Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I wish to address the issue of credibility that is so critical. And I want to follow up on what my friend was just discussing with regard to Social Security. These seniors would be flush with cost of living increases; the money would be there if we did one thing, the one thing that has not been done in the entire history of Social Security and, that is, put the tax that provides for Social Security into the Social Security Trust Fund. It has never been done. It has always had IOUs go in. As the money comes in, it goes out the other door. That ought to stop. And what it would create is the need to control the outrageous spending that's been going on, the $770 million we passed for wild horses, the $25 million for rare dogs and cats in foreign countries, the $25 million for rare cranes, 80 percent of which are in other countries. Those are the things that would need to stop. When it comes to the issue of our Nation's credibility, you can go back historically to 1812. There were banks and merchants in England that had loaned the United States money. When we went to war with England in 1812 as a nation, we made the commitment that we will still stand good for our word because even though we'll be at war, our word, our credibility, is too important to do otherwise. That opened the door for the United States to become an economic powerhouse because people around the world said this is a Nation that can be trusted; their word is good. With the way Vietnam ended under President Nixon and the Carter years, our credibility around the world was devastated, as we went back on commitments we had made. And it took the years of President Reagan, former President Bush, former President Clinton, former President George W. Bush to build our credibility back among the other nations, that you may not like our position, but when we give our word, we're going to stand good for it. Now in 9 months' time that is all in jeopardy again. We heard during the campaign the noble promises that we will not go it alone on anything. We will not be that arrogant. We will consult with the other nations. And we had an agreement with Eastern Europe with regard to missiles and a missile defense shield, and there are leaders in Eastern Europe that took great political risk, and it cost them politically in mighty ways to work an agreement with the United States. But they did it because they believed they could trust the United States at its word. Whether you believe in the propriety of the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, that's one thing, but to unilaterally go against the word that was provided that we will not do that, that we keep our agreements, and unilaterally announce we're going back on our word on the missile defense shield shatters credibility even to those who didn't care about the missile defense shield but who are thinking about reaching agreements with us. After the U.N. speech yesterday, all of the promises that have been made by this administration, both before and after its election, that that was the critical war we could not afford to lose, we're going to stand with them, now after the speech yesterday people are wondering, wow, are they going to back out and go against this Nation's word yet again already in this 9-month period? It's not just the Afghans wondering. Can we trust these people when they say they're going to help us? This is our Nation's credibility at risk. That affects everything. There were pledges made to Israel during the campaign by the people inhabiting this administration, and now we're telling them you're going to have to go back to the lines the way they existed before 1967 because you cannot occupy land that you achieved during warfare. My goodness, we're going to have to give back California. We're going to have to give back Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming. This is ridiculous. We are hurting our credibility nationally. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the prior administration, please do no more damage to this Nation's credibility.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, in conclusion, I think there's nothing that says it better than President Obama did back on February 3, 2009: ``I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards--one for powerful people, and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.'' Well, unfortunately that is exactly the message that's being sent as the Federal Government and the cronies that have surrounded this administration--they're getting away with all kinds of stuff, getting away with not paying taxes, not paying penalties. They're not producing jobs. They're killing jobs. Mr. de la Torre has a regal heritage. He was proud of that. He is a man of integrity. He wants to do what's right. Those are the kinds of people that make America great, and that is who deserves special treatment, not those who are parasites on the system.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do appreciate the time. There's so much going on and we've heard so much about community organizations, actually in the last year as we heard then-candidate and Senator Obama talking about community organizations being the way to go. I think it's wonderful--community organizations. I'm a member of a number of community organizations. None of them pay me, though. We do the things we do in the community organizations I've ever been a part of because we care about the community. We have jobs, we work, and then on our own time, without being compensated, we try to help others. We do it through church. We do it through all kinds of civic organizations. So this whole thing of community organizations has been a bit of an anathema to me, an enigma, a riddle within a riddle; a community organization of volunteers who get paid to do some kind of organization. It's a strange thing. As we've heard more and more about this group ACORN and the vast amount of money that it has been receiving from taxpayers, it becomes even more of an interesting enigma. Getting taxpayer dollars from the government, over 50 million, from people who are working and also being part of community organizations and churches and charitable institutions and helping their communities, they're working and they're paying taxes and they're also organizing and doing charitable work, and then come to find out their tax dollars are paying a group which has many, many other aspects to it to go around and basically try to undo the type of things they've been doing. It's really a strange phenomenon, ACORN. And from one acorn, we know that many nuts can grow. As we think about and anticipate the work being done by ACORN, we find out, well, they go out and help people to know what their rights are and sign up for different benefits. I have seen my good friend from Iowa (Mr. King) show the photograph he took down in New Orleans that had a big 2008 Obama sign in there. Well, wait. Charitable organizations, they're not supposed to be involved in politics. In fact, any other group seems to have the Federal Government come down rather strongly against them if they start engaging in politics. But apparently that applies to others and not ACORN. I've also been amazed, Madam Speaker, the responses of some within ACORN saying, You set us up. You came in. Yeah, they came in with a camera and began to ask could they get help to set up a prostitution ring of underage children with illegal immigrants coming in. At some point you would think people of morality, people of ethics who were organizing communities for the good and the uprightness, the righteousness, the goodness, the morality, the really growth within the community would have immediately said, Do you not understand what prostitution does to children? Do you not understand that it robs them of their childhood? Do you not understand how abusive that is to female children and how that destroys their adulthood as women? Do you not understand that you're a parasite if you're living off of young children in a prostitution ring? Or women for that matter. You're a pimp; you ought to be disgusted with yourself, because we certainly are. We saw none of that in any of the videos. The reaction seemed to be the same: Well, how can we help you to get over and to make money as a parasite? It's like this was a parasitic organization trying to help someone else also be a parasite. The outrage should not have been to anyone who exposed that kind of mentality within all these different organizations that are a part of ACORN but the outrage should have been, How could this be? How could a group like this be getting hard-earned tax dollars? I'm pretty sure that most people around the country who have jobs and are struggling would like to have their own money back. I imagine they would like to have that $53 million back if they had known that it was going to be for folks who helped other groups and other individuals conduct illegal activity. But there was no remorse. You see the video and you wonder, Where is the outrage? You're community organizers and you've got no outrage? Do you have no soul? Well, of course they do, but they don't show it. Is there no still small voice that speaks and says, This is wrong? They're talking about prostitution among children. They're talking about things that are completely against what we believe in in America; everyone fulfilling their great potential and becoming all that they possibly could be. Very tragic. Very tragic. But then again, we've seen lots of slings and arrows hurled at one Member who was sitting right back here in the House who yelled, You lie. That was inappropriate. That violates the rule. But when you take it in context, the individual that came into this House, as an invited guest into the people's House, had just said that critics of the President's plan were not engaged in, quote, honest debate; that we were using, quote, scare tactics. He said that many of those who were hosting him here were making, quote, bogus claims; that we were making wild claims; that we were engaged in, quote, demagoguery; engaged in distortion, acrimony. The President said we were cynical and irresponsible in the manner in which we were criticizing his plan. He said that facts and reason were thrown overboard. He said we were robbing the country of opportunity; we were killing the President's good bill. And he actually used the L word right here on the floor just a couple of sentences before the L word was used by our friend Joe Wilson. The President said, It's a lie plain and simple. When you set that tone, you come into somebody else's house as an invited guest and you set that tone, what does that tell the people around you? You think it's okay to talk like that, to accuse your critics of being like that. You set the groundwork of making it okay to say those kind of things about people who happen to disagree with you. We've seen the footage of the President telling members of ACORN, You're going to have a place in my administration; you're going to have a stake; you're going to get to participate. There has been plenty of involvement with ACORN. It was not like it was a new entity to the President as it was to many of us. And so you have to wonder a bit about judgment. If that's the judgment of whom you want to be the stakeholder, of whom you want to give you advice and help you in the administration, then you have to wonder, Well, is that the same kind of judgment being used to pick people who are czars, who have no accountability to anyone but you? Because that seems to be kind of where ACORN was. So we've got over 30 czars, and they fall into the same category as this lack of accountability. I don't care what group you are, Madam Speaker. I don't care where it is or what's involved when there is no accountability. We know from the Old Testament that the only man in the entire Bible to have been said to have had a heart after God's own was King David and that, when he had no accountability, the man who had the heart after God's own could commit horrible offenses. Well, you have an organization like ACORN, and there is just complete unaccountability. There's not only unaccountability. We're going to give you all kinds of power. We're going to make you the stakeholder in this administration. We're going to let you organize America to fit your own image. Well, that's a little scary, but when there's no accountability, that's where all of this goes. So I am pleased to see friends who are also wishing to address this topic. I'll recognize them in a moment. I see a sign: ``ACORN Goes Nuts.'' As I just pointed out, from one acorn, we know many nuts can grow. With that, I would like to yield to my friend from Texas (Mr. Carter), Judge Carter.

Mr. GOHMERT. If I might, before you go to that poster, reclaiming my time just momentarily, because we've talked about it, I know what you're about to bring up. On Friday, I met with a gentleman in my district named Mr.--and he said I could use his name--Mr. de la Torre. He said de la Torre is Spanish for ``of the tower.'' And he's proud of his name; he's proud of his heritage. He has a sheet metal fabrication business and employs four full-time employees and four part-time employees. And when the economy hit so hard and devastated everybody, he did not want to let his employees go because they were good, hard workers. But he could get no loan. He had no money in his account, and nobody would loan him money. And so being as honest and forthright as he was, he notified the Treasury that, I don't have any money. Nobody will loan me money. I don't want to drop these employees. I want to keep them employed, but I'm going to be late making my quarterly payment. What the Treasury, the IRS, let him know is, That's too bad. We're coming after you. We want penalty and we want interest. And this man, who was able to keep his employees, his four full-time, his four part- time employees, still employed, but he was just late on his payment. The credit froze up. He couldn't get a loan. He couldn't get a line of credit. He didn't have the money. But he was honest and forthright. And what happened in return? They're after him. They have come after him, and they're threatening to seize anything he's got. That will put him out of business and put his employees out of business. With that set-up, I would yield to my friend to talk about special treatment for special people that apparently did not include Mr. de la Torre.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the point, because you would think it's such a matter of common sense but, as people know, sense is not so common around this place. It was in fact in a hearing months ago that the Federal Reserve, in an effort to get the economy going, may have pledged as much as $9 trillion to get us going. That's what motivated me to inquire how much money will be paid in for the whole year of 2008 in individual income tax. And I found out the projection was around $1.21 trillion. When we heard it was trillions that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury was committing us to to get things going in the economy, and we're going to receive $1.21 trillion in income tax, individual income tax for the year, I thought, Wow. Instead of having two guys over Treasury and the Federal Reserve just obligating, signing this country's life away through all this money here and there, what if they just said, You know what? If you earned this money, instead of paying tax, you're going to get it all back? You talk about making the economy explode. You don't need a guy over a Federal agency trying to figure out what to do with trillions of dollars we don't have. If you gave the American public their own money back, you would see the economy explode. Moody's did an independent study that indicated that would increase the GDP more than anything else in one year. Yet we're still playing games months later trying to find out what the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Secretary have committed us to in the way of debt, just to try to, on their whims, get us going. Now, we know it's made some people rich, like Goldman Sachs, since this big devastation of the economy occurred. But rank-and-file Americans have not found that to be such. I yield back to my friend from Texas.

Mr. GOHMERT. The question, Where is our money, is extremely important. And another question is, What have you committed us to? We ought to able to know that. You know, the Constitution says that the Congress will be the one who holds the purse strings. They felt like with two Houses that was a good check and balance to holding the purse strings. This many people would be that envious and that careful. That was what they thought. But I love what our friend Newt Gingrich has said: if transparency is good enough for the CIA, it ought to be good enough for Federal Reserve. Even more so, of course. But the Federal Reserve is committing money, and we don't even know the full extent that they're committing it to. And this isn't like in the earliest days with Alexander Hamilton--and I just recently finished a biography on Hamilton. When they were trying to get the banks going in America in the earliest days, guys like Hamilton were broke, yet you see nowadays we've got Goldman Sachs had their biggest profit in history in the second quarter. We don't know all the ties there. We know that, apparently, our Treasury Secretary has said it's okay to have someone overseeing the spending of the TARP money as applied to Goldman Sachs, who happens to own Goldman Sachs stock, and he will waive the conflict there. But it's like ACORN: there's so many little fingers going in all these different directions. We need full transparency. And, goodness sakes, if this government, if this Congress cannot force the Federal Reserve to come clean and be fully accountable, then we're in a lot bigger trouble than most anybody suspects right now. But I believe my colleagues are cosponsors. I will let them speak for themselves, and yield such time as they may need.

Mr. GOHMERT. If the gentleman will yield.

Mr. GOHMERT. It would be typical here in Washington also to have public outcry and say we just fixed the problem. We are not going to let ACORN be funded with your hard-earned tax dollars anymore where they go spend it as we have been finding out how it's been spent, when, apparently, there may be a couple hundred related agencies or groups to ACORN. It's not enough. Now know, if you are treating ants that are just killing everything in your yard, it's not enough to just go take care of the ants in one area; they move right over to another area. And that's what you have got with ACORN. There are so many fingers reaching out into so many other pots, it's going to take a full oversight and lots of investigation to get to the bottom of just how many organizations are tied to this and where all the money has gone. Now, it's one thing to say, oh, no, we will do an internal audit, which now they have come around to finally saying they will do, but that's not good enough when you are using taxpayer dollars. It's never a good time to do that, but especially now when taxpayers need their tax money more than at any time in decades. It's not enough to just say we are going to defund ACORN. They can just go right into another entity that they are already related to, still continue to get billions or tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. It's going to take a full investigation into all the different fingers that reach out there, and what are they doing? I mean, we have seen video on a number of ACORN offices. We have seen the charges brought of a criminal nature against, as a friend from Texas said, voter fraud, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting, embezzling, investment fraud, use of taxpayer funding for partisan political activity, Department of Labor violation. We know about those with ACORN, but what about all the groups they are related to? What have they done, and how much money have they got? Those are all things that need to be investigated. We need to get to the bottom of it. Before my friends came in, I was pointing out I have been a community organizer. I have been a part of community organizations that helped to organize community and take people food and help them, take them to voter registration, do all kinds of things to reach out and help, to visit in the hospitals, to just do ministering stuff. But we never had the government pay us to do that. It was all voluntary stuff because we deeply cared about the community. There is something to be said when the motivation is a paycheck from somebody that's out there working and helping the community and yet their tax dollars are being taken away from them. It would be called theft, except we passed a law to legalize that theft of taking their money away from them, even though they don't want to give it up, and then giving it to groups like ACORN that are going in an entirely different direction and actually working at great odds with the very things that people are volunteering to do with their own time.

Mr. GOHMERT. With regard to the $8 billion that is discussed for which ACORN may be eligible, actually, if you look at H.R. 3200, which is the health care bill that is out here in the House, there is a provision that requires that the Secretary provides information about the Federal plan and also signs people up for the Federal health care plan. That provision is in there, and I haven't been able to find any kind of limit on how much may be available. It's typical ACORN-type language because it says basically that the Secretary may hire other entities to assist in providing information and in signing people up. Of course, in the House version, we know there was no enforcement mechanism. If it's ACORN that's paid, it could be $100 billion. We don't know how much would be allocated under that provision to hire people to go out, to spread information and to sign people up. We know there was no provision for them to check on whether the people they were signing up were actually lawfully here. Yet, for what amounts could be spent under H.R. 3200 for ACORN to get them to go out, to provide information and to sign people up without checking their legal statuses, it could make $8 billion pale with that amount. I yield back.

Mr. GOHMERT. If my friend would yield for just a moment.

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, he didn't. But he had been the former Chair of the Federal Reserve, which is an elected position by the bankers of that area.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. This week, the conference committee will meet on Defense authorization. Defense authorization: we are supposed to provide for the common defense. That is the number one job of this government, not all the social engineerings going on. And guess what? We're going to be having a discussion over a hate crimes bill in Defense authorization. We're going to be talking about defending America and, in the same bill, taking away the rights of Americans. There is not one law that will be covered by that hate crimes bill that is not already in existence in every State in the Union. Every one of those crimes is covered. James Byrd's defendants got the death penalty, the two most culpable. This will not do anything. But if you want to have a discussion on hate crimes, let's have it head up on hate crimes. Let's don't stick it into something as important as Defense authorization.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this body today has voted by a majority to disapprove of Joe Wilson's comment. It is important to always take things in context. And, in reviewing the context, we have to notice that we had a President of the United States for whom we pray as Christians. We're supposed to do that--and we do. And we respect the office. And he was not happy with the way things were going with regard to his health care proposal. The American people seemed to have made pretty clear through August this was not something they wanted. So the President basically demanded to come into this House. Well, he can't come unless he's invited--an invited guest. So an invitation was issued because he wanted to come speak. And he did. Now there are rules about proper decorum in here, whether you're an invited guest or whether you are a Member of Congress. But, as Members, this is where our voters voted to send us. So we're supposed to be here. The President came in. And the truth is, I really had mixed emotions because I knew that on Monday the President had taken a shot and actually used the L word. He had said that--actually, his words were, ``You've heard the lies. I've got a question for all those folks. What are you going to do? What's your answer? What's your solution? And, you know, what? They don't have one.'' Well, it was not appropriate to say that we were lying about the proposal when we have taken the only proposal that we have, H.R. 3200, and read from it, and then we're told we're lying about the content and we have no solutions. Well, I would never say the President was lying when he said no solutions because that would infer that he knew that what he said was not true. Whoever put that line in his teleprompter should know that it's not true, but I won't attach that to the President. But you look at the speech. We heard the speech. He said, ``Instead of honest debate, we've seen scare tactics.'' We're dishonest because we take the thousand-page bill and read from it, and that's dishonest? That's scare tactics? We're told by the President in our House that we're trying to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country. Now we're robbing the country, trying to score short-term points. He goes on. That's not enough to come into somebody else's house as an invited guest, and he talks about all the misinformation. So we're spreading misinformation, he says. He goes on, the very next paragraph, he's talking about our bogus claims spread by those who want to kill. Now we're robbers and killers. And then he laps at the prominent politicians for being cynical and irresponsible. And, yes, immediately before Joe Wilson spoke, he used the L word, said, It's a lie, plain and simple. Those are dangerous words to be saying things like that and to come in and be poisoning this well. He had poisoned the American people, talking about lies on Monday. He comes in here and talked about a lie here. He goes on to say we're making wild claims. These were his words. And then talks about our demagoguery and our distortion, talks about our tall tales. Then, a surprise. He says, When facts and reason are thrown overboard, we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation. He talks about acrimony. And that's the context of Joe Wilson's comments. That's no way to act, Mr. Speaker, when you're invited into somebody else's house and you come in and use all these words to slander them. That wasn't being very nice.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 686, recommending that the United States Constitution be taught to high school students throughout the Nation in September of their senior year. It has been reported that just over half of all Americans can correctly identify the three branches of government. In fact, a recent poll indicated we have more people in America who can identify The Three Stooges than they can the three branches of government. More than one in five believe that the three branches of government are the Republican, Democrat and independent branches, and only a small percentage of Americans can identify the role of the judiciary in the Federal Government. Yet, if you ask teenagers to name the three judges on ``American Idol,'' they can rattle off their names immediately. The word ``civic'' originates from the Latin word ``civis,'' meaning ``citizen.'' At the heart of civic education is the concept that we must understand what it means to be a citizen. The importance of civic education is that without a public informed about their civic duties, the rights and freedoms promised by our constitutional structure may not be realized. Our young people in future generations must understand that it is our constitutional framework and the freedom and liberty it provides which forms the glue that holds our society together. The Constitution is a blueprint for connecting our large and diverse society in a peaceful coexistence, for the most part. Passing on an understanding of our country's history and the constitutional framework upon which it was founded is the duty of one generation to the next. As my friend from the Northern Mariana Islands mentioned, September 17, 2009, will mark the 222nd anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. I think it is appropriate that teachers and parents across the country use this anniversary as an opportunity to discuss the importance of our Constitution and the principles it embodies with all students, but especially high school seniors, who are preparing for the next chapter of their lives, and many of them to vote for the first time. It is also important to note that when the Founders came together and finally agreed on this Constitution, it was born out of a distrust for government. So they put this document together, and it was a long process. In fact, Benjamin Franklin, after 5 weeks, said, We've been going 5 weeks. We have more noes than ayes. And then he went on to say, Of course, We know that a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without God's notice. And, How can an empire rise without his aid? He went on to say, It's written in the sacred writing that unless the Lord build a house, they labor in vain that build it. He went on to point out and make a motion that they should begin each day with prayer, just as we have from 1787 until now. But then they went on to finally create a document they could agree on with a House of Representatives. But they were concerned. There was all this debate. One House still wouldn't be strong enough to have all the checks and balances to control a government that might try to run away and take away their liberty. So they didn't feel good about just one House. They wanted two houses. But they didn't want one House, maybe a House of Lords and a House of Commons, where one is more powerful than the other. They wanted both Houses to be able to completely veto what the other is doing to stop the other House from moving forward with the law. So they got two Houses, where they could do that. And that wasn't good enough. They said, We need an executive, but we don't want to have this thing where a legislative body then elects one of their own. We want somebody elected outside that, and then he can veto what those two Houses did. You know, that is still not good enough, because we really don't trust government. Let's have another branch outside that, called the judiciary, and we will give them a veto over laws that are made, too. That way, we can control runaway government. And it was ferocious argument and debate coming around to this final document that my friend from the Mariana Islands has pointed out has been such a tremendous asset for the history of mankind. And it was so moving that at the conclusion they agreed on the Constitution, they agreed to come forward with a Bill of Rights thereafter, that it's reported that Benjamin Franklin said, as he was recognized at the end, looking at the chair behind President George Washington as he stood there--and, by the way, this massive painting can be seen right outside this House--he said, Mr. President, I have been looking at the half of the sun carved in the back of your chair, wondering throughout this process if that were a rising sun or a setting sun. He said, I now believe that is a rising sun. I agree with him, and I agree so wholeheartedly with my friend that this is an excellent proposal, a resolution to encourage this kind of thing, to recommend this to the State, not to ram it down anybody's throat; but young people need to know this, especially before they vote, know the three branches as well as the three judges from American Idol. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I have got some news here. It says as of September 10, 11:23 a.m., reported by The Hill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, Democrats should cease efforts to sanction Representative Joe Wilson. It goes on to quote her and says, It's time for us to talk about health care, not Joe Wilson. But Democratic leaders, it goes on to say, were looking into what formal action the House might take against Wilson, and then, But Pelosi dismissed that idea as well as a call for Wilson to apologize on the floor. I am on to health care reform. I am not going to discuss Joe Wilson, she said. I think his actions spoke for itself. He has apologized. He will figure out what is appropriate for him to do. And I am really confused. What do you call it when somebody says something that they are going to do, and then they don't do it? What is that statement?

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciate, as always, the chance to address the House. You know, two days before the President gave his speech here to the joint session last Wednesday, the President was on television, and I watched and typed up his comments, and he talked about the critics of his health care plan, including me as a critic of what I understand his health care plan to be. And the President said these exact words. He said, ``You have heard the lies. I have got a question for all those folks. What are you going to do? What's your answer? What's your solution? And, you know what? They don't have one.'' That is simply not true. It is so difficult to try to have a meaningful debate over a bill, and even as I have, take H.R. 3200, the bill we have been given, and read directly out loud from that bill to show what it actually says, and then have the President of the United States call critics of the bill liars. We are lying. You have heard our lies. He keeps talking about ``his plan,'' ``his bill,'' ``this plan,'' ``this bill.'' Then he came over as a guest here in the Chamber. Now, some people don't understand why the President speaks from the lower podium rather than the upper podium. It is because this is the People's House. He is an invited guest into this House, and that is why he is at the lower podium. We were given just excerpts just minutes before the speech started, and that came by Blackberry, by e-mail, because we were told there was simply not time to get us a copy of the speech, as has always been done in a joint session any time I have been here in the last 4\1/2\ years, and I am told that has been the tradition. It is not a right, so nobody made demands. But imagine our surprise when we look up here in the gallery and see that every reporter appeared to have an entire transcript that they looked through as they went through his bill. But I kept seeing in the transcript of the brief excerpts we were given the President referring to ``the plan,'' ``this plan,'' ``our plan,'' ``this bill,'' and again ``this plan,'' without telling us what bill he is talking about if it is not H.R. 3200. How do you have debate on a bill that is not the one before you? And there was debate all the next day among people. Is he embracing H.R. 3200? Some thought he was. Some thought he wasn't. Well, what bill? He says he is going to call us out if we misrepresent ``his bill.'' Tell us. Madam Speaker, we need to be told what the bill is before we can be called out as misrepresenting it. I would try read from the bill, if you would tell us what it is. He also said in that speech, and I will read from the excerpt we were given, he said, ``If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.'' Well, I talked to my congressional friend Tom Price, who says he has been trying week after week to get to come talk to the President about his serious proposal. He has got a great one. I have a proposal. We have called over. And I am not going to call the President a liar, because I believe he knows his door is open. The problem is there are these massive gates and heavily armed guards between us and that open door that he says that is open to us. Anyway, we had the Speaker of the House previously this year say the CIA lied. Now, of course, we have had the President say that we have spread lies. And they both used that ``L'' word. We have been told that abortion is not covered, and everybody should know, especially people brilliant like the President, if it is not specifically excluded, it is included. The President told the CIA they were not going to be pursued over the interrogations, that he had their back. I am not going to say he lied, because he didn't say whether he was going to stab it or protect it. But it is time for the President and our leadership over here to quit using the ``L'' word, because that ``L'' word goes down in our well, and as my late mother used to say, Madam Speaker, what is in the well will come up in the bucket.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, the President of the United States was addressing a group yesterday, and he came after, once again, the critics of his health care proposal. We got the health care bill that was filed in the House, and that's what we've been working from. He has said that, if you like your policy, you can keep it. Obviously, he hasn't read the policy. I would recommend he read page 16, and he'll find out that what he's saying is not true. He went on and is quoted in talking about his critics as saying, ``You've heard all the lies. I've got a question for all those folks: What are you going to do? What's your answer? What's your solution? And you know what? They don't have one.'' Madam Speaker, I would like to encourage the President to quit talking so much and listen. There are lots of proposals out there. Read Human Events today. You'll see there are plenty of proposals. Quit talking. Start listening.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend, also the former judge from Texas, in pointing out some of the problems that are being created by the inaction. And I know this was touched on earlier, but this New York Post article, editorial dated September 2 of this year talking about some of the hypocrisy here with this bill and provisions that were added coming out of the Ways and Means Committee, and I think it's important for people to understand also that Chairman Rangel doesn't get to act by himself. The majority party that controls the Ways and Means Committee has authority to overrule the chairman. They've got enough members on their side to overrule the chairman and let him know there is a problem. There is a responsibility for the members of those committees. They're not supposed to be empty suits and dresses. They were elected by their constituents to come up here and do the right thing and not be hypocrites on any issue. So I hope we won't have that experience. When you look at some of the things this article points out, it says in the editorial, in fact, the provisions that were added to this health care bill increase fines, in some cases even for honest mistakes, this expert added, even punishing those who fail to alert the IRS to potentially questionable tax exemptions, bar the IRS from waiving penalties against taxpayers who clearly erred in good faith. The article goes on and talks about the provisions, it says here, that would prevent the IRS from waiving punishment in cases where tax officials thought the penalty was clearly excessive. It also adds that under another provision, the IRS would require that taxpayers self-report areas where they may have gone over the line seeking tax advantages, and if they fail to self-report and problems are not found, the tax penalties would skyrocket. As this article says, the IRS becomes judge, jury and executioner. One provision says the measure doubles the fine against the taxpayer from 20 percent of the underpayment to 40 percent. So there is a problem here. With regard to the issue of race, I cannot tell you how much I look forward to the day when there is not an application in this country that has a provision for race, because it doesn't matter. People don't care. We finally experienced the dream that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., talked about when we are judged by the content of our character and not by the color of the skin. That's the way it's supposed to be. And in fact, I have got recently called a racist by information I was told by one reporter who called over the Posey bill that does something very simple, and I know there are people out there who are conservatives, maybe radicals, that think that there is some kind of conspiracy theory behind the President, that he is not really supposed to be President, that he is not qualified. Look, he is President. He is going to be President at least until another election. But the Posey bill actually is implementing legislation that brings out the fact that the Constitution requires these, and since The New York Times and The Washington Post pointed out a year and a half ago that they thought John McCain may not be qualified because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone that this legislation, it's just simply two or three pages that says anybody running for President beginning in 2012 will have to show that they're qualified. It's not ex post facto. It doesn't do anything like that. It is implementing legislation. There are some judicial officials and experts that believe unless there is implementing legislation like this, even if everybody in the country knew that a candidate was born in Moscow, you still couldn't raise it because nobody would have standing unless we do some kind of implementing legislation. So the bill very simply just says that beginning in 2012 you have to show you're qualified. Well, all of a sudden, I start getting calls. I even got mentioned in Doonesbury by name, and they're using the same language. One reporter says that she got it from a high source at the White House that I was trying to delegitimize the President and was trying to throw him out of office. When I recommended the reporter read the bill, and she did, we didn't have any more about it. But it concerns me. I have also gotten all kinds of information. Apparently this information, supposedly some of it came from the White House, and they have now branded me a racist. And now I think it is appropriate to note, with my apologies to the Texas former Senator Phil Gramm, who I really appreciate his politics, I liked Alan Keyes better in 1996. I voted for Alan Keyes for President in 1996. And somebody has mentioned that he doesn't happen to be white. I didn't care. I liked his politics. Race didn't matter. But there are sources here in Washington trying to brand people racist when it has no application whatsoever. That is one example. I will tell you another example is I came down here on the floor and raised the issue with the chairman of the budget over the Justice Department if since he recused himself 2 years ago over the budget process for the Justice Department if it wouldn't be appropriate to do that now. He said 2 years ago that he was recusing himself, would step aside and not handle the budget for the Justice Department while he was being investigated. Well, there's no indication that that investigation has ended. And yet this time there was no stepping aside. My understanding was one reporter who asked for a comment from me said that they didn't think it was a big story like they did 2 years before when he did step aside because he had said, well, he wasn't actually going to preside over the FBI's budget, the people that were investigating. So it's okay to preside over the budget for the bosses of the FBI, the Justice Department, but not okay to supervise the FBI budget? I mean, if we want to talk about the appearance of a problem, good grief, can you imagine anyone being a judge over a case and they are going to rule or preside over a case of somebody that gets to cut off their funds if they don't like what the judge does? It's just absurd. Anybody would look and go, there is an appearance of a problem here, and it destroys the reputation of this body. Here again, it was the President who has continued to demand that Americans listen. And he has had town halls, listen to me, let me tell you, and he has had some listening sessions where they ship in people and it appears that some of them even have prepared questions to ask him that were given to them. It's not exactly listening to the people if you tell them what questions to ask. In any event, we keep being told we have to listen because the President has a plan, and the bill that we have had, we discussed, because that's what's in front of us, we are told if you like your insurance you get to keep it. And yet page 16 of the bill that we are given says, if your insurance policy changes at all, any term or condition, you lose it. Then that doesn't seem to be all that honest of an approach, which to give the benefit of the doubt, apparently just means he didn't read it. But now, the President wants to come in here and talk to us again because apparently we haven't been listening well enough, so he wanted to come speak. So he gets the invitation. He is going to come talk to us about health care. Well, do you know what? There was another President that did the same thing on September 22 of 1993 because he didn't think that Americans were listening well enough about what he had to say about health care. So we had a joint session, and President Clinton told us, America, he told people in this room that they needed to listen and do what he was saying about health care reform. And so here we are, all these years later, and now we're going to have to listen again, September 9, it is actually 13 days short of where President Clinton was when he came and started telling people about it. There is a problem when you don't listen to other people. And some of us have gotten an earful out there listening. I love to comment about one of my constituents when he says, look, he is telling us there are 45 million or 46 million people that don't have insurance, 15 percent of Americans don't have insurance, and so there is a problem. Well, you don't throw out the whole system to change that. In fact, one constituent said, look, when my ice maker broke, I didn't remodel the whole kitchen. And I think when you listen to Americans across the country, it's amazing the wisdom you get. And I think it is a problem in this body when all we do is talk and we don't listen. Well, I tell you, I know my friends, and Madam Speaker, that we've all gotten an earful over August, and I loved it. I enjoyed hearing what people had to say because they had given it a lot of thought. So this is what we need to do: Listen. And some great points have been made. We need to preserve the appearance of propriety and protect against the appearance of impropriety, and that appearance is all over here. And some of the same people who are refusing to do anything about an appearance of impropriety are the same people we listened to my first 2 years rightfully talk about a problem when there is an appearance of impropriety. Well, it's high time they went back and listened to themselves 4 years ago and do what they said 4 years ago and quit ignoring the damage that's being done to this body when there is important business that needs to be done. I would also encourage those same people who say that people on this side have no answers. If they would read a little bit, listen a little bit, they would find out there are all kinds of proposals. They are just so caught up in trying to fight against reform that would fix the appearance of impropriety that they're not actually doing the business this body ought to be doing. And with that, I yield back to my friend.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to point out that under this health care plan, insurance whether purchased by the employer, purchased by the Federal Government, purchased by the individual, it will be totally owned by the individuals that have the insurance which means it's fully portable. There will be provisions that you can't be dropped because of preexisting conditions, things like that, because we have got to get things back on keel and that would be very helpful to do that. I would just like to encourage, Mr. Speaker, those who are beginning to think, and I was on a telephone town hall conference tonight before I came over. We had thousands of people on that call. We asked the question, how many would like for the government to run health care? And we had right at 98 percent say they absolutely did not want the government running health care. They know too much about it themselves. We asked how many people were satisfied with their own health insurance or their health care situation and the vast majority were. We don't have to redo the entire system. We don't. But we can do better than we are, and my Republican friends I've talked to, especially the last couple of weeks, like this idea. We'll be getting that filed and we'll get it scored. There's an opportunity to show the caring heart of Americans. And in a different way from what my colleague across the aisle was intimating when he said, We're Americans, we can do--what he was talking about--socialized medicine better here than they've done it. Not if it's socialized medicine, but I would submit to you as Americans, we can do better. I never seek to impose my religious beliefs on anyone else but I think it's important to know history and where we are and I'd just like to conclude, because it may be a word of encouragement to people, that when the Washington Monument was dedicated, there's a four-sided pyramid capstone that was put on there, there's writing on all four sides but on the side facing the Capitol, up here this way, are the Latin words, laus Deo, praise be to God. That's on the top of the Washington Monument. That is the tallest point in Washington, D.C. Those people back then put laus Deo, praise be to God, on the side facing the Capitol for this reason: This is east of the Washington Monument. This is the side from which the sun comes up. They wanted to make sure that when God's first rays of sun hit anything in this Nation's Capitol, it was the words--boom--praise be to God, and that is what I hope Americans will be able to say with our Founders for many centuries to come. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back. But I thank her even more for her insightful comments and explanations about those who are without insurance and what the real number is that we're talking about, and the real number that we really need to do something to assist. That is so immensely helpful. But I was struck last week too that, during debate over the health care issue, and some on this side of the aisle were giving story after story, true stories, of just terrible things that had happened, and people died, suffered immensely under health care in England or Canada because of the long waiting list that people get put on to get, either diagnostics to find out if there's a problem, or what the problem is, and then whatever the therapeutic need is, whether it's surgery, radiation, whatever, how long they waited, and some died while waiting for that. And we had a friend across the aisle get up and say that, You know, gee, folks here are talking about Canada and England and their health care. No, no, we're not going to be like them. We're America. We always do things better. And I was so struck by that comment because, for a couple of decades, we've been hearing people on the other side of the aisle talk about we need health care like England. We need health care like Canada. And that's been going on for a number of years, pointing to Canada. Look, we need to be like Canada. We heard that over and over. And then when we start getting into the nitty-gritty and just exactly how people are getting treated in Canada and England, the great examples we've heard for so many years, and we start pointing out these are not good systems that you've been telling us we need to imitate and emulate, then we get the response, Well, we're America. We'll certainly do it better than they did. Well, the trouble is it doesn't matter what your country is. When you pursue socialism, and the United States government or any other government is trying to take over health care, and run health care, you're headed for trouble. It's socialized medicine. I was an exchange student in the Soviet Union back in 1973 for a summer. We went to hospitals, to medical schools. There were 8 of us allowed in on that program in the Soviet Union that year. And anyway, I don't want socialized medicine. I've seen it. And now we have friends across the aisle who have admitted this week that, really, you know, the public option they've been pushing for, it's just a way to finally get to the single-payer health care where the government runs everything. And my friends, Mr. Speaker, should know that once the government pays for everybody's health care, then they will have every right to tell you how to live, tell you what you can eat, tell you where you can go, if it's too dangerous. Once they pay the health care, then freedom and liberty that has been known in this country will be so dramatically impeded. We don't have to go there. And when you use common sense, which I'm told in Washington is not so common, you use common sense, you see that we're already, probably by now, spending $10,000 from every household in America, on average, to just give 90 million people health care. And you realize, good grief, we could do better than that. If we just bought them the best sterling silver, golden health care in the world, gave them that kind of coverage, and there are some things that need to be done so the insurance company doesn't create problems and impede your freedom there, too. And you give them money for their own health savings account that they completely control, and it ends up being cheaper--that's a real solution. You give senior citizens complete control for the first time since Medicare came into existence, and then you give them complete coverage like they've never had, like they've never had. So that's a rather significant development. There are a few other things I'd like to point out which are proposed in my bill, because I am sick of people across the aisle saying that we don't want to do anything about health care and that we like the status quo. Folks, we cannot stand to do the status quo. We have got to make some changes or it is going to bankrupt this country. We can do better, and this is one proposal that will. One of the things we've got to have is complete transparency in health care costs because we sure don't have it now. We're not even close. You know, I've asked myself before: What is this going to cost? Well, it all depends; and it does. Which insurance have you got? If you don't have insurance, then that's another cost; but they may give you a little discount. Even if they give you a little discount, it's not going to be as cheap as you could get if you were an insurance company like Blue Cross. Well, under my proposal, under this plan, you would have complete transparency because every health care provider would have to disclose to you exactly what the cost is. If they're proposing a cost that's different to you than what they've charged to some insurance company, then they have to tell you that, and they have to tell you how much they charge to these other entities. That's part of the bill. We've got to get away from this insane billing system where a hospital may bill $1,000 to $1,500 for a room for a night, hoping they'll get back $100 to $150. I was involved in a situation. It wasn't my personal situation, but I was very familiar with it. There was a car wreck. A man ran a stop sign. The hospitalization was 2 days, the testing, all the doctors, the ambulance--everything--came to around $10,000. That was the total of all the bills. As an attorney, you gather together all of those bills, and you provide them to the auto insurance company of whoever is at fault, and often they'll work out a settlement with you. In that case, a settlement was reached. Money was put in escrow as required under State law, and then State law requires, before any of the proceeds of the settlement can be disbursed, that it has to first refund any money that any health care provider or insurance company has provided on behalf of the injured party. So, in accumulating the documentation, again, it was around $10,000 total. The documentation came back from all of the providers that everyone had been paid in full by the health insurance company of the injured driver. Everybody has been paid in full under their agreement with the health insurance company, so then you have to get documentation from the health insurance company. Okay. Show us how much you paid to all of these different health care providers--hospital, ambulance, tests, doctors, all that stuff. Show us how much you paid to satisfy the $10,000 in health care costs, and you'll be cut a check for that amount, and we'll send it right on out to you. The documentation came as to how much the insurance company paid in full satisfaction of $10,000 in health care costs, and it was right at $800 to satisfy $10,000 in medical claims. So, if you're the party and if you get these claims, you go, Oh, my word. This is $10,000 of health care costs? Thank goodness I have insurance. I sure couldn't afford $10,000. If you knew the real truth, that it was being paid in full with $800, you might realize, gee, you don't need as much insurance as you thought you did. You could buy cheaper insurance; you could have a deductible, and your insurance would be cheaper. With the proposal for everybody, it would cover everybody on Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP or any combination. We give them cash in their accounts that they control, and then buy insurance on top of that. It will save this government money, the State's money, and it will give dignity back to seniors who've had to beg the government, who've had to beg their supplemental carriers and who've had to get into arguments. That would have to cease. That would cease and it should. As the Federal Government, we should see to that and not create greater slaves to the Federal Government. Another thing that this bill would do--and again, it's a Republican bill. There are numerous, wonderful plans that are being proposed on the Republican side of the aisle, but we're not in the majority. The majority can control and can keep every one of these great ideas from coming to the floor. In my proposal, it also addresses and provides great incentives for employers to pay money into individuals' health savings accounts, and that would be money that you, the individual, would have, would control, which would be yours. Again, it's a debit card--it's in the bill--that's coded to cover things that are health care related. Then you would have a high deductible insurance to cover things above the health savings account amount. Yet since young people hardly cost anything, young people in their 20s and 30s, they would be accumulating vast amounts of money in their health savings accounts so that, by the time they would get to be seniors, the government wouldn't need to pay anything because they would already have so much in their health savings accounts that they could buy their own great insurance. They could pay for whatever they'd need, and they'd have a high deductible insurance. There have been some statistics that have been put together that have shown that young people could pay for the best assisted living that they could ever need. Special needs would be addressed. That would be the way to get off this road to the $22 trillion that has been estimated we're headed toward with the Medicare system we're on right now. There are those who have been desensitized by President Bush's requesting $700 billion last fall, by President Obama's asking for $700 billion this year and by the $400 billion land omnibus bill's actually getting, apparently, over $400 billion of the original bailout money for Secretary Geithner to throw around at his friends as he sees fit. So people have kind of been desensitized as to how much $1 trillion is. So that it can be put in perspective, the total amount estimated to have been received by the U.S. Treasury for tax year 2008 is apparently going to be around $2.5 trillion. We have Medicare that is running through the roof, which will break this country. At the same time, seniors, relatives of mine whom I love and care about, are having to buy supplemental insurance because it really doesn't take care of what they need. They're fussing with their insurance companies; they're fussing with Medicare. That is ridiculous. You get toward your last days on Earth, and you've got to fuss over that kind of stuff? That's absurd. We don't have to do that. Another issue, though, with regard to health care is not only the transparency of costs, but it is an issue with regard to migrants, both illegal and legal, getting free health care. We've seen very clearly health care costs will bankrupt this country if we don't do something to save this Nation, and we can. It's doable, but we have got to get back to reality. It's estimated that there are over 1.5 billion people in the world who would like to immigrate, who would like to come into the United States. Legally or illegally, they would like to come into this country. Well, we've got over 300 million Americans right now. If 1.5 billion people came into this country, it would overwhelm everything, and we would be bankrupt overnight because we would not be able to absorb that kind of thing. So, at some point, we have got to go back, as our forefathers did, and say: You know what? The rule of law means something. That's why we have such a top economy in the world, and that's why our friends to the south, Mexico, don't. They've got great workers, hardworking people. They've got incredible national resources, but they're not one of the top 10 economies because they've not been a nation of laws where the rule of law has mattered. They've been a country where graft and corruption all too often have been the rule of the day, not the rule of law. You can bribe your way out of things, and that is why they have not advanced. Well, we don't need to forsake the rule of law. I am all for having all of the visas we need to supply the workers we need. Right now, we don't need a lot of workers, because there are a lot of out-of-work Americans. So, as to all this talk about jobs Americans won't do, well, we had a hearing in the crime subcommittee in the last couple of weeks, and we found out that, out of just over 200,000 people incarcerated in Federal prison, 53,000 of them are migrants, immigrants in the country. We were told that most of them were illegal immigrants. We didn't get the exact number out of the 53,000. But over 25 percent of the people in Federal prison are not American citizens and most of those 53,000 are illegally here. Well, people who are illegally here and are not paying for health care will bankrupt this country if we allow this to go unabated. And some of us care enough about our contribution as the greatest philanthropic country in the world's history and if we'd like to continue to do that, that we need this economy going and going forward in good measure. And so part of this proposal and part of this bill is that if you are seeking a visa to come into this country, you will have to show proof that you have a health savings account, health insurance to cover your health needs while you're here. There's a provision where employers can set up migrant worker health care costs, or to cover health care costs while they're here and that will satisfy the requirement. You can show proof that the household you're going to be living in will allow you to be part of their household insurance and health savings account. But you're going to have to provide that or you don't get a visa or you don't get one renewed. Not only that, the Supreme Court in this caring nation says if you present yourself while you're illegally in this country to a hospital, we'll provide your health care needs. That's the law. The Supreme Court says it is; we'll follow the law. But once we've got you well enough to travel, you will be deported and because a bankrupt nation is a matter of national security to avoid, then if you come back after you've been illegally here and required free treatment, free to you but at a huge cost to the American taxpayer, then that will be a crime, that you came in illegally, got free health care and then after deported you came back again, that will be a crime and you would have to be incarcerated. We have got to stop that, so that we continue to be the kind of nation that 1.5 billion people would like to come to and that people around the world can receive the great charity of this nation. Otherwise, a bankrupt nation can't help anybody around the world. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire, how many minutes do I have left?

Mr. GOHMERT. Let me reclaim my time just briefly because that's where we want to get, but I do want to point out one other thing. When I hear the talk about what this body is doing to create jobs, let me mention this. They didn't read the crap-and-trade bill because it says--and I pulled it out here on the floor, but I didn't have the full bill because there was only one bill in which both the 300-page amendment filed at 3:09 a.m. was being interfaced with the other bill, and that was right up there on the second level. And I finally got up there and found out where the one--and the Speaker ruled, consulting with the Parliamentarian, that even though there was no final bill that was put together with the amendments in the final bill, that that two stacks of documents that was not collated, didn't have all the lines deleted that it was supposed to, that that bill constituted the official copy that was supposed to be here on the floor. But in that bill there was a climate--I believe it was called a Climate Adjustment Fund, something like that, and it created a fund. And in the face of people saying across the aisle that nobody's going to lose their jobs, we're going to create jobs--and I heard it again tonight--if you just read the bill--obviously these weren't the people that wrote it, but whichever staffers wrote it, they knew that somebody was going to lose their job. Maybe Members didn't know because they hadn't read it, but the staffers that put that bill together knew people were going to lose their jobs because the fund said it was to compensate people who lost their jobs because of the crap-and-trade bill. And not only that, it created money in there to help people with relocation. But the problem is, it wasn't going to help them relocate to China, India, Brazil and these different places where those jobs were going to actually go. That was in the bill. So the people, whatever staffers drafted that bill, they knew people would lose their jobs, but unfortunately the Members that didn't read the bill didn't know that that was in there. And not only that, as my friend, Dr. Foxx, knows, in the last month, what have we been doing? According to my friends, some of them across the aisle, Oh, we've been concentrating on jobs, jobs, jobs. Last week, we passed a bill for $770 million for wild horses and burros. I love horses, I grew up riding them, I love them. But the problem created after our friends across the aisle took the majority, they outlawed controlling the herds of these wild horses--even though they have an area bigger than New York State to run wild in. Well, they have proliferated like crazy. And now, since we couldn't do anything for herd control, now they want to spend $770 million, a big hunk of that, to buy a place bigger than West Virginia for the horses to continue to run around in. There was some money in there that I'm sure would have created a few jobs, that was going to help the wild stallions with their birth control, their contraception. So that was going to be interesting to see somebody apply for that job and do whatever was required to help the stallion with his contraception needs. But anyway, that was $770 million. Not only that, my friend knows that we just passed--and I know neither one of us voted for it--we passed a bill for $25 million to help the otters. And as I pointed out here, when we passed the bill for $25 million for the cranes--not the whooping cranes, but cranes, most of which are in other countries--and $25 million for rare dogs and cats--none of which are in this country. I was pointing out to my friends across the aisle, you know, you talk about wanting to save jobs and helping; we've got Americans with habitat problems right here. And you're sending money to China that we have to borrow from China in order to buy land to let these rare dogs and cats live on so somebody can move into that area that's starving and kill those rare dogs and cats. I mean, that's insane when we have Americans having habitat problems. So when I hear people saying oh, no, we're all about jobs, jobs, jobs, I am very concerned. But I was able to point out to some of my friends that supported the crap-and-trade bill that actually there is good news in there for the people that supported that, like our friends across the aisle that did, that actually when the voters find out what all is in that bill that they didn't read, there's good news for them because they may be eligible for both relocation and that allowance because they'll lose their job as a result of that bill. So they may be able to get proceeds under the fund when they lose their jobs because they voted for that bill. I did want to point those things out. The sea turtles, don't forget we sent sums because it may be necessary to protect sea turtles, and 80 percent of that is required to go to foreign countries and not stay here. I mean, people here have habitat problems, and we're spending money like it's just growing on trees up here, and we are going to be in trouble. Now I would like to get into the health care issue because there is money being spent, again, like it's growing on trees. The estimate of the President's plan, $1 trillion to $2 trillion. We had just gotten the data back, I think, in May for 2007 that showed all the spending for Medicare and Medicaid. It didn't even include SCHIP. Medicare and Medicaid. And we want to help people. We are a caring Nation, and that's what a caring Nation does. But you've got to spend your money wisely. So we got the data, and you divide the number of households in America into the amount of money spent by the government on Medicare and Medicaid, and it's $9,200 per household, for every household in America. The average is every household in America had to come up with $9,200 in order to fund much less than one-third of the population on Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. Well, that's insane. We can do better than that. That's why I started putting together my own bill that basically would save tremendous amounts of money. And for the first time ever, senior citizens would have complete coverage. They wouldn't have to buy wraparound, supplemental coverage, anything like that. They would have complete coverage with a high deductible insurance, which is normally so much cheaper because you have the high deductible. Then to cover that deductible, for any household where people were on Medicare, Medicaid, or SCHIP or any combination, we would give them cash money, $3,500, in a health savings account that they access with a debit card, and it is theirs to access for health care. And for anybody that might try to spend it on anything else, it wouldn't work because the bill requires it to be coded in such a way that only health care items, whether it's prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, treatment at the doctor's office, all those kinds of things would be covered. And when you ran up $3,500, if you did, then the insurance that we would purchase for you every year would kick in and you'd be covered. And to provide $3,500 in a household account of everyone on Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP, give them that cash money in the health savings account they completely control with that debit card, no gatekeeper insurance company or government telling them they can't if it's truly for real health care needs, and then above that the private insurance we would purchase with Federal money would cover them so well, they wouldn't need any kind of other supplemental. Now, that is showing care for senior citizens, for those who are in poverty. For all of those who are in poverty, senior citizens, disabled that needed Medicare, Medicaid, or SCHIP, that is the kind of caring that I know Republicans care about; that you can do it better without some government bureaucrat jumping in between people and their doctor. Now, I have a health savings account right now and insurance coverage. Some people say Congress has got these gold-plated policies. I've got a $3,000 deductible. I had better insurance when I was in private business. I had better insurance when I was a judge and chief justice than I do right now. I did. But I've a $3,000 deductible policy, and I try to accumulate enough money each month into my health savings account, but it's going away at the end of the year. Well, in the bill that I'm going to file, and I have about got it finished, it actually lets your health savings account amount roll over if you have excess in there each month. But for our seniors, all those on Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP, they would get a new $3,500 in their health savings account every year. They would have new insurance purchased every year. And they couldn't be dropped because of a preexisting condition or anything like that. They'd just be covered and we'd take care of them. That's the kind of thing that shows when you really care about people. I yield to my friend Dr. Foxx.

Mr. GOHMERT. Yes. I yield to my friend from North Carolina.

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, sure. We had the American Energy Act. There are so many Republican bills that have been filed, and they encompass virtually everything. We want more solar. We want more wind. All these different sources. Nuclear power. I never thought I would end up indicating we ought to emulate France about anything, but they've done a terrific job in producing nuclear energy. And so that is another area that we can utilize. Natural gas from the horizontal drilling, the hydraulic fracking, when it's properly done, it has produced now, in recent years we find out, much more natural gas than we thought. And we have plans that encompass all of these things, every single source of energy. What also our friends across the aisle have not realized, they made a comment about how their energy, their ``crap and trade'' bill would actually create jobs. And that does indicate to me that they didn't read their own bill. And that's rather unfortunate because there are things that contradict what they said. But we've had many bills, and we call them ``all of the above.'' And as my friend, Dr. Foxx, recalls, we were pushing an all of the above. We want to utilize all of the gifts with which this country has been blessed. We have more coal--now, coal burned improperly pollutes the atmosphere. We can demand better; coal-to-liquid that doesn't produce all the pollution that just burning coal does. We can require scrubbers, as we have over the years, to help clean up the environment. We have more coal than any nation in the world. We have vast supplies of natural gas, now over 100 years worth. We've got vast amounts of oil. We had estimates in our Natural Resources Committee--and we've talked about so many of these issues there--in a 500-square-mile area that includes Utah, Wyoming, and part of Colorado, there is a very thick shale there that we would like to see oil produced. And some estimates are 1 trillion to 3 trillion barrels of oil could be produced. Well, we were told that there's only about 1 trillion barrels of oil left in the entire Middle East, and we may have one to three times that much in one 500-square-mile area if we allow the people to go after it. And our plans all include those things. But one other thing about pursuing that energy ourselves would be, we have a plan. We have bills that would actually take the money from the Outer Continental Shelf revenue, it would take money from ANWR production, it would take money from the gas production in Alaska and would actually use that to do research and find these other sources of energy. I have a bill myself that they won't let come to the floor, and it's far-reaching. And some might say, well, it's kind of like the Star Wars idea that Reagan pushed--which ended up bringing down the Soviet Union and providing cover for so much of the world these days. But I really believe that someday solar energy will be our best source of energy and we'll be able to utilize it more so than ever. But we don't have a good way to store electricity. We can store energy. Energy can be stored, as it is in a place or two around the country, where during low-usage times they will maximize production of electricity to use it to pump water up into high reservoirs so that in peak times the water can flow down, turn turbines, and produce additional amounts of electricity. Now, that's storing energy, but it's not storing electricity. So I had a bill that would say, for anyone who comes up with a way to store electricity in megawatt amounts for 30 days without losing more than 10 percent of the power, you get a $300 million cash prize. Now, obviously if somebody comes up with a way to do that, they're going to make a lot of money off the process. Some say there is no way that could ever happen. Some scientists I've talked to said, Man, if we could do that, find a way to hold that electricity, we would never need any other source again. It would revolutionize everything. We might even be able to harness electricity. I mean, the lightning from electricity that would come down, we could just store that. And so those things, I think they are out there. I don't know of a Democrat bill that addresses that; that's a Republican bill, that's my bill. That's far-reaching; it's not going to happen in the next 2 years. But we believe if you use the energy resources we've got, the carbon-based resources we've got, demand clean air, clean water, and be good stewards of the environment, but then use the proceeds to develop the next generation of energy, then we don't have to have people lose jobs. Now, our friends across the aisle were talking about they were concerned about jobs going to China and places like that. The fact is, that crap-and-trade bill is going to run jobs to China, India, Brazil. And I don't see how anybody can say they're going to help the environment by closing down manufacturers in this country and driving them to countries who produce four to 10 times more pollution to do the same job that goes into the same atmosphere. That is ridiculous. That doesn't preserve our environment; it makes it worse. And another thing, too, it's historical fact that when a country's economy is struggling, the country quits worrying about the environment. They quit being good stewards of the environment. We don't have to do that. We can be good stewards, but you've got to have a vibrant economy to do that. So why in the world would you want to put extra requirements on your industry in order to drive them to countries that would pollute 4 to 10 times as much? It makes no sense at all. I yield to my friend, Dr. Foxx.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the time. As frustrating as these times are, and as difficult as these times are for America, it never ceases to be an honor to serve in this body and to be serving, in my case, the constituents of east Texas. It does mean so much, and the more that you know about history and where we've come from----

Mr. GOHMERT

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