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[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 123 (Thursday, September 13, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H5985-H5988]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                              {time}  2030
                        ADMINISTRATION IN REVIEW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Noem). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, in the summer of 1973, it was a real 
honor for me to be selected to go on an exchange program. Of course I 
had to borrow the money to go and had to pay that back by working hard 
to take care of the loan, but I went on an exchange program to the 
Soviet Union, 1973, that summer. It was quite an eye-opener for me.
  Despite how wonderful the country was made to sound and how great it 
was that the government, they proclaimed, was the safety net for 
everybody in the country, they were proclaiming because the government 
was in charge of everything and in charge of everybody's business, 
there was 100 percent employment. They talked about how wonderful their 
socialized medicine was.
  There were eight Americans on this program that were allowed into the 
Soviet Union that summer, and we all had very different backgrounds, 
had different political views. There were a lot of big hearts in the 
group on both ends of the political spectrum.
  But, for me, a kid growing up in east Texas, it was an extraordinary 
education. Because even though people talked about how wonderful it was 
to have socialized medicine, everybody had a safety net because the 
government was the safety net, that country's economic system was 
rotting from within.
  I went to a medical school. It reminded me of pictures of American 
medical schools from 40 to 50 years before. We went to an economic 
exhibition, kind of like a world's fair in Moscow, at one point. It 
reminded me of the pictures from a 1940 or early 1950s world's fair, 
you know, things like tractors sitting out there with people oohing and 
aahing over tractors. I'm going, good grief, because I knew we didn't 
need a world's fair to see tractors like that. You could go to any used 
tractor dealer and find tractors that nice in the U.S., but everybody 
was told how wonderful it was.
  During the course of the summer, during the course of my time down in 
the Ukraine, I got to be good friends with a few of the students there. 
They were very standoffish at first. I spoke some Russian back in those 
days, and they spoke better English than I did Russian. But one guy in 
particular, he'd bring his dictionary with him and translate, because 
both of us--you know, it's amazing. You take a language course--I had 
two years of Russian at Texas A&M. You know, you're taught to converse 
about, ``I'm going to the library'' and ``I have a dog'' and these 
kinds of things, but when you want to talk about really serious life 
issues, we weren't prepared for those things. We needed a dictionary so 
we could get our ideas across.
  At one point he said, ``You seem surprised that our country wouldn't 
want

[[Page H5986]]

better.'' He grabbed my shirt and he said, ``We don't have material 
this good.'' I just had, you know, a regular polo-type shirt. He said, 
``We don't have material this good for our individuals, and we fought 
two world wars on our soil. We don't have it as good as you do in your 
country, that's obvious. But people will always be reluctant to leave 
the best they've ever known for something they're not sure about.''
  When we got to 1989 and the Soviet Union fell because of the economic 
disease and decay that was pushed into the death spiral by President 
Reagan's actions, followed by President George H. W. Bush, it 
collapsed. Then we began to see all of the economic problems that were 
eating away at that country because the government tried to be the 
safety net for everything and everybody, and it won't work that way.
  At a collective farm, way out from Kiev, I was surprised. I have 
worked on farms and ranches, and you usually try to get your work done 
before midafternoon when the sun gets its hottest, and that means you 
start early, start as close to daybreak as you can, and midmorning is 
prime time.
  Here it was midmorning, and these farmers were sitting around in the 
shade there in the farming village. I had been looking out at these 
fields. You could hardly tell what was cultivated and what wasn't. They 
looked terrible.
  They had some really nice gardens right around their individual 
dwelling places. Yeah, those were kept up. Those they got to have for 
themselves. But the fields just didn't look good at all.
  I tried to be nice, and in my best Russian I could, I said, ``When do 
you work out in the fields?'' They kind of laughed, and one of them 
said in Russian, ``I make the same number of rubles if I'm here or if 
I'm out there, so I'm here.''
  Boy, was that a lesson in why a big, huge, nothing but safety net 
country can't work. Free markets work until they decide it's time to be 
socialistic, progressive, whatever you want to call it, and so they go 
that way. Then the free market forces fail because they have been taken 
over by progressive socialist structures.
  Now, it's a good thought. I mean, it's a wonderful idea to think, 
gee, well, we'll just decree, as did the Pilgrims, as did the early New 
Testament Church, we'll just bring everything into a common storehouse 
and split it equally. It sounds like a great idea.
  As the Apostle Paul found, as the Pilgrims found, eventually you have 
to say, You know what? This isn't working out very well. We're going to 
have to have some strict rules. The Pilgrims found, if you divide it up 
into private property and allowed people to eat what they grew, not 
only do they grow enough for themselves, but they actually would grow 
enough to use, trade, barter, sell, and that could be very effective.
  I heard my friend across the aisle mentioning earlier about the so-
called Ryan voucher care, and I know they know--and in fairness to my 
friend Paul Ryan, and it was great to see him on the floor this 
evening--that actually anybody over 55 gets Medicare. The Paul Ryan 
proposal, it's not exactly like the bill that I previously proposed, 
but, you know, my friend's brilliant. He's on the right track. He says, 
if you're over 55, you get Medicare.
  Now, I would go a step further, because I know what's being proposed 
for those under 55 is going to end up being so much better giving 
control back to patients, getting control back between the doctor and 
the patients instead of having an insurance company or the government 
between the patient and the doctor.
  This business is a safety net. Clearly, they're not talking safety 
net. They're talking government takeover of everything.

                              {time}  2040

  But Paul Ryan's plan would make sure that those under 55 had health 
care--and had it affordable. And so there are all kinds of reforms that 
need to be made. We did not need a full takeover of health care by the 
government.
  My friend had mentioned that, because we kept passing bills to repeal 
ObamaCare--and actually there were very few bills that dealt with a 
massive repeal of ObamaCare, but there were many bills that picked out 
specific parts. Look, friends across the aisle, you surely don't want 
to be responsible for this terrible part of ObamaCare. So when people 
go back and say, Oh, you voted to repeal it 33 times, well, there were 
different aspects, and we couldn't even get our friends to vote to 
repeal parts that they knew, once they found out after they passed it, 
what was in it. Wouldn't even vote for things to be repealed that they 
knew would not be good.
  My friend said that, basically, the President called us here and 
asked us to pass his American Jobs Act. And I was so glad he brought 
that up. I'd about forgotten about the American Jobs Act. He came and 
stood right there, Madam Speaker, and told us, I forget, 16, 17 times: 
Pass my bill, right here, right now, over and over. And so I kept 
wanting to get a copy of the bill. He was chastising us for not passing 
it. Well, show it to me. Let me see it. So we kept calling the White 
House trying to get it. A week later, it was clear there was no bill.
  So I figured, well, if there's no bill, and he keeps running around 
the country spending all the taxpayers' money flying around on Air 
Force One, what sounded and looked like campaign stops, but government 
paid for it all--so he's out there saying over and over and over, Tell 
Congress to pass my American Jobs Act. Pass the American Jobs Act. He 
had banners: Pass the American Jobs Act. American Jobs Act. I thought, 
Well, good grief, if he's going to keep telling us we need to pass the 
American Jobs Act, there really ought to be one. So I put a 2-page bill 
together that would eliminate the 35 percent tariff that we put on all 
American-made goods here in America, made by any company in America. 
It's called a corporate tax; an insidious tax because it deceives 
people into thinking that, gee, if you tax the evil old mean 
corporations, then we don't have to pay it. Baloney. If a corporation, 
a company doesn't pass that tax on to its customers, clients, people 
buying its services, then they go out of business. That's how it works. 
Thirty-five percent tax. The highest tariff that any country in the 
world puts on its own goods. And we were doing that. So mine says, 
let's eliminate that. And we'd heard from people around the world that, 
good grief, if you just dropped your corporate tax 12 percent, 
manufacturing jobs would come flooding back into this country.
  You want to talk about pro-union. I know this side of the aisle wants 
to see the government unions grow more and more. I can never understand 
that. I can understand retired government workers needing a union 
because they don't have leverage. But to have government workers in a 
country where the government is the people. All of us that are elected 
here, we're public servants. Everybody that is hired by the Federal 
Government is supposed to be a government servant. We work for the 
people of America. Why in the world would you need a union to conspire 
against the people of America? Because, obviously, the role of any 
government union would be to get government bigger and bigger and more 
and more benefits, to the detriment of those who are paying for all of 
that. So, anyway, I don't understand why we need Federal Government 
unions. Neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt. But that's where all this 
goes.
  By the way, when we eventually got a copy of the President's idea of 
a Jobs Act, we found that although he had been telling everybody in 
America he was only going to increase taxes on millionaires and 
billionaires, what he did was increase taxes on everybody that made 
over $125,000 individually. He said he was going after Big Oil. He's 
going to end the giveaways to Big Oil. But when you look to around page 
130 or so, the pages that dealt with oil companies, they were not going 
to affect the Big Oil companies at all. But since 94, 95 percent of all 
the oil and gas wells in America are drilled and operated by 
independent oil companies, run by Americans, you look at what was 
eliminated, it was really only the things that were going to devastate 
the independents, some of them basically mom-and-pop-type services that 
worked on oil wells, gas wells. It's going to shut them down. They 
wouldn't be able to afford business. It would eliminate the passthrough 
deduction for investing in wells. If the

[[Page H5987]]

independents can't get people to invest in the wells, they can't drill 
them. But the Big Oil companies, they don't have to get people to 
invest in oil wells. They've got enough money to do that.
  It was incredible. I couldn't believe it. I got it to CPAs that do 
work for independent oil and gas companies, small ones, and they were 
saying, Oh, my word. If this goes into law, we'll be out of business. 
We can't stay in business. What does that do? It ends 94, 95 percent of 
the oil and gas wells in America. It also means that gasoline goes up 
even further than the doubling that this President has already done.
  Oh, wind energy. We heard about wind energy, smart grid. Think about 
it. We've had these hearings in our Natural Resources Committee. Doc 
Hastings has done a fabulous job. Amazing the stuff you find out. And 
what we found out even just this week, last week, actually, when you 
talk about using wind or solar energy, since wind doesn't blow all the 
time and sun doesn't shine all time, and since we don't have an 
effective way to hold electricity, there's no massive battery that 
we've developed yet that holds significant amounts of electricity, so 
you have to use that electricity immediately, because you can't hold 
it. When we get to the point where we have some way to hold 
electricity, then we're on our way. Then solar, wind, those things will 
be a whole lot more helpful. But as it is, if you declare we're going 
to have to have wind energy and we're going to have to use solar 
energy, then for those times when the wind is not blowing or the sun is 
not shining but people still need electricity, then you're going to 
have to have a coal-fired power plant, you're going to have to have a 
natural-gas powered plant, a nuclear powered plant.
  So you're going to have to have all of those things standing by to 
produce the energy when these other things don't. You're going to have 
to have different sets of wires taking electricity from the regular 
power plants and also send them out to the windmills way out wherever 
they are, where they're out there chopping up endangered species, birds 
and all, and bring that electricity in. You're going to end up having 
to have different wires going out to solar places. And so actually 
you're going to be paying two and three times as much for energy 
because you have to have two to three times the infrastructure just so 
that you can say we're getting some of our power from wind and from 
sun.
  What it did was set up more government. You read the bill like I 
did--and yes, I'm anal enough, I read some of these stupid bills, 
including the President's idea of a Jobs Act. It created more 
government. It took over more control over the Internet. It took over 
more control of cable. It's just a disaster.
  So I hear about the President's great ideas for helping the economy, 
and I say thank goodness the President didn't pass that disaster 
because the economy would be doing even far worse. Well, except for the 
people that suck out the millions and hundreds of millions and 
billions, like the President's friends at Solyndra and things like 
that.

                              {time}  2050

  By the way, I see today this article, September 13, 2012: ``AP 
reports weekly U.S. jobless aid applications jump to 382,000,'' by 
Christopher Rugaber.
  Anyway, jobless claims jump to a 2-month high. Not exactly the 
progress the President says was happening.
  I've been mentioning, ever since I found out from Gold Star parents 
Billy and Karen Vaughn, they told me two-thirds of the deaths and the 
wounds of our military in Afghanistan have occurred under President 
Obama. I couldn't believe that. So we got the official numbers. I've 
got a poster around here somewhere. I don't have time to use it right 
now.
  But when we got the official numbers, it turns out 70 percent of 
those who have been killed in Afghanistan have been killed under 
President Obama's command, even though he's been in command in 
Afghanistan only half the time of President Bush. Eighty-four percent 
of those people losing arms, legs, hands, terribly disabling wounds 
from IEDs and other injury sources, 84 percent of those have occurred 
under Commander in Chief Obama compared to the 16 percent that occurred 
under President Bush in Afghanistan.
  Article here from Breitbart by Tony Lee:

       On the somber 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, nearly 
     2,000 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan 
     since the war started in response to the attacks in 2011.

  By the way, this President Obama, when he was running for President, 
called it the ``good war.''
  But this article by Tony Lee goes on and points out what I've been 
talking about ever since Billy and Karen brought that to my attention, 
and I was greatly sorry that I did not know that without them pointing 
it out to me.
  It was also interesting to read an article by John Nolte, 12 
September, 2012. Obviously, I like the guy. I like his cynicism. He 
says:

       Oh, that awful Mitt Romney. Just a few minutes before the 
     White House itself disavowed the Cairo Embassy apologizing 
     for free speech, Romney rightfully condemned the appeasing 
     statement in no uncertain terms. And as a result, all day 
     long, the corrupt media has been on a rampage to make Romney 
     pay for the unpardonable sin of criticizing Their Precious 
     One.
       You see, there's no precedent for a political opponent 
     immediately criticizing a sitting President after a foreign 
     policy crisis. Oh, wait.

  Then it has reference to other articles where that's gone on, a 
flashback to Kerry slamming Bush. Over and over it's happened when it's 
a Republican President.
  The article says:

       So with the entire institution of the media circling the 
     wagons for Obama today, in a futile attempt to rescue him 
     from his own foreign policy blunders, we now have CBS News 
     riding to the rescue in order to give the same President who 
     condemned Romney before he condemned the terrorists an 
     opportunity to further politicize this tragedy:
       ``There's a broader lesson to be learned here. Governor 
     Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim 
     later.''

  That's what President Obama had to say. Yes, that's the President 
talking about spouting off too quickly.

       But the President is right about Mitt Romney: guilty as 
     charged. Romney did shoot first to defend the principles of 
     free speech that the people who work for Obama in Cairo were 
     so eager to fritter away. Yes, that damn Mitt Romney saw this 
     outrageous example of simpering in the face of terror coming 
     from American officials and immediately spoke out against it.

  It goes on to make a great point. Romney stood up for free speech.
  The movie that's been fussed about sounds like a ridiculous thing 
that should not be done, except that this is America where people, 
whether it's Howard Stern or anybody else, they have a right to say 
things, no matter how offensive they may be, unless they go so far that 
they actually harm other people.
  Another article: ``No Record of Intel Briefings for Obama Week Before 
Embassy Attacks.'' This was written by Wynton Hall, 12 September, 2012, 
and it points out:

       According to the White House calendar, there is no public 
     record of President Barack Obama attending his daily 
     intelligence briefing--known as the Presidential Daily Brief 
     (PDB)--in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S. 
     Embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador 
     Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff.

  I've got to say. I read an account and a story of the administration 
reporting the name of one of the other three killed as part of the 
Libyan Embassy personnel. They gave that man's name, pointed out he was 
a former SEAL team member but was in a private security force. Then, 
according to the article, the administration reported that he was 
killed while running for cover.
  Madam Speaker, I know something about SEAL team members. In the mind 
of a SEAL team member or a former SEAL team member, he is never running 
for cover. He is running for a place, if at all, from which to launch a 
better attack. Even in death, this administration can't be respectful 
to the people that have laid down their lives for this administration.
  Even though the White House says that, gee, the President does read 
briefings, he just hasn't been getting them personally, I would hope 
that he would start doing that. There are people's lives at stake, and 
he is President. He's such a fantastic campaigner, and I know it's 
inconvenient, but I sure hope that he'll get back to being President.
  To give credit where credit is due, it was very wonderful of the 
President to

[[Page H5988]]

take a minute and a half or whatever it was, a minute, minute and a 
half, to pay tribute to those who laid down their lives for their 
country at the Libya Embassy where they didn't have adequate security, 
and where this administration enabled al Qaeda and others to take over 
the government. It was nice of him to take a minute and a half to pay 
tribute to them giving their lives in the middle of his campaign event 
before he went on with the celebration.
  I recall President George W. Bush. People here know we certainly had 
our differences, and I certainly disagreed with him on a number of 
things. But I had great respect for the man. He said:

       How can I go play golf when I am Commander in Chief and I 
     have sent soldiers, our military, into harm's way? It just 
     doesn't feel right for me to be out on a golf course having a 
     good time when our men and women are in harm's way.

  But it did look like a fun celebration there that President Obama was 
having in Las Vegas.
  Another article: ``Libyan Official: U.S. At Fault in Attacks.'' 
Written by Awr Hawkins, 12 September, 2012.
  He points out that although the head of Libya's National Assembly has 
formally apologized for the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher 
Stevens, other higher-ranking Libyan officials refuse to apologize and 
continue to contend the U.S. is to blame.
  The story talks about those contentions. Hey, it was our fault. Kind 
of like the ridiculous claims that sometimes those of us who were 
judges or prosecutors heard from a guilty rape defendant who said, 
``Well, you know, she was asking for it.'' Excuse me?
  That was abominable what happened at the Libyan Embassy. It is a 
tragic fact that this administration, against the will of Congress, 
without even asking what the will of Congress was, said, Well, gee, the 
U.N., Organization of Islamic Conference, they want us there. So, why 
not? We ought to go. That's all he needed. He didn't care what Congress 
thought.
  He enabled them. He used American bombers. And then when the American 
public obviously was upset, eventually, that it was taking so long--
hey, hey, keep in mind, it's not the U.S.; it's NATO. He may not have 
gotten a briefing that let him know that over 60 percent of the NATO 
military is American military.
  Here's a flashback article. I just think it's important, when these 
terrible things are happening around the world, that we take a quick 
look at how we got where we are so maybe we don't keep doubling down on 
things that get Americans killed and hurt our national security. This 
article by Dana Loesch, 12 September 2012, ``Flashback: Obama Admin 
Endorsed Muslim Brotherhood,'' it points out from a New York Times 
article even August 1 this year, it said:

       Leon E. Panetta, the United States Defense Secretary, said 
     on Tuesday that President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt was ``his 
     own man,'' a strong declaration of American support for Mr. 
     Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood whose future 
     course in Egypt remains a great unknown to the Obama 
     administration.

  Well, it didn't keep us from enabling him to be there.
  Another article: ``Obama Admits He Lost Egypt As American Ally.'' It 
goes on to talk about how the President, because of our turning our 
back, or stabbing a man with whom this administration had made 
agreements, who was trying to uphold the Israeli-Egyptian Accord that 
was brokered by President Carter--one nice thing that President Carter 
did. President Obama now admits, well, they're not really an enemy, but 
they're not an ally. We lost them as an ally because of the 
incompetence of this administration.
  ``Obama Declines Meeting With Netanyahu,'' and let me just finish 
with this. Although he doesn't have time for Netanyahu, apparently he 
has time to attend a Jay-Z and Beyonce fundraiser. They're fabulous 
entertainers, I understand that. But there's a country to run, there 
are Americans being killed, and it's time somebody around this town 
picked up the responsibility and acted responsibly. I don't think doing 
a CR is the way to do it, but certainly not running off to fundraisers 
when people are giving their lives for you on foreign soil is the way 
to go either.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________
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