H146 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE January 9, 2009 

the fiscal infrastructure, but also on 

health care. We not only can address 

housing needs, rebuilding America’s infrastructure, but we can also get people 

the health care they need in this country. We can enable children to stay in 

school or to go back to school. 

We really have the opportunity to 

take control of our own destiny again. 

But we can’t go back to the same old 

same old. Trickle-down economics, the 

trickle never gets down. The invisible 

hand of the marketplace is in the pockets of the American taxpayers. 

b 1430 

The invisible hand in the marketplace is in the pockets of the American 

taxpayers. Let’s rebuild America. Let’s 

reclaim our economic destiny, and let’s 

do it as a Congress—united, working 

with the new administration. 

f 

THE AMERICAN ECONOMY AND 

HONORING BRIGADIER GENERAL 

RED BROWN 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under 

the Speaker’s announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas 

(Mr. GOHMERT) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 

leader. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this 

weekend, a very important event will 

take place at Camp Mabry in Austin, 

Texas. My friend, fellow Texas Aggie, 

constituent, and citizen soldier Colonel 

James ‘‘Red’’ Brown will be promoted 

to the rank of Brigadier General. This 

American hero deserves to have tribute 

paid here today on the floor of the 

United States House of Representatives 

for his outstanding and devoted service 

to this country. Red’s experiences and 

accomplishments are far too extensive 

to be able to cover during my limited 

time, but it is clear he is an example of 

true patriotism. 

Newly promoted General Brown received his commission in the United 

States Army in May of 1980 from the 

ROTC program at Texas A&M University. He is a graduate of Armor Officer 

Basic and Advanced Courses, Combined 

Arms Staff Services School, the Command and General Staff College, and 

the Army War College. 

He had served as a company battalion and brigade commander. Colonel 

Brown, soon to be General Brown, had 

also served as Assistant Chief of Staff 

for Civil Military Affairs in BosniaHerzegovina during Stabilization Force 

Seven, as well as Assistant Chief of 

Staff for Operations of the 49th Armored Division for 3 years. 

Just a few of his awards include the 

Bronze Star for bravery and gallantry 

as well as the Combat Action Badge 

awarded in Iraq, three Army commendation medals, several Meritorious 

Service medals, and the Legion of 

Merit. 

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, he 

commanded the 56th Brigade Combat 

Team, which was comprised of six battalions with 31 companies and over 

4,000 soldiers. When his 56th Brigade 

was sent to Iraq, it was the largest deployment of troops from the Texas reserve since World War II. 

It was a great honor for me to be 

there at Baylor Stadium in December 

of 2005 to be part of the massive homecoming, welcoming these brave servicemembers when they returned home 

from Iraq. 

During their commitment in Iraq, 

Colonel Brown and his men conducted 

convoy escort and route security missions throughout the country. As you 

will recall, that was quite an historic 

year for Iraqis and for those all over 

the world who value freedom, because 

thanks to the heroic efforts of then 

Colonel Brown and his 56th Brigade and 

so many others there in the United 

States military, the Iraqis elected 

their first true representatives to lead 

a democratic form of government. 

Though terrorists tried to instill fear 

among the locals with prevalent 

threats of persecution and death, the 

Iraqis were determined to venture to 

the polls and to participate in democracy because the hope they were given 

by the supportive American servicemembers, such as Red, was greater 

than any fear. 

I have hanging in my office a photo, 

very dear to me, of Colonel Brown and 

of other members of his brigade, proudly holding an Aggie flag that I had 

taken over when I had visited there. It 

is framed and signed by all of those in 

the picture there in Iraq. 

My friend General Brown has dedicated his life to and has risked it for 

the service of this great country. There 

are countless people across the world 

who will never know the benefits and 

inspiration they’ve experienced as a result of General Brown’s sacrifice. His 

sacrifice did not stop while he was on 

active duty. 

As a civilian, he is also heavily involved in service to our local area— 

serving on the board of directors of the 

Boys and Girls Club of East Texas, the 

Lindale Area Chamber of Commerce, 

and the Council of the Lindale First 

United Methodist Church. He was even 

elected to the Lindale School Board 

where he has served also honorably and 

as president of the board. I know he 

doesn’t do it for recognition or for 

praise because I know his heart, but 

General Red Brown deserves to be honored and thanked for his unwavering 

example of patriotism and selflessness. 

So congratulations are extended on 

the promotion to Brigadier General. No 

one is more deserving of such an honored promotion. 

May God bless General Red Brown, 

his wonderful wife, Jane, and his delightful, beautiful children Hannah and 

Crystal for being such a great blessing 

to this Nation. 

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 

at this time to the gentleman from 

New Jersey, who is a dear friend. It’s 

hard to find anybody more insightful in 

this body. 

Mr. SCOTT GARRETT from New Jersey. 

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I 

thank the gentleman for that and for 

the insightful comments. Maybe I 

should just begin with the gentleman 

from Utah for his comments with regard to the economy and the stimulus. 

The gentleman from Utah. 

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Thank you. I 

appreciate that pass-off very quickly 

here. 

The comments of Congressman 

GOHMERT about General Brown, I 

think, are appropriate as a beginning 

for this entire discussion about the 

stimulus. As he has been sacrificing his 

all for this country, it is our job to try 

and make sure that there is a country 

that is worthy of that sacrifice and 

that commitment that he will have. 

I just want to talk very briefly because we have some great experts here 

on the economy of this country who 

will say something. 

Just on a personal approach, I am 

one of those who was a product of kind 

of a ‘‘yours and our’’ family. My father, 

who was a newlywed with a young 

son—my oldest brother—during the Depression, lost his job during the depths 

of that Depression, and my mother was 

a recent widow with two young sons 

under 5 with no job at the same time. 

My father went for 2 years during the 

depths of the Depression without a fulltime job. I realize the difficulty in 

talking to him of what he went 

through and of what the family went 

through. Indeed, he was saved by the 

creation of a government job during 

that time period. 

I came around about 20 years after 

this event, and my father always cautioned me at the time that the government job that saved him was a temporary job, that when the government 

decided to close the program, the job 

went away at the same time, and he 

was back to the same issue of finding a 

job that had been created on the economy, an economy created job. 

So, as we deal with the stimulus 

issue, I recognize that this stimulus 

package that we have without any details—it’s just a concept still floating 

around—that is taxpayer-funded can 

have a profound effect on individuals 

and can have a profound effect on the 

economy, but if it is to be successful in 

the long term, it must be successful in 

encouraging and in stimulating private-sector jobs in the economy. That’s 

the long-term solution. 

One of the former leaders of this body 

once said, ‘‘Between invention and innovation, you have to have investment, 

and investment only happens if there is 

an expectation of return.’’ If we do not 

include as part and parcel of our attempt to reinvigorate this economy an 

aggressive tax reduction policy, not 

only for individuals but for business, 

we do not promote that expectation of 

return. An aggressive tax reduction 

policy for the business sector will provide stability to the business and will 

encourage them to reinvest real money 

into real long-term jobs that will not 

be dependent on the taxpayer largess 

to take place. 


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January 9, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H147 

I think, just from my personal experience and from the experience and insight my father told me, that is what 

we have to look at as we look into this 

overall package. I would add just one 

last comment as well. 

You know, we talked a great deal 

about energy a while ago. I hope it was 

not one of those things that we mentioned in August so we can check it off 

the box because gas prices are down 

again, but the reality is OPEC has already voted to cut oil production. Chavez has said he needs the cost of a barrel of oil to double if he is going to continue on with his foreign involvement 

policies and practices. If this country 

wants to have a good economic future, 

we have to have energy security that is 

self-sufficient. If we cannot in all of 

our efforts to try and build a healthy 

economy secure our economic future, 

we will never secure long-term economic health. 

With that, I appreciate the opportunity of being able to just interpose 

myself in this discussion of whatever 

this stimulus package may be since 

there are no details with it yet. 

I would yield back to the gentleman 

from New Jersey, and I appreciate the 

words of the gentleman from Texas as 

an introduction to this, and I look forward to the rest of the discussion. 

Mr. GOHMERT. If I may reclaim my 

time briefly, I want to thank the gentleman from Utah (Mr. BISHOP) for 

being a dear friend and colleague. 

I heard your comments earlier about 

the University of Utah. What an extraordinary year they’ve had. I get the 

impression nobody has given Utah anything. They have gone through a season undefeated because they worked 

hard and they earned it. So what we’ve 

seen with football teams that get giveaways is that they don’t tend to do as 

well, and they don’t have the discipline. Utah certainly has that. Now, 

if we would just get to a 16-team playoff, then we could give everybody that 

same opportunity to claim the national 

championship. 

I thank my friend from Utah, and I 

would yield back to my friend from 

New Jersey, Mr. GARRETT. 

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Again, 

I thank the gentleman from Utah for 

your comments. They are always insightful, and that’s why I led off by referring over to your for those insightful comments. Now I will just make a 

couple of comments. 

I appreciate the gentleman from 

Texas for leading this Special Order 

this afternoon, this Friday afternoon, 

as Congress goes back to their districts. As the gentleman from Georgia 

indicated earlier, this is an abbreviated 

session of Congress. I’m not sure why 

we spend 5 days in a week to do about 

2-days’ worth of work, but this gives us 

the opportunity to talk about an issue, 

of course, that is extremely important 

to the American public, something 

that they are looking to Washington to 

begin to address, albeit over an extended period of time and in discussion 

as opposed to legislation. 

I am just going to make three points 

while I’m at the microphone. The first 

point is: Who pays? The second question is: For what? The third point really goes into what the gentleman from 

Utah was referring to a moment ago: 

For how long? 

The first point of who pays: As for 

the gentleman from the other side of 

the aisle, who was just speaking previously, the gentleman from the great 

State of Ohio, I agreed with him on a 

number of his points that he was making with regard to the expansive powers of the Federal Reserve and the necessity for Congress to reexercise its 

authority in fiscal and in monetary 

matters and to address that issue. 

I did have a question for him or a 

concern with one point that he made. 

He said, right now, when it comes to 

infrastructure projects across the 

country, there is a great need, and I 

concur with that, and he raised the 

question or the statement: But they 

cannot be paid for by the local or State 

or—and I assume he also means—county or municipal governments right 

now. So he’s inferring that, if they 

can’t pay for it, somehow or other, the 

Federal Government can. 

You know, at the end of the day, 

when it comes to paying for any of our 

services, all of the money that we have 

comes out of our own pockets as taxpayers, whether you pay your local 

town tax or your county property tax 

or your State income tax and so on and 

so forth. It all comes out of our own 

taxpayer pockets. So it really doesn’t 

matter whether you say the States or 

locals can’t pay because, at the end of 

the day, come April 15, those same citizens will be paying the Federal Government for those very same projects. 

So as to the question of who pays: 

It’s the American taxpayer who is 

going to be on the hook for those very 

same infrastructure projects whether 

local, State or county pays for it or 

whether some miraculously comes out 

of the Federal Government’s Treasury 

as well. 

So the point is: Who pays? You do. 

The American taxpayer will pay for 

whatever this stimulus package may be 

whether it’s $100 billion, $500 billion, $1 

trillion. We’re looking at right now a 

$1.2 trillion deficit as we speak, care of 

Senator REID and NANCY PELOSI from 

the 110th Congress. Basically, that is 

what Senator Obama is inheriting, and 

it’s on top of that that we’ll be spending, maybe, another $1 trillion. Who 

will pay for that? Well, it is the American taxpayer. 

The second point is: For what? What 

will we be paying for—earmarks? Well, 

the other side of the aisle will say, no, 

there aren’t going to be any earmarks 

in this, but mark my words; there will 

be things akin to earmarks, and I 

think that the American taxpayer is 

smart enough with this. It will be pork. 

Let me give you just an example. 

Again, the idea is, well, we’ll pay for 

infrastructure, and that’s all good 

when you talk about infrastructure 

being roads and bridges and water and 

sewer supplies and what have you. 

Well, let’s see what some of the requests have already been to this new 

administration. 

Down in Florida in the city of Miami, 

they’re talking about some great infrastructure projects such as a water 

slide, BMX dirt bike or trail bike 

trails, a beach museum. That’s the 

type of infrastructure they’re talking 

about looking forward to going back to 

the States. How about in the great 

State of Rhode Island where they’re 

talking about such things as a polar 

bear exhibit or better soccer fields up 

there as well? 

b 1445 

That’s the type of thing that your 

tax dollars will be going to. 

How about over in Vermont? They’re 

putting in a request to spend $150,000 of 

your tax dollars to go to a more efficient street sweeping machine. Now, 

I’m sure they will be able to suck up a 

lot of the dirt and debris around the 

town a lot better with your tax dollars 

going into it. And isn’t that really the 

problem, that this machine really will 

be sucking up more of our tax dollars 

as will this entire stimulus package? 

So what is this money going for? It 

will be going for all of the same sorts 

of earmark pork projects that you have 

seen and been dismayed about out of 

the Congress in the past but be magnified to the extent of $1 trillion. 

And the third point is for how long— 

and this is what the gentleman from 

Utah was making—for how long. 

We will go on for as long as the trillion dollars pork project will continue 

to be spent out of Washington. It will 

not really be making permanent jobs. 

The Obama administration talks about 

wanting to create 3 million new jobs, 80 

percent of them they hope to be private 

sector jobs. That means, of course, 20 

percent of them will therefore be public sector job. I can do the math in my 

head. That comes out to be around 

600,000 new public sector jobs, which is 

around 50 some-odd percent if he threw 

the postal service out of the Federal 

Government as we exist right now. 

Where will those jobs be in a year 

from now or so after this project is 

spent? They will be out. So if you have 

got one of those good paying jobs, 

those jobs will end, and so will this 

program. 

So who pays? The American taxpayer 

pays. For what? For more pork. How 

long will it last? Only as long as this 

largesse out of the Federal Government 

lasts. 

What we need in the end—and I can 

conclude on this and yield back to the 

gentleman from Texas—is a program 

that will create new jobs, that will create jobs that will be new careers for individuals in this country, jobs not on 

the public dole but in the private sector. How do you accomplish that? By 

creating a private sector jobs initiative 

to incentivize the private sectors to 

take their literally trillions of dollars 


rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with HOUSE
H148 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE January 9, 2009 

that are on the sidelines right now and 

to invest them into the economy, to invest them into the creation of new 

jobs. And if you do that, that will move 

the economy forward. The banks will 

be more than willing to lend again because the individuals out there will 

have jobs to be able to pay back their 

loans, and we will be reestablishing the 

strong economy that this country was 

known for for decades and for centuries 

as well. That is the direction we should 

be going for. 

And that’s why I thank the gentleman from Texas for leading this talk 

in this special hour tonight on how to 

really stimulate the economy and how 

to really create jobs for this country. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend 

from New Jersey. Great insights, great 

points, three great points. Dear friend 

pastor from Tyler, Paul Powell, said 

when he was in seminary, he asked one 

of his preaching professors, How many 

points should you have in a perfect sermon? And the professor said, I think 

you ought to have at least one. 

So I really appreciate the gentleman 

having three excellent points, and I appreciate the contribution. 

At this time I would like to yield to 

someone who has an amazing mind 

that got him CPA certified, and here he 

is in Congress trying to help the laws 

become better and especially on financial matters. So I would like to yield to 

my friend, Mr. MIKE CONAWAY from 

Midland, Texas. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank my colleague 

from Tyler and Longview and Marshall 

and Henderson and all points east of 

Fort Worth. I appreciate his hosting 

this hour today. 

As we talk about President-elect 

Obama’s stimulus package, I am very 

mindful that he currently has something north of a 65 to 70 percent approval rating. So you really don’t want 

to pick a fight right off the bat with a 

fella who’s in that high regard across 

the United States. But so I think as a 

minimum, we ought to give him a 

chance to begin to put some meat on 

the bone of all of these great ideas that 

have been kind of at the—not even the 

10,000-foot level but at the 50,000-foot 

level and looking forward to the actual 

legislative language as to how some of 

this stuff is going to work. 

I applaud him for calling for no earmarks and for transparency and accountability. That’s exactly what we 

want to do. I’m particularly encouraged that Vice President BIDEN has 

committed to oversee the spending of 

every single dollar personally. Given 

the growing size of this bill, he is going 

to be one very busy Vice President as 

he puts his green eyeshade on, his garters, and pulls his sleeves up, gets out 

his pen, and actually watches the writing of each one of those checks as he 

committed to doing the other day. 

I am a bit discouraged, though, that 

the overall process that was announced 

yesterday that he believed—our new 

President believes that he can spend, 

or we can collectively spend our way 

out of this current economic recession, 

depression—whatever you want to call 

it, whatever title you want to give it— 

I’m concerned that that’s not an accurate way to do this. 

One way to look at this would be to 

say, all right. If government spending 

is a panacea for the economy, if it will 

build a great economy, then looking at 

the spending, the government spending 

for the last 2 years—which I believe 

this Federal Government has spent 

more money in the last 2 years than 

any other 2-year period in history— 

that certainly didn’t drive a wonderful 

economy. We’re in a bad economy right 

now. So if the premise is government 

spending builds economies, then we 

ought to be in a good economy right 

now. Quite frankly, we aren’t in that 

economy. 

The centerpiece, as both of our colleagues have talked about, is job creation. And at the end of the day, it 

really should be about jobs. 

I participated in a needs assessment 

in Midland County back in the United 

Way days. It was a zillion years ago. It 

was a process where you went through 

and asked people what was going on in 

their homes, what was going on in the 

neighborhoods, in local communities, 

what were the problems, what were the 

issues. We culled that down through 

some science to the top 10 needs for the 

Midland community. 

If you looked at those 10, nine of 

those 10 would have been favorably addressed by a job, by somebody having a 

job. And so it is—in an arena where hyperbole is the norm, it’s difficult to 

overstate how important jobs are to an 

economy. And that’s just the foundation, the base of those. 

I would also argue, though, that government jobs—and my colleague and I 

from Texas have two really good government jobs. These government jobs 

that we have, we make money at it, 

and they are here forever. And some 

government jobs will always be here 

forever. 

But the jobs that would be created 

with the program that’s been, you 

know, kind of highlighted at the 50,000- 

foot level, those jobs shouldn’t be forever. And when you don’t talk about 

forever with a job, then that job is, by 

nature, temporary; and since it’s temporary, it’s hard for families to make 

plans based on a temporary job. It’s 

hard for communities to plan on 

those—the impact that those jobs have. 

So that temporariness of those government jobs lends itself to continued 

uncertainty, to continued anxiety 

about what happens when this ends, 

what happens when this is over as opposed to a business that comes into or 

locates into a community, begins to 

put down roots and build jobs and build 

wealth, add to the local tax rolls. All of 

the kinds of things the private sector 

jobs do, those have a sense of permanency to them that is just right. That 

makes sense to us. 

And I would argue that whatever we 

do on a go-forward basis, that we focus 

more on private sector jobs and do 

whatever we can to avoid creating government jobs because once you put people on the government payroll, it’s 

hard to get them off and it does not 

build wealth. 

I would also like to point out that 

while our current circumstances are 

dire and difficult and hard and there is 

a lot of pain in the country right now, 

it is temporary. As we’ve seen, expanding economies are temporary. We’ve 

enjoyed about a 7- or 8-year good run 

with the expanding economy. Everybody enjoys that. New jobs are created, 

new wealth is created, opportunities. 

Everybody likes that. But those are 

temporary as we’ve now seen with this 

contracting economy. 

Well, the converse is true as well. 

Contracting economies are temporary. 

They may last a lot longer than we’d 

like, a lot longer than we’d enjoy, but 

at the end of the day, this world economy, this U.S. economy will turn the 

corner and will begin to expand. 

So as we look at what we do to address this issue, let’s be careful that we 

don’t take money to be earned by future generations to fix a temporary 

issue that we’re dealing with. I would 

argue that my colleagues’ and my generation, the last 4 years we have elevated this idea of taking somebody 

else’s money—in most instances it’s 

our grandkids and great grandkids and 

great-great grandchildren’s money— 

and let’s fix today’s problems. Which 

means that we have robbed our future 

generations of the money that they’re 

going to earn that they should have 

available to them to address their 

problems. Because they will have problems. There is nothing we can do today 

that’s going to fix everything permanently, and those future generations 

have a right to the money they earn by 

the sweat of their brow. The problem is 

you and I are spending it. Collectively. 

There’s plenty of blame to go around. 

This isn’t a partisan issue. Democrats, 

Republicans bear equal blame in this 

regard that we’ve constantly become 

addicted, in effect, to using borrowed 

money to address issues. And the issue 

we’re going to address over the next 

several weeks is this economy, and everything I’ve heard so far is that we’re 

going to use borrowed money. 

I was in Fredericksburg, Texas, back 

in October doing a town hall meeting 

at an elementary school. If my colleagues have never done a town hall 

meeting in an elementary school, I 

would encourage it because you get 

some of the best questions ever from 

fifth graders. 

I was doing my best Q&A kind of 

thing, and this little fella in the second 

row raised his hand, and I recognized 

him, and he said, Mr. Congressman, 

what is the plan to pay off the national 

debt? 

And I said, Excuse me? 

He said, Yes, sir. What’s the plan to 

pay off the national debt? 

And I said, Young man, that is the 

single best question I have been asked 

while I’ve been in Congress. 


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January 9, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H149 

There is no plan to pay off the national debt. Every dollar that we borrow is, in effect, permanently borrowed 

forever. Let’s just take an example. I’m 

a CPA so some of this comes a little bit 

easy to me. We’ve got $11 trillion in 

hard debt. Debt we’ve got paper on, not 

counting the promises of Social Security, Medicare, and all of that. We’ve 

got $11 trillion. 

In order to pay that off, this government has to run an $11 trillion surplus 

counting the interest. It’s more than 

that if you’ve got interest. Given the 

history of the last 42 years, we’ve, I 

think, run surpluses 3 of those years. 

Thirty-nine of them or forty-one of 

them, whatever the number is, have 

been deficits. 

So if anyone in their right mind 

thinks this Federal Government, given 

the propensity we have for spending 

other people’s money, can run a $12 or 

$11 trillion surplus in order to pay off 

the national debt, they are delusional 

beyond all words. 

Now, at a minimum, the first thing 

that we ought to do is quit doing 

what’s gotten us to this point. Quit 

spending money we don’t have. You 

know, it’s—across the aisle we’ve got 

two seemingly desperate ways of doing 

things. On our side we want to cut 

taxes, and the other side spends money 

but doesn’t raise taxes. It ought to be 

this way: If you’re going to spend the 

money, then have the political backbone to raise the taxes; or if you’re not 

going to raise the taxes, have the political backbone to not spend the money. 

Well, we’ve had it on our side where 

we spent the money and borrowed it, 

and the other side wants to spend the 

money and raise taxes. And all we’ve 

done is spend money that we don’t 

have. It’s not ours. No family gets to 

do that, no small business gets to do 

that, no other government entity I’m 

aware of, other than the Federal Government, gets to do that. 

My preference, if we’re going to have 

some sort of a stimulus work, would be 

to focus on tax policy, the money 

that’s earned by good citizens, and that 

we, at the point of a badge, take away 

from them. That tax policy ought to be 

stable, it ought to be predictable, it 

ought to be put in place. It allows them 

to keep more of their money and create 

those private sector jobs. 

Let’s take the example of businesses. 

Section 179 allows businesses to deduct 

immediately in the year of purchase a 

certain amount of money that they 

spend on equipment that they use in 

their business. By being able to deduct 

that, the taxes they would otherwise 

have paid on that amount of money, 

they can recycle into their business by 

hiring new people, investing in new 

product, investing in new capacity. All 

those kinds of things. 

So that, in my view, is a much more 

appropriate stimulus of the economy 

than to collect a bunch of money here 

in Washington D.C. and then begin to 

try to parcel it out across some of the 

projects that our colleague from New 

Jersey was talking about earlier in 

terms of how that money is going to be 

spent under the, quote-unquote, stimulus package and the conference of 

mayors, you know. The shopping list 

that they’ve gone through is, in my 

view, a much better way to try to stimulate this economy. 

Truth be told, at the end of the day, 

the Federal Government has precious 

little to do with whether or not the 

economy expands or contracts. That’s 

driven by the decisions of millions of 

Americans to decide whether or not 

they’re going to buy something new, 

whether or not they’re making enough 

money to be able to afford that, whether or not their business—prospects for 

their business is good enough that 

they’ll go to the bank and borrow 

money and continue to begin to turn 

this corner. 

b 1500 

Those decisions are made all over the 

United States, all over the world by 

good, honest folks and not governments. So we sometimes delude ourselves into thinking that—and most of 

us are of the kind of personality that 

we came here to fix stuff; we came here 

to make this country a better place; we 

came here to do all those kinds of 

things. Sometimes it’s not our job. 

Our propensity is that we want to fix 

stuff, we want to do things to help this 

country. And when we see a problem as 

staggering and difficult as this one, we 

think that there’s something we in fact 

can do, and we feel almost inadequate 

when we propose not doing something. 

But maybe in this instance, letting us 

absorb the pain and understand that in 

a deleveraging circumstance, when 

you’re paying off debt as we are right 

now, that that does not grow an economy, but that does lay the foundation 

for that future economy that will begin 

to expand that we will all enjoy on a go 

forward basis. 

So if anybody remembers one thing 

I’ve said today, it is, let’s begin to look 

and lay a foundation for stopping fixing temporary problems with permanent debt that we’re borrowing from 

future generations and are 

hamstringing them and are hobbling 

their ability to take care of their 

issues when they are grown and in our 

position. 

So I appreciate my colleague for 

hosting this hour today. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend 

from Midland, Mr. CONAWAY. I guess 

it’s that trained certified public accountant mind that sees with such 

clarity. You know, you’ve got your 

debits and your credits, and you come 

here to Congress and it should balance. 

And I appreciate the clarity that all 

your training and experience has given. 

I ran across some quotes here that 

are right in line with what my friend 

from Midland has been saying. Here’s a 

quote from Dr. Richard Wagner, Professor of Economics at George Mason 

University. He said, ‘‘The government 

can increase its spending only by reducing private spending equivalently. 

Whether government finances its added 

spending by increasing taxes, by borrowing, or by inflating the currency, 

the added spending will be offset by reduced private spending. Furthermore, 

private spending is generally more efficient than the government spending 

that would replace it because people 

act more carefully when they spend 

their own money than when they spend 

other people’s money.’’ What an insightful quote. 

Another quote, ‘‘As Congress and 

President-elect Obama work together 

to help middle class families and get 

our economy back on track, the deficit 

estimate makes it clearer than ever 

that we cannot borrow and spend our 

way back to prosperity when we’re already running an annual deficit of 

more than $1 trillion. The reality is 

that the decisions we make today will 

impact future generations, and burying 

our children and grandchildren under a 

mountain of debt to pay for more 

wasteful government spending would 

be the height of irresponsibility.’’ 

I’ve come to know so many wonderful 

people on both sides of the aisle in my 

4 years that I’ve been here. There may 

be somebody in this body that doesn’t 

like children, but I don’t know who it 

would be. I find a commonality of just 

a real love for children. You see children come onto the floor under 12 are 

allowed here. We saw the rostrum, the 

dais just completely covered up with 

children as Speaker PELOSI was sworn 

in. And children just bring a smile 

when you see these wholesome, refreshing children, bright eyes, full of hope 

gathered around. But it breaks your 

heart when you realize the kind of debt 

we’re loading these children up with. I 

mean, nobody in this body I know of 

would intentionally go about harming 

any child, but we’re doing it unintentionally. 

It has historically been the general 

nature of mankind, it’s not true with 

all species, but with mankind generally—except for some exceptions of 

some really horrible people—mankind’s 

nature is to protect our children; and 

in this body, while I’ve been here, 

we’ve continued to load them up. And 

President-elect Obama talked about 

change and hope. And frankly, the 

Democrats had been spending way too 

much money in the eighties and in the 

1990s up to ‘95. There were a few years 

there where Republicans were doing 

the right thing, and then they couldn’t 

help themselves, they started spending 

money like crazy, loading up the kids 

with more debt than they will ever be 

able to pay. And I was really—and am 

still—holding out hope that the change 

that we can get and we need the most 

from this administration coming in is 

quit killing our children with debt, just 

overloading them with debt. 

And, you know, the change is not 

going to come by throwing money at 

the economy; we’ve been doing that for 

the last 4 months, it has accomplished 


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H150 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE January 9, 2009 

nothing. There are some great insightful writings and thoughts from economists now that, although it was the 

most incredibly good of intentions 

through the thirties, the economy did 

not get help, despite all the massive 

spending and government programs, 

until World War II. So as people here 

have heard me say many times, I think 

the number one duty of the Federal 

Government is to provide for the common defense. 

We need to have defense spending. 

And invariably every time an administration comes in and seeks their cuts 

by cutting the military, cutting spending with defense contractors, then our 

military gets at a low point. And as 

President Ronald Reagan had said, you 

know, no country ever gets attacked 

because people perceive it as being too 

strong, they perceive it as being vulnerable, so they attack it. 

It is always a good thing, and preventative, when a nation is strong 

militarily. We don’t need to be cutting 

the military, we don’t need to be cutting defense spending. In fact, when the 

government is going to spend and help 

the economy, it ought to be on things 

that government has to do anyway. 

So when we look at some of the proposed projects in which funding is 

being sought and maybe spent, some of 

the things that have been listed so far 

as being ready to go, shovel ready, 

ready to have money, $350,000 for an Albuquerque, New Mexico fitness center, 

we need to make our people more physically fit. I have been deeply troubled 

that with all the emphasis on No Child 

Left Behind, we’ve cut art programs, 

we’ve cut music programs, we’ve cut 

all kinds of programs that really can 

make people a more whole person, and 

that includes physical fitness. 

You know, when I was a kid and 

President Kennedy proposed physical 

fitness for children, I really didn’t like 

it. I thought he ought to mind his own 

business, actually. But I can tell you 

that the physical fitness programs that 

were instituted—and that wasn’t a 

mandate, it wasn’t a requirement, it 

was an encouragement, he led by encouraging. And schools started having 

physical fitness programs and the kids 

got better off physically which made 

them better off mentally. And to see 

the obesity that has resulted, we don’t 

need, as a Federal Government, to 

start telling people you can’t buy fast 

foods, you can’t eat this, you can’t eat 

that. Just everybody exercise, and then 

push that with the children; set those 

good patterns early and that will take 

care of itself. It teaches discipline, and 

that is something that far too many in 

this body have not been able to overcome. 

Now, one of the things that you learn 

in law school is to rationalize almost 

anything. You get good at it. If you become a good lawyer, you get good at 

rationalizing basically any conduct—or 

you can. And I see people that have 

been here in Congress for many years, 

many that did not go to law school, 

and they have gotten so good at 

rationalizing they can rationalize almost anything. We don’t need to be 

doing that. We need to be getting to 

what helps. 

But I’ve heard people try to rationalize on this floor, in this Congress in 

the 4 years I’ve been here. And I never 

seek to impose my religious beliefs on 

anyone else, but I enjoy it when people 

quote Scripture. And I’ve heard Scripture quoted on this floor many times, 

but often it’s during tax debate. And 

I’ve heard people ridiculing, you know, 

some of you Republicans say you’re a 

Christian, but Jesus said take care of 

the widows and orphans; Jesus said, 

even as you’ve done to the least of 

these, my children, you’ve done to me; 

Jesus said do unto others as you would 

have them to do unto you; and here 

you guys are wanting to cut give away 

programs to all these different people. 

But I’ve searched Scripture, and for 

those who like to rely on it, you can 

look, Jesus never said, Go ye, therefore, use and abuse your taxing authority, take somebody else’s money and 

give it away. He said you do it. ‘‘You’’ 

do it. You do it individually. You help. 

You reach out. You give with your 

money, you give with what you have. 

Don’t go abusing your power as a Member of Congress to take from somebody 

else to give; do it and you will be the 

beneficiary. That was the teaching, not 

for government to take other people’s 

money. Because what is taxation? It’s 

theft. Although we legalize it, therefore, it’s legal theft. We take somebody 

else’s money and we use it the way we 

want to use it. 

So, that is a concern. Here’s another 

quote from an assistant professor of economics, Justin Ross, from the School 

of Public and Environmental Affairs at 

Indiana University. He says, ‘‘The empirical evidence overwhelmingly rejects Federal Government deficit 

spending as the best method for stimulating the economy, and it is generally 

unsupportive of it having any stimulus 

effect at all.’’ We saw that all through 

the thirties. No matter how much 

money the government gave away, no 

matter how many government programs, there was nothing permanent 

about what was done. 

Now, we hear a lot of people say that 

this is the worst economy in 70 years 

and 80 years, going back to the thirties, it rivals those days. I was mentioning before, but I had a man over 90 

years old approach me in my district 

say he was sick and tired of people saying that, that what we’re going 

through right now has no comparison. 

For people that are out of work, it even 

has no comparison to the 1930s because 

there were times, he said, when we 

would go a couple of days without even 

eating, and now people get upset and 

think they’re broke if they don’t have 

two or three cars, computers, cell 

phones, and that kind of thing. They 

had none of that. 

And you go back to the late seventies, early eighties before the big tax 

cut by President Reagan and we had 

double-digit inflation, we had doubledigit unemployment. We’re not even 

close to double-digit inflation. But if 

we keep throwing away money and 

printing money like crazy and borrowing and trying to tax more, then 

we’re headed for major, major trouble. 

But you go back to the late seventies, early eighties, and the research 

we’ve done indicates that key industries that experienced a big downturn 

as a result of the recession in the late 

seventies, early eighties were housing, 

steel manufacturing and automobile 

production. And these did not see a recovery until much later. 

I might also say, for those who look 

for answers in Scripture I referred to 

earlier, when people have criticized me 

for not wanting to take other people’s 

money to give it away to my charity of 

choice, that they would prefer to do it, 

I brought that up and someone said, oh, 

well, that’s not being very Christian. 

And I point them to the example of 

Zacchaeus. Because if you look at 

Zacchaeus and his example, the first 

thing he did after he met Jesus was to 

go cut taxes. And, in fact, not only did 

he cut taxes, he gave a four-for-one rebate, as I recall, to those who he had 

wronged. And I have no doubt that in 

cutting taxes after he met Jesus that 

he stimulated the economy all around 

because it meant the government 

wasn’t getting that money, the tax collectors weren’t getting that money, 

people were able to spend their own. 

Now, I was really amazed when some 

of us, a bipartisan group of Members of 

Congress, went to China a few years 

ago, and talking to CEOs and since 

then talking to other CEOs, why was 

your industry moved to China? Because 

I figure the answer is going to be 

cheaper labor; we didn’t have to deal 

with labor unions; easier environmental—the number one answer was 

not any of those things. They said our 

quality control was so good in the 

United States, Americans just really 

make good products. 

b 1515 

But the number one answer was that 

the corporate tax rate in China was so 

much cheaper than it is here. And you 

look around the world at where economies are growing, and they have 

dropped corporate rates. They have 

dropped capital gains rates so people 

are able to keep more of their own 

money. 

And what we see, we have seen over 

and over going back to President Kennedy, President Reagan and the early 

days of President Bush. When you drop 

the tax rate, the economy is encouraged, expands, and you get even more 

revenue back into the coffers of the 

government. So everybody comes out 

ahead. 

Now, some of the other things we’ve 

heard about the Democratic stimulus 

package that is being worked on is that 

it could virtually triple the current 

year’s deficit. What we’ve been hearing 


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January 9, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H151 

is that it will grow a deficit that’s 

about a 50 percent increase over the 

post-World War II record of 6 percent. 

Also, we’ve been told, as my friend 

from New Jersey alluded to, that 20 

percent of the 3 million jobs that President-elect Obama wants to create are 

in government. We don’t produce a 

whole lot in government. Some would 

say what we produce is not worth producing and is more harmful than good. 

Regardless, we don’t need 600,000 new 

government jobs. That is overloading 

the economy with government. And as 

former Senator Gramm used to say, 

When we have more people in the 

wagon than pulling the wagon, the 

wagon’s going to stop and the country 

will be economically dead at that 

point. 

Spending, though, disguised as tax 

cuts is not a tax cut. As many writers 

have said, if we want to stimulate the 

economy, what we really need to do is 

have a tax cut. That’s why I filed in 

December and have re-filed the first 

day we were in session this week a 2- 

month tax holiday bill, H.R. 143. I’m 

hoping that I will get to talk with 

someone in the incoming administration because President-elect Obama 

said he wanted to provide a tax cut for 

every American who made less than 

$250,000. My bill makes sure every wage 

earner, including self-employed businesses, get a two-twelfths tax cut for 

the year 2009. It’s not just a stimulus 

package, but that is the result. 

But the fact is, if we in this body allowed people who earned the money to 

choose winners and not give money to 

people and companies they think are 

losers, then they make the decisions. 

And I can guarantee you, they’re going 

to make better decisions than we’ve 

seen out of the Treasury department 

over the last 4 months. It’s like we 

were reading a moment ago, when people spend their own money, they do it 

more wisely than when they’re spending someone else’s money, especially 

when we have the problems with accountability that government always 

has. It doesn’t matter which administration is in office. When there is 

money to be given away by the government, accountability is a nightmare. 

It’s a huge problem, and despite all the 

promises, we have got a Republican administration that’s been in office the 

last 4 months during this huge bailout, 

but we have had a Democratic majority 

in the House, a Democratic majority in 

the Senate, and no matter which party 

is in charge, accountability has been 

disastrous when it comes to holding 

people’s feet to the fire with government money. So it is not the answer to 

go throwing money at all these different things. 

Other proposed giveaways would be 

$94 million for a parking garage at the 

Orange Bowl in Miami. What a great 

bowl, what a great venue for football, 

but there doesn’t need to be a Federal 

giveaway. $4.5 million for Greton, Florida, to bottle water with recycled bottles, well, that’s a wonderful, noble 

goal. But what government should do 

is create incentives for other people to 

do good things. There’s been too much 

of a problem with Congress that we decide we’re just going to give away 

money, throw it at a problem, and 

think we have done a good thing. 

The highest and best use of this body 

over and above making sure that we 

provide for the common defense is encouraging people to do the best that 

they can with what they have, use 

their talents, use their God-given potential. 

One of the things that drove me off 

the bench as a district judge and made 

me want to run for this office to get to 

serve here was as a judge handling felonies, I kept seeing more and more 

women come into my court that I had 

to sentence for a couple of things. One 

was for welfare fraud and another was 

for their involvement in dealing drugs. 

And you get a complete presentence investigation report on people’s background, and I was amazed how similar 

so many of the stories were. 

And this is not a racial issue because, 

when I dealt with it, there were women 

of all races having the same problem. 

They would have somebody encourage 

them, because they were bored with 

high school, to drop out and have a 

baby because the government will send 

you a check. So they would drop out, 

have a baby, and they’d get a government check. And then they’d find out, 

it’s not really enough for a baby and a 

woman to live on. So they would have 

another child and another child, and 

they kept getting further and further 

behind. 

And you go back to the 1960s and the 

great society and how well-intentioned 

that was, but what occurred was the 

government saw single women having 

to provide for children with some deadbeat dad out there not helping. So, 

with the best of intentions and wanting 

to help, they said let’s give them a 

check. So they started giving a check 

for every child that a woman could 

have out of wedlock. And when they 

come 40 years later to my court to be 

sentenced, over and over I’m seeing 

women who are lured into this rut by 

the Federal Government well-intentioned giveaways, and they couldn’t 

get out. We provided them no incentive 

to get out. 

I hear from people in housing 

projects that said, you know, we were 

trying to save a nest egg so we could 

move out of Federal housing someday 

and buy our own home. So we’re saving 

up a down payment. Then we were told 

by some authorities that we had too 

much money in savings, that we either 

had to buy stuff or give it away or 

spend it somehow, get rid of it, or we’d 

have to move out of Federal housing. I 

mean, what’s wrong with this? The 

Federal Government ought to be about 

encouraging people to do what’s good 

for them because ultimately that’s 

good for the country, and instead, we 

lure people into a rut and we don’t let 

them out. 

And so some women would get desperate, and they’d realize I’ve got to 

get a job but I also need a handout 

from the government with the children. So they get a job, they wouldn’t 

report that to the Federal welfare authorities, and they’d come before me as 

criminals for welfare fraud. Others 

would see how much money was being 

made in dealing drugs, and that’s no 

way out of a rut. And it wasn’t, because that’s bad for everybody. 

But you come back to the premise, 

the Federal Government luring people 

into a rut with giveaway programs that 

don’t let them out. 

Now, I am not sure exactly what the 

answer was in the 1960s specifically, 

but I know what the general answer is. 

The government should provide incentives to do the right thing. So instead 

of, you know, giving people a check 

and luring them into this rut they can 

never get out of, maybe we give them 

incentives to finish their education, 

help with day care. If we had done that, 

we wouldn’t see this boom over the last 

40 years of children without enough 

parents that care about them. So that’s 

what we encouraged, and seriously 

we’ve gotten what we’ve paid for. 

We could drop the corporate tax. We 

could drop the cap gains tax. I get sick 

and tired of hearing people saying we’ll 

never get manufacturing jobs back to 

the United States. Ridiculous. Of 

course we can. They’ve left because 

corporate taxes are a lot cheaper elsewhere, and people that come on to this 

floor and say, oh, let’s don’t tax the 

people, let’s tax the corporations, that 

is so disingenuous because the fact is, 

corporations, if they don’t pass that on 

and make their customers and clients 

pay, then they don’t stay in business. 

The corporation doesn’t pay that tax. 

It’s a conduit, but it comes from the 

individuals getting their services. But 

it seems to be a good passing of the 

buck by Congress when we do that. 

But The Detroit News itself, home of 

our automakers, say, Tax cuts work 

best to stimulate the economy. If Congress agrees to take on this enormous 

debt in the name of stimulating the 

economy, it better do everything possible to keep it from becoming history’s biggest pork barrel. 

The Pittsburgh PAPER said, As Club 

for Growth’s Pat Toomey urges, the 

elimination of the capital gains rate 

would be the better solution. 

That’s what is really needed is what 

National Review’s Larry Kudlow said. 

A fool bore, supply-side tax rate reduction that could even morph into fullfledged corporate tax reform. 

That would be amazing. We’d get 

those jobs back overnight. 

And then with energy, we’ve had this 

big energy debate the last 6 months, 

and now people have gone to sleep on 

the issue. We should not. We have still 

got to get energy independent. 

And we heard from experts who said 

if we will simply open up ANWR, and it 

isn’t a beautiful, pristine area that is 

often depicted on television. There’s 


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H152 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE January 9, 2009 

nothing there. It’s flat. There’s not a 

better place on earth to drill because 

there’s nothing there. Animals can’t 

live there. If the caribou come, they 

have to pass through immediately because there’s nothing there to live on. 

Drill there. We’d have a tiny footprint, 

and we were told that immediately 

we’d have 250,000 new jobs, and by the 

time they were ready for production, 

there would be 1 million new jobs. 

There’s a third of President-elect 

Obama’s promise of 3 million new jobs, 

and we don’t have to give money away. 

We don’t have to increase taxes. The 

private sector will take care of it. All 

we have to make sure is the environmental concerns are addressed so that 

we don’t hurt the environment. 

We could increase the jobs immediately by opening up more of the 

Outer Continental Shelf. What an incredible stimulus that would be. 

A Boston Herald editorial said, a real 

stimulus bill—the expiring tax cuts are 

tax increases and history shows that 

tax increases in a recession, depression 

or recovery can be deadly. We should 

not go there. 

I often look at the seal on the dollar 

bill. It has a pyramid with a triangular 

eye actually at the top, representing 

the all-seeing eye of God, and the Latin 

phrase ‘‘annuit coeptis’’. That’s Latin 

meaning He, God, has smiled on our 

undertaking. 

When we saddle those dear, sweet 

children that are alive today and their 

children with debt because we would 

not do the right thing, I don’t see how 

God or anybody else can smile on our 

undertaking. We need to get back to 

things that bring smiles. 

f 

MIDDLE EAST AND THE ECONOMY 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under 

the Speaker’s announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from California (Mr. SHERMAN) is recognized for 

60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Madam Speaker, I 

plan to use the first two-thirds of my 

time to focus on events in the Middle 

East and then the final third to focus 

on our economy. I would invite my colleagues who wish to address these subjects to come to the floor. I can yield 

them a few minutes, but if I don’t have 

any company, I’m capable of speaking 

for a full hour, as some of my more 

bored colleagues have already seen 

proven. 

b 1530 

Now, even in an hour-long presentation, I am not going to be able to 

present all of the facts to support my 

position, and so I invite my colleagues 

to visit Brad.Sherman@mail.house.gov. 

Now, focusing on the Middle East, we 

all want peace, we all want a sustainable cease-fire. But, instead, our televisions show us blood and carnage. Who 

is to blame? What do we do to cause it 

to stop? 

Now, as to the issue of who is to 

blame, the press has a remarkably silly 

approach. They take pictures of casualties, and they decide whatever side has 

suffered the most casualties must be in 

the right. I would point out that if this 

is the standard we use, America has 

been in the wrong in every war we have 

fought since 1812. It is absolutely preposterous to say that whichever side 

suffers the greater casualties has morality on their side. 

Part of this is a misreading of the 

just war theory that so many modern 

philosophers have put together, and 

one of its key elements is proportionality. The press, skimming rather than 

reading these philosophical texts, 

comes up with the idea that there must 

be proportionality of one side’s casualties to the other side’s casualties. A 

true reading of just war theory indicates that the proportionality doctrine 

is that there must be proportionality 

between the objective that the just side 

is seeking and the casualties which are 

unfortunately borne by both sides. 

Well, what is the objective that 

Israel is seeking? First and foremost, 

the objective is to end a situation 

where 1 million Israelis every day and 

every night face daily attempts to kill 

and maim as many of them as possible. 

By this standard, this is a just effort by 

the Israeli Government to safeguard its 

people. 

Now, Hamas has sent, since 2005, well 

over 6,000 rockets and mortars into 

southern Israel. Now, I want to clarify 

one issue as to the number, because 

often you will hear a figure roughly 

half of 6,000. That is the correct figure 

for the number of rockets or for the 

number of mortars. But if you add together the rockets and the mortars 

since the year 2005, the number stands 

well over 6,000. 

Why do we pick 2005? That is because 

that is the time when Israel withdrew 

completely, unilaterally, without concession, without compensation, from 

the Gaza Strip, leaving behind valuable 

assets, which were trampled on rather 

than used by Hamas extremists. 

So we see some 6,000 rockets and 

mortars from a territory that is hardly 

under Israeli occupation. We are told 

that, well, Hamas should be regarded 

as morally virtuous because so few of 

these rockets hit their target. It is true 

that the vast majority of these 6,000 

projectiles have failed in their attempts to kill Israeli women and children and civilians, but that doesn’t 

mean that Hamas has good morality. It 

simply indicates that Hamas has bad 

aim or, more specifically, that they are 

using ordnance, which is very difficult 

for them to aim. 

Every one of those rockets and mortars had a single objective, kill as 

many Israeli civilians as possible. Not 

a single one of them was targeted at 

the Israeli military. So we are told, 

well, let us count only the casualties. 

Let us ignore the over 6,000 attempts at 

murder from Hamas. We cannot ignore 

those missiles. From a moral standpoint, it is just as wrong to fire a missile that fails to hit its civilian target 

as one that does hit its civilian target. 

Now, earlier today, the House passed 

H. Res. 34. The vote was 95 percent in 

favor, 1 percent against, the remaining 

percent either voted present or wasn’t 

present, 95 percent to 1 percent. Let us 

review some of the provisions of that 

resolution. I will read some, and then I 

will comment. 

‘‘Whereas Hamas was founded with 

the stated goal of destroying the State 

of Israel; 

‘‘Whereas Hamas has been designated 

by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization; 

‘‘Whereas Hamas has refused to comply with the Quartet’s,’’ and here we 

are referring to the United States, European Union, Russia and the United 

Nations, that Quartet’s ‘‘requirements 

that Hamas recognize Israel’s right to 

exist.’’ 

Then it goes on to say that Hamas 

has launched thousands of rockets 

against Israel’s population centers 

since 2001 and has launched more than 

6,000 such rockets and mortars into 

Israel since Israel withdrew both its 

military and civilians from Gaza in 

2005. 

The resolution also states that in 

June, 2006, after that withdrawal, 

Hamas illegally crossed into Israel, attacked Israeli forces, and kidnapped 

Corporal Gilad Shalit, whom they continue to hold today. The resolution 

then points out that Hamas is getting 

some very substantial support from 

Iran, and I will address that later, and 

is using innocent civilians as human 

shields. 

Let me give one illustration of that, 

and that is Nizar Rayyan, perhaps one 

of Hamas’ top 5 leaders. 

He stored weapons at his home, sophisticated communications designed 

to act as a communications center for 

Hamas. So what did Israel do? They 

called him at his home. They told him 

that in order to avoid civilian casualties, they were giving him 10 or 15 minutes notice, that’s enough time for people to leave the area, but that it was 

important to Israel to destroy those 

weapons, to destroy that communications equipment. 

What did Mr. Rayyan do? Having 

boasted that he wanted to die as a martyr, he not only stayed in the house, 

but he kept with him several of his 

wives and children. That is the use of 

innocent human shields at its worst, a 

man doing everything possible to lead 

to the death or cause the death of his 

four wives, of many of his children, all 

so he could claim that Israel was responsible for the deaths of those civilians. 

Let us continue to look at key provisions of the resolution that passed the 

House. 

‘‘Whereas Israel has facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza with hundreds 

of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance . . . ’’ 

Let me provide the specifics. Just 

today some 89 humanitarian shipments 

went from Israel to Gaza, including 

2,227 tons of food, medicine, plus 315,000 


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