[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15219-15221]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            RETURN OF STEVE SCALISE AND REPEALING OBAMACARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this has been a day that answered a lot of 
our prayers seeing our good friend Steve Scalise here, and it brings to 
mind part of the story of that tragic morning that I haven't heard told 
anywhere else.
  One of our Members, Georgia Congressman Barry Loudermilk, was there, 
and he was--the shooter started from behind the third base dugout and 
hit Steve Scalise right away. It was so deeply touching to hear Steve's 
words today. It is just rather emotional seeing so many of our prayers 
answered, seeing Steve return to the House.
  That morning, Barry was saying that he was behind a little closet 
area, and as the shooter was moving toward the first base side 
continuing to shoot, Matt Mika had already been shot and was down, and 
Barry realized that he had no place to go. He looked for places to run, 
and there was no place to run.
  The shooting had been going on for a while, perhaps 9 or 10 minutes 
at that point. Capitol Police Officer Griner was there. She and David 
Bailey, the other Capitol Police officer, were using their suburban for 
cover and shooting at the shooter--the hate-filled leftist who felt 
like it was a good idea to kill as many Republicans in Congress as he 
could.
  It was gratifying to hear that admission from our friend from 
Maryland, former majority leader Hoyer, that it was hateful. He was 
full of hate. He was a leftist who had supported Bernie Sanders. It is 
not Bernie's Sanders' fault. You don't hear Republicans blaming a party 
or a candidate that a hate-filled person supported, but he was going to 
kill people. He was doing what he could.
  Barry had no place to go, and he was working his way to where he was 
about--Barry was going to be in the open and could see there was no 
place to go, and he said a prayer. He saw that Officer Griner had been 
shot in the ankle, and she was trying to return fire but under 
tremendous amount of pain.
  Just when it looked hopeless, David Bailey stepped out, completely 
uncovering himself. He had no cover at that point, and yelled twice: 
``Drop your weapon. Drop your weapon.'' And as he said those words, the 
shooter fired twice at him. And as soon as he finished saying, ``Drop 
your weapon'' the second time, he fired twice and took the shooter 
down. Incredible courage.
  When I saw David Bailey out at the hospital a few days after the 
shooting, I said: ``Barry Loudermilk said that when it looked pretty 
hopeless for him, you stepped out from behind the suburban completely 
uncovered, that you made yourself a target taking all the attention 
toward yourself. Did you do that?''
  And David Bailey, a hero in every sense of the word, with his normal 
casual way of speaking, just said: ``It hit me all of a sudden. I had 
to make it him or me. I had to make it him or me. That is when I 
stepped out. And, fortunately, it was him.''
  That kind of courage--when a shooter is about to get to a position to 
take out a bunch of defenseless people, some lying on the ground in the 
dugout, if he had made it just a little further, there would have been 
a lot of people killed that day.
  Crystal Griner shooting as she could and David Bailey stepping away 
from any cover, and he just instinctively knew, ``I have to make it him 
or me,'' thank God and thank David Bailey he is still here today and 
the hate-filled shooter is not
  So it was touch and go. The hate that filled this leftist shooter 
almost did in a couple of people who day. But by the grace of God, the 
great work of the doctors--but as the doctor said out there that night 
after the shooting, telling me, the President, Melania, and my staff 
member Andrew Keyes, it was--he said he would be on pins and needles 
that night because he just didn't know.
  To see Steve Scalise, our dear friend, standing right here earlier 
today, is just an answer to prayer, and I can't wait to cook ribs again 
for my friend Steve Scalise very soon.
  It is also a good day for America, despite the House passing a bill 
that

[[Page 15220]]

would have helped Americans by at least repealing part of ObamaCare, as 
we had promised, and despite the immense suffering by millions around 
this country who actually became victims of the lie that if you like 
your insurance, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep 
him or her--well, it turns out those were lies when they were spoken, 
and the people who spoke them knew they were lies when they spoke them. 
It was discussed that that would not be the case, they wouldn't be able 
to keep their insurance, and people haven't.
  It is a bit disingenuous when some of the alt-left media boasts that 
so many millions of people have gotten insurance that didn't have it, 
because there are an awful lot of people in my district that had 
insurance and, because of ObamaCare, they lost it, and then they were 
put on Medicaid--not even Medicare, but Medicaid. So they lost their 
doctor, they lost the hospital that was no longer in the network for 
Medicaid that they had before. ObamaCare took their insurance.
  The people who have talked to me in east Texas and as I go around in 
other parts of the country, they were desperate. They have been 
desperate. They are still desperate. They say: Please, you got to give 
us some help.
  It is tragic when you have some millionaires in the Senate who can 
get whatever healthcare they want, turning a cold shoulder to those 
suffering around the country because the countless promises they made 
to repeal ObamaCare are being broken every day we are in session and 
the Senate does not pass at least some kind of repeal of ObamaCare.
  I mean, what kind of person promises over and over, ``You elect me, I 
will repeal ObamaCare, I will get it repealed,'' knowing that there 
will be a smug and proud vote against any effort to repeal, even 
partially repeal ObamaCare?
  You make promises like that knowing that, without those promises, you 
would not get elected. People count on your promises because they 
really are hurting, they need the medicine that they are not getting 
under the new Medicaid, they don't have the doctor that was providing 
so much help under their insurance before ObamaCare took it away. And 
an almost cheerful breaking of those promises, it really is tragic. It 
is simply tragic.
  It is really unfortunate that they don't have the millions, like some 
Senators, to get whatever healthcare they want, that they make--they 
could suffer less, perhaps be cured if Republican Senators all kept 
their promises.

                              {time}  1400

  It is just tragic. But despite that, this has been a week where the 
House has done what we can under reconciliation. We sent a bill to the 
Senate. They didn't have to pass that bill, just something so that we 
could have a conference bill to give Americans the help they needed.
  We have done what we can there, so we are taking up tax reform. And 
if we do the right thing by Americans, they will have more money in 
their pockets. If we pass the bill that has just been proposed--I don't 
have all the details--the framework certainly looks like something we 
can really work with that will put a lot more money in middle class 
pockets.
  It is interesting. I hear some people, especially at the other end of 
the hall in the opposite party, opposing party, who make efforts to tax 
the poor in order to reward Republican rich friends. We saw back in 
2008, there were apparently a whole lot more rich people on Wall Street 
that supported Barack Obama than supported the unfortunate losing 
candidate of the Republican Party that year.
  Yeah, the rich people on Wall Street, more of them supported Barack 
Obama. That kind of goes against what is thought to be conventional 
wisdom that the Republicans are rich and the Democrats are poor when 
the reports we have to file annually indicate that some of us came here 
without anything and we sacrificed virtually everything we had to run, 
to try to make a difference in this country, and we haven't become rich 
by being here; whereas, there are an awful lot of millionaire Democrats 
here in the House and in the Senate.
  But if you look at what has been proposed, the lowest tax rate in 
America right now is 10 percent. And it appears, we are told, it should 
be everybody paying 10 percent right now should end up paying no tax. 
Well, personally, I would rather see us have everybody pay something in 
the way of income tax, pay something, the lowest rate possible--whether 
it is 6, 7, or 8 percent, maybe 7 percent, something--so that every 
single American pays an income tax so they understand how important it 
is to have a frugal government and not just constantly be handing out 
welfare, especially in cases that involve fraud.
  I had a lady that was telling me there in Tyler, Texas, that she used 
to, every spring, work for H&R Block in helping people prepare their 
tax returns. She said she finally had to give it up. People would come 
in and they wouldn't have Social Security numbers. They would have tax 
ID numbers.
  Now, why would they have tax ID numbers? Well, even though the law 
says that you are not supposed to be filing tax returns because you are 
not supposed to be working if you don't have a Social Security number, 
the IRS assumed--and we know what that means, they assumed--that, gee, 
if we give people a tax ID number, then they will pay income tax, and 
that will bring in more money to the coffers.
  But, according to this lady, the reason she couldn't do it anymore 
was she was becoming a nervous wreck because so many people were coming 
in with tax identification numbers, not Social Security numbers, and 
they would have a list of things that they would want her to put in 
their tax return. And they always had, she said, a number of children 
listed that they wanted to claim that would ensure that they got more 
money back from an earned income tax credit than they even paid in.
  Since she was a senior citizen on a fixed income, the little extra 
help that she made helping people prepare tax returns, she gave it up. 
It was driving her a bit crazy to help people get back more money than 
they paid in over and over and over again when she understood the law. 
That is not supposed to be what happened.
  So a lot of people say, hey, folks that are illegally in the 
country--and we are not talking about any particular place, just people 
illegally here from wherever they are--when they file a tax return and 
get more back than they paid in, then that is not quite as some 
represent, oh, gee, they pay so much money in income tax, they are good 
for the country.
  Well, we know an awful lot of hard workers who we have seen--illegal 
aliens. I hear contractors say: I found out one of my best workers is 
not here legally.
  But it brings us back to the point: Why are such hardworking people 
especially coming from south of the border into the United States? 
Well, obviously, for those type of folks--they came in and they are 
hardworking--they came to get jobs.
  But that begs the question: Why are they having to come to the United 
States to get jobs? They are hardworking. Why wouldn't they find jobs 
in Mexico or El Salvador or Guatemala? Why wouldn't they find jobs in 
these other Central American countries or Mexico? The answer is 
obviously very clear: it is because of all of the corruption.
  Even though I understand the President of Mexico recently claimed 
there were no drug cartel murders going on at the very time when there 
were an enormous number that happened within the few days of him saying 
that, we know there is murder, there is corruption, and it is from the 
drug cartels.
  And the gangs and the coyotes that bring people into the United 
States illegally, they answer to the drug cartels. It is the Border 
Patrol that told me over and over, every inch of the U.S.-Mexico border 
is spoken for by some drug cartel; and if you cross into the United 
States without paying an appropriate price or dues to that drug cartel, 
then you are not going to last very long because they feel they have to 
make an example of you.
  I saw one estimate of $70 billion or $80 billion, somewhere around 
there,

[[Page 15221]]

estimated to have gone from the United States into Mexico, to the drug 
cartels, for illegal drugs. Well, if we build a wall where it is 
appropriate and we totally secure our border 100 percent, then that $70 
billion, $80 billion that is used for the drug cartels in their 
corruption of the Mexican cities and federal government and state 
government, that dries up to nothing. And if we could help dry up the 
$70 billion to $80 billion to $70,000 or $80,000 for illegal drugs, 
then, finally, we would help Mexico--as the best neighbor Mexico could 
ever dream of having--to become one of the very top economies in the 
world.
  They ought to be one of the top 10 economies now, maybe top 5. All 
the massive natural resources that Mexico has, they are actually in a 
better location for trade than the United States. They are between two 
continents, North and South America. They are between two oceans like 
we are, the Pacific and the Atlantic, with, of course, the Gulf of 
Mexico in between. They ought to be a top 10 economy, but they are not 
because of corruption from the drug money that illegally crosses the 
U.S. border into Mexico. We cut that off.
  And then you have all these hardworking people who just want to help 
their families. They don't want to have to flee the country they love 
to find a job. The jobs would be abounding all over Mexico. Isn't that 
what a friendly, caring neighbor would do for a neighbor? Shouldn't we 
want to help Mexico stop the corruption? Of course.
  And any Mexican-elected official who says that there is no 
corruption, that there is no drug cartel influence, or that there is 
nobody being killed by the drug cartels, well, a statement by a 
Mexican-elected official that those things are not going on is an 
indication that that elected official is either completely ignorant of 
what is going on in his or her country or they are, as one would 
suspect, under the finger of the drug cartels themselves.
  So I am hopeful we are going to be able to get a wall where we need 
it. President Trump and Attorney General Sessions are both doing 
everything they can to help secure the border. We need a Secretary of 
Homeland Security, and I am sure that will be coming quickly. The 
Democrats will probably try to block whoever it is for as long as they 
can, but we need a Secretary of Homeland Security; and we need our 
border secured not merely to help us, but as being the best possible 
thing we could do as a caring neighbor of Mexico.
  Our Republican Conference we had in the House yesterday seemed very 
productive. We had a good discussion about the proposed tax reform, 
and, as I was mentioning earlier, you will have people who have been 
paying 10 percent will go to paying nothing. Some that are paying much 
higher taxes will be cut down to 12 percent, and brackets indicating 
that there is going to be an awful lot more money in the pockets of 
people who are working, that will be fantastic, because when we leave 
more money in the pockets of those who have actually earned it, it gets 
the economy going.
  People, whom I have immense respect for, like Dr. Arthur Laffer, 
Stephen Moore, Larry Kudlow, it is very clear to them, when they run 
the numbers, we could never adequately tax our way out of bankruptcy 
the direction we are headed. We couldn't. We cannot tax enough. If you 
put on too much tax, then people quit working.
  But the way to make Social Security solvent and to make Medicare 
solvent is if we get the economy growing not at the 1.8 percent--I 
believe that was the average for the Obama administration--but for the 
good of everybody. People keep the money in their pockets. That allows 
them to spend it, and it causes the economy to grow.
  I know, during the Obama administration, they saw 3 percent growth in 
the economy as just being virtually impossible; and I can understand, 
because their idea was tax, tax, tax, and that kills an economy. 
Whereas, if you allow people to have more of their own money, they 
spend more of their money. That allows more jobs to be created, and 
there are more people paying taxes. They begin making more, so they are 
paying higher taxes, even though it is at a lower rate. That helps 
stimulate the economy.

                              {time}  1415

  I was really hoping that President Trump's number of 15 percent 
corporate tax would work out to be our number for corporate tax. I was 
hoping that would be for regular C corporations, as well as a pass-
through subchapter S corporation, because President Trump and I and 
others know that if it is a 15 percent corporate tax, then we would get 
back most of the manufacturing jobs, which fled America because of our 
massive 35 percent tax. Actually, by the time you add in all the 
others, it is well over 40 to 50 percent tax on corporations.
  The reason some of us say the corporate tax is one of the most 
insidious taxes there is is because the government defrauds Americans 
into thinking they are not paying the corporate tax. These evil, rich 
corporations are paying those taxes. They are saying: ``We are not 
paying them. Make the evil corporations.'' Whereas, anybody that is 
going to really be honest about it would have to say: ``Well, the truth 
is, yeah, it is actually a pass-through from the customer, because if 
the corporation doesn't pass on that massive tax they are paying, they 
go out of business.''
  So it is actually an additional tax on the little guy. So the middle 
class, lower-income folks are paying the big corporate tax. It is not 
the wealthy. It is the customers that are paying all that extra 
corporate tax.
  So if you got the tax rate for corporations down to 15 percent, those 
companies start coming back, the manufacturing jobs come back.
  As I mentioned to the President one time: ``Mr. President, you 
understand it because of your great business acumen, and I understand 
it from studying history, but any major nation that cannot manufacture 
what they need in a time of war will not be a major nation after the 
next war.''
  The President wants those jobs back. It is not 15 percent being 
proposed. It is 20 percent. But that will bring back jobs. Not as many 
as if we had a 15 percent corporate tax, but it will bring back jobs.
  I know there are those who say: Oh, we have evolved in America. We 
are more of a service economy. We don't want to be a manufacturing 
economy with those dirty jobs.
  Yes, we do. We need to have those manufacturing jobs. Those are good 
jobs. We have requirements that you have to be concerned about the 
health of Americans. And by doing that, we bring back the jobs, we help 
our economy, and we actually save Social Security and Medicare.
  I see my friend, Dr. Harris, is here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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