[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6086-6089]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 DILIGENT CONSIDERATION OF LEGISLATION

  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, it has been interesting hearing about a 
situation in the country--and it is amazing how some of us can look at 
the same thing and see very different situations. I know there are some 
that think we should stay in session all the time, but as is normally 
said back in Texas about the Texas legislature--and it applies even 
more so to the U.S. Congress--and that is, when legislature is in 
session, neither man nor property is safe.
  We are voting on bills every day we are in session. As I understand 
it, there was a time when Congress could be in session, have hearings 
during the day, maybe vote in committee but not actually have votes on 
the floor during the day. But I think over the years, the concern has 
been if we are not voting on the floor where it is recorded, then 
people might not show up. There is certainly a body of evidence to 
support

[[Page 6087]]

the country being better off when Congress doesn't come into session.
  I had read that one of our Founders, Thomas Jefferson, for all his 
wisdom and his incredible draft--his was the first draft of the 
Declaration of Independence--Jefferson was not actually there in 
Philadelphia to help draft the Constitution in 1787. But I had read 
that he sent a letter and remarked that if he had one thing that he 
could get into the Constitution--realizing, of course, it was too late 
at that point--but it would be a requirement that no bill could be 
voted on in Congress until it had been on file for a year.
  Some might immediately respond: well, gee, there are so many bills 
that we pass as emergency bills; and I would respond that yes, and 
usually those things that are drafted so quickly are more problematic 
than other legislation that goes through a lengthy and more diligent 
look at what is in the bill before it is passed.
  In fact, if we had such--and I am not advocating that we have this 
constitutional amendment--but I am noting, Mr. Speaker, the merits of 
having bills on file for a lengthy period of time so people have a 
chance to think about it, talk about it, weigh the merits, and go back 
to our districts and talk about the merits there.
  Of course, I am not talking about going back and having these fake 
news townhalls where people who supported opponents demand townhalls, 
and they have their playbook for how you go about trying to intimidate 
your Member of Congress and keep intimidating until your Member of 
Congress becomes a coward and he is afraid not to have, or she is 
afraid not to have, a townhall. And then once you have cowarded them 
into having a townhall, then they have the playbook for how you totally 
disrupt the townhall.

                              {time}  1715

  That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about going all 
over your district talking to people eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, and 
finding out where people are. It is incredible how people have come to 
be hurting over the last 8 years.
  For all the talk that President Obama had about Fat Cats on Wall 
Street, it was as if there was a wink and a nod: Okay, I am going to 
refer to you guys on Wall Street as Fat Cats, but I am going to make 
you richer than you have ever been. I am going to stack the deck in 
your favor. All you have to do is endure me calling you Fat Cats, 
making references to you being so greedy. I may even refer to you being 
Republican, even though probably more of you donate to me than did my 
opponents. But that will be our little game. Then, of course, when I am 
out of office, you can pay me $400,000 for giving you an hour of my 
time. That is another wink and nod. It is just a friendly reward for 
how good I did for you while I was President.
  Let's face it, the Democrats got through the Dodd-Frank bill that was 
supposed to punish the banks that brought us to the brink of ruin, but 
instead of punishing or reining in the investment banks on Wall Street 
that brought us to the brink of ruin, Dodd-Frank has overseen the 
demise of hundreds, even thousands of community banks that did not 
bring us anywhere close to the brink of economic disaster. In fact, 
they were the backbone.
  As President George W. Bush was going out of office, he got $700 
billion handed over to the Treasury Department so they could reward 
people like those at Goldman Sachs who helped bring us to the brink of 
desperation. In fact, I only saw one of the contracts that were drafted 
by the Treasury Department some years back. Lo and behold, it was one 
of the firms that was listed as being appropriate for the Treasury to 
contract with. Goldman Sachs was right in there.
  Of course, with the disdain that Secretary Paulsen had for Goldman 
Sachs, he wasn't about to let their competitor, Lehman Brothers, 
survive. He was able to keep them from surviving, not helping them. God 
bless Ford Motor Company. They were able to turn down any government 
assistance that GM and Chrysler took.
  There was a remedy, if we hadn't panicked and followed the advice of 
former FDIC Chairman Isaac. I found out from my Democratic friend Brad 
Sherman that he actually was the one that first brought former Chairman 
Isaac to the Hill. He had a good solution that would not have caused us 
to take what was referred to by socialists the day after it passed as 
the biggest step toward socialism in the last 50 years, and that was 
the Federal Government crawling in bed and calling the shots with the 
investment banks on Wall Street, much to the ruin of so many community 
banks.
  We gave advantages to the big banks. We hurt the community banks who 
were not able to compete as well. God bless all of those that have hung 
in there. I hope that we can rectify things better than that.
  The bottom line, I think, testifying about what the Obama years were 
about--and was even acknowledged by President Obama--a few years ago, 
he actually acknowledged that his Presidency oversaw a record that had 
never happened before in U.S. history. Ninety-five percent of the 
income in the United States--that was under Obama's policies--95 
percent of all American income went to the top 1 percent in America.
  If you were looking for one fact to really characterize the abuses of 
the preceding 8 years, I think that would be in contention. Ninety-five 
percent of the income went to the top 1 percent, not under George W. 
Bush, not under George H.W. Bush, not under Ronald Reagan, not under 
Richard Nixon, not under Dwight Eisenhower, not even under Harry 
Truman, but under Barack Hussein Obama's policies.
  During his Presidency, the way the deck was tilted against the middle 
class and shrunk as the poor in America grew under Obama's policies, we 
actually hit a milestone in American history. Ninety-five percent of 
the income went to the top 1 percent income earners. That is pretty 
amazing.
  I do personally, Mr. Speaker, think that has something to do with the 
Republicans gaining the majority in the House, in the Senate, and 
getting the Presidency. Americans, by a huge margin of electoral votes, 
and if you look at the map, who voted for Donald Trump and who voted 
for Hillary Clinton, it pretty well establishes the Democratic Party as 
the fringe party of America. They won the fringes, other than some 
major cities here and there. They are the fringe party.
  All across America--the bulk of America, when you look at the map, 
voted to change course. Let's try something different so that 95 
percent of America's income doesn't end up in the pockets of the top 1 
percent--those same 1 percent that will be paying former President 
Obama $400,000 for 1 hour of his time.
  Where have we heard that recently?
  Well, I don't believe that was George W. Bush speaking to the 
disabled veterans getting that kind of money. Oh, yes, I recall now. It 
was Hillary Clinton. It was Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton earned massive 
amounts for speeches while his wife was the Secretary of State. And, 
wow, all of those tens, hundreds, millions of dollars coming to the 
Clinton Foundation amazingly at the time that this company that ends up 
being controlled by the Russians are allowed by Hillary Clinton to buy 
25 percent or so of our uranium production.
  Let's recap briefly what the Clinton family has done for us. Well, we 
know that in the nineties, when it comes to foreign affairs, North 
Korea was a threat to the world, to freedom, because they had a crazy 
leader, Kim Jong-il, and the world was concerned that North Korea might 
get nuclear weapons.
  So what happened through the Clinton administration?
  Well, they sent Wendy Sherman and some other folks and they 
negotiated with the North Koreans and said: If you will just sign and 
say you are agreeing not to develop nuclear weapons, we will make sure 
you have everything you need to make nuclear weapons, but you will have 
to sign saying that when we give you everything, make sure you have 
everything to make nuclear weapons, you just won't make them into 
nuclear weapons.

[[Page 6088]]

  I mentioned before, it reminds me of that routine Jeff Foxworthy 
talks about when he was not doing very well financially and a guy comes 
to take his car because he hasn't been able to make his payments, and 
he said: Look, man, please don't take my car. If you take my car, I 
can't do any more gigs and I can't make any money, and then I have no 
chance of paying you.
  The guy said: Buddy, I am sorry, but my instructions were to either 
take the car or cash or a check.
  Foxworthy said: Check? You mean I can just sign something and you 
will take that and leave me alone? Oh, I can give you a check. I didn't 
know that was going to be good enough.
  I thought about Kim Jong-il thinking: You mean you will give me 
everything I need to create a bunch of nuclear weapons and you will 
accept my signature and that is good enough for Wendy Sherman and all 
those other people--our Under Secretary of State under Bill Clinton?
  It is amazing that she has had the nerve to come out critical of any 
other Secretary of State after the disaster she presided over.
  Yes, he was glad to sign whatever the Clintons wanted him to sign. He 
said: Sure, if Ms. Sherman wants me to sign something, I will sign 
whatever you want.
  And in no time, what does he have?
  Nuclear weapons.
  President Obama comes into office and the whole world is concerned 
about Iran getting nuclear weapons.
  What do they do?
  They said: Let's send Wendy Sherman and some of these smart people 
like John Kerry, who doesn't now how to pronounce Genghis Khan. Let's 
send them over there to negotiate with Iran so that maybe we can keep 
Iran from developing nuclear weapons the same way some of these same 
people kept North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.
  So what happens?
  They go over and they give the largest supporter of terrorism in the 
world massive amounts of cash. By massive, I mean pallets of cash and 
checks; however you may want it. There is no telling. They may have 
sent some gold or platinum. Who knows? Plutonium.
  It will be interesting in the years ahead to just see how terrible 
the agreement was and how we are finding out--it seems like almost 
every night in the news we find out some other disaster that the Obama 
administration provided the crazy supporters of terrorism in Iran. I 
don't mean the rank-and-file people.
  We get the impression possibly a majority of Iranians like Americans. 
They wish they did not have radical Islamists in control, but they are. 
The Obama administration provided them murdering thugs who have killed, 
been responsible for the death of so many in the past, and no doubt 
will be again in the future, and they are on their way to having 
nuclear weapons, just like the Clinton administration oversaw with 
North Korea.

                              {time}  1730

  In the meantime, though at the end of the Bush administration, the 
President Bush administration actually was making progress in making 
our borders more secure. It never came out during those days, but the 
Republicans in the Texas delegation in Congress were having meetings 
once every couple of weeks with people in the Bush administration--Karl 
Rove, Chertoff--a lot of good that did. But we were getting reports 
every couple weeks. We wanted to know what advancements, what progress 
had been made in the preceding two weeks in securing our border. They 
were taking steps to do that.
  President Obama takes over, and what happens? It is like the 
floodgates were opened. As the Border Patrol have said to the drug 
cartels who were responsible from the Mexico side for every inch of the 
border, if you cross over in one drug cartel's sector, you must make 
sure you have their permission. Normally that means you must pay or 
agree to work for them when you get to the U.S. city where you are 
going.
  That is why they called the Department of Homeland Security their 
logistics, that all the drug cartels had to do is get these people 
across the border. They would pay thousands to the drug cartels to get 
them across. They were used as a distraction. They sent them across. 
The Border Patrol would have to in-process them in accordance with the 
Obama policies. While they were doing that, they would tell you 
privately, yes, we know there are drugs coming across at other points 
in the river down there south of McAllen and southwest of McAllen, but 
they knew. We are doing our job. We know they are bound to be bringing 
drugs over while they keep us tied up. What a business model.
  Then the Department of Homeland Security would ship many of those 
people to the places that they would have addresses for, and, as I 
witnessed myself, there were times when our Border Patrol would say: 
well, you certainly didn't come up with all the thousands. And 
ultimately they finally admit: no, they are going to let me work some 
of that off when I get to the city where I am going.
  In other words, they would be their drug mules, they would be their 
drug salespeople. Some, God forgive us, would get into sex trafficking. 
The Obama administration allowed this massive network to take off.
  At the same time, we heard from FBI Director Comey, we ended up with 
ISIS cells in every State, we had the drug cells locating all over the 
country in the last 8 years, we had ISIS creating cells that would be 
activated at some point and begin to kill Americans, and so it 
shouldn't have been that big of a surprise to those who were really 
paying attention that Americans were ready for a change. Not on the 
fringes, but Americans across the heartland were ready for a change, 
and they voted for Donald Trump.
  This week, I don't know if we are going to vote tomorrow on the 
American Health Care Act. I indicated now, with the changes that have 
been made, I think probably 90 percent or so of the Freedom Caucus has 
now agreed. Because, I mean, we have gotten the best we can get. If we 
don't do something, people in my district who are just overwhelmed with 
the prices of their health insurance premiums, the cost of health care, 
the high deductibles, meaning they are paying for insurance they are 
probably never going to get anything out of--they have got to have 
help.
  That is one of the reasons, one of the biggest reasons I was a 
holdout because even though I think CBO was talking about premiums 
continuing to increase up to 2026, and then 10 years from now start 
down a little bit, people in east Texas could not afford for premiums 
to continue to go up for 10 years. I think it was probably more 
accurate they would be going up for 3 years.
  But with what we have done, and the agreement we got--I am telling 
you, President Trump is a great man to negotiate with. He does want to 
get a deal done. He was extremely cooperative. He actually can be quite 
enjoyable to negotiate with. He is an amazing man. But we were having 
trouble with leaders in the House and the Senate. President Trump would 
agree to things, and we would have trouble getting it past our own 
leadership.
  Some of us felt all along, if you let the conservative group sit down 
with the Tuesday Group, we could probably get things worked out, and, 
really, bottom line is, that is what happened. Tom MacArthur is a very 
dear friend. I know he wants what is best for the people in his 
district. He is doing all he can to serve them. I know that is what the 
Tuesday Group wants to do. They want to serve their constituents. We 
all do.
  So now where we are--and hopefully we will have votes and we can get 
this done. But we have gone from a bill that had 17 percent support of 
the American people, and now we have gotten an agreement to include 
provisions that eliminate the taxes immediately that would have been 
kept in place for the future. Under our agreement, the language is 
there, those taxes are out immediately. There has also been added a 
work requirement for people who are Medicaid recipients. If they are 
able to work, then they should work. If they don't have a job, they 
still will need to

[[Page 6089]]

do some work under the work requirements, much like the welfare 
requirements that were passed in the 1990s by the Republican House and 
Senate. For the first time in 30 years, a single-mom income, when 
adjusted for inflation, started going up after the work requirement was 
added.
  We have also agreed to language that will make sure that people who 
have preexisting conditions can't be shunned by the insurance 
companies. If you are 26 and you are living with your parents, you can 
still be on their insurance. I don't know why we have even an age limit 
at all. Those things will still be there, despite all the fear 
mongering that some on the other side of the aisle have done back in 
Texas that I know of.
  Let's make no mistake, this is not a full repeal. There is still a 
lot of work to be done. But the MacArthur amendment will allow the 
repeal of some of the mandates--not the preexisting condition or the 26 
being on parents' insurance but some of the other mandates that have 
spiked the insurance costs so high. While this revised version still 
does not fully repeal ObamaCare, it will bring down the costs of health 
insurance. The people I represent just had to have help. At least 75 
percent were saying: We have got to have help. So we look forward to 
working with the Senate and trying to make it even better as it goes 
through the Senate.
  I think I have got just a minute. I just wanted to note, the 
observance anniversary of the Holocaust this past Tuesday, April 25, 
was a very somber occasion held in the rotunda. I know the minority 
leader, Senator Schumer, wanted it there. I just continue to hope and 
pray, as I hope most Americans do, that we will never, ever have 
another Holocaust. I think one of the things that can help prevent that 
is if we have effective national days of prayer, as have been going on 
for so many decades, going back to Washington proclaiming days of 
thanksgiving and prayer and fasting.
  I deeply regret, though, that we thought we were going to be able to 
fulfill the vision of Anne Graham Lotz, the new chairman of the 
National Day of Prayer. She took over for Shirley Dobson, who did a 
magnificent job for the last 25 years as the national chair. She had a 
vision for doing it in the rotunda, and all that would require, like 
for the Holocaust observance, would be a unanimous consent agreement in 
the House and Senate, and then it would have been in the rotunda. It 
would have needed to have been after 5. Even though the Holocaust 
occurred during the day, it was clear, and she had agreed, the National 
Day of Prayer folks had agreed, but any Senator can put a hold on such 
a thing, and one Senator did. Senator Schumer put a hold on the 
National Day of Prayer being able to use the rotunda.
  I hope and pray some day Senator Schumer will realize that the best 
way to avoid a Holocaust in the future is to have effective national 
days of prayer from the rotunda and everywhere else that we possibly 
can, as the church services have been held in the Capitol, participated 
in by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and so many others. They were 
nondenominational; so they thought that didn't violate their 
Constitution.
  But it looks like this will be in the area that Senator Schumer 
cannot stop from being used. It is totally under the control of the 
House. I want to thank Speaker Ryan for allowing the use. We will be in 
statuary hall where nondenominational Christian churches were held on 
Sunday. It was the largest Christian church in Washington for much of 
the 1800s. So that is where it will be this year. Hopefully we won't 
have a Senator who will put a hold on it next year, and Billy Graham's 
daughter, Anne Graham Lotz' vision will finally be fulfilled.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________