Paul Broun

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would simply repeal the outdated and expensive dairy price support law enacted as part of the Agriculture Act of 1949. This provision created a commodity support policy for dairy production that, though suspended upon the enactment of each farm bill that has been reauthorized, it still remains on the books as permanent law. That this old law is still technically in effect is a problem for two reasons: First, the price support calculations essentially establish a ``floor'' for milk prices, which is set at twice the current market price. This means that the Federal Government would be required to step in and purchase surplus milk at double the current purchase price, which would drive up costs for taxpayers but would also result in a higher cost at the grocery store, potentially making a typical gallon of milk cost $7. This will hurt the most vulnerable in our society-- poor children and seniors on a limited income. This potential and likely unintended consequence is troubling, but more troubling is that this old law threatens to rear its ugly head every time the farm bill expires before it is reauthorized. In fact, we faced this very issue at the beginning of this year, though it was buried in the larger ``fiscal cliff'' deal that passed on January 1. Mr. Chairman, in this time of congressional gridlock, we've seen bailouts, failed stimulus bills, near-government shutdowns, and panic about sequestration and tax hikes. The last thing we need is one more ``cliff'' for Americans to fall off of. This law is outdated, it is unused and is ultimately a nuisance which requires a patch every time Congress fails to renew the larger farm bill, which, unfortunately, is a frequent occurrence. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman from Oklahoma yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. The reason is that the milk price support is actually a ``floor'' for the cost at which the government buys surplus milk. What that will do is raise the cost that the government is going to have to pay for this surplus milk, which is just going to cost the taxpayers more money.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have left?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. From the comments my good friend from Minnesota and my good friend from Oklahoma stated, maybe we should repeal the whole '49 law. I would be all in favor of working with both gentlemen to try to find some way to do that. I'm sure both gentlemen would be very eager to not have the incentive to go back to that law as a piecemeal way of trying to deal with these problems. My friend from Minnesota is exactly right. I used to farm. I've been a dairy farmer. I had Holstein cows. I was a true farmer--I've raised feeder steers; I've hay-farmed; I've truck-farmed; and I've row- cropped. I know agriculture. I wasn't a gentleman farmer. I'd climb in the back of the combine between stops and change the air drum. So I know agriculture. I know the biggest problem agriculture faces today is the regulation, particularly from EPA. I'd like to see those regulations rolled back because that would help our agriculture more than any other thing that we could do, and I would be all in favor of doing that. The reason I brought the milk part of the old law forward was exactly the reason my good friend from Minnesota stated, in that you have to milk cows not once a day but at least twice a day, sometimes three. The milk support price that is guaranteed in this underlying law will raise costs if we go back to that and it stays in place. If we don't have the farm bill suspended or reauthorized, then what happens is the Federal Government is going to pay much higher prices for milk, and that's going to increase the cost in the grocery store for all Americans, and it's going to hurt the poor people, particularly poor children and senior citizens. Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 1797, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, there's a lot going on in our country right now, but we here in Congress need to remember that the number one priority remains getting our economy back on track. That's why, today, I reintroduced the original JOBS Act. My JOBS Act would reduce the corporate tax rate and capital gains tax to zero. It would totally eliminate them. It would also extend for 3 years bonus depreciation and would allow 100 percent expensing for business assets. Finally, the JOBS Act would permanently repeal the estate and gift taxes--the death taxes. My bill would give businesses the boost that they need to create more jobs. It would stimulate our economy and would bring manufacturing jobs back to America. I urge my colleagues to support my JOBS Act.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank the chairman for yielding. I am pleased to support this en bloc amendment which includes important language to put a stop to the practice of using drones to kill Americans and prevent any administration in the future from doing so as well. The only exception would be if a citizen is actively engaged in combat against the United States. Not plotting, not suspected, but currently engaging in combat. Attorney General Eric Holder made it perfectly clear in a recent white paper that the administration believes that they have the right to be judge, jury and executioner of any and all American citizens. My amendment would correct this dangerous overreach and defend Americans' God-given constitutionally protected rights. However, while this will curtail the threat of drones, I'm disappointed that another of my amendments was not made in order to address another overarching issue. Along with my colleague from California, Congresswoman Lee, I sponsored an amendment to sunset the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Afghanistan, a provision that has outrageously expanded the powers of the Federal Government. This law has allowed our government to engage in indefinite detention, extrajudicial targeted killing, warrantless surveillance and wiretapping activities, and the open-ended expansion of military operations abroad. It's time for this provision to go. And if we need additional war authorizations, they should be narrow and clear, as our Founders intended. It's time to end this abuse of power by our Federal Government. I will continue working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to meet that goal and to restore liberty in America.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the amendment.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would completely eliminate funding for the Transportation Security Administration, TSA, and transfer that money to the spending reduction account, saving taxpayers nearly $5 billion. Congress intended for TSA to be an efficient, cutting-edge, intelligence-based agency responsible for protecting our airports and keeping our passengers safe and secure, but today it has grown into one of the largest bureaucracies in the Federal Government. They've had a 400 percent increase in staff since they were created. A good portion of those are headquarters employees making six-figure incomes, on the average. What's worse is that the American passengers aren't getting a good return on the more than $60 billion investment that they've spent on TSA. Reports indicate that more than 25,000--repeat, 25,000--security breaches have occurred in U.S. airports since 2001. Plus, we have evidence today that terrorists on the no-fly list still have been able to board U.S. aircraft--terrorists boarding U.S. aircraft, in spite of TSA. Furthermore, we've seen report after report on TSA employees displaying a lack of professionalism, being inadequately trained, and even engaging in theft and other illegal activities. Just about the only thing that the TSA is consistently good at is using its extensive power to violate American travelers' civil liberties. Veterans, the disabled, the elderly, and even small children have been the victims of overly invasive searches by TSA officers. This is all evidence that the TSA has veered dangerously off course. I've repeatedly asked that we use our resources to focus on intelligence and technologies that could be more effective when it comes to catching terrorists. I've called for the privatization of TSA, and so have many other of my colleagues. But we still have yet to see the necessary changes made to the TSA personnel or to its procedures that will ensure the safety and security of our airports and passengers. Mr. Chairman, this amendment to zero out funding for the TSA forces Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to start from scratch on a leaner, more effective, and more focused and more productive system for protecting our U.S. citizens. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chairman, my amendment would zero out our contribution to the brand-new NATO headquarters in Brussels and transfer that amount, more than $38 million, to the spending reduction account to help us deal with our debt. This line item within the bill is the very definition of ridiculous. The U.S. is furloughing civilian military personnel and sacrificing our own military readiness here at home, policies with which I disagree. And yet, here we are, sending millions of dollars overseas to build a lavish new headquarters for the international bureaucrats in NATO. Madam Chairman, the planned NATO headquarters is an unfortunate example of excess and waste. While every NATO member-nation is cutting back on overall spending, the new headquarters remains on track as a monument to bureaucracy. In total, the building will cost well over $1 billion to build, and it's taken 13 years just to finalize the plans. If we are serious about confronting our spending problem, we must fundamentally re-evaluate our priorities. We don't need to help NATO build a new headquarters. We need to ask what are we doing in NATO in the first place. The Cold War is over. It's time to stop policing Europe and start worrying about our deficit. I encourage all Members to support this commonsense amendment to help us reduce our spending and to pay off our unsustainable debt. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. My amendment would totally zero out the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Security Investment Program and transfer its nearly $200 million into the spending reduction account. The world has changed dramatically since the creation of NATO. Its mission, as stated by the first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, is ``to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.'' I have a hard time seeing how this is relevant to our post-Soviet world and a post-Cold War world. In this modern age and in this time of domestic fiscal emergency, it makes no sense for the United States to manage the defense of Europe through NATO. And it certainly makes no sense for us to pay such a large share of it. It's time for us to wind down our involvement with NATO instead of making up new justifications for this defense warfare. Madam Chair, our Nation is broke. We have an unsustainable debt. We're spending money that's going to crush our children's future and make their future much dimmer than it is today. We have to reallocate our resources and put them towards what's going to deal with this unsustainable debt. We've got to stop this out-of-control spending. Both parties are guilty of doing so. Though some would say nearly $200 million is just a paltry amount, when our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are not getting the finances that they need and when Americans are struggling just to make ends meet and we have an economy that is really hurting and jobs are not being created and students are not having jobs when they graduate from college, we have to deal with this debt that's unsustainable. This $200 million would be transferred into the spending reduction account and help us to start--just a small start--to stop this out-of-control spending. It's absolutely critical that we do so. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I appreciate the comments from my dear friend from Texas. He and I have been involved in trying to cut spending in many ways for a long period of time. In fact, I have a freestanding bill to zero out spending for the United Nations. I want to get the U.N. out of the U.S. and the U.S. out of the U.N. And so that's to come, I promise you. That will be coming. I'll give you that opportunity. And you're exactly right, Social Security and Medicare need to be fixed so that our senior citizens and poor people have the proper help that they need. And I'm all for that, too. But we've got to cut where we can. I'm a marine. I was deployed to Afghanistan last year as a Navy reservist. And I believe in a strong military. I believe in peace through strength. And we've got to have the strongest military in the world. I don't believe our military should ever be in a fair fight. We need to be in a fight that's overwhelming. But NATO is a relic of the Cold War. It's a relic that we need to look at. And when we have such a huge debt--almost $17 trillion--we need to cut wherever we can, whenever we can. I think it's extremely important for us to reorder our priorities, particularly across the world, and getting rid of this money for NATO is a way of doing that.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Dr. Burgess, thank you for yielding. The ObamaCare law must be ripped out by its roots, and it needs to be replaced with something that makes sense for my patients and my colleagues so that we can deliver good quality health care. ObamaCare is a destroyer. It's going to destroy the doctor-patient relationship. It's going to destroy the quality of health care in America. It's going to destroy budgets: personal budgets, family budgets, business budgets, State budgets, and even the Federal budget. It's a big spending bill. We've got to stop this outrageous spending. I just got off the phone with our Governor, Nathan Deal, and he told me that the cost of health care for State employees in Georgia has gone up 12 percent because of ObamaCare, and it's going higher. I just got an email from a businessman in Georgia who said that his premiums have doubled since last year because of ObamaCare. We must rip it out by the roots and replace it with my Patient OPTION Act that's a market-based, patient-centered health care plan that will literally make health care cheaper for everybody in this country. It will provide coverage for all Americans, and it's going to save Medicare from going broke. ObamaCare is going to break the bank for everybody, and it just must be repealed and replaced with my Patient OPTION Act.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentlelady yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. It's ObamaCare that's running the cost up, not the insurance companies.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I'm amazed by the sheer ignorance of the economic disaster that our country is facing. Not only are our leaders ignoring this crisis, they're denying there is even a problem. This week we'll vote on six budget options, and five of them actually increase spending above today's level. Simply reducing the growth of spending will do nothing to address the economic emergency that we face. The idea that we're increasing spending, but not as much as the other guy, is severely misguided. We have to dig deeper and make real, targeted cuts, and there has to be a sense of urgency about it. Only the RSC budget actually cuts our baseline spending level and will lead to a balanced budget faster than the alternatives. We must live within our means. I thank my friend, Congressman Woodall, for recognizing that we need to cut the outrageous spending and offering this budget today.