Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. As always, it is an honor to speak on this floor where so much history has been made, where, after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt stood here in this Hall and announced that was a day that would live in infamy. There have been some great Americans from different walks of life, ages, races who do great things in this Hall. Sometimes we have to take a look and have some time of self- examination; and 9/11--yesterday, 10 years after the worst attack in American history on our soil--is a good time to really take inventory of where we are, what have we learned, what have we done. We know that we have five who helped organize 9/11. They're being held at Guantanamo Bay. The man who acknowledges his role--and most say he was the leader, the instigator--Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is there, a very smart man. He can still be smart and be crazy. A very smart man. At a lengthy hearing during which he was interviewed by the judge in the military commission trial down at Guantanamo Bay--I've been there a couple of times. The design of that courtroom is absolutely ideal for the kind of trial that was to take place there of those five defendants, but they announced they intended to plead guilty back in December of 2008. That was before the new administration, including our Attorney General, Eric Holder, indicated that we wanted to give them a trial in New York City, itself. We wanted to bring those people to the heart of Manhattan, where some estimated it would cost not merely millions but potentially hundreds of millions for the security to have that trial there. And the fact was they had already announced they were going to plead guilty. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed made very, very clear in a lengthy interview there in court--it's on the record, and we have the verbatim interview. He, under oath, such as it was, admitted enough detail. It was very clear this man was behind the killing of thousands of Americans on 9/11. He is smart enough that he did his own translation and filed his pleading in response. The judge in the case before this administration took over was kind enough to declassify this pleading, and it can be found on my Web site at gohmert.house.gov. It can be found in a number of places. The things he says are extraordinary. Of course, he blames the United States. But just in case there are people, Mr. Speaker, that wonder do we really have the right guys that organized, planned, plotted to kill innocent fathers and mothers and children there at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and, yes, apparently even here at our Nation's Capitol that some say is the most recognized building in the entire world, well, he says--and he quotes from the Koran. Thank God, most Muslims do not believe ``jihad'' means what the radicals believe. But make no mistake, just as it was in Afghanistan when the radical Islamists--the Taliban--took over Afghanistan, moderate Muslims were at risk because, to some like the Taliban, if you don't believe in Islam and the Koran exactly like they do, then you're eligible for a capital offense. You can be put to death. You're not a proper believer. You could be cast aside as an infidel. So moderate Muslims are every bit as much at risk--even more so at times--than the rest of us infidels, according to the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He quotes from the Koran in his pleading. It says: ``In God's book, verse 9, Al-Taubah, Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush.'' Down at the bottom of page 4 of his pleading, he says: ``We do not possess your military might, not your nuclear weapons''--and parenthetically, I would interject, not yet. Iran is working on that, and certainly we can expect the terrorists will have the nuclear weapons once Iran has them. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on behalf of himself and the other codefendants, said, ``Nevertheless, we fight you with the almighty God. So if our act of jihad and our fighting with you cause fear and terror, then many thanks to God because it is him that has thrown fear into your hearts, which resulted in your infidelity, paganism, and your statement that God had a son and your Trinity beliefs.'' Now, according to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a radical Islamist, the mere belief or statement that God had a son or that there is a holy Trinity is a capital offense worthy of the death penalty because you have associated some other person or entity with God. Then he quotes from the Koran. He says, God stated in his book, verse 151, Al-Umran: ``Soon shall we cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers for that they join companies with Allah, for which he has sent no authority. Their place will be the fire, and evil is the home of the wrongdoers.'' So once again, in his own legal pleadings, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on behalf of himself and four other codefendants, makes clear he felt like they were justified in inflicting capital punishment on what those of us who are somewhat sane in the world would say was an act of hatred, an act of war, an act worthy of the death penalty, itself. He goes on. There's quite a bit here in his six-page pleading, but he quotes from the Koran again: ``God has stated in his book, verse 14, Al-Hashir, They fight not against you even together except in fortified townships or from behind walls. Their enmity among themselves is very great. You would think they are united, but their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people who understand not.'' He's right about that. As we have people who have tried to stand up and say these guys are thugs, they're hateful, they're evil, they deserve the death penalty for what they have admitted under oath in court that they did, they deserve the death penalty, we have people running around saying, no, no, no. Let's give them a show trial. Let's spend hundreds of millions of dollars to give them a show trial so they can spew their venom and their hatred out on all of the airways. That's not what they deserve. Under our system of justice--and people need to understand, Mr. Speaker, we go by the Constitution. And there is only one Court created in the Constitution that is not created by the United States Congress, and that is the Supreme Court. As my constitutional law professor used to make very clear, David Gwinn, he would say, if Congress has the power to create every court in the country, they have the power to dissolve them. They are congressionally created courts. Only the Supreme Court is a court they can't mess with the jurisdiction; that's set aside for them in the Constitution. We have the power under the Constitution to set up military commissions, tribunals. The Bush administration made a mistake in initially trying to set up a military commission on its own. That was not constitutionally appropriate. The Constitution gives that power to Congress. So once that was struck down, then we did it here in Congress in 2006. Of course, it included some mean-spirited, nasty words about people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who rejoiced at the terror Americans had on 9/11. They felt like ``enemy combatants'' was just too mean-spirited to call such a wondrous creature like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Let's be kinder and gentler with our treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. So in 2009, the Democratically controlled House and Senate passed an amendment. We watered down ``enemy combatant.'' It was just so harsh about these fine people. They are now called officially ``unprivileged, alien, enemy belligerents.'' And I hope they don't take offense of being called ``enemies''; but since they call us their enemies, then perhaps it's not too harsh. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his pleading, goes on. He says, ``We will make our materials available to defend and deter and egress you and the filthy Jews from our countries.'' Yeah, this wonderful creature, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has a real love for our Jewish friends both in the United States and Israel and around the world. What a good guy. I hope we didn't offend him by calling him an ``enemy belligerent'' or an ``enemy combatant.'' But he said, ``God has ordered us to spend for jihad in his cause. This is evident, he says, in many Koranic verses. He goes on, and he says, ``We ask to be near to God. We fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The jihad in God's cause is a great duty in our religion. We have news for you. The news is--'' these are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's words ``--you will be greatly defeated in Africa and Iraq, and America will fall politically, militarily, and economically. Your end is very near, and your fall will be just as the fall of the towers on the blessed 9/11 day. ``We will raise from the ruins, God willing. We will leave this imprisonment with our noses raised high in dignity as the lion emerges from his den. We shall pass over the blades of the sword into the gates of heaven.'' He said, ``So we ask from God to accept our contributions to the great attack, the great attack on America, and to place our 19 martyred brethren among the highest peaks in paradise.'' ``Unprivileged, alien, enemy belligerent,'' according to the Democratically controlled House and Senate, 2009. He's not an enemy combatant; he's an unprivileged enemy belligerent who wants to destroy America. Now I know there are many Christians that I've heard from who are really torn over this issue of how a Christian should respond to hateful, evil attacks as we experienced on 9/11. Some say, well, Jesus talked about turning the other cheek. Indeed he did. His Beatitudes that he gave in his Sermon on the Mount make clear that war is not something an individual is supposed to declare on another individual. And I don't try to impose my religious beliefs on somebody else, but it's important to have these discussions since we, for a little while longer, have the freedom of speech and freedom of religion even if we're not radical Islamists. So for a little while longer we can discuss this publicly. Anyone who believes the New Testament has to believe the book of Romans as well. And when you get to Romans 13:4 and it says, if you do evil, be afraid, it says, for our government is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil be afraid, for our government does not bear the sword in vain. Our government is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Those of us who believe all that's in the New Testament also believe Jesus' words that God does work things all together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. I don't know what all good things will come from this act of sheer evil and hatred on 9/11, that much hate that could bring down that many people and that much in the way of structure on the heads, on the bodies of innocent men and women, but I do know we should learn lessons. This government, whether you're a Christian, a Muslim, whether you're of the Jewish faith, whatever your faith, you have to understand, there needs to be a government in order to maintain order in society because this is not a perfect world and people are not perfect, and there will always be people bent on evil, bent on no good, and people who want to live in peace have to have governments in order to keep them safe as safe can be in a world where people exist who want to do evil. Jesus did say, Blessed are the peacemakers, but he also said, you know, if you say Racca, which was a crime back then, an offense, you'll have to answer to the courts. He anticipated there had to be an orderly government where people had to answer for their offenses and crimes against others. This is the government. We, the people of the United States, are the government, and every couple of years, there's a hiring day when people are supposed to examine the resumes, examine the backgrounds of those applying for the job to be servant. It's a hiring day. And we have a huge percentage of people who don't come out and even participate even though they're the government and they're supposed to hire servants to come in here and do the job of protecting them. That's the government's role. On 9/11, we had people who did evil. If you believe Romans, they should be afraid. And there is nothing prohibitive in our United States Constitution of someone who is an enemy of the United States, is not an American citizen, being tried in a military commission or tribunal as long as it's set up by the Congress. There is nothing unconstitutional about that no more than there is anything unconstitutional about the U.S. Government trying people in the United States military under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There's nothing inappropriate about that under our Constitution. That's why, in my 4 years in the Army, people I knew were court-martialed, and they were tried under those rules that would not meet the requirements for someone who was not in the military. But the Constitution anticipates different people in different circumstances could have different types of trials. Nothing unconstitutional about that. And someone who is a foreign enemy of the United States, who commits, participates, aids, abets, encourages an act of war against the United States is worthy of being tried in a military tribunal, a military commission, and he's worthy of being put to death if capital punishment is the judgment of the tribunal or the commission. What is not worthy is people coming in and intervening when defendants who were responsible, admittedly, over and over, for killing 3,000 Americans, and they're ready to plead guilty, they are pleading guilty, and they come in and say, Oh, not so fast. We want to give you a pulpit to spew your venom and hate and pay lots and lots of money. That's not worthy of this government. That's the way you lose countries, when people will not stand up when they are the government and defend the people they are charged with defending. Our role is to provide for the common defense against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that means people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others who would try to destroy this country and our freedoms. It should not happen. Do we wonder, some people say, well, it's so inappropriate to talk about Christianity at all. The Founders, we're told sometimes, they never meant for that kind of thing to go on. Well, let's see. I know, in my 4 years in the Army, I never had an officer who ordered that it was a violation, and it was a violation of his orders, to take God's name in vain. We'd have had a lot of people being court-martialed if that had been the case back when I was in. And I imagine that's true today. But Washington felt that we could not expect God to bless us and protect us and to help in the revolution if we were taking his name in vain, or soldiers were at the same time they were asking for his blessing. Washington said so many things. But he also ordered, this is an order of May 2, 1778, to the troops at Valley Forge, Commander-in- Chief, and these are Washington's signed orders: Commander-in-Chief directs that divine service be performed every Sunday at 11:00 in each brigade which has a chaplain. Those brigades which have none will attend the places of worship nearest to them. It is expected that officers of all ranks will, by their attendance, set an example for their men. While we are zealously performing the duties of God, citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to laud the more distinguished character of Christian. And he did capitalize the word ``Christian.'' We're not advocating that everybody in America should be a Christian, because we have freedom to do whatever we wish--worship, not worship. But it is not right to try to rewrite history to say the things that happened did not happen, the things that we were founded on did not happen. Jefferson and Madison both attended church just down the hall each Sunday they were in Washington, D.C., at the biggest church in the District of Columbia, held in the House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson not only did not think it was inappropriate or unconstitutional to have a nondenominational Christian worship service in the House of Representatives, but he often had the Marine Band come play hymns for their worship services. He's the guy that coined the phrase, ``separation of church and state.'' When you hear someone say there's a wall of separation that the Constitution says we must have, that the Constitution says we must have separation of church and state, you know, you may be dealing with an intelligent person, but you're dealing with an ignorant person, because those things are not in the Constitution. They were in a letter written to the Danbury Baptists by Thomas Jefferson. How about John Quincy Adams? He wrote this September, 1811: ``So great is my veneration for the Bible and so strong my belief, that when duly read and meditated on, it is of all books in the world that which contributes most to make men good, wise and happy--that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more steadily they pursue the practice of reading it throughout their lives, the more lively and confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens of their country, respectable members of society.'' And that's a man who believed he was called to run for the House of Representatives after he was defeated for a second term for President. Or how about this general order: ``President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine Will demand that Sunday labor in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.'' By the way, this was Abraham Lincoln, his order as Commander in Chief. He said: ``The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer nor the cause they defend be imperiled by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. ``At this time of public distress,'' adopting the words of Washington in 1776, ``men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.'' Abraham Lincoln also in 1863 said this: ``We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. ``Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self- sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.'' We have such a rich heritage. But we need to understand where we come from if we're going to understand where we're going. How about Franklin D. Roosevelt's prayer on June 6, 1944, D-day, when he knew thousands of Americans were being killed on the beaches of Normandy. And he led the Nation in prayer over the radio, an emotional prayer it is. It can be found online without a problem. Jefferson's memorial shows this quote: ``God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a Nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect our God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.'' I don't know what good God will work from the evil terror of 9/11. But I know something I saw on 9/11 and on 9/12, and this is the 10th anniversary of the day we came together as a Nation like I'd never seen before. I went into the Army on active duty after Vietnam was over. It was not a good time to be in the military at all. We were sometimes ordered not to wear our uniforms off-post at Fort Riley, occasionally Fort Benning, because of violence that could be inflicted on military members if they were caught by themselves. It was not a good time. I've been spit on in uniform. It was not a good time to be in the military. I really didn't think I would ever see the level of patriotism again that people saw after World War II. And then came 9/11. And people in this country that had called police and law enforcement ``pigs''; people who had been irritated and angry at fire department personnel because they were slowing things down, getting in the way; people who were upset with ambulances and EMTs for getting in their way; people who were upset with the military had a new profound appreciation like could never have happened without those evil men committing those acts of hatred. That night of September 11, 10 years ago, I went to a church I was not a member of, and we prayed--people from all walks, all ages, all races--we prayed together. We held hands. We asked God for protection like the children of Israel did when they knew they had no other place to turn but than the God Jehovah. And the next day in our town square, like thousands and thousands of town squares around America, we gathered, we prayed, we spoke, we sang ``Amazing Grace,'' we sang ``God Bless America. That is a prayer. We held hands. And it hit me: Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream of some day seeing people judged for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. And as I held hands and looked around at all of these hundreds of people in our town square holding hands and being of one heart, it hit me--a small glimpse of the dream he had. And it's beautiful. That day there were no Euro-Americans, there were no Anglo-Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans. There were no hyphenated Americans 10 years ago today. We were Americans. May God grant that we will return to that sense of unity and purpose once again. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. It's been quite an eventful day here on the House floor, a lot of scurrying, a lot of things going on in committee rooms, different meeting rooms around the Capitol today. And actually, last night, when I finished talking and meeting with folks around midnight or so, it appeared that Republicans would start today with basically not much change to the bill we had yesterday. But we had a conference this morning, the Republican Members of Congress, and added to the Boehner bill was the requirement that before the President would get the full tranche of the debt ceiling being lifted there had to be a balanced budget amendment passed from the House--with two-thirds vote, of course--and from the Senate with two- thirds vote and be sent to the States by the Archivist of the Capitol for their ratification. Now, it's a shame that a balanced budget amendment is needed, but if there could have been a piece of legislation that were prepared and passed that were tight enough to require always that a balanced approach be taken--no more money spent than money coming in--then we wouldn't have had to worry about a balanced budget amendment. But what we've seen over the last 100 years or so in this country has been runaway spending. And I think of the line Jim Carey had in one of his movies, ``Somebody stop me,'' and Congress needed somebody to stop Congress. But the only way to do that, constitutionally and legally, was to change the Constitution so that Congress could be stopped from spending more money than it took in. I was going to vote ``no'' on the Boehner bill as of yesterday, as of last night, but this morning, I found out that the Speaker, as he said he would, had listened to the Conference and put back in the balanced budget amendment requirement. It already had a requirement in there that there would be a vote, but we knew that the Senate had already voted 51 votes to table the balanced budget amendment. They didn't even want to debate it. And now tonight, as I speak, the Senate has wasted no time, with the Majority Leader of the Senate, a Democratic Party leader--I would bet that he has not bothered to read the bill, that he has not bothered to see what's there, and perhaps Majority Leader Reid does not know that 70 percent or so of all American adults would like to see a balanced budget amendment passed. Tonight, again, he is working against the will of the American people, just like he and then-Speaker Pelosi did in pushing for ObamaCare to be passed though a majority of Americans did not want that kind of government intrusion into their lives. Well, Democrats still control the Senate, so once again they're working their private will against the will of the American people. So as I speak, I don't know what the tally is. It was being taken as I walked onto the floor. But I would imagine that Leader Reid would not have brought the Boehner bill, with the requirement of having a balanced budget amendment passed by two-thirds, to the floor of the Senate unless he knew, once again, he had the 51 Democratic Senators who were willing to vote to table the bill that has required so much sweat--I don't know that there were any tears, but there was a lot of sweat and a lot of frustration. I know I've had plenty, anger at times, frustration. But we came together and got the bill done. And I ended up being a ``yes'' for a number of reasons, but the most important was that the balanced budget amendment was going to be required to pass two-thirds of the House and Senate before the President got the debt ceiling increase that he so desperately wants. To table that--it's bad enough that the Senate all this time has been trashing things that we've been fighting for and getting accomplished in the House, but to table it? You're not even going to let Republicans who want to speak on this issue come to the floor of the Senate and have a fair debate simply because one party controls the majority? You want to keep the other side from coming to the Senate floor and having a fair debate over a balanced budget amendment. It is just staggering to think that, once again, just like when ObamaCare was crammed down the throats of Americans, not with any sugar, it was a sour piece of medicine, and now, not even to allow debate over a balanced budget amendment to be brought to the Senate floor, I don't think the Founders intended that. I don't think the Founders intended that when 70 percent or so of Americans felt something was critical for the ongoing and good of the country, that you would have one group in either House who would prohibit even discussing, debating a bill, using the rules and 51 Senators to prevent debate. I mean, that's one of the things that helped make this country great. This was the one place you used to be able to say whatever you wanted. It has been credited to different people, ``I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it,'' and now it appears the Senate is operating under the rule, ``I disagree with what you say, so I am going to use procedural maneuvers and prevent you from saying what you want to say.'' And I'll say this about Speaker John Boehner, too. He knows that I have not been happy with many of the things that have gone on, but unlike the Majority Leader in the Senate, he has made no effort to prevent me from coming to the House floor and speaking my mind, such as it is, here on this floor. We're supposed to have freedom of speech, but the Senate will not allow the working of the people's will on the Senate floor. Now, I've heard some people say, Mr. Speaker, that the fact is that by our passing this bill today in the House that we have provided a vehicle for the Senate to use to completely strip out and put some contorted piece of legislation on and send back down here. Well, the fact is that the Senate did not need this bill today to have a vehicle to send a contorted piece of legislation back to us. Now, the Constitution makes clear, anything that produces revenue has to originate in the House. That's the Constitution. But it is also important for people to understand, Mr. Speaker, the lengths to which the rules have been twisted--and I think misused--in order to make something happen that never should have. A good example is this monstrosity some call ObamaCare. It's got different names, but the original name of this bill was H.R. 3590, and it calls it: the Bill from the House of Representatives. So this was a Senate bill--ObamaCare was a Senate bill, started in the Senate, derived in the Senate. Well, then, since the Democrats raised revenue in ObamaCare, created new taxes, introduced taxes, well, that's a revenue-generating bill, then how in the world could the Senate originate the bill since it generated revenue, because the Constitution makes very clear they can't do that. Well, what the Senate did was take H.R. 3590 entitled, ``an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first time home buyer's credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes.'' That's ObamaCare. And I would humbly submit that any bill that starts as a lie, because this bill was a lie, a bill that starts as a lie can't be a very good bill in the end. We know that any building that has a proper foundation can weather a lot of storms. This bill has a lie for a foundation. The ObamaCare bill, H.R. 3590, ``an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first time home buyer's credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces.'' And they had to do double page, and this paper is very, very thin so they could get all of this stuff in here. But it is interesting. You know, the bill started as a bill to help veterans and our military. But this bill, to help veterans and our military, those who are putting their lives at risk for our liberty, for our benefit, that was stripped out and this ObamaCare bill begins with page 1, line 1 of the bill to help our veterans and military, and strikes every single word, deleting every single word in the bill to help veterans and our military, and substitutes therefore ObamaCare. That bill started as a lie. They took a bill that had nothing to do with health care, and they stripped every word that would help our military and made it ObamaCare. That is phenomenal, just incredible. So the Senate didn't need us to pass a bill today for them to do the same thing, to take some well-intentioned bill, some bill that did some great things for America, deleting beginning on line 1, page 1, and substituting therefore whatever contorted mess that the Senate is going to send down here. But the thing is, although some of the Senate leadership has been taking their shots in the media at the House, they have not passed anything. They have fought now today makes twice as the Nation moves toward not having enough money while the House has been embroiled in serious debate and discussions trying to put together a bill. And we did that, and it had 234 votes. And the Senate immediately tabled it. The truth is, I thought we should wait for the Senate to do anything. And I disagreed with the Speaker's strategy. The Speaker's strategy was if they won't take that, then let's try again. We will compromise on the things that we want and send a bill that is clearly a compromise of the things that we want, so surely the Senate will take it up and surely they will pass it. We heard from Majority Leader Reid that he was going to make sure that it was dead on arrival, but those kinds of things have been threatened before, too. We know that the President has drawn many lines in the sand that have kept moving. And we have heard the President talk about his bill. I can recall sitting back there during the September speech by the President in here on health care in which he kept talking about his bill, my bill, this bill, and don't misrepresent my bill or I'll call you out. And he was the first one to use the lie word here on the House floor talking about what he believed to be misrepresentations of his bills. I asked the HHS Secretary a couple of weeks after that, the President keeps talking about my bill, this bill, where can I get a copy of the President's bill? And Secretary Sebelius said: I think he was talking about a set of principles. So I was right. The President talked about this bill, my bill, this bill, my bill, but he had no bill. People talk about how beautiful his clothes were, but the fact was the emperor was naked. There was no bill. There was no bill then; and now as the President talks about his bill, his ideas, there is no bill. As Harry Reid talks about his bill, there is no bill. Maybe they will finally get around to passing something. There is something filed in the Senate, and as I understand it, Chairman Dreier has filed it down here so that we can take it up. We will see what happens. But the phenomenal thing is how badly off track this Congress has gotten when one of the Houses, in this case the Senate, will not even allow debate over something that the vast majority of Americans want. Forget Democrat, forget Republican, forget red, forget blue. Let's get responsible. Mr. Speaker, there is $160 billion in deficit spending. My second year here, 2006, was not responsible; and Democrats won the majority as the result because they promised we will eliminate that $160 billion deficit spending. Man, oh, man, were they right. They eliminated $160 billion in deficit spending. And now this year as a result of their actions, the last four, we will have $1.6 trillion in spending deficit this year. Bringing in around $2.2 trillion. We find out today the numbers from the first quarter of this year, which was very little growth at all in our economy which people got depressed about when the original numbers came out, was about a third of what they originally thought it was. Things aren't looking good. This is President Obama; it's his economy. With the changes that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid made in the first 2 years of this President's tenure, they set us on a track that is leading to a major crash. Now, we have already heard in recent days that the August 2 deadline that the President set, just like I said some weeks back, that was not a particularly special day. It did happen to be the day before the President's big birthday celebration, but otherwise it was not a particularly significant day. I know that the group that Tom Daschle helped start, the Bipartisan Policy Center, whatever it is, that they were echoing whatever the President said, that August 2 was going to be the day. And they lumped in Social Security with everything else. The law is very clear, Social Security gets paid. It is on automatic pilot. Just like in 1985 and just like in 1996, when there was a shortfall 1 month, the Treasury Secretary is supposed to sell off some of the Treasury notes. There is $2.6 trillion in Treasury notes, sell off enough to pay the benefits and expenses of Social Security. So there is no risk of that failing. We also know there are many times more than enough money to pay our debts as they come due in August; and so we have been told, well, actually it is not August 2. Maybe it is like a couple of weeks or a couple of weeks beyond that. We are not sure, but sometime in the future. Well, in the House it has been taken seriously even though August 2 was not particularly a magic date. We have passed two bills, and the Senate has passed zero. That's irresponsible. Absolutely irresponsible. That invokes no confidence that this government will ever be able to do what it needs to. So I know, I have gotten emails, calls, and letters. Members of Congress all over the floor on both sides of the aisle have gotten calls and letters and emails. The majority in my office have encouraged me to stand firm. It is great to represent a district that understands not to cave in to fear-mongering. It has been rough in recent days because you never like to be chided by friends who don't like the position you're taking on a bill. But I'm ever so grateful that the bill was made eminently better this morning by adding the requirement that the Balanced Budget Act pass. And not only that, talking through the day, I do appreciate Speaker Boehner face-to-face, eye-to-eye. He has been very gracious all week. It's others that have made it kind of tough at times. He realized something needed to be done. He wants to do something. So, in talking with him and also talking with Chairman Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Budget Committee, I'm also satisfied that we've got a number of wonderful things coming. We can perhaps figure at some point the Senate will get concerned about going against the will of the majority of the Senate. At some point they're going to realize: We should not keep going against 70 percent of the American public because a lot of us have got elections next year. So, gee, maybe we better do something that the majority of Americans want. Well, one of the things that I heard Rush Limbaugh talking about in the nineties when Congress was not even a blip on my radar was the zero baseline budget. And it didn't make any sense to me as he explained it. I thought, that's strange. As it was explained, we have automatic increases in every agency's budget in the Federal Government. Every agency has automatic increases every year. Well, citizens don't get automatic COLAs but their agencies sure get an automatic increase every year. All those budgets, they get automatic increases. Why? We ought to have a zero baseline budget every year so nobody gets an automatic increase in the government agencies. If they want an increase, they ought to have to come in and prove it. And we can save trillions of dollars if we just required every budget in the Federal Government to start out and prove what they need for the year. A zero baseline budget. No automatic increases. Well, when I got to Congress and was sworn in in January of 2005 and started looking at the things that would make America stronger, a zero baseline budget made sense. During that Congress I filed a bill to require a zero baseline budget. No automatic increases every year. And then back in those days it didn't make sense the Republicans wouldn't bring that to the floor because any time you slowed the automatic increase as a Congress, there were people that called you a draconian fool, you're making draconian cuts, when you weren't making cuts, you were just slowing the rate of growth. It wasn't a cut. The only way to fix that was just say: No automatic increases. And I pushed for that in my first Congress in 2005 and 2006, and Republicans were in the majority. And our leadership at that time, particularly in 2006, when I talked with some of our leadership then, and I was pushing it, and I was told we just can't do that. We should have. We didn't. We should have had major tax reform. Well, now is the time. This is a great time to push for a flat tax or a simplified tax that's fair, simpler, and so that everybody has their fair share. I don't want a mega-rich person paying a 10 or 12 percent income tax. Everybody ought to have some interest financially in what happens here--and not because they make lots of money and don't put anything in. People need to have a vested interest in this Congress by paying income tax in. And the lowest rate is down, I believe, around 15 percent. It may be 5 percent. I've forgotten now. But the top rate has been 39 percent. Some people want it to go higher. And even though the top rate is 39 percent, there are some mega-rich that don't pay 39. Well, why not have a tax that's a fair tax cut across the middle that will be a flat tax. Everybody pays the same amount of tax. That ought to be fair. Everybody ought to have the same thing. Art Laffer, a great economist that helped revive the dismal economy coming out of the Carter administration, was just saying this week--I agreed with what he said. I have been talking about this, and I appreciate that man's opinion so much. He said we ought to have a flat tax. And he said, I believe you could get there and have the same amount of revenue if you were to have a 12, 13 percent flat tax, and even allow for mortgage interest deduction and to allow for deductions to charitable contributions. That was the main part of the tax. There was another aspect. But, boy, that would be so much more fairer. No mega-rich would get out without paying nothing. GE shouldn't have to pay nothing or, get away with paying nothing just because they're a friend of the administration and get lobbying and all that kind of stuff. Everybody ought to have to pay something. I'm okay with reducing corporation tax because when you do that, you're reducing the tariff we're putting on our own products. And if you took off the 35 percent tariff we put on every corporate American good produced, there's no telling how many markets around the world would just be begging for American products that would have 35 percent less of a tariff on those goods. We could compete anywhere if we keep the tariff down on our own goods. People talk about putting tariffs on other people's goods. We ought to get it off our own. And then you would see massive amounts of economic boom going on, and people would be hired, and more people would pay the 12, 13 percent income tax. You would have more revenue than ever coming into the American coffers in the Federal Government. That would create jobs. And as people know, the best form of welfare is a job. You feel good about yourself. But it's hard to feel too good about what is going on down there. As I have said before, down in the Senate, above the door from the President's sitting position, above the left door are the words ``Annuit Coeptis.'' He, God, has smiled on our undertaking. It's part of our Great Seal on the back of every dollar bill. It's hard to believe that God could be smiling on people that will not allow debate on a responsible balanced budget amendment. In the time I have left, let me just say we've got so many calls, emails, letters, encouragement. And so many of them say, We're praying for you in Washington that you will do the right thing. Some of us happen to believe--and I won't try to push my religious beliefs on others--but some of us happen to believe that as we're told in the Old Testament, the Lord is the source of all wisdom. That there is no wisdom outside of that. Ben Franklin apparently believed that, as he said in 1787, ``I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men.'' Mr. Speaker, Peter Marshall was Senate Chaplain back in the 1940s, and a constituent gave me this book with many of the prayers that he prayed there on the Senate floor. I want to finish, Mr. Speaker, with a prayer prayed by Peter Marshall, U.S. Chaplain for the United States Senate in the 1940s. On the Senate floor, as the Senators are down there. It makes a wonderful prayer. Peter Marshall prayed: ``We pray to Thee, O Christ, to keep us under the spell of immortality. ``May we never again think and act as if Thou wert dead. Let us more and more come to know Thee as a living Lord who hath promised to them that believe: `Because I live, ye shall live also.' ``Help us to remember that we are praying to the Conqueror of Death, that we may longer be afraid nor be dismayed by the world's problems and threats, since Thou hast overcome the world. ``In Thy strong name we ask for Thy living presence and Thy victorious power. Amen.'' Mr. Speaker, may that be our prayer also tonight. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, there's no question this Congress for many years has had a problem with spending. The Democratic Congress developed a bigger and bigger appetite for spending for 40 years, as it held the majority for years and years. Then Republicans took the House in 1995, and they forced a balanced budget on President Clinton. They had friction between the President and the Congress, and that allowed this country to have a balanced budget. Who would have ever thought--I certainly wouldn't. I know I have got some Democratic friends who would have thought it, but I wouldn't--but when we got a Republican President and we had Republican majorities in the House and Senate, we began to spend again. There wasn't the friction there to hold spending down, and Republicans, I would submit, lost their way and began spending too much money. My first year in Congress, in 2005 and 2006, we shouldn't have spent the money we did. And I can recall being here on the floor and having Democratic friends beating us up, rightfully so, because in 2006 we spent $160 billion more than we had coming in. We didn't have to do that. We shouldn't have done that. I would never have dreamed that 5 short years later that with the Democratic majority the spending would have exploded once they had no friction between a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress, and that we would go from the $160 billion in deficit spending in 2006 that Republicans got beat up for to $1.6 trillion in deficit spending--10 times more--and people still thinking that's somehow okay. It wasn't okay for Republicans to overspend by $160 billion, and it's not okay for this Democratic Senate and President to continue to push to spend $1.6 trillion more than the $2.2 trillion we supposedly will have coming in. Now we're told today we're going to have a vote on a Republican bill. A little surprising to some of us Republicans. We passed a bill, Cut, Cap, and Balance. It wasn't what I wanted. I liked the balanced budget amendment with a percentage of GDP cap on spending to help rein Congress in, and that was negotiable on the percentage. But it also had $111 billion out of $1.6 trillion that would have been cut from spending. That just wasn't enough. But the balanced budget amendment, if it had been passed and become part of the law, was enough of a game changer it was worth voting for. Then the Senate sits back and says, We're not going to go for that. We're not going to pass anything, so pass something else. And now our leadership has heard the call of Leader Reid down the hall and is going to bring another bill. And I know the intentions of both sides of the aisle want the best for the country. I get that. I understand that. We have different ideas on how that can be done. And I know that there are people in my party that want to keep beating up on me because I can't vote for a bill that only cuts $1 trillion out of $15 trillion to $16 trillion that will be deficit spending over the next 10 years. Because it's easy to do the math: We cut $1 trillion out of $15 trillion, $16 trillion over the next 10 years, and if we can keep doing that, and there are no assurances we can, every 10 years cut another trillion, then when I have my 207th birthday, we can celebrate that year a balanced budget, and we will have only added $120 trillion to the $14.3 trillion deficit now. I can't vote for that. Politically we're told, this is the political thing to do. You've got to do the political thing. If you don't vote for the Boehner bill, you're voting for Obama. That's not true. If the Senate will pass anything--anything--then we could drive this to a conference committee and get a compromise. The Senate has to pass something. Well, think about this scenario very quickly: We pass this, say, hypothetically. The Senate says, Oh, well, you pushed us to the edge of the cliff; we didn't want to vote for this. Then they pass it just like we did, and the President says, I was going to veto but we're on the edge of the cliff. A 100 percent Republican bill; they wouldn't compromise. And now they say, Well, gee, Republicans inherited the economy. It's not right practically; it's not right politically. Let's do the right thing for America.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a lot of things going on right now. One of them should be the business of the country. This body this week passed what many have said was truly historic. A truly historic bill passed the House of Representatives. It was not exactly what I wanted. I thought there was too much in it in the way of debt ceiling increase. I thought there was not enough in the way of budget cuts. But what we found in the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill was that it included a provision that, before the debt ceiling would ever be increased again, we would have to have a constitutional amendment pass the House of Representatives with two-thirds and pass the Senate with two-thirds, which would not send it to the President for him to veto, as apparently he wants to do, but it would send it to the States directly. There's no provision for the President to sign a constitutional amendment after it passes the House and Senate with two- thirds of the vote. It goes to the States. If three-fourths ratify it, it's a part of the Constitution. But in order to get the debt ceiling raised, we would have to have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution pass the two-thirds in the House and Senate. That seemed like an appropriate thing to do because, as many of us have said, the only way we're voting for a debt ceiling increase is if there is a real game changer as part of that that we can't get any other way that will set this country on the course to being fully fiscally responsible. One of the reasons so many of us on both sides of the aisle ran for Congress was to come try to make sure that the liberties and the opportunities that we had growing up would be available to future generations. The only reason that I was born in the greatest country in the history of mankind was because prior generations did smart things, did things that the Bible would say are blessed things. They did things that caused future generations to be blessed. It wasn't because I deserved it. I'd done nothing in my mother's womb to deserve to have the liberties and opportunities I'd had, but it was because prior generations sacrificed. So many laid down their lives so that we would have these opportunities. So we have an open process. It's supposed to be. We've got people in the gallery, Mr. Speaker. We've got people who are free to come to the U.S. Capitol because we're in the people's House right now. There are people across Capitol Hill--Members who have their televisions on. People don't come to the floor like they once did to listen to speeches here, because they can sit in the comfort of their own offices and do other work and have C-SPAN on and listen. That has been going on for 30 years, and it has been a helpful thing. You can see what's going on on the floor and not just around Capitol Hill but all over the country. Most of us came here to try to make sure that those same opportunities are afforded to others. There are a lot of different motivations, a lot of noble motivations for running for Congress, but I think most of us came here for that purpose. We disagree on the way to do it, but it is shocking that there could be so much disagreement over the absolute historic, unwavering principle that any nation that continually spends more than it brings into its government will cease to exist as a government. There is no historic element contrary to that. You can't find it. If a country, if a government, keeps spending more than it brings in, it is going to cease to exist. The only question remains: When does that happen? There are movements around the world to try to end the dollar as being the world's reserve currency. When that happens, the dollar is going to fall farther than it ever has, and it may not recover. That's why I think some countries want to see that happen. That's probably why George Soros wants to see that happen. We also are told that our rating of our indebtedness, our bonds, may be downgraded if we don't get our indebtedness under control. It only makes sense that that would happen if we don't get our spending under control. It should be a no-brainer, but apparently that is a malady that exists here in Washington. Under the rules of the House of Representatives, I certainly can't say that there is anybody in the House or Senate who has no brain. We know, biologically, you have to have a brain, but it is possible that you can have a brain and not use it fully. I don't know how you explain the vote that took place right through that door and down that hall at the end of the Senate today. I don't know how to explain that. It's not that the Senate today had too much work to get done or too many bills to take up that they just didn't have time to try to save the country from ceasing to exist because it can't stop spending. So it wasn't because there are too many other bills to take up. They have no bill to deal with the financial issues of this country. There is no bill down there that is going to be brought to the floor that will save this country from its own government's stupidity. According to the House rules, it's not that there is anybody stupid here in the House and Senate, but as a group, sometimes we do very stupid things. I would submit that what has happened today, from an historic standpoint, is a statement that, although nobody in a body, according to the House rules, is stupid, a body can do a stupid thing. So, even though there are no other bills being brought to the Senate floor to take up and vote on today, even though there are bills that have been filed to take care of this very issue, there is a Cut, Cap, and Balance bill in the Senate that has been filed to address this issue. Many have signed onto bills that will address these issues. They're down there, but they're not bringing them to the floor. There's not an overwhelming amount of work to be done on the Senate floor today, so they bring up the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill--not for debate. Why would anybody be afraid of debating a bill that so many believe could help us save the country for future generations? Why would you be afraid to bring that up? If you don't want to talk about it, if you don't want to have a debate on the House or the Senate floor on some bill that so many believe will help us save the country for future generations, you make a procedural move called a ``motion to table,'' and that is what happened in the Senate today. What courage that took. It must have taken a lot of courage, and I'm not kidding about that when you know that there are so many people in the Senate body who want to talk about a game changer, who want to talk about what they believe with all their hearts could set us on a course to fiscal responsibility, that could save the country for future generations. You know all those people wanted to talk about it. It takes a lot of courage to stand up and say, ``I move to table that bill.'' Now, I don't know what the motivation is that would cause someone to stand up and say, ``I move to table. I second that.'' I don't know. I don't know why you would move to table. I don't know the motivation, but I know it takes courage when right at half of the 100 people in the Senate want to take this bill up and talk about it and debate it and maybe amend it--because I would love to amend it. I would love to knock down the $2.4 trillion in debt ceiling increase. I'd love to raise the amount of cuts. There are a number of things I'd like to tighten up in that bill, but it was the best bill we had available. What a great idea. Bring it to the floor. Let's talk about it. Let's amend it. Let's get it done. The thing is, when you're in the majority of the House or the Senate and if you don't like a bill and if you bring it to the floor on an open rule, you can amend it on the floor. You can have the debate on whether or not it ought to be amended. We just went through that, and we voted for and against a lot of different amendments this week, many of which I didn't think we necessarily needed to vote on, but that's part of the process. Why would anyone in the Senate be afraid of having that process on the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill? I don't get it. I know it took courage to move to table when all the polls show America is concerned about its future. Poll after poll shows that American adults in around the 70 percentage area believe that the next generation will not have the opportunities that our generation had. You know those feelings are out there in America. You know that there is a group that wants to change the way we do business in Washington, so we have to live within the amount of money that comes in and not spend more than that. You know that feeling is out there. You know that this is a bill that could change the way we do business. Why wouldn't you want to even allow it to the Senate floor to talk about it? It took courage to move to table. Here are the courageous Senators who voted to table, which means to prevent debate on the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill in the Senate. It truly took courage for these people in the face of 60, 70--some have indicated 80--but 60, 70 percent of America that wants us to get our financial house in order. There is a bill that will mandate that we do that. So it takes courage to prevent that bill from coming to the floor, not for a vote on the bill, but just to debate the bill, to talk about it in front of God and everybody on the Senate floor. It took courage. I don't know the motivation for all of these people voting to prevent debate and prevent the bill from coming to the floor. I just know that these people had courage to prevent what the majority of the American people believe needs to be discussed and debated and voted on. And these are the Senators with that courage to prevent what the majority of the American people wanted done: From Hawaii, Senator Akaka; from Montana, Senator Baucus; and from Alaska, Senator Begich; from Colorado, Senator Bennet; from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman; from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal; from California, Senator Boxer; from Ohio, Senator Brown; Washington State, Senator Cantwell; from Maryland, Senator Cardin; from Delaware, Senator Carper; from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey; from North Dakota, Senator Conrad; from Delaware, Senator Coons; from Illinois, Senator Durbin; from California, Senator Feinstein; from Minnesota, Senator Franken. And then these are the people who had the courage to say: We will not allow the debate on the floor of the Senate that might lead to a balanced budget amendment being passed. We're not going to allow that to come to the Senate floor. So let me go through the remainder of the Senators. Senator Hagan from North Carolina, Senator Harkin from the State of Iowa, Senator Inouye from Hawaii, Senator Johnson from South Dakota, Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, Senator Kohl from Wisconsin, Senator Landrieu from Louisiana, Senator Lautenberg from New Jersey, Senator Leahy from Vermont, Senator Levin from Michigan, Senator Lieberman from Connecticut, Senator Manchin from West Virginia, Senator McCaskill from Missouri, Senator Menendez from New Jersey, Senator Merkley from Oregon, Senator Mikulski from Maryland, Senator Murray from Washington. And again, I attribute nothing but courage to these people for voting to prevent what a vast majority of American people want to have debated on the Senate floor. They were able to have the courage to say: We're not going to allow debate. We're not going to allow the chance that you might get this bill passed that could save America for future generations. Further courageous Senators: Senator Nelson from Florida, Senator Nelson from Nebraska, Senator Pryor from Arkansas, Senator Reed from Rhode Island, Senator Reid from Nevada, Senator Rockefeller from West Virginia, Senator Sanders from Vermont, Senator Schumer from New York, Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire, Senator Stabenow from Michigan, Senator Tester from Montana, Senator Udall from Colorado, Senator Udall from New Mexico, Senator Warner from Virginia, Senator Webb from Virginia, Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island, and Senator Wyden from Oregon. It took a lot of courage to take a stand and vote in the Senate that: we will not allow debate on this floor over a balanced budget amendment. We're not going to allow it despite the vast majority of Americans knowing that we have to get our fiscal house in order, knowing that a balanced budget amendment would force this body and the Senate body to do just that, knowing that that would prevent the White House from ever demanding that we spend $3.8 trillion when we're only bringing in $2.1 or $2.2 trillion, knowing that it would force Congress and the government to live within their means. They had the courage to stand up and say: We're not going to allow that debate. We're not going to allow the risk that you might pass a bill that forces us to be fiscally responsible. It took a courageous stand, and they stood and took that stand. Now, to have the President of the United States stand before the American public and say, I can't guarantee that seniors will get their Social Security checks, just requires a little bit of research to find out that apparently the President, just like all of us in Congress, we rely on our staffs; we rely on those around us to get us information so that we can speak truthfully from the information we glean for ourselves that our staffs help us gather. That tells you, though, that whoever is helping the President is not giving him truthful, accurate information because the fact is the President is the only person in this country who can guarantee that Social Security checks will go out just as the law requires. I can guarantee that the money is there and that it will be good even if this Congress does nothing for 3 years. Even if everything else falls apart, we can guarantee that the Social Security trust fund has, right now, $2.6 trillion in treasury notes in the Social Security trust fund that can be converted to cash, that can, by law, only be used for Social Security benefits and expenses. So, the only reason that I or anyone else here in the House could not absolutely unforeseen guarantee that seniors will get their Social Security checks is because there is one element that could prevent that on the 2nd or 3rd of August, and that's if the President or Timothy Geithner ordered that checks would not go out, knowing--well, I don't know if the President knows. He may not have been given accurate information. I know Timothy Geithner knows that there is $2.6 trillion in the Social Security trust fund, that in 1985 there was a shortfall, and there was not enough cash to pay Social Security payments, and so they sold some of the treasury notes to get cash to make sure all of the Social Security checks were paid. 1985. Some were apparently concerned that might not have been legal. So in 1996, a Republican majority in Congress passed a law that basically says, hey, if there is a shortfall some month, then since there are trillions of dollars in the treasury notes in the Social Security trust fund, the administration can sell those treasury notes, just enough to make up the shortfall and assure that Social Security checks will go out. They made that a matter of law so that the administration may do that. What I've been proposing that we should make as a part of a prioritization bill that passed--we bring before the House and pass it, bring before the Senate, and these same courageous people would probably table that, too, but it would say not that Social Security is a group of bills with others that must be paid, because by law Social Security is separate. By law, it is paid with Social Security payroll taxes; and by law, if there's not enough cash to do that some month, you may take the treasury notes and sell just enough to make up that shortfall. Since the United States bonds and treasury notes are still about the most desirable financial bond note to be purchased in the world, especially when you look at the alternatives--Greece, Portugal, Spain, France--not a lot of good choices. So they're buying our notes, and they would. That would continue at least until we quit paying our bills properly. But I think the law ought to be changed to say not ``may'' but ``must,'' so that in the future no President could ever go before the American public and say, ``I can't guarantee Social Security checks won't go out,'' because he is the one person in America that is the only person in America, he and his Secretary of the Treasury, that can stop them from going out, and if we make that ``may'' a ``must'' or a ``shall,'' then he has no option. Then we can guarantee that Social Security checks will not be interrupted, because then we would know that the President has no option. He cannot interrupt the money that is there from going to Social Security recipients. It has to go, or he violates the law, and that could be grounds, if he stepped in--heck, if he stepped in even now and said, ``look, the money's there in the trust fund, but I want to make a political issue out of this and I need a crisis in order to do that, so I'm going to step in and prevent the Social Security checks from going out this month,'' there would have to be action taken against the President. That is just irresponsible. I think it's totally inappropriate for a President to scare our seniors. I also think it's totally inappropriate to scare our military, and that's why I've been pushing for months a bill to ensure that people in harm's way never have to have it cross their mind that their check may not go home to their families. They should never have to have that cross their mind, never have it be a thought. I thought about that a month or so ago as I accompanied the body of one of our heroes from New York to Gladewater, Texas. The family, the military member, should never have to worry that their check won't be there. If there is a shutdown, if the government decides, we've got money here, but we're not going to pay our bills, well, we ought to make sure that a number of things get done. We keep being told that, gee, what if we default? There is absolutely, unequivocally no reason we would default on our debt unless for some strange reason the President and the Treasury Secretary, either/or, decide that they want to create and instigate such a financial crisis that they get whatever they want. That's the only reason there would be a default. As Steve Moore from the Wall Street Journal said yesterday, there's nothing that magic about August 2. There is no way that the President or Tim Geithner would be insane enough not to pay what we owe as it comes due. It's one thing for Secretary Geithner not to pay his taxes for 4 years in a row. It's quite another to put a nation at risk by refusing to send out the payments for the debts as they come due for the U.S. It should also be noted that there are hundreds of billions of dollars that the United States owes to the United States. So if the United States doesn't pay itself, what are we going to do--send out a notice that the United States didn't pay the United States, so we're deadbeats now? I mean, come on. There is so much political gamesmanship going on, and we were sent here to deal with the critical issues of this country, and being financially responsible is one of those things. Now, I doubt that very many people actually look at the back of their dollar bills, and I know they're having more and more trouble getting those dollar bills; but if you look at the back of the dollar bills, on either side, you see the two sides of the United States great seal that was adopted initially in the first version around the time of the revolution. The eagle has changed a little bit over the centuries but was basically this by 1790. Some people think that ``e pluribus unum,'' which is on the light fixture up here, Latin meaning ``out of many, one,'' come from all over the world and come to America, we become one people, we speak one language, we become one people, ``e pluribus unum.'' Some think that's the national motto. It's not. It's part of the great seal and has been since the Revolution. ``E pluribus unum'' is on the ribbon that runs through the eagle's mouth. You've got 13 stars that cause us to remember the 13 original States. You've got a pyramid symbolizing this masterful, huge work, and above the pyramid is an eye in a triangle with a glow around it. The eye was put in the great seal back in the 1700s to symbolize the eye of God, the all-seeing eye of God. It's why there's the halo, the glow, around it. And above those words in Latin are the words ``annuit coeptis.'' They're also above one of the doors in the Senate, so that every Senator can look up, and if they know what the Latin means, they should be deeply touched and should be reminded of how important our job is, because ``annuit coeptis'' on the back of every dollar bill everywhere in America means this: He, God, has smiled on our undertaking. The reason that the Senate desired to have ``annuit coeptis'' above one of the doors is so Senators would be reminded that at this country's inception, He, God, smiled on our undertaking. I can't help but wonder, today, as the all-seeing eye of God symbolized here looks at what is going on with our financial irresponsibility and our refusal to even debate becoming financially responsible in the Senate, if He, God, continues to smile on our undertaking. Some bank, for a joke at one time, had said, ``In God we trust. From all others, we accept cash.'' In God We Trust is our national motto. And as I mentioned to Prime Minister Netanyahu as he came down the aisle before he took the podium here and spoke recently, I said, ``Keep in mind the entire time you're addressing us, our national motto is above your head.'' He said, ``I had already thought about that.'' Everybody in this body ought to think about it. Our trust is in God, but does He have any trust in us after what has been done, spending so much more than the amount we've been entrusted with as stewards? We've got to do better. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor and a privilege to be here speaking on the House floor. It is interesting these days being a part of Congress. The media is given unfettered access to so much because we believe that people should be entitled to the truth. In fact, many libraries around the country have the line ``the truth shall set you free.'' Of course, most people don't know where that came from. It was Jesus talking about him being the truth, and he was the truth. A lot of libraries that put that up don't realize that's what it is talking about. And I imagine there are a lot of reporters who have used that same line, and they don't know where that came from. But what gets troubling is when reporters have access to complete transcripts, video, and they intentionally set out to deceive the public. It seems to happen a great deal. I personally think it is one of the reasons that Fox News has just taken off so strongly, because people can see that the other cable news networks, so many of them at least, have such a slant. They don't give you the whole truth. There is nothing fair or balanced about some of the presentations. I know personally, having been on a CNN show where they cut your mike off for 4\1/2\ minutes, trash-mouth you for awhile, turn your microphone on, and then refuse to acknowledge that there is even the possibility that what you're saying is true when you know, indeed, it is true. But this happened just here in the last week. I was on a Fox Business show, and we were talking about the money being spent by this White House and also comparing that to the Bush White House, and I had the data, absolute factual data that, for example, in the Bush White House, there were 447 total staff, and in the Obama staff there are 454 total White House staff. You wouldn't think seven additional people would be that big of a deal except that nearly a fourth of the Bush White House staff--102 people, in fact--made under $40,000; whereas, in the Obama White House, there is no paid staff member who gets less than $40,000. So you see dramatically the difference. I was pointing out that perhaps, in the Obama White House, because of all the greatness of this White House as compared to prior White House staffs, that you deserve to be paid more because you're associated with so much more greatness in this White House. It's interesting to see over the last 6\1/2\ years I've been in Congress that there are an awful lot of people in the mainstream media, especially in Washington, who do not understand sarcasm, who do not understand facetiousness. So, at times, it's funny to say things sarcastically, knowing that they won't get it. But in any event, we also commented on the fact that there were all these--I think 34--czars in the Obama White House, and they're getting paid tremendous amounts of money. So Fox News had published an article, and they pointed these things out. They were talking about the interview, and they got all of the quotes accurate. As they pointed out, it said: ``The White House released its annual salary report to Congress, and like anything in Washington, it depends on who you ask if they went up too much or are an adequate reflection of the tough economic times and have moved down.'' This is the writing of Kimberly Schwandt with Fox News. Ms. Schwandt goes on to say: ``The salaries, which can be seen here, show that about a third of the employees make more than $100,000 per year and the lowest earn $41,000, except for three people who are working for no compensation, or zero annual salary; 21 employees made the maximum of $172,000. ``The White House backs the figures, saying that salaries went down an average of $150 per person and that total salary spending decreased, in part, due to the total number of staffers going down as well.'' Then a quote from spokesman Eric Schultz from the White House: ``President Obama is deeply committed to continuing to reduce costs in government. However, some critics say they are spending too much, like Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas.'' He quoted me accurately as saying: `` `In the White House, in looking at it, this administration's got over 450 employees. Now, under the Bush administration, there were over 100. About a fourth of the employees made less than $40,000.' ``Fox News fact-checked, and the Congressman's statements do pan out, with 102 of the 447 employees on the 2008 list having salaries of less than $40,000.'' Another quote from me. I said: `` `I guess, you know, there's so much greatness when you associate with this White House you deserve to be paid more. I don't know,' he said. ``Gohmert added another sarcastic jab, 'Don't forget the 34--the 34 czars that are out there dictating policy, and let's face it. When you're a dictator, you need to be paid more.' '' Then it points out: ``As the economy faltered, President Obama enacted a pay freeze earlier in his administration for top wage- earners. Wednesday, at a Twitter town hall, he referenced the freeze.'' Of course, as we've learned from this White House and as we know from the House rules, the President never lies or misrepresents, but certainly there are many facts that are just wrong. For example, when the President ordered our troops to bomb Libya and be involved in what he called a ``kinetic attack'' in Libya, which was clearly military action, he said we would be there for days, not weeks or months. It has turned out it's months and maybe years unless Congress gets the Senate to go along with one of the things we passed here in the House, to cut off the spending in a country where this President is fighting for and with a group that may turn out to be worse than the bloodthirsty, mean- spirited Qadhafi has been. In any event, there was an article written in The Hill newspaper. Again, this was fact-checked by Fox News, but it's just interesting. You hear about it all the time, the slant of the mainstream media. It's interesting because The Hill has reporters like Molly Hooper. I've never had her be anything but completely honest and truthful. She has always, that I'm aware of, been fair to me and fair in her reporting that I've seen; but this one is a person named Judy Kurtz, who just, I have to say, was dishonest. This is the story that Judy Kurtz wrote this week, July 6, in The Hill. She quoted me as saying: `` `I guess there's just so much greatness when you're associated with this White House that you deserve to be paid more,' Representative Louie Gohmert said. `Let's face it. When you're a dictator, you need to be paid more.' '' That gave the impression to people who read the article and who had picked up on it that I was saying President Obama was a dictator. In this setting, that is not what I said. The interesting point is just how clearly deceptive and dishonest Judy Kurtz was. She took two quotes. She had access to the whole video, to the whole transcript, and chose to put them together and give the wrong impression. When you do look at the full quote in context, we were talking about the czars, that there is so much greatness when you're associated with this White House that you deserve to be paid more, but then ``don't forget the 34--the 34 czars that are out there dictating policy, and let's face it. When you're a dictator, you need to be paid more.'' So it is important to note there are some reporters you can trust even within the same newspaper, and there are some who can be dishonest. During my days as a trial judge of major civil litigation and felonies, including through death penalty cases, the rule of evidence was always--and is--that credibility is always an issue. It's always an issue. Everyone should understand that, especially reporters, who are so important to this country's being different from any other country in the world. So it's hoped that more and more reporters will get back to deserving their protected status that they have under the Constitution and have a little more responsibility than Judy Kurtz did. I did appreciate Ms. Kurtz' noting that I was being sarcastic to be sure that people like her didn't miss it. I didn't just leave it to chance. I pointed out verbally that I was being sarcastic, so I'm glad she got that part of the quote anyway. But nonetheless, I've heard from people that were shocked that I called President Obama a dictator. Now they know the context. But there are some important things going on; and with the massive overspending we're getting, it's important to understand who is spending money where they shouldn't. We have just voted out the Defense appropriation bill today. There were a number of amendments that were voted on that would defund the action this President has committed us to in Libya. This President has repeatedly said that he doesn't believe he violated the War Powers Act and doesn't believe he needed to comply. But he certainly didn't comply with the War Powers Act. He certainly didn't get approval of Congress before he took such action. Most Presidents, knowing that Congress constitutionally has the power of the purse, have come to Congress, and the President has made his case to Congress as to why we should be involved in a theater of operation that the President wanted to commit us to. Not this President, of course. This President heard from the Arab League; he heard from apparently some in NATO and the U.N., and decided that they were more important than a consensus from Congress, not even from the Senate. The Senate is Democrat controlled. The President didn't bother to get a vote or even approval tacitly from the Senate and here in the House, where this body, especially as a Republican majority, has steadfastly stood with the President of any party when that President committed troops to harm's way. In this case, there are still some in the Republican Party who have said I don't think we ought to be in Libya; but I'm afraid if I vote to cut off funding to the action in Libya, then it may be perceived as not being supportive of the troops. Some of us who have been in the military and still talk constantly to people in the military know the common response we get from the military goes something like this: Sir, we take orders. We salute and we follow our orders. That's what we took an oath to do. And if we're ordered to go to Libya or anywhere else, we will salute and go. But we hope, we pray that somebody in Washington will use some good sense so that when we lay down our lives in the call of duty from Washington that it will not be in vain. Please take action to make sure that when we lay down our lives, it's not wasted. And for this administration and some in Congress, certainly not a majority, to think it's a good idea to go into Libya and to get our services involved in an action which Secretary of Defense Gates said we have no national security interest in that action--it's not a good idea--and when we find out factually that there are al Qaeda, a group with whom we are at war, and when there are Muslim Brotherhood, who believe in violence, involved in the rebel action against an evil Qadhafi, then wisdom would indicate you should find out if the person that is going to be replaced by your bombs and your military or kinetic action--you have an obligation to find out--is going to be worse than the person you're replacing. And we don't know that. In fact, the indications are whoever replaces Qadhafi in this current rebel group will likely be a tremendous enemy of Israel, a significant enemy of the United States. It may be a situation in which the people that replace an intolerant leader like Qadhafi may be worse than Qadhafi, just as we saw happen in Iran back when Jimmy Carter was President. As I recall, I believe Jimmy Carter welcomed the Ayatollah Khomeini back as a man of peace. Well, Khomeini's idea of peace was a whole lot different than most of ours and certainty the party's in Congress that's in the majority, because Khomeini's idea of peace was a world in which there is a world-wide caliphate and one great Muslim leader dictates what peace means. He dictates shari'a law for everyone. There is no freedom of worship for Christians, for Buddhists--certainly not for Jewish people of orthodox faith, absolutely not. In fact, they're obviously infidels from the things that were written and the things that can only be written and spoken in the Middle East. In Egypt, Mubarak was a problem, but Mubarak had seen the handwriting on the wall. And he was moving toward some local elections and could see he needed to move toward the idea of democracy, but didn't want to give up power. Mubarak, for all his flaws, at least was not an active belligerent against Israel. Qadhafi we knew had blood on his hands, but we also saw from Ronald Reagan dropping bombs down his smokestack back, I believe in '86--and then again when the United States moved into Iraq we saw it again--Qadhafi was afraid of us. And perhaps it's better to have a leader who is afraid of you in power than people who are religious fanatics who have sworn that their goal in life is to bring your country down. One of the important things--and to me, I think it's the most important job, Mr. Speaker, here in Congress--is to provide for the common defense. We heard the President down at the border not along ago say he has committed more Federal troops to our border than any President ever--more people down there to protect our border anyway. Actually, he probably didn't have enough history training to know that in 1916 President Woodrow Wilson--I'm not a big fan of President Wilson's, but nonetheless, after a man named Pancho Villa was responsible for coming across into the United States and killing some Americans, Wilson committed General Pershing to go--my recollection is it was around 14,000 troops that went into Mexico. Because Pancho Villa had come across our sovereign border and killed people, then it was deemed to be appropriate to chase him down wherever he might go because that individual, with his cronies, had declared war on us and taken war-like action. And there was also a group, a new group basically, the National Guard, that was called up. One account I read said over 100,000 National Guard soldiers were called to our southern border to ensure that no one came across and killed Americans again. Now, I know that President Bush committed National Guard troops. I was very disappointed that the troops were not put on the border. They were put miles back, and they were given rules of engagement that said, in essence, if you see some armed group coming from across the border, then you are to report it and then flee the area. Well, that's not what should have been done, and I can assure what's being done today is not what should be done, where we take more action to go against the States that are trying to defend themselves than we do to try to defend the States themselves. But we are at a crucial time in this country's history. Admiral Mullen said the national debt is the biggest threat to our security. But take your pick. Whether it's a nation like Iran that is led by a religious zealot who may be crazy--but he's not stupid--they've got people working toward, around the clock, moving toward having nuclear weaponry. They already have at least one bomb. And even though our friends down in the majority in the Senate, even though in this White House so many say, ``Oh, no. We just need to step up sanctions and all will be well. We'll bring them into line,'' Iran knows that once they've got enough in the way of nuclear weaponry that they'll be able to extort countries into removing any type of sanctions. People in Israel are well aware, most of them--certainly Prime Minister Netanyahu is--that when Iran has adequate nuclear weaponry, they'll be a threat to Israel. They'll be a threat to freedom. They'll be a threat to liberty around the world because they will be able to take blackmail or extorted action to get countries to either do as they say or a nuclear weapon will be going off in that country. They're working on the missiles. They'll be able to carry those nuclear weapons to places like the United States. Even now, it wouldn't take a missile to put a nuclear weapon on a boat, a yacht, to bring it into one of our harbors. And let's face it. We saw our vulnerability on 9/11, many of us, even though I was a judge at the time. We said we can never let ourselves be that vulnerable again. And here we are, nearly 10 full years later, and we're allowing a madman, a religious zealot in Iran, to develop nuclear weapons. Sanctions haven't worked. They're not working. The centrifuges are still turning. They're still developing nuclear weaponry. We've got these type of threats in the world, and instead of standing firm as Ronald Reagan did, which led to bringing down the Iron Curtain, this administration has chosen to placate our enemies and turn against many of our allies. That was further brought home to me when I traveled with Dana Rohrabacher and a couple of other Members of Congress. There were warlords from the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan that wanted to meet with us because we were told that the administration didn't want to meet with them. And after we met with them, it was clear why the administration wouldn't want to. Now, I was not aware--and it was during the Bush administration of course, our initial actions in Afghanistan--we sent in intelligence. We sent in special forces. We sent in weaponry. We equipped the Northern Alliance tribes who had a special personal interest in defeating the Taliban. Afghanistan, as a whole, had seen how evil the Taliban was, how much damage they could do to society as they burned paintings and books and films and totally suppressed freedom in Afghanistan. Well, they knew. These people are evil, but they were afraid of them. But with the United States weaponry, with our guidance, intelligence, training, these people defeated the Taliban. What I was not aware of until we met with these folks--and it turns out I could have been aware. I just was not. But you do the research. You'll find out. The Bush administration convinced the Northern Alliance, Okay. Now that you've whipped the Taliban, you need to totally disarm, because we're the United States, and we're here, and we'll make sure nothing happens to you again. Well, the Northern Alliance messed up because they trusted us, and they turned in their weapons. I asked one, You turned in all your weapons? Well, apparently, they have some small arms but nothing that would allow them to take on the Taliban again. Naturally, these people were concerned, because they know because they fought for and with the United States against the Taliban that, if the Taliban is allowed to overtly exist in Afghanistan, then these people that fought for us and with us will all be killed as will all their family members. They were and are our allies. They fought for us. They defeated the Taliban, and now we're on the verge of leaving these people disarmed, vulnerable, and to be killed by the very people we went into Afghanistan after. It doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be this way at all. I mean, we can learn from the past. Rearm the Northern Alliance. We perceive the arrogance, the condescension not only from Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq but certainly from the leader in Afghanistan, Karzai, certainly from his brother. There's just too much arrogance there. All kinds of stories about corruption. But whether or not you believe that, it's clear that the Taliban is being allowed to do things now in Afghanistan that we were supposed to have eliminated by our coming in. It may well be, as one Afghan told me, that once we begin, if we would, to rearm the Northern Alliance, Karzai might be a lot more cooperative than he has been. But nonetheless, a year ago, we were being told, Your administration in Washington, the Obama administration, is indirectly talking, negotiating with the Taliban to just let the United States out without any big incidents, and then they can have whatever they take. And that's when they pointed out, You can't let this happen. You can't do this to your allies. Well, we've already seen it with Israel. We voted with Israel's enemies in May of last year, I believe it was, to demand that Israel disclose all of their weaponry, their nuclear weaponry. It's the first time the United States had joined forces with Israel's enemies, and it was one of the reasons that shortly after that that we saw the flotilla come from Turkey down to challenge the Israeli blockade. That was a blockade for one thing: weapons. Prevent weapons from going into the Gaza Strip. The rockets were coming every day. Israelis had been killed. There was no reason to allow those weapons to come into the Gaza Strip. It was a legitimate blockade. It came after we showed distance between our great ally Israel and this country. That also came on the heels of the President snubbing Prime Minister Netanyahu. And of course Prime Minister Netanyahu has not spoken of this that I've ever heard or read, but certainly others noted how badly he was snubbed by the President just blowing him off where normally you would have a meal, saying, Good luck on your own, and when you get ready to accept what I told you to do, then send me a note and I'll come back and see you. But anyway, we have not been allies as we should be to Israel. But it was after that when I started pushing to try to get Prime Minister Netanyahu, the leader of Israel, to be invited in this room. Speaker Pelosi, when I broached the subject with her, thought it was a good idea, but she didn't feel there was adequate time. And I brought it up in June, between then and the end of the year, to work him in. Obviously, we did have to name a lot of courthouses and had athletic teams to congratulate, so we weren't able to get to that. But Speaker Boehner, to his credit, did extend the invitation. Prime Minister Netanyahu did an incredible job. With the ideas he put forth, he did an incredible job, from the second level here, of addressing this body and addressing the world from here in Congress. What I had hoped for came to pass. The world got an incredible visual image of the fact that this body, both sides of the aisle, that can't hardly agree on much of anything, over and over--I am told 26 times-- stood to applaud the leader of Israel, showing the world that we are united in our support of our friend Israel from Congress, regardless of what the house down Pennsylvania Avenue does the rest of the time. Congress controls the purse strings, and Congress is a friend of Israel and vice versa. So it is important, in order to provide for the common defense of this country, that we make sure that our allies know, if you're our friend, then we stand by you. If you're our enemy, then we will do as President Kennedy pointed out, as President Bush pointed out: We will seek you wherever you are, and we will eliminate you as an enemy. By doing that, you can have peace in the world. There is a sign that emerges from time to time. People carry it around. I've seen it up here. I've seen it in New York: ``War never brought about peace.'' It says a great deal about the history teachers that an individual that would carry that kind of sign must have had because the only time you have peace for an extended period is when a big-hearted country does take on evil that has grown too big and becomes a threat to people's liberty and freedom and defeats that evil. Then you have a period of peace. And the only way it becomes an extended peace is when a country is strong enough, or countries are strong enough, that the world knows if you become a threat to our liberty, our freedom, then we will eliminate you as a threat to freedom. Now, again, there are those who believe shari'a law talks of freedom and peace, but that's a freedom and peace as dictated by the ultimate leader of the group. That also brings me back to the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood. This administration has given the indication that they think it is a group of peace. You can go on Wikipedia, and the proponents of the Muslim Brotherhood have done an excellent job of cleaning up the history that shows them to be supporters of terrorism and the numerous ties linking them to terrorism in the world. They've also done a good job of making this administration believe that they're peaceful and loving to the point that, as Denis McDonough, the number two person in our national security agency or administration, thanked President Magid, Imam Magid, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, for the wonderful prayer he gave inside the White House in the celebration of Iftar last year, the end of Ramadan, that President Obama had. The Islamic Society of North America, ISNA, is a named co- conspirator--was--in the Holy Land Foundation trials in which the first five defendants were found guilty of 108 counts of supporting terrorism. And when some tried to have their names stricken because they were not indicted in that first action, the judge, in essence, ruled there has been a prima facie case here showing that they are linked and supportive of terrorism; we're not eliminating their names. So it was shocking to some of us when the Holder Justice Department dropped the cases against the named coconspirators and refused to go forward with them. This notebook has some of the materials, and there are plenty of them, as anybody can see. This is a thimbleful compared to what is there. You want checks from the Islamic Centers' co-op funds? You want deposit slips? You want ledgers? The FBI's gathered all this stuff. There are great cases against these groups that the Holder Justice Department decided not to pursue. And when we had Attorney General Holder in front of our Judiciary Committee and he was asked about dropping it, he acted like and basically stated he had nothing to do with it, that that was somebody down in Texas, an attorney down there, and he could get us a copy of the Dallas Morning News article where the U.S. Attorney--actually, it was acting U.S. Attorney--had made that statement that politics played no role. Well, certainly politics played a role, and that became very obvious. And the more we find, the more it appears the Attorney General is not honest about perhaps the reason that these were not pursued. But until we find out the actual reasons for these being dropped, we will not know how honest or dishonest the situation with this Attorney General is. I know that Chairman Issa is pursuing the Fast and Furious investigation. But on this one, we could put this whole matter to bed very quickly if the Attorney General will just produce the memorandum that Chairman Pete King and Chairman Lamar Smith have requested from the Justice Department. If he will just come forward, produce that memo, not black it out, then we can find for sure the documentation of whether or not what the Attorney General had said in testifying before Congress was true or not. Now, it was interesting to find that the FBI had a special relationship, a special partnership, with CAIR, another of the named coconspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial. And it was rather shocking to me that it was not until 2009 that the FBI decided to end their special relationship with this named co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. Apparently, the FBI had had a special relationship with CAIR for years, even though the FBI began to gather these materials back as early as 1993 and had solid proof for a number of years that they were involved in supporting Hamas with terrorism. And yet nothing was done until 2009, when a letter was sent, saying, because of the evidence that was introduced some months back regarding CAIR and their relationships with terrorism, we think it's appropriate to suspend our relationship for now. Now, I realize that there are people in the media, as we saw this one reporter from The Hill that will not give adequate coverage, who will take quotes out of context in order to misrepresent or give people a false impression. But if this is adequately looked at, people will find the truth: that we have people who have been associated with the support of terrorism coming to the White House--one who was president of a group, who certainly from the documentation appears to have supported terrorism, leading the White House in prayer. And then we find out that when the President was giving a speech at the State Department, in the State Department--security was very, very tight; it was difficult to get in without going through all the checking, the bag checking, the metal detectors and all the different things you had to go through to make sure security was tight-- apparently the White House invited Imam Majid, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, a named coconspirator for supporting terrorism. It invited him into the inner sanctum of the State Department to listen to the President's speech and give comments about what he thought about the speech. At some point, this administration is going to have to get around to the point where providing for the common defense means you get tough with people who associate with groups that support terrorism. You don't do, as Senator Obama said, just go talk to terrorists because you're so, apparently, warm and friendly. Really, the President, having met with him, he is a charming man. He comes across as bright, engaging. You want to like him. Apparently that's worked so well, he must think that he can convince religious extremists that we're good folks, so you can just get along with them. The problem is, when you're dealing with people who want to destroy your way of life, there's only one way to deal with them. We've seen this from the attacks in the early days of our country's existence from Islamic zealots in North Africa who captured our ships, took prisoners--the men on those ships--held them for ransom, used some as slaves, were willing to kill or enslave others, and I read at one point, and it's hard to believe that this is true--hopefully it's not-- but that at one point we may have paid as much as 18 percent of the country's budget back in the late 1790s for getting our sailors back from the Barbary pirates, these Islamic extremists. Thomas Jefferson, who had been sent at one point as one of the diplomats to negotiate with the Muslim extremists, was taken aback when he asked, Why would you attack American ships? We're no threat to you. We don't have a powerful Navy. We've never attacked you--and reportedly was told that we in our religion believe we go to paradise if we were to die while attacking infidels like you. Jefferson was shocked. He was an extremely well-read person. He found it hard to believe there was a religion anywhere that any believer of that religion perceived that you could go to a paradise by killing innocent people. So he got his own English translation of the Koran, that can still be found in the Library of Congress, so he could read for himself. Some of the passages are subject to interpretation and certainly have been interpreted by some as meaning the only way to proceed is to attempt to take out infidels like those of us who are Christians, those who are Jewish, because we are certainly considered infidels in their eyes. Thank goodness not all Muslims believe that that has to be what occurs, but that is certainly what some believe. I might read a passage from the judge's decision from July 1, 2009, in response to the effort by the named coconspirators, some of them to have names stricken who were not actually indicted in the first trial. The judge, having reviewed acting U.S. Attorney Jacks's memos, said this: ``The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with the Holy Land Foundation, HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine and with Hamas. While the court recognizes that the evidence produced by the government largely predates the Holy Land Foundation designation date, the evidence is nonetheless sufficient to show the association of these entities with HLF, IAP, and Hamas.'' The judge said: ``Thus maintaining the names of the entities on the list is appropriate in light of the evidence proffered by the government.'' It is important to note that CAIR, with whom our Justice Department had a special relationship until on into 2009, and ISNA, that the evidence has certainly been produced by the government shows, as the judge says, ample evidence to establish the associations with these groups with the Holy Land Foundation, the group that was convicted, as well as Hamas, and yet this administration continues, I guess, to think that their winning personalities, charming as they are, will bring people around, and so they trust them to come into the inner sanctum of the White House, the State Department, the Justice Department. All that means is, we're in big trouble. There are those over the years that have believed that our answers would come from prayer. Virtually every President, I guess every President, has indicated such that this Nation is best protected when it prays. That is why you would have such an amazing minister as Peter Marshall, as Chaplain in the United States Senate back in the 1940s, and this book that I have referenced previously is really profound, and I would, Mr. Speaker, like to finish up reading a couple of prayers that have been prayed in the United States Senate in the 1940s by U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall. One prayer says: ``Forgive us, Lord Jesus, for doing the things that make us uncomfortable and guilty when we pray. ``We say that we believe in God, and yet we doubt God's promises. ``We say that in God we trust,'' which can be found right up above the Speaker's head, ``yet we worry and try to manage our own affairs. ``We say that we love Thee, O Lord, and yet do not obey Thee. ``We believe that Thou hast the answers to all our problems, and yet we do not consult Thee. ``Forgive us, Lord, for our lack of faith and the willful pride that ignores the way, the truth, and the life. ``Wilt Thou reach down and change the gears within us that we may go forward with Thee. Amen.'' That was one of Peter Marshall's prayers as Chaplain of the Senate in the 1940s. I conclude with this prayer by Peter Marshall in the 1940s: ``O Lord our God, even at this moment as we come blundering into Thy presence and prayer, we are haunted by memories of duties unperformed, promptings disobeyed, and beckonings ignored. ``Opportunities to be kind knocked on the door of our hearts and went weeping away. ``We are ashamed, O Lord, and tired of failure. ``If Thou art growing close to us now, come nearer still, till selfishness is burned out within us and our wills lose their weakness in union with Thine own. ``Amen.'' It is important to note: Prayers for the individuals to adhere to, as George Washington said, have a humble imitation of the designer of our blessed religion. As Washington said, those are for individuals. We get questions on, Well, how can you be a Christian and not want to give away all the government money to the poor and the needy? How can you be a Christian and not want to give away the government money to do all these other things and to end a Defense Department? have no soldiers? just be people of peace? And I know that in this great country we have got virtually every religion being practiced that's known to man; but in the Christian religion, for those that believe the New Testament means what it says, Romans 13 is very clear. The government exists as God's minister so that they encourage good. Romans 13:4 says, but if you do evil be afraid. God does not give the government the sword in vain. It does say ``sword,'' and that is the purpose of government. We took an oath to follow the Constitution. We are supposed to provide for the common defense. We are supposed to have an Army, a military, that protects this Nation so that people can practice the religion of their choice. Whether it's Islam peaceably, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, the human secularism that seems to have often overtaken Washington, you have the freedom to do that. But the government's role is to protect the country, protect the people, keep people from coming in through our borders that want to harm us so that individuals can give from the blessings of their heart to help the needy, to help the poor, to help others. You cannot find one reference in the New Testament that says government is to go about using and abusing its taxing authority, legalize stealing from people who have earned the money so that we can give it away to Congress' favorite charity or a government's favorite charity. The government is to provide protection, protect against evil, encourage good, and create an environment where good people can do good. [From Fox News, July 7, 2011] Only in Washington: White House Salaries Have Gone Both Up and Down (By Kimberly Schwandt) The White House released its annual salary report to Congress and like anything in Washington, it depends on who you ask if they went up too much, or are an adequate reflection of the tough economic times and have moved down. The salaries, which can be seen here show that about a third of the employees make more than $100,000 per year and the lowest earn $41,000, except for three people who are working for no compensation, or $0 annual salary. Twenty-one employees made the maximum $172,000. The White House backs the figures, saying that salaries went down an average of $150 per person and that total salary spending decreased in part due to the total number of staffers going down as well. ``President Obama is deeply committed to continuing to reduce costs in government,'' said White House Spokesman Eric Schultz. However, some critics say they are spending too much, like Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. ``[I]n the White House, in looking at it, this administration's got over 450 employees. Now, under the Bush administration, there were over 100, about a fourth of the employees, made less than $40,000,'' he told Fox Business on Tuesday. Fox News fact-checked, and the congressman's statements do pan out, with 102 of the 447 employees on the 2008 list having salaries of less than $40,000. ``I guess, you know, there's so much greatness when you associate with this White House you deserve to be paid more, I don't know,'' he said. Gohmert added another sarcastic jab, ``Don't forget the 34--the 34 czars that are out there dictating policy and let's face it . . . when you're a dictator you need to be paid more.'' As the economy faltered, President Obama enacted a pay freeze earlier in his administration for top wage-earners. Wednesday at a Twitter town hall, he referenced the freeze. ``So they haven't had a raise in two and a half years, and that's appropriate, because a lot of ordinary folks out there haven't, either. In fact, they've seen their pay cut in some cases,'' Obama said. An analysis by the gossip website Gawker, that was widely circulated and posted on the Internet, compared the salary increases to those of what staffers got last year. The site found that 75 percent of staffers who stayed on got raises from 2009 to 2010. And this year, the figure isn't quite as big--but of 270 staffers who have been at the White House for more than a year, more than 50 percent got raises with an average increase of 8 percent. Fox double-checked Gawker's claim on how many got raises and found 267 staffers on both lists, indicating they had worked for more than one year. Of those staffers, 144 had received a raise in 2011 (54%). It's worth noting that some of those raises were for promotions, not just for the regular yearly increases. ``To be clear, in the past year, the average salary of a White House employee went down, the total number of White House staffers went down, and the total amount spent on White House salaries went down. If pay increases were issued, they were given for a variety of reasons, ranging from promotions to additional work responsibilities,'' Schultz said. Most employee survey data, like these by The Conference Project, projected about 3 percent raises on average for employees nationwide this year. The White House is of course a different entity than the private sector so it's hard to exactly do an apples to apples comparison.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, we have had a couple of amendments we've already voted on. In reviewing whether or not to withdraw my amendment, my concern comes on the review of Mr. Cole of Oklahoma, my dear friend, and the amendment that passed that he provided. His amendment says that none of the funds in the act may be used for supporting military activities of any group or individual not part of a country's Armed Forces. So it still could be used to supplement another country's Armed Forces through NATO or through the U.N. We have here a case where people on both sides recognize that the President moved forward and put our military in harm's way to go after a man who until March 1 was recognized by the United Nations as being a leader in human rights. In fact, it had elected him in 2003 to be the chairman of the Human Rights Commission of the U.N. We also know from our office's inquiry of our own military that we comprise 65 percent of NATO's military. So it is not comforting to think that this President has already gone beyond seizing on loopholes and is just ignoring laws in order to do what he wants because the Arab League asked him--not Congress, not the population of the United States, but the Arab League and some in NATO. It has not been established--and there are no indications it will be established--that the people who are going to replace Qadhafi will be better for us, for our national security or for our allies like Israel. So, if it's not good for this country's national security and if it's true as to what the gentleman Secretary Gates said, to whom the President recently awarded a Medal of Honor, that we have no national security interests in Libya, then we should not be committing our military in that direction. Even though the U.N. may support action in Libya and even though they may buy into this Arab Spring, we are already seeing that Iran is excited because it looks like they're going to get additional puppets. We found out this week that the leader of Iraq, Maliki, is giving in to the request of the leader of Iran and is going against his promise to us and to the people of Camp Ashraf that they'll be safe and secure. Now he's saying he's going to disband the camp. It is time to put America's national security and national interests first and not some whim of some President because someone outside the U.S. asked him. We know the Muslim Brotherhood, despite what some say, has been supporting terrorism. The evidence was clear in the Holy Land Foundation trial. We know that this administration has bent over backwards to appease such folks, so it is time for an amendment to make very clear, which this one does: Mr. President, it doesn't matter whether you're going to try to use our military through NATO, our military through the U.N., our military head-up for a reconnaissance rescue. It doesn't matter. You're not going to use them. For those who argue the War Powers is constitutional or is unconstitutional, I would humbly submit it does not matter. Even though the War Powers Act was passed as a curb against the President at the time, it is actually a gift to a President. This body has the power of the purse to cut off funding at any time it so desires, and the War Powers gave him a gift that said, Look, we'll give you days and days and days to come make your case before we cut you off. That's a gift. This President has shoved it back down our throats, and has said, I don't care what you think. It is time to use the constitutional powers of this body and say, ``Enough.'' In the hopes that people will vote for this amendment, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is true, Qadhafi is a bad guy. He needs to go. But the problem is for those who say will this mean the end of the Bush doctrine, well, I don't know that this President has really been enforcing the Bush doctrine. But the problem is, as my friend Mr. Burton pointed out, we don't know who is going to replace Qadhafi. It is not in our national interest to help what may be another Iran, with Khomeini and Ahmadinejad coming to power, and especially when we are releasing oil at a time when that oil should be saved in case it all goes to blazes in the Middle East and we don't have any coming from there. Now, I am not crazy about the exceptions either--the search and rescue, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, aerial refueling and operational planning--because this administration is probably going to describe everything they do as falling into those exceptions. But it is a step in the right direction. And some have said, and I know their hearts and I know they mean well, we want to support our troops, and I don't like it when people say let's back out and let's cut funding when troops are in harm's way. I have talked to enough troops who want somebody in Washington to say, this is insane, don't get us involved, because they are good soldiers; and when they get their orders, they are going to salute and they are going to go follow through on the orders. We are the body that must step forward and say, Enough. Mr. President, we are not responsible to the Arab League, to NATO or to the U.N. We are responsible to the American people. So though I don't like the exceptions, I will vote for this. It is taking a step in the right direction.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, as always, it's an honor to speak here in the House of Representatives. I heard Democratic friends mention earlier that what we need to do to get the economy going is start spending on infrastructure because our grandchildren will really appreciate the dollars that they have to pay years from now that we spent on infrastructure. The only thing is, that's exactly what our friends across the aisle were saying in January of 2009 when they wanted an $800 billion stimulus package that turned out to be maybe $900 billion or $1 trillion. It was going to be for infrastructure. And many in the American public said, yeah, that's a good idea. It turned out that only around 6 percent or so, 6 to 7 percent may have been for infrastructure. Okay. Fooled us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. The thing is, some of us weren't fooled even back then. We had already seen things that were said that would be done that were not done. So I voted against that so-called ``porkulus'' stimulus, or whatever you want to call it, bill. I voted against TARP because in America we're not supposed to just give one man $700 billion and say, go do whatever you want with all this money; we don't care, just fix things. Because he certainly didn't fix things, although he did engorge his buddies at Goldman Sachs. Nonetheless, we do face economic difficulties. And within the last 2 weeks there were six of us, a bipartisan group, in Turkey. Their economy seems to be going very well, and we were seeing things growing and doing well in Istanbul. And they don't understand sarcasm very well and so, but I, nonetheless, said to some of their economic leaders, business leaders, so you must have had many huge stimulus packages to get the economy going. They looked at me like I was crazy because they don't understand sarcasm very well in another language I guess. But they spoke good English. Nonetheless, they didn't use stimulus packages. But they did say they had dropped their corporate tax rate that was much too high down to 20 percent, and now businesses have been coming in. That works. It works whenever it's been tried. But let me get to another point. Credibility is always relevant. In my days as a judge and chief justice that was one of the rules of the court. Credibility is always an issue. It's always relevant. So when this country makes promises to people and doesn't keep them, or they're stupid promises to people we know will not keep their word to us, we lose credibility. We found out now that this administration is negotiating with the Taliban; basically, you know, just let us out. We're negotiating with the Taliban? Did Hoover negotiate with Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde? Did Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General, negotiate with the Mob? When people are involved and they're criminals and they're murderers and they're engaged in criminal activity and they've never kept a promise, do you really want to be making that deal? Now, I know it seems like we should have learned a lesson from the Clinton administration. When North Korea was trying to build nukes, the Clinton administration sends Madeleine Albright, and she comes in, hey, hey, how about dropping pursuing nuclear weapons? We'll build you a nuclear power plant if you'll just--you'll build us a nuclear power plant if we just tell you we won't pursue it? Sure, we'll tell you that all day long. So they cut a deal. We built them a nuclear plant, and that has been used to develop nuclear weapons, just like anybody should have figured it would. When you deal with criminals, with lying thugs, you can't trust that agreement. For us to be negotiating with the Taliban is a blight on those who have given their lives there. I attended a funeral this weekend of Brad Gaudet, who went down in a helicopter accident on June 5. We owe those people who have given their lives fighting against those who want to destroy our way of life better than cutting a deal. Let's rearm the Northern Alliance, the people that originally defeated the Taliban--just give them the advisers, the trainers, all that they need, and let them whip the Taliban for us again. Let's not negotiate with Dillinger. It makes no sense and we lose credibility.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I would like to address myself for a moment to Afghanistan. That is where Brad Gaudet and so many Americans have fought and have died. It was the place where the Taliban flourished. They trained terrorists; they prepared for the chance to come kill thousands of Americans in New York City; they came up with plans to kill Americans in other places in the United States, so it was important that we go take out the home bases of the Taliban. For those that know the history of our fighting in Afghanistan, they know that what we initially did was send in advisers and trainers and people to help the Afghans to fight and take out the Taliban, and in fact a group that proved most helpful was the Northern Alliance. Some say it was run by warlords, but these tribal regions with their leaders accepted munitions, accepted training, accepted what it took to bring war upon the Taliban, and they whipped the Taliban, at least until later when the Taliban resurged. But after the Northern Alliance defeated the Taliban, we did something that I was not aware of, until some of the warlords or Northern Alliance leaders wanted to sit down with somebody from our government and our State Department they said had refused to meet with them. These were the leaders of groups who risked their lives. Many in the group lost their lives fighting the Taliban, and whipped them. And when my friend Dana Rohrabacher said, Hey, these folks want to meet with somebody from the U.S. Government, the State Department won't meet with them, will you go with me, I said sure. Initially we were going to try to meet near northern Afghanistan, but when the Uzbeks found out, as I understand it, they didn't want to give visas to these people. We thought maybe we would meet in India, and they didn't want to give them visas. So at the last minute we arranged to meet in Berlin. Five of the nine did meet. Something that many Americans don't realize, the Taliban in preparing for 9/11 knew that there was a man who was charismatic, who was a powerful leader, who had the chance to bring together Afghanistan as a nation, the Afghans as a people. Even though it is so very tribal, one person had the chance to really pull it all together, and on either September 9 or September 10 of 2001, he was boldly assassinated so that when a day later 9/11 occurred there would be nobody that the U.S. could really turn to as one individual to rally Afghans against the Taliban. They took him out before they committed their act of atrocity against Americans. They knew what they were doing. They planned well. But our American soldiers know what they're doing. And when we sent special forces and intelligence folks to help, they were able to whip the Taliban. And I didn't realize until we met with these Northern Alliance leaders that after they initially whipped the Taliban, we demanded that they disarm. According to them, they were told, Look, we're the United States of America. You have nothing to fear. We're here. We'll make sure that you're not harmed. You fought for us. You whipped the Taliban. It was our mutual enemy. And so turn in all of your weapons. I said, You turned in everything? They said, Well, we've got some small arms. We can't fight the Taliban with the little bit we've got left. We gave all of that back--plus some of our own. And the Taliban has re-surged. The war has gone on much longer than it should have. There were reports of corruption. The poppy production has surged much more than anything else there in Afghanistan. And what they had heard was that our government was negotiating directly with Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan, and with Pakistan. And what they had been hearing was that our government was negotiating indirectly with the Taliban itself. They want to destroy America. And the word that they had gotten was basically that the United States just wanted out, and if they would let us get out without a major incident, between the Taliban, Karzai, Pakistan, they could just divide things up however they wanted. I want our troops, I want our people, I want our resources out of Afghanistan. But we've got to make sure that people like Brad Gaudet and so many others that have given their lives haven't done it for nothing. But it seems that that initial success may have given us a good roadmap to how you succeed in Afghanistan. Equip the people that are our friends, who have the same enemies as we have, and let them do the fighting. Things went well when that's the way it went. We provided trainers, advisers, gave them some intelligence, and they whipped the bad guys for us. What would be wrong with getting back to that point instead of what the rumors are that this administration is prepared to do--let the Taliban take back up where they left off once we leave. If the Taliban gets a foothold again, as they want to do, if al Qaeda gets a foothold and if radical Islam gets a strong foothold in Afghanistan again, does anybody really think they won't come after us again? They have pledged that we're a great Satan, that we must be eliminated. The most free country in the world, the greatest country in the history of mankind, and these people want it destroyed because it didn't fit into their narrow scope of having a global caliphate where one religious leader dictates to everybody. We kind of like our freedom, where those of us who are Christians are free to worship and those who wish to worship any other way are free to do so. That's America. But it's not time to just cut our losses and leave. It's time to act smartly. I am very much afraid this administration will continue to reward our enemies and to turn against our allies and friends. You can't keep maintaining foreign affairs and any credibility in the world when you turn against your friends, thinking that your enemies are going to like you better because you showed you would turn on your own friends. Your enemies don't like you any better when you turn against your friends. In fact, what happens is they not only don't like you, they no longer respect you. Because some in the world, they don't like us--they hate us--and they think we ought to be destroyed, but they respect our power. And once they see that a Nation will turn against its friends and hurt its own friends and allies, they know this country should not even be respected. As I've said many times, we don't have to keep paying people to hate us. They'll do it for free. It's time to quit paying our enemies to continue to nurture hatred against us. It's time to be a true friend to our allies. We heard one of the greatest speeches I've heard in my 6\1/2\ years in Congress from that podium right there, and it didn't come from any State of the Union. It came from the leader of Israel. We heard from Palestinians. They thought the speech was a declaration of war. It means they didn't listen to the speech because, as Prime Minister Netanyahu made clear, as soon as the Palestinians are willing to tell their people there will be a Jewish State of Israel, peace can be worked out very quickly after that. But no one wants to say that on the Palestinian side. So, as Patrick Henry said, men cry, ``Peace, peace,'' but there is no peace, and there will be no peace in the Middle East. Here, we think that gee--at least this administration--we heard our friends, our enemies will love us. They've been trying that since the Clinton administration when the Clinton administration classified an anti-Khomeini and Ahmadinejad, as of now, group called the MEK, their initials. They're an antitotalitarian regime group, and they're over 3,000 residents of Camp Ashraf in Iraq. We as a Nation gave them our sovereign promise we'll make sure you're safe and secure. When we turned things over to the elected government of Iraq, we were assured by that government that they would take care of that promise and they would keep the residents at Camp Ashraf safe. Yet nearly a week ago, when a group of six of us met with the Prime Minister of Iraq there in Baghdad and tried to discuss the issue of the Iraqi military going to Camp Ashraf and killing perhaps 35 residents of Camp Ashraf, wounding perhaps a hundred or more from reports from a video Dana Rohrabacher had seen--I had not--he said it's very clear these were unarmed civilians killed by the Iraqi military. That's not the promise we made to those people in Camp Ashraf. It's not the promise that the Iraqi leaders, including Maliki, made to those Iranians in Camp Ashraf. Yet the Iraqi military killed civilians in Camp Ashraf. As I tried to explain to Prime Minister Maliki, when he said for us to be concerned and to try to do something about the killings would be a violation of their national sovereignty, I tried to explain that actually it does involve sovereignty, but the U.S. sovereignty was involved in promising their safety at Camp Ashraf, and his sovereignty was involved when they promised the safety of those residents at Camp Ashraf. So we have a vested interest with all of the American lives and treasure that were laid down and invested in Iraq. We have a very strong vested interest in seeing that justice is done and in seeing that people who made promises to us keep those promises, because if we don't see to that, then how can we expect anyone to trust us? How can we expect anyone to truly negotiate fairly with us, expecting we'll keep our word? Sometimes you make bad deals, but if you're going to keep your word and if you're going to be known for being a country and a people of honor and a people of their word, you've got to keep your word. As a former judge and chief justice, some things I've seen have been unjust, but when we can do something about it to help us keep our word to those who've trusted us, we've got to do it. We can't look back. So we were a bit surprised when our group of six Members of Congress--four Republicans and two Democrats--flew up to Erbil and met with folks up there. It's always good to see troops around, American troops. They're the best I've ever seen. The 4 years I spent in the Army, starting in the late 1970s, left me concerned that, if we were attacked back in those days, we were in a lot of trouble. But the military I see and I meet and I visit with--those from my district and from all over the country--so impress me and so impress those around them. We have an incredible military, these days, of our service men and women. When we left Erbil in northern Iraq and were flying out, we got word that our Embassy had been contacted by Prime Minister Maliki, and was told that our group was not welcome in Iraq any longer. I have attended far too many funerals of people from Texas and other funerals of Americans who laid down their lives and, in doing so, provided people like Prime Minister Maliki the chance to come back from exile, to be elected in that country and to be a leader, that I don't think it's too much to ask for a little gratitude. We're not asking for anything in return. I know there was some discussion--it wasn't from me--about, Gee, maybe you could help us, instead of doing deals with China for your oil after we secured your country and got rid of the tyrant Saddam Hussein. Maybe you could deal with us. I'm not asking for those things. I'm just asking for a little gratitude for the lives and the treasure that were expended to give people in Iraq the freedoms they have today. I expect people who have become leaders in Iraq to keep their word to us, because if they can't be trusted, if they won't keep their word, well, they can lock me out of their country all they want to, but we have the power of the purse. I didn't join in the lawsuit against the administration over the War Powers. I think they're well-intended dear friends who are involved in that suit this week. I didn't engage in that as a party for one reason, which is that this body has the power constitutionally of the purse. We don't need a War Powers Act. We don't need any interpretation by the Supreme Court of whether the War Powers is effective or whether the War Powers is not, because we have the ultimate weapon in this body called the power of the purse. If the President wants to send our American treasure and our American military, which composes 65 percent of NATO's military, what a joke to say, Hey, we're turning it over to NATO. We won't be involved anymore. We're 65 percent of NATO's military. If we're going to have a President who sends people over there, not because Congress thought it was a good idea and not because a majority of the American people did but because the Arab League asked us to and because some in the U.N. thought it was a good idea, then Congress has the ultimate power, and we don't need the War Powers to do it. We don't need the Supreme Court's okay. All we need to do is shut down every dime being spent in Libya until such time as we can be sure that whoever takes over Libya will not be worse for the United States than the crazy murderer who is there now. We need to be sure of that. I know the President made the mistake one day of saying he had visited all 57 States. I'm well aware that there are not 57 States in this country, although there are 57 members of OIC, the Islamic states in the world. Perhaps there was some confusion as to whether he'd been to all 57 Islamic states as opposed to all 50 U.S. States. Nonetheless, we have an obligation to the 50 American States, not to the 57 Muslim Islamic states. Our oath that we took is in this body--in this House--and it's to the people of America. It's not to the Muslim Brotherhood, who may very well take over Egypt. Once they do, they'll be bent upon setting up a caliphate around the world, including in the United States, and this administration will have been complicit in helping people who want to destroy our country out of the ignorance to think, if you help your enemies, they're going to like you better. Not only do they not like you, as I said, they disrespect you when they see how foolhardy you are. It's time to quit involving this country in warfare around the world unless we can be sure that such warfare helps us keep our oath to the United States of America. And to quote my dear friend from Texas, also a former judge, ``And that's just the way it is.'' I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, June 5, the State of Texas and our Nation lost a true hero. Chief Warrant Officer Brad Gaudet was killed in Afghanistan after his helicopter crashed near Kabul. Brad was the best and brightest of what the First Congressional District of Texas has to offer. Raised in Lufkin, Texas, and a graduate of Stephen F. Austin University, he was truly a son of East Texas. General MacArthur once said, ``Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: To build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.'' For Brad, these three ideas were not just to strive for. He understood them, he embodied them, he lived them. Brad, just 31 years old, was a husband, a father, a son, and a brother. Outgoing and aggressive, Brad truly personified the Army's old slogan, ``Be All You Can Be.'' The summer before his senior year in high school, Brad joined the Reserves and went to boot camp. His family joked that he was never more prepared for the upcoming high school football season than he was that year. Upon graduating from Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, Brad enlisted in the Army and was sent to Fort Rucker in Alabama. There he pursued his dream of flying and graduating from flight school. The next stage of his military service brought him to Fort Drum in New York, where he met the love of his life, Ginny. During his second deployment, Brad achieved Pilot in Command rank, a highly-skilled specialty officer which is very difficult to achieve for those who are not commissioned officers. This speaks to his hard work, his outstanding training, his performances, the respect his superiors had for him. A true family man, last month Brad rushed home from his third deployment in Afghanistan just in time to help with the delivery of his newly born daughter, Addyson. His family will always remember his great sense of humor, his infectious smile, his kind heart, and his desire to brighten anyone's day. Today I want to extend my prayers and condolences to Brad's wife, Ginny; his two young daughters, Tealie and Addyson; his parents, his relatives and his friends. Their American warrior is home. He has met his maker, his master. His duty is done and he is at peace. George Orwell said, ``We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.'' A grateful Nation is so very proud of this son of East Texas. We grieve the loss of our warrior brother. We honor Brad for his courage, his sacrifice and his selfless commitment to duty, honor and country. He gave his all in service for the sake of safety, freedom and liberty. May God bless the sacrifices and the last full measure of devotion that Brad Gaudet paid, and may he bless us all because he was such a patriot. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. The Speaker is to be commended for bringing these two bills to the floor. Unfortunately, we have a President who cared more about what the Arab League and the U.N. thought than he did his own elected Congress. We've been kept in the dark about the basis for his decisions, and I voted ``no'' on our Speaker's bill because he didn't need any more time. The President should be aware, Madam Speaker, that there are an awful lot of people who are ready to switch their votes and to vote ``yes.'' I would prefer that we not do it through the War Powers. We could do like the Democrats did in '74 and just cut off the spending. It is ridiculous. He said we'd enforce a no-fly zone. That's it. We wouldn't put ground troops in Libya. He said that NATO was going to take over and that we wouldn't be that involved. Wrong on all counts. We know from the rules of the House the President wouldn't lie, but he sure is misrepresenting things.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. If the gentleman would like to add those to this amendment, I would be glad to accept that.

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, the intent is that since this is where so much construction and leasing has been done, that that's where it needs to stop, that the bureaucracy here in Washington has expanded to the point that this was a good place to draw the line. If the gentleman is wishing to extend that across the country, you know----

Mr. GOHMERT. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOHMERT. If the leases were appropriately drafted, then normally they would have an option for additional time. That under this amendment would mean that that was a contract entered into prior to the enactment of this bill. So that wouldn't be a problem. If it is a major lease expiring, then heaven forbid but they would actually have to come back to Congress, and it would be a form of sunset, for them to justify why they need to have a new lease. I think it's a great way of having oversight over groups that don't have their own building. We've leased a massive 23.6 million square feet of space. Let's sunset some of that or otherwise justify why you need another lease.

Mr. GOHMERT. Under this amendment, no funds would be made available by this act for the new construction, purchase, or lease of any building or any space in the District of Columbia except where a contract was entered into before the date of the enactment. Now, in the District of Columbia right now, the Federal Government had exactly 304 leases at the start of this year. These leases cover more than 23.6 million square feet. This bureaucracy has grown beyond the bounds of being reasonable. The Federal Government, in addition to the 23.6 million square feet that it leases, also owns 109 buildings in the District of Columbia, and that doesn't even include all of the Department of Defense buildings because those are administered by other than the GSA. The 23.6 million square feet come at a cost of around a billion dollars every year to the taxpayer. Here we are in financially troubling times, and we need to send a message back to America we know you're tightening your belts. We know that States and municipalities are having to tighten their belts, and we get it here, also. The Appropriations Committee and the chair is to be applauded. They have done a wonderful job on this bill. There is an amount zeroed out for new building space in a specific area of this bill. It takes that good step and goes one step further and says no funds made available in this act can be used in any way for construction, for lease or building out any space in the District of Columbia. It also should be noted that every cubicle, every desk we add in the District of Columbia ends up requiring States and municipalities to add space there. They have to put somebody in that space, because every time we add a desk with a bureaucrat behind it in the District of Columbia, they have to justify their existence. They have to create requirements for people back in the States or in the municipalities to respond so that they can justify their existence in the District of Columbia. The Federal funds that might be used for new construction or new leases to add to the 23.6 million square feet of space already under lease and the 109 buildings, not even including the Department of Defense buildings, that money could be better spent reducing the Federal deficit or protecting our homeland in other ways. Let's let America rebound. Let's let America build back before we build or lease one more square foot in Washington, DC. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GOHMERT. I have an amendment at the desk, Mr. Chairman.