Chris Stewart

Mr. STEWART

Mr. STEWART. Like all Americans, my heart and prayers go out to the people of Boston. Mr. Speaker, I'm grateful for the opportunity to stand and speak on a very important issue today. It may not be as interesting, it may not grab as much attention as any other issue, but I'm not aware of any other thing that we could talk about that has the potential to invigorate our economy, to expand personal freedoms, and restore faith in our government and, frankly, in our future like this issue could. Of course I'm talking about meaningful, strategic tax reform. I was a business owner and CEO for 12 years. Because of that, I understand in a very personal way that the current tax system is rife with waste. It invites abuse. Worst of all, it creates so much uncertainty as to make it difficult, if not impossible, to make good decisions about our future. Again and again, we read stories and we see examples where the current Tax Code punishes success while ignoring the economic impacts of poor government policy. We can do better than this. We have an opportunity to do better than this. We must do better. Everyone will benefit. Let's do this now.

Mr. STEWART

Mr. STEWART. Mr. Chairman, I am honored--yea, I am thrilled--to stand and speak on this subject. It is the primary reason that I ran for Congress, and I think it is the defining issue and the most critical argument of our day. We are at a crossroads in our history. I believe that this time is that important. What we do at this moment will determine the future of our Nation. It will determine the future of our children. It will determine the future or the death of the American Dream. Stephen Covey, one of the great innovators and business leaders of our generation and a man who happens to be from my home State of Utah, popularized a time management concept called the ``urgent-important matrix.'' The point of this was to help us focus on those things that are both urgent and important and to let the other things go. Frankly, as a Congress, we do a terrible job at that. We often legislate based on the crisis of the moment, lurching from one manmade crisis to another, and the budget is a great example of that. For years, we have treated this as if it is neither urgent nor important, as if it could go on forever; but we know that that's not true. We also know now what this President believes. He doesn't think it's important to balance our books. He doesn't think it's important to cut our debt. He has no intention of cutting any spending. Not only does he not intend to balance our budget, but he derides and dismisses those of us who think that it's important to our future; but Americans understand this, and it's not that hard. Please listen to me on this because this is so important: a Nation that is bankrupt cannot provide for the security of its citizens. A Nation that is bankrupt cannot provide for the poor and the needy among them. I speak now primarily to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: if you care about the poor--and I know that you do. By the way, I do as well--then care enough to help them in the long run, not just for the next few years. There is nothing compassionate about letting Medicaid or Medicare go into bankruptcy. There is nothing compassionate about letting Social Security fail, but that's what's going to happen if we don't have the courage to fix this thing. We have to fix it now. This is both important and urgent. Many of us had hoped that the President would lead on this matter, but he has chosen not to. It's not in his nature; he is much more comfortable leading from behind. Since he won't lead, those of us in Congress will. I admire Chairman Ryan. I thank him for his courage in tackling a challenge that has terrified Congress for years--reforming entitlements in a way that will save them for our children. We have a window within which we can make a difference. We can save America. We can save the American Dream. Please, let us have the courage to do that. That is why I support Chairman Ryan's budget and urge my colleagues to do so as well.

Mr. STEWART

Mr. STEWART. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in defense of the common people of America--people who don't have annual vacations to Hawaii, people who don't fly to their vacations on private jets. Many of these families save for months or even years in order to visit Washington, D.C., and one of the things they expect to do when they come here is to be able to visit the White House, which is the people's House. And now this President has closed it in order to make a political point. Now that that decision has proven unpopular, he has done something that he has frequently done before and that is to blame someone else. He says it wasn't my decision; it was the Secret Service who made the decision to close the White House. It only costs the White House $3.7 million to keep it open to tourists for an entire year. That's much less than this President will spend on any single vacation that he takes, which is why I introduced a resolution in the House yesterday asking the President to forego any more taxpayer-funded vacations until he opens the people's House once again. Mr. Speaker, I ask the President to consider this request. Open the people's House, Mr. President. Open it up for the people of America.

Mr. STEWART

Mr. STEWART. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding his time. I had the great blessing of growing up on a family farm. I know what it's like as a kid to be so excited to go hunting with my brothers and with my father that you can't sleep the night before. I also had the great privilege of serving for 14 years as a pilot and an officer in the United States Air Force. There I learned a little bit about defending our Nation through an adequate show of force. I also, by the way, qualified as an expert marksman in small arms. Recent and saddening events of violence have brought conversations about guns to the national stage. These acts of violence, as terrible as they are, should not be used by the White House as justification to revoke the rights outlined in our Constitution. The Second Amendment clearly states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Our Founding Fathers created this amendment to protect the citizens from government tyranny. In 2008, the Supreme Court emphatically stated that the right to bear arms is an individual right. Today, it continues to ensure Americans' right to defend themselves against the evil in the world. Based on a survey as recently as 2000, U.S. civilians do use guns to protect themselves and others from crime at least 990,000 times a year--almost 1 million times a year. It's critical that we continue to protect this personal and absolute right. While gun-related violence is indeed tragic--and we all know that it is; as my friend, the gentleman from Indiana, has so eloquently stated, we bleed for those who suffer from this--it's important to note that it only accounts for a small portion of the violent crimes that are committed in the United States. As an example, the U.S. Department of Justice has said that of the roughly 5 million violent crimes committed in the United States during 2008, only 8 percent were committed by offenders who visibly were armed with a gun. Most of those crimes were committed with guns that were already illegal. Even the U.S. Justice Department conducted a survey in the 1990s and found that approximately 79 percent of the State prison inmates that carried a firearm during an offense that sent them to jail received their gun either through an illegal source or from one of their friends or family. Stricter laws to ban guns will not solve any of these problems. We already have many laws in place; but instead of creating new and harsher laws, we need to do a better job of enforcing the gun laws that we currently have. Finally, let me say this: I believe that the timing of this proposal and these bills, it just isn't right. At a time when sequestration just went into effect and our country is on a path towards bankruptcy, it's unacceptable that the White House continues to push its gun control agenda. We need to be focusing on getting our country back on a path of fiscal sanity. We need the President and his administration to show leadership. We need to ensure that America maintains its leadership role in the world. To do that, we need to budget and to spend responsibly. We need to replace President Obama's sequester--and it is this President's sequester--with commonsense spending cuts and reforms. Most importantly, we need the President to demonstrate an understanding of the Nation's need to balance our budget and get us back on a path towards fiscal sanity. That is the great fight of our day. That is the great challenge that we are facing. My heart bleeds for the victims of gun violence--whether they're in Newtown or in New York or in my home district--but the President's proposals will not help. They aren't designed to address the core problems of mental health or a culture that is steeped in violence, violence that is thrust upon our children through media that are bent upon making more money through the violence that they propagate. Mr. Speaker, let's concentrate our attention on the greatest challenge of our day, not on a Band-Aid of additional laws that are designed to do nothing but to make some liberals feel better. To the gentleman from Indiana, I yield back and thank you for this opportunity to address the House.

Mr. STEWART

Mr. STEWART. Today I rise in defense of the people of Utah as I introduce the Utah Land Sovereignty Act, a bill that will prohibit the establishment of national monuments in Utah except by the express authorization of Congress. More than 60 percent of the State is controlled by the Federal Government. This is not uncommon in western States. And now we know that President Obama intends to use the Antiquities Act to further extend these Federal landgrabs. Recently, the former Secretary of the Interior suggested and encouraged him to do this. This is another example of the arrogance of the Federal Government and their cavalier attitude towards those of us in western States. It's time for the President to realize that Federal landgrabs have real consequences for real people.

Mr. STEWART

Mr. STEWART. It is an honor to be here tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, I rise in defense of the American people. I believe that we are at a tipping point in our history. I really believe that we are at one of those inflection points at which we will decide our future, at which we will decide who we are as a people, at which we will decide the America that we leave to our children in a way that hasn't been decided before. This is a generational moment. This time is that important. At its heart, I think the debate comes down to this: Will we reclaim the moral and fiscal discipline that created the American Dream? Will we reclaim the moral and the fiscal discipline that created the world's first and the world's greatest middle class? Will we reclaim the moral and fiscal discipline that made us, as Abraham Lincoln described us, the last best hope on Earth? That is the essence of our challenge. That is the great and defining argument of our day. In this debate, I'd like to remind all of us of a few critical facts. One of them is that this Nation, a Nation that is bankrupt, cannot provide for the security of its people. A Nation that is bankrupt cannot provide for the needy or for the poor among us. A Nation that is bankrupt cannot provide for the future of their children. Yes, during these challenging times, it will require a commitment to fairness, and it will require a commitment to compassion. It always has. There has always been compassion in this Nation. That defines much of who we are--allowing the safety net to continue for those who truly need it. But where is the compassion in allowing a program, like my parents depended on in the final years of their lives, to continue down a pathway towards bankruptcy? Where is the compassion in creating so much uncertainty that our own children no longer have faith in their futures or in the social and safety net that has been there for previous generations? If you believe in compassion and fairness, then help us fix these problems. Help us to save them. Help us to provide so that we can pass them on to future generations. Since the last election, this administration has talked about one thing and one thing only, and that is taxes. We have had that fight, and he has won. He got his tax increase, and that will raise between $60 billion and $70 billion, but the last deficit was $1.1 trillion. Mr. President, what about the other trillion dollars now? What do we do now? We have a 6 percent solution. It's a great start if you like raising taxes, but it doesn't address the problems at all. My father was an Air Force pilot. He was a pilot during World War II, and I had the great honor of serving for 14 years as an Air Force pilot as well. If there was one thing I learned from my father and those brave men and women with whom I served, it was courage, always to have courage. That is what we need now. That is the only thing that can save us. Mr. President and Members of this body, let us have the courage to do the right thing even if that thing proves to be hard. Our debt is unsustainable. We talk about saving our Nation for our children. We don't have that long. Let us take the steps to restore financial sanity in this Congress in this day.