[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 21405-21407]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE PRICE OF CIVILIZATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina 
(Mr. Sanford) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I want to dovetail for one moment on the 
conversation that was just held by my colleagues from across the aisle. 
I think

[[Page 21406]]

that they have been courageous. I think about Sam Farr and I think 
about Barbara Lee, and what they have pushed for, ultimately, has less 
to do with Cuba--though they might argue otherwise--and more to do with 
American rights.
  I would give, just as an example, that this whole notion of a travel 
moratorium as it now exists from the United States to Cuba is 
nonsensical--they have been bold enough to point that out--and many 
other things for quite some number of years. They have led the way on 
this issue.
  I just want to applaud them because, if you stop and think about it, 
as an American, you can travel to any country on the globe--except for 
one. You can go to North Korea. You can go to Syria. You can go to 
Iran, and you could go to Iraq. It may not work out well for you, but 
you can go to anyplace on the globe except for a place roughly 60 miles 
off of Key West. That is a remarkable infringement on American liberty 
at the end of the day. So I thank them for what they have done not only 
on behalf of the Cuban people, but, ultimately, to advance this larger 
notion of individual liberty here in this country.
  With that having been said, I also want to touch for one moment on 
the Progressive Hour that preceded my time. It was said during that 
hour that taxes ``are the cost of living in a civilized society.'' I 
think the question that all of us would have to ask is: How civilized a 
society do you want to live in then?
  I have told my boys about this magazine that they will one day read, 
entitled, Reader's Digest, and when they poll the different readers, 
they came out with the finding that Americans would be roughly happy 
with one-quarter of their wages garnished and sent off to the world of 
taxes, whether at the Federal, State, or local level.
  The reality, as is pointed out by a guy by the name of Laurence 
Kotlikoff, who studied a thing called generational accounting at Boston 
University, is that a child born into America today will face roughly 
an 82 percent tax liability, which is to say, if that is the cost of 
civilization, many people would say: I want a much less civilized 
society, because 82 percent does not allow me to be civilized in the 
way to offer Christmas presents to my kids at Christmastime, help out 
at the local church or charity, pay for my kids' education, or all the 
other things that go with life.
  So, yes, we recognize that taxes are a part of civilized society, but 
the degree of tax load that faces this next generation is not only 
astounding, but it ultimately brings with it the roots of our 
civilization's undoing if we don't watch out, which will bring me to 
what I wanted to talk about just a moment ago.
  In the military, they have a thing called an after-action review. An 
after-action review is simply saying: Let's look at what just occurred 
and analyze for one moment what did we get right and what did we get 
wrong and how might we not get it a little bit better the next time 
around.
  In that light, I want to look at the omnibus bill. Debate is done. We 
will vote on it tomorrow morning, and we will head for Christmas and 
holiday seasons across this country. In that regard, I offer empathy to 
Hal Rogers, the Appropriations team, and all in leadership who were 
involved in the negotiating process, which--I get it--was hard. I think 
that it is easy to Monday afternoon quarterback these kind of things, 
and my attempt to analyze is not an attempt to do that. There was a 
plus and minus, in essence, for every Member of Congress.
  There is something to like in a trillion-dollar bill, and there is 
something to dislike in a trillion-dollar bill of 2,000 pages. So when 
I go down the pluses and the minuses, coming from Charleston, South 
Carolina, you would look at something like Guantanamo Bay, and you 
would say: I think it is a plus that there is another prohibition on 
domestically relocating high-value targets from Guantanamo Bay to the 
United States of America. I think that makes sense. It is, in fact, the 
third prohibition that this Congress has put in place. The other two 
the President has signed, and my hope is that he will certainly adhere 
to that here for the last couple months of his Presidency.
  I think that fully funding the military, which is a core function of 
the Federal Government, is a plus. I could go with a number of other 
pluses. I will mention minuses, though.
  I don't think what should have been done was done with regard to 
Syrian refugees.
  I don't think what could have been done was done with regard to 
Planned Parenthood.
  I look at a program like the Maritime SEA program--$5.4 million a 
ship. It is corporate welfare if you want to cut to the chase. I think 
that is a real challenge. Programs like that shouldn't have been in 
this bill.
  I look at the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015. I think 
it is an infringement upon our Fourth Amendment rights as Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that civil liberties are really the foundation 
to every other liberty that we enjoy as Americans, and I think that 
there are real challenges there. The Founding Fathers were so 
deliberate about putting in place civil liberties because they didn't 
like the idea of a British soldier coming into a house and rooting 
around long enough until they found something to charge you with. I 
think what we have in this bill is an extension of that infringement 
that was guarded against at the time of the founding of the Republic.
  I look at the crude oil export ban coming down. I know that is viewed 
as a positive thing within the Chamber. As a coastal resident, I view 
it as a negative. To me, it is a bit of an oxymoron. To say, ``I tell 
you what. We are going to ship oil offshore, but we are now going to 
begin to open up for exploration areas that had been prohibited, not 
been open for exploration, off the Carolinas under the guise of energy 
independence, but we are going to take what we might find there and 
ship it to France,'' to me, that just doesn't make sense. I struggle 
with that.
  I struggle with the EPA ruling. The EPA has made a giant territorial 
grab with regard to waters--or nonwaters, if you want to call them 
that--of the United States. So I think, again, more could have been 
done.
  For those different reasons, I am ultimately going to vote ``no'' on 
this tomorrow.

                              {time}  1615

  I think that, in terms of my after-action review, the point is not to 
pick the pluses and the minuses because they are in a bill this big, 
but to highlight the way in which the taxpayer always loses when you 
end up with a giant amalgamated total at the end of the session.
  An omnibus bill inherently is bad for the taxpayer because it gives 
everybody in the world of politics a reason to vote for it or to vote 
against it. Whoever comes up at your townhall meeting or at the rotary 
club back home, you are able to say: I was for you. I was with you.
  Because there is unlimited disguise in one's ability to be for or 
against a Christmas tree sort of bill with as many ornaments as this 
one has on it.
  I just want to highlight that this bill ultimately is a plus of about 
$50 billion. $50 billion, if broken out across the United States, is 
about $400 of additional spending per family.
  The question I think we each have to ask, as taxpayer advocates, is: 
Is another $400 going to Washington in line with what my taxpayers want 
or would they rather have that money at home to spend, indeed, on 
Christmas presents under the tree or a host of other family needs?
  If you add to that the entitlement spending that is going to occur at 
the same time--that is roughly about another $194 billion--you begin to 
look at startling increases that continue to progress.
  I look at this bill and I say that the one loser in this equation is 
the taxpayer, regardless of what a good job Hal Rogers and others on 
the appropriation team attempted to do because of the nature of the 
bill--the fact is that we are looking at an omnibus bill.
  It is my Christmas tree wish, as we go into the season, that next 
year come

[[Page 21407]]

this time we are not going to face an omnibus bill. Speaker Ryan has 
promised that that will be the case and we will go back to so-called 
regular order.
  I just want to emphasize that it is vital from a taxpayer standpoint 
that we do so. Because, if we don't, the undoing of our civilization is 
being laid at rest not with the threat of terrorism. Terrorism brings 
with it the capacity to hurt a nation, to kill thousands or to kill 
hundreds. It doesn't bring with it the ability to bring down a nation.
  What brings the ability to bring down a nation is rot from within. 
The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it best when he 
was asked what is the biggest threat to America. His answer was not the 
Chinese, not terrorism, not a whole host of threats around the globe. 
His answer was the American debt.
  The omnibus bill that we will pass tomorrow is a threat with regard 
to the growth of entitlement spending, domestic discretionary spending, 
and overall spending. It is vital that we get this process right next 
year.
  Mr. Speaker, I do wish you a Merry Christmas.
  Before I call it quits, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Collins), who I also wish a Merry Christmas to.


                        Honoring Dr. Meg Whitley

  Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Merry Christmas to my dear colleague from 
South Carolina as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a constituent who has put her 
beliefs into action.
  Dr. Meg Whitley has dedicated her life to meeting the needs of her 
community. She is a professor emeritus at Young Harris College in 
northeast Georgia, where she teaches French and Spanish.
  In addition to empowering her students through education, she has 
spent the past 25 years leading CROP Hunger Walks to raise awareness 
and funds to help end hunger and poverty in both northeast Georgia and 
around the world.
  Through the efforts of Dr. Whitley, the Towns County Food Pantry, the 
Clay County Food Pantry, the SAFE House in Blairsville, food boxes in 
Suches, numerous families, and other non-profits, emergency needs were 
served.
  When Dr. Whitley is asked about her efforts and how long she will 
continue to give selflessly to our community, her response is always: 
Have we put an end to hunger yet? Also, by the way, Mr. Speaker, as of 
today, they have met their $200,000 goal.
  Northeast Georgia is a better place because of the efforts of Dr. 
Whitley. I celebrate Dr. Whitley and her volunteer team on their 25th 
CROP Walk anniversary and thank them for all they have done for 
families in need in northeast Georgia and throughout the world.
  This is what makes representing the Ninth District of Georgia 
special. Especially at a time like this, with Christmas approaching, it 
is always the season when others give. Dr. Meg Whitley is one who does 
that over and over again.
  Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I 
thank him for the way he highlighted great action from folks there at 
home.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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