Paul Broun

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding, and I just wanted to make a comment. I just respectfully disagree with my friend from out West and from Oregon about his very impassioned debate here, and I understand that my friend is very passionate about this. As a physician, I am very concerned about animal bites myself. But I don't see where this bill is going to stop animal bites. I don't see where it's going to stop primate bites. If you want to outlaw primate ownership, then maybe that bill is one that you bring to the floor. I am not sure how we would vote on that, but I don't see how we can compare ownership of a primate or even a lion or a tiger to dogfighting and cockfighting. They are totally separate entities and so totally separate issues. This is going to cost money when we are in a situation where the American public is fixing to be asked to increase their taxes, and we passed just 2 weeks ago, week-and-a-half ago, a huge stimulus bill that I don't think is going to stimulate the economy. But I do know this, increasing Federal spending and increasing Federal purview into people's lives, particularly States' lives, is not in the best interests of our taxpayers. It's not in the best interests of America, and, frankly, I carry a copy of the Constitution in my pocket all the time and I don't see anything in this document that allows us to continue to expand the size of the Federal Government like we are doing. So I just wanted to make a comment that I very much appreciate your impassioned remarks. I understand the horrible accident that my friend from Utah was not trying to belittle in any way whatsoever, and I am sure he would tell you the same thing, and I know that he has a heart just like we all do. This bill is not going to stop that type of activity, and I don't think it's in the best interests of America.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I appreciate what the gentleman says. Would you please explain to me how this bill is going to stop the horrific accident that occurred in Connecticut? I don't see how this bill will do that, and I would appreciate it if you would explain how this is going to prevent animal bites.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. But do you compare this to dog fighting?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Surely you're not suggesting that owning a primate is equal to cockfighting or dog fighting. Surely the gentleman is not suggesting that. I don't think you can compare. We're comparing apples to oranges in that situation. I don't support dog fighting. I don't support cockfighting. I'm a physician and I have treated a lot of animal bites in my career. But in my opinion, I don't think this is going to prevent animal bites of any kind, even primate bites, and the only person who is going to get bitten in this is the American taxpayer. You may say $5 million is not a lot of money, but the thing is the American public is going to be bitten in the wallet and it's going to be a program that is going to continue for some period of time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I rise in support of this bill. And actually it's one of the very few truly constitutional things we've seen around here recently. This government has mistreated terribly the Native American population in this country, and I think it's fitting that we recognize and honor Chief Geronimo. I live in northeast Georgia, and I represent an area where the Cherokee Nation was and still have a lot of Cherokee people in the northern part of my district in northeast Georgia in the mountains. I also live in an area where the Creek Indians resided. And this government has terribly mistreated the Native American population, not only in the past, but they continue to do so. We need to make changes, policy changes to bring the Native American people into this government, into this Nation as true, full citizens of this country. And we're not doing that. And I support honoring Geronimo. Having said that, I also want to add that there are a lot of things that this Congress is doing that are deplorable besides the way we mistreat the Native American people. The way this budget bill that's going to be brought to the floor of this House this week I think is deplorable. Half trillion dollar omnibus bill. Most people don't understand that word ``omnibus,'' I don't think. It's hard for me, as a Georgian, to even pronounce it. So I don't expect a lot of people to understand what that means. But what happened in the last Congress is the majority decided not to pass any budget bills and put it off until this Congress because they were hoping that they would have a President who was more favorable to the marked expansion of government that we've already seen proposed in this new budget. Just before we went on this President's Day break, this House passed, the Senate passed, the President signed into law very quickly, without much debate or much discussion and, generally, without any ability of the American public to look at the bill, in spite of this House passing unanimously an instruction to our Members of the House not to bring it to this floor without the American public being able to view on-line, for 48 hours, the $1.1- or $1.2 trillion so-called stimulus bill. I call it a non-stimulus bill. We're going to have a bill come this week. We're not going to be able to amend it. We'll have very little debate. It's not even been produced in totality yet. And frankly, as I look at this Constitution, a lot of the things that we do in this House and in the Senate and the President and even in the courts are not according to the intent of our Founding Fathers. Article I, Section 8 enumerates a list of functions of the Federal Government. There are only 18 things we're supposed to be passing bills about, only 18. The 10th amendment of the Constitution says, by golly, we mean it. The 10th amendment says, if a function is not specifically given to the Federal Government, by the Constitution, in other words, those 18 things in Article I, Section 8, if it's not prohibited from the States, things that are prohibited in the States, setting up interstate tariffs and things like that, those rights are reserved for the States and the people. We pass bill after bill in this House that are totally unconstitutional. The Federal court system rules over and over again about the constitutionality of State law and Federal law and rule unconstitutionally according to the original intent. And we are spending our grandchildren's future. Our grandchildren are going to live at a lower standard of living than we do today because of these massive bills that we are passing in this Congress and we passed in the last Congress. It's totally objectionable, totally deplorable and totally unacceptable to me of how we're doing business in this Congress and how we did business in the last Congress. We've got to stop spending the future of America. We have to have a strong national defense and national security. Those things are constitutional. Those things should be the major function of the Federal Government. And I just call upon my colleagues in this House and my colleagues over in the Senate to just take a step back and look at what we're doing. We're killing the American entrepreneurial system. We're killing the free markets. We're killing the future economic well-being of our children and our grandchildren because of these huge spending bills. We can't debate them. We can't amend them. We can't do anything except for vote on them. And it's being shoved down the throats of the American people. And that's totally unacceptable to me. I ask my colleagues, liberal and conservative alike, to look at what we're doing. We've got to stop borrowing and spending America's future because it's not going to work. That's exactly what we're doing. We're robbing little Johnny and little Mary's piggy bank and their children's piggy bank to grow a bigger socialistic government. It has to stop. These huge spending bills are not going to solve the economic woes. Americans are hurting. We have to do something. But what we do, or what we've been doing here is growing a bigger government. What we've been doing here is basically putting in place tax policy and Federal policy that's going to destroy freedom in America. We've got to stop it. We cannot continue down this road. We're going down a road of socialism. We had this non-stimulus bill that was shoved down the throats of the American public, shoved down our throats in this House and in the Senate, and it's going to strangle the American economy, and it's going to kill America's economic future. It has to stop. And we need to stop it this week. We cannot continue these big spending bills. We don't even have regular order on all these bills that come to the floor of the House. We have bill after bill with tax increases, spending, that are brought under suspensions, passed by unanimous consent. I find that deplorable and unacceptable. We need to call this--as Americans, we need to call this House and this Senate back to regular order. We need to stop this destruction of freedom and this rapid move to socialism in America. I want to honor Geronimo. I want to honor the Apache people. They've done a fantastic job with their wildlife management. I wish I could afford to go out there and hunt sheep, elk or field deer. We have done a disservice to the Native American people and continue to do so. We did to Geronimo. And this bill will honor Geronimo. But we cannot continue the disservice to the American taxpayers, to our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I stand here today because Americans face a fork in the road. One path leads to socialism, and the other path leads to freedom. This non-stimulus bill is the road to socialism. It will give us a journey that includes bureaucratic controls, high taxes, government intervention, Cuba-style medicine, and economic collapse of America. This steamroller of socialism is being shoved down our throats, and it will strangle our economy. This porkulous bill has a few decent provisions in it, but it's mostly filled with mystery meat. Rancid meat. Like the millions for plug-in government cars and millions for mouse restoration that will ruin the entire meal. The captivating rhetoric about openness and transparency is providing cover for the rancid meat. Another tainted bite includes a move towards socialized medicine. As a physician, I'm deeply concerned about the breach of privacy and the abuse of care that is hidden in this stimulus bill, especially for senior citizens. The vague language could potentially deny life-giving care to the elderly. You see, $2 billion is allocated in this non-stimulus bill for the new National Coordinator of Health Information--or you can call him ``Dr. Doom.'' Dr. Doom, the government's own human health care calculator, will make his or her own calculations to determine if your needed care is cost efficient. The vague nature of this language could lead to health care rationing for elderly people and handcuffing the development of life-saving drugs to fight infections all because Dr. Doom doesn't deem them to be cost efficient. When momma falls and breaks her hip, she will just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient. I'm a medical doctor, and I'm certain that the Federal Government can no more determine what type of case is the most cost-effective and appropriate for my patients than they can determine how best to educate our children or spend our hard-earned tax dollars. This is what happens when Congress considers a bill that costs $1 trillion. Convenient little billions just slip on in. You'd think $1 trillion would at least buy time and public scrutiny. Not by this bill. It's true that our economy needs a significant jolt that requires immediate attention, but there is another direction we can go. Congress could come together promptly to create jobs, restore faith in markets, and again unleash America's entrepreneurial spirit. The American people have a choice. There's a better alternative that I've cosponsored to provide fast-acting tax relief for hardworking families and small businesses that will create twice the jobs at half the cost of this bill. We must give small businesses the capital they need to employ workers and to buy inventory. Congress should suspend or eliminate the capital gains tax to provide an inflow of tax into our economy. Next, we must eliminate the death tax so that family businesses can continue to thrive and produce high-paying jobs. And ultimately, let's support tax relief for our hardworking families and save future generations from this 784-pound gorilla that's in this room. Americans must choose in which direction we will go. It will be disastrous to let politicians make that decision for us. Are we going to have government run our families and our neighborhoods? Are we going to take care of ourselves and help our neighbors? Are we going to make decisions about our own lives, where our children go the school, make our own health care decisions, and how to spend our own hard-earned money; or is government going to do that for us? Liberals need to stop pretending that the American people can't tell the difference between SPAM and filet mignon. Instead of the wasteful mystery pork that this bill gives us, let's give the American taxpayers and entrepreneurs the red meat that they need to stimulate the American economy: permanent tax relief and job creation incentives. Madam Speaker, let me be clear. The people in Georgia are hurting. They want action, and they want it now. But nine out of ten of them oppose this bill. They want an alternative. We have alternatives that won't even be considered by leadership. Normally, I implore my colleagues to vote a certain way, but today I urge the American people to call, write, and e-mail and tell your U.S. senator and congressman to vote ``no'' on this rancid meat and demand alternatives be considered. Let's demand the road to freedom.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Speaker Pelosi, as well as President Obama, talked about wanting to have a new era of openness and transparency. And that is exactly what this motion to instruct is all about. It is to bring openness and transparency of this huge bill to the American public. And I can't understand why my Democrat colleagues seem to be so bent on getting this bill to the floor and passed, because we don't even know what all is in there. I understand that the $600 million that were originally slated in the House bill to prepare America for socialized medicine has been expanded to $2 billion. And the American public has the possibility of having their health care decisions made by some health care czar and some bureaucracy here in the Federal Government, not by their doctor. And in fact, their doctor may be even chosen by this health care czar. This is not right. This is not transparency. This is not fairness. The American people deserve better than this. So I encourage my Democratic colleagues to look at this motion to instruct and to support it so that the American people can see what is in this bill. We can come back next week or some time or even through the weekend. We can put it online today. And we can vote on it on Friday evening or Thursday evening if you will just do that. So I encourage my Democratic colleagues to support this motion to instruct so that we can have the transparency that the American public deserves.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. That is what I wanted to clarify, if you don't mind yielding back a second. But the thing is, the President of the United States, President Bush, who I have not always been in agreement with on many things, but he was asking to regulate these GSEs, government-sponsored enterprises, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And it was actually Freddie and Fannie, along with the Community Reinvestment Act, plus the low interest rates that were out there so that these subprime loans could be made. This is what created our housing bubble that just rose so quickly and then burst so rapidly that the housing prices went down. If I remember correctly, the Republicans in the House, we also, in fact, passed a bill. Is that not correct?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, that's the point I was trying to make if the gentleman would yield.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. That's exactly the point I'm trying to make is that this whole banking industry debacle was crazy and it was set up by policy that Congress established, and Republicans tried to do something about it because we, as the Republican Party, people here in the House, members of the Banking Committee in the Senate, Financial Services over here on the House side, realized that this was a disaster in the making and they tried to do something about it. And every effort that we did was blocked by the Democrats, who, right now, today want to force down the throat of the American people this stimulus bill that, in reality, is nothing, nothing but a steam roller of socialism that's being shoved down the throat of the American public and it's going to strangle to death the American economy, as well as the American people.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Absolutely. If the gentleman will yield, I'm a physician, as the gentleman knows. And in medical practice we look at problems and we try to find solutions to those problems. In fact, it is quite different from what lawyers do. Lawyers generally just argue problems. We try to fix problems. We try to find solutions to those problems. And so we look at all the symptoms. We look at the causative factors that come to bear in any disease entity. Now we've got a horrible disease problem of a poor economy. The American people are hurting, hurting terribly. And we're right now in a debate about a bill that the House passed last week, the Senate is taking it up now. But there is in my opinion a tremendous amount of blindness by our colleagues, particularly on the other side, about what are the causation factors of the housing burst that has really created this economic problem that we have in this Nation. And I commend the gentleman for bringing this up because that statement that the New York Times put in place, I think, is very indicative of what's going on now. And I heard the same people who were arguing back in 2003 and earlier against regulating Fannie and Freddie, those same people, when we were talking about the TARP funds, the Wall Street bailout, kept making a case that we need to make more of these loans in the name of affordable housing, make those loans to people who cannot afford to pay them.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I appreciate that. So, the Community Reinvestment Act, and that is where I was going, and I appreciate your mentioning that, and ACORN became a bunch of thugs using extortion. That is what I hear from my bankers at home in Georgia, that ACORN folks would come in and threaten them because they couldn't expand their services and they couldn't put in ATM machines unless they would make these bad loans. And that is what created this whole financial debacle. And the blame, though, lies right at the feet of the people who are pushing this stimulus package saying it was free enterprise.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. But it was not the free enterprise system. It was not deregulation. It was not anything except for the Democrats here in Congress that blocked regulation. And it was, actually, there were programs that were established by Congress. If I remember correctly, the Carter administration passed the Community Reinvestment Act initially. And under the Clinton administration it was markedly expanded to force banks to make these loans where people couldn't pay. Is that not correct?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Akin, I just appreciate your yielding time. I would like to clarify something you said here just for my own personal edification and I hope the edification of the people who are watching tonight. You said just a few moments ago that the President of the United States asked for more regulatory authority over Freddie and Fannie. Is that correct?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Okay. Thank you. I've got a friend who's in the timber land business. He buys and sells timber land. And he was telling me a story during this whole period of time when real estate prices were going up. He had a piece of property in my district on the market for $1.3 million. A gentleman came in and said, I want to buy your land. My buddy said fine. Here's the contract. The buyer signed it. Went to closing. My good friend, when he got to closing, of course, got his check for the $1.3 million. But he found out because of the problems with the banking industry making these sub prime low doc, no doc, low documentation, no documentation loans, that the buyer actually borrowed $1.7 million for a $1.3 million piece of property. So he put $400,000 cash money in his pocket. Now, if the property went up to $2 million or 2.1 or $2 million then the bank would be happy. Both the buyer, and the seller in this deal would have been happy, and everybody would have been fine. But my friend found out that the buyer had no job. He had no assets. He had no way to pay for this loan for $1.7 million.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I'd like to tell you and the American public a story if you yield just another minute or two.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, I have to leave in a second.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I think it's a crying shame that the majority's not using regular order. We wouldn't have this if we were using regular order on this bill and many others. And I suggest that the majority start using regular order for all these bills.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. So I want to confirm this. You will file it today.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank the gentlelady. If I may inquire of the majority manager, I have a question regarding section 2 of the rule. This provision changes the date by which the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations must file explanatory materials related to the omnibus appropriations bill. It is my understanding that the date change in section 2 of the rule is necessary because the text of the omnibus is not available at this time. May I confirm for the record that it is still the majority's intent to make this material available at the same time the omnibus bill is introduced? I will yield to the gentleman for an answer.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. This is the biggest grab of social spending, our biggest budget bill we have ever faced in the Congress, I believe. Do you know of any bigger?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding. You know, Mr. Akin, as we dealt with this issue, I think there are a lot of Democrats around this country who want the same thing that we do, and that's jobs. But I think they've been sold a bill of goods by Speaker Pelosi and the liberal leadership in this House and in the Senate too, as well as what President Obama is promoting. Because, in my opinion, this bill is not going to create jobs. It may create some government jobs, but, actually, as you said, what it actually does is take money out of the economy. It takes away from those who are producing and it gives to government. And what it does is it creates a bigger government that's not going to ever go away. This is a huge leap towards socialism in our country. To give my picture of this, this is a steamroll of socialism. It's a steamroll of socialism that's being forced down the throats of the American people and down the throats of most Democrats and Republicans alike in this House.