Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I certainly will.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate those great observations. It used to be that people in this town, long before we got here, knew the phrase and knew it was true: the power to tax is the power to destroy. It's still true. If you want more of an activity, then you reward people for the activity. If you want less of an activity, then you tax it. So what have we been rewarding? What have we been taxing? Well, going back to the mid-'60s, we had people in this body who saw single women who were struggling because deadbeat dads weren't helping. So what did they do? They said, ``Let's help them out.'' Instead of giving them incentives to finish high school, to finish their education, to reach their God-given potential, what did we do? We weren't here, but the Congress here passed a bill that said let's give them a check for every child they can have out of wedlock. Well, I know they meant well, but 40 years later, we've gotten what we've paid for. We have gotten more children born out of wedlock and more children relying on the government than ever in the history of any country. So I'll tell you: I was not one of those who panned President Obama's address, which is normally the State of the Union, but being a new President, it was more just a speech to the joint session. I loved some of the quotes he had. You know, we needed to hear an encouraging speech. That's what I mentioned to him as he came by, that the country needs an encouraging speech. I was hoping he would deliver and then pump up the country, but then he started into the same stuff--crisis, crisis. There's a quote that has been attributed to the Chief of Staff of the President's that you don't want to let a good crisis go to waste. You know, obviously, it appears that they want to run through all of these social programs they could never pass without blaming it on a crisis, but I loved his comments. When he said, ``we will rebuild; we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,'' I loved that. That's great. He says, ``The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach,'' President Obama said. ``They exist in our laboratories, in our universities, in our fields, in our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs--'' that's not government workers. That's entrepreneurs--``and in the pride of the hardest working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure.'' He also said we're not quitters. I mean he had some great lines, but then look at his solutions. For one thing, when I heard this--and I don't know if other people picked up on it--he said, ``First, we're creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, small business loans to consumers and entrepreneurs who keep the economy running.'' I went, uh- oh, a new lending fund? It sounds like a new bank. The last time, government got involved, and we ended up with a congressional bank. As I understood, it didn't work out so well. That wasn't a very good idea to have Congress in charge of a bank. We're supposed to set up a new lending fund to do all of this lending, but then when you see the kinds of steps that are being taken to absolutely destroy the best, most stable lenders in the country--the community banks--then it makes you wonder: Are they trying to destroy the community banks that have had good business practice? that have made good loans? that have done everything that they should to make a profit and to stay in business and to help America grow by making proper loans? Of course we got involved in that. Before we got here, Congress told them, back when Chairman Frank and Senator Dodd pushed through a bill, to force banks and to force lenders to lend to people they wouldn't have otherwise. That concerned me. Going back to the proposition, you know, whatever activity you reward you will get more of. Whatever you tax, penalize, you'll get less of. So we had a marriage penalty for many years, you know, going on two or three decades. Apparently, the government said, ah, marriage, we don't like it, so let's penalize it so we get less of it. So we've gotten less of it. In his speech, he mentions, ``When we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible.'' I said great. That's my thought. Force the necessary adjustments. Okay. Sounds good. Then he says, ``Provide the support to clean up their balance sheets.'' I went, whoa, here we go. We're going to reward bad conduct again? Because if you look at all of the money that has been thrown at the economy, where has it been thrown? It has been thrown to people who helped create the problem. That doesn't help reduce the problems we're having. It just makes them worse. Then this statement made my heart nearly stop: ``This plan will require significant resources from the Federal Government.'' Well, the fact is he had it right when he said that it was the entrepreneurs and the people in the factories and in the fields who have really made America great. You know, that's where the secret is. It's in the American people. It's not in this government. We had such a great model of how this can all go wrong back when the pilgrims came. You know, the pilgrims came, and of course they started out on both the Speedwell and the Mayflower. Then the Speedwell started taking on water, so they had to cut their group, the most hardy. They got them on. They had the prayer meeting before they came. They asked God for guidance and protection, and they came across. They signed a beautiful compact that basically, in essence, said it's all going to be community land, that it's all going to provide produce that we'll bring into the common storehouse and that we'll split evenly among everybody. Well, it's socialism. And after they lost nearly half their group the first winter, you go back and read Bradford's journal, they eventually realized, We're all going to die under this system of socialism. So they came up with this novel idea: Why don't we divide the land up into private property and everybody be responsible for their own private property, everybody be responsible for what they produce, and then they can actually have some profit and make something over and above. That is the model, that was the lesson that came in over 100 years later when we got our Constitution--this idea of private property--that the real true spirit in America that would cause this to blossom and become the greatest country in the world was the idea of private property, of free markets. The government's job is to provide for a common defense--that's what got us out of the depression of the '30s--providing for the common defense in 1941 and 1942, and then also make sure people are playing fair. Keep the playing field level, and if people are cheating, like we've had lately, go after them so that the people playing fair aren't punished. We're punishing the wrong guys. I'd like to yield some time again to my friend, Mr. Conaway.

Mr. GOHMERT. And I appreciate that. Great points all being made. Our time is running out. But on this cramdown provision, we offered, basically, in a motion to recommit--which is similar to an amendment--a provision that would say if you lied in your representations to the bank about how much you made in order to get the loan, then you could not get a 30-year interest free loan, and you couldn't get this provision of the bankruptcy judge to lower the principal as he so felt. That was voted down. Here, again, it goes back to the proposition that if you penalize good conduct, you're going to get less good conduct; if you reward bad conduct, you're going to get more of the bad conduct. And that's what we've done. And here, we're also talking this week about cap and trade. India and China are putting more pollution into the atmosphere, and we're going to hurt our own economy at a time when we have cleaned up more of our air and water than ever in our history. This is just wrong. This is not the time to be hurting and devastating the economy. In our Natural Resources Committee, we keep having people pushing-- and it's going to come to the floor--to further put a moratorium again on the Outer Continental Shelf. That's a million jobs, people have said, a million jobs, won't cost the taxpayer a dime, and in fact it will add dramatically to the coffers of the U.S. Treasury. Open up ANWR. Nothing's living there. We can produce oil, another million jobs. Not up there, all over the country, and we're turning our back on that. The gas fields there that are not open, another million jobs. These are projections that real economists have made. And we're talk turning our back on them saying, no, we would rather tax even more the producers in this country, the people that are making things happen so they can't hire new people because they're paying tax to the government. And then we get word that the President intends to put a cap on charitable deductions. So the institutions that are doing the most good--cutting recidivism, helping the poor around the world where they actually go in and they feed people, they don't give the money like our government does to a corrupt government overseas, they actually go in and do some good--we're going to cut that because we want that money coming to us in taxes rather than allowing charitable contributions to those who are doing the most good. This is insane. It has got to stop. But the hope I have, as I see polling around the country, the American instincts, the majority of Americans' instincts are still good. They get it. They're not happy about this. The instincts are still good. And a majority of the Congress, the instincts are still good, it's just the leadership has led people in the wrong direction. We need to turn this around. We can turn this around--not with more government, but just as we started out talking here today, if we were to go in as a parent and say, I can't control my spending, Mr. Banker; make me a loan and my kids and my grand kids and great grand kids will some day pay it back, then Child Protective Services would come in and take my children away if I were to do that. That's what we're doing. And it's time we turned the parenting over to somebody that's not going to hurt the children and the grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Mr. GOHMERT. Certainly.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this has been a busy week. We have taken up a lot of suspensions, congratulating USC, congratulating all kinds of things. I think we recognized a ``day of reading'' a couple of days after the day had passed. We have had a lot of great votes like that. But the most disconcerting thing are the votes of importance that we have been moving toward and taken up and how we see the economy continuing to falter. I was one of those who was strongly against the Paulson bailout back in September. I thought it was a huge mistake. And who have ever thought a new administration would come in and then he would just exacerbate even that bad bailout bill? But there is an article in the Wall Street Journal this week, this was dated March the 3rd, and I will quote from that. It is an editorial from the Wall Street Journal. It says, ``As 2009 opened, 3 weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9,034 on January 2nd, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24 percent to 6,763, for an overall decline of 25 percent in 2 months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem. Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after 5 weeks in office, it has become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business, to squandering scarce national public resources, team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence, and thus a longer period of recession of sub-par growth. The Democrats who now run Washington don't want to hear this because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush.'' I know my friends on the Republican side here in the House, with maybe a few exceptions, most everybody loves this country. Well, everybody loves the country so much, but most everybody was really hoping President Obama would succeed in calming the economy, because we saw the job losses that were occurring. We wanted them to stop. I personally believe if he would use his gift of spreading hope and confidence, this economy would start rebounding. I have been talking to business people who have been sitting on the sidelines, banks that have been sitting on the sidelines waiting to make sure people were going to start buying homes, were going to start buying again before they invested to take advantage of it; people saying that, well, they had to hire two or three people, but, good grief, if the President is going to be popping them with more taxes, they are going to have to pay more taxes and can't do any more hiring. So all of that kind of talk has really put a freeze further on the economy. We also were promised over and over and over again by this President that there would be no earmarks and if a bill with earmarks came to him he would veto it. Well, we have already seen that didn't happen. But with this disastrous omnibus bill that is coming that will take around $1.2 trillion we have already allocated so far under his watch, add that to over $1.6 trillion, when you keep in that mind that most of that is above budget and for the entire year of 2008 there will be income taxes paid in of about $1.21 trillion, we are already exceeding the entire amount of income tax that will be paid in for 2008. For what? For 9,000 earmarks? It is absurd. I have been joined here by friends who I would like to yield some time to. At this time I would yield to my good friend, Mr. Mike Conaway from Lubbock--not Lubbock--Midland, Texas, who played for Odessa Permian. He knows something about being tough. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman from Midland, Texas. And I would like to add to the comments that you made with regard to the indebtedness that we are laying upon this Nation for future generations. It really seems analogous; what we're doing here, what we've been doing since, you know, the year started, we are borrowing all this money. We had our Secretary of State go to China and beg them to keep buying our notes, buying our bonds, whatever you want to call them. I mean, basically, keep loaning us money is what we're begging the Chinese to do. And it would be like one of us going into a bank, saying, I want to borrow a bunch of money because I cannot control my spending. I just can't quit spending, so I need to borrow a bunch of money. But, see my little child over here? That child, and one day his children will, I'm promising my child and my grandchildren will one day pay that back. Just loan me the money because I can't quit spending. So, I mean, that would be insane. Those children would be taken away from a parent who would do that to them. They would. And yet, that is what's going on here. Now, I heard our friend, the chairman of appropriations, earlier sarcastically belittling Republicans, that he didn't need to be lectured by Republicans who did such a great job of running the budget, running appropriations before they were in the majority. But if you will go back to my first 2 years, actually, all three of our first years in Congress, 2005 and 2006, we kept hearing two things over and over. One was that we needed to quit running up the deficit. And they were right. And some of us were saying it back then. We were agreeing that we shouldn't be running up the deficit. But that was not what was happening. But the other thing was, we were being terribly beaten up over the fact, they said we weren't spending enough money on anything but the military. So it was a little difficult to be lectured and beat up over running up the deficit. And yet, virtually every bill, it seemed like they wanted to spend even more money. And that's the problem they had with most bills, whether it had to do--well, I mean, just take your pick. They wanted to spend more money on virtually everything but the military. So it's been a little disconcerting to see them get elected, get the majority, which people got fed up with Republicans spending too much, so they get the majority because they said we won't run up the deficit. And ever since they've been in control, January of 2007, it has been running up. Granted, they had a Republican President. But it is, constitutionally, the obligation of the Congress to appropriate the money, and they were appropriating it in record amounts. And now, it's like there's just nothing but giddiness around this town. They've got to keep a straight face in front of the camera, but just the spending, wow. We've got a crisis. We can throw all this money. We've had all these 12 years of pent-up frustration, programs we couldn't get through, and now we're seeing those come to fruition, and it is devastating the economy. And it's time to stop. At this time I'd like to yield to my friend, also a former judge, Mr. Ted Poe from Texas.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, the crisis that we're in right now had a number of factors that helped create it. One, we had investment bankers on Wall Street that got a little too greedy. Congress forced banks to make some loans that they shouldn't have made. But throughout all this process, community banks, generally speaking, by and large, have done a great job of staying stable even through the toughest of times. But we keep rewarding greed and improper conduct and then keep hurting the people who have done the most good. Now, I understand the hearts of those on the other side that are pushing this, and I understand that my colleagues feel like it's going to help. But the fact is you talk to the community banks who have really been hurt, starting with Paulson's screaming that we'll take care of dollar for dollar of every dime in money market accounts but banks are only covered to $100,000. People withdrew their money from the banks. They still survived and they're doing well. But you've got to look at what banks are required to do. They're required to be solvent. And that means on the asset side, they have to show a net plus. And if we pass this, then that net plus will be an uncertainty. They will not know what they have because we'll have a bankruptcy judge who can come in and just at his whim change the principal on a mortgage. And I see my colleague shaking her head. A bankruptcy judge will be able to lower the principal. That's what this is about, and that is going to be creating such uncertainty in the banks. And here at a time when we have just in 2 months added what will ultimately be more taxes to the next generation and the generation after that than they could possibly pay, now if this passes, those banks will have to be so sure that people will not file bankruptcy, they're going to need to have a good credit history for 10, 15 years, 20 years. So not only are we adding all this tax burden to them, we're also telling them, and, by the way, you're not going to be able to get a home loan for years to come until you have such a great track record that a bank can be certain you won't file bankruptcy because otherwise their bank financial statement will be uncertain. We've done enough damage to the next generations. It's time to stop hurting the next generations. Let's take care of this with our generation. Let's not reward problem activity. Let's let the community banks survive this process without hurting them any worse.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, you know, we have heard so much about global warming for so long. It is interesting, though: We're now hearing the term ``climate change.'' Has anybody started to ask why we're no longer hearing about global warming as being the evil thing and now we're hearing climate change is the evil thing? You know, I try to figure it out. All I can figure is that we're getting data indicating that the Earth may have been cooling for some time now. Groups that are getting enormous contributions, maybe even Nobel Prizes, whatever, by claiming global warming realized, uh-oh, if we're going to keep the money flowing in, we'd better be able to adapt in case the world is cooling instead of warming, so let's start saying we've got to do something about climate change. From my standpoint, that would mean we have to have some real serious discussions with the sun and with God. Nonetheless, climate change is now evil. I read an article recently that indicated that, you know, when we've been saying these greenhouse gases are trapping the heat in, it just may be that those carbon dioxide/greenhouse gases are causing the sun to bounce off into space and that they may be cooling the planet. They're going to have it either way, apparently. It's warming. It's cooling. They want to be alarmists because that allows a socialist agenda to come forward, and it allows the government to become big brother and run everything. You know, the wonderful Democratic Party member teachers who I had growing up, they were fantastic. In junior high, we were talking about photosynthesis and how a plant can take carbon dioxide and end up producing oxygen out of the process. It would seem that it would be cyclical. If you look at the patterns of the Earth, what we have are cycles up and down. The temperature goes up, and the temperature goes down over time--back up and down. You have more greenery. More carbon dioxide will apparently help that to grow. Then if we get too much, we'll start having too much oxygen and not enough carbon dioxide. It's just amazing how nature addresses these issues by having cycles where it comes and it goes. But if you're in government and you want to control everything, you have got to scare people. You have got to have people alarmed, and that's what we're hearing over and over here on the floor of the House: Let's scare America. Let's make them be afraid of carbon dioxide because--guess what. If we really had the responsibility of regulating carbon dioxide, I can tell you from personal experience there are some people around here who are breathing too much. We're going to have to cut out some of this breathing because there's a whole lot of breathing going on, and that's too much carbon dioxide. That is how absurd it has been getting. You know, Congress is not the answer to everything that's wrong with the world. It's just not. Then we've got this omnibus spending bill that was passed last week. Maybe the Senate passes it tomorrow night. It was irresponsible. It was immoral. We as a generation, in effect, have gone to the bank--in this case China--as our Secretary of State has and has just asked them to ``keep buying our debt, please.'' We go to China as the bank and say, ``Please, keep buying our debt. We're going to borrow money. We're not going to pay you back, but our children and our grandchildren will take care of paying you back.'' That is immoral. That is irresponsible for a parent to borrow money and say, ``My children someday will pay you back because I can't control my spending. I'm just throwing money away, but they'll pay it back someday.'' That is not what we should be doing. Now, at the same time, we on the Natural Resources Committee are having hearings all the time. People don't realize we're putting more and more of our natural resources off limits. Every month, more natural resources are off limits. We're having hearings now because they want to put a moratorium back on drilling the Outer Continental Shelf. It would provide a million jobs. ANWR would provide a million jobs. The untouched gas in Alaska would provide a million jobs. Yet, even though it would cost nothing--no raised taxes--they don't want to do it. It's time to stop the fear mongering. It wasn't right when Secretary Paulson talked President Bush into it, and it's certainly not right now in order to promote a socialist agenda. Let's do the right thing for a change and quit borrowing money because we can't control ourselves. Our kids will have to pay it back. Let's control ourselves and show some responsibility for a change.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend's yielding. Actually, I don't have a lot of humor to throw into this issue tonight. But I had read a Wall Street Journal article today. It was in today's Wall Street Journal. And just the opening paragraphs, if I might share that because there's a lot of wisdom in here: ``As 2009 opened, 3 weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24 percent to 6763, for an overall decline of 25 percent in 2 months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.'' And to finish up here: ``Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after 5 weeks in office, it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth. ``The Democrats who now run Washington don't want to hear this because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush.'' This is the Obama economy now. The jobs that are being lost are because companies are finding no hope in this latest stimulus whatever you want to call that package or all the other spending. And I appreciate the gentleman's yielding because I do find this very distressing. We're in the Obama economy.

Mr. GOHMERT. If we have time, when I was an exchange student in the Soviet Union back in 1973, I went out to a collective farm, and I've worked on farms and ranches. It was about mid morning. The farmers obviously hadn't been working. The field was suffering. And I said in what Russian I could speak back then, ``When do you work in the field?'' And they all laughed. And one spoke for them in Russian and said, ``I make the same number of rubles if I'm out there in the field or if I'm here in the shade.'' That is why socialism doesn't work.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I'm sure most people have heard about the guy who kept beating himself in the head with a hammer, and when people said, Why are you doing that? he said, Because it feels so good when I stop. The trouble is we keep beating the same people who are footing the bill for everything. Now, I know this bill is well-intentioned. I know the hearts of those who are pushing this, but the trouble is there's a big difference between the investment banks that have squandered money and have gotten us into big trouble and the community banks that have been making good loans. The trouble is, once you allow a bankruptcy judge not only to do what they can do now with mortgages--change the rate, change the terms--but to actually bring down the principal to whatever the bankruptcy judge feels like, then banks--these good, solid community banks--will be in jeopardy, and they will only be able to give loans to those who can prove for sure they will not ever file for bankruptcy. You're going to put in jeopardy the bottom lines of the people who've actually been responsible and who've had good banks and have done the right things. The bottom line is the people whom we've saddled with so much debt in just the last few months--the young people, the young couples who are trying to make it and who are hoping for a home loan--are not only going to be cussing our names 30 years from now for the debt we've put them in, but when they go to the bank after this passes, they won't get a home loan because we've been irresponsible in trying to help but not looking at the ramifications of what we're doing. This adds to the hundreds of billions we've already spent, and now we're going to hurt the very people we need to be relying on to get this economy going. The young people need to be able to get those loans to get homes, and this will ensure they can't go get them, because we've been irresponsible in not thinking about the unforeseen conclusions. The point is we can foresee them. We know what's going to happen. Talk to your community banks. Don't hurt them. Don't hurt the young, working people any more than we already have. Give them a break. Do the right thing. Don't cram this down on America and our young people.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I have proposed a tax holiday plan. The bill has been filed. I think the first one was laid over here on the Clerk's desk as soon as we were sworn in. It would allow the American people to keep their own income for 2 months. It would allow them to keep their withholding. When I brought it up to President Obama, he seemed intrigued by the idea. He said, ``Ah, you need to talk to Larry Summers about it.'' Larry Summers said, ``Sure, I'll talk to you.'' Well, he didn't take my calls, but nonetheless, I was really gratified Saturday to hear the President say he was going to put people's money, their withholdings, in their paychecks so they wouldn't have to wait for a rebate check. I said, ``Wow, fantastic. He's going to help the American people.'' The average household was going to get to keep about $1,000 a month under the proposal. It was going to be great. It was going to help people buy cars. Yet, as it turns out, he said it's $65 a month. Boy, that's like throwing somebody who's drowning a toothpick and saying, ``Grab hold and hang on and we'll help you.'' Let's get them their real money back.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this rule is so cynical. The biggest spending bill in the history of the world and the rule says we can't even have the bill read out loud here on the floor so the American people really know what we're doing to future generations. And to hear my colleagues across the aisle, Madam Speaker, talk about the jobs, 600,000 jobs being lost in the last month, it breaks my heart for every job. We lost 1200 in east Texas yesterday. Why? Because the hope and the change that people voted for in the President has come to doom and gloom. They have held on to avoid letting their workers go, but now for the last month they've heard the Democratic proposals and what they see is no hope. There's no hope left in this bill. It's not going to help the economy, so they're having to let their workers go. We say yes to the American people. We say no to the atmosphere of arrogance that says the American people are not the solution. They are the solution. Give them a tax holiday. Let them keep their own money and spend it to get the economy going. That's yes to America. That's yes to the American solution.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Iowa for yielding. This is a deeply troubling time. And all of us know people who have lost their jobs and people who are endangered. I got the message just earlier that Lone Star Steel shares a lot of employees in my district and Ralph Hall's districts, that, as I understand it, they were holding out, hoping that there would be true stimulus would be coming so that they could keep people working. But they've apparently indicated today they're letting 1,200 people go, suspending their employment. It appears, we've been hearing over and over from the Democratic leadership, and even from the President, people are losing jobs every day. And if this stimulus, so-called stimulus package, ``spendulous'' package, if it were really providing hope, then people wouldn't have been losing their jobs for the last year. They just wouldn't. People would have held on and said, the hope, the change, the help is coming that's going to help us keep providing jobs and open up new jobs and save these jobs. But they're getting it. And every day, people are being laid off because everything they've heard about the ultimate spending package is not providing hope. There's no hope. There's no change in this bill. It's a massive spending bill. And much of it, we'd heard before, is going to be spent in the next, well, 2 years or more from now. So that's very disconcerting. We were told that the reason that we had to have someone who had cheated on his taxes be made the Treasury Secretary was because he had worked hand in hand with Secretary Paulson. Well, to me, that was a good reason not to confirm him, that he had worked with Secretary Paulson. Good grief. That did no good as far as we can tell. And then he announced his plan yesterday, and he was so stirring and so uplifting, the market immediately fell nearly 400 points. But I did a town hall meeting, and I guess that was Tuesday maybe he announced that. But I did a telephone meeting with some people, and a lady from my district, Ms. Maxwell, has just retired from the IRS. And she said there are lots of IRS agents who are outraged, but they work for the IRS still and they don't want to lose their job so they're not going to say anything. But the fact is, she said, when you work for the IRS, if you make a mistake on your income tax, you're gone. She said that she had gotten $600, she'd won $600 at a casino in Shreveport, and she forgot to report it by the end of the year. And they were going to fire her because she forgot to list it. Immediately, when she remembered, she amended the return right after she'd filed it. But the thing that saved her was she had overpaid her taxes, so she didn't owe money that had to be paid back, that she overpaid. And she said, so her supervisor went to battle for her, and she just barely was able to keep her job, and then just recently retired. Every IRS agent is expected to make no mistakes on their, and especially intentional, like Geithner signed that form saying, I certify I will pay all the taxes if you just give me the money. And he didn't do it. And now he's in charge. The market doesn't have confidence in him. It keeps going down the more he talks. He was not indispensable as we were told by this administration. As my former pastor used to say, the cemetery is full of indispensable people. We needed somebody who was a leader, not somebody that cheated or was completely negligent on his taxes. And so we're not getting the leadership we need. But people, in the meantime, are hurting. We have proposals that would stimulate the economy, and it galls me to no end to see this kind of throwing money at the problem, and not trusting the American people, the real power behind this country, to do what will be necessary to save the country. And, in fact, what we have here is an atmosphere of arrogance in Washington that says you can't trust the American people. We don't want them to have their own tax dollars back because they might not spend it the way we want them to. And that's why Senator Kerry said here, ``But a tax cut is non-targeted. You put a tax cut into the hands of either a business or an individual today, there is no guarantee they are going to invest their money. There is no guarantee they are going to invest their money in the United States. They are free to invest anywhere they want, they choose to invest it.'' That was just a few days ago by Senator Kerry. The bottom line is, they don't trust the American people to use their own money. A tax holiday for two or 3 months with people getting their own money back, let them save the economy. They can do it. This plan is a disaster, and it's not fair to the American people. I appreciate my friend yielding.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I don't know about eloquently, but I am certainly coming from the heart. There are a lot of people who we've heard from who are hurting, and they had great hopes because we elected a President who said he brought hope. Yet what we have seen so far is not hope. It is not change. It is the same thing Secretary Paulson started. It's just throwing more money at the wrong places. So what we have heard--and again, as my friend from Texas has pointed out--is that we do not have a final bill. We are supposed to vote tomorrow on the biggest spending bill in the history of the world, not just of this country, and we still do not have the bill. The latest information we've heard is that people, the taxpayers, are down to--it has kept coming down--what may be $800 per family. It may be less than that. It depends on your circumstances. People were promised better than that. There is a plan out there that has been proposed. I don't care who puts his name on it. It is a very good plan. It puts money immediately in people's next paychecks. If we pass it tomorrow, they could have it in their checks as soon as the President signs it. They could have it that day or the next day. It's a tax holiday where people get their own withholding, where they get their own FICA back. For the small businesses, they don't have to pay FICA in, and it's paid for by money that has already been allocated. When I brought this up to President Obama a few weeks ago, I really think he was genuine. He said, ``Oh, have you talked to Larry Summers about that?'' his Harvard economist, and Larry was standing behind him. I said, ``No. I'd love to talk to Larry about it.'' So Larry steps out, and he said, ``Oh, do you have a card?'' I gave him my card. He said, ``Yes, I'll give you a call.'' After I didn't hear for a week or so, I called, and I made clear that the President had said, ``Call Larry Summers and talk to him.'' So I waited. Eventually, I got connected. Was it Larry Summers? No. It was some young man named Brian. It was his voice mail. I thought maybe it was a mistake. So I've called back since then, and they always put me through to some voice mail of some young man named Brian. I'm sure he's a fine young man. They're not interested--apparently, Larry isn't or whoever is advising this administration--in letting they money get back to the people who can do the most good. And the average median income a household was going to get, on the average, $2,000 or more, the average. I mean, that's hardworking families getting a couple of thousand dollars to catch up on things Now that is a stimulus. That would allow them to do all kinds of things and get--including getting a down payment for a nongas-guzzling car like someone had told me. The American people can get us stimulated and going if the government, if the people that are in charge in this House and in the Senate and in the White House, had had enough confidence like so many of us do. And I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I hope that people, Mr. Speaker, will let our Speaker, the majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, and the President know they can stimulate the economy if they get to have some of their own money back.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I can't tell you how it warms my heart to hear the former chairman say he was pleased to yield me time. I appreciate that. But one thing that isn't pleasing is this so-called stimulus bill. It's an abomination. We should not be doing this to future generations. I've got two pairs of words for you: One pair of words, tax holiday; another pair of words, American energy. Our President went from promising all of these millions of jobs, three million, I believe, initially through this stimulus package to now saying we're going to create or save four million jobs. Why would we add ``save''? Because there is no way to document saved jobs. So whatever happens, ``Well, we lost four million jobs, but gee, we saved four million in the process.'' I guess that's what will be said at the end of it. The problem is this is not going to stimulate the economy when over half of it, 60 percent of it, is not going to be spent for a couple of years or so. The economy needs help now, and we need to do it without devastating our children and grandchildren. I used to sentence people for doing unconscionable things to their children or to children, and here now I'm a part of a body who wants to live better by taxing and hammering future generations. That's not right. There is nothing virtuous, there is nothing noble in loading down our future generations with this kind of debt. And, in fact, my Democrat colleagues got in the majority by talking in 2005 and 2006 about the deficit spending, and they were right then. We shouldn't be doing it. Tax cuts got us record revenue in the Treasury; deficit spending got us in trouble. Greed got us in trouble. The immorality of people wanting it for themselves was just too much. It is time to get back to morality and not loading up future generations, not making our children suffer for the sins of their parents. Let's don't sin any more by being immoral in the way we throw money. Let's do this the right way.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, the saying everybody in here already knows is that ``if you find yourself in a hole, it's time to stop digging.'' And there was far too much deficit spending for far too long. This bill, clearly, with all its lack of transparency, is not about jobs. If it were just about jobs, then we could have the proposals by the Energy Committee and the Republicans in the Natural Resources Committee with some of the Blue Dogs, we could open up Alaska to oil and gas exploration where it has not been, open up the OCS, and we would get 3 million jobs without taking the future away from our children. Now, the American people intuitively know this is not a good thing. Even though there is so much that is not transparent, they are not allowed to see it because of the opposition to the former chairman's motion here. But they know. The Dow knows. I just saw we are down 380 points even with this bill having passed the Senate and being brought in here now. People understand this is not a good thing. If it's something you're proud of, then go along with the motion to instruct and let the American people see this product you apparently are so proud of that is going to just auction off our children's future.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, last night I sat here for much of an hour listening to Democratic colleagues across the aisle decrying how terrible deficit spending was. And the tax cuts brought us record revenue into the U.S. Treasury. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that we were deficit spending. And that's a large reason why the Democrats won the majority in November of 2006, to cut out deficit spending. So, after hearing my friends across the aisle last night talking about how bad deficit spending was, I went back, and as I thought about it last night, it could mean only one thing. Our Democratic colleagues, including the majority leader that spoke so eloquently last night here, are going to vote with us against this deficit monstrosity because parents, most parents, would do anything to make the life of their children better. But not here in Congress. We've got a bill that is going to allow us to live better at the expense of our children, and we should not do this to future generations if we care.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Appreciate that. And it has been interesting listening to my Democratic colleagues for the last 55 or so minutes talking about the deficit and what a problem that is for this Nation. I could not agree more. It was one of the things that frustrated me about previous spending through the 1980s, through the Democratic Congress, and then when we got to the first couple of years of the Clinton administration, we were still having deficit spending. And then there was the Republican revolution. And Americans let their voice be heard. They wanted a change. They did not want to continue the deficit spending. They did not want to continue welfare programs that lured people into a rut from which there was no hope of ever returning, luring them in with government benefits and then giving them no incentives, no way to get out of that rut. It was just tragic. And so Republicans gained the majority in November of 1994, came in in 1995 and, of course, there's a tug-of-war going on for credit over the balanced budget and the surplus that was created in the late 1990s. But it took a President and a Congress working together and the Republican majority to reach the surplus that was reached. And that is what should have been done. Yet, as we have seen in this town over a period of time, when people are in power long enough, they begin to think too much of themselves. They begin to think, well, it's okay if I spend it, and that is what we have begun to see eventually from Republicans, and we have seen it from Democrats. That is what brought about the Republican revolution in 1994, but it was beginning to show from Republicans in the early 2000s. The Republicans did a great job in the late '90s in helping bring about a balanced budget because, after all, it is the Congress that is in charge of the purse strings. It is the Congress that is required by our Constitution to come forth with the appropriation bills. It is the Congress that either overspends or creates a surplus. So, in the late '90s, we got the surplus, and President Clinton, after the Republican majority, stayed true to what they were elected to do. They created a balanced budget and they created a surplus. Then we came in to President Bush's term of office. Something nobody foresaw was September 11 of 2001. It was devastating to the economy. It is an extraordinary testimonial that our economy came back as quickly as it did after 9/11. After an attack like that, especially so close to the financial center of the country, for most countries, it would have devastated them, but it is one of the things that makes me and has always made me so proud to be an American. In an emergency, we come together. On September 12, I was so proud, yet hurt with so many Americans. At the time, I was a judge in Tyler, Texas, but on September 12, we came together on the courthouse square--hundreds of people, hundreds of people. By the end of it, we had all held hands, and we had sung hymns, and we had prayed together. On that day, there were no hyphenated Americans; there were just Americans, and we stood together. With a tax cut, then another tax cut, we stimulated the economy, and record revenue like never before in American history flowed into the United States Treasury. Tax cuts were not the problem. They helped the economy. They helped us rebound. We should have headed for a straight depression after 9/11, but instead, there were tax cuts. It was bipartisan. We moved forward and we helped the economy. There was a lot of rhetoric across the aisle about not cutting taxes, but as it turned out, the tax cuts helped create more revenue for the Treasury, not destroy revenue for the Treasury. The problem was not the tax cuts. The problem was the spending. Now, under Newt Gingrich's leadership as Speaker, we got to a balanced budget, and we got to a surplus. Then over the years and after hearing from people who were in power, looking back, there was some recollection and there came this feeling that, now that we are in charge as Republicans, maybe it's okay to spend like the Democrats were spending. They used to do it. Why can't we do it? The answer is because it is not good for the country. I agree with my Democratic colleagues in that there was too much money being spent, but that is why in November of 2006 the Democratic majority came into being and took over the purse strings. So, for those who want to talk about the terrible 8 years of the Bush administration's deficit spending, for the last 2 years under the Constitution, the people in charge were the Democratic majority. So we can see the charge; we can hear the blasting, but the truth is that the Republicans spent too much leading up into 2006, and that is why in November of 2006, after 2 years of my Democratic colleagues across the aisle blasting Republicans for spending too much, they became in charge of the purse strings. President Bush could threaten vetoes, but if you go back and actually look at the debates that were held on this floor during those 2 years--2007 and 2008--when there was strong disagreement between the Democratic leadership's controlling things in the House and Senate with the White House, except for military spending, the disagreements were generally of always wanting to spend more, not less, and in wanting to run up the deficit more, not less. So it rings a little hollow here on the floor when I hear this talk about 8 years of terrible, runaway deficit spending bills when it has been the Democrats who have been in charge for the last 2 years. Then we had a very charismatic, wonderful speaker in Barack Obama, who ran for President and got elected. Mr. Speaker, as I had said on this floor in November or December, I did not support Barack Obama for President, but he is a man who conveys hope; he inspires confidence, and that is what this country needs. I like President George W. Bush. He is a smarter man than people give him credit for in most places. He is a good man, but he got talked into a bill of goods by the Secretary of the Treasury. I have to agree with the comment I heard from former Speaker Newt Gingrich when he said he felt like Henry Paulson would go down as the worst Secretary of the Treasury in history, and I think he's right, but he talked our President George W. Bush into coming out publicly and fear-mongering and saying we're about to hit a depression. All the things Paulson had said the President confirmed. Oh, we could have bank failures. Secretary Paulson told us, once that first bank fails, there will be no stopping it. It will be a catastrophe. It's going to be terrible. That can be a self-fulfilling prophesy. The President is not supposed to say we're headed for doom and gloom. The President is supposed to be Presidential and say things like Franklin D. Roosevelt said when he said, ``The only thing we have to fear is fear, itself.'' We can come out of this. It would have been Presidential to point to 2001 and 9/11 and to say look at how we came back from that disaster. For most nations that would have been hit that hard financially, economically and especially to their souls with the loss of so many precious, innocent lives, it would have been too much to come back from but not for this country. We came back. The President could have pointed that out, and could have said, ``We've got problems with banking. We've got regulations that need fixing. We don't need to have incentives for companies to go out and push people into mortgages that are more than they can afford so they can wrap them up in a security and sell them elsewhere and take their millions and billions of dollars in profit and then walk away clear and sell credit swaps which were really insurance but dance around the insurance regulations.'' Well, those things need to be fixed. We could have done it, but we still haven't fixed all of those problems. Instead, we had a policy proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Paulson: Just give me $700 billion, and I think I can help things. Well, I tried to tell my colleagues on the floor to read the bill. ``Please read the bill.'' We've never done anything like that in this country's history since we've had a Constitution. In 1776, on December 27, there was similar power given to George Washington, but he did not ask for it; he hardly used it at all, and he gave it back timely, but that was not the case here. Fear-mongering got a $700 billion bailout bill passed. I might point out to my colleagues who've been in here, bemoaning deficit spending, to that point, that was the biggest spending spree by this country, outside the budget, ever in history. It's bigger than, I think, all but 14 or 15 nations' budgets for the whole year. As for this $800 billion spree that has been voted for already in the House-- it is supposed to come up again shortly in the House--if that were our entire economic spending in the country, I believe we are either above--just above or below Mexico if that were all of the spending for the country. It is an enormous amount of money. I tried to warn people back in September, especially in our conferences: Please don't join with the Democrats in passing this terrible bill. There are not enough restrictions on spending. This is just giving a guy a slush fund to throw where he wants to. He can even spend more than fair value for anything he wants to buy. Now we found out he did. Now we found out that he did not spend all of the first $350 billion, as I understand it. So we have been told, well, we need now Secretary Geithner to control things because he was a protege of Paulson's. He worked with him. He knows how this was being done. Well, to me, that's more of an indication that he should never have been approved for the office, never mind the problem with his certifying that he paid taxes that he never did until he was caught. If he really believed in this country, if he really believed in the principles of this Nation, we did not need one man with that kind of authority. That was a terrible mistake. One of my other concerns from September has been borne out. I told my Republican colleagues in private meetings: If we pass this, it really desensitizes Americans to just how much money $700 billion is, and it did, because if President Bush had not come in and asked for $700 billion, then there would have been no way that President Obama could have come in with a straight face and asked for more than that, but that is where we are because that is what has happened. Now, what begins to occur when a Congress does not control itself and starts spending too much money, unlike the Republicans after they took over in January of '95 and on up through the end of the Clinton administration, we begin to see Republicans spending more. Even though the tax revenue surged, it seemed to encourage the Republican majority to spend more. Yet, if you go back and look at the debates on this floor between that side of the aisle and this side of the aisle, in my first 2 years, we were usually fighting off requests for more spending from my Democratic colleagues than less spending. There were those of us on this side who would argue for less spending, but the White House would ultimately, over and over, it seemed like from just my impression, cave in to the Democratic demands and agree to spend more money and come closer to what the Democrat minority wanted to spend, and that would make it appear more bipartisan. Then we get to this point where Congress says, as it is beginning to say and as this administration is beginning to say, we cannot trust the American people, and we cannot trust them to spend their own money. My goodness, they may not spend it the way we would want them to, and since we are so much smarter here in Washington about how to spend people's money, not our own, then we'd better not let them have their own money to spend. As most people around here know, I proposed a 2-month tax holiday where money would just not be withdrawn for Federal income tax purposes and for FICA purposes. Some say, well, that may put a drain on the Social Security fund. There is no Social Security fund. If we had the proper nerve in this body, we would get a majority that would agree to pass a law that says Social Security tax money has to go into a Social Security Trust Fund, but we've not yet gotten a majority from either side that is willing to do that. I am still hopeful, and I still pray that that will occur. But then I saw this quote from Senator John Kerry that seemed to substantiate exactly what we were talking about, where he said, ``But a tax cut is non-targeted. If you put a tax cut into the hands of either a business or an individual today, there is no guarantee they are going to invest their money. There is no guarantee they are going to invest their money in the United States. They are free to invest anywhere they want, if they choose to invest.'' That was Senator Kerry. That's the attitude that kind of creates a problem in Washington because it seems like what is beginning to permeate again is this atmosphere of arrogance that says the American people are too stupid to spend their own money. Let us help them. We'll throw it to banks that are not going to lend more money. We're going to throw it over here to an insurance company that will take some nice trips. I'm sure if the taxpayers had their own money they might not take as nice a trips as these guys will be able to take with taxpayer money. The problem is we don't have the money. We're having to borrow it. We're having to print it, and you can borrow and spend your way into nonexistence. The Soviet Union did it. Iceland has now spent their way into bankruptcy. It is not something that should be followed. I hear my Democratic colleague, who I have a great deal of respect for, talking about in 2001 we could have fixed the AMT. We could have done away with the estate tax. Well, we should have done it in 2005 or 2006, my first two years here, but we sure didn't get more than a handful of Democrats who were willing to help, and so we were not going to be able to pass it through both the House and Senate. No time like the present. You want to stimulate the economy, have a tax cut, because unlike some of the people here in Washington, some of the people in the House, some of the people in the Senate, we don't have to consider the American people as the problem. They are the solution. The American people that came together after 9/11 to pull this Nation up by its bootstrap, they're the solution. Now, what gave me the idea of having a tax holiday, where you don't take withholding out for a couple of months, is actually when I heard some extraordinary figures about the spending and the promises that have been made. Let's see, we had an an article from bloomberg.com, February 9, by Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry: ``The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government's commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion.'' This article says, ``The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past 2 years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more.'' Well, when I saw figures like $8 trillion originally, now they're talking up to 9.7, I asked for a figure on what was projected to be received in individual income tax for the year 2008. The figure that I was provided was $1.21 trillion from individual taxpayers paying their individual taxes. It doesn't include corporate tax or so many of the other Federal taxes that we have hammered people with but just individual income tax. And what blew me away was, you know, now $9.7 trillion in spending and guarantees and you could take a fraction of that, $1.21 trillion, and tell everybody for 2008 you get all your money back; every dime you spent in individual income tax is coming back to you. Can you imagine the cars that would be bought, Detroit bailed out; the homes that would have been built, the homes that would be purchased. You know, we were struggling a little bit in East Texas back in September of last year, but until the Secretary of the Treasury ran around like Chicken Little and talked the President, a good man, but he talked him into supporting his position, we were doing okay. But once they started screaming that the financial sky was falling, instead of coming in and saying we've got to have immediate fixes to Federal regulations and incentives to do the right thing, they claimed the sky was falling, and that's a self- fulfilling prophecy. When the President of the United States says the stock market is going to crash, then it will. When the Treasury Secretary tells us the stock market is going to crash on this Monday if you don't pass the bill to give me $700 billion to play with, it's going to go down 777 points. I was surprised it didn't go down more than that with the self-fulfilling prophecy like was made. But the problem is--one of the problems--the hope that I had from the hope that was talked about by President Obama, just a really likable guy, but he inspires hope and confidence, until he took over as President. And now what we're hearing is it's all doom and gloom, and that's been devastating. You know, we have heard recently President Obama--and by the way, I'm tired of people saying, well, his inaugural address wasn't as good as it should have been. I thought it was terrific. It's just some people expected people in the audience to start swooning like they did at some of his other speeches, but it was a wonderful inaugural address. I thought this was a great line. He said, ``Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land--a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.'' And he said, ``We have chosen hope over fear.'' Now that inspires me. Those are great words, when he said, ``With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents.'' After talking about the bravery and gallantry of Washington and his ill-equipped men crossing the Delaware, I thought it was a great speech. But now, he's saying, `` `It's getting worse, not getting better. . . . problem is accelerating, not decelerating.' '' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last month, ``Our economy, `is dark, darker, darkest.' '' Our chairman, David R. Obey of Wisconsin, said, `` `This economy is in mortal danger of absolute collapse.' '' Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri said, `` `If we don't pass this thing, it's Armageddon.' '' Well, an article in the Washington Times said, ``With his fiery rhetoric, the new President runs the risk of terrifying consumers and investors, which could depress the economy even further. While the economy is bad, it is a far cry from Great Depression levels, when as many as 30 percent of Americans were unemployed, compared with the 7.6 percent now.'' And of course, if you're one of the people that's just lost a job, it doesn't matter what else is happening in your world, your economy is devastated. But if we provide the hope and the courage and the confidence that was so beautifully and eloquently discussed by our now- President when he was running for office, I think he can undo the damage of the laws of confidence and inspire people to get back to work. Because what I heard in East Texas after September was, well, you know, we were going to buy a house or build a house or buy a car, but you know, we're hearing a depression is on its way, may be here, so we better hold up and not spend that money and see what happens. There are people with money. There are people with money abroad, and there are people with money in the country. Most people have lost a lot of money, but some still have money who could invest, but they want to wait and see what's going to happen because they don't want to be sticking their neck out at a time if the President and the Democratic leadership are going to be talking doom and gloom and help create a worse crisis instead of help get us out of it. But this $9.7 trillion in pledges, let me just tell you it's 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's according to the Congressional Budget Office. Just staggering. I thought it was interesting, let's see, here's a quote, `` `Mr. Hope has to be careful not to become Dr. Doom,' said Frank Luntz, a political consultant and author of the book `Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.' '' Mr. Luntz went on, `` `The danger for him is using the Jimmy Carter malaise rhetoric, particularly for Mr. Obama, who was elected because people thought he was the solution. There's only so much negativity they will tolerate from him before they will feel betrayed.' '' That's true. I mean, we need our President to step up and not be talking doom and gloom but encourage us. It's really reassuring to hear people across the aisle, as we did for the last hour, talking about the problems of deficit spending. Friends, I'm with you. Mr. Speaker, that's what we need. We need people who understand that the deficit spending has created problems. So you don't come in to fix a problem by doing more of what created the problem. You know, it's like that stupid joke where a guy goes into the doctor and says, ``It hurts when I do that,'' and the doctor says, ``Well, don't do that.'' If you're hurting the country by deficit spending, don't do that. Now, if it's going to take a little tax holiday to help instill that confidence, that's what we can do, and it wouldn't take $1.21 trillion, which is all the individual income tax for a whole year. But there have been independent studies. Now Moody's Economy had one that said, of all the tax proposals, the one that increases the GDP in 1 year more than any other proposal is the tax holiday proposal. And people across America are getting that, and they're picking up on this arrogance that's reemerging. Some Republicans had it when we were in the majority. Some Democrats had it before Republicans won the majority, and that's why they won the majority in November of 1994, and now it's picking up in Washington again: American people are too stupid, we have got to throw all this money away instead of letting them have it. But that's why I would like to encourage the American people, Mr. Speaker, it would be so helpful if people across America were to let the leadership hear, and I've got the names here of the Speaker and of the minority leader and, in the Senate, the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, and of the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, because if Americans will let their representative and their senators know and then let these people know--I've got the Capitol switchboard number here--if they were to let those people know, cut out the arrogance, let us have a tax holiday for at least a couple of months, it will be a whole lot cheaper than even Geithner's plan that's supposed to come out tomorrow to spend $350 billion. And apparently he's got ability and authority to spend even more than that because what we've heard is that you know, gosh, Secretary Paulson didn't spend all the $350 billion so he's got more of that he can spend. So, if we were to have a 2-month tax holiday of both FICA and individual withholding, the figures that we have been provided would be that it would cost around $334 billion for 2 months, and that could be made up by the money that's already been allocated. But we did a poll in East Texas to find out how people would spend their money if they got a 2-month tax holiday, and we encouraged them to look at your check stubs, look at how much withholding is taken out of your check each month for 2 months, see what that huge total is, and then let us know what you would do with the money. These were the major answers we got: Invest in small business; invest in the stock market. The most common answer we got is that that would help us buy a home, someone to build a home. Let's see, number one answer is, if you combine them all together, combine these as a group, would be to catch up on their mortgages and pay off credit cards. And perhaps that's what Senator Kerry's talking about. Maybe they wouldn't invest their money. Maybe they might put it in the bank. How about paying off their credit card? We heard Secretary Paulson and now Secretary Geithner saying we do need more lending in this country, and that's why we need this money, to help shore up the credit business, create more lending. Well, what we've heard from people is that if you give us our withholding for 2 months, we will catch up on our mortgage, we'll pay off our credit cards, and we'll have some money to go eat out on. And that was another big answer, ``Go out and eat.'' Some said, ``Just to shop.'' Some said, ``To finally take a trip and have fun with the family,'' something they haven't been able to do for a while. But that would help America. And even if these people that some deemed too stupid to know how to use their own money that they earned in their own paycheck, if they put it in the bank--maybe that's not what Senator Kerry was thinking about in the way of investment--but if it increases confidence in our economy, let somebody put some money in the bank. It would be good for them, more money in the bank, more money to loan. But all of this talk about doom and gloom has got people scared. And now we're hearing there's a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges--we had testimony on it in the Judiciary Committee--that it will allow, for the first time, bankruptcy judges to drop the principal on a mortgage, on a home loan mortgage. That's really interesting. And then one witness said, ``Well, but they've been able to do it in some places where judges could lower the principal.'' And on being pressed, he had to admit that actually in those rare cases, the debtor was required to pay the extra principal that was reduced within 5 years, so nobody hardly ever does that because most people who file bankruptcy can't pay that kind of money for principal that quick. Anyway, again, Mr. Speaker, if people wanted to get across to the leadership in this Congress that has the purse strings--not the President--this Congress, House, Senate, by Constitution have the purse strings, then they would be amazed at what they would see happen if people across this Nation--Democrats, Republicans, bipartisan--let these folks know how they feel about either Washington squandering their money--because that's what I see what's been done--or the people that earned it actually getting to spend that money. So what are some other solutions? Well, I would have hoped we would hear these things from the President because that's where you can instill hope so easily. You've got the bully pulpit. But that's not what we've heard so far. One of the things that some of my Republican colleagues and I have been trying to get it across--we tried to get it across in the last Congress the last 2 years--that there is so much that would boost our economy if we would use our own resources. We have energy resources. We have been so blessed with so much in the way of natural resources, like no nation in the history of the world. What a blessing we have had. You know, some complain that there are not enough trees, but if you look and you do your little investigation--like those of us on the Resources Committee have heard and read about--actually there are more trees in the United States of America right now than ever in history; more than 100 years ago, more than 200 years. We have been so much more cautious and so much better stewards about this great land that we've been blessed with. But we can use the resources we've got. Now, on energy, we got notice we've got a hearing this week and a couple more coming up about why we ought to cut off and renew the moratorium on offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf drilling. Well, the people need to remember what they did in September because in September, they let Washington hear from them, and those who are in the Democratic leadership at the time realized--this is the way it appears to me--they realized if we extend the moratorium on offshore drilling right now when people are paying so much for gasoline and natural gas and heating oil, they may throw us out of the majority come November, so let's hold off on that. And there were rumors, and I don't like to give any credence to rumors. And there were rumors back at the time that gee, there were some in leadership, Democratic leadership, who were telling the environmental folks--who were so way far off the left that they don't think there is any way for man and energy to work together and still have a good environment--but they didn't want the moratorium dropped, but they seemed to be comforted. They quit making noise. For some reason, they began to think that, gee, when the Democrats got past the November election and stayed in the majority, the moratorium would be forthcoming. Well, low and behold, here we are in February and here we've got three hearings scheduled on why we should have a moratorium on the offshore drilling again. Just incredible. Looks like the American people, Mr. Speaker, are going to have to let the leadership know again just how they feel about that because we're going to see natural gas, heating oil, gasoline, we're already seeing that come back up. And there is a meeting now posted for OPEC where they're going to talk about cutting production so that we are forced to pay more. We knew this was coming. And yet we had the resources to avoid having to send all of this money overseas. You know, you look at what we've got here. We have more coal than any nation in the world. I don't want to see black smoke creating all these terrible air problems that have happened in our country in the past, but the air's been cleaned up. You know, you'd fly into some of the cities that used to have a big brown smog cloud over it. We've done so much better. We're doing so much better. We're doing better in that area. And I don't want those days to return where there's black smoke billowing up. But most of the smoke you see now is steam. But we could use clean coal techniques. We could use coal-to-liquid technology. We could use more wind as Boone Pickens advertised so much about. And, you know, if France can make nuclear energy work and have over 70 percent of their energy come from nuclear without a major incident, with American ingenuity, do we not think we could do the same thing? Natural gas. Now, natural gas is an incredible asset--as my friend, Congressman Vern Ehlers, likes to talk about--that is such a valuable commodity. It is feedstock for so many things. So many of the products that we use and save people and doctors and just across the business spectrum, across our own comfort spectrums, we have products that were derived using natural gas as a feedstock. And we may have more natural gas anywhere. The estimates I've read indicate probably the second-most natural gas in the world, if you're allowed to go off the Outer Continental Shelf--especially around Florida--but I didn't realize until we got to Congress that we have oil and gas reserves up and down the west coast, California up through Washington. We've got it from Maine down to Florida. And the gulf coast is rich with it. In Texas, off the Texas gulf coast, Louisiana gulf coast, a couple of the others have some rigs. I mean, we are producing oil and gas as fast as we can to try to be a team player and help this country. But we need some help. We cannot afford for States to be so selfish that they don't want to see a rig. And to me at night, looking off the Texas coast, it's kind of pretty to see a light or two sparkling out there. And we also know if they are producing toxic problems, then we need to shut them down. I'd be leading the charge to do so. What we saw after Katrina, this terrible hurricane that hit at a level 5 out on some of these platforms, we didn't have any leaks. The technology is amazing. They shut those things in. Some of them were totaled as platforms. It was a level 3 when it hit Louisiana, but it was a 5 and devastated some of those platforms. No leaks. When I was growing up, we'd hear people say, you know, we can't have platforms out there off our Texas gulf coast because if we do, it will destroy all fishing for all time in the Gulf of Mexico off our coast. Well, what they found was when they put those platforms out there, they become artificial reefs. And now many times when you want to go fishing, people will encourage going out around these platforms because the fish have adapted so well. So there is so much we could use. The hydrogen technology, water, solar. I filed a bill last Congress, and I intend to file again--never got to the floor--but I think for the long term, solar provides the cleanest, best potential for energy in the universe. What an incredible source. We just need to figure out better ways to use it. We have never come up with a way to hold electricity. We can hold DC current, we can hold power, we can hold energy. Some have figured out if they pump water up into a high reservoir during off-peak times, they can let it flow downhill, turn generators, produce more electricity during peak times. And that's storing energy potential up there, but still we haven't found a way to store electricity. I know some scientists say we'll never be able to do that. Some say there may just be a way. So my bill would provide a $300 million prize for anybody who comes up with a way to store megawatt electricity for 30 days without losing more than 10 percent of it. Some say it can't be done. And the truth is, if we put a prize out there and it started getting these brilliant intellects in this country to focus on that and they were able to do it, they would make so much more money than $300 million, they would be set. But it's the Congress' job to inspire people to reach beyond themselves--not to lure in a rut--but to reach beyond themselves. And I think one day, solar will be our ultimate energy answer. But in the meantime, we could be completely energy independent if we just use what we've gotten. And when we hear all of these estimates about job loss--and we know that every report of job losses, it isn't just 50,000 or 500,000; it is each individual case creating a devastating hurt: economically, mentally, emotionally, families hurting. Well, so what alternatives do we have to giving another $800 billion on top of the $700 billion that we've already given to the Federal Government? What kind of alternatives are there? Well, how about using the energy that we have? Because when we start looking at all of our resources--and we got this thick shale up around Utah, Wyoming, part of Colorado--we've seen estimates that range anywhere from one trillion to three trillion barrels of oil that can be obtained from that thick shale. We've seen estimates that there may only be one trillion left in the entire Middle East. We've also seen the report that if we open up ANWR to production in Alaska, to oil and gas production, that we could cut 70 percent of our usage of Middle East oil and gas. Wouldn't that be wonderful? We could be so much more relaxed. But the thing about using our own energy that goes beyond not sending money to other countries--some of which really don't like us; some of which may allow the growth of terrorists and training of terrorists within their boundaries--we cut that off. We use what we have. So it was incredible to see this report about the jobs that would be created from development of Alaska's oil and gas reserves. That's right, jobs that would be created from use and pursued development and production of oil and gas in Alaska. There would be new jobs in all 50 States. We have heard President Obama say first, as I understood him, we were going to have--he was going to create 3 million new jobs. Then, I believe I heard him say today, actually, ``We are going to create and save 3 million new jobs.'' Well, I liked it better when he was saying he wanted to create 3 million new jobs because once you say we're going to save a job, there's no way to either disprove or prove that you have saved a job, most of the time. So you say you saved a job. How can we know? You say you created a job. We know you create a job if it's created. Well, how about this? Alaska's oil and gas resources, if we were allowed to pursue them properly, as President Jimmy Carter, back when he was President proclaimed should be done. He proclaimed ANWR, as he set that section 1002 off because nothing really can grow there, nothing can live there. What a perfect place to have a small footprint to help us with our energy needs until I say we get to solar. Maybe we can do hydrogen and water. That would be fantastic. Here are the jobs that would be created. In California--new jobs-- 334,000 new jobs; Washington State. Right now, actually, in Washington State they have a huge unemployment problem. There's 234,000 people out of work in Washington State. If we allow Alaska to produce their oil and gas, it creates 139,089 new jobs. Pennsylvania. You wouldn't have thought maybe Pennsylvania would do so well. But there are some people struggling in Pennsylvania, looking for jobs. There's 347,800 people out of work in Pennsylvania, according to this report. The new jobs would be created just from opening up Alaska's reserves. Wouldn't cost us any money. In fact, we could make money off of leasing that property--142,529 jobs. New York State. You might not figure they would benefit with new jobs from opening up Alaska's oil and gas. But, 93,356 jobs. New Jersey, 39,136 jobs; Illinois, 40,609 jobs. The overall gain, 1,074,640 jobs from Alaskan oil, and 1,135,778 jobs from pursuing Alaska's natural gas reserves. Overall, 2,210,418 jobs. That would be kind of nice. We wouldn't even have to spend any money. We'd get money in from that. We'd make revenue off of that. Yet, what did we hear? How is the Federal Government now going to help us? Well, before the Bush administration went out--and it takes a long time to put Federal lands up for lease for oil and gas production because there are battles galore. We heard in the last Congress I forget how many--60 million acres or something--that are currently under lease and not being produced or utilized. Interesting. Nobody ever tells you how many of those acres are tied up in lawsuits, because that is the thing that happens. If we created an Outer Continental Shelf drilling bill and didn't have a speedup on litigation, with a quick turnaround time so we could get answers on whether it was lawful or not, then it would be successful dragging them out like they have so many of the millions and millions of acres that are tied up now in litigation that are not being able to be utilized. But the Bush administration knew that would create jobs so they put some leases in the western United States up for lease. That was a good thing. They put it up for bid because the high bidder gets the lease. And they awarded the bids, and the checks came in from those individuals. And as the checks came from those individuals, so did President Obama's administration. So, here's an article from the AP--just a little quote from it--and this is about Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has had the U.S. breach its promise on leases already studied. The bids were offered, the bids were awarded. The checks were sent in. They were paid. Here's the story from the AP last week. Secretary Salazar says he is scrapping the lease of dozens of parcels of Federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah's Red Rock Country. Salazar says the Bush administration rushed an auction in December of some of the country's most precious landscapes around national parks and the wild Green River. We have rigs in State parks, all kind of parks around Texas, and we welcome them. They produce jobs, they help the economy. They put kids in nicer schools. They do extraordinary things with a tiny, tiny footprint that we demand is done right. Salazar on Wednesday ordered the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Interior Department, not to cash checks from winning bidders for the parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups. A Federal judge last month put the sale of the 77 parcels on hold. Now Salazar is saying he won't sell any of them, at least not until the Obama administration has a chance to take a second look. Well, those are jobs that aren't saved. Those are jobs that are being lost. And they are jobs that are not being utilized, and this country deserves better. I see my friend from Utah here. I would yield to him if he has a comment on that.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Utah. It's one of the reasons I love my friend from Utah. When I saw my friend on the floor, I knew that you would be able to enlighten even further. So, it looks like what we could suggest for our Interior Secretary Salazar, since he thought these leases were, as he says, some of the country's most precious landscapes around national parks and wild Green River, we will just have to encourage him to discover a little more about America so that he will understand what it is before he kills more jobs, hurts more families, as he does. My time is wrapping up. What occurs to me when we see these incredible resources that would just, if we did the Outer Continental Shelf and Alaska's oil and gas, which Alaska, the vast majority want to pursue, we'd have the 3 million jobs. It wouldn't be saving the jobs. Those would be saved. But we would have 3 million-plus plus new jobs. What I thought about is a sweet man--I just loved him to death--from Nacogdoches, Texas. Bob Murphy. He passed away a few years ago. But I used to love to hear him talk. And he told a story one time back when I was in high school, the first time I heard him, and he said that there was a fellow that came to have coffee with him at the coffee shop every other day. And every time he would come in, he'd order coffee. And the waitress would pour his coffee. And he would take the sugar jar and just pour it. And you knew that at least a third of the cup was full of sugar, and then he would never stir it. And he would drink it, they would add more coffee, and he'd add more sugar, and never stir. Finally, it got the best of Bob. And he said, Look. Why don't you just stir what you got? He said, Bob, if I stirred all that sugar, it would make me sick. Well, here in the United States, if we stir what we got, if we use these incredible resources with which we have been so blessed. We provide jobs. We have money here at home that we don't have to send to other countries. We provide for ourselves, we provide for the common defense, we provide people the opportunity to reach their God-given potential. We have been so blessed. It's ashamed to keep giving back and saying, No, thank you, God. We don't want these gifts. We are not going to use them. It's time to use what we have got, stir what we have got. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the time. I yield back.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. One of the things that's been so troubling with all the promises in 2006 that, if the Democrats were put back in the majority, then they would be the most open House, this would be the most open House, everything would go through committee, everything would go through regular order. It has turned out that those have been completely hollow promises. This has been, from the best I can determine from the history of this place, perhaps the most totalitarian in the last 2 years, and it's certainly shaping up that way now. There's no chance for input. We saw in the last Congress, they even found a way around conference committees by just cutting House Republicans out completely, finding some Republicans in the Senate willing to go along, agreeing to a bill without the conference rule being followed, and then being sent back over and over and over. There's amendments not being allowed. The rules are being changed this time, stripping out so much that is proper process. All of those people represented by people in the minority should a chance to have their vote in this House, but we're rapidly building into a situation of taxation without representation because we're not being allowed--we can come to the floor and talk like this, but we're not being allowed to have input in these bills, and they're being rammed down the throats of Americans who deserve better. They deserve the transparency that has not happened. And I just appreciate so much my friend from Utah (Mr. Bishop) pointing out the problems with the process that has created such a terrible monstrosity as this bill ultimately, with some good ingredients in there, but ultimately a terrible monstrosity. And I appreciate my friend for yielding.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, job losses hurt individuals. They hurt families. They hurt other families because they hurt the economy, and everyone is hurt mentally as well as economically. So what is causing the job loss? What is causing the downturn? Well, there is one thing we heard when we went to China and talked to people about why they moved their industries. They said it is because they have less than half the corporate tax than we have in the U.S. Yet still we are going to take up a bill to limit more drilling in the United States. The report is out that, if Alaskan oil and gas were allowed to be developed, then it would create jobs in all 50 States. California would get 334,000 new jobs. Washington State would get 139,000 new jobs. Pennsylvania would get 142,000 new jobs. New York would get 93,000 new jobs. New Jersey would get 39,000 new jobs. Illinois would get 40,000 new jobs. Overall, 2.2 million jobs would be added. Let us help America. Let us open up our own resources.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate my friend from Ohio pointing out the problems that arise with the trade deficit. That has been a problem. When I first came here and was sworn in on this House floor back January of 2005, what I began to hear from the other side of the aisle, correctly, was that the Republicans controlled the White House, they controlled the House, and controlled the Senate, and they are spending too much money. They are engaged in deficit spending, and it has to stop. And they were right. In my first 2 years here, we had on some bills the White House asking for way too much money; and, to try to be a party that went along with the President, many of my colleagues would say we have got to do this, we are in charge, and money got spend when it shouldn't have been spent. And we should have been better about not having deficit spending, but we blew it, and the American voters called us on it, properly. I say us. I was often not happy and on the contrary, and some in my party called me a troublemaker and still do. But we call them the way we see them. And the fact is, deficit spending was wrong when it was being done by a Republican White House and Congress, or requesting from the Congress and the Republican Congress was doing it, because it is the Congress that does the appropriations, and it is wrong today. And so in November of 2006, when the Democrats were put in the majority in both the House and the Senate, I was hoping we would see the end of deficit spending, just as they promised. But that is not what happened. The deficit spending has gotten increasingly higher, and now in the first few weeks of this new term it has hit an all-time high. You can't spend your way to prosperity. It doesn't work when you are spending your grandchildren and your great grandchildren's money. And you know, you have to know some day when we are dead and gone they are going to be cussing our names: Why did you run us up into such debt so we couldn't live like you did because you wouldn't control your spending? That is our obligation, and we owe so much better to the children and the generations to come. There was a Rasmussen poll today that came out, and it says 45 percent of the American public are in favor of a tax cut-only stimulus bill. Stop the run-away spending on things that aren't stimulus. Why would Congress do that? Why did Congress do it, and why is it increasing in such a dramatic scale? Well, there is an atmosphere of arrogance that is growing all the time in Washington that the people out there who are stimulating the economy, they are working, they are doing all they can, well, there are some in Washington who think they are just too stupid to spend the money so that it stimulates the economy, so we must have people in Washington, who know so much more and are so much better at spending other people's money, let the people in Washington spend the hard- working folks' money. In the last couple of weeks we had $350 billion, the second half of that bailout that was such a mistake back in September, that other half has been allocated and approved. Then you add the $819 billion plus whatever the Senate is going to add, you put those together, it is around $1.2 trillion. Why is that a significant number? Because $1.2 trillion happens to be the amount basically that every individual income taxpayer in America will pay for 2008 income tax. You want to see the economy stimulated? You give back every dime that every individual taxpayer paid in 2008, you will see the economy stimulated. I am not even advocating that. I am just saying, give people back their money in their next two paychecks, the next two months' paychecks, a 2-month tax holiday, a 16\2/3\ percent tax cut for this year. A study by Moody's Economy says that will increase the GDP more in 1 year than any other tax proposal out there. It would be a 2-month tax holiday. And for those who don't make enough to pay income tax, you get to keep your FICA, so everyone, just like President Obama promised, will get an income tax holiday. You will get your money back. But I was told last week when President Obama--and you can't be in a room with that guy and not really like him. He is a likeable, smart, congenial man. And when I was telling him about the tax holiday idea, it is not 3 months, 6 months, next year, it is in your next paycheck. He wanted the idea talked about, and now Larry Summers won't call me back.