Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I heard the chairman a moment ago saying Bush was in charge in September. And that's correct. I was glad to hear that. But some of us back in September were begging the majority and people on this side of the aisle don't give $700 billion in this fashion to anybody, not Paulson, not Geithner, not anybody. But it passed with the majority of the majority voting for it. So it's a little difficult to come in here and say the President has done everything he can when President Obama's defense apparently is, well, Bush was bad, he used maybe $300 billion of the $700 billion; so we've got Obama $1.5 trillion, $1.6 trillion. Look, if we want to fix this so the President can do all he can, somebody needs to put in the teleprompter that he's directing Geithner to put this outfit in receivership and then go get 100 percent of the bonuses. Then we can talk about doing all he can.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, here, once again, we are going to hastily do something wrong, good intentions. There is nobody in this Congress that wants that money back more than I do. But going back to September, going back to the stimulus, spendulus, going back to the omnibus, we hastily went through this stuff. Some of us said don't go so fast, and we can make sure we got a better bill, and we didn't do that. So here we are, going to hastily shred the Constitution, with an ex post facto law that says we will take 90 percent as taxes. Mr. Speaker, that's not right. We don't take bad law and make worse law shredding the Constitution. You want to get it back, I want more than 90 percent. I want 100 percent. You do that by forcing them into bankruptcy, going back and putting these preferences aside so we can get 100 percent, and we can get more than just the bonuses in bankruptcy or receivership. That's constitutional. Don't shred the Constitution after we have already messed up by blowing aside the procedure and doing the hastily wrong thing.

Mr. GOHMERT. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GOHMERT. Is it inappropriate and against the rules to ask another person to yield?

Mr. GOHMERT. Further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GOHMERT. Is it inappropriate, when somebody accuses me of being the pot calling the kettle black, in other words, of being the very thing I am accusing others of doing, of asking the gentleman to yield so I can find out where the heck he is coming from?

Mr. GOHMERT. I think you have pretty well taken care of that. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. GOHMERT. So you are saying you don't know whether I can ask another person to yield?

Mr. GOHMERT. So it's inappropriate to ask?

Mr. GOHMERT. The parliamentary inquiry is, if I am allowed to ask someone to yield after they have called me a name?

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I do thank my dear friend, Ms. Foxx, for the things that she's pointed out tonight, Mr. Speaker, and also for the good that she's done. I hadn't realized. I guess we don't notice gender around this body, but apparently one of the few women. I didn't realize there had been that few. But what a powerful contribution, Mr. Speaker, that Ms. Foxx has made, and is making. It makes me very proud to be serving with her, as we came in together. But there is something that we have discussed and have in common, and that is a concern about the morality of this Nation. Chuck Coulson talked about in a recent Bible study group we had, quoted Michael Novak, using the metaphor of the three-legged stool on which a government and a country like ours is seated. Now many have used the metaphor of the three-legged stool, but he was pointing out that really the three legs are composed of morality, economic freedom, and political freedom, and that you need all three legs. What we have seen in this country is a breakdown of the morality leg. As we look at the struggles in our economy, it seems that there has been a real problem with this nagging issue of greed and jealousy and envy, covetousness. People see what others want and they want that and they want more. And as we have seen greed take over good sense, then it affects the economic freedom. And as that has impacted the economy and the economy has gotten in trouble, what we see throughout history is that when people have a choice between order and freedom, they will give up freedom just to have order, and that it puts our entire political freedom at risk when we have had a breakdown in morality affecting the economy, and then the third leg goes, our political freedom. I have been visiting with a group tonight, and I know the rules of the House are that we don't call attention to anyone in the gallery so I will not do that. But I have been visiting tonight with friends from Lufkin, Texas, Mayor Gordon and his wife, and Paul Parker and his wife and their grandson, Josh. They understand this issue of morality. They understand that a country cannot be perpetuated where you lose that leg of the three-legged stool. We even see it in Washington, where people get envious: Well, somebody got something in their district, I want something in mine. And if they put what they want or their district's wants over the needs of the Nation, then we come in here and we pass bills that have 9,000 earmarks in them that don't help with the stimulus, they don't help the country go in the right direction. And it is really kind of a moral leg that is affected there as well, which affects the economy because it doesn't stimulate the economy, which can throw the economy into chaos, at which time people are willing to give up political freedom in order to have the security of some order in this Nation. I have been inspired by some of the words of our President, President Obama. But as we have found, leadership is not found in the lines on a teleprompter; leadership is something you have got to do, how you live. And George Washington, we know, struggling as we was to win freedom, he knew that his life had to be transparent, that he had to be humble, and he had to be a man of complete honesty; otherwise, it wouldn't survive. And his quote was: Men unused to restraint must be led; they will not be driven. And that is what we need more of, not just pretty words that are read from a teleprompter. We need leadership. We need people not to say we are not going to allow greed to get $165 million worth of bonuses after driving a country into the dirt. Not at all. No, we need leadership that doesn't just say these things. They follow through, and make sure he appoints honorable men, honorable people. And by that I mean generically men and women, because of the contribution. We were just down to Statuary Hall, and I was pointing out the first woman to address a group in Congress was a Christian evangelist, I think it was before 1820, that delivered the Sunday nondenominational Christian sermon down in Statuary Hall back when it was the House of Representatives. But men and women have inspired this place, but they don't inspire anyone unless their life is transparent enough so that people know that they mean what they say. So as we continue to have these issues arise of the lack of morality; Ms. Coleson once said: You can't have the morality of Woodstock and not have tragedies in this country. If you have the morality of, ``If it feels good, do it,'' then you are going to have some catastrophes, because some people will want to see how it feels to do different catastrophic, greedy, terrible things. So we have got to get back to our moral underpinnings and moral anchoring so that we can move forward. But we need leadership from the White House to the Senate to this House to be in order so that they can lead by example, and not put earmarks in that may help some people but not help the economy and not help the Nation move forward and not help the generations to come. Ms. Foxx has heard me say, Mr. Speaker, before. As a judge, I know if a parent were to have come before me and that parent had been to the bank and said, I can't control my spending, I just can't stop spending, so please make me a loan; and my children and my grandchildren, maybe my great grandchildren who aren't even born, will pay it all back some day because I can't and I can't control my spending. Well, that parent wouldn't get to keep the kids much longer, and especially if the kids had kids. That raises issues. But in any event, we have got to get back to morality of good leaders here. We don't spend our children's money, we don't spend our grandchildren's money and our great grandchildren's money. That is irresponsible. And if we are going to do the business of this Nation with which we have been trusted, we have got to just reestablish the moral leg, the humility, the strength of character that Washington displayed, and that I have seen in my friend, Ms. Foxx. I appreciate your yielding and I appreciate the chance to speak here. I have seen that same moral strength in a group that is here at the Capitol tonight from Murray State University, a group of Christians that are here. So thank you for yielding and allowing me to speak tonight. And thank you for taking this time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. We've heard a lot about AIG and how they shouldn't have been getting those bonuses they got--$165 million--but let's take a real objective look here. These executives took one of the biggest, most important companies in the world, in the country, and they ran it into the dirt. They bankrupted a lot of other companies. But they didn't have to go into bankruptcy because they convinced the government to come in with taxpayer dollars and give them $173 billion. Now that's pretty extraordinary. They still have their jobs. Why wouldn't they get a bonus? Good night. You run a company into the dirt and then talk the government into giving you $173 billion in taxpayer dollars, that's deserving of something, and apparently somebody thought it was worth a bonus. Well, the fact is they shouldn't have gotten bonuses. They should have been in receivership. But I keep looking for people to finally keep the promises that they have made. We heard that we were going to get change that people could believe in. We saw with the bailout back in September what some of us knew was a horrible mistake, and we said it then. Even though I am a Republican, I was looking forward to change from the deficit spending. Yet we have just gotten more and more and more of the same. When are we going to get change? Isn't it about time we quit the deficit spending? It would sure be nice. We were told that there would be no more lobbyists in this administration. I liked the sound of that. It sounded good. Well, it turned out he meant no lobbyists except for the ones they actually hired to be part of the administration. We were told there would be new ideas in this administration; we'd go in a new direction; we'd have change. But then we got a Secretary of the Treasury that is given credit for thinking of a lot of the plan that Paulson had, even though I still haven't been able to figure out what plan that was. So we didn't get change. We're getting more of the same. More and more of the deficit spending. When are we going to get the change? We have heard from the majority over and over again for the last 4 years that deficit spending is bad. I agreed with them my first 2 years here, 2005 and 2006. So when they took the majority, I thought, Well, the good news is they'll finally stop this ridiculous deficit spending. But they didn't. It got worse and worse and worse. Then when they found that there was a President from the same party, instead of together, since they control the House, the Senate and the White House, to completely bring an end to deficit spending, it's just gotten worse and worse. This madness has to stop. We are blessed right now with a President who's one of the most gifted communicators I have ever seen in my lifetime. But what we are finding is that true leadership is not going to be found between the lines in a Teleprompter. You can look at the Teleprompter, you can read from it, but that is not where leadership is. I heard right here from that podium, Mr. Speaker, at the State of the Union last month these words: ``We're going to assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy,'' and President Obama said, ``I understand that on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives banks bailouts with no strings attached, and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decision. But such an approach won't solve the problem.'' He went on to say, ``This time, CEOs won't be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.'' And then here we come the following month--there were no strings attached--to say, You know what? You ran this company in the ground. You don't get a bonus with taxpayer dollars. I'm kind of outraged over that. Like my friend, Mr. Forbes, I'm kind of outraged that people are outraged they didn't stop this, when some of us--you go back to some of our comments on this very floor--we said, Read the bill. It's a problem. Well, it's time for true change. Let's get what we should have and not what people talk about.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank Mr. King and I thank Mrs. Bachmann. That's such a great point about energy. We have been blessed in totality with more natural resources in the United States of America, I think, than any other country. It's just been fabulous. And yet we continue week after week, month after month with the Democratic majority to continue to put more of our natural resources off-limits. One of the things some of us have been advocating, and I have got my staff working on a bill we talked about yesterday that would be in conjunction with our friend Mr. Shadegg, with Senator Vitter, but we all agree: We want all-of-the-above energy. Use it all. But make sure we protect the environment. And that can be done. But open up the OCS to drilling. Put litigation on a fast track so they can't tie it up for 10 or 20 years and just keep repeatedly bringing them to court. But let's go use it if it's legal, if it's proper, and it will be if it's done right. And then something that had been negotiated before that could be done is that the Federal royalty that could be obtained by leasing the OCS would be more than traditionally a property owner gets from leasing their land to produce oil and gas. Traditionally that's been one- eighth. One-eighth of the royalty is what the owner normally got. We could get at least three-sixteenths. We could split it with the States. We've got States coming up here like California saying, please, give us some money. I'm so proud they worked on their budget. They still need money. You've got all kinds of money sitting in the vault, sitting in the bank, right off your coast. Use what you've got. If it's solely in the State's territory, it's yours. If it's out beyond that and in Federal territory, we will split the money with you. And then my feeling is, and this is what I've talked to the staff about in a bill, we'll take half of the Federal part of that because we should share it with the States, but then with our half, take half of that and devote it completely to research for alternative fuels. You don't have to tax anybody else. You don't have to add more costs to the already hardworking people that are paying to sustain this unwieldy government. But you could fund our own alternative research so that as things run out, we've got it. And it's really beginning to appear very disingenuous, this stuff about the global warming, and that's why we are no longer hearing ``global warming.'' They're not using that term. They are using ``climate change.'' Climate change happens four times a year. It's the seasons.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, and great points all. I was enjoying the points you were making. But what came back to mind was the story about Davy Crockett in the House of Representatives. Some people don't know he was a representative, and yet there is a great story, a true story about him going back home to Tennessee and somebody, one gentleman just lowered the boom on him and was really fussing at him because Congress had decided to give money to help some business that had burned. The gentleman was telling Davy Crockett, if you want to help somebody or some business because it is a noble cause, give them your money, don't give them my money. And Crockett came back here and told about the incident as part of the Congressional Record, telling his colleagues: How about for once we don't just force the taxpayers to give up their money and give it to where we think it ought to go. If we think that this business deserves some charitable help, then let's give it out of our own pockets. They took up a collection. Can you imagine if the debate here on the floor were along those lines these days, that the children need our help, so I'm passing the hat and would like for everybody to kick in their own money here on the floor so that we can help these children? No, that's not what we hear.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. Actually, I guess it was right at the end of 1 year, my freshman year here, there were so many of our friends across the aisle quoting Scripture. And it was being used in a way to say things like, well, Jesus said take care of the widows and orphans. And some of you guys, you want to just neglect the widows and orphans and help your rich friends. And others would say, Jesus said that we should be good Samaritans and help those less fortunate. Somebody else said Jesus had said to them that we're to love our neighbors as ourselves, ``the golden rule.'' When a lawyer asked him what is the most important commandment, he said, love your neighbor--those were the two, love God and love your neighbor. But anyway, we were getting beat up over that, that we ought to be taxing people, taking from other people and giving to these folks that were in need. And I had to point out that night that Jesus never said go ye therefore, use and abuse your taxing authority to take somebody else's money to help them. He said, you do it. You do it. He was talking to the individual. He was talking to the individual heart. And the individuals who were supposed to do it, not go and abuse taxing authority, take somebody else's money, and yet that is what has happened. And a great example was Zacchaeus. Because if you look at what Zacchaeus did after he met Jesus, he went and cut taxes. Not only did he cut taxes, he gave rebates to those he over-collected from. And that is what would be called a tax holiday.

Mr. GOHMERT. That is such a great point. And it goes right along with the corporate tax. We have people come in here and say the corporate tax is the way to go because these mean, cruel, greedy corporations, let them pay the tax. Well, if a corporation does not pass that tax on to its customers or its clients, then it goes out of business. So that is so deceptive. And I think it is so wrong to say, we all know in here we're going to stick it to the little guy, the guy that is just working and doing all they can to stay up, or the seniors who are on Social Security, we're going to stick it to them, but we can't just stick the tax to them any more than we already have, let's tax the corporation, and then they will have to pass it on. But it won't say ``tax'' when it's passed on because it's from us to them, and it's our way of sticking it to the little guy without them knowing. But at some point the American public is going to wise up. And I've looked into this as well because there are some that say we need to erect tariff barriers and say, if you're going to sell stuff in this country, your country may be subsidizing this kind of thing, but we're going to put a tariff. Well, that triggers so many penalties. It would trigger a tariff war around the world if we did that. Whereas, what I have looked into is, what if we said we are not going to allow Congress to stick it to the little guy by popping the tax on the corporations that they have to pass on. Let's just say no corporate tax. Corporations that have fled this country because of the high corporate tax rate have said, our manufacturing jobs will be back in America. The furniture jobs, even though labor is cheaper elsewhere, it would open them up. And some would say, well, that's subsidizing. But the nice thing is it would not trigger any penalty or any tariff war, no trade agreements, penalty provisions would be triggered by doing away with corporate tax so that the people in America wouldn't be taxed further. But how much more insidious could it be than what President Clinton did as soon as he took office with a Democratic majority when he raised this massive tax on Social Security benefits? These people have worked their whole life, paying taxes on what they made, putting a little bit into Social Security, and actually they're only getting back about one- fourth to one-third of what they would have been if they could have put it into their own private retirement account. But anyway, here it is, they're getting so little as it is, and now you're going to put a tax on top of that? To me, that was pretty insidious. And it continues. There's talk about even possibly increasing the Social Security tax. I think it's outrageous. We have been joined by my good friend from Iowa. It is always a pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to see him here on the floor. I yield to my friend, Mr. King.

Mr. GOHMERT. I would yield to my friend from Iowa.

Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. I'm so grateful to my friend from Indiana. I always learn something every time I hear him speak. And I appreciate him any time he wants to speak while I've got time, he is welcome here. It is interesting though. It just seems like we do not learn the lessons either of history from other countries or of our own history. We keep trying the same things over and over again. For one thing, though, we had this massive bailout back in September. And there were a few dozen, I think maybe 60 Republicans that joined with the vast majority of the Democrats and passed that bailout bill. I thought it was a huge mistake. I knew it was a huge mistake. I begged my colleagues across the aisle, this side, please don't do this. And yet, we did. Seven hundred billion dollars. It was an outrageous amount. It may be that only $250 billion of that--only--only $250 billion of that was spent before the new administration came in. And they immediately asked for the other $350 billion, another $800 billion in a stimulus, spendulus, porkulus whatever you want to call it bill, and then followed that up with over $400 billion on top of that. We only get $1.21 trillion in from income tax, from individuals for the entire year of 2008. And yet, just in a matter of weeks, $1.6 trillion, $1.7 trillion, an incredible amount of money. I have said this before, people I think are getting the idea, you want to increase the economy and help the economy? Let every taxpayer know they can keep their own tax dollars. Now originally my bill proposed 2 months. But for the kind of money we have been spending, we would be better off to tell everybody you have the whole 2008 tax year off with no taxes. If you send it in, you're getting it back. If you haven't paid it, then don't. We would have been better off. Cars would be bought. Homes would be bought. Homes would be built. Businesses would be built. American Dreams would be made all over. It is interesting to hear a study this morning that we went from an American Dream of having our children have it better than we have to now the current American Dream, the majority American Dream is to own their own business, to have a small business. Then also know that American businesses, small businesses, that is, have 70 percent of the employees in the country. You want to help the country? Help small business. And yet all we are hearing is we are going to hammer the people that may make more than $250,000, the very people who I've heard from who have said, ``I would like to hire at least one or two employees, but if I'm about to get hammered with a tax, I'm going to have to pay that in taxes. I can't afford to hire anybody. So I'm waiting back here to see if I'm going to get hammered with more taxes. And if not, then I will hire more people. And if I am, then I'm not hiring anybody. I will just kind of hang on to what I've got.'' One of the things we learned back in history classes was that the power to tax is the power to destroy. That is so clear. Over and over, no matter what country you're in, the government has the power to tax, unless it is a socialist country, in which case all money comes into the government, and they pay everybody, so they just own everything, which kind of seems to be the way we are going right now, but if you tax something, you get less of it. If you want more of an activity, then not only don't tax it, but give it an incentive to have more of that. There is no better example than in the 1960s when the people in this body, in the House of Representatives, had a big heart, a tender heart, and wanted to help single women who they knew, there weren't that many, but there were some who were having to deal with deadbeat dads, who were not helping raise the children and were not helping with funding. They said, let's help those women. Let's give them a check from the Federal Government for every child they can have out of wedlock. They meant well. But now, 40 years later, we have gotten what we paid for. We have gotten a Nation in which nobody would ever have dreamed at this time that so many of our children would be born out of wedlock. Some of the greatest contributors to this country have come from single-parent homes. And I just have great praise for the single parents who try to raise kids and have done so effectively. It is a tough, tough job. But studies indicate, generally speaking, kids end up better off if they come from a two-parent home, as long as there is not abuse, things like that, we know that. As a former judge, I sure do. Well, then if you look at some of the things we have taxed, we still have a marriage penalty. If you're married in America, and you are both working, then you're going to pay a higher tax than you would if you were living together in what used to be called in the Bible Belt, ``living together in sin.'' So what does the government do? The Federal Government, this body, because this is the only body that can do it, this body taxes marriage. Well, you get less marriage when you tax marriage. Now, we have heard over the last few decades all kinds of solutions, we are going to try to fix the marriage penalty, we are going to lower the tax here, fix this, do that and have less of a penalty, oh, we think we have fixed it. I have gotten sick of hearing those messages. And I intend to have a bill filed in the next couple of weeks as soon as we get it back from legislative counsel. It is very simple. It just says, if you're married, then you have got a choice. You can file married jointly or you can file as a single individual, whichever is better for you. Boom. No marriage penalty. That's the end of it. Now that is how you deal with a marriage penalty. You give people who are doing a good thing, being married, you don't penalize them, you help them. And then we hear in the President's budget, his plan, we are going to disallow charitable contributions beyond a certain extent. It will be interesting to see how it ends up shaking out. But we are going to disallow tax advantages beyond that and allow that income to be taxed. Guess what? If you are going to start taxing that money instead of allowing the charitable deduction for the full amount, you are going to get less charitable deductions. I have said all along that this President is a smart man. I think he is. I wish that he would leave the teleprompters alone because the things that we need and what we need to fix America will not be found in a teleprompter. I wish he would look us straight in the eye and talk to us. In any event, if you are really, really smart and you are pushing to provide less tax incentive for charitable deductions, charitable contributions, you are going to get less of them. If you are really smart, you know that. You know you will get less. So what can you be meaning? What can your thoughts be? Well, the inevitable conclusion is that you intend to have fewer charitable organizations because you intend to do all of the charitable giving by the government. That is the only conclusion that can logically be drawn. You think you're better at giving charitable donations to the right places than the American public could be, and that the government will do better with those donations, we call them taxes when they are to the government, than those charitable organizations will be. As I have traveled around the world as a Member of Congress, I haven't done it but a few times, but what I see, the best work for individuals suffering in other countries doesn't come from the U.N. It doesn't come from the United States dollars. When the United States gives, it has to go through another country or through the U.N., and all these people get their cut of the action. And sometimes we prop up corrupt governments by trying to help their people. No, the best work gets done by charitable organizations that go straight in and help the people directly. That's where the greatest good gets done. Now with this President's new budget, he is proposing to cut that back so the government will be the end all charitable donor. That is so offensive. That is so offensive. I am delighted to be joined by one of the greatest Members of Congress that we have here. We were delighted when she joined our ranks a couple of years ago because this is someone who comes from the heart, incredibly sincere, and it is hard to beat somebody who is both sincere and very, very intelligent. I would yield to my friend, the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times we are living in. It just seems like the motto we hear in Congress is, so much money to give away and so little time. Wow. How can we give away more and more money? Well, to give it away, we have got to tax, we have got to borrow, and we have got to print more money. All of these are not good things to be doing. And how ironic this week to see an article in national papers that, as Mr. Geithner is encouraging other countries to follow our lead and spend and spend and tax and spend and borrow and spend, Europe, of all places, is saying, we are not sure that this idea of spending and spending more and more money is such a good idea. Whoever would have thought that Europe would be the ones to give us a lecture on overspending not being the way to go? But these are the people that have been overspending. They know, it doesn't work. Yet, here we are, trying it ourselves. Now, we keep hearing about the deficit. When I was here as a freshman in 2005 and 2006, I was upset about the overspending. I was upset about the deficit going up. And it wasn't the tax cuts that created the problem. The tax cuts created the greatest revenue coming into the U.S. Treasury in American history, more money than ever coming into the Treasury. That wasn't the problem. But as it came in faster and faster, we were spending even faster than that, and there were some of us who were upset about it. The American people were upset about it. So as our friends across the aisle kept pointing out, you have got to cut out this deficit spending, the voters heard them. They said, they are right. The Democrats are the ones saying don't be spending and running up the deficit on our children and grandchildren. The voters were right. The Democrats were right to say that, because we were overspending. Many of us in the Republican party were saying the same thing. But that was not what carried the day. There was overspending. As a result, we got this comment after the election in November of 2006 from our now Speaker: ``The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in the history.'' In fact, we even voted a few weeks ago in here that we would not even vote or take up this horrible spending bill, spendulus, porkulus, whatever you want to call it, until we had at least had 48 hours to review it. We voted on that. The vast majority, it seems like it may have been a super majority, voted that we would not vote on that bill until we had seen it for at least 48 hours. Then it gets on the web at 11:00 or 12:00 at night. I got my copy to review the next morning about 9:00, and we are debating at 10:00. And we are told, people are losing their jobs every minute you are delaying passing this bill. We have got to pass it. You don't have time to read it, you have just got to trust all the people, the staffers and everybody that put this together. We don't know what is air-dropped in there; we don't know what all is part of it, because we don't have time to read it, either. Nobody on either side of the aisle read it, but we had to pass it. It doesn't exactly match up with the transparency and the openness that was promised. It doesn't match up with the President of the United States, President Obama, promising there would be no bill that would be taken up and voted on unless we had 5 full days before he signed it to have comments, 5 full days. Well, we were told we had to pass it, we had no choice, people are losing their jobs. And the thing is, people were hearing things that were supposed to be in the bill, and yet the very week that this bill was being brought to the floor to vote on, there were tens of thousands of jobs every day being lost because businesses were giving up hope. They were trying to hang in there, hang on to their good employees. So many of those jobs lost were good union jobs. They were trying to hang in there. But then, from what they were hearing it didn't sound like this so-called stimulus or spendulus bill was going to allow them to come out from under the trouble they were in, so they gave up and kept laying jobs aside. People, families were hurt. So we were told, ``It has got to be fast. Don't read it, just vote on it.'' So it was passed, and 4 days later it gets signed into law. Now, how is that an example of being open, honest and transparent? As a young attorney, I always advised people, if people want you to sign off on something but say, ``you don't have time to read it, just sign it,'' then it is even more important to read before you sign off on it, before you put your name on it. And here we had the Congress of the United States put their names on a document that they were not allowed to read all because it had to be passed immediately. And then 4 days later, once we get the press and all of that going on, have the photo op there in Colorado, then the bill gets signed. And I'll bet the folks there, I'll bet the President had not read the bill. Of course he hadn't. He hadn't had time. I am joined by my dear friend from Indiana, Mr. Dan Burton. I would love to yield time to him such as he would use and do so at this time.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Iowa's (Mr. King) help. I would be willing to yield for any final comments to my friend from Minnesota.

Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to my friend from Iowa.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, March 18 will mark the 72nd anniversary of what freshly graduated newscaster Walter Cronkite called the ``worst school disaster in American history.'' I stand before the House today to commemorate those students and educators who so tragically lost their lives that afternoon as well as to encourage the survivors. The 1930s saw many families in East Texas with hope as they fought to regain what had been lost in so many parts of the country during the Great Depression. With the discovery of oil in northern Rusk County, the City of New London, Texas, boasted one of the richest rural school districts in America. They had just built a state-of-the-art school that would make any school district envious. But at approximately 3:18 p.m. on March 18, 1937, many of those same families would lose forever the promise of youth while east Texans and people around the world would bear the pain of losing a community's entire generation. It was on that date, at that time, the New London school did become the site of the worst school disaster in American history. In those days, natural gas had no odor. That odorless gas started leaking from a tap line and accumulated in the massive crawl space beneath the school building. In an instant, a spark from a sanding machine in the basement ignited the gas, creating an explosion heard miles away. Witnesses said the building was lifted into the air. When it came crashing down, its victims were buried in a mass of steel, concrete, brick and debris. Frantic parents, neighbors, oil- field roughnecks, and volunteers around the State ranging from Boy Scouts to Texas Rangers converged on the devastating scene. Many dug with nothing but their bare hands. Men, women and children worked all through the night battling rain, fatigue and unimaginable grief. They worked to reach those buried underneath the mountain of twisted metal. Within 17 hours, all of the debris had been heroically removed, and all victims had been located. A cenotaph, a tall monument, stands silently in New London across from the disaster site bearing the names of the 296 students, teachers and visitors who instantly lost their lives. The subsequent death count from injuries sustained that day brought the final count to 311. Within weeks, the Texas legislature passed a law requiring that an odor be added to natural gas. That practice quickly spread worldwide, saving countless lives in the aftermath of that devastating loss. Now the odor added to natural gas is unmistakable and allows anyone to know instantly there is a leak requiring caution and repair. This weekend we will have a formal observance, and it will be my honor to be with those amazing people of New London, Texas. We will pay tribute to those hundreds of young lives whose faces were full of hope and promise one moment, yet left lifeless moments later. We will also honor those who heroically fought to rescue the victims, while we lend sympathy to those who bore the burden of tragic loss. We also honor those who have survived that day when their lives were forever changed. May God bless their memory, may God heal the wounded memories, and may God bless those who have carried on in New London, Texas, ever since that heartbreaking day.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman. I thank my friend. I would also like to recognize, again, Judge Poe, for whatever time he may consume.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. And I appreciate those insights. Here's another chart that this leads into very well that kind of tracks the deficit that's been growing. Of course we know the Constitution requires that there is not a dollar spent in the whole Federal Government that is not appropriated--made available--by the Congress. If it's not made available by the Congress, it doesn't happen. And because there had been too much spending earlier before November of 2006, the voters said, ``Enough.'' And they listened to the arguments of what is now the majority party, the Democratic Party, and said, ``You know, they're right. They're spending too much.'' So, as of January 2007, the Democratic majority, led by Speaker Pelosi from San Francisco, took over the government and took over the deficit. Because I know all three of us here on the floor that are engaged in this discussion were against deficit spending in 2005 and 2006 by our own party when we were in charge. I know that we all were hoping the deficit spending would stop. The economy was doing okay, you know, in 2007. It wasn't great, but it was doing all right. But then as of January 2007, that's where we were on this chart. Now the green is the Federal deficit, the orange here is discretionary spending that's within our control, and then the mandatory spending are the programs like Social Security and Medicare, that kind of thing. And so you look at what happened from January of 2007, right here, this big jump up is when the stimulus was passed in January of 2008. And that was passed with Speaker Pelosi's leadership. It got passed. And you may recall the microphone picked me up asking the President as he went by--because I knew $40 billion of that was going in rebates to people that didn't pay anything in income tax--so I asked the President, ``How do you give a rebate to people who didn't put any `bate' in?'' And I still think that's a legitimate question because now we're doing it again. We're giving a rebate to people who didn't put any ``bate'' in, they didn't pay in the first place. So how is it a rebate? Then we have this next big hump. That came with the pre-TARP loans. And then the big hump was TARP and the auto bailouts spiking. And then low and behold, here is the stimulus II, the $787 billion and then the $410 billion omnibus that this Congress has done, that this Congress is responsible for. And you see this extraordinary spike in the deficit. Now, just because there was some overspending by Republicans doesn't mean you put that times or squared or cubed. This is insane. It has to stop. I also want to point out a bill that was passed this week from the House regarding cramdown. I mean, it gets so discouraging in here when every bill we pass is hurting the economy. You know, it makes you wonder, is somebody back there thinking, Well, eventually, if we hurt it enough, the government will take over and then all of our problems are over. Because I know that everybody that serves in this body, they want the best for the country; it's just that some do not have enough faith in the American people that they'll know how to spend their money. You know, we saw the great quote from Senator Kerry, ``But if you gave the American people their own money back, gave them that kind of tax money back, well, they might not spend it the right way.'' Well, that's insane: Let the American people get us out of this problem; the government certainly hasn't done it. But going back to this mortgage cramdown bill. Here you have community banks that have been doing a good job of lending despite the onerous burdens that's been put on them by this Congress, going back to the '90s, again, before we were here, but this Congress required lenders to lend to people who might not be able to pay back. Even with that, they were doing okay. This provision, for the first time in our history, the history of the country, will allow a bankruptcy judge to materially drop the principal on a mortgage. The banks have to rely on the value of the mortgages on their balance sheets. If they can't, then they appear to be insolvent. That gets them in trouble. These are solvent banks. You pass a law like this, and not only that, this bill allows bankruptcy courts to grant a no-interest 30-year mortgage as an alternative to dropping the principal materially.