The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“SHADOWS OF CRISES” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H514-H519 on Jan. 22, 2015.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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SHADOWS OF CRISES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it has been quite a week. There have been tragedies, and there have been wonderful events.
In having been to Nigeria this past year and in having met with family members of girls who were kidnapped because they went to Christian schools, there were three girls I met who had escaped after they had been kidnapped. The kidnapped girls, it was known, were being sexually abused and may have now been sold into sex trafficking, given as wives, and have been ordered to convert from Christianity to Islam or be killed. I know there are some in this town who think they are being asked to convert to an Islam that doesn't exist as a religion, but to those girls who are being told they must convert to the religion of Islam or be killed, it does seem to be a religion.
In having grieved with others around the world who have been harmed or who have had family killed or harmed by radical Islam, it is tragic this week.
I will read a story from Breitbart:
According to the United Nations, ISIS--the Islamic State--is killing educated women following shari'a court sentences.
That is a problem. There is nothing wrong with religious people participating in government. Most of our Founders were very strong Christians. Around a third or so of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were actually ordained Christian servants. So that is a good thing, but when a religion also becomes the state, then this is the kind of thing you get, and it is tragic.
In an article by Edwin Mora, it says:
The U.N. warned on Tuesday that the Islamic State, known as ISIS, ISIL, or IS, is showing a ``monstrous disregard for human life'' in the areas it has conquered, which include swaths of Iraq and Syria.
This article points out:
Nevertheless, President Obama, during his State of the Union Address delivered Tuesday night, proclaimed that the United States ``is stopping ISIL's advance'' in Iraq and Syria. Just last week, The Daily Beast, citing an unnamed Pentagon official, reported that, despite U.S.-led airstrikes, ISIS is gaining ground in Syria.
The U.N. warned that the jihadist group is meting out
``cruel and inhuman punishments against men, women, and children'' through ``unlawful'' shari'a courts it has established in territory under its control.
The civilians falling victim to ISIS' wrath are accused of
``violating the group's extremist interpretations of Islamic shari'a law or for suspected disloyalty,'' said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
ISIS has killed fellow jihadists and local residents for violating the harsh version of Islamic law imposed on the areas it now controls.
``Educated, professional women, particularly women who had run as candidates in elections for public office, seem to be particularly at risk. In just the first 2 weeks of the year, reports indicated that three female lawyers were executed.''
It goes on:
``The ruthless murder of two men who were thrown off the top of a building after having been accused of homosexual acts by a so-called `court' in Mosul is another terrible example of the kind of monstrous disregard for human life that characterized ISIL's reign of terror over areas of Iraq that were under the group's control.''
Look. I know, Mr. Speaker, that our President stood right here at the second level and told us ``the shadow of crisis has passed.'' Apparently, he is not getting the briefings, or maybe the briefings don't include just how bad the situation is around the world. Christians are being persecuted and are being killed in greater numbers than at any time in history since Jesus came. Jews are being subjected to anti-Semitic hate in many places, we are told, which has not been seen since before and during World War II.
Now, in growing up reading and studying history, I couldn't imagine that there would ever come another day that we would see hate growing against Jewish people that could inspire another Holocaust. I just didn't think it would happen. So, when I had read about General Eisenhower's having soldiers bring people from the surrounding communities to help clean up the death camps, I thought: These are civilians in the community, and that may have been a little harsh if they had nothing to do with the death camps.
I had read that his reasoning was--and this was many years ago--that he wanted to make sure that nobody could ever proclaim that the death camps did not exist and that they were a figment of someone's imagination. He wanted to make sure that could not happen, so they were brought out to clean up. Yet, mere decades later, here we are at a time when there are radical Islamists calling for a new, greater Holocaust to kill Jewish people, calling for the complete wiping off the map of Israel, calling for the complete destruction of what they call the
``Great Satan''--the United States.
The shadow of crisis may have passed, but the mental image I got when I heard the President say ``the shadow of crisis has passed'' took me back to fifth grade. I was very small in elementary school, and there was one guy who could have been two grades ahead, but he had been held back. He was about two heads taller than I was. I was on the playground one day, and as a little kid, I saw Ray's shadow pass me. I turned around, and I got smashed in the face, and it made my nose bleed. That was the image I had when the President invoked the shadow of the crisis' passing. If the shadow of this crisis has passed, then we may be just about to get smacked in the face by these radical Islamists, and it will be a lot more than a bloody nose that ends up occurring.
This is a very desperate time in the world for millions of people. Since they, perhaps, weren't journalists--the nearly 2,000 or so Nigerians who were killed by radical Islamists--Boko Haram, in Nigeria, didn't quite get the attention I thought it should have as did the horrendous killings in Paris get the attention, as they absolutely should have.
Under Western civilization law--and it was true in the early days of this country, and it has been true, as far as I know, under every State's law. I know, absolutely, it is true under State law--when it comes to a physical assault, the law has been clear: provoking words are never a defense to a physical assault. In this country, under our law and under the law of every State, no matter what you say, it does not justify a physical attack. We have even had the President of the United States basically stand up before the U.N., stand up in front of media, stand up in front of crowds, and say that we need to be more careful.
But he goes beyond that.
He appears to attribute blame for an attack on the people being attacked to the point that he and those who work for him were asked to go out and tell the country before the 2012 election that a video was responsible for the deaths of four Americans who were serving their country in Benghazi, Libya. It turns out that that was not true at all. It turns out people knew that before that was trotted out.
According to the book written about the blood feud between the Clintons and the Obamas, there was a phone call from Hillary Clinton to her husband in which she was upset that the President was asking her to go out and say that the Benghazi attack was the result of a video. According to the book, she was advised that America wouldn't buy a lie like that. Ultimately, they decided, at least, not to have her go on the Sunday shows--again, according to the book--and that, gee, if she resigns, that might cost him the election, and Democrats would be upset about it, so they would never want to nominate her for President if she resigned and cost Obama the election in 2012.
That was according to the book as to why she didn't resign, but she didn't go on the Sunday shows. Susan Rice was sent out with that task to blame a video when it was very clear, when Chris Stevens called, saying that he was under attack, there was nothing about a video mentioned. When the warnings were being given by those who were aware of a buildup of radicals--and of potential problems even across the street--nothing was mentioned about a video because it wasn't about a video; but that would have been an inconvenient truth so close to the election.
Our heartbreaks collectively for these killings, and it is my hope and prayer--liberal women's groups here in the United States prefer the easy task of attacking conservatives and of creating allegations that, gee, there is some war on women when, actually, as I speak, there is a war on women going on in radical Islamist-held countries. There is a war on baby women going on around the world, and there are people who actually choose to abort babies because they are baby women.
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There is a war on women, but it is not by conservatives in the country, who want them to have the best health care they can get, who want young girls to have the best care they can get, both in the womb and outside the womb. This isn't where the war on women is occurring.
Although there are still some vestiges of prejudice against women, we are very hopeful that since the President has made such a big issue about treating women equally, it won't be too long before the White House will start treating women equally and giving them equal pay for equal work. So I am encouraged the President keeps bringing that up, hoping that will inure to the benefit of people working at the White House so they will eventually be paid what men in the White House are paid.
I really do hope that liberal women's groups that take the easy path--taking potshots at conservatives--will stand with us against radical Islam.
I asked mothers of girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria: Did they attack this school because it was a school for girls? They said that apparently they didn't realize that it was only girls at the school because they did ask: Where are the boys? Because they wanted to bring them out and shoot them, as they did at other places. When they realized it was only girls, they took them to become slaves, sexually and otherwise, and to force them to convert. But the school wasn't attacked because it was a girls school, because they didn't know it was only for girls. They knew it was Christian.
There was also an attack on Christian women. And I would hope that even the most atheist of women in the United States and in Western civilized countries around the world would start standing up for the mistreatment of Christian women who are particularly being brutalized because of their faith and because of their sex, combined.
So, of the Presidents we have had since 9/11, the President failed to mention al Qaeda. And I can understand that, and I have to be a little defensive for the President here. He and the Vice President had been saying before the 2012 election that al Qaeda was on the run. In some cases, Osama bin Laden is dead, al Qaeda is on the run, and General Motors is alive.
Well, it turns out if al Qaeda is on the run, it is a run directly at us and our allies, our friends. And that is particularly true of Israel. They consider Israel the little Satan and us the great Satan, but we have no better friend in the Middle East than Israel.
Our President has been overheard on a microphone that picked him up basically casting aspersions on the character of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Fair people that I have known, if they ever got caught maligning someone inappropriately, they would go out of their way to show that it was inappropriate--I want to make it up, and I want to show that we are friends. We may have disagreements, but we are friends.
Of course, people have read about him treating Prime Minister Netanyahu so poorly when he came to the White House in prior years, having him sit around. One account said he was told: Just wait here. And when you have a change of position, let me know. I'm going to eat with my family.
The Prime Minister ended up leaving rather than sitting in his corner for a timeout, as the President wanted.
We haven't seen this President make clear to the world that Israel is our friend, as well as to its leader, the people, and the legislature they have elected. We haven't seen those kind of outreaches.
And then, we find out the President is upset that the Speaker of the House invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to come speak here on February 11. And perhaps that is yet another indication of the ignorance. And, Mr. Speaker and our Parliamentarian, it doesn't cast aspersions to be ignorant of something--we are all ignorant of things--but apparently there is a blind spot in the Constitution for the President on a number of things, and apparently one is how the legislature works, even though he has been in the Senate, because under the Constitution, we can't have anybody in the people's House come speak here who is not a Member of Congress, with one exception. Under the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson's Rules of the House, under which we have been operating since 1789--with modifications, but it has still been the rule, you can't come speak in the House Chamber officially unless you are invited by the House. You can't come speak to a joint session of Congress, both the House and Senate, unless both the House and the Senate invite you.
Now how do we know that the President doesn't really grasp that concept and is not aware of the constitutional and the rule ramifications in Congress? It has been a few years back, but the President decided, as I recall, that he was going to come lecture Congress on a jobs bill and tell us--I think it was 16 or so times--
that we had to pass it right now, right away, failing to mention he didn't even have a bill.
Nevertheless, the President went out publicly and the statement was released that he was going to come to Congress and speak to Congress on a specific day at a specific time, and he had not even spoken to the Speaker of the House. Maybe he had talked to Majority Leader Reid, but he hadn't talked to the Speaker of the House, and this is the House Chamber where the House actually has to vote to invite him. He didn't even bother to see what was convenient.
And as I recall, not only was there ignorance of the rules and the constitutional requirements, but there was also ignorance about the NFL, what is known as football here in the United States, and I believe it was the beginning of the season. The President had just announced he wanted to come to Congress. He demanded to come speak to us, in conflict with the beginning of the first football game of the season. I believe it was the first. It was a big night. After that was pointed out, he ended up coming and speaking earlier. But the point being, no President has ever picked a date, said, Here's when I'm coming to speak to the House, without understanding you can't come unless you are invited.
You are not even allowed to come give an oral State of the Union Address unless the House and Senate vote to invite you to speak to a joint session. That has been the rule since we began. Under the Constitution, it is not required that a State of the Union Address be orally given in a speech. There is a constitutional requirement for a State of the Union report to be given. But in the early years of our country, there were times when the President just sent a report. Here's my report on the state of the Union.
So the President has snubbed Congress, the rules, and the Constitution repeatedly, and then our Speaker is condemned by the White House for inviting a world leader to come speak here. Again, the President doesn't realize there is no requirement to check with the President. If it hasn't already occurred, we will have to have a unanimous consent or a vote to have the House approve the invitation of Prime Minister Netanyahu to come speak here. That has to happen, if it hasn't already.
So there is no requirement to check with the President. We don't even have to invite him over here to speak to do his State of the Union. And when the unanimous consent request is made, anybody here could object to the President coming. I am not aware of that ever happening. I don't anticipate that ever happening.
Interestingly, we have been reading--when I have been in Israel and talked to leaders over there, they talk about the massive pressure by the Obama administration to try to push Israel into getting rid of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now we know what our President did to help support the removal of President Mubarak. We know that he went even further in Libya, after Qadhafi--after the 2003 invasion of Iraq--threw all of his weapons systems open to the United States and said, You tell me what I can keep, basically. And as some in Israel have advised, after Qadhafi's conversion experience in fear that the U.S. would invade Libya in 2003, he became more of a help in going after radical Islamic terrorists than almost anybody, except in Israel.
We have got friends around the world that are trying to help us with radical Islam, and even our friends in Egypt, a neighbor of Israel. As many of us feared, they had an election too quick after the so-called Arab Spring, which was more of an Arab nightmare for the Egyptian people. They had an election too soon. The most organized group was the radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood.
It was not really a military coup, and that has offended the Egyptian people, as they have indicated, when news media or the White House have said it was a coup because you had the largest uprising in the history of the world occur in Egypt. It was demonstration after demonstration for the ages. It was 20 million, 30 million, 33 million, came the reports of the uprising, of the around 90 million people in Egypt--massive. That would be like over 100 million people in America going to the streets and demanding the President be removed. It is hard to get a third of the United States just to go out and vote. They did more than that. They put themselves at risk and came to the streets and said, Enough is enough.
And the Coptic Christian Pope has told me of how touched he was to have moderate Muslims, secularists, and people of different faiths come and literally and figuratively join arms and march together to stop the brutality against Christianity and against Jews in Egypt.
That was extraordinary. And so much of our media missed it. I think our President never really understood that. Briefings must not have been adequate--or he missed them--but that was extraordinary. That was an event for the ages, the Egyptian people uprising in millions like no country had ever experienced in our entire history of mankind. Extraordinary. They are to be commended.
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What happened?
Yeah, there were even a couple of Republican Senators, but you had the President, the White House, the State Department, people condemning Egypt for saying: We don't want radical Islam running our country.
I didn't realize, but the constitution--that as I understand this administration helped with--did not include a provision for impeachment. We didn't give them a peaceable way within the constitution to remove a leader once he acted outside the constitution, as Morsi was doing.
Now, because I have been told by a former CIA operative--I asked General al-Sisi while he was still general, before Morsi was elected: Did you have evidence that he was trying to have you killed? I was told by a former CIA operative that he did.
He was reluctant to respond, but he eventually responded: Yes, we did. He didn't even really need that because of the unconstitutional actions of President Morsi. Now, I have had friends of Israel that were saying: We want to give Morsi a chance because he is really working to bring peace to the Sinai.
Well, as we found out after the people arose and a peaceful revolution occurred--I thought about the Egyptian peaceable revolution as I watched the movie ``Selma.'' It is tragic that that ever came about and circumstances ever came to the point that we were treating, especially as a Christian, treating brothers and sisters like that.
Thank God for Martin Luther King, Jr. We honor him this week. What an example. People in Egypt know about Dr. King. The Pope, Coptic Christian Pope knows of Dr. King. He wanted a peaceful demonstration, and they were part of peaceful demonstration.
Unfortunately, radical Islam did not like being removed. They burned churches. They went after Christians. They went after Jews. It was so offensive to the moderate Muslims that make up most all of Egypt that they even voted, overwhelmingly, for a constitution that required the government to build back the churches that the Muslim Brotherhood burned down. That is historic for the ages.
We have this one country, 90 million, most Muslim. At one time, there may have been, as I understand, maybe 10 percent or more Christians, but radical Islam took over after the alleged Arab Spring that was anything but a spring. It is a place of hope with a very, very difficult road in front of them.
Some of the military leaders were asking Members of Congress that were visiting over there about the Apache helicopters and the tanks that have been frozen by President Obama's administration and the refusal, for so long, to provide them.
The military leaders are saying: Does your President not understand that we use those Apache helicopters to keep the Suez Canal open? Does he want a tragedy at the Suez Canal? Is that why he is not allowing us to have new Apaches that we need in order to keep the Suez Canal properly open and safe?
We use the Apache helicopters to go after the massive weapon buildup that occurred in the Sinai under Morsi, and the Sinai is an area with rapid, huge weapon buildup under Morsi that is a threat and was a threat to Israel, our ally.
Somebody in the administration needs to get out a memo to everyone else saying: Look, Israel really is our friend. Netanyahu has more in common in his government and what his government believes than any other government in the entire Middle East with us here in America. Maybe we ought to go easy on pushing for a new leader.
Well, it hasn't happened today. Here is an article. Not only, apparently, is the White House furious with our Speaker--heck, I have been mad with our Speaker. I am telling you, this is a good thing, Mr. Speaker, that has been done here in inviting the Prime Minister of Israel.
Here is an article, since the leader of our closest ally and friend in the Middle East, Israel, is coming, this article from NBCNews.com, Kristen Welker and Carrie Dann:
President Barack Obama will not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the United Nations in March, his administration announced Thursday, citing a
``longstanding practice'' of avoiding appearances with heads of states in close proximity to their elections.
I guess he is glad that countries around the world don't have that same policy because he was sure running around before the election wanting to make appearances with them. I guess it would only be natural that foreign leaders would assume, since he did it before his election, that he would certainly not want to appear less than consistent.
They didn't use that excuse when the President gave Prime Minister Netanyahu a timeout. You wait here, I am going to go eat. Let me know when you have a change of mind.
I mean, that is what parents used to say to us. That is what some of us, as parents, have said: Until you are willing to act right, you go to your room.
For a President of the United States to do that to the leader of the country that is our best ally in the Middle East is really extraordinary, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that he wants him snubbed before his reelection; but I also think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that we have him here to hear his side about what Iran is doing.
Some of us, in December, met with leading investigators at the IAEA in Vienna to talk about Iran's current status, as best they can figure out. I think it was the most candid meeting that we have had with representatives of the IAEA. I appreciate their honesty and forthrightness.
But Iran's centrifuges are still spinning. They are still enriching uranium. They are increasing the amount of uranium that they are enriching. Even though they are assuring the IAEA that they are not taking it any more--they are not taking it past 5 percent enrichment, people that know about the enrichment process know it is not that much of a step to go from 5 percent to 90 percent, have weapons-grade uranium that can be used for bombs.
I think my friend, Joel Rosenberg, in his all-too-realistic novel, previously depicted Iran as developing enough nuclear material to use--
not just in one bomb, they wanted enough to use in several bombs, so that when they got to that point, in a secret facility that even the IAEA, U.S., others didn't know about, according to the novel, they were able to prepare nuclear weapons, multiple nuclear weapons at the same time and immediately ship them out in different directions, so that anyone trying to stop their nukes, once developed, would have to worry that if they attacked Iran to stop their nuclear weapons--they had several--that it would be unlikely they would get them all, and that would mean that nukes would probably show up in Israel and the United States.
It seems pretty realistic. That seems like a realistic consideration for Iran. They seem to be following that procedure, developing as much 5 percent enriched uranium, that we know of; but as even the experts can tell you, it is possible they have got a facility we didn't know about. They have surprised us before.
This is a tragic time in so many places in the world. The shadow of the crisis may have passed us, but too often, that means, now, the shadow is passed and the crisis is upon us.
It is time to stand up to radical Islam and to stand in Erbil and talk to Kurdish leaders--or outside Erbil, at the headquarters where they are able to watch things that are going on; hear a Commander say: You have no idea how heartbreaking it is to see a vehicle, an American vehicle, up-armored vehicle that the United States produced that is in the Islamic State hands, that has now been made into a massive suicide bomb, comes at our Kurdish fighters, fighting heroically, but not having a single weapon that will stop an American up-armored vehicle as the vehicle comes, as they know it is going to explode, and it gets nearer and nearer, and they are frantic.
Everybody watching the video feed, everybody on the ground there knows they are not going to stop it because the United States has not provided the weapons to our friends that will stop the weapons, the U.S. weapons that are in the hands of our enemies. Then, ultimately, the suicide bomb of a U.S. up-armored vehicle takes out those valiant, heroic Kurdish fighters.
These are not people that threw down their weapons and ran, like so much of the Iraqi Army did. There are Iraqi officials that say: This is why we really needed a small American presence here, to give us the backbone, to tell us, ``Here is what you do. Yes, they are coming, but don't throw down your weapons. Go here. Go there.''
We needed that help, that coordination, the same kind of help and direction, coordination that our embedded Special Forces, Special Ops people gave to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002, when the Taliban was initially decimated, defeated before we added tens of thousands of troops and became occupiers.
It has worked. It worked in Afghanistan before we became occupiers. It has worked when we help people that want to defend themselves to defend themselves.
We have seen over and over these reports that, in Syria, this so-
called vetted, moderate Free Syrian Army is joining forces with al Qaeda affiliates. This administration still thinks it is a good idea to send them weapons that they can use, ultimately, to go after our friends, the Kurds.
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Turkey, our ally and friend, NATO partner, says we can't use their bases to fight the Islamic State. I have got friends in Turkey, leaders there I have met with. They don't like the idea of the Kurds being armed.
Well, I think it is time the administration should announce that we are not sending weapons to Baghdad so that they can send what can't stop the Islamic State to the Kurds. We are sending weapons directly to Erbil. We are sending them directly to the Kurds.
Okay. Turkey, we understand you don't like that idea. If you don't like it enough, you have a powerful enough military to stop and destroy the Islamic State by yourself if you want to. So we would much prefer Turkey take out the Islamic State by themselves. But as it appears, Turkey is becoming more radical in their legislation and activities. It explains, perhaps, why they will not allow us to use our bases and will not directly, themselves, fight the Islamic State.
Well, the Kurds are willing. They are doing it. They are fighting valiantly. Let's help them out directly, not through Baghdad, but directly.
Let's try to be friends with Israel. Let's try not to snub their leaders. I mean, since I have been in Congress, I have tried to be encouraging when I have met with other Israeli leaders. Before Netanyahu became the Prime Minister, we met with others. We encouraged them. I wasn't crazy about some of the things they were doing, but they were leaders of our friend Israel, and I wanted to be their friend. I wish that it were so with this administration.
Now, we had what was purported to be the State of the Union Address in here. We were told ``the shadow of crisis has passed.'' I don't know. I am finding that maybe the President, a few years ago when he came and told us, ``Pass my bill right away, right away, right away,'' maybe he didn't really know he didn't have a bill. But we kept trying for days to get a copy of his bill, and finally, after a week, there was no President's American Jobs Act.
Well, I went ahead and created one, and what it did was eliminate the biggest tariff that any country in the world puts on their own manufactured goods. It is called a corporate tax. It has to be passed on to consumers, which makes the price of the product or their services more expensive. Imagine the manufacturing jobs that would come flooding back to America if we even just reduced the corporate tax, this tariff that we are putting on our own goods.
And I have had reporters around Washington who don't really get it say: Well, how would you make up for the lost corporate taxes?
Those corporate taxes are paid by Americans. They are paid by the consumers. Any corporation that doesn't pass on that tax is not going to stay in business. So the consumers pay it. The American taxpayers pay it anyway.
But what would happen when you lower the corporate tax rate? Some of those massive manufacturing businesses--like the President's dear friends own that have moved over to China and other places--some of them have told a group of us that went over there: Well, the biggest reason we had to move is America had such a massive and now the highest corporate tax in the world. If you lower that like to China levels, 17 percent, we would be able to be back there.
Now, I loved hearing from leaders of industry in China that the best workers they have were American workers in the United States of America. Their best quality control is right here. Well, if we would lower the corporate tax, those jobs would come flooding back.
I loved hearing the President so pleased that we are becoming energy independent. Unfortunately, it is not due to anything the Federal Government is doing. His administration is doing whatever it can to slow down energy production of oil and gas that we are so reliant on, and production from Federal lands, under his watch, is down significantly.
So it is all the private sector that has done this, Sarah Palin and others saying, ``Drill, baby, drill.'' That has actually happened, and now we have got an abundance. It has brought down gasoline prices.
And what is the Democrat reaction to prices of gasoline going down? Well, that means we need to add some taxes to gasoline. Really?
I loved hearing the President say we need to do infrastructure, except, dadgummit, I remember him talking about that repeatedly when he first became President. That is why he said we had to have this massive
$900 billion, because we are going to build infrastructure.
And what did he do? He got the $900 billion from a Democratic House and Senate, and only a fraction of it went to infrastructure. We were told it was going to go to shovel-ready jobs, and then we find out some years later, well, actually there was no such thing as the shovel-ready jobs. They did send it to companies like Solyndra and others that lived high off the hog for a while and then went broke. I am sure they are getting some other grant somewhere else.
Which brings us to another story, which was reported as a bombshell, a story by Richard Pollock, ``Bombshell: IRS Has Active Contract for Millions With Company HHS Fired Over Botched Healthcare.gov'' Web site.
Wow. Well, no wonder the President wants more money. He is still doing deals for millions of dollars with people they paid massive millions of dollars to do a Web site that didn't work. We have had people come to the Hill and say: We could have done that for about one-
twentieth of the cost of what was paid and actually had it working.
But things are a little better in Texas. I loved hearing the President take credit for jobs that have been created in Texas. Unfortunately, when you look at the jobs that his policies have helped create around the country, the biggest thing he has helped create is part-time jobs in numbers like we have never had before.
I love when he brings people in here to hold them up as good examples. I wish he had brought some of my constituents, some of whom are brokenhearted because their part-time job went from 39 hours to 29. They had to get a second one. And they have also lost what benefits they did have at their first employment. Now they are spending more time away from their children, making less.
I know he has the image that $15,000 a year is supposed to support a family of four, but what most people in business can tell you--
especially small business that employs about 70 percent of American workers--the minimum wage is entry level. And when I talk to people at places like McDonald's, they are not even paying the minimum wage. They are paying more than that. And places where oil is being drilled and gas is being drilled, they are paying a lot more than minimum wage. Some of them are paying bonuses because that is what happens when the Federal Government does not impede the ability of industry and of American entrepreneurialism.
But here, also, the President wants to provide net neutrality. I want neutrality. I want Internet neutrality. But I don't want the government taking over because I know his friends end up doing well and his enemies don't do well.
I would like to make sure that the market is able to play. I would love it if he had come in here and said: You know what? We have wasted a lot of money trying to prop up solar energy and wind energy. We have squandered massive amounts of money, of taxpayer dollars, money we have had to borrow from China that won't be paid back in my lifetime. But here is a tax notion. Let's eliminate the subsidies for every energy form, whatever it is, eliminate them. Nobody is going to get subsidies. Nobody gets grants. Good luck.
What would that mean? It would mean the free market would take over.
And when I hear the commercials, oh, buy a solar energy whatever, air conditioner or whatever it is, heater, buy it now because the subsidies may be running out before long, well, let's run them all out. Let's let energy be determined by the free market without government intervention, without using the Tax Code.
I am pleased that perhaps the President has heard some of us. As we have said, the President keeps talking about Warren Buffett paying a lower tax rate than his secretary, but he has never offered any solutions to fix that, as some of us here have. What would be the best solution? Well, bring down the secretary's income tax rate to the capital gains rate that Warren Buffett is paying. That is how you do it.
I just love Arthur Laffer, Ronald Reagan's former economic adviser, such a brilliant guy. He explained to a group of us a few years ago here--and I am paraphrasing Arthur--he said: I hear people talking about we are going to tax the rich. The rich, he says, are the ones you are not going to tax.
Now, if you say we are going to tax this activity of the rich, they will change the activity. They can do that because they are ultrarich. If you say we are going to tax you in this location, this State, this city, this country, they are ultrarich; they can move. That is what rich people do.
So if one State where Secretary Kerry has his yacht has a really high tax, well, what is he going to do? He is going to do what he has done. He is going to move the yacht to a State that has a lower tax. That is what rich people do. So you may say: I am going to go after the rich and tax them, really put it to them, and then spread that wealth.
The ultrarich are the ones you are not going to tax. They will move. The rest of us, we can't just say: You know what? I am going to go be a lawyer in another country, another place.
You can't just do that. You have got to go through all kinds of training. You just can't do that. You can't go be a Member of Congress somewhere else. You can't just pick up your job and take it when you are middle class or you are poor.
So what happens when somebody says we are going to increase taxes on the rich, well, they move. They change their activity. They avoid the tax because they can do that. That is why Warren Buffett can say he is not worried about the inheritance tax. He takes actions to make sure he is not going to get hit with it. The poor can't do that. Of course, you have to have over a minimum amount now, so the poor don't get hit with it, but the middle class does.
My great-aunt was middle class through and through--as they say, land rich, cash poor. Land prices dropped within 6 months of her death. The IRS took every acre of her 2,500-acre farm. Every acre. They sold her home at an auction because land prices dropped. The FDIC had dumped land around there. Prices dropped. Under the inheritance tax, it is the value of that land at the time of the death. They took every acre, took the home place. The people she had specified in her will that would get specific things didn't get them. The IRS got them.
That is why I went when the call went out to family members to please show up and buy whatever you can so that we can keep it in the family. Yes, that lady was middle class. She lived middle class. I had been to her home numerous times. You wouldn't find anything that you would say was even upper middle class. They took every acre of her land, her home for taxes.
But if you are ultrarich, you don't run into that situation. You buy insurance policies. You convert the way you get income. You move cash here, there, to other countries. You can do that. But not when you are middle class.
So the policies of this President have caused, for the first time in American history, 95 percent of America's income to go to the top 1 percent.
{time} 1445
The President admitted it a couple years ago, yeah, he was aware that happened. Well, how about working with the rest of us who have some good ideas that would increase the number of middle class, moving people up from poor; increase the people moving from lower middle class up to upper middle class; and moving people from middle class to wealthy? We want that. That is what we hope for. We don't want to bring down people from where they have done well, even if they are one of the few that were born on third base and have gone through life thinking they hit a triple. We want everybody to do well. And if you get jealous of them, your life is going to be ruined.
I loved the quotes from Martin Luther King, so many of them brought out in the movie ``Selma'': If you get eaten up with anger, revenge--
and in the cases around here--jealousy, you are the one that is going to be miserable. Let's encourage people to get wealthy not by taking from the wealthy and bringing people down. Let's have a flat tax: if you make more, then you are going to pay more; if you make less, then you are going to pay less.
Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by saying that in 40 years over 57 million babies have been killed here in America. As a father who held a premature daughter in my hand and had her grasp the end of my finger with her tiny little hand, it wrenches my heart to think there are people that will want to kill a baby girl of that same age. Let's stop. God bless the March for Life.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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