Tom Cotton

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam Speaker, every time Cato the Elder spoke in the Roman Senate, he said, whatever the topic, ``Carthage must be destroyed.'' As long as Carthage survived, the freedom and prosperity of the Roman people would never be secured. As then with Carthage, so now with ObamaCare: as long as it remains on the books, the health, prosperity, and freedom of the American people will never be secure. ObamaCare raids $700 billion from Medicare, meaning seniors across Arkansas will have their health care rationed as doctors refuse to see new Medicare patients. ObamaCare creates an unelected and unaccountable panel of bureaucrats to ration and deny needed medical care for Arizona seniors. ObamaCare will cause insurance premiums to skyrocket by as much as 60 to 100 percent for Arkansas families. ObamaCare raises 21 taxes by more than $1 trillion and will cost at least $1.7 trillion in the first decade alone. ObamaCare violates our freedom of conscience by using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. ObamaCare is corrupt to its rotten core. The government has exempted hundreds of the President's cronies from the law. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is right now shaking down private companies for millions of dollars to promote ObamaCare. And, of course, the IRS, expanded by 2,000 agents, will be the main enforcement agency for ObamaCare, the very IRS who we now know targets the President's political opponents for harassment and intimidation. Madam Speaker, ObamaCare must be repealed. I urge the Congress to repeal this abominable law, and I urge the American people to vote out of office every politician who voted for it 3 years ago.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my colleagues to pass this measure to stop President Obama's needless furlough of air traffic controllers. Further, this legislation empowers the FAA to restore funding to 150 towers operated by private contractors around the country. The FAA furloughs have received most of the media attention this week, but we shouldn't overlook the role these contractor-operated towers play in our Nation's aviation infrastructure in communities like Texarkana, Arkansas. These airports handle almost 30 percent of all aviation traffic, providing vital relief to some of our most congested airports. The importance of these towers can't be overstated, which is why earlier this year I introduced legislation with 59 bipartisan cosponsors to restore the funding for these towers. I am confident the FAA will use the authority of this bill not only to end the needless furloughs, but also to restore funding for these essential contractor- operated air traffic control towers. Again, I want to thank my colleagues for their support for this measure.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. I rise today to express grave doubts about the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies and programs. Counterterrorism is often shrouded in secrecy--as it should be. So let us judge by the results. In barely 4 years in office, five jihadists have reached their targets in the United States under Barack Obama: the Boston Marathon Bomber, the Underwear Bomber, the Times Square Bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, and, in my own State, the Little Rock recruiting office shooter. In over 7 years after 9/11, under George W. Bush, how many terrorists reached their targets in the United States? Zero. We need to ask: Why is the Obama administration failing in its mission to stop terrorism before it reaches its targets in the United States?

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this budget resolution. I just want to take a moment, too, to applaud the chairman and the members of his committee, and especially the hardworking staff of his committee for producing this document--a mere little band of less than 30 staffers. By contrast, the President, with all the vast resources at his disposal in the executive branch, is now, I think, into the sixth week beyond his deadline in which he cannot pass his own budget. I assume that he will one day submit something. I hope that we will have a chance to vote on it. I will be curious to see if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle can produce more than the zero budgets that his budget produced last year. The Senate, however, is even worse. They haven't produced a budget in 4 years. After seeing the budget that they will vote on, I now know, perhaps, why they did not produce such a document. It has over $1.5 trillion in new taxes, almost $1 trillion that are recognized, almost $500 billion to replace sequestration in unspecified closures of so- called loopholes, and another $100 billion in unspecified closures for new and ultimately failed stimulus spending. And it never reaches balance--ever. The only thing we hear from balance on the Senate or the President is as a euphemism for new tax increases. Finally, I want to point out that the last time the Senate passed a budget 4 years ago, I was a captain in the United States Army sitting at forward operating base Mehtar Lam in northeast Afghanistan. And I want to specifically single out the defense measures in this budget and to applaud, again, the leadership of the chairman and the Budget Committee for protecting our military, for giving it funding that it otherwise would not have and the flexibility it needs to help protect and keep this country safe. The Defense Department is the one area in government where the strategy should drive the budget, not the budget drive the strategy. And the second way that it protects our military is from a debt crisis. This budget, as we have heard, is designed to postpone and ultimately prevent a debt crisis caused by out-of-control reckless spending in anemic economic growth of the kind you have seen in countries in Europe already. If that were to happen, not only would it impact families all across the country when their interest rates for mortgages and farms and small businesses and education increase, but it also would crowd out all other kinds of priorities in our Federal budget. So it would immediately impact, as well, our troops, their families, and our veterans.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. I've listened to this debate. It's primarily about the amount of money we spend on our committees here in the House. Taxes have just been inserted into it, and I have to respond to the comment about corporate taxes or tax breaks for corporate jets. It's an easy target. It's something the Democrats have repeatedly targeted in their budget resolution, something the President proposed to offset sequestration. And of course, the wealthy, with their big fancy corporate jets or corporate executives with their jets are easy targets. But there is a lot of collateral damage any time this issue comes up. We forget about the people who fly those planes, the people who clean the planes, the people who fuel the planes, the people who run the facilities where those planes are hangared, the people who manage the flight operations, the people who manufacture those planes, which is, I would point out, the number one export industry in the State of Arkansas. Much like in 1990 when the budget deal targeted the yacht industry in New England for a special luxury tax, it didn't raise the revenue that was projected. It did devastate that industry, leading to catastrophic layoffs, and resulted in the repeal of that measure within just a matter of months after it passed. So while I appreciate the Democrats' desire to raise taxes every few months, I think that our spending crisis, or our debt crisis, is driven by spending, and we should be careful about singling out specific industries that provide good, high-paying jobs to hardworking Americans.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Chairman Poe's resolution condemning the February 9 rocket and mortar attacks at Camp Liberty in Iraq and urging the President to work with the Iraqi Government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to relocate the members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq back to Camp Ashraf. These MEK refugees can only be safe and secure at Ashraf where they have lived for over 25 years. The Iraqi Government and the High Commissioner placed these MEK members at Camp Liberty despite the great danger to them there. Now the United Nations should take the necessary steps to return them to Ashraf or settle them abroad. I look forward to the day when these refugees can return home to Iran once the tyrannical regime there has fallen, a day that might have been hastened if President Obama had stood with brave Iranian protesters in 2009 instead of coddling the theocratic mullahs there. Let us not make that mistake again.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with good news from south Arkansas. According to recent news reports, Anthony Timberlands, a cornerstone of the Arkansas timber and forestry products industry, is currently in the process of adding a second shift to its sawmill in Bearden, Arkansas. This second shift will result in the hiring of 65 new employees in addition to creating numerous other support positions within the company and in the surrounding area of south Arkansas. I want to recognize Anthony Timberlands for this exciting announcement and their longstanding commitment to the people and the economy of south Arkansas. But as I reflect on Anthony Timberlands' announcement, I can't help but think of how many more jobs could have been added throughout Arkansas and the United States if it weren't for the excessive regulation of the Obama administration. For example, States have worked in conjunction with the Federal Government for 40 years to manage forest roads and prevent pollution with State-managed best practices. This partnership has proven effective and provided regulatory certainty for many decades. Unfortunately, President Obama's EPA wants to impose a nationwide standard, giving them the complete regulatory authority over an industry that supports nearly 3 million workers and contributes $115 billion to our economy each year. Under this standard, the EPA will be able to shut down businesses that don't comply with their arbitrary and misguided rules. States have a 40-year track record of effectively regulating these roads, and we should let them continue for at least another 40. To take another example, the EPA's new boiler rule demonstrates this administration's preference for ideology over sound economics and business sense. With compliance costs in excess of $3 billion and 105,000 jobs threatened, this rule inflicts unnecessary costs on our economy at a time when we can least afford it. In addition, our timber producers have no guarantee that EPA won't move the goalpost once again and reopen the regulations as they have in the past. What timber and forestry product companies want--what all businesses want, for that matter--is certainty, not more regulation. They need to know that investment in a new factory or new equipment today means they can keep using it once it's built instead of living in fear of the government closing their doors tomorrow. These companies aren't asking for special preferences or another $800 billion in failed stimulus funds; they're simply asking for predictable and fair rule of law, not arbitrary regulation. Mr. Speaker, companies like Anthony Timberlands provide quality jobs and lasting economic growth for places like south Arkansas and the rest of America, despite the obstacles the Obama administration has put in their place. I look forward to working with my colleagues to eliminate burdensome regulations and red tape that slow growth, hurt communities and diminish opportunity. We should celebrate companies that empower hardworking Americans to do what they do best: create high quality products that lead the world.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Speaker, North Korea's nuclear test earlier this week signals an increasingly dangerous and defiant stance that the United States and our allies must confront and defeat. The resolution before the House today condemns the North Korean Government's flagrant and repeated violations of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and condemns its repeated provocations that threaten international peace and stability. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. I must add that the constraints we face in countering a nuclear North Korea highlight the urgent need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capabilities. Iran already exports murder around the world, props up illegitimate regimes like Bashir al-Assad in Syria and supports and sponsors terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. Imagine what Iran would do when acting under the umbrella of a nuclear deterrent. The United States already faces in North Korea one outlaw regime with nuclear weapons. We cannot allow a second outlaw regime to join them.