David Schweikert

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Speaker, I come to this with a somewhat unique view, because I was actually there 19 years ago as the majority whip in the Arizona State House when this was originally being negotiated. I sat in the room hour after hour after hour for months with many of these Native American communities and these very discussions about what would happen in this type of scenario and assurances that were given to those of us who were in the legislature who were having to make the decision that this would never happen. And I've listened to a little bit of this testimony, even from my good friend here from California, and the facts don't line up. First off, in the gaming agreements, in the compacts, there's the language about the distance from the base aboriginal territories and how far things could move away from that. This is outside that. The jobs numbers are an absolute fantasy for the construction. And I think Mr. Franks actually went over that in his discussion earlier. But why do I stand here so passionately supporting Trent's bill? If this happens, it's going to destroy the nature of my State because, understand, the compacts go kaboom, the cascade begins. And this isn't just for Arizona. It will be all over the country. I promise you, in a few years you will wake up and my State will be a statewide gaming State. And then when this becomes precedent, understand, all your States are now in play. This is more than just us having a dispute with the Tohono O'odhams. That isn't what this is about. This is about keeping the promises that were made for many of us who were embattled in building these compacts years ago. Let's have everyone keep their promise, and let's keep the deal we made.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. This is one of the moments where you get to stand up behind the microphone, and being from Arizona, embrace the irony. Think of this. This Federal Government sues my State for actually enforcing the Federal immigration law. But yet in this particular case, in this amendment, as my friend here was just pointing out, we hand money to communities that are walking away from enforcing the very law. Does anyone see the irony of: You sue us for doing it, but yet we reward municipalities for becoming a sanctuary city and not living up to their obligations.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. This is actually an interesting debate from an economic standpoint. Being from the desert, where we actually really, really care about our water supply, we've learned something. I'm one of those people who lives in a house with rock landscaping and low water this and low water landscaping, but I do like to get wet in my shower, as we've already stated. If you want to deal with water usage, basic economics says you do it through the pricing mechanism, not through trying to manage my life with a bunch of laws. Madam Chairwoman, I stand in front of you and hope this amendment passes because, in many ways, I think this is a great example of what drives the American voters, the American people mad in that we try to micromanage every aspect of their lives, and we turn huge numbers of them functionally into criminals. I would love to do an honest survey through this body of how many people have done any remodeling or who have put up a new showerhead and who have not monkeyed with that flow restrictor that's inside that showerhead. Ultimately, I appreciate that in 1992 this somehow passed through this body. Maybe it was meant to help, and maybe it was meant to have all sorts of good purposes, but this is not the rational methodology with which to promote that type of water conservation. Then when you turn the Department of Energy into a police force that actually now sets standards of--if I can exceed 8 pounds of force, then all of a sudden it's perfectly legal, but if it's under 8 pounds of force in removing the water restrictor, then I get a $447,000 fine, as my constituent received here. With that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, this is one of those sort of occasions I'm going to refer to this almost as the law of unintended consequences. About 6 months ago, I was visiting one of my favorite places in life, a Starbucks in Scottsdale, and a gentleman walks up to me, just bouncing off the walls, and apparently it wasn't from a bunch of espressos. He had just been given a $447,000 fine for his tiny little business that made custom shower heads, made specialty shower heads, because apparently the water restrictor ring inside was too easy to pry out. Now, I need to disclose something here, in all honesty. I've actually changed the shower heads in my house. And guess what the first thing I've always done is. I take a screwdriver and stick it in there and pull that little water-restricting ring out of there because I have this bad habit; I actually like to get wet when I shower. I know it's a novel concept, but it's something I like to do. But think of this: the Department of Energy is out there enforcing, and here's the standards they live by. If it takes more or less than 8 pounds of pressure to remove the water restrictor after they take apart the shower head, they come and fine you. But the creepy part of this story is they demanded a list of everyone who had purchased one of these shower heads. So now the Department of Energy is putting together the database of the people that bought shower heads that the water-restricting O ring inside is too easy to remove. Have we lost our minds? I'm not thrilled coming to the floor and doing a limitation amendment on something like this, but this is the type of thing the American people are absolutely livid about. And this actually affects our daily lives. With that, Madam Chairwoman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairwoman, may I inquire as to my time?

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I yield to the chairman, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. With that, Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I think you, and probably all of us in the body are noticing a theme here on many of these limitation amendments. Being someone that comes from Arizona, there's a reason we've been actually applauding many of these amendments. We feel, as a State--and now I'm realizing many other States have the same issue--we're at battle with our own Justice Department. How many times has Arizona now been sued by this Justice Department? This became one of those occasions where we understand Texas and other States are now being sued by the Justice Department because of voter ID laws. I'm tired of this, and I think the American people are tired of there being this battle between the Federal Government suing our States and costing the residents, the citizens of these States, these litigation costs. How do you stand up and create limitation? This became our opportunity to tell the Justice Department, No, go after bad guys and stop suing our State. If there is a bad act requiring an ID to vote in a State, fine. You still have private rights of action. I had a staffer in the back telling me this story. I hope I don't screw this up too much. But apparently a couple of weeks ago, there was a young man who walked into a polling place and was able to get General Holder's--our Attorney General's--ballot by just saying, Hi, I'm Eric Holder. I'm here to vote. Does anyone understand how absurdly ironic this is, when considering you can't go in and visit the Attorney General in his office without a photo ID? I can't go visit him in his office, but I can walk in and get his ballot? If you believe in the sanctity of the voting box, if you want the American people to believe in your election and be willing to accept when there are changes of power, which happens all the time, you've got to also have that faith, the faith that those elections were clean and proper, but also that those who were supposed to vote were the ones who were allowed to vote. Madam Chairman, that's why I stand here and offer this amendment. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate Lieutenant Colonel David Carroll for his twenty-five years of honorable service to our country and the United States Air Force. Our community is proud of all our men and women in uniform and it is always a great experience to see so many of them thrive and succeed in service to their country. I join the United States Air Force and wish Lt. Col. Carroll all the best in his retirement.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Reclaiming my time, yes, we actually had a whole meeting in my office with them and actually had the whole discussion about both the attractive hazard of what happens when, you know, because of this, we create the next paralyzed American, and they looked at me with their eyes and said, You know, we hadn't thought about that. And as long as that resort has that portable one, we get our need taken care of. There is that pragmatic reality.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, this is one of those moments in Congress where I swear we are almost talking about completely different things and the reality that I live in. I am blessed to represent Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the resort centers of the country. Come visit us. It's a wonderful place. About a month and a half ago, I went and visited one of the resorts right down the street from where I grew up. They have seven pools, when you count the Jacuzzis. And I am walking through the resort with the manager, who I've known since high school, and he is just looking at me with these huge eyes saying, Have they lost their minds? The first thing he points out to me is they've had a portable lift for a decade, and no one's ever asked for it. The second point he made--and he was emphatic on this--20 years ago, because of their tort liability, the insurance on their pools, they got rid of all of their diving boards. And now we're going to demand that they build fixed structures up against a Jacuzzi? I can't wait to see who is going to be standing there monitoring the beer drinking and not climbing on top of those and leaping into the Jacuzzi, using it as a swimming pool diving board. Is anyone familiar with the concept of ``attractive nuisance''? Those who oppose the amendment, are you going to also step up and say, Well, we're going to provide you tort liability when someone jumps off and ends up in horrible shape? Because 20 years ago, we made a point to remove these types of hazards from the sides of pools and Jacuzzis. But the third thing--and he was just livid on the point, saying, I have seven pools in my resort. We're barely making it today, and you're telling me that I am going to grind through my concrete, grind through my cool decking, grind through my patios to put power extension, build fixed lifts near every pool and Jacuzzi when no one's even asked for the portable one for 10 years? What's wonderful about the amendment, if you actually read it and move away from some of the rhetoric, is it makes it very clear that this is about building permanent structures next to those pools and Jacuzzis. If they're going to mandate a portable with the other caveats, okay, fine. Live with that. We already have lots of experience with that. And that way you avoid the attractive nuisance near every pool--not the cost, not the tearing up, not the everything else that goes along with this. At some point, our love and respect and wanting to help our brothers and sisters, particularly those that have mobility issues, we're there for them. We love them. We want to help. But we also have to have some bit of rationality. Let's actually step up and deal with this rationally, because I fear that the law of unintended consequences is going to be that some of my resorts are going to close down those Jacuzzis, close down those pools for access from anyone when there was a pragmatic solution, which is embracing the portable lifts. That was from every call I have made, up and down through Scottsdale. And if you have been there, you know we have resorts everywhere. I have not had a single manager of a resort call me back and say, Yes, we even use our portable one.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, I will try to speak somewhat quickly. Being from the State of Arizona and having been a legislator in Arizona, having been a County Treasurer from Arizona, and now often find myself in forums having to explain, or trying to at least in some way figure out how to explain, why my Federal Government, why my Justice Department is suing my State. And if you think about what we saw last year when we had the employer sanctions lawsuits, the Supreme Court ruled in our favor. We were at the Supreme Court standing out there a couple of weeks ago, suing our State again. But one of the explanations of why does a State like Arizona stand up and have to do these types of laws, understand what you've done to my county, what you've done to my State in education, incarceration, and health care. If we were having the debate right now of how the Federal Government was going to step up and do its job and reimburse the citizens of Arizona for what was a Federal cost but their failure, maybe we wouldn't be standing here supporting the gentlewoman's amendment. But I don't see that happening in this body. So, in that case, let Arizona, let States stand up and defend themselves by, in our case, enforcing the actual Federal law. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I met with actual people from Scottsdale with mobility issues. So I actually met with real constituents that are real people, not some organization.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. No. No. We sat down and had a wonderful conversation. I believe they left understanding how impractical what was happening here, also how there is a much more pragmatic, much more cost- effective, and a much safer solution for the community.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Absolutely.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, to my friend, thank you for yielding me a few minutes here. One of the reasons I'm standing here is, over the last week we've heard the President talk about what we call the Buffett rule, and the Senate, and its failure to move the Buffett rule--thank heaven. And realizing, for a lot of Americans, they don't understand this is, A, it's absolutely pretend math. But it's also meant as an absolute attack on the entrepreneurs, on the wealth creators and the people that create jobs and economic growth in this country. So I thought I would do another one of my clocks to try to help folks understand the reality of the math. Think about this. We borrow about $3.5 billion every single day, which is actually an improvement from where we've been, but $3.5 billion every day. There's 1,440 minutes in a day. So we were trying to figure out how do you explain how little the Buffett rule does to help us in our debt crisis but how much damage it will ultimately do to our economic growth. And where this came from is 2 days ago my phone rang, and I had a gentleman from my district who was absolutely insistent that the Buffett rule would solve the debt problem. So we made a clock. And here it is. If you think about how much we borrow in a single day--that $3.5 billion in a day--how much would the Buffett rule, with our math, how much of that day would it cover of the debt? Remember, 1,440 minutes in a day. It would cover 3\1/2\ minutes of borrowing in a day. It's fantasy. So why does the left, why does this President engage in this sort of political theater? Maybe because it's good politics. But it's really crappy math. And here's the reality of our future, and this keeps coming back, and why we so desperately have to do those things to get our small businesses to start hiring and growing. But we here in the Federal Government, we here in Congress, are going to have to deal with a reality that's coming at us like a freight train. This year, 63 percent of all of our spending is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt, veterans' benefits. In 4\1/2\ years--so the 2017 budget-- 75 percent of all of our spending will be what we call the mandatory-- the entitlement. It is consuming us as a people. Your government is very quickly becoming a health insurer with a shrinking army. We need the President to stop pushing policies that attack our job-creation engines. The fantasy of things like the Buffett rule may be great politics but it's not good for this country.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you to my good friend. We actually did this on the floor last night. Part of it was an attempt to sort of help folks through some of the absurdity of the rhetoric compared to the reality of math. One of the fun slides we brought on is using the current budget numbers and the fact that we're borrowing about $3.5 billion a day. We actually have this one board--and we're putting it up on our Web site-- that actually shows a clock. On that clock it has some of the President's budget policies. And one in there is one we've already sort of heard talked about or alluded to, and people like to call it the ``Buffet Rule.'' Well, do you realize that all of the rhetoric around something like the Buffet Rule and those new taxes and those needs for those folks to pay more would pay for--I think we came up with 3 minutes and 30 seconds. It would cover 3 minutes and 30 seconds of borrowing a day. We did some slides earlier that talked about not just taxing Big Oil, but if you taxed all fossil fuels. And what we're talking about is getting rid of their depletion allowance and actually going after their depreciation tables. That came out to about 2 minutes and 30 seconds of covering borrowing a day. The reason I stand behind this microphone right now is the political theater of--it's great rhetoric. I'm sure it's nice and poll tested. But it doesn't solve any of the problems. That's why this is a joyous moment to see the other side stand up and embrace the President's budget with such enthusiasm.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I thank the gentleman. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the JOBS Act. Think about this. We literally started over a year ago putting together the pieces of legislation that moved forward with us today. Many of them were bipartisan. Many of them had to go through subcommittee and committee and then back through more hearings and more testimony. A couple of these bills have actually been to this floor multiple times. It's been well vetted. And I hold a great appreciation, because I've only been here 15 months and this is my first opportunity to actually have a piece of legislation with multiple bills I've sponsored heading on their way to the President, hopefully, after the votes today and tomorrow. And I owe a great thank you to Chairman Garrett and Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus. But I also want to share a bit of a concern. Congressman McHenry has a really neat portion of this bill. We call it crowdfunding. The Senate has amended that in such a way that I believe it does great damage to the goal of a much more egalitarian, technologically advanced, using-the-Internet way for people to invest, for being able to reach out and gain that capital for very small companies. And I'm hoping I can reach out to my friends and say, Let's fix what the Senate did. We still should be voting for this bill. This is wonderful. We're making progress. But there are things we have to do to fix this for the future.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

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