John Carter

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. We are talking about people who break this law in this country. We all, every one of us support immigration, good legal immigration in this country, because that's who we are. Every one of us, unless we are an American, a Native American is an illegal immigrant.

Mr. CARTER. That's exactly right. This is his responsibility. He chose to be our leader, he needs to lead on this issue. It is absolutely inexcusable to let a head of a major department, whose purpose is to protect the innocent of this country, to accuse possibly 80 percent of Americans of being right-wing extremists.

Mr. CARTER. You know, I am just reading some more of our report, it just continues to be more and more offensive. The category where this provision comes from, talking about right- wing extremists being our returning veterans, some examples given, after Operation Desert Shield/Storm 1990-1991, some returning military veterans, including Timothy McVeigh, joined and associated with right- wing extremist groups. Yes, maybe Timothy McVeigh did, but the veterans that Mike Burgess just read about, they didn't. Okay? They served their Nation, and they have left the military service and have been good citizens of his congressional district, and yet they lumped them with Timothy McVeigh. Another one says, a prominent civil rights organization report, without telling us who they are, ``that large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the United States Armed Forces.'' That is so insulting, it's beyond belief, it's beyond belief. It is condemning every bit of our Armed Forces. So basically they are there. We are not sure who they are. Watch them all. Watch they all. They have got a uniform on. If it says Iraq or Afghanistan or has that American flag, keep an eye on those guys. They might shave their head when they get home and be a skin head. What kind of paranoia is this? It's just beyond belief that there is this kind of thought processes beginning this term of an American President, someone he put in this position.

Mr. CARTER. I thank my good friend for his comments. Let me read something just for a moment from this report, let me read something. As we recall, we have had a lot of discussion on this floor by our friends on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats, about some of the things that they are concerned about in manufacturing. Let me read you another definition of right-wing extremists. ``Right- wing extremist views bemoan the decline of the U.S. stature and have recently focused on themes such as U.S. manufacturing capability going to China and India. Russian control of interview resources and the use of these to pressure other countries, and China's investment in the United States real estate and corporations, are part of the subversive strategy.'' Wait a minute, we have been arguing on the floor of this House with Democrats bemoaning China taking jobs away from the manufacturing industry. Good Lord, they are domestic terrorists. Good Lord, you know, I am pretty dad gum mad about this, and I agree with my colleagues. Mr. President, fire that woman. Ms. Napolitano, this is inexcusable to go on television and say, your apology would be, ``I am sorry you were offended by this report. That's no apology. That's saying I am sorry, you have got a chance to read it, and know what our plans were for you in the future. Mr. President, respectfully, this woman deserves firing. I think it's time we act. I yield to my friend from Minnesota.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time for a moment, the other thing that is very offensive to me--and I think it should be very offensive to every American--is that this report, when you read it--and we haven't even touched it, but I am going to tell you I am going to touch it right now--almost every paragraph begins, ``Due to the election of an African American President.'' They are lumping everyone who disagrees politically with them, they are lumping them all into a racist category. And that is offensive to me. That should be offensive to every single free American that breathes a breath on this soil because disagreeing with your government does not make you a racist against electing an African American. With all that we have done and this great victory of an African American President that everybody recognizes as a turning point in the history of America, and then to say, but anyone that disagrees with anything he says or anything he does or anything anybody under his auspices does is a racist and a domestic terrorist? I agree with the gentlelady from Minnesota; it is time to talk seriously about who is in charge of the new Obama department that we have got that is supposed to be protecting our Nation, Homeland Security. I have my very good friend and colleague, one of my classmates, and a very intelligent gentleman, Mr. Burgess from Texas, who has been my buddy since we got here, and I am glad to yield the time he needs.

Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and my good friend, very much for his comments. As you were saying that, you know, I had to think, if you are first classifying people who disagree with you as terrorists, or dangerous, then the next step is dealing with those people. The next step may be, we'll read headlines like this, ``Venezuelan Government arrests Chavez opponent.'' ``Equatorial Guinea: Arrest and torture of political opponents.'' ``Zimbabwe arrests opposition leaders.'' ``Britain tells Pakistan Government don't arrest political opponents.'' ``Obama administration issues warning over right-wing extremists.'' What is the next headline going to say? I am not trying to be a scare factor, but when you start classifying ordinary Americans who disagree with you as an extremist, we have to be concerned. I am not going to change my position on State's rights and the right of our States under our Constitution. I am not going to change my position on abortion. I am not going to change my position on the right to keep and bear arms. And if I have to go to prison for it, I am going to do it because that is what our Founding Fathers would have done. And that is where we have got to be. I yield back to Mrs. Bachmann.

Mr. CARTER. We are not talking about people who came here illegally and meet their obligation to the country, get in line and become good American citizens.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, I am going to yield just briefly to Mr. Brady.

Mr. CARTER. Not really.

Mr. CARTER. If I could reclaim my time to point out to the gentlelady what we've got in this definition that I have got on this board right here. And it says, ``right-wing extremism,'' I like this right here where it says ``those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting Federal authority in favor of State and local authority. Then, if I understood what the TEA parties were all about, the TEA parties were all about all of these millions of people that came out to express their right to free speech and to demonstrate and to step up and petition their government and say, ``You know what? We don't like what the Federal Government is doing. We don't like the way you're taxing. We don't like the way you're spending.'' Guess what? The Obama administration just classified them as right-wing extremists, terrorists. Now, if the gentlelady needs to conclude her remarks and then--or maybe I will let Mr. Brady take over and then we will come back to you. Kevin Brady, my good friend from Texas. I will yield you as much time as you need.

Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentlelady for her excellent comments on what we're dealing with here. You know, I think these--every kid that ever graduated from high school and took, whether they call it civics now or whether they call it government, and just had a brief study of the Constitution, knows that every single provision of the United States Constitution is equal and that these amendments have a purpose. They define what is our governing body. Remember, every person elected in this Congress and every person who serves in the Federal Government and every person who serves in the State government takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, all parts of the Constitution. The 10th amendment, the part that says all those things that are not specifically given to the Federal Government or aren't specifically excluded from the State government, those powers belong to the States. Now, to say that because a person believes that they ought to support what is written in the Constitution in the 10th amendment, that makes them a right-wing radical, then does somebody who thinks they ought to be able to--that we should support the right of free speech in the First Amendment, does that make you a right-wing radical? Does supporting any amendment or any provision of the Constitution make you a right-wing radical? I had one of my friends today say to me, They are radicalizing the war. If you are a right-wing radical because you're opposed to abortion and you're passionate on that issue, then does that make you a left- wing radical if you favor abortion and are passionate on that issue? If you are a right-wing radical if you believe that our Constitution clearly says that our citizenry has the right to keep and bear arms, do you become a left-wing radical when you believe that the government should regulate and take away the right to keep and bear arms? I mean, at what point does disagreement on issues make you a radical? I see the gentlelady from Minnesota, Mrs. Bachmann, has risen to speak on this issue, and I will yield her such time as she may wish to consume.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Or the wood or the plumbing or the cement or the carpet or the clothing or the food you eat.

Mr. CARTER. And coal.

Mr. CARTER. I'm glad you made that point. What makes America great is the giving of the opportunity to succeed. The parents right now that are sending their children off to college and times are tight. Now they're not throwing money out the window for other projects. They're not going out and buying five flat screen TVs as a good idea to make things better for themselves. No. They're saving that money. They're cutting those costs. They're not eating out every night. They're doing these things so that they can do the projects that they want to do, which is send their kids to college. That's normal budgeting. What we're doing here, what the President's proposing is not commonsense budgeting. It's voodoo economics.

Mr. CARTER. If the gentleman yield, here's not a ``no'' issue on the CO2 but an opportunity. We right now know that we can recapture oil in played out oil fields by charging those oil fields with, guess what, CO2. So there's an industry out there for capturing CO2 and charging oil fields with it. Louisiana knows about it, Texas knows about it, and so does the rest of the world. That means if you put together a plant that captures the CO2, rather than paying a tax so you release it in the atmosphere, and then you take it and put it in trucks and take it down there and put it in the oil fields, you actually produce more of the oil and gas energy that's in the ground, and the CO2 is in the ground. That will actually keep CO2 out of the environment.

Mr. CARTER. If the gentleman would yield for just a moment, in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago, I saw an article about Germany, and Germany has had a cap-and-tax procedure over there now for 5 years. I believe that's what the article said.

Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Actually I have been listening to what you have got to say, and I think it is a really interesting concept, but it is not one we haven't seen before. When I first came to this Congress when the Republicans were in the majority, I happened to be on the Education and Workforce Committee, and No Child Left Behind, everybody was screaming they would need more money. I don't remember the funding numbers, but they were something like $8 billion. So we decided we would accelerate that to $10 billion because it was needed. The minority offered an amendment to make it $15 billion and then put out a press release that said, ``Republicans cut No Child Left Behind $5 billion.'' And they never changed it. And I kept saying, Wait a minute. That's not right. We raised it $2 billion. But from their proposal--which is the right proposal--if you look at this over here, I mean, it is pretty obvious in those out-years, that line is half as big as this big line. It is actually less than half as big, if you look at this. Nobody is lying right here. I cut this line more than half. Of course, it exceeds this line and far exceeds this line and far exceeds this line. So to say before you propose a budget, you're going to cut the spending in half, and then you say but first I am going to jack it up 2\1/2\ times and I am going to raise it down to this level. Nobody is telling a story. It's half this. But this is the record of all-time spending in the history of the Republic. It is not half of this, which is the Democratic Congress with Bush, or half of this, the Republican Congress with Bush. But it's half of this, which is President Obama with a Democrat Congress. I think that's an interesting concept.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, it's pretty amazing because I got an e-mail from a very good friend of mine, a very good businessman, John Avery back in my district, basically saying exactly the same thing. He said it would be criminal for the people who put us in this position to able to put 5 percent down and get 50 percent of the profits from buying up these assets. It would be criminal. And I happen to agree with him. I actually think you have put forward a good plan--a place where those who have seen their 401(k)s go to 201(k)s, as we like to joke, that they be able to invest in people who would offer a group--but become involved in buying these at 5 percent down and 50 percent of the profits, these bad assets. But don't let the guys that put us here get out of the mess and make 50 percent of the profit for a 5 percent investment. As my friend from back home said, it is criminal. And I agree with you, I think that may be part of what the plan is. And it frightens me with this bonus money we have already battled with that someone would plan a $1 trillion expenditure of our Federal funds that basically is going to prop up the very guys that put us in this mess.

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I enjoyed visiting with my neighbors and talking in the previous hour. They are welcome to join me if they would like to talk some more. I'm going to be joined here in a minute by a good colleague of mine, Louie Gohmert, a Congressman from east Texas, and we are going to talk about an idea that Louie has got. It's an idea that an awful lot of people find interesting. It's the idea that maybe the easiest way in the world to get money in the hands of the American people is to just give them their own money. It's not real complicated. It's pretty simple. But I want to let him talk to you about it because the option that we've got right now is that as we look at that stimulus package that was supposed to stimulate the economy, and if you look closely at it--and I don't want anybody to take my word for it. I want you to go to the library or on the Internet and pull either a review of that bill, or that bill, and look into it and see how the money is spent. And you will see that it's spent on industries that don't exist, but maybe they can make them exist. It's spent on things that people wish existed, and maybe they can exist. But they are investing in those things. Maybe they won't create jobs over the next 5 years, but maybe they will create jobs in the next 10 years. That's great, except that stimulus is supposed to be about now. It's supposed to be about doing it right now. If you believe that the economy gets saved by spending money, you need to spend the money now to stimulate the economy. If you're not, then you're putting off the rescue that you anticipate. I would argue, however, that government spending was tried very extensively from 1931 until 1941, and the unemployment in 1939, according to the Secretary of the Treasury at the time, was the same as it had been in 1931. In that 10-year period, the largest expenditures in the history of the Republic at the time--we're fixing to top those tomorrow--but at the time had been spent, and we had not gotten out of what is called the Great Depression. I want to make a point, too, that what Todd said in the other hour that I think is important that you hear. I want to tell you because I believe it's important that anybody that stands up here, confess your own sins. We as a Congress cut taxes, but we failed to cut spending. We deserve to be told by the voters that we didn't do it. And they did. They told us. The Democratic Party said: We'll do it better. And they hired them to do the job. But the key is both formulas cut taxes and cut spending and the economy will blossom. It has and it will. And it always has and always will. That's what the message is about. People say, Well, that's the same old thing. I'm sorry, but let's be honest. Let's look at the last 8 years and then look at any time in the history of the country where you were involved in two major wars, came in with a recession, and had the largest single weather disaster in the history of the Republic in an 8-year period, and yet the economy after the first three quarters grew every quarter up until the last quarter of the Bush administration. This is what you look at to say: Are we in a recession or are we not in a recession? Are we growing? We were always growing. We are not growing now. Nobody's anticipating we're going to grow for the rest of this year, although some say maybe around Christmas Santa Claus is going to bring us some growth. And maybe he is. But I have my doubts. My friend Louie Gohmert, who should be here in a few minutes, has basically said, You know, if you want to stimulate the economy, there's an easy way to do it. Let's just give people a tax holiday. Just tell them for a couple of months, You don't have to pay taxes. You get your full paycheck. You know what? That might just be the solution. So I'm looking forward to Louie talking about this tax holiday. In the meantime, let's talk about the budget just a little bit and what we're looking at. I see that one of my classmates is here, all dressed up and looking dapper. Doctor, would you like to let me yield you a little bit of time to say a couple of things? Dr. Phil Gingrey.

Mr. CARTER. I thank you for your comments. I want to thank my friends for coming out tonight and for joining me in this hour of talk and discussion. I want to thank the Speaker for being patient with us tonight and for staying here with us, and I thank those who work to make a recording of what is said here, which I happen to know from long years of experience is a very difficult job, and I always have a lot of sympathy for the court reporters who have to take down people who talk like I do, so I want to give them some credit here tonight. I want to thank the American people. To those who did listen in, let's use some common sense, and let's get everything out on the table, and let's resolve any ethics issues we've got so that America can trust the people who are talking to them. If we talk straight and if we try to come up with straight ideas, I think the American people know that good, solid, commonsense ideas can fix things. I hope that they will participate in this representative form of government by contacting their Representatives and by making suggestions. I have gotten good ones from my constituents. They will send me more good ones, and I hope that everybody in America will contact their Representatives and will let them know how they feel about things and will give them the good ideas, because that is what a representative form of government is all about, and that is why we have a Republic. I am proud to be a small part of this Republic. With that, I would like to yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CARTER. I am going to yield some time to another good Georgian, Dr. Broun, to take as much time as he chooses to use.

Mr. CARTER. I have been on the floor of this House talking about the fact that we need to resolve some ethics problems that are out there so that we can be sure that we feel comfortable trusting people that are making decisions around here. And then when my friend, Brother Gohmert, talked to me about his tax holiday, I realized that I've been talking about two tax holidays now for a month. Mr. Rangel took a tax holiday for $10,800 for 20 years. He didn't pay his taxes on his Dominican Republic rentals for 20 years. He took a tax holiday. And then when he finally ended up paying them, he didn't pay any penalty or any interest. So that's a tax holiday.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, if I may. Actually, I agree with everything you have to say. And the real point here is that the American people have common sense. We talk about all of this budgetary language here. If we are honest, it is confusing to us, and it is certainly confusing to the American people. But they understand that when they have a budget shortfall in their budget back home, they have either got to make more money, work harder and make more money, or they are going to have to save. And if they don't have the opportunity to make more money, they are going to have to cut back on something. Like I said a minute ago, you know, I have talked to people who say, I am sending my kid to a State school in Texas, which we are very blessed to have. They are expensive, but they are still reasonable, State schools. And, I have found that if my wife and I will just cut out buying our lunch every day at work and just take a sack lunch from home, we have got almost enough money to pay the tuition. We save almost enough money to pay the tuition. So the American people know how to budget. They know how to look at what they have got and what they have got to get, and figure out a way to make it work. So Dr. Gingrey's suggestion, which happens to be a suggestion of one of my constituents, too, is an outstanding suggestion because it basically makes sense. Sure as heck, if somebody puts the country at risk by their poor decisions on investing, then certainly don't let them get the benefit of a government program spending $1 trillion worth of taxpayers' money by letting them bail themselves out with a 5 percent investment. I agree with that. That is perfectly good common sense. And I think every American in America would say, I don't want those guys that created these bad assets to be able to pay 5 percent of the value that they are going to set, understand that, and then get 50 percent of the profits when they clean up those assets and sell them. And that is what is available potentially under the plan that has been put forward by Secretary Geithner. Now, if he will step up, and I think we owe a duty now to tell him the American people don't want that, so that he can make rules that say all you guys that bought all these bad assets, don't you come in here with your 5 percent and try to bail this deal out. We have other people who want to invest in it. And then a great idea would be let people who lost on their 401(k)s join investment pools and maybe invest in some of these that might make them good money. A 50 percent return on a 5 percent investment is not a bad deal.

Mr. CARTER. Yes, I will.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.