Michele Bachmann

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. And this was responsibility, that new era of responsibility?

Mrs. BACHMANN. How big was that budget deficit, did you say, Mr. Garrett?

Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman and thank you for this time. We yield back. Thank you.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, what you're talking about with Pilgrim's Pride, the great chicken producer in your district, that could have been done by our car manufacturers here in the United States without one dime of taxpayer money going into the auto industry. I sit on the Financial Services Committee. We had the Big Three automakers in front of our committee, and I asked that question when the gentlemen were there. I asked, ``Wouldn't bankruptcy protection be your best friend? It would shield your company from further legal liability, and it would allow you the freedom to restructure your contracts and to restructure your organization.'' That would have been a great tool that would not have cost any money. Unfortunately, our President has made a decision to take the most expensive and the deepest government intervention route that we have ever seen in the history of our country. My fear, Mr. Speaker, is we will never again see a free car manufacturer, an American-made car manufacturer, in the United States. Is there any industry that thinks, once the government gets its fingers at the level where it approves your business plan and then backs up the warranty of your product and decides what your product will be and who the purchasers of your product will be, that the government will ever get out of the car business? At that point, what are we going to have left to buy--pogo sticks? We are not going to have much of a car industry left once the United States Government gets done with it. It's kind of like free health care. We will never see more expensive health care than when the Federal Government gets involved.

Mrs. BACHMANN. The gentleman may want to hide those couple of dollars. Uncle Sam is looking for a few more.

Mrs. BACHMANN. What happened to the era of bipartisanship, if I can ask the gentleman?

Mrs. BACHMANN. Perhaps because it is.

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the Washington County Historical Society and their dedicated preservation of the history of Washington County and Minnesota. Founded on April 11th, 1934, the Society has grown from 75 members meeting in the public library to more than 700 members operating four buildings, two museums and a growing research library. In 1941, the Society purchased the Warden's House Museum and today it is one of Minnesota's oldest buildings and the second oldest continuously operating house museum. The Society purchased the Boutwell Cemetery and the Hay Lake School in 1978 and shortly thereafter the school's neighbor, the Johannes Erickson Log House, was donated for the Society's care and restoration. All three buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places. The Society provides educational programs and historical expertise with the ultimate goal of collaborating with the community, facilitating historical discussion and providing an opportunity for all Washington County residents to learn and enjoy their area's history. Minnesota is so rich with history, heritage, and tradition. This work is such a tremendous service to us all. Madam Speaker, it is my honor to recognize and congratulate the Washington County Historical Society on their 75th Anniversary. Their efforts have demonstrated the importance of historical preservation and resulted in a strong sense of community heritage throughout Washington County.

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. Thank you to the gentleman from Ohio, Leader John Boehner. We have tremendous respect for Leader Boehner and have great admiration for his courage in leading this effort in fiscal restraint. The American people are begging for fiscal restraint, and Leader Boehner has emphasized that to our caucus, and is leading that charge here in the United States House of Representatives. Also joining us today, Mr. Speaker, is a brand new freshman also from the great State of Ohio, our third speaker from Ohio during this hour. Ohioans represent the heartland of our country. Hailing now from Ohio's Seventh District is Mr. Steve Austria, who has a lot to say. He represents the Dayton-Columbus area, and he is going to be speaking to us now as a small businessman himself. I yield now to Mr. Steve Austria from Columbus, Ohio.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I want to thank Mr. Duncan for standing strong for restraint. When you have got donors to the other party who are standing up and saying this is a wealth killer, that is a wake-up call. As a matter of fact, we just had one of the former commerce secretary appointees, Senator Judd Gregg, say of this budget that it clearly spends too much, taxes too much, borrows too much from our kids and grandkids. He said himself that this spending bill will bankrupt America. It will bankrupt our country. And it caused me to think--I was writing some notes down. I was thinking about the very first Congress. We are the 111th Congress. And I was thinking back to the very first Congress and the founders of our Nation. And I was thinking that they are here in this Chamber, symbolically, and we, as Members of Congress--Mr. Duncan who served for 21 years; myself, this is my third year--I think of the first Members of Congress who are here as we symbolically stand on their shoulders and observe their example from the rear-view mirror of history. And I think about these founders who wrote our Nation's Declaration of Independence to get away from a mother country who abused its taxing authority against the American colonists who then went on to write our great Constitution which was clear as to the limits on government authority. That was the greatest fear that the Founders had was a government that would be tyrannical and reach too far in the pockets and in the freedom of the American people. The very same day that our founders, the first Congress, passed that Constitution, known across the world, they also passed the 10 amendments to that Constitution. And those amendments were written for one reason. It wasn't to limit the freedom and the power of the American people as individuals, it was written to limit the power of the Federal Government over the individual. And the 10th Amendment, the last of those 10, reserved to the States all power not expressly given to the Federal Government in the Constitution. This spending bill that President Obama is putting forward to the 111th Congress would shock the founders of our Nation. I believe it would shock them because they might say that they bled and died and sacrificed their fortune and their sacred honor so that what? So that we could selfishly consume material wealth sufficient to bankrupt our Nation? That hardly seems what America is about or what America was founded upon. Well, Mr. Speaker, joining us now is Dr. Paul Broun. He is a great patriot hailing from the State of Georgia. I appreciate Dr. Broun. He represents Athens, Augusta, and northeast Georgia hailing from the Tenth Congressional District. I yield now to a great physician, a great friend, a great patriot, Dr. Paul Broun.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Paul Broun. I have such great respect for Dr. Broun. I appreciate his words. He's made the hue and cry that the American people need to know that this budget is historic by any measure. We would agree. The Obama presidency is historic, Mr. President. It is historic in the amount of debt that will be accumulated. Leader Boehner stood on this floor just a few moments ago and stated that the debt in this country will double in just 6 years. It spends more than all the previous Presidents put together. And Leader Boehner said this: He said that when a dollar flows in to the Federal Government, 70 cents of that dollar will be needed just to pay for interest. This is absolutely unsustainable. Pretty soon we will have currency equal to Zimbabwe's if we continue down this road because of currency devaluation. This is what we're seeing. We're looking at essentially a doubling of the debt under what the Obama administration wants to put together. But what we hear over and over again from the Obama administration, they say this is a debt that we inherited. Is it really? We need to look at the facts. The facts tell us something different. January of 2007 is when Congress was run by the Democrat majority. Republicans ran it up until 2007 January. At that point, both the House and the Senate took over and were run by the Democrats. At that point, we saw the Federal deficit begin to rise and skyrocket. Discretionary spending was rising and then skyrocketing, and mandatory spending was rising and skyrocketing. We had the stimulus bill that was passed, an over $152 billion. Speaker of the House Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and Senator Obama all voted ``yes'' for every one of these spending measures that has gotten us into the place we're in. Did they inherit this mess or did they help create this mess? The American people need to decide. We have been down this road before. As a matter of fact, President Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary said it best when he said, ``We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I say after 8 years of the administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot!'' Mr. Speaker, we've been down this road before. We've all heard the saying that, if you don't learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, the Obama administration appears to making that same mistake. Now, to speak to the American people is great man, a wonderful physician, a man I'm just getting to know. His name is Dr. John Fleming. He's serving the people of Louisiana's Fourth District from the big city of Minden, Louisiana. He's a freshman, and Dr. John Fleming has been a physician for 32 years and also a small business owner. And I yield, Mr. Speaker, to Dr. Fleming.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey's Seventh, Mr. Leonard Lance.

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Iowa, also known as the Stunning Steve King of Iowa, as stated by national political commentators, who certainly know what they are talking about. Steve King is one of our stalwart patriots who is here on the floor fighting on behalf of the American people. And while we are here tonight to talk about several subjects, we can't avoid the first subject that is on the table. It is the fact that under President Obama's budget that he has put forward, President Obama's budget simply spends too much, it taxes too much, and it certainly borrows too much. We are very concerned about the excessive spending that is contained in this bill. It is $3.9 trillion. That is almost $4 trillion in spending under this budget deficit. This is an historical Presidency, historical for the amount of spending that is occurring under this President, $3.9 trillion. Not only is that a huge amount of money just for spending and just for taxing; we know that just the energy tax alone that the President is putting in his budget is $2 trillion in spending. The President's aides just came out within this last week and said that it is not $646 billion, as we thought, it is nearly $2 trillion. That means for people in Minnesota, for people that are watching this evening, Madam Speaker, we are looking at perhaps an additional $4,000 per year out of the gate that every American household will see in increased taxes for energy. $4,000 a year in increased taxes. Who can afford that right now, when 401(k)s are down, when the value of houses are down, when jobs are on the line? We can't afford that, Madam Speaker. The President surely must know that. But, borrowing too much. Representative Steve King talked about the massive borrowing that is coming from under our President's budget. This is what is remarkable. President Obama is borrowing so much of your tax money, Madam Speaker, of the American people's money, that literally President Obama's debt will be more than all previous Presidents combined. Madam Speaker, you heard me correctly. From George Washington through George W. Bush, the 43rd President, you can add up the debt level of every one of those Presidents. And day after day after day we hear President Obama blaming the previous administration for the current situation he is in; but President Obama will lay so much debt on the backs of the American people that it will trump all 43 Presidents combined. That is historic. Take a look. These are the figures that are put out, this is the Office of Management and Budget, and these are the figures that the President himself points to. The figures here on the left are the figures for debt prior to President Obama coming into office. These figures on the right are the debt amount that President Obama by his own figures say will be accumulated, $20 trillion in debt by President Obama's own figures. As a matter of fact, the Congressional Budget Office came out and said so rosy were the President's figures that he undercounted his debt by $2.3 trillion. He has rosy estimates of how great the economy is going to grow, and he has very conservative estimates on how high his debt will grow. We are concerned, we are very concerned about what the future debt load will be on the American people. I am often reminded of the Founders; and Representative Steve King and I stand here tonight in this chamber, Madam Speaker. Together with yourself, we are literally standing on the shoulders of the Founders of this great country are. And it was the Founders of our country, as we look through the rearview mirror of history, who very clearly made it known that our government was to be a Constitutional government formed on limited government principles. And the day that the Founders signed the Constitution, they also signed the first ten amendments to that Constitution; and those ten amendments were given as a gift, a protection to the individual American. Why? Because our Founders were so concerned about the abuse of taxing authority of their mother country, Great Britain. They were so concerned about that abuse of a taxing authority that they said to the American people in the first ten amendments: We want you to know that your Federal Government will be limited in its power. And in the tenth amendment, they specifically said: These limited powers that we are giving to the Federal Government are all the Federal Government will have. Every other power that there is will be given back to the States. We, the Federal Government, won't hold that power. We give it back to the States. This is very important to realize, because our President doesn't seem to see it that way, Madam Speaker. Our President seems to think that the time and energy and productive years belongs to Uncle Sam and not to the individual. That is a completely different way of looking at the world than what our Founders viewed. This evening, Madam Speaker, Representative King wants to turn the subject now to talking about the gift of life, the gift of human life; the issue that our framers talked about in the Declaration of Independence when they called out for inalienable rights and said that we, Americans, were created by a God; that our creator God created us. He gave us inalienable rights, rights that only God can give, rights that no government confer nor can any government take away. That, among those rights are life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. Tonight, I know that is what Representative Steve King wants to speak about, Madam Speaker. He wants to speak about that cherished gift enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, and why we are so genuinely concerned about the nomination to the Office of Legal Counsel that President Obama is making and the individual that Representative King will be speaking of.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, what we have seen transpire is nothing short of historic. We have seen, since last year, the Federal Government become the bank of first resort and the bank of last resort. We have seen the Federal Government nationalize banks. We have seen the Federal Government step into insurance agencies, become the insurer of first resort and become the insurer of last resort and nationalize the largest insurance company in the United States, AIG. And now what are we seeing in the Treasury Secretary's proposal that was just given out yesterday, or maybe it was the evening before that, is this: Now the Federal Government will become a hedge fund. That is essentially what we are looking at. The Federal Government will become a hedge fund. The only thing is that we will have toxic assets in the hedge fund. How does this work? Again, the taxpayer, John Taxpayer becomes the chump that is holding the bag in all of this. Again, it is the taxpayer that is the forgotten man. Because once again, the Federal Government thinks that the taxpayer is good enough to have to pony up the money for all of these ideas that seem to come out that have a lot more to do with centralized government planning and very little to do resembling free-market capitalism. We are lurching. We are lurching, Madam Speaker, away from free- market capitalism when you come to the point where the Federal Government now decides to throw the dice and become a hedge fund and the taxpayer is the one who is there for all of the loss but not for the gain. I yield back.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Exactly. And we haven't got the question answered yet. It appears that only large institutional investors, a Goldman Sachs or someone like that, will be able to get in on these sweetheart deals. I don't know too many Joe Averages that will be able to buy into this great deal. So think of it this way in your example: You have $1 million worth of mortgage-backed securities. How much skin in the game would this private investor have? Again, public-private? Public is $950,000 worth of Federal tax money to $50,000 worth of investment from the private person. But yet what if the yield is positive? For a $50,000 investment, you could have a $500,000 gain. That is pretty amazing. Whereas the Federal Government would be losing 95 percent, and there is nothing to lose when it comes to the private investor.

Mrs. BACHMANN. And to help him make his statements for him because these are written statements that become binding precedent within the President's office. This is an amazing amount of power.

Mrs. BACHMANN. And if the gentleman would yield on AIG, let's not forget what AIG was. Once the American Government came in and federalized AIG, AIG was essentially a pass-through entity, meaning Federal tax dollars passed through AIG, went directly to Europe and made whole foreign investors. So this is what the taxpayer was paying for. The taxpayer gave money to bail out foreign investors. My question is, foreign investors were made whole 100 percent across the board. Goldman Sachs--and I'm not trying to pick on them--but they were made whole $13 billion, 100 percent. My question, Madam Speaker, is will the American taxpayer be made whole 100 percent? And when will they be made whole, if ever?

Mrs. BACHMANN. If there is one final thing I can add to the gentleman's remarks. It was amazing this afternoon. President Obama had made a statement when he was with the prime minister of Australia. And he was asking Congress to give more power to the Treasury Secretary. As if they don't have enough already, he wants more power to the Treasury Secretary, which means more power for himself, because the Treasury Secretary represents the President. He wants more power for what? So that if a private corporation becomes in trouble--we are not talking about a bank now. We are talking about a private corporation that becomes in trouble, he wants the Treasury Secretary to have unilateral authority, on his own decision, to walk into a private business and essentially nationalize it, take it over and reorganize. I'll tell you what. If investors are worried now about the Federal Government coming in, opening up private compensation contracts and deciding to lower the amount of the wage value, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because the Federal Government is going to come in with its Marxist view of economics and make a decision about who is allowed to make what wage based upon what government thinks. This is one of the scariest ideas to come down the pike.

Mrs. BACHMANN. And we also have a great institution in Minnesota, a great bank, Twin City Federal. Twin City Federal took some of the TARP money, some of the Federal bailout money. They did so because they felt if they didn't they would appear weak because the money was supposed to be only given to strong banks. Twin City Federal made the remarkable move about 1 month ago to return the TARP money. And people didn't know if a bank even had that ability to return the money. But they said they wanted to. They wanted nothing to do with TARP. I think now they are very happy that they got out of that program now that they see the Federal Government has no hesitation to step into a company and now go in and renegotiate the wage contracts between upper management and high-end employees.

Mrs. BACHMANN. And it makes me wonder if we will have politically correct wage decisions that will be made. For instance, if you are an executive at a wind-powered plant, is it okay for you to make $800,000 a year; but if you are the president of an oil company, we don't like you so you are only going to make $60,000 a year. You wonder what kind of decisions are coming down the road. And again, this has nothing to do with free market capitalism or getting our country back in order. This has everything to do with the banana republic and bringing our country's finances down the road to bankruptcy. I yield back.

Mrs. BACHMANN. And if we could just speak a little bit more about the importance of this office, the Office of Legal Counsel. The gentleman had quoted from Newsweek magazine. Newsweek went on to say that this role as Office of Legal Counsel acts as a kind of mini Supreme Court. This office is the President's legal counsel, for all practical purposes. They issue opinions, much like judicial opinions, kind of a mini Supreme Court. Newsweek went on to say its carefully worded opinions are regarded as binding precedent, as final say on what the President and all his agencies can and cannot legally do. I can't think of a more important office to whisper into the President's ear about where the President will come down and stand on issues. The other thing to recognize, the Office of Legal Counsel is a training ground, so to speak, for future Supreme Court justices. This individual that the President has nominated for this position, previous occupants were Antonin Scalia, William Rehnquist. This is very important that we know who this person is that will be whispering in the President's ear.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If I could add to the gentleman's remarks. I think that the other thing that is glaring in this statement by Ms. Johnson is the fact that she said, recognizing a compelling State interest in protecting the fetus. I would just like to remind her that the State is not only interested in protecting the fetus, the State is also interested in protecting the woman. Many States all across the United States of America have laws known as women's right to know because there is an intention that women who are abortion-minded know what the consequence of that decision will mean. Many women become infertile for life. Once they have an abortion they can never bear another child after that. And many women don't know what the consequences of an early abortion will be. That is a violent act. An abortion is a violent act to a woman's body. Also, women have tremendous emotional pain that they may deal with, not just for an afternoon, or not just for a weekend, they may, for the next 10 years, suffer with depression and all manner of disorders that they may have to deal with emotionally for years and years because they didn't fully comprehend the consequences of their decision. And while women should never be viewed as fetal containers--I have never heard any more crass language in my life than the imagery that Dawn Johnson brought up--it is also true that babies are more than a product of tissue. Babies are a gift. Just as women are a gift, babies are a gift. Human life is to be cherished, not discarded.

Mrs. BACHMANN. We had great kids, Representative King. That's how we did it, and a great husband.

Mrs. BACHMANN. It almost seems contrary to feminism because feminism empowers women and believes that women have the capability to give consent, informed consent. The way that this is written by Dawn Johnson, it appears that she is saying that women are without capacity to give consent even in an area of becoming pregnant.

Mrs. BACHMANN. And if I could just correct the gentleman, my opinion is that every child is a wanted child. That is one of Planned Parenthood's trademarks that, I believe, is one of the biggest myths that has been perpetrated in the last 40 years--every child a wanted child----