John Carter

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. I was thinking as you all were talking, these numbers will glaze over the eyes of almost anybody listening to them because there is such a tremendous amount of money that people just kind of go, whoa, this is more than I can think about. And I think that could happen. There's been several examples that have been coming out. Recently I saw one in either Roll Call or The Hill, just the day before yesterday, where they were talking about if you spent a dollar a second, that 32,000 years from now you would have spent $1 trillion.

Mr. CARTER. If you look at that, divide that $3,100 by 12, it's, what--I am not a mathematician--about $300.

Mr. CARTER. A $300-a-month increase in your fuel bill. Now, the way to remember all of this, when you think of this national energy tax that they are proposing, is from now until we get through with this debate, every time you turn off a light or turn on a light, realize that you have increased out of your pocket probably 50 cents. Every time you turn one on and maybe if you turn it off you're saving 50 cents. But the bottom line is about $300 a month, next month, if this tax were to go into effect, would be coming out of your pocket. Okay. It wouldn't be something you did. And the real issue is more important because let me point out, and I pointed this out the other night. Everything in this room was brought to you by a truck, including the clothes on your back and the food that you ate for lunch. And that truck ran on diesel, and diesel is going to be taxed. Therefore, that tax is going to be passed on to who? The consumer. So everything in here is going to go up by a percentage.

Mr. CARTER. Just the transportation costs are going to go up. People need to realize if it's raising your heating bill and air- conditioning bill $300 a month, then some percent of everything else you're going to have is going up in value and cost.

Mr. CARTER. Yes. Thirty-two thousand years from now you'd spend $1 trillion.

Mr. CARTER. It's a number that shakes the imagination. But there is more in this budget that we ought to be talking about that I think and I want to suggest, do you have information about this carbon tax?

Mr. CARTER. It doesn't make sense. And the other thing is, at least some people who are very zealous on this theory say we're going to tax everything that produces carbon, and my thoughts were, we've been sitting here breathing now for 30 minutes, and every time we breathe out, we breathe out carbon. So are we going to have a little monitor that sits right here that monitors how much carbon we breathe as we go through the day? It's ridiculous to talk about taxing something like that if it's not preventing the situation. You're right, nuclear is a major solution to big power. I'm all for alternative vehicles, and they will be a solution at some time that will help a lot and let's do it. But we don't have an electrical engine big enough to pull a big load down the highway unless it's a ship engine which is as big as this room. So we've got to be practical about this stuff and say, all energy sources, let's clean them up, make them as good as we can, but let's continue to thrive by being the most productive place on the face of the globe.

Mr. CARTER. Well, according to the scientists, they actually are putting more carbon in the air and in the atmosphere since they put the cap-and-trade proceedings in because those companies that were dirty could just pay the tax and continue to be dirty. If you have got a dirty plant that's putting carbon dioxide, if it's bad, into the atmosphere and they say, well, fine, how much is the tax, here's the tax, I will pass it on to my customers down here that are buying my product, does that keep this stuff from going into the air? No. It's still there in the air.

Mr. CARTER. Let's talk about the carbon tax because I think that's something that people can relate to.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. And I thank you. We have got here, what's really interesting is when the IRS gives you the money to pay the taxes, and gives you a form that tells you you owe the taxes, and says, now here is the check, you're responsible for your own taxes, be sure and pay them, and you sign that form agreeing to pay them, and then you say, it was only $42,000, and I just forgot. I mean, that is kind of what like our friend, Mr. Martin, said. We make a little bit light of this, and we do that because, quite frankly, I don't want to be accused of being mean-spirited. But the facts are that we want people that are giving us ideas to save us from what could be an economic disaster. We want them to speak openly and honestly and come from a situation that we can trust them. And my whole issue that I have been raising are these issues of trust. I am not doing what has been done in the past and accusing people of being corrupt and that type of thing. I am not doing that. I am pointing out accusations made by other people. And I'm saying that these accusations need to be resolved so the American people can trust the folks they are counting on to fix this economy. And the head of the tax committee of the House of Representatives, they need to be confident they can trust him. Our Ethics Committee needs to finish the investigation and get that done. And if he is exonerated, wonderful. But the American people have the right to know. The Americans have the right to know, can they trust the Secretary of the Treasury when he doesn't pay his taxes and he says, ``TurboTax messed up''? First off, I kind of thought he was in a pay grade a little higher than TurboTax. But the point is, it's about trust. It is about the American people trusting the people they send here. That is why I continue to come up here every week and talk about these issues of lapse of memory or whatever it may be, and they need to be resolved by a finder of fact, whoever that may be, to resolve this issue. Let me yield to my friend from Georgia for a moment.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, and I thank you for those comments. Now I'd like to yield so much time as he chooses to consume again to my friend, Louie Gohmert from Texas.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time. I think we have made an excellent point here, as we both talked about; we came here because our good friend Louie Gohmert, my colleague from Texas, has a proposal that deserves to be heard. And so I am going to yield such time as my good friend Louie Gohmert may choose to use tonight, and I will just be here to try to help.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time for just 1 minute. That has been my exact point. And that is why I introduced legislation to put forward the Rangel Rule. And the Rangel Rule is very simple. Everybody that owes taxes that doesn't want to pay penalty and interest, just write at the bottom of your tax form ``exercising the Rangel Rule,'' and the IRS won't be able to charge you penalties and interest. They will have to treat you just like Mr. Rangel. I thought that was fair. And I thought I was being reasonable about that. Then we have the Secretary of the Treasury come along, and he took a 4-year tax holiday on $43,200. Although he did pay some interest, he still hasn't had any penalty assessed against him either. So I guess we could change it to the Rangel-Geithner tax holiday or the Rangel- Geithner Rule. But I just kind of like Rangel Rule. It has a nice ring to it.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, you can certainly sign on to my Rangel Rule bill, and we are going to try to get that thing before this Congress, and we are going to start getting pretty serious about getting it done.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, I thank Judge Gohmert, Congressman Gohmert, for a really heartfelt explanation of why he is trying to come up with alternative ideas. It's the same reason that Dr. Broun and I are trying to come up with alternative ideas. We just see this phenomenal number that is looming on the horizon of expenditures, and we can't help but be just absolutely scared to death as to what it means for our grandchildren. I don't have any right now, but, by golly, I plan to, and I want to make sure that when I do, that I'm not leaving them $100,000 a person debt, which is something that at least one of the pundits has said, that when they finish with this, every American's portion of the debt will be over $100,000. That's today, without any interest stacking up on it. What's it going to be for our grandchildren and our great grandchildren? Because, believe me, the kind of numbers that they, the Obama administration, is putting forward in 60 days, they've done almost $3 trillion. There's another trillion on the drawing board that we just heard about that we're going to bring out of the Fed, which is ultimately still got to be paid back. We're not even looking at the numbers that are over in the Fed. And then we've got a $3.6 trillion budget proposed, which supposedly is going to be crammed down our throats next week, without much participation on the side of the minority. So, yeah, we're worried. And yeah, that's one of the reasons that I come up here every week and talk about it's time for us to resolve these issues of trust. And I want to make it very clear, I sat here, when we were in the majority, in the chair that the Speaker's in sitting here tonight, and heard the term ``corruption'' used to every member of the Republican Party every single night. And I'll tell you, there were some people that deserved it. But the vast majority of the people didn't. And those issues got resolved, and they got it resolved in the Court and they got it resolved by the rules of the Republican conference. There's nothing resolving the issues that are being brought up. And there's lot more than I've talked about here today, and I will talk about those too, because nobody's accusing anybody of being corrupt, but somebody is saying there are accusations that should be resolved. And it's a trust issue. Can the American people trust our economy, trust our soldiers on the battlefield, trust our health care to people who have trust issues with the American people? And I think the American people should say, whoever's in charge of resolving it, resolve it. Tell us, is this something we should be concerned about? Because they are. Or shouldn't we be concerned about it? That's the reason I'm here. I think that's the reason Dr. Broun's here. We're here to say, these are serious issues, serious issues for the American people. I would like to have a little more time at the end. But I would like to yield some time to my friend, Dr. Broun from Georgia.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. I would like to point out something that seems to be a mistake that is made by a lot of people. The 2008 budget which would be argued here on the floor of the House was Bush's budget. The reality of spending, we up here, this House of Representatives has responsibilities as well as rights. And the real world is the President proposes a budget, but the Congress adopts the budget. It is the Congress's budget when we get through with it. So the 2008 budget that shows the increase over 2007 fairly substantially is the Congress's budget. You are not seeing George Bush's budget, you are seeing the Democrat-controlled Congress's budget in 2008. Now their President has proposed, the Democratic Party's President has proposed a 2009 budget that goes off the charts. It is kind of interesting because we hear, ``I will reduce the budget by 50 percent.'' So let's see, if you raise the budget 300 percent and you reduce it 150 percent, you have reduced it 50 percent. We are still 150 percent over where you were. And that chart exactly shows what we're talking about. If you look at those lines, we're taking the President at his word, as we go all the way down here, what is that last one? 2018?

Mr. CARTER. That's right. That is my whole point. That chart clearly shows you that if your criticism was of the Bush administration for deficit spending--which we heard a lot of noise about that--then if you look at those red columns, none of those drops down to even equal with the largest Republican-led Congress deficit. Okay. They are almost double the Republican-led Congress' deficit all the way to the end of your chart. But yes, they do reduce that big line by more than 50 percent. If you want to talk about voodoo chart drawing, that's voodoo chart drawing. That's saying, if I jack it up to $3.6 trillion, then, yes, I can drop this thing big time down the road, but you are still way over what you were dealing with back in 2004. So this whole concept of trying to smoke and mirrors the world, it's time to stop all that. There is a young man I was just talking to out in the hall who has a little business, and he wants to go out and expand his little business. And his world is this, that he looks at it, he gets taxed as ordinary income even though he's a small business, and he says to himself, why should I stick my neck out for another couple hundred thousand dollars in debt to try to expand my business when all I'm going to do is get myself up into a tax bracket that I'm going to be going downhill? So, that's exactly the example. Or a young man I talked to, walked up to me at an event in Killeen, Texas, and he said, you know, my wife and I started a business 5 years ago. He said, we have taken this idea up to a business that employs 40 people. We are now at a point where we have to make a decision; do we expand our business by borrowing about a half a million dollars, indebting ourselves as a couple, and have the potential to maybe employ 80 people--which, gosh, isn't that what we want? Isn't that what we're talking about, creating jobs? He said, but we look at it, and we see what is coming down with this cap-and-trade and the cost that that's going to put on me, when we see what's coming down on the tax increase for people earning over $250,000, and we're concerned that will put such a burden upon us that we might actually lose this business. So now we're looking at it and saying, maybe we should shore up what we've got and lay off a few people to be sound in hopes that somebody will get sanity back in the taxing of our people in this country. And let's hold on until logic comes back into the world. That's not the way we want to cause people to expand and have a better life. And that's exactly what we're talking about with this budget that's proposed by the President and looks like is overwhelmingly going to be adopted by the majority in this House. We've got real issues here that the American people have to think about. Because with your 2-year-old daughter--and I wish her a happy birthday--that's where you should be focusing all your attention. And I should be focusing all my attention on what we're leaving--not just to her little generation at 2 years old that's going to grow up in this country, but the children that she is going to have and the children they are going to have. If we keep going down the road that we're going down right now with the kind of unbelievable spending that has gone on in the first 50 some-odd days of Obama's first term as President of the United States, if this keeps up, how will our descendants ever pay this back?

Mr. CARTER. If the gentleman would yield for just a moment, because I actually happened to be thinking about that on my way up here this week. We are experiencing that rare time that all Members of Congress who travel back and forth have to deal with called spring break. And I think that everybody that flew on an airplane coming up here knows that there were thousands and thousands and thousands of young people going all over the country and all over Mexico--and who knows where--on spring break. And it reminded me of something that Will Rogers said during the Great Depression, he said, ``America is a funny place. We may be the only country in the world that's driving to the poor house in an automobile.'' The whole point was, we need to remind ourselves, as we debate about this issue, that we are Americans who, if given the right tools, can incentivize our way out of any mess we get into. We are still the most blessed Nation on the face of the Earth. We need to fix this banking crisis. And we don't need to fix it by indebting our grandchildren and our great grandchildren with special projects to meet campaign promises that were made. We need to concentrate on the issue, which is getting credit back in the market. And then that young man out in the hall and that young man in Killeen, Texas, can go borrow their loan from their bank and go invest it in the future for their children and grandchildren, and our country will continue to send all these beautiful children off on spring break. I think we realize who we are. We can do anything we set our mind to if the government will just get out of the way and give us a chance to do it. I yield back.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. I haven't heard a peep out of them. Just recently, we have another story that has come out from the Congressional Quarterly, ``Waters Calls TARP Meeting for her Husband's Bank.'' This is by Bennett Roth, part of CQ staff. ``Watchdog groups claimed Waters took inappropriate actions on behalf of OneUnited Bank which received financial assistance from the Federal Government last fall. Waters, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee which oversees banking issues, last year requested a meeting between Treasury Department officials and representatives of minority- owned banks, including OneUnited on whose board her husband, Sydney Williams, had previously served. He also held stock in the bank.'' That's not our accusation, that's an accusation by a publication that is read regularly in the halls of Congress and informs us of what is going on. That is an issue that should be addressed by the body that is required to address it, the Ethics Committee. Is that unethical behavior? Possibly not. Possibly it is. But she is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, which means that whatever housing there may be in the Obama bill, this $3.6 trillion Obama bill--and Lord, for that much money there ought to be a couple of houses in there anyway--then if that is the case, she would be the spokesman for the housing attitudes of the U.S. Government of the majority party, the Democratic Party--who run this place, by the way. If nobody gets it yet, the majority rules in the House of Representatives. So when you have 38 more votes than the other guys, you win, they lose. That's the way it works. If you've got one more vote and everybody stays with you, you win, they lose. So they own all of this. This Bush bashing that we hear around here, wake up. The man is hanging out in Crawford chasing cattle; he's not doing this job anymore. This is your job, the Democratic Party's job. They are doing this job here, with the leadership of Barack Obama, their President. He, with their help, proposed $3.6 trillion. And when it comes to housing, we must rely upon Maxine Waters, the leader of that subcommittee. That issue ought to be resolved. I think that's important. This is the whole point of this whole thing. You know, this banking thing, we are all worried to death about this banking thing. And I don't think any Member of Congress--or for that matter, any American-- isn't concerned about this tightening, choking down of credit that has taken place in the United States. And therefore, the entrepreneurial spirit of America is being choked down because of stupid mistakes that were made by the government. And let's maybe talk about those for just a little bit. And I will first yield to Michele Bachmann.

Mr. CARTER. First 60 days, yes. Thank you for correcting me. And then, lo and behold, under the President's budget, taxes on capital gains and dividends would increase from 15 to 20 percent, increasing their taxes on investments by $398 billion over 10 years. So if the poor old guy whose 401(k) is almost used to wrap the garbage in, if he starts to have any kind of rally on the stock market at any time in the foreseeable future--at least the next 10 years--this budget we are being asked to pass, this $3.6 trillion budget, is going to raise the taxes on his poor little old beat-up 401(k), or on your pension plans. This is a direct tax on American families. And believe me, contrary to popular belief by the other side of the aisle, there are a lot of people in this country who make a whole lot less than $250,000 a year who own stock in corporations in America because they believe in the free enterprise system. They have invested in a way they feel is adequate to be good for their families, and they will be hit by this capital gains tax. I will yield to Mr. Westmoreland.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, you mentioned Wall Street. And Wall Street has taken a big hickey here lately. And you know who really took the hickey was the American people. And one of the things that I think everybody dreads doing almost as much as taking out the garbage is looking at their 401(k) or their pension plan after this last 60 days of the Obama administration and this trillion dollar leadership of this Democrat-led House of Representatives.

Mr. CARTER. And just another little news story here that broke. This is a former colleague of ours. He is now maybe in one of the most powerful positions in the United States, he is the Chief of Staff of the White House, Rahm Emanuel. This is from ABC News, a very conservative source. ``Emanuel was Director of Freddie Mac during the scandal. $25,000 Freddie to Emanuel equals $200 billion taxpayers to Freddie,'' written by Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz. ``President-elect Barack Obama's newly appointed Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the Federal mortgage firm, Freddie Mac, at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency, and the board failed to spot red flags, according to government reports reviewed by abc.com. The actions by Freddie Mac are cited by some economists as the beginning of the country's economic meltdown.'' ``The Federal Government this year was forced to take over Freddie Mac and his sister Federal mortgage agency, Fannie Mae, pledging at least $200 billion in public funds.'' And that is not my news story, that is ABC's news story. And of course our Ethics Committee, bless their hearts, I don't think they have to deal with Mr. Rahm Emanuel. I think maybe the White House has to deal with the issues of Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and maybe they should. But it is the White House budget that we're talking about, and he is the chief policy officer of the White House. So I would assume that Mr. Rahm Emanuel's fingerprints are all over this budget. And I would expect Mr. Rahm Emanuel to be a spokesman for this budget. And we all can watch, in breathless anticipation, and see if I'm telling the truth. But let's watch and see. But those sort of things ought to be cleared up with the American people because at least one news source is saying this was the start of the crisis we're in, and he was right in the middle of it. So those are the kinds of things we have to look at. Mr. Scalise has joined us. I will yield such time as you would like to have to comment on what we're talking about here today.

Mr. CARTER. Well, I agree. Reclaiming my time, I thank Mr. Westmoreland for pointing that out. And, actually, I have talked to my community banks too, and they are very concerned about the massive increase in their assessment by FDIC and the fact they're going to have to pay a premium. But also what's really sad is they're the guys who made good loans. See, what people don't realize is that these community banks can hold their heads up high. They're not asking for TARP money because they didn't make bad loans. They stuck to the banking principles that their boards of directors made, and they stayed away from the pressure, with some exceptions, but in the vast majority of the cases across this country, the community bank system made sound, good business decisions. And now, unfortunately, because of the way it works, they are going to have to pay the penalty for those people who went off and made bad loans. Now, we understand and I think our bankers will tell you they understand that's how the FDIC works and it's a program that they rely upon. But it still is part of that old ``'taint fair'' system that you and I have been talking about for the last couple of days. I want to bring up just one more thing that's in this budget that I think is going to be a real issue for some awfully important people in this country. This budget that they've got out here caps the value of itemized deductions at 28 percent for those who have income over $250,000 married or $200,000 single, which will reduce charitable giving in this country by $9 billion. You know, I don't know why in the world you would want to hit the charities, the Cancer Society, the Heart Fund, the First Methodist Church, or the Third Baptist Church, why you would want to hit those people's pocketbooks to fund $3.6 trillion, but to me, that's questionable. We ought to be questioning that, and we ought to be saying why in the world do we have to basically put a burden on charities? And then tomorrow, tomorrow, we're supposed to vote on a bill to pay volunteers with taxpayer dollars. So we're going to pay volunteers with taxpayer dollars rather than encourage private sector donors to take care of community problems that they all work hard to take care of. This is nuts. This is European socialism at its best. Americans have hearts of gold. One of the things that the American people liked that Ronald Reagan said about them was he reminded them that deep down inside every American there burned that flame of liberty and freedom that made them good people who were all heroes because they got up in the morning and they went to work and they took care of their families. And yet it seems that whoever put together this budget doesn't view America that way. They view it differently. Finally, something that I have been appalled with forever is taxing death. A guy works all of his life. He pays his taxes. He takes care of his bills. He works double shifts and works hard. He acquires some property, and that property gains value, whatever the property may be. And he's happy because he's been an honest taxpaying citizen. And then he dies, and lo and behold the United States Government wants to come in and tax him on his death. Now, I have a good friend, and I'm not going to use his name because I don't have his permission to use it, but he is from Clayton, New Mexico, and he'll know who he is, who had a beautiful ranching operation in Clayton, New Mexico, when I knew him at Texas Tech University and he was a buddy of mine. And he had two really nice ranches in that area, the home place and another ranch. I ran into him in Rocksprings, Texas, a while back, and I asked him how he was doing, and he said, ``Well, I'm living in Texas now. I'm ranching in Texas.'' I said, ``What happened to Clayton, New Mexico?'' He said, ``The taxman took it.'' He said, ``When my dad died, I had to sell land, and the only land I could sell was the home place, which was the best place; so that only left me with our worst little ranch. I traded that for a small place down here in Texas, and I'm down here scratching out a living on about a third of what my daddy worked and fought for and my great-grandaddy and my grandaddy died for in fighting to tame that part of New Mexico.'' I don't know. I find that's pretty offensive to me. Why does the United States Government deserve to put the fourth generation of that family out of the ranching business so they can tax a guy that has already paid his taxes? But that's headed our way in this new $3.6 trillion budget. I'm not going to tonight go into the rest of the examples that I have here. We'll go into those another time. But I hope I've made it clear that my purpose to get up and talk about these ethical problems is not to make the kind of accusations that were made two Congresses ago against the Republican Party about ``culture of corruption'' because I don't think that's appropriate. I am only pointing out there are issues that have been raised by the watchdogs of this Congress, the press, that should be resolved. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your patience and thank you for this evening.

Mr. CARTER. Let me point out, I have a poster board here. Now some might think I have been picking on Chairman Rangel too much, and I don't intend to do that, but this is to make my point. Chairman Rangel is in charge of taxation. That is his job. He is the tax man of this House. We have a little quote here from a real conservative news source we all love and adore, the New York Times, January 3, 2009, ``Rangel Pushed for a Donation; Insurer Pushed for a Tax Cut.'' It is written by David Kocieniewski. ``On April 21, 2008, Representative Charles B. Rangel met with officials of the American International Group, the now- troubled insurance giant, to ask for a donation to a school of public service that City College of New York was building in his honor,'' and I will point out named after him. ``Mr. Rangel had already helped secure a $5 million pledge for the project from a foundation controlled by Maurice R. Greenberg, one of the company's largest shareholders and its former chief executive. And CCNY officials, according to the school's own records, had high hopes for AIG--a donation of perhaps as much as $10 million.'' Some may have heard of AIG. It has been a little bit in the news lately. Now my point is that is an accusation made by the New York Times, not by me, not by any Member of this House. That is an accusation made by the New York Times that should be resolved because it is about our number one tax man, and our number one tax man along with the President of the United States is going to be championing the Democrat budget of $3.6 trillion, a number that almost defies imagination. We have gotten used to trillions in the last 60 days because we have seen lots of them. They are everywhere. This administration is throwing trillions around like tennis balls at Wimbledon and we are sitting here looking at a new little slight glitch of $3.6 trillion. I would think that the average American looking at this budget would like to know that the people that designed it and the people that put it together shoot straight, deal ethically with issues. And they would like to know that, but they have an accusation from the New York Times that says contrary to that. So is there a place to resolve that? Yes, we have one. It is called the Ethics Committee. But there is no action out of the Ethics Committee. It just kind of sits there. So I guess our famous Rangel rule which now is on everybody's tongue about special privileges for Mr. Rangel, I guess we add this to the Rangel rule. I don't know what else to do with it. If you have accusations and the Ethics Committee doesn't act, then they just go away. Trust me, everything is okay because the Ethics Committee hasn't acted. Well, I think they should. I will start, beauty over the beast. I have both Michele Bachmann and Lynn Westmoreland here, and so I will turn to Michele Bachmann to talk about the budget and about trusting those who are going to be giving us these numbers and these ideas and shouldn't we have the ethical issues resolved as they lead this Congress down a $3.6 trillion path.

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized for this time. I have been coming down here now for 2 or 3 weeks talking about fact that we have some ethical issues that need to be resolved, and that is something I think is important. I am going to try to frame that so you can understand why I think it is important. Tonight, we have been talking about Mr. Obama's budget. I just enjoyed immensely the argument that was just made a few minutes ago about energy. And I really wish, sometime it would really be nice up here if we could do one of these things where we talk back and forth and ask questions. I would like to address that a little bit, because it is a big part of this budget. It is going to be this huge tax program that is being put together, and I would like some questions answered. It seems to me that what I heard argued just a few minutes ago was that we have a real crisis with carbon, carbon dioxide. I think most Americans know that we are major producers of carbon dioxide. If you don't think so, take a big breath and then let it out, and you will have just produced carbon dioxide. So I think we realize that it is kind of a natural process that is going on. But if we need to fix that, then we need to slow down the amount of carbon dioxide going out into the atmosphere. And as I understand the proposal is that let's say you have a widget plant that is belching out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in record numbers because it is burning, let's just use that horrible substance they were discussing, coal. And even though it is being scrubbed for the sulfur dioxide, which the Clean Air Act dealt with, it is still putting out carbon dioxide, the substance that is the part of the fuel of photosynthesis in plants across the entire global, including the microscopic plants that grow in the oceans of the world, and it is just too much. Now, the plan they are proposing in the President's budget, as I understand it, is that they will have to pay a tax that the government would say this is the amount of carbon dioxide we are going to allow to come out of one source, and the government would determine what that ceiling would be. It is called a cap. And then they would say, every bit that you put out above that cap, we are going to tax you on it because we are going to use the tax money to acquire some kind of credits that the people are selling that don't pollute. Or maybe they are not even going to that. Maybe they are just saying, we are going to tax you so we can do research and development on new energy, which is what they seem to be saying tonight. If that be the case, then how does that tax stop that carbon emission out of that plant? I don't get that. Maybe someone can explain it to me. Now, I guess, yes, you could stop it if the tax were so onerous that the plant owner said the product that I am producing, and let's say on that particular plant rather than it being widgets it is electricity, that this is going to make my cost of electricity so onerous that I won't be able to sell my electricity so I will just shut down my electricity plant. That is the way economy works. At some point in time when the cost is such that you can't make a profit from the product that you are producing, maybe you would shut it down. I don't understand how that would help particularly the energy problems of the United States, and I don't think that is what would be envisioned. I think what would really be envisioned is that the evil corporation, if you will, would have to pay the tax and eat the tax. In other words, it would come out of their profits. Now, the evil corporation is really a group of American citizens and maybe other country citizens who have bought stock in the evil corporation, and they have invested their money in it in hopes that they would make a profit. And so is the solution that you think the corporation is going to do is that this tax that has been put on this coal emission is going to be paid by the corporation, which means by the stockholders, the owners, so they are just going the take less profit. At what point in time are the owners, that is the stockholders, going to be happy with their profit being reduced until they make no profit? I don't think very long. So then they would close down our power plant. But that is not what the solution is, either. The reality is, and it is in every case in every industry demonstrated every day across the world, is that tax will then go to the consumer of the product that that company is selling. Therefore, the cap tax we just heard about from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be paid by the consumer. Unless you are sitting in the dark watching television by candlelight, you are probably using electricity in your home. I say that tongue in cheek, because I guess you could watch television with a battery. But the facts are you are burning electricity every day, and you are going to pay the tax. Now, they are going to put a tax on oil and gas products because they create carbon emissions, CO2, the same as you create carbon emissions, by breathing. So they are going to tax the oil and gas industry. And guess who is going to pay the tax; the oil and gas industry is going to pass that tax on to the consumer. So if it is a nickel on a gallons of gasoline, the nickel is going to be yours to pay. If it is 50 cents on a gallon of gasoline, the 50 cents is going to be yours to pay, and the price of gasoline is going up. The price of gasoline is going up. There is a bigger picture here you need to see. If you could look around this room, this gigantic House of Representatives, you would see leather and wooden seats, beautiful carpeting, gorgeous lights everywhere, all these various paintings and tapestries on the walls, glass, brass, steel, concrete and stone. All of that is in this room right here. How do you think it got here? How do you think the wallpaper up there got here? Did somebody bring it up here with a horse? Did they pack it on their back? No. They put it in a truck or on a train. And that truck or train delivered everything in this room to this building to be installed by the workers who got here in automobiles and pickups. So everything in this room was brought to you by motor fuel, including diesel fuel that burns in our trains that pull our freight cars. So everything in this room was brought to you by diesel or gasoline. So if tomorrow you were rebuilding this room, and if our new and wonderful ``nobody in the middle class will have to pay tax increase'' that we were just told by our colleagues, if that is there, then if it costs the wallpaper people extra money to get the wallpaper here because the price of diesel has gone up 20 cents a gallon, then the price of wallpaper is going up 20 cents a roll, or some equivalent, to make it up. If the brass manufacturers, if they are not using any kind of fuel to make brass, but they are shipping it here somehow magically, they are going to use diesel, because that is what drives our trucks. And the brass is going up, the concrete is going up, and the leather is going up. Everything in this room is going up because we have placed a new tax on fuel. Now, is any of that fuel not being burned? No. That fuel is still being burned. Is there carbon going into the atmosphere? Yes. There is carbon going into the atmosphere. Guess who is paying this tax? You are. And you're going to pay it if you make $10,000 a year, and you're going to pay it if you make $10 million a year because you're a consumer. And so the tax is going to be passed down to the consumer. So when you say this is not a tax on the middle class, it is a farce. That comes back to the issue of people need to make trustworthy statements when they say things around here. People need to explain things in a clear picture so the public can understand it. Then the American public needs to decide what is right and what is wrong. To me, I would like anybody to explain to me how this stuff would get here if it wasn't for a diesel truck or a train. I would like anybody to tell me how that would happen. Or maybe they fly an airplane in here on air freight, which is even more expensive and which is going to have an even bigger tax on it because it is a fuel guzzler and it creates carbon. So what we have been told here tonight is that there is going to be no tax on the middle class. Yet, people who do something that I wouldn't do for a living, but sit around and calculate an estimate of what these things might cost, are saying that this new energy tax, this tax on energy is going to cost every household in America $3,128 annually. Now maybe for somebody making $250,000 a year, that hurts a little bit. But, boy, it hurts the heck out of the teacher in Round Rock, Texas, making $32,000 a year. It hurts the heck out of that truck driver that drives that truck that maybe makes $30,000 a year or $35,000 a year. If he is really a hustler, he makes $50,000 a year. Everything he is going to use, plus the fuel he is burning, is going to cost him more. And the freight charges are going up. So, wake up. You can't put a tax on something that everybody uses and not expect everybody to have to pay for the tax. It is just that simple. This is not rocket science. This is basic logic 101. The reason we need to have ethical issues resolved in this House is because the American people need to learn to trust us to try to shoot straight with them. And those people who don't have a track record of shooting straight, at least you can make that conclusion because of accusations made against them, maybe you should worry about their leadership. Now, the question I would ask myself and you--and what my whole position has been on ethics issues is that these ethics issues need to be resolved so that you know you can trust when somebody stands up at that mic or that one over there or this one right here and tells you something, and you say, yeah, but what about that accusation? Hey, maybe it's not true. Okay, maybe it is not true. But it ought to be resolved. This body ought to resolve accusations that are made against the people that they have done something that is unethical. Now, I'm not making the accusations. I'm telling you that the newspapers are making the accusations, the talk shows are making the accusations, the TV news at 6 o'clock is making the accusations, and people that claim to be the watchdogs of American politics are making the accusations. I just want them resolved. I want the Ethics Committee or the courts or whoever it takes to resolve the issues to resolve the issues, so that when somebody stands up here and tells you there is not going to be a tax on the middle class, but we are going to tax every kind of carbon-burned fuel, when 90 percent of the fuel, probably 95 percent of the fuel used for every purpose on the face of this Earth is carbon based, then do you know what? You're going to say, ``I would like to know if that is somebody that is very trustworthy that I ought to be listening to.'' I hope that is not convoluted logic. But I sit here and ask you, if you assume that what these gentlemen said tonight was true, and they are going to use this stuff for research to come up with alternative fuels, you tell me when is the first truck going to be invented with an electric motor big enough to haul freight down the highways of the United States? When is it going to happen? Nobody is talking about that. They are not talking about it because the electric engine that it would take to haul the loads of freight down the interstate to bring stuff to your home so you have the goods and the services of this Nation, that electrical engine would be as big as that podium or bigger than the Speaker's tonight. In fact, they even make some electric engines that size in my district for ships in the sea. And they are gigantic, half as big as this room, to get the kind of torque, to get the kind of power out of electricity to pull a heavy load. So, think when you hear these things being talked about, how long will it take to get to a point that goods and services can be brought to you the way they are brought to you now without this tax being imposed upon you? I would submit, it is not decades. It may be centuries. So, I'm a little off the subject. But when you start talking about this budget, this is the kind of thing we want to talk about. Can you honestly think that you're getting a straight shot when you hear about some of this stuff? I'm very happy to see my friend from North Carolina. She is one of the real tough ladies in this House. Virginia Foxx is here to join me. And I'm glad to have her. I will yield whatever time the gentlelady may use up.