Ron Paul

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I would like to address the subject of earmarks today. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding here among the Members as to exactly what it means to vote against an earmark. It's very popular today to condemn earmarks, and even hold up legislation because of this. The truth is that if you removed all the earmarks from the budget, you would remove 1 percent of the budget. So there's not a lot of savings. But, even if you voted against all the earmarks actually, you don't even save the 1 percent because you don't save any money. What is done is, those earmarks are removed, and some of them are very wasteful and unnecessary, but that money then goes to the executive branch. So, in many ways, what we are doing here in the Congress is reneging on our responsibilities, because it is the responsibility of the Congress to earmark. That is our job. We are supposed to tell the people how we are spending the money, not to just deliver it in a lump sum to the executive branch and let them deal with it, and then it's dealt with behind the scenes. Actually, if you voted against all the earmarks, there would be less transparency. Earmarks really allow transparency, and we know exactly where the money is being spent. The big issue is the spending. If you don't like the spending, vote against the bill. But the principle of earmarking is something that we have to think about, because we are just further undermining the responsibilities that we have here in the Congress. If we want to get things under control, it won't be because we vote against an earmark and make a big deal of attacking earmarks because it doesn't address the subject. In reality, what we need are more earmarks. Just think of the $350 billion that we recently appropriated and gave to the Treasury Department. Now everybody's running around and saying, Well, we don't know where the money went. We just gave it to them in a lump sum. We should have earmarked everything. It should have been designated where the money is going. So, instead of too many earmarks, we don't have enough earmarks. Transparency is the only way we can get to the bottom of this. And if you make everything earmarked, it would be much better. The definition of an earmark is very, very confusing. If you would vote to support the embassy, which came up to nearly $1 billion in Baghdad, that is not called an earmark. But if you have an earmark for a highway or a building here in the United States, that is called an earmark. If you vote for a weapons system, it would support and help a certain district, and that's not considered an earmark. When people are yelling and screaming about getting rid of earmarks, they're not talking about getting rid of weapons systems or building buildings and bridges and highways in foreign countries. They are only talking about when it's designated that certain money would be spent a certain way in this country. Ultimately, where we really need some supervision and some earmarks are the trillions of dollars spent by the Federal Reserve. They get to create their money out of thin air, and spend it. They have no responsibility to tell us anything. Under the law, they are excluded from telling us where and what they do. So, we neglect telling the Treasury how to spend TARP money, and then we complain about how they do it. But just think literally; the Treasury is miniscule compared to what the Federal Reserve does. The Treasury gets hundreds of billions, which is huge, of course, and then we neglect to talk about the Federal Reserve, where they are creating money out of thin air, and supporting all their friends and taking care of certain banks and certain corporations. This, to me, has to be addressed. I have introduced a bill, it's called H.R. 1207, and this would remove the restriction on us to find out what the Federal Reserve is doing. Today, the Federal Reserve under the law is not required to tell us anything. So all my bill does is remove this restriction and say, Look, Federal Reserve, you have a lot of power. You have too much power. You're spending a lot of money. You're taking care of people that we have no idea what you're doing. We, in the Congress, have a responsibility to know exactly what you're doing. This bill, H.R. 1207, will allow us for once and for all to have some supervision of the Federal Reserve. They are exempt from telling us anything, and they have stiffed us already. There have been lawsuits filed over the Freedom of Information Act. Believe me, they are not going to work, because the law protects the Federal Reserve. The Constitution doesn't protect the Federal Reserve. The Constitution protects the people to know exactly what is going on. We should enforce the Constitution. We should not enforce these laws that protect a secret bank that gets to create this money out of thin air. So, the sooner we in the Congress wake up to our responsibilities, understand what earmarks are all about, and understand why we need a lot more earmarks, then we will come to our senses, because we might then have a more sensible monetary and banking system, the system that has brought us to this calamity. So, the sooner we realize that, I think it would be better for the taxpayer.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, ``Sunlight is the best disinfectant.'' In order to shine sunlight on the practices of the House of Representatives, and thus restore public trust and integrity to this institution, I am introducing the sunlight rule, which amends House rules to ensure that members have adequate time to study a bill before being asked to vote on it. One of the chief causes of increasing public cynicism regarding Congress is the way major pieces of legislation are brought to the floor without members having an opportunity to read the bills. For example, the over-one-thousand page economic stimulus bill was first posted on the Internet at 12:30 a.m. the night before the vote. Obviously, this did not give individual members of Congress adequate time to review what is certainly one of, if not the, most significant pieces of legislation that Congress will consider this year. My proposed rule requires that no piece of legislation, including conference reports, can be brought before the House of Representatives unless it has been available to members and staff in both print and electronic version for at least ten days. My bill also requires that a manager's amendment that makes substantive changes to a bill be available in both printed and electronic forms at least 72 hours before voted on. While manager's amendments are usually reserved for technical changes, oftentimes manager's amendments contain substantive additions to or subtractions from bills. Members should be made aware of such changes before being asked to vote on a bill. The sunlight rule provides the people the opportunity to be involved in enforcing the rule by allowing a citizen to petition for an Office of Congressional Ethics investigation into any House Member who votes for a bill brought to the floor in violation of this act. The sunlight rule can never be waived by the Committee on Rules or House leadership. If an attempt is made to bring a bill to the floor in violation of this rule, any member could raise a point of order requiring the bill to be immediately pulled from the House calendar until it can be brought to the floor in a manner consistent with this rule. Madam Speaker, the practice of rushing bills to the floor before individual members have had a chance to study the bills is one of the major factors contributing to public distrust of Congress. Voting on bills before members have had time to study them makes a mockery of representative government and cheats the voters who sent us here to make informed decisions on public policy. Adopting the sunlight rule is one of, if not the, most important changes to the House rules this Congress could make to restore public trust in, and help preserve the integrity of, this institution. I hope my colleagues will support this change to the House rules.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the end of the war is not near. I might ask, are the troops coming home from Iraq as promised? Not quite. Sixteen months is too quick, so the plan now is to do it in 34 months. The administration claims all the troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Sure they will. We're told that 50,000 U.S. troops will still be in Iraq in August of 2010, and we're supposed to cheer. We're told that they won't be combat troops, so we're to believe that means they won't be exposed to any danger. If they are non-combat troops, does that mean they are bureaucrats, policemen, teachers or soldiers without weapons? This will hardly satisfy the Iraqis, who resent any foreign troops at all in their country. A U.S. puppet government protected by 50,000 American soldiers is not the road to peace. Will the Iranian-friendly Shiite majority not be motivated to take advantage of the instability we have created? Will the 100,000 Sunni militants we arm and subsidize continue to obey our wishes? It sounds to me like a powder keg exists with the indecisiveness of our Iraqi policy. There is no intention to close the dozens of military bases that now exist. The world's biggest embassy will remain in Baghdad and incite continued resentment toward the American occupation. Our soldiers will remain easy targets of the rightfully angry nationalists. Our presence will serve as an incentive for al Qaeda to grow in numbers and motivate more suicide bombers. An indefinite presence, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, will continue to drain our financial resources, undermine our national defense, demoralize our military and exacerbate our financial crisis. All this will be welcomed by Osama Bin Laden, just as he planned it. It's actually more than he had hoped for. More likely the outcome will be that greater than 50,000 Americans will be in Iraq in August of 2010, especially when the contractors are counted. Violence will accelerate. We will be an occupier at the end of 2011, and we will remain a pariah in the Middle East. The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be much bigger, unless the dollar follows the path of the dollar-based world financial system and collapses into runaway inflation. In this case, the laws of economics and the realities of history will prove superior to the madness of maintaining a world empire financed by scraps of paper. Our military prowess, backed by a nuclear arsenal, will not suffice in overcoming the tragedy of a currency crisis. Soviet nukes did not preserve its empire or the communist economy. This crisis demands that we quickly come to our senses and reject the foreign policy of interventionism. Neither credit coming from a Federal Reserve computer nor dollars coming from a printing press can bail us out of this mess. Only the rule of law, commodity money and liberty can do that. Mr. Speaker, let's consider reinstating the Constitution before it's too late.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation. Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency. Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed's susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests. The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and implemented, the Fed's negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the Fed avoids both fates. More importantly, the Fed's funding facilities and its agreements with the Treasury should be reviewed. The Treasury's supplementary financing accounts that fund Fed facilities allow the Treasury to funnel money to Wall Street without GAO or Congressional oversight. Additional funding facilities, such as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending Facility, allow the Fed to keep financial asset prices artificially inflated and subsidize poorly performing financial firms. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. We hear officials constantly lauding the benefits of transparency and especially bemoaning the opacity of the Fed, its monetary policy, and its funding facilities. By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the Taxpayers' Freedom of Conscience Act, which forbids federal funds from being used for population control or ``family planning.'' The recent executive order allowing those who perform and/or promote abortion overseas to receive taxpayer money brings new urgency to the need to protect pro- life Americans from being forced to subsidize abortion. It is not enough to say that ``family planning'' groups may not use federal funds to perform or promote abortion. After all, since money is fungible, federal funding of any activities of these organizations forces taxpayers to underwrite the organizations' abortion activities. Thus, the Taxpayers' Freedom of Conscience Act is the only way to protect taxpayers from having to support what they ``disbelieve and abhor.'' Thomas Jefferson eloquently made the case for Taxpayer's Freedom of Conscience Act when he said that: ``To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.'' I hope all my colleagues will join me in helping end the ``sinful and tyrannical'' policy of forcing pro-life Americans to subsidize, either directly or indirectly, abortion by cosponsoring the Taxpayer's Freedom of Conscience Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Reserve is the culprit; it has delivered this crisis to us. The Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy is a big mistake; it is not a panacea. Artificially low interest rates are achieved by inflating the money supply. Low interest rates penalize the thrifty, and those who save are cheated. It promotes consumption and borrowing over savings and investing. Manipulating interest rates is an immoral act, it is economically destructive. The policy of artificially low interest rates caused our problems and, therefore, cannot be the solution. The market rate of interest is crucial information for the smooth operation of the economy. A central bank setting interest rates is price fixing and is a form of central economic planning. Price fixing is a tool of socialists and destroys production. Central bankers, politicians and bureaucrats can't know what the proper rate should be. They lack the knowledge and are deceived by their aggrandizement. Manipulating the money supply and interest rates rejects all the principles of the free market. Ironically, free markets and sound money generates low rates, but unlike the artificially low rates orchestrated by the Fed, the information conveyed is beneficial to investors and savers. The Congress, by conceding this authority, conveys extraordinary economic powers to the elite few. This is a power that has been abused throughout history. Only the Federal Reserve can inflate the currency, creating new money and credit out of thin area, in secrecy, without oversight or supervision. Inflation facilitates deficits, needless wars, and excessive welfare spending. Debasing a currency is counterfeiting. It steals value from every dollar earned or saved. It robs the people and makes them poorer. It is the enemy of the working person. Inflation is the most vicious and regressive of all forms of taxation. It transfers wealth from the middle class to the privileged rich. The economic chaos that results from a policy of central bank inflation inevitably leads to political instability and violence. It is an ancient tool of all authoritarians. Inflating is never a benefit to freedom-loving people. It destroys prosperity and feeds the fires of war. It is responsible for recessions and depressions. It is deceptive, addictive, and causes delusions of grandeur with regards to wealth and knowledge. Wealth cannot be achieved by creating money by fiat. It instead destroys wealth and it rewards the special interests. Depending on monetary fraud for national prosperity or a reversal of our downward spiral is riskier than depending on the lottery. Inflation has been used to pay for all the wars and empires, and they all end badly. Inflationism and corporatism engenders protectionism and trade wars. It prompts scapegoating; blaming foreigners, illegal immigrants, ethnic minorities, and too often freedom itself for the predictable events and suffering that results. Besides, the whole process is unconstitutional. There is no legal authority to operate such a monetary system. So let's stop it. Let us restore a policy of prosperity, peace and liberty. The time has come. Let's end the Fed.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Tax Relief for Transportation Workers Act. This legislation helps those who work in the port industry cope with the costs of complying with Congress's mandate that all those working on a port obtain a Transportation Worker Identity Card, TWIC. The Tax Relief for Transportation Workers Act provides a tax credit to workers who pay the costs of obtaining TWICs. The credit is refundable against both income and payroll tax liabilities. When Congress created the TWIC requirement, it placed the burden of paying the cost of obtaining the card on individual workers. Imposing the costs of obtaining TWICs on port workers has several negative economic impacts that Congress should help mitigate by making the cost associated with obtaining a TWIC tax deductible. According to the Department of Homeland Security, a port worker will have to pay between $100 and $132 to obtain a card. The worker will also have to pay a $60 fee for every card that is lost or damaged. Even those employers whose employers pay the substantial costs of obtaining TWICs for their workforce are adversely affected by the TWIC requirement, as the money employers pay for TWICs is money that cannot go into increasing their workers' salaries. The costs of the TWIC requirement may also cause some employers to refrain from hiring new employees. Ironically, many of the employees whose employers are unable to pay the TWIC are part-time or temporary workers at the lower end of the income scale. Obviously, the TWIC requirement hits these workers the hardest. According to Recana, an employer of port workers in my district, the fee will have a ``significant impact'' on port workers. Unless Congress acts to relieve some of the economic burden the TWIC requirement places on those who work in the port industry, the damage done could reach beyond the port employers and employees to harm businesses that depend on a strong American port industry. This could be very harmful to both interstate and international trade. Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of the TWIC card, it is simply not right for Congress to make the port industry bear all the costs of TWIC. I therefore urge my colleagues to stand up for those who perform vital tasks at America's ports by cosponsoring the Tax Relief for Transportation Workers Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues. What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interests? What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous? What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel? What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan--and bombing Pakistan--is directly related to the hatred directed towards us? What if some day it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair trade- off for the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens--no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistani, and Afghan people are killed or displaced? What if we finally decide that torture--even if called ``enhanced interrogation techniques''--is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil? What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy? What if all wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing? What if we finally see that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty? What if conservatives, who preach small government, wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government? What if conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world? What if the American people woke up and understood the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests? What if we, as a Nation, came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations? What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq? What if a military draft is being planned for the wars that will spread if our foreign policy is not changed? What if the American people learn the truth: that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security and it never changes from one administration to the next? What if war and preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests? What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together? What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression? What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America? What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded? Nothing. But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored? Nothing good.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation to restore financial stability to America's economy by abolishing the Federal Reserve. Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working- class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy. In addition, most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies. This represents a real, if hidden, tax imposed on the American people. From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial ``boom'' followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts. With a stable currency, American exporters will no longer be held hostage to an erratic monetary policy. Stabilizing the currency will also give Americans new incentives to save as they will no longer have to fear inflation eroding their savings. Those members concerned about increasing America's exports or the low rate of savings should be enthusiastic supporters of this legislation. Though the Federal Reserve policy harms the average American, it benefits those in a position to take advantage of the cycles in monetary policy. The main beneficiaries are those who receive access to artificially inflated money and/or credit before the inflationary effects of the policy impact the entire economy. Federal Reserve policies also benefit big spending politicians who use the inflated currency created by the Fed to hide the true costs of the welfare- warfare state. It is time for Congress to put the interests of the American people ahead of special interests and their own appetite for big government. Abolishing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy. The United States Constitution grants to Congress the authority to coin money and regulate the value of the currency. The Constitution does not give Congress the authority to delegate control over monetary policy to a central bank. Furthermore, the Constitution certainly does not empower the federal government to erode the American standard of living via an inflationary monetary policy. In fact, Congress' constitutional mandate regarding monetary policy should only permit currency backed by stable commodities such as silver and gold to be used as legal tender. Therefore, abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a constitutional system will enable America to return to the type of monetary system envisioned by our nation's founders: one where the value of money is consistent because it is tied to a commodity such as gold. Such a monetary system is the basis of a true free-market economy. In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to stand up for working Americans by putting an end to the manipulation of the money supply which erodes Americans' standard of living, enlarges big government, and enriches well-connected elites, by cosponsoring my legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation that allows the shipment and distribution of unpasteurized milk and milk products for human consumption across state lines. This legislation removes an unconstitutional restraint on farmers who wish to sell or otherwise distribute, and people who wish to consume, unpasteurized milk and milk products. My office has heard from numerous people who would like to obtain unpasteurized milk. Many of these people have done their own research and come to the conclusion that unpasteurized milk is healthier than pasteurized milk. These Americans have the right to consume these products without having the Federal Government second-guess their judgment about what products best promote health. If there are legitimate concerns about the safety of unpasteurized milk, those concerns should be addressed at the state and local level. I urge my colleagues to join me in promoting consumers' rights, the original intent of the Constitution, and federalism by cosponsoring my legislation to allow the interstate shipment of unpasteurized milk and milk products for human consumption.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to help millions of working Americans by introducing the Tax Free Tips Act. As the title suggests, this legislation makes tips exempt from federal income and payroll taxes. Tips often compose a substantial portion of the earnings of waiters, waitresses, and other service-sector employees. However, unlike regular wages, a service-sector employee usually has no guarantee of, or legal right to, a tip. Instead, the amount of a tip usually depends on how well an employee satisfies a client. Since the amount of taxes one pays increases along with the size of tip, taxing tips punishes workers for doing a superior job! Many service-sector employers are young people trying to make money to pay for their education, or single parents struggling to provide for their children. Oftentimes, these workers work two jobs in hopes of making a better life for themselves and their families. The Tax Free Tips Act gives these hard-working Americans an immediate pay raise. People may use this pay raise to devote more resources to their children's, or their own, education, or to save for a home, retirement, or to start their own businesses. Helping Americans improve themselves by reducing their taxes will make our country stronger. I, therefore, hope all my colleges will join me in cosponsoring the Tax Free Tips Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution because I don't believe the bailouts can work, and more spending isn't the answer. Actually, we should have talked more about prevention of a problem like we have today than trying to deal with the financial cancer that we are dealing with. But the prevention could have come many decades ago. And many free-market economists predicted, even decades ago, that we would have a crisis like this. But those warnings were not heeded, and even in the last 10 years there have been dire warnings by people who believe in sound money and not in the inflationary system that we have that we will come to this point. Over those decades we were able to bail out to a degree and patch over and keep the financial bubble going. But today, we are in a massive deflationary crisis, and we only have two choices. One is to continue to do what we are doing: inflate more, spend more, and run up more deficits. But it doesn't seem to be working because it won't work because the confidence has been lost. The confidence in the post- Bretton Woods system of the dollar fiat standard, it is gone. This whole effort to refinance in this manner just won't work. Now, the other option is to allow the deflation to occur, allow the liquidation of bad debt and to allow the removal of all of the bad investments; but that politically is unacceptable, so we are really in a dilemma because nobody can take a hands-off position. Politicians have to feel relevant. And, therefore, they have to do something. But there is no evidence that this is going to work. Now we hear that there is a proposal, and we read about it in the paper, and I don't know who came up with this, but it is the idea of having a bad bank. Let us create a government bad bank, and this bad bank is to take the bad debt from the bad bankers and dump these assets onto the good citizens. Well, I think that is a very bad idea. I mean, it doesn't make any sense for the innocent American citizen to bear the burden. But others will say no, we will bail out the citizens as well. But ultimately, it is the little guy that loses on this. The bankers got $350 billion, and we can't account for it and their assets don't look that much better, and yet the American people are still suffering. It didn't create any more new jobs. The attempt now will be maybe to redirect this. But, unfortunately, it will not be any more successful. The fallacy here is we are trying to keep prices high when prices should come down. What do we have against poor people? Lower the price of houses, get them down. A $100,000 house, get them down to $20,000. Let a poor person buy these houses. That is what we want. But this is a remnant of the philosophy of the 1930s when it was thought we were in trouble because the farmers weren't getting enough money for their crops. So people were starving in the streets, and guess what the policy was that came out of Washington: plow under the crops and then maybe the prices will go up. Diminish the supply, and it will solve our problem. It didn't work then, it won't work today.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, it has been said, and all too often ignored, if you live beyond your means, you will be forced to live beneath your means. Living and consuming on borrowed money always end. Lenders, even in an age of inflation, have their limits. When living extravagantly, it seems the good times will continue forever, but when the bills come due and the debt, with interest, needs to be paid, the good times end. The fiction that the appreciating prices of houses and stocks and other assets serve as savings is always self-limited and ends with pain. Without a source of newly borrowed funds, once the value of stocks and houses depreciates, the individual comes to the realization that hard work and effort are required to produce sustained wealth. Working minimally is replaced with working maximally to survive, as well as to pay for the extravagance of previous years. The consequence is more work and a diminished standard of living. A nation that has lived beyond its means for a long period of time must go through a similar process. Once the national debt grows to an extreme proportion, as ours has, there is no possibility of it being paid off in the conventional sense. Default and liquidation are required, but sovereign states that enjoy the ruthless power to tax and create new money always resort to paying their pays by deliberately depreciating the currency. This makes it hard to identify the victims and the beneficiaries. Today's middle class and poor are suffering and the elite are being bailed out, and all the while the Federal Reserve refuses to tell the Congress exactly who has benefitted by its largesse. The beneficial corrections that come with a recession, of debt liquidation and removing the malinvestment, are delayed by government bailouts. This strategy proved in the late 1930s to transform a recession into a Great Depression and will surely do so again. We have become the greatest debtor nation in the world. The borrowed money was not used to build our industries but was used mainly for consumption. The fact that the world trusted the dollar as the reserve currency significantly contributed to the imbalances of the world financial system. The fiat dollar standard that evolved after the breakdown of Bretton Woods in 1971 has ended. This is a consequence of our privileged position of living way beyond our means for too many years. At present, all efforts worldwide are directed toward salvaging a financial system that cannot be revived. The only tool the economic planners have is the creation of trillions of dollars of new money out of thin air. All this does is delay the inevitable and magnify the future danger. Central bank cooperation in the scheme will not make it work. Pretending the dollar is maintaining real value by manipulating the price of gold--the historic mechanism for measuring a currency's value--will work no better than the effort of the 1960s to keep gold at $35 an ounce. Nevertheless, Bretton Woods failed in 1971, as was predicted by the free market economists, despite these efforts. This crisis we're in is destined to get much worse because the real cause is not acknowledged. Not only are the corrections delayed and distorted, additional problems are yet to be dealt with--the commercial property bubble, the insolvent retirement funds, both private and public, state finances, and the university trust funds. For all these problems, only massive currency inflation is offered by the Fed. The real concern ought to be for a dollar crisis, which will come if we don't change our ways. Even massive bailouts cannot work. If they did, no person in the United States would ever have to work again. We need to wake up and recognize the importance of sound money. We need to reintroduce the work ethic. We must once again cherish savings over consumption. We must recognize that an overextended foreign policy has been the downfall of all great nations. And, above all else, we need to simply believe once again in the free society that made America great.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Although I recognize the chairman of the committee's points that this literally is not the appropriation, I rise in opposition to the bill, but I do want to speak out against this whole process of what we are trying to do with the bailout, not only this time but the time before. It is a system that has brought this country to its knees, and I think we haven't recognized what the cause has been, and therefore, we're not looking at this problem in the proper manner in order to solve the problem. There has been a lot of money involved and a lot of money spent. There have been appropriations that we've made here in the Congress as well as the trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve has used to try to bail out the financial industry, and nothing seems to be working. I think it's mainly because we haven't recognized nor have we admitted that excessive spending can cause financial problems. Excessive debt can cause some problems. Inflation--that is, the creation of new money and credit out of thin air--can cause a lot of problems, and we've been doing it for decades. It was predictable. It was not a surprise that we got ourselves into a financial mess because of a system that is deeply flawed. So what do we have? What have we been doing now for the last 6 months to a year? We have been spending more. We have been running up debt like we've never run up debt before, and we're printing money like we never have before. We think that is going to solve the problem. That literally has been the cause: too much spending, too much borrowing and too much inflation. I do want to address the subject more specifically about moral hazard and why the system was so deeply flawed. That is, when a Federal Reserve system and a central bank create easy money and easy credit and they have interest rates lower than they should be, businesspeople do the wrong things. They make mistakes. It's called malinvestments, and we've been doing it for a long time. It causes financial bubbles, and they have to be corrected. Actually, the recession is therapy for all of the mistakes, but the mistakes come, basically, from a Federal Reserve system that's causing too many people to make mistakes. It causes savers to make mistakes. Interest rates are lower than they should be, so they don't save. In capitalism, capital comes from savings, but for decades now, capital has come from the printing press, and nobody has saved. That contributes to what we call ``moral hazard'' as well as the system of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac system. It always had a line of credit. It never had to use it, but the assumption was, if we ever got into any trouble, the Treasury would be there, and the Federal Reserve would back them up. That existed for a long time, causing specifically the housing bubble to develop. Then we subsidized the insurance. The government-subsidized insurance program further promoted the principle of moral hazard--people doing things, spending money and investing in the incorrect way. Then with the assumption that we're all going to be bailed out, which we're endorsing by bailing everybody out, people say, ``Well, no sweat because, if there is a mistake, the government will come to our rescue.'' That's part of the system of the FDIC. Now, nobody can conceive of the notion that we could live without an FDIC, but the truth is that a private FDIC would never permit this massive malinvestment. There would be regulations done in the marketplace, and there would not be this distortion that we've ended up with. So this bill actually makes it permanent that the insurance will be $250,000 per depositor. Now you say, on the short run, that's pretty good because that conveys confidence to the system because at least we know that our deposits are secure. This is true. It helps in the short run, and generally, this is the way we work here. We always say, On the short run, this is going to be a benefit. On the short run, the bailout will help. On the short run, we will do ``this.'' Actually, on the short run, there is a great deal of harm that's done. As a matter of fact, today, the long run is here.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the We the People Act. The We the People Act forbids federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from adjudicating cases concerning State laws and polices relating to religious liberties or ``privacy,'' including cases involving sexual practices, sexual orientation or reproduction. The We the People Act also protects the traditional definition of marriage from judicial activism by ensuring the Supreme Court cannot abuse the equal protection clause to redefine marriage. In order to hold Federal judges accountable for abusing their powers, the act also provides that a judge who violates the act's limitations on judicial power shall either be impeached by Congress or removed by the President, according to rules established by the Congress. The United States Constitution gives Congress the authority to establish and limit the jurisdiction of the lower Federal courts and limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The Founders intended Congress to use this authority to correct abuses of power by the Federal judiciary. Some may claim that an activist judiciary that strikes down State laws at will expands individual liberty. Proponents of this claim overlook the fact that the best guarantor of true liberty is decentralized political institutions, while the greatest threat to liberty is concentrated power. This is why the Constitution carefully limits the power of the Federal Government over the States. In recent years, we have seen numerous abuses of power by Federal courts. Federal judges regularly strike down State and local laws on subjects such as religious liberty, sexual orientation, family relations, education, and abortion. This government by Federal judiciary causes a virtual nullification of the Tenth Amendment's limitations on Federal power. Furthermore, when Federal judges impose their preferred polices on State and local governments, instead of respecting the polices adopted by those elected by, and thus accountable to, the people, republican government is threatened. Article IV, section 4 of the United States Constitution guarantees each State a republican form of government. Thus, Congress must act when the executive or judicial branch threatens the republican governments of the individual States. Therefore, Congress has a responsibility to stop Federal judges from running roughshod over State and local laws. The Founders would certainly have supported congressional action to reign in Federal judges who tell citizens where they can and can't place manger scenes at Christmas. Madam Speaker, even some supporters of liberalized abortion laws have admitted that the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which overturned the abortion laws of all 50 States, is flawed. The Supreme Court's establishment clause jurisdiction has also drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Perhaps more importantly, attempts to resolve, by judicial fiat, important issues like abortion and the expression of religious belief in the public square increase social strife and conflict. The only way to resolve controversial social issues like abortion and school prayer is to restore respect for the right of State and local governments to adopt polices that reflect the beliefs of the citizens of those jurisdictions. I would remind my colleagues and the Federal judiciary that, under our constitutional system, there is no reason why the people of New York and the people of Texas should have the same policies regarding issues such as marriage and school prayer. Unless Congress acts, a State's authority to define and regulate marriage may be the next victim of activist judges. After all, such a decision would simply take the Supreme Court's decision in the Lawrence case, which overturned all State sodomy laws, to its logical conclusion. Congress must launch a preemptive strike against any further Federal usurpation of the States' authority to regulate marriage by removing issues concerning the definition of marriage from the jurisdiction of Federal courts. Although marriage is licensed and otherwise regulated by the States, government did not create the institution of marriage. Government regulation of marriage is based on State recognition of the practices and customs formulated by private individuals interacting in civil institutions, such as churches and synagogues. Having Federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty. It is long past time that Congress exercises its authority to protect the republican government of the States from out-of-control Federal judges. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to cosponsor the We the People Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution, not because I am taking sides and picking who the bad guys are and who the good guys are, but I'm looking at this more from the angle of being a United States citizen, an American, and I think resolutions like this really do great harm to us. In many ways what is happening in the Middle East, and in particular with Gaza right now, we have some moral responsibility for both sides, because we provide help in funding for both Arab nations and Israel. And so we definitely have a moral responsibility. And especially now today, the weapons being used to kill so many Palestinians are American weapons and American funds essentially are being used for this. But there is a political liability which I think is something that we fail to look at because too often there is so much blowback from our intervention in areas that we shouldn't be involved in. Hamas, if you look at the history, you will find that Hamas was encouraged and actually started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasir Arafat. You say, Well, yeah, it was better then and served its purpose, but we didn't want Hamas to do this. So then we, as Americans, say, Well, we have such a good system; we're going to impose this on the world. We're going to invade Iraq and teach people how to be democrats. We want free elections. So we encouraged the Palestinians to have a free election. They do, and they elect Hamas. So we first, indirectly and directly through Israel, helped establish Hamas. Then we have an election where Hamas becomes dominant then we have to kill them. It just doesn't make sense. During the 1980s, we were allied with Osama bin Laden and we were contending with the Soviets. It was at that time our CIA thought it was good if we radicalize the Muslim world. So we finance the Madrassas school to radicalize the Muslims in order to compete with the Soviets. There is too much blowback. There are a lot of reasons why we should oppose this resolution. It's not in the interest of the United States, it is not in the interest of Israel either. I strongly oppose H. Res. 34, which was rushed to the floor with almost no prior notice and without consideration by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The resolution clearly takes one side in a conflict that has nothing to do with the United States or U.S. interests. I am concerned that the weapons currently being used by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza are made in America and paid for by American taxpayers. What will adopting this resolution do to the perception of the United States in the Muslim and Arab world? What kind of blowback might we see from this? What moral responsibility do we have for the violence in Israel and Gaza after having provided so much military support to one side? As an opponent of all violence, I am appalled by the practice of lobbing homemade rockets into Israel from Gaza. I am only grateful that, because of the primitive nature of these weapons, there have been so few casualties among innocent Israelis. But I am also appalled by the longstanding Israeli blockade of Gaza--a cruel act of war--and the tremendous loss of life that has resulted from the latest Israeli attack that started last month. There are now an estimated 700 dead Palestinians, most of whom are civilians. Many innocent children are among the dead. While the shooting of rockets into Israel is inexcusable, the violent actions of some people in Gaza does not justify killing Palestinians on this scale. Such collective punishment is immoral. At the very least, the U.S. Congress should not be loudly proclaiming its support for the Israeli government's actions in Gaza. Madam Speaker, this resolution will do nothing to reduce the fighting and bloodshed in the Middle East. The resolution in fact will lead the U.S. to become further involved in this conflict, promising ``vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.'' Is it really in the interest of the United States to guarantee the survival of any foreign country? I believe it would be better to focus on the security and survival of the United States, the Constitution of which my colleagues and I swore to defend just this week at the beginning of the 111th Congress. I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, today I am pleased to introduce two pieces of legislation to reduce taxes on senior citizens. The first bill, the Social Security Beneficiary Tax Reduction Act, repeals the 1993 tax increase on Social Security benefits. Repealing this increase on Social Security benefits is a good first step toward reducing the burden imposed by the federal government on senior citizens. However, imposing any tax on Social Security benefits is unfair and illogical. This is why I am also introducing the Senior Citizens' Tax Elimination Act, which repeals all taxes on Social Security benefits. Since Social Security benefits are financed with tax dollars, taxing these benefits is yet another example of double taxation. Furthermore, ``taxing'' benefits paid by the government is merely an accounting trick, a shell game which allows members of Congress to reduce benefits by subterfuge. This allows Congress to continue using the Social Security trust fund as a means of financing other government programs, and masks the true size of the federal deficit. Instead of imposing ridiculous taxes on senior citizens, Congress should ensure the integrity of the Social Security trust fund by ending the practice of using trust fund monies for other programs. This is why I am also introducing the Social Security Preservation Act, which ensures that all money in the Social Security trust fund is spent solely on Social Security. At a time when Congress' inability to control spending continues to threaten the Social Security trust fund, the need for this legislation has never been greater. When the government taxes Americans to fund Social Security, it promises the American people that the money will be there for them when they retire. Congress has a moral obligation to keep that promise. In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to help free senior citizens from oppressive taxation by supporting my Senior Citizens' Tax Elimination Act and my Social Security Beneficiary Tax Reduction Act. I also urge my colleagues to ensure that moneys from the Social Security trust fund are used solely for Social Security benefits and not wasted on frivolous government programs.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, today I introduce the Social Security for American Citizens Only Act. This act forbids the federal government from providing Social Security benefits to noncitizens. It also ends the practice of totalization. Totalization is where the Social Security Administration takes into account the number of years an individual worked abroad, and thus was not paying payroll taxes, in determining that individual's eligibility for Social Security benefits! Hard as it may be to believe, the United States Government already provides Social Security benefits to citizens of 17 other countries. Under current law, citizens of those countries covered by these agreements may have an easier time getting Social Security benefits than public school teachers or policemen! Obviously, this program provides a threat to the already fragile Social Security system, and the threat is looming larger. The prior administration actually proposed a totalization agreement that would have allowed thousands of foreigners to qualify for U.S. Social Security benefits even thought they came to, and worked in, the United States illegally. Adding insult to injury, this proposal could have allowed the federal government to give Social Security benefits to non- citizens who worked here for as little as 18 months. Estimates of what this totalization proposal would cost top one billion dollars per year. Despite a major public outcry against extending Social Security benefits to those who entered this country illegally, a version of this proposal actually passed the other body in the 109th Congress. That the executive branch would propose, and part of the legislative branch would endorse, using social security monies to reward to those who have willingly and knowingly violated our own immigration laws is an insult to the millions of Americans who pay their entire working lives into the system and now face the possibility that there may be nothing left when it is their turn to retire. While the new administration has yet to take a public position on totalization, and hopefully will be more reasonable on this issue than its predecessor, it is still imperative that Congress act. Even if the new administration repudiates all proposals to allow those who entered the county illegally to receive social security benefits, the only way to guarantee a future administration will not revive this scheme is for Congress to put an end to totalization once and for all. I therefore call upon my colleagues to stop the use of the Social Security Trust Fund as yet another vehicle for foreign aid by cosponsoring the Social Security for American Citizens Only Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Seniors' Health Care Freedom Act. This act protects seniors' fundamental right to make their own health care decisions by repealing federal laws that interfere with seniors' ability to form private contracts for medical services. This bill also repeals laws which force seniors into the Medicare program against their will. When Medicare was first established, seniors were promised that the program would be voluntary. In fact, the original Medicare legislation explicitly protected a senior's right to seek out other forms of medical insurance. However, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 prohibits any physician who forms a private contract with a senior from filing any Medicare reimbursement claims for two years. As a practical matter, this means that seniors cannot form private contracts for health care services. Seniors may wish to use their own resources to pay for procedures or treatments not covered by Medicare, or to simply avoid the bureaucracy and uncertainly that comes when seniors must wait for the judgment of a Center from Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) bureaucrat before finding out if a desired treatment is covered. Seniors' right to control their own health care is also being denied due to the Social Security Administration's refusal to give seniors who object to enrolling Medicare Part A Social Security benefits. This not only distorts the intent of the creators of the Medicare system; it also violates the promise represented by Social Security. Americans pay taxes into the Social Security Trust Fund their whole working lives and are promised that Social Security will be there for them when they retire. Yet, today, seniors are told that they cannot receive these benefits unless they agree to join an additional government program! At a time when the fiscal solvency of Medicare is questionable, to say the least, it seems foolish to waste scarce Medicare funds on those who would prefer to do without Medicare. Allowing seniors who neither want nor need to participate in the program to refrain from doing so will also strengthen the Medicare program for those seniors who do wish to participate in it. Of course, my bill does not take away Medicare benefits from any senior. It simply allows each senior to choose voluntarily whether or not to accept Medicare benefits or to use his own resources to obtain health care. Forcing seniors into government programs and restricting their ability to seek medical care free from government interference infringes on the freedom of seniors to control their own resources and make their own health care decisions. A woman who was forced into Medicare against her wishes summed it up best in a letter to my office, ``. . . I should be able to choose the medical arrangements I prefer without suffering the penalty that is being imposed.'' I urge my colleagues to protect the right of seniors to make the medical arrangements that best suit their own needs by cosponsoring the Seniors' Health Care Freedom Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to protect the integrity of the Social Security trust fund by introducing the Social Security Preservation Act. The Social Security Preservation Act is a rather simple bill which states that all moneys raised by the Social Security trust fund will be spent in payments to beneficiaries, with excess receipts invested in interest-bearing certificates of deposit. This will help keep Social Security trust fund moneys from being diverted to other programs, as well as allow the fund to grow by providing for investment in interest-bearing instruments. The Social Security Preservation Act ensures that the government will keep its promises to America's seniors that taxes collected for Social Security will be used for Social Security. When the government taxes Americans to fund Social Security, it promises the American people that the money will be there for them when they retire. Congress has a moral obligation to keep that promise. With federal deficits reaching historic levels, and with new demands being made on the U.S. Treasury on an almost weekly basis, the pressure from special interests for massive new raids on the trust fund is greater than ever. Thus it is vital that Congress act now to protect the trust fund from big spending, pork-barrel politics. As a medical doctor, I know the first step in treatment is to stop the bleeding, and the Social Security Preservation Act stops the bleeding of the Social Security trust fund. I therefore call upon all my colleagues, regardless of which proposal for long-term Social Security reform they support, to stand up for America's seniors by cosponsoring the Social Security Preservation Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Prescription Drug Affordability Act. This legislation ensures that millions of Americans, including seniors, have access to affordable pharmaceutical products. My bill makes pharmaceuticals more affordable to seniors by reducing their taxes. It also removes needless government barriers to importing pharmaceuticals and it protects Internet pharmacies, which are making affordable prescription drugs available to millions of Americans, from being strangled by federal regulation. The first provision of my legislation provides seniors a tax credit equal to 80 percent of their prescription drug costs. While Congress did add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 2003, many seniors still have difficulty affording the prescription drugs they need in order to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. One reason is because the new program creates a ``doughnut hole,'' where seniors lose coverage once their prescription expenses reach a certain amount and must pay for their prescriptions above a certain amount out of their own pockets until their expenses reach a level where Medicare coverage resumes. This tax credit will help seniors cover the expenses provided by the doughnut hole. This bill will also help seniors obtain prescription medicines that may not be covered by the Medicare prescription drug program. In addition to making prescription medications more affordable for seniors, my bill lowers the price for prescription medicines by reducing barriers to the importation of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. Under my bill, anyone wishing to import a drug simply submits an application to the FDA, which then must approve the drug unless the FDA finds the drug is either not approved for use in the U.S. or is adulterated or misbranded. This process will make safe and affordable imported medicines affordable to millions of Americans. Madam Speaker, letting the free market work is the best means of lowering the cost of prescription drugs. I need not remind my colleagues that many senior citizens and other Americans impacted by the high costs of prescription medicine have demanded Congress reduce the barriers which prevent American consumers from purchasing imported pharmaceuticals. Congress has responded to these demands by repeatedly passing legislation liberalizing the rules governing the importation of pharmaceuticals. However, implementation of this provision has been blocked by the federal bureaucracy. It is time Congress stood up for the American consumer and removed all unnecessary regulations on importing pharmaceuticals. The Prescription Drug Affordability Act also protects consumers' access to affordable medicine by forbidding the Federal Government from regulating any Internet sales of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals by state- licensed pharmacists. As I am sure my colleagues are aware, the Internet makes pharmaceuticals and other products more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans. However, the Federal Government has threatened to destroy this option by imposing unnecessary and unconstitutional regulations on Web sites that sell pharmaceuticals. Any federal regulations would inevitably drive up prices of pharmaceuticals, thus depriving many consumers of access to affordable prescription medications. In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to make pharmaceuticals more affordable and accessible by lowering taxes on senior citizens, removing barriers to the importation of pharmaceuticals and protecting legitimate Internet pharmacies from needless regulation by cosponsoring the Prescription Drug Affordability Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, today I introduce the Identity Theft Prevention Act. This act protects the American people from government- mandated uniform identifiers that facilitate private crime as well as the abuse of liberty. The major provision of the Identity Theft Prevention Act halts the practice of using the Social Security number as an identifier by requiring the Social Security Administration to issue all Americans new Social Security numbers within 5 years after the enactment of the bill. These new numbers will be the sole legal property of the recipient, and the Social Security Administration shall be forbidden to divulge the numbers for any purposes not related to Social Security Administration. Social Security numbers issued before implementation of this bill shall no longer be considered valid federal identifiers. Of course, the Social Security Administration shall be able to use an individual's original Social Security number to ensure efficient administration of the Social Security system. Madam Speaker, Congress has a moral responsibility to address this problem because it was Congress that transformed the Social Security number into a national identifier. Thanks to Congress, today no American can get a job, open a bank account, get a professional license, or even get a driver's license without presenting his Social Security number. So widespread has the use of the Social Security number become that a member of my staff had to produce a Social Security number in order to get a fishing license! One of the most disturbing abuses of the Social Security number is the congressionally-authorized rule forcing parents to get a Social Security number for their newborn children in order to claim the children as dependents. Forcing parents to register their children with the state is more like something out of the nightmares of George Orwell than the dreams of a free republic that inspired this Nation's founders. Congressionally-mandated use of the Social Security number as an identifier facilitates the horrendous crime of identity theft. Thanks to Congress, an unscrupulous person may simply obtain someone's Social Security number in order to access that person's bank accounts, credit cards, and other financial assets. Many Americans have lost their life savings and had their credit destroyed as a result of identity theft. Yet the federal government continues to encourage such crimes by mandating use of the Social Security number as a uniform ID! This act also forbids the federal government from creating national ID cards or establishing any identifiers for the purpose of investigating, monitoring, overseeing, or regulating private transactions among American citizens. In 2005, this body established a de facto national ID card with a provisions buried in the ``intelligence'' reform bill mandating federal standards for drivers' licenses, and mandating that federal agents only accept a license that conforms to these standards as a valid ID. Nationalizing standards for drivers' licenses and birth certificates creates a national ID system pure and simple. Proponents of this scheme claim they are merely creating new standards for existing State IDs. However, imposing federal standards in a federal bill creates a federalized ID regardless of whether the ID itself is still stamped with the name of your State. The national ID will be used to track the movements of American citizens, not just terrorists. Subjecting every citizen to surveillance diverts resources away from tracking and apprehending terrorists in favor of needless snooping on innocent Americans. This is what happened with ``suspicious activity reports'' required by the Bank Secrecy Act. Thanks to BSA mandates, federal officials are forced to waste countless hours snooping through the private financial transactions of innocent Americans merely because those transactions exceeded $10,000. Turning State-issued drivers licenses into federally controlled national ID cards is yet another federal usurpation of State authority and another costly unfunded mandate imposed on the States. According to a report issued by the National Conference of State Legislators, turning drivers licenses into national ID cards will cost the States more than $11 billion. Madam Speaker, no wonder there is a groundswell of opposition to this mandate. Several State legislatures have even passed laws forbidding their States from complying with this mandate! The Identity Theft Prevention Act not only repeals those sections of the federal law creating a national ID, it forbids the federal government from using federal funds to blackmail States into adopting uniform federal identifiers. Passing the Identity Theft Prevention Act is thus an excellent way for this Congress to show renewed commitment to federalism and opposition to imposing unfunded mandates on the States. This legislation not only repeals those sections of federal law creating the national ID, it also repeals those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier--an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient's ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctors will be placed in a government accessible database? By putting an end to government-mandated uniform IDs, the Identity Theft Prevention Act will prevent millions of Americans from having their liberty, property, and privacy violated by private and public sector criminals. Some members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that, in a constitutional republic, the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the jobs of government officials easier. We are here to protect the freedom of the American people, not to make privacy invasion more efficient. Madam Speaker, while I do not question the sincerity of those members who suggest that Congress can ensure that citizens' rights are protected through legislation restricting access to personal information, the only effective privacy protection is to forbid the federal government from mandating national identifiers. Legislative ``privacy protections'' are inadequate to protect the liberty of Americans for a couple of reasons. First, it is simply common sense that repealing those federal laws that promote identity theft is more effective in protecting the public than expanding the power of the federal police force. Federal punishment of identity thieves provides cold comfort to those who have suffered financial losses and the destruction of their good reputations as a result of identity theft. Federal laws are not only ineffective in stopping, private criminals, but these laws have not even stopped unscrupulous government officials from accessing personal information. After all, laws purporting to restrict the use of personal information did not stop the well- publicized violations of privacy by IRS officials or the FBI abuses of the Clinton and Nixon administrations. In one of the most infamous cases of identity theft, thousands of active-duty soldiers and veterans had their personal information stolen, putting them at risk of identity theft. Imagine the dangers if thieves are able to obtain the universal identifier, and other personal information, of millions of Americans simply by breaking, or hacking, into one government facility or one government database? Second, the federal government has been creating proprietary interests in private information for certain state-favored special interests. Perhaps the most outrageous example of phony privacy protection is the ``medical privacy''' regulation, that allows medical researchers, certain business interests, and law enforcement officials access to health care information, in complete disregard of the Fifth Amendment and the wishes of individual patients! Obviously, ``privacy protection'' laws have proven greatly inadequate to protect personal information when the government is the one seeking the information. Any action short of repealing laws authorizing privacy violations is insufficient primarily because the federal government lacks constitutional authority to force citizens to adopt a universal identifier for health care, employment, or any other reason. Any federal action that oversteps constitutional limitations violates liberty because it ratifies the principle that the federal government, not the Constitution, is the ultimate judge of its own jurisdiction over the people. The only effective protection of the rights of citizens is for Congress to follow Thomas Jefferson's advice and ``bind (the federal government) down with the chains of the Constitution.'' Madam Speaker, those members who are not persuaded by the moral and constitutional reasons for embracing the Identity Theft Prevention Act should consider the American people's opposition to national identifiers. The numerous complaints over the ever-growing uses of the Social Security number show that Americans want Congress to stop invading their privacy. Furthermore, according to a survey by the Gallup company, 91 percent of the American people oppose forcing Americans to obtain a universal health ID. In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I once again call on my colleagues to join me in putting an end to the federal government's unconstitutional use of national identifiers to monitor the actions of private citizens. National identifiers threaten all Americans by exposing them to the threat of identity theft by private criminals and abuse of their liberties by public criminals, while diverting valuable law enforcement resources away from addressing real threats to public safety. In addition, national identifiers are incompatible with a limited, constitutional government. I, therefore, hope my colleagues will join my efforts to protect the freedom of their constituents by supporting the Identity Theft Prevention Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying legislation. It doesn't take a whole lot to convince me that we are on the wrong track with this type of legislation. And at great risk of being marginalized, I want to bring up a couple of issues. One is that if one were to look for guidance in the Constitution, there's no evidence that we have the authority to take funds from one group of Americans and transfer it to another group who happen to need something. And the moral argument is it's not right to do so. Why should successful Americans be obligated to take care of those who have made mistakes? But those two arguments in this Chamber are rather weak arguments, so I will try to talk a little bit about economics. I think what we're doing here today and what we've done here for the last week has been, essentially, a distraction. We're talking about transferring funds around, $15 billion that's been authorized. It's been designated to do some other interventions that were unnecessary in the car industry. And in a way, this legislation probably could have been done by unanimous consent, but there's been a lot of talk and a lot of publicity and a lot of arguments going back and forth about the bailout for the car companies; and it is, of course, very important. But in the scheme of things, you know, what's $15 billion mean anymore, especially since it's been authorized? The big thing is the big bailout, the $8 trillion, the unlimited amount the Federal Reserve has invested and what we've been doing for the past 6 months. We are on the road to nationalization. In many ways, we're in the midst of nationalization without a whimper. There is no real talk about it. I mean, we've essentially nationalized the insurance companies, the mortgage companies, the banks, and medical care is moving in that direction, and now the car companies are going to be run by a car czar from this Congress. I mean, it is such an embarrassment. It is such an insult to us who believe in freedom, who believe in sound money and who believe in limited government. It is such an insult to the whole idea of what made America great, and this is what it has come to--bailout after bailout after bailout--and nobody even calls it what it really is. It is the nationalization of our industries. You know, in many ways, Harry Truman was a much more honest person. He said we should nationalize the steel industry, and he did. Fortunately, we still had a little bit of common sense in our courts, and they said ``Hey, you're going too far.'' That's what we're doing here. We're nationalizing. It happens always for good purposes, and we are always going to do good for this group, or that, but you never ask the question ``How much harm have you done to the other group?'' and that's what we ought to be talking about. We ought to really find out what this is costing. As much as I strongly believe in the free society--and I can defend it from the economic viewpoints--I also know where we are and where we ought to go.

Mr. PAUL. I do believe in the transition. That is, if we need a bailout for the car companies, even though I don't like the idea, if you could pay for it, take it out of these hundreds of billions of dollars running the American empire around the world. Cut it; bring it home and spend it here, but running up of these deficits is going to do us in, and we are working on the collapse of the dollar. That is what you'd better pay attention to. So pay attention. This is a lot more important than this little $15 billion. To me, it has been a gross distraction of the great harm we've done in the past 6 months.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But I am concerned that we are narrowed down on a problem of the car industry, which is a significant problem, but we are dealing with $15 billion here. But if you look at the grand problem we have, it is much, much bigger, and it seems like we don't pay much attention to it. The problems that we are facing today and the problems that we have been trying to solve in these last 6 months were predictable. It had been building for a good many years. We can date it back to 1971. We have had a financial bubble building, so there were many who predicted that the climax would be exactly as we are witnessing. But we don't seem to want to go back and find out how financial bubbles form and why they burst. Instead, we just carry on doing the same old thing and never look back. We spend more money, we run up more debt, we print more money, and we think that is going to solve the problem that was created by spending too much money, running up debt, printing too much money. And here we are today, we are talking about tinkering on the edges without dealing with the big problem. The Federal Reserve has literally created over $2 trillion here in the last several months, at least in obligations, and that is outside the realm of the Congress. We don't even audit the Federal Reserve. They create this money, and when the Fed Chairman comes before our committee and we ask, well, where did you dispose of this $2 trillion that you have created recently, he says well, it is not your business. That is not necessary. Under the law, he doesn't even have to tell us. So this is how out of control our problem is. Sure, there is a lot of debt in the economy, and once a government or a corporation gets an excessive amount of debt, it is never paid for. So, yes, we can transfer the debt to others. We are dealing with only finding victims. We cannot get rid of the debt, whether it is our national debt or whether it is corporate debt, but we have to put it on somebody else. We need to look at the cause of these bubbles, and it has to do with monetary policy and the Federal Reserve system. Mr. Speaker, no one can deny that Congress bears much culpability for the current condition of the United States auto industry, and therefore Congress should act to help that industry. We should be repealing costly regulations we have imposed on domestic auto manufactures. Congress should also be considering legislation like H.R. 7273 and H.R. 7278, which reduces taxes on American consumers to make it easier for them to purchase American automobiles. Unfortunately, instead of repealing regulations and cutting taxes, Congress is nationalizing the automakers by giving them access to $14 billion of taxpayer funds in return for giving the federal government control over the management of these firms. Mr. Speaker, the federal government has neither the competence nor the constitutional authority to tell private companies, such as automakers, how to run their businesses. Yet, the bailout proposal forces automobile manufacturers to submit their business plans for the approval of a federal ``car czar.'' This czar will not only have the authority to approve the automakers' restructuring plan, but will also monitor implementation of the plans. The czar will also be able to stop transactions that are ``inconsistent with the companies' long-term viability.'' Of course, the czar has the sole authority to determine what transactions are ``inconsistent with the companies' long-term viability.'' I would have thought that failed experiments with central planning and government control of business that wrought so much harm in the last century would have taught my colleagues the folly of making businesses obey politicians and bureaucrats instead of heeding the wishes of consumers, employees, and stockholders. The alternative proposal is less costly to the taxpayer; therefore I will vote for it if offered as a motion to recommit. However, I am troubled that the proposal endorses the notion that the federal government should play both a financial and managerial role in restoring the American automobile industry. Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that we are not given a chance to vote for a true free-market approach; instead we are asked to choose between two types of government interference with the market. Providing this $14 billion in loan guarantees will contribute to the already fragile economy by increasing the federal debt and thus creating either increased inflation or increased taxes. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to consider how many businesses will not be started, jobs will not be created, and consumer desires will remain unfulfilled because the resources to start those business and create those jobs were taken from the private sector for the auto bailout. I urge my colleagues to reject this unconstitutional bill that will further the growth of government and damage the American economy. Instead, Congress should help the American auto industry, and all American business, by cutting taxes and regulations.