S. 23: Patent Reform Act of 2011
Previous Senate Votes
Motion to Invoke Cloture on S. 23
Cloture Motion Agreed to 87-3, 10 not voting (3/5 required)
Momentum builds for patent bill
The Senate is moving closer to a final agreement on an overhaul of the federal patent system, possibly as early as today.
Eagle Forum: Stop the Death to Innovation Bill!
While Americans are focused on a possible government shutdown and heated budget standoffs in the states, the U.S. Senate is considering legislation that isn’t getting much attention.
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Monday, March 7, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
House Speaker: Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to Defend DOMA
Washington (Mar 4)
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement regarding the status of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA):
“I will convene a meeting of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group for the purpose of initiating action by the House to defend this law of the United States, which was enacted by a bipartisan vote in Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. It is regrettable that the Obama Administration has opened this divisive issue at a time when Americans want their leaders to focus on jobs and the challenges facing our economy. The constitutionality of this law should be determined by the courts -- not by the president unilaterally -- and this action by the House will ensure the matter is addressed in a manner consistent with our Constitution.”
NOTE: The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group is a five-member panel consisting of the Speaker of the House, Majority Leader, Majority Whip, Minority Leader, and Minority Whip. Under House rules, the advisory group has the authority to instruct the non-partisan office of the House General Counsel to take legal action on behalf of the House of Representatives.
Congress Last Week
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House
Senate
- Suspension Votes, February 28
- H.J.Res. 44: Further Continuing Appropriations Amendments, 2011
- H.R. 662: Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011
- H.R. 4: Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011
Senate
Friday, March 4, 2011
Somali Pirates
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[Page: S1173] GPO's PDF---
Mr. KIRK. With the cold-blooded murder of four Americans by pirates, our country faces a dangerous enemy as old as the second Washington administration and the earliest days of the U.S. Navy.
This danger now stretches across our vital oil supply lanes and threatens not just Americans handing out Bibles at Indian Ocean ports of call but our vital supply of energy. I think it is time to recall the tough choices made by the Jefferson administration to suppress the 21st century's pirates in this new chapter.
We may forget that as much as 10 percent of all Federal revenues were paid by the Washington administration to the Barbary pirates operating in what became Libya. Payments continued under the Adams and Jefferson administrations, but as always with kidnappers and pirates, ransoms only led to more danger on the high seas.
In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson decided that payments of tribute to the Barbary States in exchange for the safe passage of American shipping vessels had gone far enough. Over the next 5 years, Jefferson sent the new U.S. Navy--ironically built over his objection--to attack and defeat the pirates. In the conflict that followed, new American heroes were made, especially Captain Stephen Decatur. Decatur's exploits were dangerous and involved close quarters in combat. In his honor, my State of Illinois named one of its major cities after him, placing his statue in the city's center.
In the end, piracy was defeated and the flag of the United States was not strongly challenged by pirates until this century.
In the wake of the murder of four Americans by Somali pirates, we need to recall Jefferson's policy under what I would call the ``Decatur Initiative'' against Indian Ocean pirates.
Since 2006, pirates attacked more and more vessels. There were over 400 attacks just last year. According to the New York Times, the modern-day pirates of the 21st century currently hold 50 vessels and more than 800 hostages. According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirates murdered 379 people with an additional 199 individuals reported missing between 1993 and 2009.
According to reports, the typical pirate ransom in 2005 was between $100,000 and $200,000. By 2008, the average ransom grew to between $500,000 ad $2 million. One year later, in 2009, the average ransom reportedly grew again to a range between $1.5 million and $3.5 million, In late 2010, ransoms now hover around $4 million per vessel. Ransom payments as large as $9.5 million for a tanker carrying crude oil have also been reported by the media.
Recently, pirates captured a supertanker worth $200 million carrying 2 million barrels of oil bound for the U.S. Its ransom may become the mother load for pirates to extend their reach across the Indian Ocean and into the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. We would be naive not to expect profits from piracy will not be used to support terrorism against the West.
The Horn of Africa is of crucial importance, not only to the U.S. economy, but also to the global market as it serves as a major artery of international shipping. The oil tankers that cruise these waters provide much of the world's energy supply and we cannot risk the safety of those shipments. This region is a potential incubator for the growth of two burgeoning al Qaida franchises: al Qaida in the Islamic Magreb, AQIM, and Somalia's al-Shabaab group, which has pledged its loyalty to Osama bin Laden.
Yesterday, I raised this issue with our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. She hinted that our policy may be changing and that is welcome news. I asked, ``if we can't be tough on pirates, who can we be tough on?''
Today, I am announcing the start of an effort here in the Senate to draft legislation and support administration action along the lines of Jefferson's policy on pirates.
These legislative concepts shall be collectively referred to as the ``Decatur Initiative,'' Decatur, whose most daring mission involved recapturing the U.S.S. Philadelphia from pirates.
The time has come for us to advance the following: 1. A defined ``Pirate Exclusion Zone'' that would allow the immediate boarding and/or sinking of any vessel from Somalia not approved and certified for sea by allied forces; 2. an expedited legal regime permitting trial and detention of pirates captured on the high seas; 3. a blockade of pirate-dominated ports like Hobyo, Somalia; 4. broad powers and authority to on-scene commanders to attack or arrest pirates once outside Somalia's 12-mile territorial limit--this would include the summary sinking of pirate ships if a local commander deems it warranted.
Additionally, I will explore actions to attack the financial links between pirates and the terrorist groups such as al Shabaab and target pirates with financial sanctions in the same way as other terrorist networks.
In the wake of the recent tragedy in the Arabian Sea, where American missionaries were gunned down in cold blood, I am hopeful that many of my colleagues will be willing to join me in taking bold action against the pirates who have been operating in the waters off East Africa. It is ironic that the United States and our allies station substantial naval forces against pirates in this region but take little aggressive action against them. While the pirates have substantial strength on the ground in Somalia, once they're put to sea, we can be their masters and they have very weak means to oppose us. A set of vessels blockading pirate-dominated ports with aggressive orders to attack and sink any vessel leaving Somalia should make quick work of pirate operations.
The cost of oil and the price of gas is high enough. Further increases could endanger our slowly recovering economy. As part of the effort to stabilize the price of gas in America, we need to recover Jefferson's policy and attack and defeat Somali pirates as soon as they leave Somalia's territorial waters.
In addition, as this body begins to finalize spending legislation for the remainder of the year, I would like to highlight the growing danger to the U.S. economy and our country.
We all know that the national debt now tops $14 trillion but we should note that this means we are adding $35 billion to our debts each week or over $5 billion borrowed each day.
That $4 billion cut represents just .3 percent of this year's annual deficit or just three one-hundredths of 1 percent
[Page: S1174] GPO's PDF
Our money lender costs now are higher than the entire gross domestic product of the country of Denmark, at $201 billion. We must pay $4 billion per week in interest or $616 million per day to our money lenders. What is worse, interest payments are expected to more than double over the next decade and will top $778 billion. That means soon we will have to pay our money lenders more than it costs to operate our Army, Navy, and Air Force combined at $623 billion.
Remember also that interest payments on the debt are a form of wealth transfer from hard-working middle-class Americans who pay Federal taxes to wealthy lenders, many of whom live abroad. For those in the Senate who are opposing budget constraints put in by the House, we should force them to admit that they are either for higher taxes for the American people or more borrowing that transfers wealth from hard-working middle-class Americans to high-income money lenders, most of whom now live abroad.
Our Fiscal Situation
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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) is recognized for 30 minutes.
Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker, there are many people who are wondering in the Nation exactly what it was we were doing up here a couple of weeks ago as we were talking about amendments to cut the budget, amendments to increase the budget. And for myself, I like to keep it in very narrow terms and like to get it as simple as possible.
So we went across the district last week, had town hall meetings trying to explain to people exactly the situation that we're facing here in the country. And I've got a chart here which is very instrumental in helping me to visualize what's going on. And basically, this chart is one which shows that we're spending $3.5 trillion at the current moment and we're taking in $2.2 trillion, and that begins to give the basic understanding of where we are.
Now, if a local family were in this position, they would be maybe spending $3,500 a month and bringing in $2,200 a month, and their banker would not be pleased with that. Their banker would say, well, we probably need to do better, especially if they were borrowing money every month. And we are borrowing money every month to work here. And so our government is just as stressed with the debt and with this imbalance in spending and imbalance in revenues as a family would be.
Now, our banker in this country is used to Americans saved and they bought Treasury bills. That's how we would finance our government. But Americans across the country basically don't save anymore, and so we have to find other people who will buy our Treasury bills. And that's the Chinese Government. So China is our borrower of record, our lender of record.
And so we would watch what the Chinese have said in the past couple of months, in the past couple of years, and a couple of times China has said, We're not going to buy any more of the Treasury bills from the United States Government. At one point they said, We'll buy South Korean treasury bills, meaning the South Korean Government was a better bet than the U.S. Government. And so our banker has been giving us signs that, We're concerned. We're concerned about the economic health of your country, because they see that we cannot long continue.
Now, for myself, I've gone ahead and done the mathematics that, if you are spending 3.5, you are bringing in 2.2, well, you are running a deficit of $1.3 trillion every year. Now, that's a deficit as long as it's unaccounted for, as long as it hasn't been spent. But the moment that the money spends, then it goes into the debt barrel, and that's the top small barrel. And then we have a debt of approximately $15 trillion. Might be a little bit less.
To put that in perspective, that debt barrel began to build in the early days of our history, and we accumulated up to $5 trillion worth of debt to the second President Bush, George W. Bush. And during his term, we increased that debt from 5 to basically 10. So, a very rapid escalation of debt accumulation during the second Bush years.
[Time: 16:40]
But then, under President Obama, then we have seen an acceleration even faster so that we have already added almost another $5 trillion in debt in 2 1/2 years under President Obama, and we are on track to maybe add another 6 or 7, maybe 8 in the next 2 years. This 1.3 deficit for this coming year, that was last year. This coming year, that number becomes 1.6 trillion. So you can see that the gap between what we are bringing in and what we are spending is absolutely increasing rather than decreasing.
Now, to put this in a bigger perspective the last year of President Bush, the deficit was about $200 billion so. Instead of 1.3, it was about 0.2, if we round it off to 0.3. You could see that almost immediately under President Obama that we increased our deficit. That is, we increased these outlays by almost a trillion dollars so that our economic condition is worsening very rapidly.
Now, the unsettling pieces, I mean, if you look at the 15 trillion in the top debt barrel and then you look at the revenues that we are bringing in from the government, you say, well, we could pay off 7 or 8 years. If we weren't spending a thing, we could pay off for 7 or 8 years and still not have quite all of our debt paid off.
But then the alarming piece is this fiscal gap at the bottom, that is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And when we consider those elements, then we are looking at a $202 trillion deficit, a debt, a debt that we owe. Those are mandated spending programs that we are not going to turn off.
So we can already understand that we would pay almost 100 years if we were only getting $2.2 trillion into paying off this fiscal gap that we experience here.
Now, over in the far right corner of the chart, we see now a graph. The thing about graphs is they go on in time, this bottom line, the horizontal line is actually years and then the vertical line then is representative of the average income, per capita income that we as Americans have had through our history.
So I ask our listeners always, are you doing better than your parents did? And almost always the answer is yes, I make more money than my parents did and I, I myself, made more money than my parents did. That's shown on this chart that every year the chart has been increasing as we go through time, the numbers increase and so it shows that.
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But then we see that the chart levels off and starts down. So when I ask people right now, are your children going to live better than you, are your children going to have more income than you did, very few people in a room will raise their hand. That's because they see that the economic condition of the world is getting worse, not better. That worsening condition is based simply on these factors right here.
There is nothing in the world economies that would not improve if we didn't solve these problems. It does not have to be--we could continue that growth curve forever. So we are right now at the point where the curve flattens off and moves down into a lower category.
But at the very tip of that curve is a red dot. Then the curve stops and discerning people would say, well, I thought graphs just continue. You draw them on out through infinity.
Well, you do except this chart stops. This chart stops because our economy literally shows both Office of Management and Budget, the White House, and the CBO, that's the congressional arm. So both the White House and the Congress both show the same chart that our economy simply ceases to function about 2037.
Now for people who are younger than myself, that's in your lifetimes. I may not see that, but my children and grandchildren will see this point where our economy quits. That's what happened in the Soviet Union.
President Reagan believed that if he simply increased our spending enough on arms that he could cause them to continue to invest more spending on arms. They would not be able to increase the revenues. They would have this gap right here. Their deficits would increase, their debt would increase and eventually the system would implode. It would collapse on itself. That's what's happening in our economy in 2037.
So at this particular point in our time, we have to stop and say we can't continue this. We must begin to do differently, and that is what the House was doing last week.
Now many in the country have said, oh, they are draconian cuts. We should not have done that. You shouldn't have cut that deeply and others are saying you should have cut more.
So let's evaluate that briefly. We cut, basically, about $60 billion out of the budget. We cut it out of the continuing resolution a couple of weeks ago when we passed that bill.
So what does 60 billion mean in this chart? Sixty billion would mean that you would change this number from 3.5 to 3.44. We are still faced with only the 2.2 here in revenues to the country.
I would ask every listener in the audience, is that significant, is it draconian? If you think it's draconian, would your banker think it's draconian? Almost everyone laughs if I ask them, if you were spending $3,500 a month, bringing in $2,200 a month and went to your banker, would your banker think that you made significant cuts if you cut from $3,500 to $3,440? Most people would laugh and say my banker wouldn't talk to me if I only cut that much. So I put it into that context that we did not do significant cuts.
Yet many of the people here in Washington are wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth, those sorts of things, that catastrophe just awaits us because we cut spending by .06.
Myself, I don't think so. I think that the looming economic crisis in 2037 is the more compelling point that our economy simply will cease to function out in that range. Again, you can go online and look at CBO or OMB to find that chart. That's where we pulled it out. So take a look at it.
But the important thing is to understand that no
company--my wife and I ran a small company--and no company ever found itself in fiscal straits like this and cured it simply by cutting spending. I don't think that it's possible for us to cut spending from 3.5 to 2.2. As a business person, it does not ring true. It doesn't seem like that we can cut that much.
So if we can't cut that much spending you have to say, well, then how do we get the 2.2 to move toward the 3.5? If we can't cut spending enough then how do we grow the revenues? Now some people will say well, we should raise taxes. They would say we should raise taxes. And then you shouldn't have to ask, well, what's the outcome of raising taxes?
The first thing is to understand that there is a basic economic truth that tax increases will kill jobs. And so if we want to make this number smaller, just increase taxes and we actually increased the difference. We increased our deficit because this number actually gets smaller at that point.
If we want to solve the problem that we are facing now, there is only one way to go, and that is economic growth. We need to create jobs. If we have to create jobs, then we must evaluate the ways that we are not creating jobs today.
We resume our discussion talking about how we would create these two numbers to come together. That would be a balanced budget. And, again, I would repeat that it is very difficult for us to cut enough spending to reach bottom, that my idea is that we must increase the number of jobs.
As we bring people into the workforce, we are simultaneously encompassing two things. We are causing this number to go up as people pay taxes that were previously unemployed, but then we are also bringing people off of unemployment, welfare and government assistance. So we are lowering their number toward this one as we increase that one.
The actuarial tables show us at about 3.5 percent rate of growth that we can actually begin to move towards balance. These long-term numbers begin to clear up significantly just by creating jobs in the growth rate of about 3.5 percent.
Well, then the next question would be, can we create jobs in 3.5 percent? Well, that's exactly what we have averaged for over 70 years. It's well established that we can do it.
Right now, our economic growth is in the 1 to 2 percent range, so that means that we almost have to double our rate of growth, and that would be possible if we did two basic things.
[Time: 16:50]
Number one, we can lower taxes. Tax breaks create jobs. Tax decreases create jobs. Tax increases kill jobs. And so then the second aspect of creating jobs would be to lower the regulations.
Now, I have many people that react in horror when I say we should lower regulations. They immediately claim you would go to zero regulation. I don't mean that at all. I simply mean that we are regulating our jobs out of existence. Companies are finding it easier to go to another country and operate rather than operate here because the regulations are so extreme.
One way that we're regulating companies out of existence is through our lending right now. We passed the Dodd-Frank bill which puts new requirements on banks. And so the bankers in my district in southern New Mexico have been calling recently saying that under the previous accounting methods and the previous reporting methods, we used to simply get written up if we made a mistake on a loan package. Today we're told that we could get a $50,000 fine. So they then are skeptical and reticent to lend money to small businesses and to people buying homes because they stand to lose more on the loan by one typographical error, one exception, than they can make.
And that, then, has a formal process so that a young family, a young couple in Socorro, New Mexico, recently graduated from New Mexico Tech, they both are employed, both have degrees, both have good-paying jobs, and yet the bank says, well, we just don't want to lend money because it might turn out to be a bad loan and we could lose our bank over one bad loan or we could get a $50,000 penalty over a mistake on the loan application. It's just too tough.
That means the regulations have been so high that businesses are saying, well, we would rather stay on the sidelines, which is what's happening nationwide. So we're being told that if the banks would simply loan money that everything would be fixed, and it's a lot true. Construction would start back. Houses would start back. Real estate agents would start back, and everyone would start, except it is regulated down into a low, just stagnant position because of these regulations that are, in many people's eyes, too high.
Another way that we regulate jobs out of existence is through environmental concerns. We are saying to ourselves that we should protect species at
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The first one would be that, yes, we should keep the spotted owl alive, but we should not kill every timber job in America, which is basically what happened in New Mexico. We used to have 20,000 jobs in timber and today we have, more or less, none. Sometimes, one guy says, I've got eight people, and sometimes he says, well, I laid them off this week. And so we're up and down. The meaning of all that is that we've lowered, because of the spotted owl, from about 20,000 jobs basically to zero in New Mexico. And nationwide, that has caused this number to get smaller as people go on welfare, and it has caused this number to get bigger.
And as people get less-paying jobs, then that means this number gets smaller because they don't pay as much in taxes. They don't have as much to spend, so retail merchants don't make as much, and then they pay less in taxes. Meanwhile, more families are struggling. They get some sort of aid even when they're working, and the 3.5 number gets larger as we get jobs that pay less.
So, again, my bill simply says, let's have a discussion as Americans. Let's discuss whether or not we have to make the species the last determinant of everything in the forest or if we can't keep the spotted owl alive in sanctuaries, 1,000 acres here, 1,000 acres there, and go back to cutting in the forest.
Well, the first thing that some alarmist will do is say, well, you're going to clear-cut the forest; we shouldn't clear-cut the forest. We don't need to do that. We don't need to do that. And I'm saying, no, we don't have to clear-cut the forest. Land management companies commonly have a balanced thinning program. They go through and cut some trees of all sizes. And they're constantly working their way through their acreage so that good small companies exist on very small acreages.
We've got 225 million acres of forestland in this country, and yet it is being logged at almost zero rates. We've got forests in New Mexico: 3 million acres in one, 2 million acres in another. We've got very large forests, and yet they haven't had significant thousand-acre timber sales in forever, and it's been maybe 20 years since they've had significant timber sales. And even then they are restricted from harvesting the large-diameter trees that are economically profitable.
And so we've driven out most of the timber mills. We've driven out most of the people that would make a living doing that, all in the name of the environment. And all of us would want the environment clean. We would like the species to not be extinct. But I do not think that we have to completely ignore the job situation at hand.
The second bill we put in was the 27,000 farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. They were put out of work about 2 years ago by a silvery minnow. A judge said that all the water in the river has to stay there and cannot be used for agriculture. So those 27,000 people who used to be paying income tax here moved, as a cost to the government, to the 3.5. They are on welfare and unemployment, and so our revenues go down and our expenses go up. And that's a toxic case for a government, for a business, or for a family. And yet we're encouraging it through our policies.
So my bill, again, is very simple. Keep the 2-inch minnow alive in holding ponds. Put them in the river in the millions when we need them, but in the meantime,
let's use that water for the irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley. The worst thing about shutting that farmland down in the San Joaquin Valley is that that area used to produce most of the vegetables for this country. Now, then, with them idle, we are importing vegetables from Central and South America, and they spray pesticides that we're not allowed to. So we hurt our revenues, we accelerated the cost of government, and we get an unsafe food supply all at the same time. It does not have to be that way. We can accomplish both jobs and the species.
The last bill that we introduced was offshore. Every one of us saw the BP situation. Again, I believe that BP should be accountable. I understand the process that they went through. They made bad some decisions. They are being held accountable. They are actually paying 100 percent of the cost. And that is not the question.
The question is whether the President should have ordered for the 100,000-plus jobs to be killed. You see right now the Governor of Louisiana and you see the people in Louisiana are really suffering because those rigs that used to be offshore working, thousands of people out there working every day at very high-paying salaries now are drawing unemployment. So we, again, lowered our 2.2 figure down lower. We increased the 3.5. So we made our budget situation much worse by policies that threaten or stop job growth.
Back on taxes. Again, we have mentioned that that's one reason that companies choose to live and operate elsewhere. Now, the people say, well, why do taxes create jobs more slowly? Mr. Swett, who is in the Second District of New Mexico in Artesia, said it best. He said, For me to create one job takes $340,000. He said, That's what a bulldozer costs, and I run bulldozers. He said, So when the government taxes my money away from me, it takes me longer to get my $340,000. He said, By the way, I've got to buy a $60,000 pickup because they won't let me drive the bulldozer to work down through the main streets of Artesia. And so we have to have a pickup and the truck. So he said, Actually it takes a little bit more than $340,000 to create a job. But every time the government taxes me more, it takes longer to get the $340,000 in the bank.
That's the reason that under higher and higher tax rates our economy stagnates and jobs are not produced as quickly, because we're taking that money away from businesses who would create it and putting it into the government that simply then spends it here in this 3.5 without really making more jobs.
So we are faced with a question in this country: Are we caring about the long-time survival of our economy or are we going to continue down the same path?
Now, that's the greatest discussion that we should be having. That's the discussion they're having right now in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, basically the union employees are saying, We want more. We want more pay and we want more benefits, that is, more retirement.
Right now, basically across the country, our union employees--and I think they should get every penny that they are wanting, that they are deserving, but we have to understand that our union employees working for the government are making basically twice what our people in the private sector are making. So we down here are paying taxes in order for people that are costing the government to make twice what we are. And they are asking for more, meaning that we should charge the public, the private sector workers more taxes in order to pay higher salaries.
But then the real rub comes in on the retirements. Many of our government employees have an option to retire at 20 years, and many of those can retire at 75 percent of their pay. If you are making $40,000 a year, then you can retire at $30,000 a year. I have a document in my office that has New Mexico retirees' salaries, and this is from 10 years ago when I was in the State legislature, and the highest paid worker in our retirement system in New Mexico is making about $5,600 a month.
[Time: 17:00]
Now, that contrasts with about $3,000 a month. So he is making almost double in retirement what the average New Mexican is making working 40 hours a week. What it has caused is this imbalance here, this cost that is doubling above what we can take in in revenues.
So the discussion that is going on in Wisconsin is the same discussion we should be having here on the floor of the House, and it is the same discussion we should be having in every State capitol because almost every State, I think 48 of the 50, is now running in deficit conditions because the cost of government, the cost of their employees, the cost of education has risen so
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Now, if we begin to get our tax policy and our regulatory policy under control, I think that the manufacturing jobs would come back. So it is not just that we want jobs. McDonald's and such would create service-level jobs, but we are interested in careers, not just jobs. We are interested in being able to plan for your future and being able to pay for college for your kids or plan for your retirement. Those are the careers that we want to draw back, and those come from the good manufacturing jobs that left in droves during the last 30-40 years as we increased regulations and as we increased taxation.
Those jobs would come flooding back to us if we simply lowered the taxes. And you heard President Obama say in his State of the Union message that we now have one of the two highest corporate tax rates in the world. A couple of days after his speech, Japan actually lowered their tax rate, leaving us at the top level.
So the President recognizes that we make ourselves uncompetitive with our tax rate and we should do something about it. He is exactly right. We should cut taxes; and yet when you bring that up on the floor of the House, you get one-half of the body that grabs their chest and falls backward, pulling the flag across their face and saying we can't do that because Old Glory might just wither away. And the other side says it is the only way to economic growth.
If we are going to fix this imbalance of spending and revenue, we absolutely have to have growth, and job creation should be the primary focus of this Congress. But unless we focus on taxes and regulations, we cannot cure the job problem in the country.
A few years ago, Ireland was looking at itself and said, Ireland is a pretty smart country. We are smart people; we are hardworking people. We are struggling under a bad economy. What can we do to make it better?
So they thought a lot about it, they had studies, and they decided they should lower their corporate tax rate. So they lowered their corporate tax rate. It was equal to ours at that point, about 36 percent, and they lowered it down to 12 percent. Companies began to flock into Ireland because the tax rate was changed from 36 down to 12 percent. That is what lowering the tax rate does; it draws the great jobs to you, the manufacturing jobs.
Well, in the intervening years, Ireland began to do what we did. They began to say with all this money, we are awash with money, the revenues were exceeding the outflows, they began to say, we are going to spend more. And so they began to develop programs to give away, and they began to raise taxes.
Now, my brother-in-law works for Hughes Tools, and he just got back from Ireland. They just dismantled their last plant in Ireland that they had taken over when they were given the lower taxes. Because of the higher tax rate now, they are now evacuating out of Ireland. So Ireland is faced with this exact same problem, and Ireland is at the point of economic collapse, along with Greece, along with Spain, along with other countries in Europe because all of us have been living beyond our means.
Each country in the world right now is faced with its own set of problems that basically originate from the fact that we are spending more than we are bringing in. We are spending more for government than what the private sector can make, and we all face the same catastrophe that the Soviet Union faced, that their economy is simply going to implode.
Now I, for one, do not want to be on the watch and not be saying something as we're going down the track, and so I give this presentation everywhere I go. And to the people who are saying we absolutely have to have more government spending, I simply say: show me how it is going to work. The way we have been making this work is we have been printing money. As we print money, we take money away from you because printing money makes the dollars in your pocket worth less. And so as your money in your pocket is worth less, then the prices go up. So we see gasoline prices now escalate to $4, and some
people are saying it is the evil oil companies. The truth is your dollar is worth less.
If it was only going up, then you could say: yes, the oil companies are taking more profit. But your vegetables are going up. Your gold is going up. Silver is going up. Big metals are going up. In the oil fields in southeast New Mexico, we use a lot of drill pipe. I got word last week when I was traveling around that the people who own drill pipes to sell it right now don't want to sell it.
They would rather have their pipe than dollars because they see that we have printed this $2.6 trillion. They see their dollar is worth less. They see the prices escalating, so they simply have shut off selling their drill pipe. It is worth more than the cash that they could get for it. That is going to be another sign that our economy has really begun to struggle under the inflation as we see shortages--shortages of vegetables, shortages of anything.
Now, the price of silver and gold have been escalating. The price of silver a week ago Friday went up 10 percent in one day. Then 2 or 3 days later it went up another 8 or 9 percent. It is not that we are using that much more silver 2 or 3 days later; it is that people are saying I would rather hold silver than dollars, and they have been flooding across from dollars to silver. You are seeing that people are choosing this object of silver that maybe is very difficult to store, very difficult to handle, is actually more valuable to them than holding the cash in the bank. This is because we are living like that.
So either we begin to discipline ourselves both nationally and as individuals because we individually have been running up debt that is sort of the equivalent of this, either we begin to discipline or the ultimate consequences is within 25 years we are going to see catastrophic economic situations arise for families.
I do not think that any of us want that. I think that the economic explanations of exactly why we are having the difficulties in our economy that we are having are very simple. They are very transparent. We are spending $3.5 trillion every year, and we are bringing in $2.2 trillion. That number is actually going to escalate next year so that this deficit, instead of being $1.3 trillion in the next year, according to the President's budget, is going to be $1.6 trillion. That $1.6 trillion at the end of the year will be added to the $15 trillion of debt so at the end of the year we will owe $16.5 trillion. The $202 trillion stays out here as obligations that are currently due because retirees are flooding into the market. The baby boomers are moving into retirement in record numbers now, and that is going to continue for another 15 or 20 years.
We have serious problems facing us, but the problems are fairly easily solved if we simply lower the tax rates, especially if we lower them on the job producers. And, secondly, if we get our regulations under control, not to no regulations, but to simply find a balance point that will allow us to protect the workers, protect the environment, and protect the species while at the same time creating jobs.
American Policies
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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are serious times in which we are living. Supposedly there is a Chinese curse that says may you live in interesting times. We certainly do.
I have really been shocked that the mainstream media has not done more in the way of stories on the Americans, the four Americans, on a boat that were hijacked and then killed. Of course it made some news on February 22 when it happened, but it appears it didn't survive much of a 24-hour cycle.
This was an act of war against America. This was an act of war against four peace-loving people who apparently had the gall to travel around and offer Bibles to different places and apparently were spending American blood and treasure in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, only to find out that they were persecuting Christians in a manner that is reminiscent of why people came to Europe and tried to create a country in which Christians could worship freely without being persecuted, tortured, imprisoned, or killed simply for their religious beliefs.
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In this case, though, it was a matter of Barbary pirates. I know that most people apparently in Washington have not learned enough from history, but there are so many history lessons that make very clear what Ronald Reagan used to say when he said no country ends up being attacked because they are too strong.
[Time: 14:50]
What Barbary pirates have seen and what people around the world have seen, including those in Libya, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran, is that we have been promoting weakness in the United States and promoting a very weak vision of ourselves around the world.
This story from February 22 indicates that the pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. Navy destroyer that was following the hijacked yacht with four Americans on board. Then gunfire erupted, and four Americans who had been taken hostage were fatally wounded. They were killed.
I don't know what this administration needs to see in the way of current events or why this administration will not learn from the myriad of lessons from history that when you're dealing with pirates, when you're dealing with religious fanatics--people who want to destroy you and who could care nothing about your life, your pursuit of happiness--you don't placate them; you don't try to negotiate with them; you don't show that, gee, we don't know what to do--or what you will get is more piracy, more terrorism.
There is only one way to respond, which is the way that the United States did in its early days, in the early 1800s, with Thomas Jefferson as President. Some don't go back that far and learn history. All they want to do is look at a fictional approach to U.S. history that says, in essence, gee, we're mean; we're colonialists; we have subjugated people all around the world to our imperialist whims. Unfortunately, despite all the hyperbole and the rhetoric, what we have done is expend American blood and American treasure in the name of freedom, not just American freedom but the freedom of Iraqis, the freedom of Muslims in Eastern Europe, the freedom of people all across Europe--in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Poland. All across, Americans have given their lives in the name of freedom. All across the Pacific, they have given their lives, their last full measure of devotion, for freedom.
With no racist view but absolutely, as Jesus said, ``Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.''
In the case of Americans, we've lain down lives for people we didn't even know because the concept of freedom was so important.
In our earliest days, Washington, of course, was quite concerned that, in having won the Revolution, we were still not strong enough to survive. So often you'll see in a new government's trying to arise in a country that it overcommits to other obligations with regard to military, and they lose their young nation. Washington was afraid of that. Through the 1790s, we had Barbary pirates. We had pirates off the coast of North Africa who were capturing American ships and taking American sailors hostage. They would either kill them or they would torture them, but they would ransom them if they had not killed them. At one point, I'd read that as much as 18 percent of the American budget was being spent to pay ransom to get American sailors back.
At one point, Thomas Jefferson was the one who was sent over on behalf of the United States to negotiate with these Muslims about why they were attacking American ships. The discussion apparently included the question:
Why would you attack American ships? We've not harmed you in any way. We're no threat to you. We're not threatening you.
One history lesson indicates that Jefferson was told: Well, under our religion, if we are killed while we are taking action against an infidel, like Americans, then we go straight to paradise, and we're rewarded.
Jefferson was shocked because, as a man who was so well-read, he couldn't believe that any world religion would encourage the killing of innocent people and that the killing of innocent people would gain you a trip to paradise. So he got his own English copy of the Koran, which is still over in the Library of Congress. He couldn't believe it. He wanted to find out for himself.
American history students will know that we finally created the United States Marines. Those who are not familiar with the history may still be familiar with the Marines' Hymn that says, ``From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli ..... '' Well, it was the shores of Tripoli to which the marines were sent with the message:
We can't continue to pay ransom to bloodthirsty religious zealots, and so we are at war with you until you stop.
It was only then when Americans showed strength that they could not be pushed around, that they would not be taken hostage without a response, and that there would be American blood and treasure spent in the name of freedom to anyone who tries to threaten the freedom of Americans on the high seas or on American soil.
Because the marines fought so valiantly and fiercely and fearlessly, those pirates, the Muslim pirates, learned a valuable lesson of, gee, maybe we ought to leave these people alone for a while--and they did for
a long time.
Yet in 1979, after the Carter administration had welcomed back the Ayatollah Khomenei as a man of peace, as one who would bring great peace to the region, the Carter administration had snubbed its nose and abandoned a man who didn't seem to be a very nice man--the Shah of Iran--and rather put all our eggs in one basket with this wonderful man of peace, the Ayatollah Khomenei, who it turns out would also like to see the United States destroyed, and viewed Americans as infidels as well as the original Barbary pirates did.
I was in the Army at Fort Benning when the hostages were taken. No one at Fort Benning that I knew of was dying to go to Iran, but most everybody I knew at Fort Benning was willing to go and thought we should go because an act of war had been committed against the United States. Under everyone's interpretation of international law, when a United States Embassy or a United States compound is attacked in any nation, it is an attack on that nation's own soil. It is an act of war. This is under everyone's interpretation of international law.
If you go back and if you review the television footage of the day--and I'm relying on my memory of those days because we were certainly paying attention--we didn't know who might be sent. It turns out none of us were sent from Fort Benning because the Carter administration, as eloquent as President Carter was and as peace-loving and as well-meaning as he was, felt surely these people in Iran will see how much I care. They'll see how much I really love them, and we'll negotiate. They'll be impressed by our words. They'll be impressed by our negotiations, and they'll let our people go.
But that's not the way those folks who view us as infidels and who need to be killed work.
In fact, if you go back to your own experience--back to a schoolyard--if a bully is picking on you or especially if a smaller person is picking on a bigger person and you don't defend yourself but instead say ``let me pay you money if you'll leave me alone,'' not only does that smaller person not have respect for the bigger person, but the smaller person will have nothing but hatred, and now you've added contempt because he can't believe somebody is such a coward and so weak when he appears to be so big and strong that he would pay someone who hates him to leave him alone.
[Time: 15:00]
So you get hatred, you get contempt, and you get more violence. And that is what we've seen. We have continued to this day to pay the price for the message that was sent in 1979 and 1980 for appearing to be so weak and helpless in the face of Iranians--we were told initially students--who committed an act of war and then gave our hostages to the Iranian Government.
Now as I watched all this unfold, it appeared to me, as a young man in the Army, that--you know, the Ayatollah's spokesman kept coming out and talking about the students--the students attacked, the students have the hostages. That seemed to me, as an inexperienced person in the way of foreign policy but someone who had studied a great deal of world history, that that
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So it appeared, as it all unfolded, that after 2 or 3 days the Ayatollah realized America is as weak as we hoped they were. This President Carter, he thinks he's a man of peace, we see him as a man of nothing but weakness, as the poorest leader the Americans could offer. So they quit talking about the students have the hostages, the students attacked the embassy, and they started talking about we have the hostages because they gave us time to show whether or not we would react with strength and they saw we reacted with weakness. You can't negotiate with people like that. You instill more contempt on top of the hatred.
And of course I filed, in all three Congresses I've been a part of--and this Congress will be no different--my U.N. voting accountability bill that basically says if you vote against the United States more than half the time in the U.N. in any year, you will receive not one dime of financial assistance from the U.S. in the subsequent year. Now some say, gee, that seems so heartless. Well, the fact is we have been paying money to prop up regimes like Mubarak's. Is it any wonder that the report is he has billions of dollars in the bank when we've been paying Egypt billions of dollars that doesn't appear to have really gotten to the people and helped them? We're doing it all over the world. We're paying tyrants who hate us and would like to see our way of life destroyed with American treasure. It doesn't buy love, it doesn't buy happiness, it buys contempt. And as I've said repeatedly, you don't have to pay people to hate you, they'll do it for free.
In a time when the United States is struggling so with economic issues of just staying afloat, why should we be paying tyrants that hate us and paying people who have not helped their people? I mean, you look at the money that we poured into the Palestinian group and see how much of the money we paid in to help the homeless Palestinians has been paid toward building homes. It should be a no-brainer. Palestinians, so many of them, hate the Israelis because they have no homes. So they're told, well, blame the Israelis. So they do, and they grow up hating them. Well, why not, with the billions and billions of dollars we've paid out of this country to the Palestinians, why have they not used it to build homes so those people won't continue to hate Israelis and hate Americans?
It's no secret, we're not buying affection with the billions of dollars we're spending overseas. It makes no sense to these countries who hate us that we keep giving them money, but they figure if we're that stupid, sure, they'll take our money, and all the while the dollar gets weaker and weaker and you have more and more claims from people we're giving money to to get rid of the dollar as a reserve currency. And when that happens--if it ever happens--then our economy is in for just the fastest spiral down anyone could possibly imagine. Dollars are required to buy much of the oil in the world. We keep showing this kind of stupidity in our foreign policies and there will be consequences. There were consequences for four Americans who were hijacked and then killed.
As a former judge and State Chief Justice of a Court of Appeals, when I hear stories, I'm constantly looking for evidence so that I can find out, is there any substance to the story that's been heard? Now we see that there was a naval destroyer following, shadowing the hijacked boat of these Americans who were simply going out trying to help people in the world. They were not a threat to anyone, they were providing Bibles and hope from what we can find out.
Well, how does that compare to the incident of the captain of the Bainbridge being taken hostage by three pirates and how it concluded? There were conservative talk show hosts that said, hey, we disagree with so much that President Obama has been doing to this country and in our name, but it looks like he got this one right. Well, a story was circulating--and I was curious whether it had truth to it--that when the SEAL team was deployed, the order was a little different than normal, where instead of the order saying go rescue their hostages and they put together their own game plan for how you go about achieving the goal that's ordered, that this order was a little different, it just said go to the ship and receive further orders there, a little different for a SEAL team, that's what we were hearing, and that they did the drop at night. They had the SEAL team there, and for basically 3 days they had a bead on all three of the pirates in the boat with the captain they had taken hostage, and that at any moment they could have taken out all three pirates for that 3-day period. But the story went, what was circulating, was that the President's order said do not use deadly force under any circumstances unless the life of the captain is in imminent danger of immediately be taken. Only under those circumstances are you to use deadly force.
[Time: 15:10]
Well, when a pirate group attacks a ship, it is an act of war by those pirates. And this administration's response here is just to have a Navy destroyer tag along and try to negotiate.
And they were in the process of trying to negotiate, apparently, when the rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the Navy destroyer and then the four hostages were killed.
Well, the story was the administration didn't want to take any action against the pirates. We'll just negotiate our way through this.
And it's one of the problems with being one of the most gifted orators in American history, if you're that gifted of an orator, the temptation arises for you to think you can talk people into anything. People that hate your country, when they see that you really sympathize with them and not your own hostages as much--certainly there's sympathy for the hostages--but if they perceive that there is sympathy for the pirates or for those attacking Americans, then, sure, they're willing to negotiate, but it appears to be weakness.
And, obviously, these pirates in February were not impressed with America when they took the Americans hostage, committed an act of war, and even had a naval destroyer behind because they perceived we were weak.
Well, the story about the captain of the Bainbridge that was going around was that for basically 3 days, the SEALs were not allowed to take out the pirates, that they could have at any time. And then we heard on the news during that that the captain, while the pirates may have been falling asleep, was able to get out of the boat, get into the water.
As soon as I heard that, I thought, Wow, he was trying to give the SEALs clear shots at the pirates. He must have figured, as I did, that they surely would have taken an open shot if they knew they wouldn't jeopardize the American captain. And so by his jumping out of the boat, it gave them a clear shot to take the pirates out without jeopardizing the captain; but no shots were fired. That surely had to perplex him. It sure did me and many others. Why didn't they just take out the pirates before they drug him back in the boat?
But our American SEALs did nothing. Not because they couldn't or wouldn't; but the story was they were doing that because the President had issued an order that they were not to use deadly force. And the story was going that the captain, when he went out of the boat and these guys came to their senses, that they put their guns down to grab him and put him back into the boat and therefore he was not under immediate threat of death so the SEALs were not allowed to kill him.
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It must have perplexed the captain that nothing was done when he got out. But nothing was done. The story went that these SEALs were following orders.
And then came an occasion when one of the pirates that had a gun on his arm or over his shoulder waved his weapon in the direction of the captain and that that's when the SEAL team commander realized he's waving his weapon at the captain, we cannot take a chance. The order to shoot was given--that could have been given anytime for 3 days and ended that terrible ordeal--was given not by the President but by the commander on the scene. And our well-trained SEALs did a remarkable job in taking out two of the pirates and rescuing the captain.
The story went it could have happened anytime, but the order of the President restrained them from doing that because he was convinced they could just surely know how good and loving and peaceful we were and they would eventually let these folks go.
Because this administration apparently had not learned the lesson that Thomas Jefferson had to learn. You can't deal with peaceful negotiating efforts or even paying people money or snubbing your allies and friends to try to convince them that you're really a great person they ought to love. Those things don't work. You have to go to war against them and let them know when they attack Americans, when they attack America that we are coming after them.
We don't have to be at war with a country. We don't have to be at war with an entire race or group of people. There's no need in that. But you go to war with the people that are at war with you, and this administration has not done that.
We have four Americans who are dead. Obviously, this administration didn't want Americans to die. Of course they didn't. That's a terrible thing. And they didn't want it--would loved to have avoided it, certainly. But it's not enough to intend good consequences. You have to study your history lessons and do so objectively, learn from history so you don't repeat the mistakes of the past. And that's what we've been doing.
And as much as I respected and think Ronald Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents, in 1983 when our
Marine barracks was blown up and we withdrew from Beirut, it appeared to be further evidence of weakness. And I can't help but believe from people I've talked to that were part of the administration that if he had to do it all over, he would do it in a different manner.
But he had advisers telling him accurately we're in Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission. We have finished the mission. There is no need to keep staying there. Let's go ahead and get out. There's no reason. We've finished our job. Let's get out before any other Americans get killed.
The problem was when we did, it appeared to be follow-up weakness added to what President Carter had shown on behalf of this country.
And now we see it on the high seas.
We have a naval destroyer. We have SEAL teams. We have Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, we have Air Force that can achieve things nobody in any prior service could have ever dreamed could be accomplished. We have a better military than I ever dreamed we could have had back when we had just gone to an all-volunteer Army and I was concerned about our national safety. Amazing military. Smart, motivated. And yet despite that, we're showing weakness.
Now, the story that was going around was that the captain that ordered the fire got a hot call from the White House saying--really chewing him out, that the SEAL team around didn't know what was being said but they knew that their commander was getting chewed out royally. And supposedly the story that was circulating was that he eventually said, That's fine, sir, and that apparently wasn't the President but said, You can tell the President that if he wants to continue this rear-chewing of me and my team, we're going to arrive at Andrews Air Force base, wherever they came in, at a certain time and the media knows, and you can dress them down there. Or you might want a good photo op and you could be there--told the President he could be there to congratulate them. And of course there was a wonderful photo op, and these great heroes were welcomed by the President as he should have.
That was the story going around back after the attack on the Bainbridge.
And so ever since then, I've been looking--I'd heard this story. I was wondering is there any evidence of similar activity that might give substance to that story. And how we handled these four Americans, these loving, caring Americans being killed on the high seas seems to be that kind of evidence, that this is our mode of operation. You commit an act of war against Americans, you commit an act of war against our ships, and we're going to send a Navy ship to follow you and try to offer you bribes to leave us alone and leave the people alone, but you don't have to worry much.
[Time: 15:20]
But after the rocket-propelled grenade was fired, it all went bad and four Americans are dead. It's shocking. We need to show strength.
And I was a year ago in April in West Africa with a group called Mercy Ships that brings healing. The lame walk, the blind see. They bring a ship into a port of a country that needs health care and they provide treatment to thousands of people. And I had gone to see this for myself.
And before I left the ship after the days there over the Easter break, some of the West Africans wanted to visit with me. And the oldest, a wonderful, wonderful man, I don't know how much education, but a smart man, great wisdom, he said, in essence, we wanted to make sure you understood as Africans we were excited when you elected a black President. We were excited. We thought it was wonderful. But since he has been President, we've become very concerned and a bit afraid because we see him showing weakness for America. And we need you to please convey in Washington that America is the hope for people, Christians like him. People who want peace around the world, we're their hope. And if you show weakness, and if you weaken America, we don't have hope in this world.
As Christians, they knew where they would go in the next life. But they also knew that America stood for hope in this world. And when we show weakness, as we have been doing, then it signals the tyrants to have their way. And we've got to stop that.
Now, may I inquire how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 25 minutes left.
Mr. GOHMERT. I wanted to shift gears because we have been doing so much talking about the continuing resolution, which is just an ongoing funding of the way things are going, except for amendments that have been adopted to the CR. And we have talked so much about health care and the President's bill that many call ObamaCare.
And in the CR that was debated for over 90 hours, with an open rule until a unanimous consent agreement was reached, you know, 80 hours or so into the debate, it was the first open rule we have had like that in years. Certainly we didn't have such an open debate and an open rule during the last 2 years during the Democrats' control of the majority in both the House and the Senate. We didn't have an open rule here. And we were advised that it was the first time in America's history that there was not an open rule where you could bring, anybody could bring amendments to the floor and offer them to a bill.
Now, it's not a pretty thing to watch, all that debate going back and forth. And I know I hear some people say, you know, you guys shouldn't bicker so much back and forth, but they show a lack of knowledge about what the Founders intended. And Justice Scalia put it so well to a group when one asked do we have more freedom in America because we have the best Bill of Rights in history. And Scalia, as only he could do, abruptly said, basically, well, no, even the Soviet Union had a better Bill of Rights than we do. And I had forgotten, but back in college, during one of my history and world courses, I had written a paper on the Soviet Government and their Constitution, their Bill of Rights.
And Justice Scalia was exactly right, they had more promises in their Bill of Rights than we do. But as Justice Scalia so aptly pointed out, the reason we have more freedoms in America
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They had such great knowledge of the writings of the philosophers and historians. They understood all that. They did not trust government. So they were not going to be satisfied to have one House as a representative body because it might be too easy for one body, one group to take over control of that one House and then ramrod through all types of oppressive legislation like ObamaCare, for example.
So they were so worried about that they created a second House of Representatives, ended up being called the Senate. And they were selected a different way, by the State legislators, so that they would be responsible to the State legislators so that they wouldn't end up taking away States' rights, and certainly wouldn't allow the House of Representatives to take away a State's rights.
So they thought, gee, two Houses. But even that wasn't good enough because they realized, you know, we could do like as has been done before and have a Prime
Minister elected by the legislative body, and he would be the top executive. It's not good enough. It's not enough of an impediment or an obstacle to passing laws. We still want to make it harder to pass laws. So let's create a separate executive branch and have the Executive, the top Executive, the President elected by the entire country, and at least elected by the entire country's Representatives. But that was going to be a different format.
And then they set up the judiciary branch. And both the President could veto and even the judiciary, as it turned out, was going to be able to veto things if it got through the House and Senate and yet took away some constitutional right. They thought they created a good enough system that wouldn't be as abused as the entire system was in the last few years.
They could not have imagined that a 2,900-page bill, ObamaCare, could have been crammed down the throats of American citizens that poll after poll showed did not want it. They would never have imagined that the Senate would not be independent enough and would be so taken over by one political extremist group that they would pass through such an oppressive bill that would force a government takeover and government control of everybody's health care, that would force every American to have their medical records sent to a central repository that supposedly General Electric would handle because they are good cronies with this administration; and they would take care of every American's records because the Federal Government would have control of all of that.
And not only that, they would take control over all the health care insurance companies. They would take control over ordering what would be allowable under health care, what would not be allowable under health care, all in this massive bill that would provide for supposedly hundreds of thousands of regulations that would follow to interpret those 2,900 pages.
They could never have imagined that it would get that bad in this country that the system they created to throw obstacles in the path of government creating laws that the American people did not want, and certainly not that a majority of Americans didn't want, and by golly, they got it through. They rammed it through. They used carrots. They dangled benefits. They added all kinds of pork to bills.
[Time: 15:30]
They threw in something for the big pharmaceuticals. They threw something in for the trial lawyers. They threw something in for the AMA. They certainly threw a big juicy bone in there for AARP--well, a bunch of juicy bones, actually. They threw all these things in for all these interest groups except for the one who poll after poll said we don't want it. Don't do this.
You promised us you would negotiate a health care bill on C-SPAN and we would be able to see who was out for the people. So all the people could assume was that because none of that was done on C-SPAN, other than a dog and pony show after it was basically done and about to be crammed down the Republicans' throats anyway, we had a little summit and it got crammed down our throats anyway and Americans didn't want it.
Well, I did go through the original 1,000-page bill. I went through the 2,000-page bill. I put off going through the 2,900-page bill because who knew if there would be a fourth or a fifth on top of that. I didn't want to end up going through yet another bill that wasn't going to be the one that really was the one that was seriously going to be made law, so I put it off.
And when I got around to going through and reading the 2,900-page bill, you know, I will admit, I was wanting to look at what the sections did, their effect. And so I was struck by finding, really, ingenious or insidious language and drafting provisions, depending on your viewpoint, for example, with abortion. There was a section there saying, you know, you couldn't have Federal funds for abortion, but over in the section that was going to allow it, instead of mentioning the word ``abortion,'' it just referred to the section. So if you went online and did a word search for the word ``abortion,'' you wouldn't see all of the provisions that allowed for abortion in Federal funding; you would only find a restricted group, that kind of really clever hiding what was going on.
I passed over a lot of the numbers that were utilized. So it was a bit surprising to find out here recently, and going back through, and Ernie Istook, a former Member here I served with, now with the Heritage Foundation, yesterday provided me with copies of specific pages of the bill. Again, this is public law 111-148 and 111-152.
But if you looked at, let's see, consolidated print -26, here it says down here: Hereby appropriated to the Secretary out of any funds in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated, $30 million for the first fiscal year.
And it goes on, and another page says: There are hereby appropriated to the trust fund, the following, and it appropriated 10 million for this, 50 million for that, 150 million for that, another 150 million, another 150 million.
And you go through these, and it's staggering how much money was actually not authorized, but they used appropriating language. Because, as many people know, and I am finding more and more that are watching C-SPAN, but they know, gee, normally you have a budget. Well, there was no budget last year. The majority didn't want people to see exactly how the money would be budgeted, so they didn't bother with one in election year. First time in decades, as I understand it. But we didn't have a budget. And then we had this, beginning of this continuing resolution stuff. But normally you will have a budget. You will have an authorization for expenditure, but then it had to be followed up with an appropriation.
Well, ObamaCare went straight to it and appropriated vast amounts of money. In fact, in this first year of 2011, fiscal year 2011, there is $4.951 billion appropriated in the bill. They apparently not only overran all the obstacles and hurdles that the Founders put in our way to come up with so that we would not come up with legislation that Americans did not want, they overcame that. Then, just to make sure that it would be difficult to ever stop this by unfunding it, they actually didn't just authorize, they appropriated $105.464 billion in this ObamaCare bill, over $105 billion from 2011 through 2019, $105 billion.
Now, the rules get a little complicated around here, and any amendment that seeks to rescind a prior appropriation is going to be subject to a point of order objection and not be allowed because it legislates in an appropriating bill, and under our rules you can't legislate in an appropriating bill.
So the only way--and these people that put this language in here, they knew it. When they were telling America we know we are broke; we have got to rein in spending, all the while they were sticking in $105 billion of spending in one bill, not authorizing, not saying, gee, you may not be able to afford this
[Page: H1563]
order objection and we can keep it from coming out.
The only way that I understand that this $105 billion that's now been appropriated by the last Congress, the only way that can be taken out is to have a provision in the original bill from the appropriators, not an amendment, a provision that rescinds this $105 billion of appropriations in this prior law from last year, and it's in the original bill. And then the Rules Committee waives any point of order objections to that rescission being in the appropriating bill. My understanding is that's the only way we can get it done.
The amendments we were trying to do and that we got done apparently are not going to accomplish that. We are going to have it in an original committee bill rescinding all of this massive amount of money. Right now, we will be borrowing 42 cents of every dollar of that $105 billion. It's irresponsible. It's almost inconceivable, except here it is in black and white in front of us.
America deserves better than this.
I told some folks back home, I have mentioned before, it strikes me that this government in this last not just 4 years, but even going back into the last few years and especially the TARP bailout that was such a disaster and should never have been passed, that this government became like a parent who had an overwhelming desire to spend and could not control their own spending.
So the parent goes to the bank and says, You have got to loan me massive amounts of money. And the bank says, How are you going to pay it back? You are not going to live long enough to ever pay this back. And the parent says, No, but I have got my children here, and they are going to have children and those children will have children. So my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, I am pledging they are going to pay back all of this self-centered massive amounts of money I am throwing upon me and my friends, and I am pledging and promising my children will be indentured servants for the rest of their lives because I can't stop spending.
Now, in a case like that, you would probably have the Child Protective Service come swooping in and say you are an unfit parent. You have no business having children when you are selling your children's future for your own use of money now. How irresponsible that is. Do you care nothing about the children that you can't quit lavishing all that money and paying your friends for doing nothing?
[Time: 15:40]
You can't control your spending, so that your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can have freedom like you had it? You can't control that? You're an irresponsible parent, and you shouldn't even have these children if you're going to do that. I've heard the Child Protective Services in Texas come in on a lot weaker claims to take children away from parents than that. It's irresponsible what we're doing. And to pass a bill that was against the vast majority will of the American people and to stick in $105 billion of spending is just irresponsible. It's got to stop.
On one final note before my time concludes, having been a judge and a State chief justice, I'm sensitive when I hear judges threatened. And especially in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the loss of life in Arizona, we really should not be provoking actions to the point of violence or threatening actions. And I have certainly had my share of death threats as a judge. But it was usually only when they included my family that it got serious. And we have a group that's held itself out for years now, Common Cause, as this wonderful nonpartisan group. And yet you see over and over, like you did here recently with the rally they held in California with Van Jones--such an impassioned socialist--speaking and stirring people up against Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia.
Justice Thomas himself, after one of the most embarrassing episodes in American history, the way he was treated as he went through the hearings for confirmation to the Supreme Court, he said himself, it's a modern day lynching, high-tech lynching. And in his book, ``My Grandfather's Son,'' where he describes coming out of poverty, severe poverty, and making it on nothing but hard work and his brilliant intellect he achieved the great heights he has. And I have heard him say himself, he started out in college as an angry black man and left-wing extremist who came to realize more oppressive government is not the answer. But he also came to see firsthand, as he has described it, that if you're an African American and you spout the words that the liberal left tells you to say, then they love you. But if you dare--as he points out, otherwise I wouldn't use these words--but he says if you dare to step off the plantation and think for yourself, then here comes all the groups that come after you. And we have seen that with this attack from Common Cause that they are using to fundraise this attack after Justices Thomas and Scalia.
And, again, I look for evidence, are they nonpartisan? Well, it seems like they only come after conservatives, mainstream Americans, but they encourage left-wing extremism on a wholesale basis. But to be attacking Justices Thomas and Scalia and stir up sentiment, they sent out the e-mails urging people to come, they sent out the notices of what they were doing, urging people to come. They knew who they were sending those to. They urged these people to come. And what they got was the friends that they had invited saying that they wanted to string up, basically lynch, one of the most honorable people in the America, Clarence Thomas, that came from the most oppressive background and fought and worked his way up, as he would tell you, with the help of loving grandparents to the status that he has, and they want to do a high-tech lynching of him now.
Except the people that they stirred up aren't going to be satisfied with high tech. They want to lynch him, and they want to lynch his wife. And when you look for evidence, well, have they been saying this all along about other incidences that were similar? Well, when we got a national leader of the ACLU, they never mentioned one word about perhaps she should recuse herself from things that involve the ACLU, and our sympathies go out any time anyone loses a spouse, but when people on the Supreme Court who came from leftist backgrounds had spouses that had direct interests that were affected, Common Cause was silent. Oh, no, they raised their money on going after people that are mainstream conservatives and believe in the Constitution meaning what it says.
And after bringing this up at a press conference this afternoon, we get word that Common Cause has come out and said, we apologize. We never meant for them to say that. No, actually, that's not what they said. They came out and said--this is laughable--they didn't come out and condemn people that want to lynch a Supreme Court justice or justices and their spouses, family and torture them and do these terrible things. No, it didn't say anything about that. It just said this is laughable because they are still raising money. And it is time the Justice Department started being fair about justice and not ``just us'' at their Justice Department but look into Common Cause and look at whether they really deserve to be called ``not for profit'' and ``nonpartisan'' because what they are doing to stir up Americans against honorable Americans is intolerable. America deserves better.
The adage is, Democracy ensures--America, any country--Democracy ensures that people are governed no better than they deserve. My hope and prayer is we deserve better in the next election.
Job Discrimination Is As Profound As Racial Discrimination
Labels:
Congressional Record,
House of Representatives,
Work
[Page: H1557] GPO's PDF---
(Mr. JACKSON of Illinois asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)
Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, unemployment rates are too high in our Nation: around 9 percent nationally, and within our minority populations, that rate is even higher.
Finding a job is already difficult for hundreds of thousands of Americans, yet a growing number of employers are excluding jobless applicants from consideration--making the job search nearly impossible for those who are unemployed.
Companies have begun to post descriptions of vacancies including statements like ``unemployed applicants will not be considered'' or ``must be currently employed,'' leaving those in the most dire need of a job high and dry. It's a practice that I utterly oppose. Congress must put an end to it.
It reminds me of when blacks, women, and Asians were told they need not apply. Mr. Speaker, how on Earth can an unemployed person find a job if he or she is barred from applying?
Unemployment discrimination is as profound as racial discrimination. This is an appalling form of discrimination that deeply harms all Americans, hinders companies from finding the best workers, and further disables our economy. It should not be tolerated in America or anywhere else.
I again call on those plagued by unemployment and joblessness to send me their resumes and their stories to ResumesForAmerica@mail.House.gov.
americaresumesfor
From: Joseph Drake [j.fdrake@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 2:19 PM
To: americaresumesfor
Subject: My Resume and Story
Dear Congress: I am 60 years old, too young to be retired, too old to be unemployed. In the current economy and at my age and health my chances of re-employment diminish. I wasn't planning to retire early, but rather late, because of my small amount of savings. Now, when I do get a job again, I will have to postpone retirement even longer. I had almost no contacts about employment in spite of applying for about 6 to 12 jobs a week since I lost my job. My economic circumstances had gradually eroded so that I had to start living in a rooming house.
Since I returned to Seattle, in 1993, I have largely worked in either retail or parking and had worked for Ampco Parking for 13 years. I haven't had even 72 hours of work since I lost my job last September, and am almost completely dependent on my unemployment check. My bills are piling up. I am planning to start selling my book collection and some of my Videos and DVD's. I am planning to discount my landline and depend solely on my cell phone.
I have lived a diverse and interesting life. Like Obama, I was once a community organizer. I organised A Tenants Union in Santa Cruz, CA once, and then worked in organizing low income workers and neighborhoods, helping their causes and providing services. I have always been someone to volunteer, stating in high school or get involved, and to think of the needs of others. I volunteer at my church on movie nights, as an usher, and on the Peace and Justice Committee.
I have also been a journalist in the past. Now write two blogs and do other online writing. One of the blogs is about my unemployment and life in the margins of America, drawing perspective from the Catholic Worker movement and the social teachings of the church and the bible. My other blog is about the arts. Although I have my own political and religious bias expressed in my blogs, I have my non-Catholic, even non-religious friends, and many conservative friends. In fact some of my blog followers are conservatives to disagree with my solutions, my way of interpreting the social teachings of the church, but admire my concern for the poor and sympathize with my situation. I will probably post a copy of this email for them to read and put a link from my Facebook page to the blog post.
Now I am one of those in need, going to food banks, getting my coffee at Jack in the Box for 55 cents by asking for the senior discount, cutting every corner and buying only what I absolutely need. I hang out in lines with desperate looking characters.
I am uninsured, as Cobra was too expensive for me when I lost my job and I have what was supposed to be a sprain to the finger, but which was probably X-Rayed from the wrong angle, and seems like a permanent injury and deformation. While I can work and use my hand, I can't type with my small finger, or close it completely. Short of going back to the ER and getting more unpayable bills, without benefits I have no means to treat it.
I am hanging in their with the support and prayers of a great church community, my family and friends, my Facebook friends and blog readers. I try to be thankful to God every day for each little thing he provides me and to focus on the bigger issues--like the struggles of the Egyptian people, our nations problems, everyone else who is poor or unemployed. I am hoping, that like the 1930's, we will end the decade as a less selfish, more cooperative, more optimistic nation that when we entered these hard times. I will pray for our nations leaders tonight, that all of you get granted the wisdom to help our suffering people.
I have attached, saved in SkyDrive, my general purpose resume. I have of course
[Page: H1558] GPO's PDF
God Bless you and God Bless all the poor and unemployed,
JOSEPH DRAKE.
--
Americaresumesfor
From: Heidi Burrell [hbur910410@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 2:23 PM
To: americaresumesfor
HELLO: My family and I are Jamaican immigrants and we worked very hard to have the American dream. This means going to school, working 2 jobs and just doing anything that's legal to survive.
I was laid off June 2009 from a big law firm in NYC as a tax accountant making $70,000 a year. I applied to every job out there, even jobs that were half of my salary. I love the work I do, but companies are afraid to hire me for a 35-50k job. I've been out of work for 2 years June 2011. I was babysitting, until those parents lost their job. I've done other day jobs when they are available. It's very hard when you have kids to worry about.
To the congressman that said people are taking the unemployment checks and saving them ..... which planet are you living on? I receive $1620 a month: mortgage for my condo: $812; common charges: 371; insurance: 65, utilities (phone, light, etc): 185; student loan-private (federal on forbearance): 150; credit card: 235.
Thank God I receive food stamps for my children and I receive help from my ex husband (he only works for $12 per hr). I was never a big spender, my credit card bill happen after I purchase the condo. I cannot afford to go back to school and the grants that NYC offers is suspended. I was never looking to make 70k again, I just need a job that will help cover my living expenses.
Sometimes I feel that I wasted my time and energy doing the right thing. Look at the people on welfare, some never working a day in their life and you bust your butt working hard and going to school and this is what happens. I've attached my resume.
HEIDI.
Heidi Burrell
Objective
To secure a position utilizing my experience in areas of tax, clerical support and accounting.
Education
Pace University--New York, NY; Bachelor of Business Administration 2007; Finance.
Experience
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, New York, NY, Tax Accountant--2008-2009
Prepared federal/state and local supporting schedules for firm's annual partnership tax return.
Managed the timely filing and payment of all sales and use tax, commercial rent tax, and property tax returns.
Analyzed and reconciled expense accounts used for tax purposes.
Managed and maintain an inventory of all records for the partners.
Researched federal/state tax law to remain in compliance with current regulations.
Performed administrative tasks such as updating tax files, filing, copying, sorting mail and mailing partnership return.
Geller and Company, New York, NY, Tax Accountant--2005-2008
Prepared and reviewed 20 international branch supporting schedules for client's tax return.
Created and analyzed client's financial statements.
Prepared quarterly foreign tax projections.
Ensured the timely delivery of monthly and quarterly tax payment.
Acted as a liaison and maintained open lines of communication among middle managers and international accounting firms.
Morgan Stanley, New York, NY, Accountant (Internship)--2003-2005
Prepared state and local corporate tax returns, extensions and estimated payments.
Responded to state tax notices as needed.
Utilized CorpTax software to prepare returns including input, review of reports, and analyses.
Performed administrative tasks such as updating tax files, typing, filing, data entry and copying.
Skills
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Office, Power Point, Access), eForms, SAP, CMS, CCH.
--
Americaresumesfor
From: Stephanie Demar [sdemar44@live.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 12:43 PM
To: americaresumesfor
Subject: Resume and Story on Unemployment
HELLO REP. JESSE JACKSON JR.: I have been out of work for over three years. I drew unemployment for 2008 and 2009. I have been living with family and friends because I cannot afford to live on my own. I decided to go back to school in 2008 when I lost my job due to a shoulder injury of an unknown suspect who jumped on me outside a local Whataburger Restaurant. This incident cost me my job, stability, and sleepless nights since it occurred because of the intense pain. I am a 33 year old Black female. I recently graduated from college November 15, 2011 from Ashford University in Social Science Education. I am not sure when I will get a job but I have been working as a Substitute Teacher in Arlington ISD here in Arlington Texas. I want to work and have been searching restlessly for years. I do not know what else to do but I know that I am looking for a change to come in my life soon. I have attached my resume as well.
I have recently heard that schools will be losing millions of dollars here in Texas. My concerns are if I recently graduated to become a teacher in Texas. Now that so much money is lost for schools, how I can get a job in my field and what do I tell my children that are asking me why I haven't found a job yet and I graduated from college? How do I tell my students at school to stay in school and go to college if they are watching me diligently look for a job but fail to find one because of all the loss of funds for the education? There are so many teachers who do not know if they are going to have a job next year. How can I think I will have a job in my field if so many are going to be fired?
Thank you,
MS. STEPHANIE DEMAR.
Stephanie Demar
Summary of Qualifications
Demonstrated leadership with a proven ability to develop and administer instruction in a formal setting. Skilled in innovative development and challenging others to promote success in all areas of the workplace. Familiar with organizing teams and managed a group of individuals daily which played a significant role in the growth of the company. Excellent customer service and communication skills.
Experience
Substitute Teacher, 9/2010-Present, Arlington ISD, Arlington, TX
Supervised student learning according to the goals and direction of the school and the district
Phlebotomist I & II, 6/2004-4/2008, Carter Blood Care, Bedford, TX
Collected timed specimen from patients; keep lab area neat and clean while following all safety rules. Managed a team of fifteen employees for two years that established many successful blood drives
Education
BA in Social Science with Education Concentration, 5/2008-11/2010, Ashford University, Clinton, IA, GPA: 3.85
Courses Taken Include:
Adult Development & Life Assessment--Provided knowledge of adult development and theoretical concepts of personal and professional learning while improving self-concept.
Contemporary Social Problems--Focused mainly on problems with racism, sexism, drug and alcohol abuse in society while being informed of contemporary problems in the workplace.
Social Psychology--Determined how thoughts, feelings and behavior has a huge impact on everyday living as well as how others are influenced by them in many different social situations.
Acknowledgements
President's Award, May 2009.
Dean's List, September 2008-November 2010.
Magna cum laude Graduate, November 2010.
Perfect Attendance, May 2008-November 2010.
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