or 
veterans or military. You must hate all these people.
  Why?
  Because they're willing to say things that are not right to come in 
here and say. And that's what broke my heart today over and over, 
hearing people that surely know I would never want to take food out of 
the mouth of someone who could not provide for themselves. I don't know 
any Republican who has ever said that or would ever want that.
  We want to help people who truly cannot help themselves.
  And my friend across the aisle, Mr. McDermott, at Rules, when I made 
a proposed amendment to separate the food stamp program from the farm 
bill, he said, so do you want to completely eliminate the food stamp 
program?
  And I pointed out, no, I did not. Of course, that didn't stop the 
mainstream press or the left wing blogs from spouting lies. They're 
accustomed to that. And God bless them, they have the freedom to do 
that, and they should be able to do that without this administration 
grabbing up all their phone records.
  But it was not true, and I pointed out to Mr. McDermott what was 
true. No, I don't want to end it. I want to separate it out. And one 
day I want to have all of the public assistance in one committee, where 
we can see all of the ones that are redundant, those that duplicate 
services already provided, those where the most waste, fraud and abuse 
is taking place, because the thing we know, we're over $50,000 for 
every child of debt before they ever even have a chance to start making 
a living.
  And we have done that, and it is immoral what we have done to future 
generations, loading them up with debt, just because we can't get to 
the bottom of waste, fraud and abuse, get to the bottom of what helps 
this country more than hurts it. And there will be a price today to pay 
someday for our negligence.
  But it's not too late. We can still fix it. But a start happened 
today. This was a big deal, to separate the food stamp program out so 
we can look at it.
  And a good example of what I'm talking about, how these different 
types of assistance are spread out through so many different budgets, 
was pointed out by my good friend, Dan Webster from Florida, first 
Republican Speaker of the House, as I understand it, down in Florida, 
was reluctant to run, did run, is elected here.
  He decided to get to the bottom, just one little tiny aspect of this 
Federal, bloated bureaucracy. How many Federal programs are there that 
are responsible for getting people to appointments?
  So far he says he's found 87 programs responsible for getting people 
to appointments, and most of them are in the same cities, and most of 
them have the vans that are the same size, same kind of vans. And on 
average, when they do take somebody, they'll maybe average three people 
per trip.
  Well, when you take up one committee's budget, or one appropriations, 
and you were to take one of those 87 programs and say, you know what, 
let's combine this with these other programs, then we will hear, as 
we've heard today, oh, you hate children, or you want to take food from 
people's mouths.
  If it's all 87 programs in one bill, then we can come before this 
body and say, no, we love children. We want to help this country. In 
fact, we will do more good for children of the future than what you've 
proposed because you're loading them up with debt, while we lavish it 
on our generation, and going to make future generations pay for 
lavishing ourselves. That is just wrong.
  But if you combine them all into one bill, then we can say, no, we 
care every bit as deeply and perhaps more than you do, but we don't 
need 87 programs. We don't need all the duplication. Let's eliminate 
the redundancy.
  Let's get down to what we really need as a Federal Government, 
because this administration was certainly shocked. They talked about 
all the horrors of cutting the budget with the sequestration.
  Well, the sequestration made too many cuts in defense. Some were 
appropriate, but it did some in the wrong places. As I told my 
leadership 2 years ago this month, you never put your security on the 
table.

                              {time}  1615

  You can make cuts but you can never gamble your national security or 
your home. By putting defense on the table, my leadership did, and I 
was promised that those sequestration cuts would never happen. I was 
sure if that bill passed that would happen, and it would be a 
disastrous mistake and we would be blamed even though it was the 
President's idea. It all happened. Sometimes it's just not fun being 
right.
  But here, today, we did something good. We started a step toward that 
goal one day of having all the public assistance in one bill, one 
budget, one committee, where we can get in and analyze without all of 
the false statements that people want to make about others wanting to 
take food from the mouths of children, from my friends saying that we 
wanted to do that, that I wanted to do that. Come on. Mr. Speaker, that 
is just wrong.

[[Page 11422]]

  On our side of the aisle, yes, we will complain ObamaCare is going to 
hurt health care. We're now seeing that. We're seeing it all play out 
just as we said would happen. And maybe it wasn't a death panel. Call 
it what you want, but it is a panel under ObamaCare that will say that 
you're a little too old; you've had a good life; your hip is killing 
you. Before ObamaCare, you would have gotten a new hip. But now we, the 
government, say, No, you don't get a new hip. Yes, you can use a new 
knee, and you might have 20, 25 good years with it, but we're the 
government and we say you've had a good knee for long enough so you're 
not getting a new knee. Or, as the President pointed out in his town 
hall meeting when a woman asked about a pacemaker that her mother had 
gotten, Will you consider the quality of life in deciding who gets a 
pacemaker and who does not? Since my mother has lived 10 years after 
getting a pacemaker, I'm concerned she wouldn't get one under 
ObamaCare. He beat around the bush but then finally said that maybe 
we're better off telling your mother to just take a pain pill, and that 
means die without your pacemaker.
  That's what ObamaCare is going to do. But I would never, ever ascribe 
to any one of my friends across the aisle the intention to want people 
to die. Well, they might tell me that sometimes, but not to the public 
that they are charged with protecting, because I don't think they mean 
to do that. I just think they're motivated to do the right thing, but 
it's being done in the wrong ways and people are being hurt. And that's 
the way we look at it.
  So today, to hear dozens and dozens of friends across the aisle come 
up here and try to vilify Republicans, saying we want to take food out 
of the mouths of children, that this is going to destroy these poor 
people that can't provide for themselves and this is what we want to 
do, most of those things were said in ways that it would have done no 
good to ask that their words be taken down because they would ascribe 
it to Republicans in general or to a big group so that you couldn't say 
that violated the rule of saying a specific person had a specific evil 
motive; but it was, nonetheless, just as hurtful.
  That's, apparently, the difference. One side is willing to accuse the 
other of wanting to push Grandma off a cliff and let her die bouncing 
down a cliff, and the other side, we think you're going to cause 
Grandma to die early, but we know you don't mean to do that. In fact, 
ObamaCare will do that very thing because of what we've seen.
  And I heard Bette Midler and Michelle Malkin are good friends. I 
heard she tweeted something to the effect that if we had lost the 
Revolution, everyone would have universal health care. Well, I have 
three daughters and a wife that's been married to me, God bless her and 
help her, for 35 years. Four women in my life in my immediate family. 
Sometimes children do things that break your heart. Sometimes they 
bless you beyond anything you could imagine.
  What I think Ms. Midler didn't understand is, if we had England's 
health care, they have a 19 to 20 percent lower survival rate from 
breast cancer than we have in the United States because our health care 
is that much better and you get treatment that much quicker here. You 
didn't have to wait until you felt a lump. You could get a mammogram. 
There were groups that could help if you didn't have the money. But in 
England, you had to get on a list for everything you did.
  And so, when you think about one in five women with breast cancer, I 
can't imagine anyone would want England's health care if they realized 
it means we're going to lose 20 percent of the women with breast cancer 
in this country.
  I mentioned before that one of my constituents came from England. She 
said her mother died of breast cancer because she lived in England and 
was on list after list to get the diagnostic care to find out if she 
had cancer, and then when she found it, she went on another list. It 
took too long to get surgery, get help, get treatment. Her mother died, 
she'd said, because she lived in England. She said, On the other hand, 
I'm in America. I'm a secretary here and I don't have much money, but 
I'm alive today because when I was found to have cancer, I didn't have 
to go on a list. I was able to get treatment when I needed it, whether 
I could afford it or not.
  And those who yearn for the ObamaCare days, where we look like 
England's health care, where we have 20 percent less survival rate of 
women we love with all our hearts, like the four women in my life, if 
you've got five women, which one of them do you want to die so we can 
have health care like England?
  The disagreement here on the floor was not about anybody wanting 
children to not have the food they need. But we have seen the results 
of welfare reform, and the results of welfare reform in the Republican 
revolution of 1995 resulted in single moms having more income after 
inflation than ever before under the giveaway programs of the Great 
Society.
  So, in that scenario, who cares more: those that pushed through the 
Great Society, that lured women into a rut that so many of them 
couldn't get out of, or those who pushed through a bill that forced 
them to start meeting their potential?
  I spoke at Texas College, the oldest college in Tyler, Texas, my 
home, within the past few months. It's a great college. It changed my 
opinion about colleges that began as all one race. Now they're all 
different races. But it's basically an African American college still 
today. The people in charge are Christians, and they care deeply.
  And I spoke to a combined sociology class there at Texas College and 
I laid this issue out before them. As one single mom told me, You've 
got to clean it up. You've got to clean these programs up. I'm now, 
after so many years later, coming to college to try to better myself. 
And I wish it had been otherwise, but you need to make people work. You 
need to make people finish high school. And if they can, have them do 
some college. You need to incentivize that. You do not need to just 
give people a check. She said too many people even spend it on drugs 
instead of their kids. She also said, You need to reform the system so 
that I don't waste years trying to get to college. And others chimed in 
and they said similar things.
  These were people who understand the system better than I do. But as 
a judge, as a citizen, I've seen it from different angles. And though 
we care equally on both sides of the aisle, one way leads to the end of 
a Nation. And it's the broad path and it's wide, because every Nation 
in the history of the world has gone down that path and come to an end. 
Unless the Lord comes before, we will, too.
  So my goal by running for Congress, the goal of so many people I know 
here, was to come try to make a difference, to prolong what some called 
a little experiment in democracy, to prolong what Ben Franklin said. 
It's a republic, Madam, if you can keep it. That's our goal. That's 
what we hope to do.
  I really believe today we made a step in that direction toward 
reforming the system and starting down the path of eliminating the 
duplication. I realize it may not all happen in this farm bill by the 
time we agree with the Senate, but then we can expose those in the 
Senate that did not do the right thing and we can expose those in the 
House that didn't. I think it will end up giving us a majority of those 
who will do the right thing. Not that everybody doesn't have the right 
motivation, but we need more who will do the right thing, even under 
pressure from friends or enemies to do something else.
  I think we did a good thing today.
  With that, I yield to my friend from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).


                          The Syrian Conflict

  Mr. FORTENBERRY. I thank the gentleman from Texas, if you would allow 
me a few minutes of commentary.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to add to Mr. Gohmert's conversation today. I 
wanted to add a few words on the Syrian conflict, which has been 
unfolding with just horrific consequences.
  In my office this week, I read the accounts about Father Francois 
Murad, a

[[Page 11423]]

Franciscan priest who was shot dead in northern Syria by rebels engaged 
in the Syrian conflict. He was killed in a Christian village where he 
sought to serve. He did not deserve the death that he was dealt.
  Mr. Speaker, I just simply firmly believe that the United States 
Congress cannot allow American taxpayers to become complicit in this 
killing and the other brutality that is occurring there in Syria.
  What began as a very hopeful exercise of the Syrian people 
petitioning their government for redress of grievances and their basic 
rights has spun into a dreadful civil war with terroristic elements and 
other rebel groups fighting this brutal Assad regime. But the bloodbath 
in Syria has spared no one. The regime and many of its rebel opponents 
have killed wantonly, without discretion, murdering civilians and 
combatants alike. Men, women, and even innocent children have not been 
spared. No one there is safe.
  We have no place imposing our notions of democracy in a place where 
we cannot distinguish who stands for what. We cannot become complicit 
in barbaric attacks on civilians. We have no business shipping weapons 
that could end up in the hands of those who would raid convents and 
murder innocent people. Neither America nor Syria can possibly be 
served by this.
  Mr. Speaker, true to our principles, the United States remains the 
largest donor of humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria, with a 
total of more than $800 million given since this conflict began in the 
spring of 2011. That's where our efforts belong.
  Mr. Speaker, I think for Father Murad, whom I referenced earlier, 
this would probably be the outcome that he would want to see: 
humanitarian help, giving people some hope, possibly even stopping the 
shipment of arms into that country. That would be a legacy worthy of 
his sacrifice.
  A hundred thousand persons have died, Mr. Speaker. No U.S. military 
engagement in Syria.
  I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Nebraska. A wonderful point.
  I know that there are people on both sides of the aisle who are 
motivated, again, by doing the right thing. But when you know that you 
have a tyrant on one side in charge of the country and you know that 
now perhaps it would have been different if we'd gotten in earlier, but 
at this point al Qaeda or the most radical Islamists, brutal killers, 
are driving the rebels, there is no good reason for this country to 
expend any blood nor any treasure to get in the middle of that 
conflict, and I appreciate so much my friend pointing that out.

                              {time}  1630

  It points to the problem in the Middle East with regard to the 
American position. This President had his administration help the 
rebels in Libya when we knew--hey, people were saying it right here--we 
know there are al Qaeda supporting the rebels. We're not sure how 
extensive it is, so let's get to the bottom of it before you just 
launch in and eliminate Qadhafi. Because Qadhafi was giving us more 
information on terrorist elements in the world than most anybody but 
our best friend, Israel. He was being helpful. And though he had blood 
on his hands for which he should have paid, you have to choose between 
the lesser of two evils.
  As Secretary Gates said at the time, there is absolutely no United 
States national security interest at stake in this Libya crisis, in the 
rebellion, and yet this President went headlong. And when you know, as 
one Egyptian paper reported, bragging, they have six Muslim Brotherhood 
members that advise this administration--and there are a lot more 
people sympathetic to Muslim Brotherhood that advise this 
administration than that. When you know that that is going on, then it 
makes sense, they're going to make stupid decisions. They're going to 
always, like they did in Egypt, say, well, let's rush in and help, even 
though it allows the Muslim Brotherhood to take over Egypt.
  I've heard so many people say they've talked to people from Egypt who 
have said we don't want the radical Islamists in charge, we don't want 
the Muslim Brotherhood. We don't want them in charge. We want a 
moderate Muslim government so that we can live in peace and not 
tyranny, like Afghanistan did under the Taliban. And now, to the 
disgrace of this Nation--this, the greatest Nation in the history of 
the world--this administration is about to leave Afghanistan--which we 
should have done probably in 2002, but now we're about to leave it in 
the hands of the Taliban.
  If we had left in 2002, the Taliban had been totally destroyed. They 
were gone. The people that were members were in such disarray they did 
not have any real presence in Afghanistan. Why was that? It wasn't 
because tens of thousands of American troops went into Afghanistan and 
wiped out the Taliban. No. It was because of the heroic sacrifices of 
those within the tribal groups called the Northern Alliance at that 
time.
  General Dostum led those troops, and the United States provided less 
than 500 special ops intelligence people in Afghanistan and provided 
them air cover, gave them some weapons. And they routed the Taliban 
within a matter of 3 or 4 months. In the last famous battle with 
General Dostum leading, these Northern Alliance tribesmen, on 
horseback, with weapons, riding uphill into the strong area where the 
Taliban was located, with bullets, RPGs flying all around them, killing 
many on horseback, but they never stopped. They went up there to the 
fortress and they defeated the Taliban.
  Now this administration says, as a result of how forceful those 
Northern Alliance were in defeating the Taliban, well, those are war 
criminals. No, they know how to fight the Taliban. Clearly, we don't 
because the Taliban has come back.
  I would submit that this administration releasing Taliban leaders to 
go back and be in charge is not a good thing. Because we had four 
Americans that were killed at the same time this administration was 
pleading, oh, please, please, come talk to us. You don't have to have 
any preconditions, just talk to us. We look weak because this 
administration gives every appearance of being weak because it's 
getting terrible advice.
  In that part of the world, they don't understand turn the other 
cheek. As Christians individually--individuals of us here that are--you 
are to turn the other cheek. But as a government official, you provide 
for the common defense. And you make sure if others do evil to people 
in this country or threaten this country, that they are punished 
because the government is not given the sword in vain. People 
misunderstand that and think, oh, if we will apologize enough for all 
of the Americans who have laid down their lives--not for some great 
empire, but for other nations to continue to speak their language, to 
continue to have their own identity, and to continue to have freedom 
that was taken away. This country has sacrificed for freedom like no 
one in the history of the world.
  In the past, there were some selfish, very selfish motivations. Our 
selfish motivation has normally been that we want these people to be 
freer so that we can be friends and freedom will be catching. But as 
we've seen, if you are not educated in how to sustain a democratic 
republic where you actually could govern yourself, if you don't 
understand how to do that, you will lose it. We've watched in Turkey, 
which, after Ataturk made those great changes to the government--yes, 
Islam is the most widespread religion in Turkey, but it was a secular 
government where other people could also worship. We see that being 
removed little by little in Turkey. And I hear from Turkish friends who 
are frightened of what's happening.
  Now our government seems to be on the wrong side in each of these 
disputes. We're out there trying to work with the Taliban while they're 
killing Americans. Shouldn't that at least be one precondition? Would 
you stop killing our American soldiers that are training your farmers, 
training your government officials, could you stop killing them long 
enough for us to have our talk? Because what needs to be done is you 
kill an American, we're going to wipe out a whole bunch of

[[Page 11424]]

your folks because we are about protecting ourselves.
  I still feel guilty for 1979, being in the United States Army when we 
were attacked. It was an act of war against our embassy in Tehran and 
we looked weak to the world. And it's still used as a recruiting tool. 
Forget Abu Ghraib--the best recruiting tool is the way we left Vietnam, 
the way we did nothing to avenge or even to truly get our people out of 
Tehran after that act of war.
  I love the leadership of Ronald Reagan, but in 1983 he had a 
Democratic Congress. People that worked with him, when I blamed him for 
withdrawing from Beirut after attack, that showed weakness, they said 
the Democrats made clear he didn't have a whole lot of choice. But that 
gave a sign of weakness.
  USS Cole, we basically did nothing. Nobody paid as they should have. 
If we're going to protect this Nation, we have to take care of things 
at home. Stop all the waste, fraud and abuse so that people who truly 
need help get it, and those who can work have the opportunity to work, 
not with some do-nothing government program but with a real job where 
you make real money and you accomplish real things. Because one other 
thing that ObamaCare is doing is a disaster to our American friends.
  I've been told by people, look, I used to work full time at 
McDonald's, and now, because of ObamaCare, they cut me to part time. So 
now I don't have the benefits I had before, and I have to go back and 
forth between Burger King or Arby's and McDonald's because everybody's 
cutting to part time because of ObamaCare.
  Regardless of the incentives for passing the bill, regardless of all 
the desire people express about giving people better health care, 
they're having worse lives. It's the slowest recovery, the worst 
recovery in American history--other than from the Great Depression. And 
like Morganthau, the Secretary of the Treasury, said in 1940 in his own 
handwriting, he said, we have spent more money than anyone in history 
trying to end the Depression, and we created nothing but debt. No 
better off, they were no better off.
  It was not until World War II began and we got drawn into that by 
Pearl Harbor being bombed and seeing liberty under attack through our 
European friends, we got drawn into it. And then the government started 
doing their number one job--provide for the common defense--and lo and 
behold we came out of the Depression. The government did the most 
important thing for it to do: provide freedom, protect Americans so 
they can grow the economies, so they can be entrepreneurs.
  When the government does the most important job--provide for the 
common defense--it ended the Great Depression. Now we have people in 
government that think, though they may not have ever been successful in 
business, that they can tell people who have been and who are how to 
run their business so much better, and it's hurting this economy. Oh, 
not with companies like General Electric, those who have gotten plenty 
of crony capitalist help.
  I would also advise those who don't want to see reform of welfare--
that I think can only occur when we get all public assistance in one 
appropriation, in one committee, then we can get real reform. And we 
will save so many billions and billions and billions--heck, maybe 
trillions of dollars over a 10-year period. We will save so much money 
that they will be able to throw it away on many more thousands of 
Solyndras. They can have all kinds of crony capitalism with the money 
we can save by providing incentives to get back to work, by providing 
incentives to finish high school and to go to college if you need to. 
But not everyone needs to go to college. You don't have to get a 
college degree to learn how to weld.
  I was over in Marshall, at the TSTA facility, the institution there. 
They're teaching welders, and they're making great money when they 
leave. And it's true of other institutions that teach those kinds of 
vocational training. But instead, we now have more people on food 
stamps than ever in history.
  What has happened to this country when those of us who want to get 
the country back running by reforming welfare are vilified and accused 
of wanting to take food out of the mouths of children? How wrong that 
is. We want more children with more food. The same way I've been 
vilified for saying children need to be taught English. Even if they're 
just newly arrived from Mexico, teach them in English. Maybe they need 
some beginner courses to get them there. But don't teach them in 
Spanish, help them move into English. Why? Not because I or people like 
me hate those Hispanic children, it's because we love them. And we know 
that if you teach them in English, as my friend, Commissioner Ramirez, 
former City Councilman Ramirez, said, his parents from Mexico said they 
couldn't speak Spanish at home. His father said you can be anything in 
America you want to be but you've got to speak good English. It was 
true. And I am thrilled to death that Gus' new restaurant in Tyler is 
working out so well. But he wasn't allowed to speak Spanish at home, 
and the sky is the limit.
  For someone born in this country, they can be President of the 
country. Instead of being a manual laborer speaking Spanish, they can 
be president of the company. So who really cares more about people? 
Those who rail against us who want to reform the entitlements we're 
told they are, that were supposed to be a hand up, not bait to be lured 
into a rut they could not get out of. That is immoral.

                              {time}  1645

  I know for some people--Star Parker, and there are others--who talk 
about how they have pulled themselves up, they're an inspiration. But 
there are too many that did not have the ability to pull themselves up 
or the wherewithal, and shame on us for luring them into a rut they 
couldn't get out of. It is time to reform that.
  But I can also say, as the attacks on the Christian religion have 
grown and grown exponentially, this country is in deeper and deeper 
trouble and will continue to be. The assault and the intolerance upon 
Christianity is incredible.
  People came to this country in the early days, Founders, Columbus 
when he discovered--he didn't know he was in a new country or a new 
continent. He thought he found a new way to Asia. But he claimed the 
land for his king and queen and also his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 
He wrote in his own journal it was the Lord that put it into his mind 
that he could sail west and get to the east, and it was the Holy Spirit 
that comforted him all the way.
  And you look at George Washington's writing, the father of this 
country, without whom there would be no country today as we know it, a 
noble, honorable, honest man. Faults, yes.
  This country didn't begin to start really reaching its potential 
until we dealt with the blight of slavery and the horror that was in 
America. There has not been any kind of blight on our soul like slavery 
in American history until we started killing babies. Slavery had to go.
  After we did away with slavery and more people were encouraged to be 
entrepreneurs and we came into the 1900s, we still needed a civil 
rights movement to set things straight. And Christian leaders like 
Martin Luther King, Jr., who had studied the Bible and wrote touching 
things like those letters from the Birmingham jail, they knew Christ 
was their salvation and they knew they were supposed to ensure that 
brothers and sisters treated brothers and sisters as such.
  There were vile Christians, but I would submit those weren't really 
Christians. They didn't understand Jesus' teachings. But it was the 
church that was behind the revolutionary movement. It was the church 
that was strongest behind the abolition movement. It was Christian 
leaders who were strongest behind the civil rights movement.
  Now this Nation, our government at least, seems to be at war with 
Christianity. We can have a little group complain that, Oh, we didn't 
feel comfortable in the military because of the prayers that were said 
or crosses worn or things that were said about Christianity. We have 
examples of someone

[[Page 11425]]

being told you can't give someone a Bible when they need one because 
you may be prosecuted or thrown out of the military. Under the rule 
some are trying to push through, if you have a dying friend that asks 
you, ``Is there a God?'' under the order some would have, you couldn't 
even tell them what you know with all your heart. It's gotten to be a 
problem.
  I love Ronald Reagan's quote back in 1984. He said:

       The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking 
     religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance. 
     Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of 
     religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our 
     lives.

  The teachings of Jesus would allow people to make whatever choices 
they wish--choose not to believe in God; choose to be an atheist; 
choose to be an agnostic and say, ``I just don't think there's enough 
evidence''; choose to be a Buddhist; choose to be a Muslim--because all 
children are acceptable in God's eyes.
  I believe God's will is not for any to stumble, that they will all 
come to eternal life. But the war that has been declared, as it appears 
to be, the gloves are off against Catholicism as a form of 
Christianity, all these different religious beliefs against abortion, 
those who have beliefs religiously against birth control, those who 
have beliefs about marriage being what it has been for most of the 
world's history and without which marriage between men and women we 
would not have had the future generations that even exist today. You 
say, ``I support that traditional marriage,'' and now you are to be 
drummed out of your job, drummed out of having friends, eliminated from 
the public sector.
  Ronald Reagan was right: the real intolerance, the real hatred is 
from those who choose to impose their beliefs and force them onto 
others.
  Mr. Speaker, today still, nonetheless, was a good day. We made a big 
move toward what will one day, if we are faithful, allow us to take 
some of the burden that we have been putting on future generations and 
the $50,000 or so we have already humped onto the backs, shoulders of 
children that don't have jobs yet. We made a first step toward the day 
when we can reform them; we can start encouraging people to their God-
given potential instead of luring them into ruts.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________