Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, there are consequences of not having a budget. One of them is you don't make proper plans. How else can you explain the Obama administration going so long and crying so loudly, Gee, we can't find $10 billion to cut, much less $100 billion? We certainly aren't going to cut a trillion even though we increase spending by a trillion.

And we find out last week from the Obama OMB that there is $687 billion sitting in accounts that's been appropriated. It's unobligated. It's unspent, sitting there, and they're still demanding more and more money.

America can't afford it. It's time to claw back the money before it's spent on other Solyndras and to give us a budget at the other end of the building.

Mr. Speaker, it's a privilege to be speaking on the floor here this evening.

Here we've been talking for some time about the huge deficit spending that's going on. In fact, Republicans have promised to make massive cuts. And the old story that used to be told about the fellow Texan, Sam Rayburn, about a young freshman Democrat coming up and talking about how difficult things were here in the House and that: Gee, as a Democrat, it's obvious the Republicans are our enemy. They're trying to stop us from doing what we need to, and, boy, the media's not helping. And Speaker Rayburn stopped him, reportedly, and said: Son, the Republicans are not your enemy. The media is not your enemy. At the other end of the hall, the Senate, now they're your enemy.

Well, I thought that was a strange story when I heard that about Speaker Rayburn, but the longer I've been here, the more we see so many great bills that have come out of the House in the last year have gone down the hall and are languishing for lack of action. And so when I read that a friend down the hall, Leader Reid, was lambasting Republicans for a do-nothing status, it was remarkable to me that they could have so many House bills sitting down there waiting to do something and yet doing nothing with them.

Now, we have been trying to get bills passed into law that would make substantial cuts. It's still, as our friend from east Texas, Bo Pilgrim, used to say, a mind-boggling thing to have seen this President come in in 2009, with Speaker Pelosi in charge of the House and Leader Reid in charge of the Senate, and to know that we had been just vilified as majority Republicans in the House in 2006 for exceeding the amount of income coming in by $160 billion, vilified, and yet when President Obama became the President and Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi were in charge, we ran a deficit of 10 times that much in 1 year. Incredible.

Now one thing that should not have ever happened is to have our national security out on the table as a bargaining chip in the debt ceiling negotiation. But it was. And we were told that, Gee, neither side is going to allow those kinds of cuts to occur to our national security.

And lo and behold, being in Afghanistan, seeing the new year come in with our military men and women in some remote operating areas--I went with Senator Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma and Joe Barton from Texas--and being in remote areas, it was amazing to hear some folks say, We're already being told amounts that we're going to be cut because of the sequestration coming. Talking with some of our Texas National Guard folks, I've been told over the last couple of weeks, We're already being told about moneys that are being cut. These are people that are

trying to protect and defend our country.

I went to the deployment ceremony of a unit leaving from Lufkin, Texas, being deployed as guard. And they're hearing, as they're being deployed, about cuts to the amount of money they will have to protect them while they're protecting us. Absolutely outrageous.

As we talk about doing what's best for America and as we hear from people around the world that think of the United States as ``the great Satan,'' one would think--especially if they studied history--that the last thing we would want to do is to hurt our national security, yet that is where we're going.

It seems also clear that those negotiating from the Republican side during the debt ceiling bill made an assumption that turned out to be false, that the Democrats in the Senate would never allow the sequestration of $100, $200, $300 billion from Medicare. That was a bad assumption because the same Democratic leadership in the Senate passed ObamaCare, which brought about $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. So of course they were going to be willing to allow sequestration because this time they would be able to blame Republicans for also being part of what caused the cuts. Cuts to Medicare and cuts to our national security, not a good idea. Not a good idea.

National Review Online had an article out in the last couple of days with some great information; and we have taken that information and put it in short form from the article and double checked; and apparently, these are accurate numbers. These numbers, if anybody cares to contest them, actually come from President Obama's own Office of Management and Budget.

It turns out that as this President and his administration have complained about not having money, not having the ability to make cuts, having to make draconian cuts to Medicare and to our national defense, his administration has been sitting on money, hundreds of billions of dollars of money that they haven't spent from 2010 and 2011. They're complaining about not being able to even cut $5 billion or $10 billion when it turns out they're sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars that have not been obligated, have not been spent from 2010 and 2011.

So let's take a look at the money that this administration has not been willing to cut, even though it's unobligated, it's unspent, it's been appropriated, they have the ability to spend it or save it or spend it for something else. And yet this administration just can't seem to want to cut loose from this money to reduce the deficit, to cut down on the money we borrow from China, to cut down on the deficit spending or the reduction in spending for the military, reduction in spending for Medicare. How about that? It turns out they're sitting on all this money.

The Department of the Treasury, under the direction of Secretary Tim Geithner--hopefully he will be okay getting his tax return in this year. He is sitting on $226 billion that was appropriated; and yet it is sitting there unobligated, unspent. Yet Timothy Geithner has told us, you know, there's just no money to do what he feels needs to be done. He was out there this summer saying, We've got to raise taxes because this poor gentleman was not going to be able to cut loose, as we find out, of the $226 billion he's got sitting in change. And that is not even including the $125 billion that he still has in TARP assets or money, and it's estimated by some to be maybe about $50 billion in additional assets. So around $170, $175 billion remaining from TARP, $226 billion sitting there appropriated. I guess that means we've already borrowed 42 cents of every dollar from the Chinese. So we're sitting on it.

Then the Department of Defense. Since we've got $78 billion that the Defense Department has unobligated--it has been appropriated but unspent--why couldn't we use some of that $78 billion to help eliminate some of the cuts that are being suggested--in fact, being demanded of Defense?

You've got the Department of Transportation with $45 billion in unobligated, unspent money from 2010 to 2011. You've got $40 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services sitting there unobligated, unspent from 2010 and 2011. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $23.8 billion sitting there. Department of Education, $19 billion.

And the thought comes, What if we did away with the Department of Education and all that money that comes pouring into Washington every year--some of it borrowed--and it gets held here in Washington and gets funded to administrators and bureaucrats that have nothing to do with actually teaching anything, how about if we just turn that right around and send it right back to those States and say, We're taking our grimy fingers off of that money; we're not going to keep any of it because we think it is that important that it go for education? And how about if we, by doing that, therefore, encourage every State--as I believe it was Newt Gingrich who suggested to then let go so many of the administrators in each State capital that are not involved in any kind of teaching, just involved in dictation to local school boards? And of course for every bureaucrat that we have to have right now in Washington, they have to have at least one in every State capital because they've got to carry out the assignments from Washington. And then for every one in the State capital, you've got to have bureaucrats at each local school district to carry out those assignments.

I was shocked to go online and see that one of the best school districts in east Texas was saying that they were proud to note that half of all their school district employees were actually teachers.

So when I went to look at that a little further, you go back to before President Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education. That number was closer to 75 percent in Texas. Now it's around 50 percent in Texas. But before there was a Federal Department of Education, about 70, 75 percent of all Texas education employees were just wonderful school teachers, like my mother, like my sister, like my wife was. Now, that's getting teachers, that's getting people in the education system where they can do some good.

So you have the Department of Education sitting on $19 billion. You go online and look up how many school districts there are in America, and divide them into $19 billion, you'd have school districts that were not having to fire teachers right now. That would do a world of good.

But we've got bureaucrats here in Washington that think it is more important that they sit there with a slush fund, $19 billion unobligated, unspent funds from 2010/2011.

You've got the Department of Labor. They've got $18 billion sitting there from 2010 and 2011. And we acknowledge it is important for them to sit on a slush fund because they have so many things they have to do, like they have to run to States like South Carolina and tell them, you can't have a new Boeing plant in your State because we're trying to help unions in Washington. Even though not one single union worker in Washington was going to lose their job or be adversely affected, we're going to rush in and be, not a referee, we're going to be a player/ referee, and we're going to dictate, like used to be done by caesars, kings, czars, emperors, pharaohs.

They thought they had the authority to come into South Carolina and play Pharaoh and say, nope, you're not going to have these jobs. Well, once the unions finally got satisfied, then isn't it amazing that the NLRB backed off some. I think we've seen the NLRB is something we could do away with, and one of our colleagues in our party here in the House has a bill that will do just that. I think it's time to do that.

Department of Agriculture, $14 billion sitting unspent, unobligated from 2010/2011.

The Department of State, they don't have quite as much money sitting there as some of these other departments, but they still have $8.7 billion sitting unobligated, unspent from the last 2 years.

Department of Homeland Security, $7.2 billion. Now, they may want to use some of that to go buy some more of these machines from our friend, Secretary Chertoff. What a waste of money those were.

Then you've got the Department of the Interior at $6.7 billion sitting unspent, unobligated in their coffers.

Department of Energy. The Department of Energy that was set up by President Carter, with the purpose of

getting us off of dependence on foreign oil, and every year the Department of Energy has existed one thing has been consistent. And we've got to give them credit for this. One thing has been very consistent from the Department of Energy. Every year they've existed we've become more dependent on foreign oil.

So if you're in the private sector, and you went all these years, 32 years, working on 33 years or so, with a department in your business that got further and further from its original goal, you'd probably cancel that department, get rid of it, disband it. Not here in government. Not only are they not doing what would help America by getting us off dependence on foreign oil, they are actually working in conjunction with the Department of the Interior to make us more dependent on foreign oil, and to limit the amount of production here in the United States.

Just today, the President of the United States has had the incredible nerve to step up and say, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans who I am going to deprive of the opportunity to have a good union job. And there are thousands and thousands and thousands of more Americans who would be suppliers for those people who would be working on the Keystone pipeline, everything from private suppliers to people that work in steel plants that would be providing the pipe, to be providing the materials that would be used, that would be building the heavy equipment that would be used, all of those thousands and thousands and thousands of ripple jobs that would be coming, this President today is saying, I am not going to allow you to have that kind of job.

We're going to keep pushing, the President might as well have said, to make sure you can get unemployment for 99 weeks, and we can keep you from reaching your God-given potential of actually producing, because there is a great deal of satisfaction for doing something productive, seeing the products of your hands. That's why, as my wife would tell you, I actually enjoy getting out in the backyard on weekends, kind of tough during the winter, but actually getting out there and doing things, so that when I finish I can see I've done something productive, because we come up here and we pass some good legislation in the House, it never becomes law.

We pass things and encourage the President to get the Senate to help us pass off on things so people could become productive, and they could get their own jobs and become productive and they wouldn't need to become so dependent on the Federal Government. It gets pretty frustrating.

But you've got a Department of Energy sitting there, $5.6 billion unobligated, unspent from the last 2 years.

Department of Veterans Affairs. You would think that with all of the veterans who need assistance, who need help, who have problems, both psychologically, physically, that some of that $5.2 billion that's been sitting there for the last couple of years, it could have been used to help our veterans, you would think. Our veterans need help.

President Bush, right before he left office, had asked a retired military, retired Army General to do an assessment of the VA and make recommendations. He had some good recommendations. Unfortunately, they've not been carried out by this administration.

But one of the things he told me personally, privately, he said, the problem with the Veterans Administration is they're supposed to be an assistance organization, and, instead, they think they're an adversarial organization. They should be assisting our veterans. And yet, so often, every time a veteran comes through the door needing help, they look at them as if they're a thief coming in to steal something. Our veterans deserve better than that.

There are some VA clinics, VA places, you know, in Lufkin, I keep asking our veterans--even though I did 4 years in the Army I'm not entitled to this care, but I want to make sure that our veterans get what they think is best for them. People around Lufkin that go to that clinic, they say, hey, I would far rather go to this VA clinic than any other medical facility.

Other places I hear from veterans that go to other clinics that say, I'd just as soon you give us a card and let us go to any doctor or any clinic we want. But at the same time all of this is going on, and we were told there now is a need to increase the contribution for veterans for TRICARE, we find out there's $5.2 billion that has been sitting there unspent, unobligated for the last couple of years.

Department of Justice, $1.9 billion here that we have them coming in before our committee whining and moaning about all of the millions and millions of dollars they need. Turns out they've got $1,900 million that they could use instead of coming begging here for more money from Congress.

You've got other independent agencies and miscellaneous: $82 billion unobligated, unspent; Office of Personnel Management $55 billion. I know that the administration spends more money than any other administration in history, far and away a lot more, but you would think that they wouldn't have to come demanding more and more money and put pressure on Harry Reid down in the Senate to get more and more out of the House because they just can't live on the $55 billion slush fund they have from the last couple of years unspent.

International assistance programs, $45 billion. I've said it over and over, but it is absolutely true. I've seen it firsthand going around. You could even see it in some areas of Afghanistan. You don't have to pay people to hate you. They'll do it for free. It would save a lot of money.

I still have a U.N. voting accountability bill. I filed it my fourth time in this fourth Congress I've been in. It says unless you vote with the United States over half the time in the U.N. that you shouldn't get any foreign assistance from the United States. Again, these people in foreign countries that hate us, it is absolutely their right to do so. But we don't have to pay people to hate us. They'll do it for free.

Environmental Protection Agency, one of those things that was created when Congress made the mistake of giving the Nixon administration the power to consolidate and reorganize government and make it more efficient. The Nixon administration created the Environmental Protection Agency. And right now, the EPA is in the process of costing thousands and thousands and thousands of people jobs all over America, and this administration is doing nothing to rein them in.

Some people have said, well, can the Congress do something about that? Sure we can. We can get rid of the EPA. I've been told by some Federal authorities: But you don't understand. Even though Texas has an environmental commission, the TCEQ, there are a handful of States that don't have environmental commissions for their States, so we need one for the whole country. What happened to the Ninth and 10th amendment? If it is just inside the State, doesn't involve interstate commerce, then why shouldn't we let the States take care of those issues? Instead, the EPA is spending some of their slush fund money to sue States like Texas and others, shutting down power plants.

And I would have thought today that when the President released his statement about why he was going to deprive tens of thousands of Americans jobs immediately where they could earn their own way and own their own things without the government handouts, that he would at least be able to say, ``Because I have a better plan of getting us off foreign oil.'' That's not what he said.

Apparently, it's the President's position he wants to get us off oil--not off foreign oil, just off oil. He wants to put more people out of work, increase the cost of gasoline and diesel, which means increasing the cost of everything you buy in America because transportation costs have to be figured in.

The one good thing about the President killing the Keystone pipeline that you have to acknowledge with money like the EPA has, $4 billion, and Transportation, $45 billion sitting there in their slush fund unobligated, unspent from the last 2 years, different other Agencies, Departments, Department of the Interior, by cancelling the Keystone pipeline, they won't have to spend money checking it out, regulating, making sure things are done appropriately. They can spend these hundreds of billions of dollars, if they care to do so, on more Solyndras. Isn't that a great thing?

We will be able to fund more crony capitalism. Somebody wants to come in and claim they're going to create some kind of solar product, then this administration will take a good look at it; and there's a good chance if you're a Republican you can forget it, but if you're not, you may very well be the next Solyndra to get money appropriated for you. And heck, we may even have one of the administrations step in when the United States, as a creditor, wants to stand in line and get repaid for loans that are made and downgrade those loans and put other unsecured creditors in front, just as the administration did in the bailout of the auto manufacturers, turn the Constitution upside down, deprive people with property of due process. There's a lot of good money to do those good projects that the President has been doing for the last 3 years.

So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that in the days ahead, as people hear more and more complaining and whining from the administration about there not being any money, gee, we're going to have to raise taxes, I hope that there will be people in America that will look at these figures and say: Enough whining. Let us tell you about a shortage of money. You keep taking our money in taxes and sitting on it in your Departments. Enough is enough. It's time to be accountable. It's time to let money be in the hands where it is earned so we can get this economy going again.

One thing is for sure. Even though we've spent more money than any nation in history no matter how you want to look at it, whether it's in dollars or whether it's in percentage of GDP, this administration has been on a course for ruin; and I just hope that as this administration continues to follow the lead of countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, others in economic trouble, that hopefully, before we go over the cliff with them, there will be enough of us that can stop the wagon train and get us back on the right road to prosperity.

Quick recap: $687 billion that has been appropriated or unobligated, unspent from 2010 and 2011, so we shouldn't hear any more bellyaching about there being a shortage of money by this administration. It's time to help the American people, not the bloated government.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor to recognize and congratulate the Chapel Hill Bulldogs on a stellar high school football season in 2011 that culminated with their winning the 2011 Texas Class 3A State Football Championship. As a result of extraordinary teamwork and athletic prowess, the undefeated Chapel Hill Bulldogs captured the State title over the powerful Alvarado Indians with a final score of 20-19.

Last year, the Chapel Hill Bulldogs showed extraordinary heart by winning all the way to the championship resulting in a runner up position. Though most teams would be proud of getting that far, Chapel Hill players and coaches set their sights on going all the way back to the finals and coming back to east Texas with a State Championship trophy. The Bulldogs had to defeat some outstanding football teams simply to get an opportunity to get to a playoff game.

Not only did they get to the playoffs, they finished the season with an unbeaten and untied record of 15-0. The team became known as the ``Cardiac Pack'' because the last four games were won with heart- stopping gallantry late in the game. Such was the case in the game leading up to the state final, played against West Columbia in which Chapel Hill won in the last 8.2 seconds of the game. Following that nail-biter, the ``Cardiac Pack'' Bulldogs fought hard and came out victorious by one point in the final game making them state champions. Although this was the Bulldogs twelfth playoff appearance since 1969, this was the team's second football State Championship, the first being in 1989.

The Chapel Hill Bulldogs' 2011 championship success is a tribute to the Coach, who brought his team back for another chance at victory, as well as a tribute to the players and all who assisted them along the way. Such championship did not come without vast preparation beginning with off-season fitness, hot wearisome August workouts, coach preparations late into the night and weekend, insightful scouting and video research of opposing teams, unrivaled discipline, selfless teamwork, learning and executing football fundamentals, all encompassed by an unwavering determination to reach the highest goal achievable in Texas football--one that will never be forgotten as long as there is a Texas.

The lessons learned about teamwork and discipline should help carry everyone who played, coached, and assisted in knowing that whatever the obstacles that may lie ahead in life, they can overcome and be champions.

A tribute goes out to all of the athletic staff including Athletic Director and Head Coach Thomas Sitton, and Coaches Chris Taber, Jason Holman, Wes Schminkey, Sam Brandt, Jeremy Loyd, Brad Baca, Juan Silva, Kenneth Cook, Patrick Davis, Robert Sampson, Justin McCowin, Bill Toon, John Pyle, Kenneth Johnson, and Jon Sheppard.

The tribute to the team that accomplished this great feat goes to the football team members consisting of Tre Allen, Jay Reagan, Raeshuiwn Mumphrey, Nelson Onwuzu, Wesley Thompson, Jalen Williams, Deaveron Dean, Avery Henderson, Kevin Garcia, Patrick Day, Kendall Beal, Jason Hill, Tyler Brown, Avery Saenz, Anthony Kincade, Will Spradley, Richard Sandoval, Christman Weeks, Rex Rollins, Andrew Tucker, Reese Turner, Christian Schlener, Joseph Clark, JaMarcus McCowin, Kevone Kennedy, Londreyus Johnson, Travis Johnson, Braylon Roberson, Tyraiel Hart, Marco Orpineda, Colton Moorehead, Brandoyn Bell, Keith Minor, Daniel Smith, Pedro Valdez, Thad Bevis, Keiundas Wade, Josh Hamilton, Sir Calvin Wallace, Jacob Ratliff, Shaq Warren, Brandon Upshaw, and Gabriel Robinson.

This accomplishment could also not have been achieved without the vast support of Chapel Hill Independent School District staff and the entire community supporting this great East Texas school. Congratulations to all those who comprise the Chapel Hill Bulldogs' unbeatable team.

Mr. Speaker, it's sometimes hard to reconcile the speeches we hear here on the floor with the legislation that we've passed. People have been speaking from the other side of the aisle here for the last 30 minutes about how the Republicans in the House apparently don't want taxpayers, working Americans, to have the 2 percent of the Social Security tax back that doesn't get paid into Social Security when actually this House has taken the responsible position not wanting to raise taxes in a down economy so workers will have the money that they currently do in their paychecks. It makes sense.

I've been saying ever since this first came up that the idea of a 2 percent tax cut is not a holiday and that actually the President corrupted the true payroll tax holiday idea that was brought forward 3 years ago. That was my idea. It was a stimulus idea that Moody's, when they rated the different proposals, said would stimulate the 1-year GDP more than the other proposals, and it would have. The people that earned all of the money would have gotten it for 2 months in a row.

Some lazy reporters have tried to say, Well, that's just like this. Absolutely not. Unfortunately, it requires reading and not all reporters are willing to do that because it's clear my payroll tax holiday that I told the President about in January of 2009, he liked the idea and the only thing he did was take the name of it--that sounds familiar--and use that for what was not a holiday. It's not a holiday when you're avoiding 2 percent of the taxes you normally do. A holiday is when you don't pay the taxes. There are a number of differences. For one thing, the 2-month proposal by the Senate just pushes off what has to be done, and that's dealing with the rest of the year. We want to deal with the rest of the year. We want to provide certainty.

The bill I proposed did not create any uncertainty. It dealt with the issue that people could not shove bonuses into those 2 months, that it was a tax holiday for all of the income tax, Social Security, those taxes that would normally be taken out of the check. It would have averaged, we were told, between $2,000 and $3,000 a month for 2 months. Instead of $80 a month, you would've had $4,000 to $5,000 over a 2- month period. That would have stimulated the economy.

Not only that, this proposal that the President has had, it hasn't stimulated the economy. We just don't want to raise taxes on people in a down economy.

But it does hurt the Social Security trust fund. This President's proposal pits working Americans against our seniors. It didn't have to be this way. Before this President ran up an extra $4 trillion in debt back when we were at $11 trillion instead of 15 trillion, just a few years ago, the proposal was completely paid for, and the only people that would have missed the money were the Wall Street bailout folks that wouldn't have gotten their money because it took money from TARP and left it in the pockets of those who earned it. It made sure that there would be no shortfall in the Social Security trust fund. It made sure there would be no shortage in the Medicare fund, it addressed that. And the only people that would have been hurt--and I don't think they would have been hurt--but the only ones that would have missed the money were those getting the bailouts.

Well, this President liked the name, liked the idea of leaving some money in the check. But instead of $4,000 to $5,000, they decided to leave $160--2 months.

Harry Reid has been saying that he wants to give Americans $1,000, and that's what the Senate was doing. The

only way we can keep Harry Reid from being a liar--and I don't want to make him a liar--and so what we have to do is have the Senate pass what we've passed, at least send conferees to the conference, so that we can work out a compromise, because right now all he's got is $160, not $1,000.

So, I hope my colleagues here in the House will urge the Senate, please help us keep Harry Reid from being a liar. He said they provided $1,000 in tax cuts to working Americans, and the only way that will happen is if they'll adopt the House proposal or send conferees to the conference. That will leave that much for the whole year, not just 2 months.

Now, there was $700 billion originally allocated for TARP. The Obama administration got $350 billion of that, plus it was projected it would get maybe $100 billion, $150 billion of the original $350 billion. There's still $120-plus billion dollars in assets in that slush fund that need to be liquidated, and they need to take care of things like Social Security and Medicare. There's another $50 billion or so in the TARP that is still cash money that should be used. If anything is going to be used, use that to stimulate the economy by letting people keep their own money in their paycheck.

This 2 months proposed by the Senate is not going to stimulate the economy. As nonpartisan groups have said, it is actually going to create vast instability, and there is no comparison to that and a paid- for, complete holiday for working Americans to keep everything in their paycheck. That would have been a stimulus. We made inquiries of people in our district. What would you do with it? We heard from people who said we want a car that's more fuel efficient, but the big gas guzzler we've got is worth less than we owe on it. We can't get out from under. If you let us keep 2 months of our own taxes for the full 2 months, all of that, then we will be able to get rid of this clunker and be able to get a more fuel-efficient car. Others said, we got behind on our mortgage last summer when gas went to $4 a gallon because Speaker Pelosi's and Harry Reid's policies, the bills, the legislation they passed were stifling the ability to provide for more of our own oil and gas. It spiked up to $4 a gallon. They said, we got behind then, but if you let us keep 2 months of all of our taxes, we don't need any more government programs, we can get out of problems with our mortgage ourselves. But, no, there are people in this town that like the GRE, the Government Running Everything. And the way to do that is keep coming up with programs. So, they created more programs.

One other thing I want to touch on that has hit the news in the last 2 days, but unfortunately many have not noticed. This administration is in the process of trying to provide the Taliban a Christmas present. Now, 2 weeks ago, we found out that a fourth category on the terrorist watch list was being created called former military detainees. Having seen how this administration works, having known we have an Attorney General that represented terrorists before he became Attorney General, having an Attorney General who has no clue how Fast and Furious came about, according to his testimony, having an Attorney General that was involved, was around when the Marc Rich pardon took place, we knew that we needed to look carefully when these kind of indications came forth. And what we found was the administration said, oh, no, no, no, we're not about to release detainees. Not much.

What's come out in the last 2 days is that this administration is negotiating with terrorists, negotiating with the Taliban directly and about to work out a deal. The administration is saying--and Reuters had a story on this--but the administration apparently is saying, in essence, we need to have a show of good faith to these terrorists, the Taliban, that we are complicit in the killing and the murdering of over 3,000 Americans. We need to show them good faith by releasing Taliban murderers from their detention, and then they'll have a much better feeling about us.

And then we're also in the process directly of negotiating with the Karzai administration, Afghanistan, and the Taliban, trying to work something out where the Taliban will have a place. This administration has forgotten they killed Americans. They're saying, well, we think that they're softening up now. They don't want to kill Americans as badly as they did back on 9/11. They probably won't plot, train, and kill Americans like they did before if they just see how wonderful our administration is and how kind and generous we are just to let them have murderers back out of detention who have made no indication that they don't want to kill Americans any further.

This administration is doing this. And they need to understand the people that they are about to give this Christmas present to don't believe in Christmas. They believed in killing Americans. They believed in killing innocent people. They believed in plotting and training to carry out such a plot to kill Americans, and there is no indication that they think otherwise.

But this administration is so intent on getting out of Afghanistan and turning things over to the Taliban again that we're going to be right back where we were 20 years ago as the Taliban was working toward the ultimate 9/11.

And not only that, they will then know everything Osama bin Laden said about the Americans being too weak, not being up to the fight, that eventually they'll cave in and start helping us to destroy them. That's what appears to be happening with this administration. We can't do that. The lives of Americans that have been lost in Afghanistan cry out, Do not concede defeat to our enemies that have killed us.

Afghanistan is an issue that needs to be dealt with, but not by giving those who terrorized us all that they want. They were wanting an office outside of Afghanistan, and this administration said, well, we think we can work that out. We'll pay for the office, we'll take care of that if you just promise us you won't use that to fund-raise for terrorism, okay? That's like North Korea saying, if you'll just build us a nuclear power plant, we promise we won't use it for nukes, and the Clinton administration and Madeleine Albright believed them. And now they've got nukes, and we helped them with it.

And now this administration can't learn from past mistakes. It's about to do that with the Taliban. In meeting with warlords a year and a half ago from northern Afghanistan, a small group of us learned that after the Taliban was initially defeated in about 3 or 4 months with merely embedded troops, that the United States asked the warlords, the Northern Alliance, to disarm. And they did. And now, here it was a year and a half ago, they're saying look, you may not be aware, but your administration, the Obama administration, is indirectly negotiating with the Taliban right now. We know. And you're negotiating with them and Pakistan in a corrupt Karzai administration. And who is going to be hurt out of all of this are your allies, those who fought with you, who defeated the Taliban initially, and now you're about to turn things over to the people who will kill your allies.

Do you want that message going around the world, that to be an ally with the United States means you ultimately will be abandoned and the enemies of your allies will be allowed to kill your allies? It would be hard to get allies if you do that. This administration is looking at an election year. This is no time to give in to terrorists.

When President Bush said, I hear you, and in essence said, and soon those who did this will hear from us, I can't imagine that he ever believed a President and an administration would say, We hear you now, terrorists, and we're not going to hurt you. We'll fix you up an office outside Afghanistan. We'll make it where you can take over areas of Afghanistan. We'll work with you. We'll release your murderers from prison. I don't think that's what President Bush was talking about when he said they would hear from us, but it sure looks like that's about to be what happened according to the stories now circulating.

Those warlords were right. They said, Look, we were not meant to have a big central government. We can't have it without being corrupt, not right now. At least let us elect our regional governors, our mayors--at least. Don't have the Karzai administration appoint the regional governors, appoint the mayors, and pick corrupt police chiefs. Let us elect those. The power in Afghanistan is in the regions, in the

tribes. To have a government that's centralized right now means corruption. Let us do that regionally, and give us back weapons so we can defend ourselves against the Taliban who is already moving.

And in answer to this administration's wonderful gestures of kindness and we'll release your murderers, we had them kill SEAL Team 6, a big number of our people. And that wasn't enough. In September, they killed one of the warlords just as a handful of us were about to go have a meeting with them again.

The message is clear: The Taliban have learned nothing. There's only one thing they understand--that's force. And it's like career criminals that I dealt with as a judge. If you want to be protected, you've got to put them where they can't hurt you anymore. There are murderers that have been put where they can't hurt us anymore, and this administration is now talking about releasing them.

So we have a twofold front of problems. One is the economy, where the Wall Street executives that contribute four-to-one to Democrats over Republicans, contributed four-to-one to the Obama campaign over the McCain campaign. They've been enriched and engorged with TARP money. It's time to end TARP.

It's time to allow workers to have a break. It's time that the Senate quit playing games and acknowledge that a full year of certainty is a whole lot better than 2 months. Appoint the conferees; send them to confer. It's how things get worked out. It's the way that procedurally things were meant to happen so it can be above board.

The rules require that they must be open sessions of the conference committee. That's the way you resolve things, under regular order. It needs to be done that way. I know the Senate would like to do closed- door meetings and give away programs behind closed doors, but it's time to do this thing the way the President promised 4 years ago that he would if he were President--make it open; make it clear. The American people will see who's negotiating for whom. That will help America.

And I know, in closing, for my comments, that with the Christmas season, though there are so many who want to end the ability to say Merry Christmas, they want to end the ability to do much of anything that really is acknowledging our roots, I think it's important to look where we came from. So I would close with this message from Ronald Reagan.

He basically reiterates things that have been said back to the time of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln:

The themes of Christmas and of coming home for the holidays

have long been intertwined in song and story. There is a

profound irony and lesson in this because Christmas

celebrates the coming of a Savior Who was born without a

home.

There was no room at the inn for the Holy Family. Weary of

travel, a young Mary close to childbirth and her carpenter

husband Joseph found but the rude shelter of a stable. There

was born the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace--an event on

which all history would turn. Jesus would again be without a

home, and more than once. On the flight to Egypt and during

His public ministry, when He said, ``The foxes have holes,

and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath

nowhere to lay His head.''

From His very infancy on, our Redeemer was reminding us

that from then on we would never lack a home in Him. Like the

shepherds to whom the angel of the Lord appeared on the first

Christmas Day, we could always say, ``Let us now go even unto

Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, which the

Lord hath made known unto us.'' As we come home with gladness

to family and friends this Christmas, let us also remember

our neighbors who cannot go home themselves.

Our compassion and concern this Christmas and all year long

will mean much to the hospitalized, the homeless, the

convalescent, the orphaned--and will surely lead us on our

way to the joy and peace of Bethlehem and the Christ Child

Who bids us come. For it is only in finding and living the

eternal meaning of the Nativity that we can be truly happy,

truly at peace, truly home. Merry Christmas, and God bless

you!

Ronald Reagan, December 19, 1988, his last Christmas message as President.

Mr. Speaker, there are those who don't want people to mention the word ``Christmas,'' and there's an easy solution. For those who don't want to mention Christmas, don't want to observe Christmas, then if they take the holiday, just agree to give back the money, because the money earned on a holiday shouldn't be taken for those who don't think it should be a holiday. That's easy enough.

But in the spirit of Christmas and the things we know about government--those of us who believe what's in the Bible--we have an obligation to protect people, as the government, as pointed out in Romans 13. It coincides with providing for the common defense. It's time to do that, to make sure Americans are safe, that they're provided with a defense so they can take care of the poor, the needy, the orphaned, the widows. They can help their fellow man. That's our job as a government. Our job as individuals is to have that same spirit of assisting and helping and being servants.

We're elected to be servants in this body. We're not elected and charged with taking from some people and giving to our favorite charitable cause. We're to do that with our own money, not with people's money that may have some other better charity they prefer to give it to.

We need to get the economy going. We need to bring down the cost of energy. That would be a great Christmas present. And since we know that the market and the energy industry adjust to announcements, how about a great announcement from our President: We're not going to let murderers go free, so you don't have to worry, you'll be safe. We're going to take the battle to those who want to murder us. We are not going to negotiate further with terrorists who want to kill us. We're going to make sure that we quit bailing out our friends, our cronies. We're going to make sure that those who know better what to do with their own money have the opportunity to do that. We're going to give some security and some confidence for the following year because here's what we're going to do. And we're going to work together.

And it would be wonderful if the President would say: You know what? I demanded the Congress pass a bill that had not even come out when I started criticizing them for not passing it.

Then I started criticizing them for not passing a bill I'd forgotten to ask a Democrat to file for me. So I'm not going to do that anymore. I want to work with Congress. I want to get this country back on track. So instead of traveling around the country demeaning Congress for not passing bills that were not filed, I'm going to work with Congress.

And I hope that will be our President's New Year's resolution. Don't release murderers, and deal honestly and openly with the American people and with Congress.

We can get some things worked out. I've just been talking to Democratic friends today about things that we agree on. We can do that and give the American people a present.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Texas, my sister in faith. I know we get carried away sometimes in worrying about different bills. There's a lot to be concerned about. But looking at our Nation's history, from whence we've come gives us a better glimpse of where we should be going.

At this time, as Congress has for decades, many, many generations, we are about to have a Christmas recess. And so, though we're used to in here debating back and forth, fussing back and forth, because of the season and also with due deference to the things my friend from Texas said, it is important to take note of who we are and our history, just as our Founders did.

I've got a book here, William Federer, just a wonderful gentleman. He's put together so many great books. This one is called ``Prayers and Presidents: Inspiring Faith From Leaders of the Past.'' It's noteworthy.

I was 4 years in the Army, and I never saw an order like this, but right now we're debating whether or not chaplains should be forced to marry people when they know in their hearts it violates their Christian teaching, their Christian beliefs, and our Constitution was not supposed to do that. It's interesting to note that the order from the Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary military, May 2, 1778, to the troops at Valley Forge was as follows:

The Commander in Chief directs that divine service be

performed every Sunday at 11 o'clock in each brigade which

has a chaplain. Those brigades which have none will attend

the places of worship nearest to them. It is expected that

officers of all ranks will, by their attendance, set an

example for their men. While we are zealously performing the

duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not

to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the

distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest

glory to laud the more distinguished character of Christian.

That was the order of George Washington in 1778 to our troops.

It's also worth noting that when he did what no man has ever done in the history of the world before or since, that was lead a military in revolution, win the revolution, and then tender his resignation and go home, in essence saying, I've done what you ask, you gave me all power. I'm giving it all back.

At the end of that resignation was a prayer, and I'll read part of the prayer from George Washington. This was 1783, June 14. At the end of his resignation were these words:

Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt

keep the United States in Thy holy protection.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to

dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean

ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of

mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of

our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose

example in these things we can never hope to be a happy

Nation.

That was George Washington in resigning as no one had done before. In fact, King George, when he was told Washington was resigning, didn't believe him. He didn't believe that that would happen. He said nobody would do that. In fact he said, If Washington were to do that, he would be the greatest man alive. He was. He was indeed.

It is also noteworthy, because in figuring out where we're going from here, and especially in this Christmas season, we need to know where we came from. 1789, George Washington said this in writing:

May the same wonder-working Deity who, long since

delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors,

planted them in the Promised Land--whose providential agency

has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United

States as an independent Nation--still continue to water them

with the dews of heaven and to make the inhabitants of every

denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual

blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.

George Washington.

There may be the gentleman from Maryland that follows me. If not, these may be the last Special Orders before the Christmas break. And I think with all of the debate that goes back and forth, this is critically important to note who said what while we were being founded.

Thomas Jefferson said these words in 1781, and it's inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial:

God who gave us life, gave us liberty. And can the

liberties of a Nation be thought secure when we have removed

their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the

people that these liberties are the gift of God, that they

are not to be violated but with His wrath. Indeed, I tremble

for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His

justice cannot sleep forever.

Think of those words, as I know that in the county right next to my home county there are people, a group, Freedom From Religion, that is doing all they can to have a nativity scene removed that is a part of the history of Athens, Texas.

Thomas Jefferson also said these words: ``I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be, sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others.''

Jefferson said: ``I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life.''

I was on Fox News last week with my friend, Eric Bolling, had a gentleman from Wisconsin who was saying Christians are a hateful group, that it is a hate religion, not understanding our history, not understanding this observation at this time of year. Not so much that we designate surely December 25 was the day when Jesus was born, but that it has been traditionally a date where we remembered his birth.

James Madison had plenty to say. In part, in one of his national day of public humiliation and prayer proclamations, he said:

If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy of the

favorable regard of the holy and omniscient Being to whom it

is addressed, it must be guided only by their free choice, by

the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their

consciences, and such a spectacle must be interesting to all

Christian nations as proving that religion, that gift of

heaven, for the good of man.

Abraham Lincoln, September 5, 1864, said in regard to this great book, talking about the Bible:

I have but to say, I believe the Bible is the best gift God

has given to man. All the good Savior gave to the world was

communicated through this book. But for it we could not know

right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's

welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.

So it's interesting that now, in a place where so many Christian groups came to avoid persecution, we're about to come full circle. Now we have people, groups like just in the recent days, who are on television, telling me, as a Christian, that I'm a member of a hate group?

He understands not what Washington understood, what Jefferson understood, what Madison understood. And how about the only President to have ever been elected to Congress and been elected President and to have been appointed to the Supreme Court? In fact, he was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was William Howard Taft.

William Howard Taft, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said these words in 1908:

No man can study the movement of modern civilization from

an impartial standpoint and not realize that Christianity,

and the spread of Christianity, are the only basis of hope of

modern civilization in the growth of popular self-government.

Our only Member of Congress, who was also President, who was also Chief Justice, said this:

The spirit of Christianity is pure democracy; it is the

equality of man before God--the equality of man before the

law, which is, as I understand it, the most Godlike

manifestation that man has been able to make. William Howard

Taft.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said these words on December 24, 1933, because he believed the Christian religion not to be a hate religion, as so many are now saying, as so many are trying to persecute. It is also important to understand this was in a terrible time of a depression.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said this:

. . . this year marks a greater national understanding of the

significance in our modern lives of the teachings of Him

whose birth we celebrate. To more and more of us, the words

`Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' have taken on a

meaning that is showing itself and proving itself in our

purposes and daily lives.

May the practice of that high ideal grow in us all in the

year to come.

I give you and send you one and all, old and young, a Merry

Christmas and a truly Happy New Year. And so, for now and for

always, `God bless us every one.'

The words of Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1941, just 2 weeks exactly after the horror of Pearl Harbor's sneak attack, Franklin Roosevelt said this:

Sincere and faithful men and women . . . are asking

themselves this Christmas: How can we light our trees? How

can we give our gifts? How can we meet and worship with love

and with uplifted spirit and heart in a world at war, a world

of fighting and suffering and death?

Franklin Roosevelt went on:

How can we pause, even for a day, even for Christmas Day,

in our urgent labor of arming a decent humanity against the

enemies which beset it? How can we put the world aside, as

men and women put the world aside in peaceful years, to

rejoice in the birth of Christ?

Franklin Roosevelt went on:

Looking into the days to come, I have set aside a day of

prayer, and in that Proclamation, I have said: `The year 1941

has brought upon our Nation a war of aggression by powers

dominated by arrogant rulers whose selfish purpose is to

destroy free institutions. They would thereby take from the

freedom-loving peoples of the Earth the hard-won liberties

gained over many centuries. The new year of 1942 calls for

the courage . . . Our strength, as the strength of all men

everywhere, is of greater avail as God upholds us.

Therefore, I . . . do hereby appoint the first day of the

year 1942 as a day of prayer, of asking forgiveness for our

shortcomings of the past, of consecration to the tasks of the

present, of asking God's help in the days to come. We need

His guidance that this people may be humble in spirit but

strong in the conviction of the right; steadfast to endure

sacrifice and brave to achieve a victory of liberty and

peace.

Our strongest weapon in this war is that conviction of the

dignity and brotherhood of man which Christmas Day signifies

. . . Against enemies who preach the principles of hate and

practice them, we set our faith in human love and in God's

care for us and all men everywhere.'

A year later exactly, Franklin Roosevelt said:

To you who serve in uniform, I also send a message of cheer

that you are in the thoughts of your families and friends at

home and that Christmas prayers follow you wherever you may

be. To all Americans, I say that loving our neighbor as we

love ourselves is not enough--that we as a Nation and as

individuals will please God best by showing regard for the

laws of God. There is no better way of fostering good will

toward man than by first fostering good will toward God.

Then Franklin Roosevelt quotes from John 14:15:

``If we love Him, we will keep His Commandments.'' In

sending Christmas greetings to the Armed Forces and merchant

sailors of the United Nations, we include therein our pride

in their bravery on the fighting fronts and on all the seas.

It is significant that tomorrow, Christmas Day, our plants

and factories will be stilled. That is not true of the other

holidays we have long been accustomed to celebrate. On all

other holidays, work goes on gladly--for the winning of the

war. So Christmas becomes the only holiday in all the year. I

like to think that this is so because Christmas is a holy

day. May all it stands for live and grow throughout the

years.

It might be worth hearing from John Kennedy, December 1962, which was approximately a year before he was assassinated. John Kennedy said these words at this season, at this time:

With the lighting of this tree, which is an old ceremony in

Washington and one which has been among the most important

responsibilities of a good many Presidents of the United

States, we initiate, in a formal way, the Christmas season.

We mark the festival of Christmas, which is the most sacred

and hopeful day in our civilization. For nearly 2,000 years,

the message of Christmas, the message of peace and good will

towards all men has been the guiding star of our endeavors .

. . I had a meeting . . . which included some of our

representatives from far off countries in Africa and Asia.

They were returning to their posts for the Christmas

holidays. Talking with them . . . I was struck by the fact

that in the far-off continents, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists,

as well as Christians, pause from their labors on the 25th

day of December to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of

Peace.

Kennedy went on and said:

There could be no more striking proof that Christmas is

truly the universal holiday of all men. It is the day when

all of us dedicate our thoughts to others; when all are

reminded that mercy and compassion are the enduring virtues;

when all show, by small deeds and large and by acts, that it

is more blessed to give than to receive. It is the day when

we remind ourselves that man can and must live in peace with

his neighbors and that it is the peacemakers who are truly

blessed. In this year of 1962, we greet each other at

Christmas with some special sense of the blessings of peace.

This has been a year of peril, when the peace has been

sorely threatened. But it has been a year when peril was

faced and when reason ruled. As a result, we may talk at this

Christmas just a little bit more confidently of peace on

Earth, goodwill to men. As a result, the hopes of the

American people are perhaps a little higher. We have much yet

to do. We still need to ask God to bless everyone.

And then finally, I was asked last year to write a story, a personal story, about a previous Christmas season. I would like to share that. It can be found at Human Events, entitled, ``Answered Prayer,'' from December 25, 2010.

Mother had become so very impulsive. You never knew what

she might do next. This brilliant woman in her younger years

had put herself through Baylor University in less than three

years while working full-time, was a member of an Honor

Society, and had spent most of her professional life as an

eighth-grade English teacher.

She had prided herself on being able to solve almost any

puzzle, answer most any question, and now it was she who was

puzzled by lots of things. She got disoriented, and was going

crazy thinking she might be going crazy. In fact, a local

doctor in our small town in east Texas told Dad if she got

much worse, she might need to be put in a home or

institution. That drove her even crazier. Amidst the other

perplexing conditions, she thought she was not hearing out of

one ear, but that was a minor thing so she did not pursue

answers for a long time.

Eventually she decided to go the 60 miles to Longview,

Texas, to have a hearing checkup with an ear, nose, and

throat specialist named Dr. Norman, whose only other contact

with our family was about 14 years earlier when he diagnosed

a hearing problem for me when I was 8 years old. He ran tests

and did x rays of Mother, but was baffled. He said she had

lost most of her hearing in her right ear, and he expected to

find a small tumor in her inner ear, but the x rays showed

there was no tumor at the normal spot. She had a hearing

loss, but he had no idea why. She went home feeling that at

least there was something wrong with her that was not

psychosomatic.

Nonetheless, her depression, anxiety, loss of balance,

impetuosity all kept getting worse, and she knew it. As fall

was heading toward Christmas, Mother was heading for

disaster. That was what she feared most, as did my father, my

older sister, Susan, my two younger brothers, David and Bill,

along with me.

Several months after her office visit with Dr. Norman, my

brilliant mother was overwhelmed in a way none of us could

help. This smart woman who read all of us Bible stories from

our earliest days, who loved to recite poetry from memory,

jokes and stories, was now having trouble from time to time

remembering some of those--and it was not just age taking its

toll on this 50-year-old mother.

One night, my mother could not sleep, which was not

unusual, but she got on her knees to pray. This was a regular

habit for this staunch Christian, a Southern Baptist, in

fact. But that night it was in complete desperation and

hopelessness. She prayed in essence: `Lord, You know I would

not take my own life, but I cannot live another day like

this. I cannot go on. You have to do something. Please help

me!'

My youngest brother, Bill, was the only sibling still

living at home. He said he awoke, got up, saw a light on, and

went to the living room. He saw Mom and worriedly asked,

`Mother, are you all right?' She said, `Yes, son. I'm fine.

Go on back to bed.' He did. She prayed a while longer,

eventually drifting down the hall to fall in bed beside our

father.

The next morning, Mother, not having to teach that day,

slept late until the phone rang. Since Dad was already at

work, Mother answered. It was the ear doctor, Dr. Norman, who

had seen her once many months before but with whom there had

been no contact since. He said, `Mrs. Gohmert, this is Dr.

Norman over in Longview. I woke up in the middle of the night

thinking about you, and just wanted to call and see if your

problems had gotten any better.' Mother told him, no, she had

actually thought she was worse. He said that is what he had

awakened thinking, and he wanted to send her over to a

neurologist friend of his at Baylor Hospital in Dallas and

just let him run tests until he figured out what was wrong.

Mother and Dad did not have a lot of money then, but they

readily agreed to do just that. Dr. Norman was not a friend

of the family, had not seen Mother in many months, did not

have common friends with our family, but he was

providentially usable and awoke with Mother on his mind!

Almost a week of testing, and nothing showed until they

tried a new machine--new at that time--called a CT Scan. It

revealed a small, walnut-sized tumor just inside the skull

above her left ear. Mother was elated when she told us the

results. We were all heartsick, but not Mother. She was so

excited because she knew it was a physical problem; she

wasn't just going crazy. What was more, she knew, as we all

did--God had answered her prayer. From there, she could

handle whatever happened.

The doctor at Baylor, concerned about the sensitive area of

the brain in which the tumor was located, referred her to a

neurosurgeon friend at the Mayo Clinic. Again, she and Dad

did what they had to, with surgery scheduled shortly after

Christmas. When the neurosurgeon went in, he found the tumor

was more grapefruit size, involved a great deal of the brain,

and could not be removed entirely. We were told later it

would grow back in maybe a year, maybe 20, no one would know.

Mom felt that was OK, too.

And through it all, she found her amazing sense of humor

again as well. In fact, her surgeon was quite concerned that

he had traumatized nerves or parts of her brain that could

have materially affected her abilities. He told the nurses it

was imperative that he watch her come out from under the

anesthesia so he would have a better idea of the damage that

might have occurred. He was alerted and was standing at the

foot of Mother's bed when she opened her eyes, which then met

his eyes. He asked, `Do you know who I am?' Mother looked at

him for a moment and then said, `If you don't know who you

are, you're worse off than I am!' Mother still had her sense

of humor.

It took 15 years for the tumor to grow back big enough to

take her life, and the last few years were tough. Half of her

face did sag a bit, causing many to think Mother might have

had a stroke. But that too did not matter as much as the fact

that Mother's prayer had been answered. She, and we all, had

a God who listened to our prayers, and answered them.

Christmas was rather special that year. It was before her

surgery, so none of us knew what lay ahead for Mother or our

family from there. But everyone seemed a little closer, loved

a little deeper, hugged a little longer, had fewer squabbles,

and appreciated everything a little more.

Two thousand years after God gave us Jesus, He was and is still in the business of answering prayer, just as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Presidents throughout our history-- Abraham Lincoln on up to the present day--have acknowledged.

Mr. Speaker, as so often occurred in the first 100 years of this country's history in this building, I will close with a verse of scripture, as so many in Congress used to do.

Psalms 116:1-2:

I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my

supplications; because He has inclined His ear to me,

therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to others who are offended by Merry Christmas. As Franklin Roosevelt said: God Bless Us Every One. Merry Christmas.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, there is so much going on these days. We have the responsibility of reining in spending, if we will just simply live up to it.

We know that our friends at the other end of the hall, the majority in the Senate, want to spend, want to tax more, not interested in making serious cuts.

It's rather amazing that this President could come into office and Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid could bump up the spending by $1 trillion, and when it becomes apparent to the whole world, not just the U.S. but the whole world, that we've got to rein back in that extra trillion they began to spend, not only do they not want to cut that extra trillion that is bankrupting us, but they want to add taxes on Americans so that they can justify even more spending. It shouldn't work that way.

We're running a deficit. We have been for a number of years. And to have Speaker Pelosi take over this Chamber and take a $160 billion deficit, which we shouldn't have run when the Republicans had the House in '06, and then parlay that into 10 times more deficit spending is just unfathomable. But it has happened, and it's got to stop. We owe that to future generations.

At the same time, we also know, and I think Joel Rosenberg, the author, referred to it in his book, ``Inside the Revolution,'' that Osama bin Laden didn't just rejoice in the killing of 3,000 or so Americans on 9/11. He also actually said that one of the great things about 9/11, from Osama bin Laden's standpoint, was that they spent maybe half a million dollars in setting up and carrying out the 9/11 murders, but that also they were costing the United States billions and billions of dollars, and it may run into trillions of dollars.

But we have to defend ourselves. We have to keep with our commitment and our constitutional duty to provide for the common defense. So not only do we have the responsibility of trying to regain some maturity as a Congress in controlling our spending and not doing further damage to the economy by rewarding the, as the President called them, the ``fat cats on Wall Street,'' those people that gave to his campaign by a 4:1 margin, the executives on Wall Street and their families, 4:1 Democrat over Republican, it's time to quit bailing out people who got themselves into those messes. We should never have done it for Wall Street. We should not have done it for the automakers.

If we had had a real payroll tax holiday--holiday, meaning you don't do something. I can't imagine having a school holiday and you only get 2 percent of the day off. I know kids that went to school with me, growing up, would never have considered a 2 percent holiday a real holiday.

The President's payroll tax holiday at 2 percent is going to go forward. We passed that out of the House, unless the Senate, down under Harry Reid, kills the bill and doesn't allow that payroll tax cut to continue.

But it's not a holiday. A real payroll tax holiday would have been to do what I proposed 3 years ago. Art Laffer said it would have been the best stimulus we could have done at the time, and that's the genius behind Ronald Reagan's economic policies in the early eighties. But that would have been to say you earned the money, you're going to keep it for at least a couple months in your own paycheck, and then you decide which car manufacturer you want to bail out by deciding what car you're going to buy with the extra money you've gotten in your paycheck. That would have been a great thing to do.

Instead, we had a Presidential administration decide who they wanted to bail out, how they wanted to bail them out. We had a secret society set up by the President in the White House decide which dealers, how many dealers were going to have to be shut down, and we ended up having the unthinkable occur, a violation of the Constitution, and that is a Federal taking of property, a Federal order to take property without any due process, without any remuneration. People even had borrowed money to buy dealerships. They still owed the banks for the money they borrowed to pay for those dealerships.

Yet we had an administration that said close them. It's amazing. As I understand, most of those that were ordered closed were Republican, which started feeding into the belief that we had crony capitalism going on. If you were friends of the President, you were going to do well. If you weren't, you could lose your business without any remuneration, without any due process.

Now we have an administration that is in office in the executive branch. They've filled the positions in the Justice Department, in the top positions in the intelligence department, the State Department. They're running things from the executive branch. And they know, they've read the 9/11 Commission report, I certainly hope they have. It's interesting if we look back and see what the 9/11 Commission said. It was a very bipartisan report. Some things I didn't terribly agree with. But I knew that the people who wrote the report were doing the very best they could and doing the best to the best of their beliefs. And they had to account for how 9/11 came about, how we had 3,000-plus people killed, the worst attack on American soil on our history, how that came about.

They did the study. They found out all of the people that were involved were crying out, ``Allah akbar.'' They were people who believed that their religion required them or encouraged them to kill innocent people, and that somehow they would be rewarded in paradise for killing innocent people. They have taken their religion, this small percentage of Islamists, and they actually believe that there is a God entity out there that will reward the devastation and killing of innocent people.

So the 9/11 Commission did a very candid report, and when you take a look at the things in that report and compare them to what this administration has done in the last 3 years to whitewash that part of history, to completely distort what really happened on

9/11, to blind, as one of our officers has said, to blind our own law enforcement, intelligence, justice people so they cannot see the enemy who has declared war on us, blind those that we have called upon to risk their lives to protect us, blind them from really seeing the risks and really being able to predict what will happen, it is staggering.

We've got the blind leading the blind.

I don't think it's any better depicted than in just a numerical analysis from the 9/11 Commission. I have a poster here. And of course as this writing says, the terminology is important in defining our goals as well as removing roadblocks in the hearts and minds. The 9/11 Commission identifies Islamist terrorism as the threat. The Muslim Public Affairs Council recommends that the U.S. government find other terminology.

The OIC, the organization of all of the Islamic states, all 57 Islamic states in the world, that organization came up with a term called Islamaphobia, the word Islamaphobe, so that if anybody bothers to do the research and find out that there is a small percentage of Muslims who are radicals and who believe the Koran directs them to destroy Israel, to destroy the United States, then let's label them Islamaphobe, even though they make very clear, like I have repeatedly, that we have Muslim patriots in America, we have Muslim business people who have done great good. The vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving people.

Nonetheless, people like me who would bother to point out this small percentage that want to destroy our way of life and are doing everything they can to get in a position to do that, we're Islamaphobes. That directive is straight from this OIC, this organization of Islamic nations, all 57 States.

That's been the directive. Scare people, intimidate people so that they will not speak the truth. It's unbelievable. Because if the OIC really wanted to help themselves, they could show the world that they were about peace, not about hatred, not about killing innocent people, by encouraging people to recognize it is only a small percentage of Islamists who believe that they need to destroy Israel and to destroy the United States.

But instead, they try to intimidate, try their name-calling. Amazingly, though, they have been very effective with this administration. If this administration had thoughts of clearly speaking truth, then they would not hesitate to call a shovel a shovel, to call things just as they are.

But instead, this administration has blinded those in the State Department, in the intelligence department, in the Justice Department so that they don't really understand the enemy, cannot understand the enemy, until the enemy, those who've declared war on us, can be accurately identified.

So you read in the 9/11 Commission report--there are three times that violent extremism is referred to in the 9/11 Commission report. But that has to be considered in light of the other things in the 9/11 Commission report because also in the 9/11 Commission report, there are 39 references to the enemy.

Well, for those of us who have been in military service, there was never a question. The enemy were those who wanted to destroy us, to kill us. And it's very easy to understand when a group calling themselves Islamists, calling themselves jihadists, want to kill everybody who does not believe as they do, they're the enemy. Not that difficult to understand.

But in this administration, these are bad words because, in the 9/11 Commission Report, 126 times the word ``jihad'' is used. Well, under this administration, you've got the FBI Counterterrorism Lexicon. Those are the words to train our FBI. They're used to train our intelligence. They're used to train law enforcement.

One of the things the Federal Government also does is train local law enforcement. So many local law enforcement make the journey here. Federal law enforcement as well as local and State law enforcement make the journey to Washington, D.C. They make the journey to Federal facilities to have Federal officers instruct them and teach them about different issues that are threats to our country. So it's important that people be properly educated about the threat.

Yet under this administration--forget what the 9/11 Commission Report saw as the real threat--there are 29 times that ``violent extremism'' can be found in the FBI Counterterrorism Lexicon and nine times that it can be found in the National Intelligence Strategy from 2009, which lays out our strategy as to how we're going to face and defeat the enemy that has declared war on us, that wants to destroy us.

There are 39 times that the 9/11 Commission Report referred to ``enemy.'' Yet the FBI Counterterrorism Lexicon and National Intelligence Strategy from this administration thinks the word ``enemy'' may, perhaps, hurt the feelings of those who want to kill us. Because they want to kill us, let's not hurt their feelings by calling them the ``enemy.''

We had an actual bill that changed the Military Commission Act of 2006, done in 2009 under Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid, and that was probably some of the thinking behind changing it. They were afraid the term ``enemy combatant'' might offend those who want to cut off our heads, blow us up, nuke us. They didn't want to offend them; but here again, the word ``enemy'' is hard to replace, so they left the word ``enemy'' in there but softened it up. Instead of calling them ``enemy combatants,'' they changed the wording of the Military Commission Act so that it's now ``unprivileged alien enemy belligerent.''

Hopefully, by softening the language, those who want to cut off our heads and nuke our Nation will feel better about those they want to kill and destroy.

The 9/11 Commission Report refers 126 times to ``jihad.'' Clearly, that's what we're facing--jihadists who want to commit jihad, which is a holy war, the way these people see it, against those of us they see as infidels. As Khalid Sheikh Mohammed references in his own pleading in the 9/11 case, they reference a provision in the Koran that says they're justified in killing those who would combine any entity with Allah, because Allah gives no permission to combine him.

So, if anyone thinks that there is a Holy Trinity, which are the words that start off the Treaty of Paris, 1783, with Great Britain--you can find it over at the State Department. The first words are in big, bold type: ``In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity''-- that's how our treaty started that recognized this country. Well, according to those Islamic jihadists, who are at holy war with us, that document, itself, is a declaration that we are infidels and need to be destroyed. Yet, under this administration, the FBI is not being taught what ``jihad'' means. It's eliminated from the Lexicon. It's eliminated from the National Intelligence Strategy in this administration.

Even the word ``Muslim'' is found 145 times in the 9/11 report because you could not do an assessment of the 9/11 attack without discussing Muslim and Islam. Yes, it's only a small, tiny percentage of Muslims who believe this way--thank God for that--but let's don't kid ourselves that they believe that they were holy Muslims who came and killed 3,000-plus people on 9/11.

Not only has this administration whitewashed--completely eliminated-- the word ``Muslim'' from our Lexicon and from our Strategy, but also the word ``Islam,'' which is mentioned 322 times in the 9/11 Commission Report by these bipartisan people, who were concerned like we all were after 9/11 that we might lose this country--that people might nuke us, that they might destroy Washington, New York, Chicago, an area down near Houston where 70 percent of our oil is refined. There are places we were afraid we would get hit--and we would not have energy; we would not have a government; we would not have commerce; our seats of commerce.

That's when the 9/11 Commission Report came out, because they knew they had to be honest and candid in their assessment. Whether we agree or disagree with their findings, they were working in the best of good faith in trying to make their assessment. That's why they used these terms as many times as they did--322 times. It's not Islam. It's not the 1.5 billion people who proclaim Islam is their religion, their way of life. It's a small percentage.

But how can we expect to defeat the enemy that has declared war on us unless we recognize who it is?

There are a number of other references.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a national organization that is working toward an international caliphate. In the Holy Land Foundation trial, tried down in Dallas, there were 105 counts. They were found guilty, five defendants. It was about the Muslim Brotherhood and the Holy Land Foundation and the Palestine Committees that were raising money and were certainly giving some to some charities. They could point to those and say, Look, we gave money to charity--but they were also funneling money to Hamas. They were funneling money to terrorism. That's against our law.

There are 65 times that ``religious'' is used in the 9/11 Commission Report because these Islamic jihadist nutcases considered themselves religious in what they were doing in killing so many innocent people.

There are 36 times ``al Qaeda'' is referenced in the 9/11 Commission Report--but in the FBI Counterterrorism Lexicon, zero; in the National Intelligence Strategy, one time.

``Sharia law'' was referenced twice in the 9/11 Commission Report. It's not even mentioned in the new Lexicon or the Strategy.

How can we win a war declared by others upon us unless we can recognize our enemy?

This administration has done--not everything--but it has done so much that it can blind us so we can't see our enemy. There is nothing more vivid than to see the complete eradication of the terminology that would allow our people to recognize their enemy.

There's not even a reference to ``Hamas.'' Hamas is a terrorist organization. We've recognized them as a terrorist organization. They're responsible for killing innocent people. Yet, in the new Lexicon, we're not even telling people who are being trained to defend us about Hamas.

How do we expect to win a war like that, not one of our making, not one we want but one declared on us, unless we are willing to recognize those who are at war with us and to recognize their motivation?

These folks are extremely predictable if you understand their mind- set, if you understand how they take provisions from the Koran and twist them and what they believe with them. Unless you can study that and understand that, you can never say, as General Patton did after he defeated Rommel and stood up looking over the devastation that his tankers had caused--and he used a little colorful language--``I read your book.''

However, nowadays we're preventing our law enforcement, our intelligence, our State Department from reading the book--those who have put books together and studied books--of those who are trying to create a way to wipe out the Little Satan, Israel; Zionism--and the Great Satan, the United States of America.

We in this body and those at the other end of this Hall in the Senate took an oath; and unless an oath means nothing, we have a duty to perform. I have come to know very personally some with whom I hardly ever agree on political issues on the other side of the aisle, but I've come to know their hearts, and we have gotten to be good friends. And I know people on both sides of the aisle here who, with all their heart, want to live up to their oath and do the right thing.

But no matter which side of the aisle we're on--or if we don't even care about aisles--it is critical that historically for a nation to survive, it must recognize those who have sworn the destruction of that nation and are doing everything they can to gather the means to do that.

We have a Private Abdo. This is a young man, Private Abdo, who did an interview on al-Jazeera. He was seen on al-Jazeera. We have people in our administration's intelligence and Justice who see him on al- Jazeera, basically laying out--and of course this news program was done in Arabic. It was not done in English. If you listen to the program on YouTube, you can hear some of the things that Private Abdo said.

But he made clear, Hey, I'm a Muslim. I cannot deploy. The same things that Major Hasan said before he went and killed 13 of our military at Fort Hood and another, which was the unborn child of one of our pregnant servicemembers. He made clear, just like Private Abdo, I can't both deploy and be a Muslim. I will have to go kill Americans. I can do that without violating my religion, at least in their beliefs. But I cannot be deployed into a Muslim country because of the risk I might kill a Muslim without that person that I kill meeting one of the requirements to be allowed to be killed and, therefore, that would send me basically to hell. So I can't do that. But it's okay to kill Americans.

This Justice Department ought to be getting these words back in its lexicon. Our intelligence should get them back in their lexicon so that when you have a private go on al-Jazeera and say these things, that our intelligence and our Justice Department are allowed to put that in a memo and say, This guy has sworn that he cannot go to a Muslim country; and, therefore, he's better off killing our own soldiers than he is being deployed.

We need to recognize when people are saying they're going to have to kill us. But instead, even though he was seen on al-Jazeera and it was clear he was setting things up, just like Major Hasan did, the only reason that people were not killed by the bombs he was wanting to create and he was buying material to produce was because a local gun dealer got suspicious and reported him, not because the intelligence or Justice Department acted on seeing this private putting himself in Major Hasan's same pattern.

If I could see that other poster. We've got another soldier in uniform who has been on al-Jazeera. And yet now, because of the changed lexicon, people are not able to properly pursue this kind of problem so that one of our own soldiers starts defaming our own military and using the OIC term that Islamophobia is evident within the military. The overwhelming sentiment was that Islamophobia was present in the U.S. military.

It's time that this administration wake up; and if it's not willing to wake up, this Congress must wake it up. That's why the Founders created three separate branches and created two Houses within this branch so that they hoped that there would be adequate responses to threats, they hoped that it would be difficult to pass laws that would hurt the country. Their hope was that they were setting up a system that would protect itself. But until we take the blinders off, those who are sworn to protect us, we're in some big trouble. Or as folks at Fort Benning, where I served for 4 years, used to say, We'll be in some deep kimchi.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my friend, and I appreciate his taking the time to discuss this matter of national security.

I have the quote directly here from Army Chief of Staff General George W. Casey, Jr., who was the Chief of Staff at the time of the Fort Hood attack. He came out and had this prepared quote to give.

Chief of Staff of the Army.

This is a quote that, obviously, he and those helping him had prepared to give in response to 14 people being killed. We know one was an unborn child and that one of the people was a pregnant woman--a female soldier. So here is the quote that they had prepared after 13 of his soldiers lay either dying or dead at Fort Hood:

``I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers . . . Our diversity, not only in our Army but in our country, is a strength; and as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse.''

This is a general who is charged with leading soldiers and directing soldiers in war and in battle with an avowed enemy. Well, we have an enemy who has sworn to be at war with us. And one of those enemies was Major Hasan at Fort Hood, who went off on a shooting spree.

Now unfortunately, our leaders did not bother to monitor the security of our own soldiers, such that when Major Hasan made actual pronouncements in advance that he could not be deployed and be a Muslim because, in his interpretation of the Koran--thankfully it's not all of our Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military that have this interpretation--but his interpretation was that he could not be deployed because that might require him to kill Muslims in a foreign country without cause.

And under the belief of some Muslims, like Major Hasan, if he were to kill a Muslim without cause--for example, in his way of thinking, it is appropriate cause, say, if a Muslim were to become a Christian, then that is a cause, in his mind, worthy of killing the individual, if they committed this horrible crime, in his mind, according to the Koran, of becoming a Christian. That's worth killing them for. But since he couldn't be sure that in a foreign country in a battle with Muslims that he might not be required to shoot someone who had not committed apostasy and not committed some act that justified murder under the Koran, then he could not be deployed. And if he were deployed, he would have to kill American soldiers to avoid having to go kill soldiers overseas.

It is interesting because you would think that the military would be concerned about this issue and that we would try to make sure that this incident that happened at Fort Hood would not happen again. You would think that when this private showed up on al Jazeera in uniform and told al Jazeera basically the same things that Major Hasan had, that people like General Casey would be concerned. But apparently, he was more concerned about our diversity than he was about the lives of his own soldiers.

So when you see this private on al Jazeera--and it's not hard. You can go online and find this on YouTube, his interview--he spoke in English. But the story was done actually in the language that al Jazeera prefers, and it's not English. He explained basically what Major Hasan did. And this is a line from al Jazeera, ``I can't both deploy and be a Muslim.'' And we have the transcript of what he said, the transcript of the story. But basically, he was letting people like General Casey, that would bother to worry about the--well, not General Casey, because he is worried about diversity, and the safety of his soldiers is secondary to that. But for those who are concerned, number one, about the safety of those in this country and making sure that their own soldiers are tantamount, in their minds, they would be concerned when you have another soldier saying the same things Major Hasan did before the killing spree.

So we know that there are people in our special ops, in our military that noted this, that saw this, that said, This is a guy we had better watch. But because the people at the top are more concerned about diversity than they are about our soldiers' safety--I mean, it's bad enough that they put their lives on the line. They're willing to do that in combat. But you would think that there would be more concern for their own safety in their own units. Nothing was done about this private.

And despite this Justice Department trying to vilify gun dealers whom it forced into making sales to criminals who carry guns across the border, and despite the efforts that were made to maybe--and in fact, names were produced, pictures were produced of gun dealers out of the Fast and the Furious program--despite that, it was not General Casey, not one of his subordinates, not one of our own people in the military that reported this guy. No. Nothing was done, even though they knew he was ready to pull a Major Hasan, he could not be deployed, nothing was done. And it was not until he went to a gun dealer. The gun dealer became suspicious. The gun dealer reported him. Thank God for Americans like that gun dealer who realized, We've got our own soldiers' lives at stake here. He reported him.

Then locally he was dealt with and interdiction occurred, and he was not given the chance to kill the soldiers he wanted to, again at Fort Hood. Because if it weren't for the gun dealer and those intervening-- not the military, not our intelligence, who surely monitor al Jazeera and would surely note a soldier in uniform with the screaming eagle patch on his arm, and that this is something we need to worry about.

But because we have become so politically correct, to the detriment and death of our own soldiers, nothing was done from intelligence, from State, from Justice. It took a local gun dealer to protect our soldiers at Fort Hood. And you wonder how many more times this is going to have to happen.

Heck, this soldier--you can go on Facebook, and you can find that he notes his activities and interests. CAIR, the Council on American- Islamic Relations. CAIR is named in the Holy Land Foundation trial as a coconspirator. There was evidence produced that showed that CAIR was also funding terrorism, funding Hamas, participating in that venture with the Holy Land Foundation, as found by the Fifth Circuit when they refused to eliminate CAIR's name from their pleadings. He identifies CAIR as one of his interests and activities. And our intelligence, our military, they didn't pick up on that. Why? Because that would be politically incorrect and might hurt our diversity.

We've got outstanding Muslim soldiers serving in our military who love and care about this country, like all other soldiers. But it is insane and I believe a violation of the commitment and oath that every officer takes--like I did when I went in the military--not to keep your eyes open and protect those people who are put to your service as your charges.

So here he is, Nasser Abdo. He went on al Jazeera. He makes it clear, he may have to kill American soldiers. He cannot allow himself to be deployed as a Muslim. He requested conscientious objector status. And all we can do is thank God for the gun dealer that did what his superiors should have done in this case. It's time to end political correctness when it costs the lives of those protecting us.

I thank my friend for yielding.

I think it is particularly interesting that this determination by the Army came, or our military leaders, came here in December. We just observed--it wasn't a celebration--we observed the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. As Judge Carter pointed out numerous times, the victims of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon have been recognized as victims of warfare. They were attacked by people of the same belief as Major Hasan, that he secures a place in paradise if he is killed while killing infidels like his soldier friends.

In fact, those soldiers that he was also hired to counsel as a counselor at Fort Hood, a local imam for Fort Hood, and yet one cannot help but wonder if these same folks who declared the deaths at the hands of a Muslim extremist at Fort Hood, if these same people in charge today had been in charge on December 7, 1941, then there is nothing to indicate their reasoning would have been different. All of those soldiers killed at Pearl Harbor, those entombed in the Arizona, those killed in that horrific surprise attack, actually they were at their duty stations. They were at work and someone came and killed them. Therefore, apparently under the reasoning as applied at Fort Hood, those killed at Pearl Harbor could also be considered as having been killed in workplace violence. It was violent. It was their workplace. Therefore, our mental geniuses that decided Fort Hood was workplace violence could say that about Pearl Harbor.

With regard to that very issue, we know that in the 9/11 Commission there were hundreds of mentions of Islam, jihad, all of these type things that we know were involved. And again, we thank God that the vast majority of Muslims love this country like we do. They are not about to kill Christians, Jews; but there are those in the radical element that believe otherwise. And we ought to be able to talk about it. We now know that this administration has seen to such a purging of our training material for Defense Department, Intelligence, State, that in the current lexicon from which the FBI, our intelligence folks are trained, there are zero mentions of Islam, zero mentions of jihad, zero mentions of the very things that created the worst attack on American soil in American history.

As one of our own officers told me: We have been blinded in this war with those using terrorism. We're not allowed to see our enemy. We're not allowed to describe our enemy. We're not allowed to talk about who the real enemy is. We're just expected to protect America with our eyes closed and our mouths shut. That's no way to protect America.

Will the gentleman yield?

There is an article dated February 9, 2010, in The Washington Times by Bill Gertz that says, the Army was warned about the jihadist threat in '08. It says:

Almost 2 years before the deadly Fort Hood shooting by a

radicalized Muslim officer, the U.S. Army was explicitly

warned that jihadism--Islamic holy war--was a serious problem

and threat to personnel in the U.S., according to

participants at a major Army-sponsored conference.

It references Patrick Poole, Army Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Myers, and Terri Wonder as individuals that participated. It says:

The shooting at a recruiting center in Little Rock,

Arkansas, in June and the November shooting at Fort Hood,

Texas, that killed 13 people have exposed the problem of the

Army's deficiencies in understanding the nature of the

domestic Islamic terrorist threat, Mr. Poole said.

The incidents have raised questions about whether the Army

made any effort to ``operationalize'' the threat warnings

from the 2008 conference and develop policies to counter the

threats. ``The answer quite clearly is no,'' Mr. Poole said.

And then it goes on to discuss this whole problem, and Mr. Poole said:

I noted because of our lack of understanding of Islamic

doctrines, Islamic jihad and my view that our

counterintelligence function is broken, outdated, being

usurped in some cases by public affairs and equal opportunity

officials, we were going to get soldiers killed in America on

our own bases for that professional ignorance.

This is the kind of thing that should not be happening. This article was in 2010, before at least two other individuals had gone on Al Jazeera in uniform blasting our military and indicating they could not ever be deployed in a Muslim area.

It's also worth noting that the term ``Islamophobe,'' that I'm sure is being generated right now about the two of us here talking about this issue, actually originated with the Organization of Islamic Conference, the OIC. They came up with the terms ``Islamophobia'' and ``Islamophobe,'' and there is an ongoing effort to brand anybody who attempts to identify those by their beliefs who have gone about killing Americans, terrorizing Americans as an Islamophobe or as having Islamophobia.

We know that there are places like Harvard where a professor from India who wrote an article about the attacks that are ongoing on his homeland in India by Muslim extremists and how that should be dealt with, he was fired because Islamic activists at Harvard do not believe we should have free speech anymore. And as I mentioned on this floor earlier this week, one of the 2005 10-year goals of the Muslim Brotherhood here in America is to subvert our Constitution to sharia law by 2015. That effort is ongoing.

And when they continue to brand professors, soldiers, and intelligence officers as Islamophobes and that we need laws to prevent people from describing radical jihadists who want to kill our own American people, as long as that's being done and that's being allowed, then our First Amendment rights are being subverted to sharia law, and we're well on our way to their meeting their 2015 goal as more and more good folks have been won over into this idea, this thought, that, gee, if you say anything about radical jihadists and radical Islamists, you're the sick one and you need to be stopped.

This is an ongoing effort around the world, and we cannot allow it to overtake America. We should be able to recognize those wonderful, patriotic Muslims in America for who they are, but we should also be able to recognize and talk about those who want to kill us and destroy our way of life for who they are. They're radical Islamic jihadists.

If the gentleman would yield.

Well, my friend the judge indicates he was lucky, unfortunately, in his perverted way of thinking. That also is a way of thinking that confounded Thomas Jefferson when he was negotiating with the Islamic Barbary pirates.

He actually believed he would have gone to paradise and had dozens of virgins at his disposal if he had been killed, so he doesn't necessarily think of himself as lucky. Nor would those in Iran, once a nuclear weapon or nuclear weapons are assuredly procured, be any different. They would believe, if they were to go up with the nuclear weapon that they carried into some place where lots of Americans were or Israelis were, then they would be assured of instantly being transported to paradise. Some of us have a different view of what they would find when they meet their Maker after this life, and I think they're going to be terribly surprised.

But our job and our oath is to our Constitution. It's to provide for the common defense against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And when someone presents this kind of danger to our troops, it is just unfathomable that our military leaders would become so politically correct and so militarily neutered that they would not stand up for their own troops, for those whose care has been put under their service and attention.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. James Mark McNatt, a remarkable Texan who died on July 31, 2011. James was born in Denton, TX to James Arby and Margaret Revell McNatt and in 1966 he married the love of his life, Judy Blankenship. James and Judy went on to raise three children in Carthage, TX and James was the proud grandfather to seven grandchildren.

As a young man, James served in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany for two years. In 2007 he retired from East Texas Medical Center in Carthage after 25 years of service. James was a respected member of the New Life Baptist Church and The Gideons International, and was known to have the perfect scripture for any situation.

James loved his life in Carthage, where he resided for 28 years. All three of his children went to Carthage High School, where James and Judy could always be found cheering in the stands, working in the concession stand, or helping behind the scenes. James never stopped being an active community member--whether it was volunteer work or running his snowcone stand in the summer. Judy has worked for the local radio station for 20 years.

In 2002, James was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, but he never skipped a beat. James and Judy still continued to travel to see the grandchildren's dance recitals, cheer competitions, and soccer games and visit the Longview Fire Station where his son was a firefighter. James adamantly believed a cure for Parkinson's was possible and planned for guests of his memorial to make donations to the American Parkinson's Disease Association. James also served time on the board of the local American Heart Association chapter.

His family will remember James as a man of faith and perseverance. One who made it a priority to have the whole family together, making sure the annual White Elephant Gift Exchange was on the calendar and one who loved others unconditionally.

James is survived by his wife for 45 years, Judy McNatt, daughters Jennifer Mattingly and husband Chris, Jessica Huff and husband Bill, and son (James) Michael McNatt and wife Melinda. He is also survived by his grandchildren, Molly and Riley Mattingly; Baylee,

Kennedy, Cooper and Hadley Huff; and Lani McNatt. In addition, James is survived by sisters Fran Ryals, Sissy Frady Hamlin, and brothers Buster McNatt and Bill McNatt. Finally, James leaves behind a large host of family and special friends throughout Texas and beyond.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is so much going on these days, and we have to trust the United States, the Federal entities of the executive branch to keep us protected. That's why our hearing last week with the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, before the Judiciary Committee of the House was very disturbing. We had Attorney General Holder before our committee back on May 3 of this year; and at that time, the Attorney General said, with regard to this horrible project, this undertaking called Fast and Furious, the Attorney General said he had only known about it ``a few weeks.'' To most of us, ``a few weeks'' means about 3 weeks. However, in testifying under penalty of perjury last week, the Attorney General said in essence, Look, 3 weeks, 3 months--a few weeks is 3 months; there's not really any difference. When you have the highest-ranking person in the United States Department of Justice who plays so fast and loose while testifying under oath, who plays so fast and loose with the facts, it is quite disturbing, and it's time for a change.

Our Attorney General testified that there were a certain number of guns, 94,000 firearms, submitted for tracing and that 64,000 of those firearms were sourced to the United States. The further we get into that, the more inaccurate we find out those figures are; and of course we recall--and it's understandable that with a boss like the United States President who has previously said, 90, 95 percent of the guns seized at crime scenes in Mexico came from the United States, it's understandable that if the boss is making those kinds of glaring errors on numbers, then perhaps the head of the Department of Justice would make substantial mistakes in numbers.

But, fortunately, the Department of Justice is not the only source of information regarding those types of matters. The Congressional Research Service is a bipartisan group. They do an extraordinary job. I've gotten the impression that potentially the majority may be Democrat, but it doesn't matter to those folks. They do a very good job of researching thoroughly whatever project they're given.

And the information that we were able to get back from the Congressional Research Service indicates that there are maybe only 25 percent of the weapons that Mexico has seized that are capable of being traced back to their original source and that most of the weapons that Mexico seizes are never offered for the process of tracing because they know there's no way to trace them. So if only 25 percent of those that are seized in Mexico are asked to have tracing done, then it is very clear that not 95, not 90, not even 70 percent of the weapons seized can be traced to an American owner first.

We also know from the testimony and the information about this Fast and Furious project of the ATF Department of Justice, because the ATF is a subsidiary of the Department of Justice, but we know that gun dealers were pushed into making sales to people they didn't believe should be sold the weapons; and our own Federal Government, our own Justice Department, urged them to go ahead and make the sales on behalf of their country anyway. Then some in this administration have the nerve to say this, too, was Bush's fault, and they point to programs in the Bush administration as being the source.

Andrew McCarthy, back November 8, had a great article in National Review Online, ``Fast & Furious Was . . . Bush's Fault.'' He goes on to point out that Fast and Furious did not begin until 2009, months after the end of the Bush administration, and he also goes on to point out a number of things.

For example, Wide Receiver, which was a project under the Bush administration, involved what were considered controlled deliveries. As a former judge, we'd hear constantly about controlled deliveries where the government would have people--find out people were inquiring about making drug sales, and they would set up a delivery. There would be plenty of agents there to intervene as soon as the transaction had actually been made. The controlled delivery meant not only do you have people watching, you may even have some way to follow what is being transferred in that controlled delivery. That's what was anticipated with Wide Receiver, the project under the Bush administration.

Unfortunately, there was an incident where Wide Receiver, apparently that project had a controlled delivery setup of weapons, the intent never ever to allow them to actually leave this country or to actually have the individuals involved get away with those weapons, but actually to have them have an interdiction, have them arrested. And also, one other thing, they had homing devices on the weapons. Well, unfortunately, everything went wrong. The homing devices were detected, they were removed, the controlled delivery went bad, and folks got away.

That is a far sight different from this administration deciding we're going to see that massive number, at least a couple of thousand weapons, are put in the hands of criminals who will likely take them across the border. They will certainly end up in the deaths of Mexicans, and there's a good chance will result in the deaths of Americans. Anyone in any administration who thinks such an idea is a good one needs to go from that administration. Anyone from any administration who allows something so insane to take place does not need to be in that administration. Anybody who has such lax control over his department that though those directly under him know about it, they leave him plausible deniability to come in and say: I didn't know anything about it. Maybe Lanny Breuer; yeah, apparently he knew all about. Yeah, I see

Lanny quite a bit, but I didn't know anything about it. Anybody that sets up a structure to allow themselves that kind of plausible deniability--so-called plausible--and would allow something that results in a foreseen death, much less hundreds of deaths, does not need to be head of that department.

Now, this should not be a partisan issue. Back when President Bush, George W. Bush was President, we had been told in our Judiciary Committee in the House by the Attorney General at that time that there were no known abuses of the national security letters. The national security letter powers bother me greatly. I'm extremely concerned about them. I've been very concerned about them, and we had the report from the Attorney General, no, there are no known abuses. Well, that is an awfully powerful weapon, but we were assured under the PATRIOT Act it is only allowable that those letters be used to gain information about foreign nationals--not American citizens--or people who are associated with known foreign terrorist organizations. It would never be used against American citizens. We were assured of that.

So some of us wanted to make sure that there were no abuses, no American citizens were being pursued internationally or nationally. We were assured they weren't. The Attorney General in July had testified before--this was, I guess, 2007; I believe it was July--that there were no known abuses by Federal agents of the national security letter where they demand information, documentation, all that's in the possession of the person to whom the letter is sent. It turns out, three days before the Attorney General testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, there had been a report that was placed on his desk. The Attorney General's defense was: I never read it before I testified before the Senate, so I was certainly testifying honestly; I just didn't know. That was enough, though, to have people on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat, House and Senate, agree we need to change something, and we got it changed within about six weeks.

This administration is so used to obfuscating, hiding the ball, preventing documentation that is requested from coming to light, this administration thinks that it can keep protecting people who need to go for the good of the country.

Then we find out there's emails in the documents that were provided by the Justice Department. There are emails indicating that, gee, maybe it would be a good idea if we could use Fast and Furious numbers to get more regulation. Sharyl Attkisson has an article--this was part of CBSnews.com--where she indicates:

ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own

role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but

emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales

encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called

``Demand Letter 3''. That would require some U.S. gun shops

to report the sale of multiple rifles or ``long guns.''

Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third

ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C.

received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops

Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's

Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

``Bill--can you see if these guns were all purchased from

the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are

looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long

gun multiple sales. Thanks.''

Amazing. The ATF, the Justice Department, creates this horrible program that would get people killed and then wants to use that as a basis for further regulation and further elimination of our Second Amendment rights to the United States Constitution. Unbelievable. They have Senator Feinstein down the Hall when questioning Lanny Breuer, who apparently indications are was not truthful with regard to Fast and Furious, and Senator Feinstein says, ``We have very lax laws when it comes to guns. I think this, to some extent, influences the ATF and how they approach the problem as to whether they have political support or not. But I think these numbers are shocking. And I think when you know the numbers of deaths these guns have caused used by cartels against victims, it's literally up in the tens of thousands. So the question comes as what we can do, and I would really rather concentrate on the constructive rather than other things. And so the question comes, do you believe that if there were some form of registration when you purchase these firearms that that would make a difference?''

Again, a deadly program that would kill innocent people is put in place by the Justice Department's ATF, people are killed, and then people around this town want to use this horrible program's results to justify taking away Second Amendment rights. It's staggering. Staggering. It's bad enough that anybody would think this type of program, Fast and Furious, was a good idea, but then to turn around and use it to try to destroy Second Amendment rights under the Constitution is simply unconscionable.

Well, the Attorney General also, when asked about his testimony last week, he said, yes, he had ordered in February an Inspector General study, an inspection of the Fast and Furious program. It was pointed out to the Attorney General that in the big document dump that they had--and it was clearly a document dump intended to mask and hide anything therein. A good piece of evidence of that is the fact that 92 pages, at least, of the documents were Senator Grassley's own request for information about Fast and Furious. Those were just duplicated dozens and dozens and dozens of times, and that was part of the document dump just to hide what little bit of information was in there.

And yet despite all those documents produced and despite information that was inquired about at the hearing, the Attorney General does use government email, he does use private email, he does sign things, not one email of the Attorney General, not one letter, not one order of any kind by this Attorney General was part of that record.

If we have an Attorney General who believes in playing so fast and loose with the laws that it really is more about who you know in this administration rather than what the law says, it's time for another Attorney General. Nothing was produced. When I asked about his testimony that an IG inspection was ordered, our Attorney General indicated basically that he had such a great relationship with the Inspector General he could just pick up the phone and ask her to do an inspection, a study.

If that's the way this Attorney General operates, which he testified under oath that it was, we need a new Attorney General. Those kinds of things are so serious they require something signed.

And as far as being so chummy with the Inspector General, it also makes clear this is no way to run a Justice Department, because it makes clear that the Justice Department is run by a man who is so chummy with the one person that may be able to do an independent study that there really is no independent study done.

That also became clear, and Darrell Issa who has been pursuing this-- and I'm thankful for it. He has been relentless. But the information has not been forthcoming. But from what information has been gleaned, we find out that this Inspector General, the very, very, very close chum of our Attorney General, had found out that there was a gun dealer who became so concerned about this egregious thing being done where he was being forced to sell guns to people to whom he did not want to sell guns, that he began recording conversations, things that were told him by Federal agents so that he would have some protection. When the Inspector General found out, she got the recorded conversations.

Now, a good Inspector General who is not extremely chummy with the person heading up the Department she is supposed to independently study and inspect would go forward, talk to witnesses and see if they said anything inconsistent in their statements to the Inspector General so that the Inspector General could determine if these people were being honest.

Instead, what this very close ally and chum of the person whose Department she is supposed to be inspecting, she apparently took the recorded statement, gave it to the Federal agent and said, hey, you better listen to this before you give any statements so you

can make sure your statements are consistent.

Inspectors General aren't supposed to do that. They're supposed to conduct a thorough, independent investigation. All the indications are that this Inspector General is, just as Attorney General Holder testified, so chummy, so close, that she doesn't need a written order. It works out better if we can just say, we just talked about it over the phone. And, in fact, wouldn't that be great, too, if we could do that here in Congress? Do you know what? We passed a law, but we just talked about it, and you don't get to find out what it is, but we'll come after you if you violate it.

You can't run a government that way. There needs to be documentation for decisions that are made so we know who made them. And that brings us to one of the more egregious factors in the poor management of the Justice Department. When the Attorney General was asked who it was by my friend, Judge Poe from Texas, now in Congress, who it was that made the decision to go forward with Fast and Furious after lo these many, many months, the Attorney General said he just really didn't know, and he didn't know if he was going to be able to find out.

Since we have an Attorney General that has no way of knowing who is making the decisions in his Department that are getting innocent people in the United States and Mexico killed, it's time to have an Attorney General who does.

We cannot survive as a country when the Federal Government plays so fast and loose with orders that mean the difference between people being killed and not killed.

It's time for a change. America deserves better. Mexico deserves better. And you can't help but wonder what kind of pressure was put on Mexico's government not to raise holy Cain about having all these illegal weapons forcibly sold that were going into Mexico. We had no intention--or this Justice Department had no intention of following them, no method of getting them back, no method of finding out where they were. And in fact, it appears the whole goal was to wait and see when they showed up at crime scenes--which normally meant somebody had been killed--then check the serial numbers against those the ATF had forcibly required the sale of, And if they matched, then we could blame American gun dealers. It's understandable a gun dealer in the U.S. could become concerned, that maybe he ought to start taping Federal agents giving him instructions. Things are not going well in this Justice Department.

One other area of concern--has been for some time--is the fact that there are organizations in the United States that are raising money and then funding terrorist organizations abroad. Hamas is one specifically. And since this government continues to send money to the Palestinian Authority, which has now got an agreement with Hamas, our own government is in cahoots in funding terrorism. At some point the insanity has got to stop.

We know that this kind of thing has gone on by organizations in the United States because in November of 2008 the Bush administration obtained five convictions, 105 counts of funding terrorism. Most people refer to the litigation as the Holy Land Foundation trial. And there were over 200 named coconspirators with the Holy Land Foundation and the individuals named, and those coconspirators, many of them were implicated through evidence that was introduced at trial in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

Now, they were named coconspirators, but the others were not actually indicted. My understanding is that the Bush administration intended to try to get those first convictions--the first time the case was tried to a hung jury, an 11-1 split, as I understood it, for guilt. The second time they got the 105 counts of conviction against the five individuals. And their intent was, if they could get those prosecutions, get those judgments, get those findings of guilt, then it would proceed on with others of the 200-plus named coconspirators. And in fact, some of the named coconspirators, like CAIR, ISNA, had filed a motion with the Federal court in Dallas that ended up at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. They wanted their names struck from the pleadings, but the Fifth Circuit in essence said there is a prima facie case. There is sufficient evidence here to show that these named coconspirators were coconspirators and therefore, no, they're not going to have their names struck from the pleadings; they're part of the evidence. It's clear, or there is evidence to support their being coconspirators with the Holy Land Foundation. Some folks have been trying to get documentation from the Holy Land Foundation trial. We've gotten some, but there were a massive amount of documents that were turned over to the five defendants, the Holy Land Foundation people. And since we know beyond a reasonable doubt they were funding terrorism, there is not really any doubt in most thinking peoples' minds that those documents all found their way back to Hamas, the terrorists.

But this administration, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, has decided they're not going to prosecute any of those people. Even after the Fifth Circuit said there is prima facie evidence, there is sufficient evidence to go forward and to keep their names because they are coconspirators, according to the evidence produced, this administration has chosen to protect those individuals by not prosecuting them, much like this administration did in failing to prosecute the individuals involved in the new Black Panther movement-- who one African American involved in the civil rights movement of the sixties said was the worst case of voting rights abuses that he had ever seen. And yet this Attorney General, who could have gotten a judgment and prevented at least these two individuals from ever appearing at a voting place like this and intimidating voters, chose to water down the judgment with one so that he just didn't go back to that same voting place in the next election. And with the other, who was certainly, from the videotape, involved in violating people's civil rights, didn't even take the judgment against him. And then to turn around and refuse to prosecute people who there is sufficient evidence to show that they are funding terrorism is horrendous.

There is an article, December 7, ``Holy Land Foundation Hamas Support Convictions Affirmed.'' And this is from Andrew McCarthy, who was the prosecutor in the first World Trade Center prosecution, 1993, when the attempt was made to blow up the World Trade Center the first time, successfully prosecuted. And at the time, America didn't realize we were in a war. We were in a war, but only one side knew that they were in a war, and that was the radical Islamists.

As Mr. McCarthy indicates, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, upheld the convictions of five jihadists behind the Holy Land Foundation, the piggybank set up by the Brotherhood in the U.S. under the guise of charity to fund Hamas to the tune of tens of millions of dollars during the deadly Intifada. The three-judge panel's unanimous 170-page opinion recounts that Hamas was created by Brotherhood operatives--that's Muslim Brotherhood--in 1987 as the Brotherhood's ``Palestinian branch.'' Thereafter, ``the Muslim Brotherhood directed its worldwide chapters to establish so-called `Palestinian committees' to support Hamas from abroad.''

McCarthy continues:

In the U.S., the ``Palestine Committee'' was led by Mousa

Abu Marzook (who for a time in the early nineties actually

ran Hamas from his home in Virginia). The Palestine Committee

created not only the Holy Land Foundation but a number of

other Islamist entities in the U.S. The leaders of one of

those entities, the Islamic Association for Palestine,

subsequently created CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic

Relations, which was cited as an unindicted coconspirator in

the case.

Mr. McCarthy goes on to point out that documents recovered by the FBI at the home of a Brotherhood operative established the Brotherhood's overarching role in the Hamas support scheme, including bylaws showing the Brotherhood had directed the collection of donations for the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is Hamas.

Also recovered at the time was the internal memorandum in which the Brotherhood's American leadership asserted:

The Ikhwan [i.e., the Brotherhood] must understand that

their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating

and destroying the Western civilization from within and

`sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands

of the believers, so that it is eliminated and God's religion

is made victorious over all other religions.

And, in fact, you get a copy of the Fifth Circuit's opinion, there are a number of interesting things addressed by the Fifth Circuit with regard to the Holy Land Foundation. The Fifth Circuit said:

We are satisfied that independent evidence also established

the existence of a joint venture or combination among the

declarants and the defendants to support Hamas through the

Holy Land Foundation and the zakat committees. For example,

participants at the Philadelphia meeting discussed Hamas and

its control of the zakat committees. The participants

referenced the importance of the Holy Land Foundation in the

Committee's goals, and they identified as ``ours'' various

zakat committees to which Holy Land Foundation donated funds.

The Government also introduced evidence of numerous financial

transactions and personal contact between the defendants and

Hamas leader Marzook, who was listed in the Elbarasse and

Ashqar documents as chairman of the Palestine Committee.

Marzook also had in his personal phone book the contact

information for Baker, Elashi, El-Mezain and Elbarasse.

Further, Hamas leader Mishal spoke at a meeting attended by

Baker, Elashi, El-Mezain and Ashqar about supporting Hamas.

According to Shorbagi, who was present, El-Mezain led a

break-out group at that meeting to discuss the financial

issue of raising money. Moreover, Shorbagi specifically

testified from personal knowledge that the Holy Land

Foundation was part of Hamas.

Well, the Fifth Circuit, talking about the Holy Land Foundation trial, said the evidence at issue was offered to show the defendant's connection to terrorists and his predisposition to terrorist activities.

It goes on to cite much of the evidence. And the Court says:

The evidence in this case does show a relationship between

the defendants and Elbarasse and Ashqar, as well as their

connections to Hamas leaders.

It goes on to say:

The record here showed the defendants' joint participation

in a shared undertaking involving the Committee--that's the

Palestine Committee--and the documents were properly

admitted.

The Court goes on, makes numerous findings, discusses the law, but also says:

The defendants here ``are wrong to suggest that it is

necessary to know the precise identity of'' the declarants in

the Elbarasse and Ashqar documents.

They go on to conclude:

It's ``inescapable'' that the declarants were joint

venturers with the defendants in support of Hamas through the

Palestine Committee.

It goes on to cite some examples there. The Fifth Circuit did an excellent job of going through reciting the evidence, and they said this:

They were also consistent with security ``guidelines''

found among Holy Land Foundation's materials stored at

Infocom, which directed that there should be cover stories

agreed upon to explain things like meetings and travel.

Now, if this group that worked through the Holy Land Foundation to send money to Hamas were perfectly innocent, then it seems interesting that the Foundation's policies and guidelines that were found in Virginia in a sub-basement which contained much of the Muslim Brotherhood's archives would say the following--and this is from a footnote on page 84 of the Fifth Circuit's decision. They said:

The document, which was labeled ``The Foundation's Policies

& Guidelines,'' included comprehensive policies for ensuring

the secrecy of the organization's activity. For example, the

policies directed that documents should be arranged at

meetings so that they could be easily gotten rid of in an

emergency; that measures should be taken before a meeting to

be sure there is no hidden surveillance equipment; that an

alert signal should be given if the location is monitored or

if a member of the committee is followed; and that documents

should be hidden when traveling and a pretext should be

devised in case they are discovered in a search. The

possession of such a document by a purportedly charitable

organization was clearly suspicious.

And the Fifth Circuit there is a master of understatement.

It is amazing what was found in the documentation in Virginia, and that's after a couple were arrested as they went across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, photographing construction columns of the bridge. And on further search of their home in Virginia, sub-basement, they found the Muslim Brotherhood archives that gave us so much information.

The trouble is, there were massive numbers of boxes of information. And as we understand it, much of that was provided to the defendants in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

I made the request of the Attorney General last week that, since those documents were provided to defendants who were convicted of funding terrorism, funneling money to Hamas, that surely the Justice Department would now allow Congress to see those boxes of documents. The Attorney General, once again, didn't know what was furnished. He would look into it.

We need an Attorney General that knows what's going on when there are organizations in America who are financing, by millions and millions of dollars, people who are conducting terrorism efforts around the world. Well, the Attorney General said he'd look into it. An official request was made at the hearing. And yet, we're waiting to hear from the Justice Department.

It just seems to make sense to me that if this Justice Department will provide documentation to people who are part of a terrorist network, then surely they'll provide it to Congress. But then again, that remains to be seen.

We had an article here from Fox News on December 7. It reports that Susan Collins, Senator Susan Collins, on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence, and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the Nation's Armed Forces at home.

During a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, the main Republican referenced a letter from the Defense Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence. She criticized the Obama Administration for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam. Thirteen people were killed and dozens more were wounded at Fort Hood in 2009, and the number of alleged plots targeting the military has grown significantly since then.

Lawmakers said there have been 33 plots against the U.S. military since September 11, 2001, and 70 percent of those threats have been since mid-2009, during this administration.

Major Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist who is being held for the attacks, allegedly was inspired by radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September and who parenthetically was leading a prayer session of Capitol Hill Muslim staffers just years before here in our Capitol complex.

Continuing with the article, the two men exchanged as many as 20 emails, according to U.S. officials, and Awlaki declared Hasan a hero. Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Connecticut Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, said the military has become a direct target of violent Islamic extremism within the United States. Senator Lieberman's words: ``The stark reality is that the American servicemember is increasingly in the terrorist scope and not just overseas in a traditional war setting,'' Lieberman told Fox News before the start of Wednesday hearings.

In June, two men allegedly plotted to attack a Seattle, Washington, military installation using guns and grenades. In July, Army Private Nasar Abdo was accused of planning a second attack at Fort Hood.

With regard to Private Nasar Abdo, it's worth noting that we have people who have been banned now from briefing our justice officials, intelligence officials, State Department officials on the threat of radical Islam. There was even a memo put together provided in this administration which by name pointed to Army Private Nasar Abdo and said this guy has been in uniform on Al-Jazeera basically saying he's going to do what Major Hasan did at Fort Hood. He's going to do it at Fort Hood.

This administration is so interested in protecting radical Islam and not offending radical Islam that that memo was trash-canned, never went anywhere. And the only way this private was stopped was not by our intelligence community, not by our Justice

Department, not by our State Department, and not with all of the information they could have. It was stopped by a gun dealer who just believed something was wrong, and he notified law enforcement.

Now we know from the 9/11 Commission, I mean, we've known since the Commission came out with their report, there are hundreds of mentions of things like ``jihad,'' ``Islam,'' not that there is any war on Islam. There is not. Thank God that the vast majority of Muslims know that we're not at war with them and they are not at war with us. But it is insanity not to protect ourselves and educate ourselves on that small group, that small percentage--it's a large group--of radical Islamists who have declared war on us.

Now this administration, though originally after 9/11 the Bush administration, the independent 9/11 Commission that was appointed, came out saying this is a result of radical Islam. Now the Justice Department, the intelligence community, the new lexicon will not allow the usage in training of words like ``Islam,'' ``jihad,'' the very things that led to over 3,000 Americans being killed and brought about wars that killed thousands more.

The war goes on; but as one individual who is fighting for us said, this administration is making us blind ourselves so we cannot see the people we are fighting.

There was a conference at Langley, CIA headquarters, that was canceled by this administration. Why? Because CAIR complained to the White House, and the report is that that's how the conference was stopped. CAIR complained to the administration, and they stopped it; and now the administration has gone through and come out with a new methodology of selecting people who will be allowed to brief our intelligence officials, will be allowed to brief our justice officials, will be allowed to brief our military; and they will not be allowed to use terms like ``radical Islam,'' that those are, in this administration's mind, hateful terminology rather than helping us classify and figure out who it is that is on our side and who it is that is against us.

There's even a report out that this administration now in the last week is going to create a new category on the terrorist watch list which would be called ``former military detainees.'' If that ended up being true, makes you wonder why they'd create a new category now. Are they about to release military detainees and so when they come into the country, or they're in our country trying to fly, we'll know who it is trying to kill us here?

This administration has blinded the people that are trying to fight the war against radical Islam, which is at war with us. We've seen to it that it looks like a procedure in both Libya and in Egypt are going to likely result in radical Islamists controlling those countries. The Middle East has become a powder keg far more so than it ever has. And if you go back and look at the President's speech, back I believe it was in May, recently looked at a transcript where our own President said Israel is going to have to defend itself by itself.

Now, thankfully, as we saw when Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke here in this body, we had both sides of the aisle repeatedly stand in support of the things Prime Minister Netanyahu was saying.

Israel has been our friend; they've been our ally. Muslims are allowed to worship Islam in Israel just as Muslims are allowed to do here in the U.S. It would be nice if Christians were allowed to worship in Muslim countries, but their definition of freedom does not allow people to freely worship whom they wish. It only allows them the freedom to worship under Islam.

Even in Afghanistan, the last Christian church has now closed. The kind of freedom that American lives and treasure brought to Afghanistan now means you can't have an open Christian church in Afghanistan.

Then we find out this administration was indirectly negotiating with terrorists, with the Taliban, with regard to Afghanistan about a year and a half ago. There were a few of us that met with leaders of the Northern Alliance a year and a half or so ago, and they're the first ones that told us your administration is indirectly meeting and negotiating with terrorists, with the Taliban, the people we fought with you to defeat.

After we defeated them in 3 or 4 months, then we started putting in tens of thousands of soldiers--military--into Afghanistan. We went from being embedded to being occupiers, and we oversaw the creation of a constitution in Afghanistan that says sharia law will reign, which means there will be no Christian churches in Afghanistan when true sharia law is in charge.

One of the things that was found in the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood is a 10-year goal that began in 2005. For one thing, anybody who raises any issue about the small, tiny percentage of Muslims who are at war with us, the radical Islamists, is to be called an ``Islamaphobe.'' That term originated with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, composed of 57 states. They're the ones who came up with that. They came up with the notion of branding anyone an Islamaphobe who says anything negative about radical Islam's trying to destroy America.

So any time people see the term Islamaphobe or Islamaphobia, they should know exactly where it originated. It originated with the OIC, the 57 states of the OIC, which are also helping fund through other entities and individuals courses at some of our Nation's formerly best schools that have shown they're for sale, that their souls are for sale, in that if someone will give them enough money, then they will put on seminars and put on classes that will also call people Islamaphobes and talk about Islamaphobia--about anyone who raises any issue about radical Islam's trying to destroy our way of life.

The goal mentioned from 2005 is part of a 10-year goal, by 2015, to have subverted our U.S. Constitution to sharia law; and the method for doing that--we've been seeing it take place--is to subvert America's First Amendment rights to sharia.

One of the ways that that is being effectuated is when some nut burns a Koran in Florida, then people get killed in some riot in Afghanistan. Then even fine, upstanding Americans say, See, we probably need a law that prohibits the burning of a Koran, that prohibits saying anything bad about the Koran or radical Islam because that's going to get Americans killed. So let's have a law banning people from saying anything negative or from burning a Koran.

Never mind the fact that, in our country's history, we find out it's not against the Constitution to burn an American flag, that it's not against the Constitution to burn a Bible, that it's not against the Constitution to take a cross, symbolizing that thing on which Jesus was crucified, and put it in a beaker of urine. In fact, the Federal Government will even give money to have that done. But if anybody says anything negative about the Koran, let's make that a crime.

There are well-intentioned people in this Capitol who are thinking maybe we need a law like that; and when people push that kind of law, they are moving to subvert our United States First Amendment rights under the Constitution to sharia law. Once that happens, then that goal can be checked off of the goals that were established by the Muslim Brotherhood in 2005. They're hoping to get that done by 2015.

A great way to do that is to brand people like me or people in the Justice Department or trainers who would teach people about the ideas of radical Islam as Islamaphobes and continue to have courses they fund to encourage laws to prevent Islamaphobia so that they have laws that prevent anybody from saying anything negative about sharia.

Never mind, even on a television program today, an atheist called Christianity a hate religion. He said it's hateful, basically, in effect, because Jesus, he said, created a hell and that that's why we shouldn't admire Christmas. Well, some of us know that Jesus was not likely born in December, but more likely in the springtime, when shepherds are on the hills.

But to declare what our Founders knew would be an important core building block of this country, when they knew that the best things that ever happened to this country would come as a result of the reliance on the

teachings of Jesus and the teachings in the Bible, you had comments like George Washington in his resignation, saying--and I'll close with this:

He prayed that Americans would follow the teaching of the Divine Author of our blessed religion without a humble limitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy Nation.

He was right.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (S.J. Res. 22) to grant the consent of Congress to an amendment to the compact between the States of Missouri and Illinois providing that bonds issued by the Bi-State Development Agency may mature in not to exceed 40 years, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on S.J. Res. 22, as amended, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Founding Fathers did not believe that the Federal Government should try to solve every problem in the country. Instead, they believed that local problems should have local solutions. This system of federalism became the bedrock of the Constitution.

One particular aspect of our federalist system is found in the Compact Clause of the Constitution. The clause recognizes agreements or contracts that States make among themselves, with congressional approval when necessary. Today, there are approximately 200 active interstate compacts addressing a variety of issues that range from environmental and energy policy to natural resources to traffic and transportation. Rather than wait for a one-size-fits-all program from Washington, D.C., the Constitution allows States to solve these kinds of problems for themselves.

In 1949, Missouri and Illinois formed a compact to create the Bi- State Development Agency. The agency's mission is to facilitate and coordinate economic and infrastructure development in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Among other projects, the agency runs the public transportation system in St. Louis. The agency does not have taxing authority, but it may issue bonds. For example, in the 1960s, the agency sold bonds to finance construction of the tram to the top of the Gateway Arch, which it operates today. The compact allows the agency to sell 30-year bonds. Last year, most States adopted legislation to amend the compact and allow the agency to issue 40-year bonds.

In addition to other capital improvements, the agency could use revenue from these 40-year bonds to support the CityArchRiver 2015 initiative. The purpose of the CityArchRiver 2015 is to better connect downtown St. Louis with the Gateway Arch and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial national park. The project also involves building elevated walkways across the river to Illinois.

Senate Joint Resolution 22 gives congressional approval to this amendment, the Missouri-Illinois Interstate Compact. The Judiciary Committee marked up its companion, House Joint Resolution 70, on September 21. The suspension version of Senate Joint Resolution 22 contains one amendment, to correct a minor drafting error regarding the effective date. With this amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 22 will be effective upon the date of enactment.

In conclusion, I'm pleased to see this feature of our federalist system at work. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution and look forward to its swift passage.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no requests for time, and I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman.

If our time would be better spent on those things, we would be glad to withdraw the suspension on your suggestion and just drop it right now. We will be glad to do that. I will make that offer.

As a closing comment, I have come to know the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay), my friend across the aisle, and hold him in very high regard. I appreciate very much his comments earlier about what this compact means to Illinois and to Missouri. I know Mr. Clay has been a leading proponent of this happening, and I really very much appreciate his comments. This will not provide jobs across the country, but it solves a problem. It will ease things for those two States so that jobs should be easier.

And I was totally serious when I offered my colleague who was saying that we were wasting our time on this--I know Mr. Clay and many others have spent a great deal of time on this, and I didn't think the Democrats that were pushing this bill so hard were wasting our time. I think it's a very legitimate use of our time.

Some people like to confuse the term ``interstate,'' as used in the Constitution; and they want the term ``interstate'' to be expanded, as it has sometimes, to apply to nothing but activity wholly within one State. The Supreme Court has even given some regard to those kinds of arguments, but this is not one of those cases. This is a matter that's been taken up and passed by the Senate, and we should pass it today. It takes up a matter clearly between two States that makes it interstate.

And then it is not the State of Illinois or Missouri coming and begging for the Federal Government to take over a State responsibility. It is two States with different opinions, different concerns, but wanting things to work together for good, coming to a solution; and then the Federal Government, since it is interstate, must recognize that compact. I think it is an appropriate thing to do. I don't think the Democrats who are pushing this bill were wasting our time. I think it's an appropriate use of Federal time.

With that, I would urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1639) to amend title 36, United States Code, to authorize the American Legion under its Federal charter to provide guidance and leadership to the individual departments and posts of the American Legion, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on S. 1639, currently under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The American Legion received its Federal charter in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization. Today, the Legion is America's largest Veterans Service Organization with 2.5 million members. Membership is available to persons who have served in the United States Armed Forces during wartime, including the current war on terrorism, and were honorably discharged or are continuing their service.

The Legion's goals are to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution, promote worldwide peace and goodwill, and preserve the memories of the two world wars and the other conflicts fought to uphold democracy. The Legion also aims to cement the ties and comradeship born of service and to commit the efforts of its members to service to the United States.

The American Legion has over 14,000 local posts. The national organization is not designed to have control over all the independent posts. As the Supreme Court of Minnesota has found, local ``posts and State chapters are separately incorporated . . . and the posts all have their own constitutions and bylaws.'' The court found that there was a very limited relationship between the posts and national headquarters.

The national organization's ``Officer's Guide and Manual of Ceremonies'' states ``the post is a separate and distinct unit which can and often does function independently.''

The American Legion has asked Congress to amend its Federal charter to specify that the national organization may provide guidance and leadership to the individual departments and posts but that it may not control or otherwise influence the specific activities and conduct of the departments and posts.

The director of the Legion's National Legislative Commission explained the request by stating the following:

``The Legion wants to allow members to renew their memberships and pay their dues to the national organization through the use of a credit card over the Internet . . . Currently, these dues payments flow to the national organization from our posts through our departments. We are concerned that plaintiffs' lawyers would argue this would indicate that the national organization has control over those departments and posts . . . Appearance of control may . . . support a claim of liability against the national organization when a legal dispute against a post arises.''

S. 1639 amends the Legion's Federal charter as requested. Our colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire), introduced the House version of the bill, H.R. 2369, which the Judiciary Committee approved by voice vote.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his work on this legislation and am pleased to see that his bill has a remarkable 432 cosponsors. It's almost unheard of.

So there are things that this Congress needs to be doing, and there are many things that are very important that this Congress does; but this is something that only the Congress can do. So if we hear from other speakers who want to talk about a jobs bill, I would encourage them to go talk to the Senate about the 15 to 20 jobs bills that they are down there sitting on.

I look forward to the day when the President says that this is a do- nothing Congress that he's no longer half right in making that statement. The House is certainly not a do-nothing House. The Senate is sitting on many bills. This is a bill for which the gentleman from Pennsylvania saw a need, so he stepped up and filled that need, and I appreciate his efforts in doing this.

The American Legion has performed a great service in bringing together veterans. I've spent a great deal of time with American Legion posts, and I'm grateful they exist. I think this is a good bill, and I would urge my colleagues to support it.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, again, Mr. Altmire is owed a great debt of thanks. When my friend from Tennessee said this was a bipartisan bill, apparently it's the most bipartisan bill ever brought before the House. It's wonderful that a group like the American Legion could bring us together, and I appreciate Mr. Altmire's efforts in doing that.

I would urge my colleagues to support its passage. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1541) to revise the Federal charter for the Blue Star Mothers of America, Inc. to reflect a change in eligibility requirements for membership.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on S. 1541, currently under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Blue Star Mothers of America was established during World War II and federally chartered in 1960. The organization's 5,000 members and 225 chapters provide support for our men and women in uniform and assist veterans' organizations. According to their charter, the Blue Star Mothers also care for unsupported mothers.

Membership in the Blue Star Mothers is open to a mother, an adoptive mother or stepmother who lives in the U.S. of a child who serves in the Armed Forces or has served in the Armed Forces during World War II or the Korean War.

Wendy Hoffman, the national president of the Blue Star Mothers, has sent a letter to the committee and requests that their charter be amended consistent with the resolution passed at their national convention. She stated the following:

``As mothers of American servicemembers and veterans, we recognize changing family dynamics and have found it extremely important to include other `mothers' who have played a part in raising military heroes and also those mothers who are not residents of the U.S.''

The Blue Star Mothers have also opened membership to mothers of children who have served in the military at any time. This bill makes the changes to the charter requested by the Blue Star Mothers. Our colleague Scott Tipton introduced the House version of the bill, H.R. 2815, and the Judiciary Committee approved Mr. Tipton's bill by voice vote.

This commonsense bill opens eligibility to ``a woman who filled the role of birth mother, adoptive mother, stepmother, foster-mother, grandmother, or legal guardian'' to a current member of the Armed Forces or to a child who has served at any time. To be eligible, the mother will not have to reside in the United States as long as she is a U.S. citizen.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill to help enable the Blue Star Mothers to continue their wonderful work.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this is also another very bipartisan bill.

The Blue Star Mothers is a wonderful group. I have met with them and I have wept with them. I've prayed for them and am grateful to them for their work. I'm grateful for my mother, who passed away in 1991, as the mother of a servicemember and my stepmother as well, now.

What they're asking for makes perfect sense, and I would encourage my colleagues to support this resolution as the Blue Star Mothers have requested.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, there are an awful lot of people hurting across America now.

We take up a few suspension bills here that only the Congress could deal with, so it's something we have to do, we're proud to do, important to those organizations in two States. It's important to them; it's important to us.

We have people on the other side of the aisle who come forward and try to make it into a jobs debate when it would seem that some of the best debate would be if all of us, en masse, walked down to the other end of the hall of this building and began to seek to debate the Senate--the Senate leadership, that is--and Democratic Party on why they are so intent on stopping legislation that could put people back to work.

There are many besides the President, in addition to the President, who say this is a do-nothing Congress; and because the Senate does so very little, they give credence to that argument. One need only look to all the bills we have been passing here in the House that could help the economy, would help the economy, would put people back to work, would bring down dramatically the cost of energy, which would bring down inflation and the stagnation and stagflation that's been put in place by this President and, actually, the 2 years prior to this President when our Democratic friends across the aisle controlled Congress and jumped up spending like we could not have anticipated.

Our friends across the aisle correctly pointed out that Republicans in 2006 were spending too much money. They were right in pointing out that we should never be spending $160 billion more than we were taking in. They were right.

As a result of their being right on that and their promises that they would rein in that runaway spending, our friends across the aisle were given the majority in November of 2006.

What followed in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 under the Democratic majority was runaway spending at a level never even dreamed of, at least on our side of the aisle.

Who would have ever dreamed that the same party that condemned Republicans--correctly--for overspending the amount of money coming into the Federal Treasury by $160 billion would up that ante and overspend by 10 times that much? Over a $1.5 trillion deficit in just 1 year. It is just unfathomable.

One of the things that so concerned me about TARP, not only the bill when I read it, but the fact that it desensitized Americans to just how much $700 billion is and how much it was in late 2008.

It's my belief that if we had not passed TARP and people being so desensitized as to how much $700 billion was, President Obama could never have gotten through what was said to be around an $800 billion porkulus, stimulus, whatever you want to call it, which turned out, by some accounts, to be more like a trillion dollar giveaway program--only if you consider giving away amounts like $500 million to $600 million to Solyndra, that goes bankrupt, as throwing away money.

We have set this country on a course toward ruin. And now the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Geithner, who we recall had time with the International Monetary Fund, as came to light during his unfortunate confirmation hearings, 4 years in a row he was paid by the International Monetary Fund and was said to be an independent contractor, although he manifested control and some level of governance within the International Monetary Fund. He had a job with the International Monetary Fund, but they paid him as an independent contractor, and, therefore, when he signed a document swearing that he would pay all of the taxes due on those amounts that were listed on those four documents, then he was allowed to receive all of the money that should have been paid to the Federal Government in taxes in return for his sworn agreement to pay that tax independently on his own. As we found out during those confirmation hearings, he did not fulfill his oath. He broke his oath. He didn't pay those taxes, and now he's in charge of the Treasury. How amazing.

I've privately had Internal Revenue Service employees tell me how grieved they were to have had someone who did not pay his taxes when he was required to do so by law, went even further and he signed a sworn document that he would take care of it, and didn't, because, despite all the jokes about the IRS and despite there being some people with the IRS who can be a bit brutal at times, there are some wonderful people who work for the Internal Revenue Service who are abundantly fair, want to do the right thing, and have incredibly clean backgrounds.

In fact, the rule as I was given to understand by IRS employees is, if you ever have underpaid your taxes or failed to pay taxes, you're out. You cannot work for the IRS. There have been incidents where an IRS agent has overpaid taxes and then recalled someone giving them cash, and without anyone ever being able to hold them accountable, no one would have ever reported it, but to keep a clean conscience because an IRS agent was so clean and had a conscience and wanted so to abide by honesty and truth and the U.S. law, filed an amended tax return which still allowed a refund coming back. And as a result, their employment was in jeopardy.

Imagine the feeling of Internal Revenue Service employees who have had to throughout their stellar careers at the Internal Revenue Service, had to keep all of their affairs clean and in order, open, honest, to find out they are going to be ruled and governed by someone who misrepresented on signing a sworn document that they would pay taxes that they didn't until someone called it to their attention prior to being appointed to that role. It has to be tough for IRS agents who have had such stellar, honorable careers to have dealt with that.

So what's wrong with having somebody who plays so fast and loose with signing documents, not paying taxes, playing with other people's money in the International Monetary Fund? I would submit to you that we get things, as we have here recently, with our Secretary of the Treasury, who enjoyed spending hundreds of billions of dollars from TARP, who has enjoyed the power of giving away money, paying money. Under TARP, in fact, a provision allowed the Secretary of Treasury to pay more than fair market value if anything--and this is my interpretation--if anything in his opinion, his sole opinion, would somehow, some way, some day help our economy somehow, even if it was helping a foreign economy. That's the mentality at the IMF and apparently the mentality currently at the Treasury Department.

I did not think we could get a worse Treasury Secretary than Hank Paulson until we got our current Treasury Secretary, making the mistakes he has and taking the position he has, and now wanting Americans to come in and bail out foreign countries who are slightly ahead of us on the road to socialism.

If you go back to the Roman Empire, the Romans found that over time when you continue to give people bread and circuses, they come to rely on those. They come to believe that they shouldn't have to work, that the government will give them entertainment and will give them money to use, food that they need, and it materially affects work.

Socialism of a sort was tried in the New Testament church. And on this Earth, on this planet with fallible individuals, it resulted, as it always has and always will, in the Apostle Paul ultimately having to come to the conclusion and issue the order, okay, new rule: if you don't work, you don't eat.

The Pilgrims had a beautiful compact. They were going to bring together all into a common storehouse and share and share alike. That brutal first winter caused them to lose so many. Eventually, they got to a new thing that we now call private property where people would own their own property, produce from it as they wished with full freedom to do so. They could eat what they raised. They could trade what they raised. They could use it as they saw fit. That kind of mentality and that kind of structure that affords private property to people to own and use on their own, or rental property that they can use to produce income, those kind of freedoms have allowed the entrepreneurship that has brought us to the point in history where we are the greatest Nation in the history of mankind, with more freedoms than any in the history of mankind.

But over time we've seen those who fled Europe and England to come to America to start a new life, so many of them fleeing persecution as Christians, coming to a new land where they would not be persecuted as Christians. They came to America. And with private property engendering the kind of thought processes that led our Founders through the guidance--divinely, I believe--that they got, as pointed to by so many of the Founders, we got our Constitution. We have a structure of government from Founders who did not trust government; who wanted to make it as difficult as possible to pass laws. Even once they were passed, they could be vetoed. Struck down. They wanted it difficult. They saw gridlock as being a good thing. The more difficult it was to pass laws, the less chance the government would interfere in personal property rights and personal freedoms of the individual.

Europe after World War II seemed to move into this socialist type of thinking where the government will take care of people. Some in this country after World War II for 60 years, going on 70 years now, have been pushing an agenda to get us to a socialist state, where we take on the attributes of those systems that have repeatedly failed over and over in time.

I was recently in Israel. I went to a former kibbutz. Those were truly communes. They had real communism there. Share and share alike. But socialism, communism, it can sound so nice. Everyone bring in to the common storehouse. Share and share alike. It sounds nice, but it never works.

And I saw that so clearly in an exchange program to the Soviet Union back in 1973, when it really was the Soviet Union. And on visiting a collective farm, a socialist farm, you look out, the fields did not look very good. I have worked on farms and ranches, and those did not look productive. But I was surprised to see in the middle of the morning the farmers were sitting in the shade in the center of the village. I spoke some Russian back then and asked as nicely as I could without meaning to insult because I really was curious, When do you work out in the fields? And they laughed. And one of them that seemed to be the most boisterous of the group said, I make the same number of rubles if I'm out there or I'm here in the shade. So I'm here in the shade.

That's socialism. That's why it fails.

And we've seen the riots in Greece as the government tried to be responsible and say, Look, we're going broke. We're out of business. We have got to stop spending money we don't have. We've got to rein it in. And people have rioted and say, No, no, no, don't cut back what I'm getting from the government, not understanding if it's not there, your government will eventually be taken over by some type of radical form-- at least historically that's what often happens--and some dictator, which they would hope would be a benevolent dictator, would take over, get the rioting under control, and set the government on a course.

We saw a government after World War I in Germany trying to work toward a process. Economic times were tough. So a little guy with a mustache ends up actually getting elected to office and then eventually taking over the country. We know the results of that--at least most of us do. There are some, like Ahmadinejad, that thought the Holocaust never happened. But it did.

So why in the world, when we see how that works out and we see that a country will not accept its own responsibility, as incredible as the people can be of a country like Greece--you meet people from Greece, you love them. They're just great folks. As beautiful as a country can be, as rich a history as a country can have like Greece, you want to embrace them. Understandable.

But when a people such as those in Greece want to continue down a bankrupt course and you see them heading for the edge of a cliff and they say, Come join hands with us, it doesn't make me feel any better to hear people like Secretary Geithner say, figuratively speaking, Let's join hands as they jump off the cliff and take us with them. But we're told, Well, gee, some of the European countries, they'll feel better about trying to bail out Greece if they know that the United States will come in if things don't work out and bail them out.

We have had such radicalized spending that's been out of control. And until we get that under control, we're of very little use to most of the world economically. The best thing we could do for Greece, for all of Europe, is get our spending under control, come back from a point of strength financially, show them by example how you get out of your problems, and then the world will be better off financially because you see repeatedly in history when a country gets in trouble financially, it opens the door to dictators or a radical form of a government such as we see in Iran today. That wasn't entirely economic.

We do recall--I was in the Army at the time--when President Carter failed to support our ally, the Shah. I never met the man, but apparently historically not a warm fuzzy fellow. Was not fine with the folks in Iran. But using very poor judgment, President Carter hailed the Ayatollah Khomeini in his return to Iran as a man of peace; and as a result that man of peace, as President Carter hailed him, thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans have given their lives or had their lives taken from them.

There are prices that are paid by bad judgment; and this country has paid a price for bad judgment, and now we have more efforts at bad judgment. That would include telling the world that as we've overspent more than a trillion dollars more than what we have coming in, Don't worry, we'll come bail you out. I was surprised to find out this summer that we're not printing money to get us out of our problem. No, we're not printing money. I was surprised to find out--because I've said that before. I think we're just printing money to try to pay off our debt. That causes runaway inflation. I was corrected. And I stand corrected.

We're not printing money to get out of our financial dilemma. No, I was told we're not printing this money. We're just adding ones and zeroes in a computer to say that we've got more money. We're not even printing it anymore. How irresponsible is that? There is a price that will be paid for that kind of irresponsibility, and it is very tragic that it may well be paid by our children and grandchildren. It is the height of irresponsibility to leave that to future generations.

And then to have our Treasury Secretary say, Let's go bail these folks out. Well, it's not really us. It's the International Monetary Fund.

It is kind of reminiscent of President Obama saying, We're going to go get Qadhafi, we're going to help these so-called ``rebels,'' but we're not actually going to do it. No, we're not going to do it; NATO will do it. We started a little bit out there, but now it's not the United States at all; it's NATO.

So we checked, and we find out 65 percent of NATO's military is United States Armed Services. Oh, no, it wasn't NATO--much. Sixty-five percent was the United States. It was the United States. And now the Secretary of the Treasury wants us to do this with countries that are failing and yet still unwilling to embrace the problem they've created.

And then we're told there's such great news, that unemployment has now dropped from 9.1 percent to 8.6 percent, or 9.0 to 8.6 percent, and we're supposed to feel like that is such a wonderful thing. I'm not a huge fan of The New York Times, but there was an article in December 2's New York Times, an editorial entitled, ``Been Down So Long.'' I think it's worth entering into the Congressional Record by its reading.

The unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent in November

from 9 percent in October in the jobs report released Friday.

The economy added 120,000 jobs and job growth was revised

upward in September and October.

That's better than rising unemployment and falling

payrolls. Yet, properly understood, the new figures reveal

more about the depth of distress in the job market than about

real improvement in job prospects.

Most of the decline in November's unemployment rate was not

because jobless people found new work. Rather, it is because

315,000 people dropped out of the work force, a reflection of

extraordinarily weak demand by employers for new workers. It

is also a sign of socioeconomic decline, of wasted resources

and untapped potential, the human equivalent of boarded-up

Main Streets and shuttered factories.

The job growth numbers also come with caveats. More jobs

were created than economists expected, but with the job

market so weak for so long, that is a low bar. It would take

nearly 11 million new jobs to replace the ones that were lost

during the recession and to keep up with the growth in the

working-age population in the last four years. To fill that

gap would require 275,000 new jobs a month for the next five

years. That's not in the cards. Even with the better-than-

expected job growth in the past three months, the economy

added only 143,000 jobs on average.

And most of those new jobs are low-end ones. In November,

for example, big job-growth areas included retail sales,

bartending and temporary services. Teachers and other public

employees continued to lose jobs, and job growth in

construction and manufacturing were basically flat. Indeed,

work--once the pathway to a rising standard of living--has

become for many a route to downward mobility. Motoko Rich

reported in The Times recently on new research showing that

most people who lost their jobs in recent years now make less

and have not maintained their lifestyles, with many

experiencing what they describe as drastic--and probably

irreversible--declines in income.

Against that backdrop, the modest improvement in the jobs

report, even if sustained in the months to come, would not be

enough to repair the damage from the recession and its slow-

growth aftermath. Help is needed, yet Congress is tied in

knots over even basic recovery measures, like extending

federal unemployment benefits and the temporary payroll tax

cut.

Meanwhile, the increasing likelihood of a recession in

Europe, or any other setback, could easily derail the weak

American economy, sending unemployment back up to double-

digit recession levels.

Now, we've been hearing a great deal lately from the President and from Members of Congress on the Democratic side about how we just needed to extend this wonderful payroll tax holiday. Well, as the person who came up with the idea of a payroll tax holiday 3 years ago, I'm offended at the use of the term ``payroll tax holiday'' to cut 6.2 percent Social Security tax down to 4.2 Social Security tax when it has not increased jobs, it has not helped jobs.

We're talking $30, $40, $50, $60, when the payroll tax holiday I was proposing was a true holiday. It would have allowed every worker in America not to pay any Social Security tax, any Medicare tax, any income tax for at least 2 months. It would not have hurt Social Security, the trust fund, and it would not have hurt the Medicare system because it was totally paid for.

My bill said that money that was leftover--which was available at the time before our Secretary of the Treasury just started giving it away-- that

money would be moved over and would cover the Social Security trust fund monies that were necessary so the tax would not be missed. It would cover the monies that were supposed to go in to cover Medicare. And so the only way that money would be missed is that Secretary Geithner would not have been able to give it away and support those four-to-one Democrats or Republicans that are executives on Wall Street and who reside in controlling our investment banks.

And that's a shock to some people when they actually do their research and find out Wall Street is four-to-one Democrat over Republican because they've been listening to Democratic leaders for years talk about those sorry fat-cat Republicans on Wall Street. Well, they hadn't done their research either; or if they had, they would have been very disingenuous in so saying.

That money--as I and many others contended--that was in TARP and was in the slush fund of the Secretary of the Treasury would have been far better used by those people who earned it, by just saying you get every dime back that you were paying in this month and next month. And I also knew privately in my heart that if we could have that payroll tax holiday, a true payroll tax holiday for 2 months--and initially I said a year.

But if we could have had that for even 2 months, then I knew taxpayers across the country would see--many, most for the first time-- just how much money they were sending for the Federal Government to use, and they would demand better from their Congress, from their President. They would demand better from the bureaucrats in Washington that get to the end of the year and see they've got money left and rush out and throw it away, spend it on whatever they can. They would have demanded better government, and they would have gotten it or they would have fired everybody at the next election and gotten better. But we didn't get a true payroll tax holiday.

I was very honored to have a chance to explain the concept of a payroll tax holiday when President Obama came to our Republican Conference back the first of the year in 2009. As I explained to him, this is immediate; it immediately helps the economy. Moody's said the tax holiday idea--a true tax holiday, not this bastardization of one-- the true tax holiday would have increased the 1-year GDP more than any other proposal, more than any other Democratic proposal or any other Republican proposal. And as I explained to the President, we pass this and you sign it--and if you just say you are willing to sign it, we would get it passed. If you sign it on a Thursday, then on Friday all of that money, all of the income tax, Social Security, Medicare tax, all of that will be in the check of the person that owned it.

It doesn't have to go through Washington, and Washington take its cut out and dribbles out $30, $40, $50, $60 to the worker. They got it all. And then, to know that was going to be paid for by stopping the giveaways to the auto companies, to the investment banks, to the fat cats, as the President calls them, that was what I wanted to see. And that money would go into the hands of the people that earned it, and then they would have decided.

We did a survey in our district about what people would use their money for. Look at your check. Think about it for 2 months. What would you use it for? And we weren't talking about $20, $30, $40, $50, $60 like this President has. We were talking about, $2,000 $3,000 $5,000 $6,000. And when people did that, they told us, for example, we've got a gas guzzler, and gas is so high now we can barely pay our gasoline bill, but we're underwater on our car. We owe more than the car is worth so we can't afford to trade it in. So we're stuck.

You let us have our money for 2 months, we'll buy a new car. And the people in America would have decided which car companies deserved to be bailed out, and they would do that by deciding which car they would buy. And you wouldn't have had to have an auto task force secretively meeting in the White House and an auto czar and all those folks breaching the Constitution, breaching bankruptcy law, and deciding which dealers got to keep their dealership and which would have had them arbitrarily yanked away, only years down the road to find out, oops, we made a mistake on that. Oh, well, they're gone. Too bad. We could have avoided all that.

And with all the effort that was undertaken to try to shore up the real estate market, we had people telling us, look, we got behind on our mortgage payments when gas hit $4 a gallon. You let us have the $6,000 we'd get to keep over 2 months, we'll catch up on our mortgage. We'll catch up on the other things. You don't need to have some big financial bailout situation because we'll take care of it ourselves if we have our own money.

Then again, to know that that would have been paid for by the TARP money, and Social Security would not have been hurt. They would have gotten all the tax money that would have come in. It would have just come from TARP, instead of the individual taxpayers. And to know that Medicare would not have been hurt, because that money would have gone directly into Medicare, not from the taxpayer for 2 months, but from TARP. That would have been the right thing to do.

If you really want a stimulus, let the people that earned it spend it. They'll know better than the people here in Washington did.

And it didn't pass. And President Obama has chosen to take the name ``payroll tax holiday'' that I was using 3 years ago and use it for a 2 percent tax. Why? Because it will look good for the election. Why? Because it looks to be so grand because, see, you can tell people that are working that, gee, the President's got you a petty $30 extra in your check, and these Republicans don't want you to keep that.

That's not true. We do. But we also, at the same time, don't want Social Security not to have the money that it needs. What the President is not telling people, as he has pitted those who are working now against our seniors, and to the one group saying, hey, workers, I want you to have that little extra 30 bucks in your pay check, and Republicans don't want you to have it. And then going to seniors and saying, you've got to worry about those Republicans because they're not going to take care of Social Security, never bothering to mention that when he says we're allowing you to keep this money in your check now, it means that money will not be in the Social Security Trust Fund, not even the IOU will be in the Social Security Trust Fund to take care of our seniors.

We were told when this President was running that he was a uniter, not a divider. And yet we see in this campaign ploy that working people are being pitted against our seniors. We've seen class warfare. In essence, if you see somebody has more than you do, you need to want it and go after it. After all, that basically seems to be the one common thread running through all the Occupy Wall Street, Washington, all the Occupy groups.

We had them come through Washington screaming in the hallways today. It wasn't enough that they're trying to disrupt a beautiful park people used to enjoy. Why? Because they have no regard for private property. Why? Because they've become envious and jealous.

I can say that because I'm repeatedly told in the analyses that I have less assets than most people. One time I had the least assets of anybody from Texas in Congress.

My wife and I cashed out all our assets, except our house, so I could run for Congress, so I could try to make a difference. And I am not jealous of anyone who has more than me. I thank God we have a country where people can be entrepreneurs. And I've accepted that as a role I can play in helping try to do that.

So it breaks my heart when I see a President dividing America with class warfare, encouraging envy and jealousy. You ought to want what they have and demand that you get theirs. Leaders coming out and saying they fully embrace the Occupy movement, it's a great thing, when even the Occupy folks can't explain anything other than they hate the people that got more than they do.

Then there's a report--I don't often cite CNBC, but cnbc.com, more Americans are going abroad for economic opportunities. It says that the State Department now estimates that 6.3 million Americans are studying or working abroad, the highest number on record.

We're told that 70 percent of Americans, adults, believe that their children will not have as much opportunity and freedom as they've had. That's why I ran for Congress. That should not happen. We can change that.

But I'm mystified when I think about the record spending in 2007 that was followed by additional record spending in 2008, under the guidance of Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid, because we know all spending originates in Congress. This is where budgets are passed. It's where appropriations are passed. If money is appropriated, it has to be appropriated from here.

In 2007, 2008, I never heard anybody, Democrat or Republican, complain that those budgets didn't spend enough money, each year going beyond what we had spent the year before. And so, then to have a new President come in in 2009, and with Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid still at the reins, jump up spending an extra trillion dollars, and then come before Congress and the country and say, look, you're just going to have to raise taxes to get up to where this extra trillion dollars is that I've already spent.

Why couldn't we just say, Nobody complained in 2007 or 2008 about too little money being spent. Let's go back to the Pelosi-Reid budget that was so much more than the Republican budgets of 2005 and 2006. We'll go back to those. It means we drop $1 trillion in spending. Boom, there you go. We didn't a need a supercommittee. There you are.

Another easy solution that isn't talked about enough, but this House voted to cut our own legislative budget 5 percent last year and 6.4 percent the year we're in. That amount of money, though significant to most of us, is a drop in the bucket when you look at the overall Federal budget. And the way that that should be used to make a difference is for this House, since we've done it to ourselves, now having the moral authority to say to every Federal department, every agency, we cut ourselves 5 percent last year, you're cutting yourself 5 percent next year.

And the year after that, since we've already done it, you're cutting yourself another 6.4 percent; an 11 percent cut. And there you are. We didn't need a supercommittee. You've got your cuts.

I am so grateful to Chairman Paul Ryan. We had a good discussion back in July. Since he's been in Congress like I have, the four terms I have been in Congress, each time I filed a zero-baseline budget bill that says no more automatic increases for every Department. No automatic increases. It ought to be an easy concept.

But we're living under the rules that were established for CBO back in 1974, a very, very liberal Congress that ended our participation in Southeast Asia. We should have ended it because we had not given our soldiers, sailors, airmen--we had not given them the go-ahead to win that war. We had tied their hands.

When I hear some people say we ought to remember the lessons from Vietnam--and then it turns out they didn't get the lesson. The lesson is that unless you are willing to commit 100 percent of the resources and give the rules of engagement that allow our military to win, they should never be sent. It is outrageous to have our military in foreign countries with rules of engagement that don't allow them to adequately protect themselves. That's the lesson that should have been learned from Vietnam. We could have won the war.

Sam Johnson can tell you, the leaders in Hanoi, as the POWs were taken out, one was laughing: You stupid Americans. If you had just bombed us one more week--like the 2 weeks they had before--we would have had to surrender unconditionally. They could have done that years before, saved thousands and thousands of American lives in Vietnam, but we didn't commit to win it.

We shouldn't send anybody anywhere unless we're committed to win. It costs too much money. But even more than that, it costs the greatest American treasure, and that's American lives.

We are in an economic crisis; and as Peter Marshall as chaplain of the U.S. Senate prayed in the 1940s: What we call crises, God sees as opportunities.

It turns out, those of us in the House, those of us in the Senate, even the President, have an incredible opportunity. We'll never be called the greatest generation; but 100 years from now, if we bring spending down under control, people can look back and say: Wow, they had about 60 years, 65 years of uncontrolled spending. It grew and grew and grew. And the people that were in government then did something that most have never been able to do when they get to that point, when nearly 50 percent are getting more back than they are paying in. They were able to restrain their spending, get control of their financial destiny, and we got another 200 years of the greatest Nation in history.

The other is possible. They could look back and say: Wow, the United States followed the tried-and-true path to the dustbin of history. They spent more than they had. People found that they could get Congress to vote them money out of the Treasury. And once again, that socialist concept failed, and the Nation failed. The Nation that provided for that brief time of Camelot, a time of hope, relative peace, evolving toward more perfect freedom, was lost because of financial irresponsibility.

People have heard me so many times quote Ben Franklin. But it's easy to see from Proverbs, it's easy to see from speeches of people like Ben Franklin, our problem is a selfish problem--anytime we spend more money than we have with complete and utter disregard, gross negligent disregard, even intentional disregard for the future of our children and one day their children and one day their children, complete disregard, we want to spend it on ourselves now.

It's time to tell Greece, to tell everyone, let's hold hands and do this together, not jump over the cliff by spending good money after bad. Let's do it by not spending money we don't have. And there's no way a country would not be upgraded when S&P and the world see, these people are really serious about not spending more than they have coming in.

This is a brave country. They know how to make commitments. And that would get us back to having true freedom and not having the American citizens have to come begging to Congress, Please, please, throw us more morsels. Instead, Congress would be a body that inspired greatness and inspired potential again and wouldn't lure young women into the rut of having children out of wedlock because they're bored with high school. It would, instead, give them incentives and encouragement: Reach your potential; finish high school; go to college.

Let's have incentives not to stay out of work. Let's have incentives to get back to work. Let's have incentives to sell our products around the world. You do that by decreasing the tariff that we put on American-made goods by every American company. That would help get us on the road back to financial independence.

One other thing: When you have been blessed as the greatest country in the world when it comes to having your own energy, we ought to use it. We have it. We've been blessed with it. It's time to use it. And I would humbly suggest that this President get out of the way, stop preventing us from using our own energy, and allow us to become an independent and great Nation again.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We're in a time of massive overspending, a time when some want to raise taxes, creating more of an economic problem. But it's been shocking that after the biggest wave election since the 1930s, 80-plus brand-new Republican conservative Members coming into this House, it's been nearly a year, and we really haven't cut much of anything. There's plenty of places to do it. It should be done. It can be done.

We ought to just say we're going back to the last Speaker Pelosi budget before the big bailouts and stimulus all started occurring. I don't remember governmental entities around the country, Federal Government entities, in 2007 and 2008 with Speaker Pelosi at the helm of things, complaining that they weren't getting enough Federal money. Yet, if we went back there and just said, you know what, forget the stimuluses and the bailouts, obviously those haven't worked. Let's just go back to the '07 or '08 budget. They didn't pass a budget; they passed appropriations--but let's go back to those numbers. Instantly, a trillion dollars trimmed off.

What we've had is a President of the United States coming into office jumping up the Federal spending by a trillion to a trillion and a half dollars and then saying we're not cutting any of that extra trillion dollars we've added on. We just need now to raise taxes to get up to all of this giveaway spending that we've done.

There are many good examples of that, but none better than in the solar energy area--a place like Solyndra getting between five and $600 million that's been completely wasted.

We've been told by Secretary Napolitano that the country just can't afford to build a fence on our southern border where our problems now are not Latin American citizens coming up here. We have what are sometimes labeled OTMs, ``other than Mexicans,'' coming in; and many of them are coming in and they're not coming in to do us any favors, and they're not coming here to get jobs.

We have an obligation to provide for the common defense. Our oath requires us to do that, and we're not doing it.

But good grief, if you took the money that this administration squandered giving away to Solyndra, take the $700 million or so that was squandered, given away to a solar plant in Nevada--actually they had about $35 billion to give away, they literally have been doing--and according to the information from this administration--some of us think it shouldn't cost nearly this much--but if you took just $1 billion to $2 billion of that $35 billion that had been squandered by this Energy Department and said we're committed to providing for the common defense, and in providing for the common defense we're going to build a fence, it would cost a fraction of what this administration has squandered on solar energy giveaway programs. What a waste.

Then we have ObamaCare. You want to save a trillion dollars? Just stop it. Repeal ObamaCare. The vast majority of American people sent a new majority into the House to try to get that done. Turns out, we've got to have help in the Senate we don't have down there so that we can do the will of the majority of the American public and repeal ObamaCare. There's a trillion dollars in savings, actually more than that.

We've got $105 billion being spent right now, in the process of being spent, to make sure that the mechanisms are in place so that by 2013, 2014, ObamaCare is going to be the law of the land whether the Supreme Court strikes it down or not, because all of these mechanisms will be in place. It's time to repeal it. It's time to get rid of it and have serious health care reform.

And you can't have serious health care reform until you know what the cost of health care is. You can't go into any doctor's office or any hospital, any health care provider's office and say how much does it cost for this procedure, that procedure if it is something that's covered by insurance or Medicare or Medicaid because they can't tell you. It depends, they'll tell you. What kind of insurance you got? Are you on Medicare? Medicaid? Are you paying cash?

Ironically, in a society where paying cash should normally get you the lesser price, in health care, because of some of the insurance agreements, they are not allowed contractually to charge as little to the cash-paying people as those who have insurance get charged to their insurance companies.

Well, that's not the free market. That's not competition. So that's something that has to be dealt with. We need transparency there.

When we look at the figures, for example, on Medicare for the calendar year of 2010, it has been estimated that $522.8 billion was spent on Medicare. When you divide the number of households in the United States that have been estimated to have one or more people on Medicare, you'll find out we're apparently spending between $20,000 and $30,000 a household for Medicare. You can buy some really great private health insurance, especially if you have a high deductible, for a lot less than $20,000 a year.

That's why the proposal I had--some have called it bipartisan--has clearly become a partisan entity. After being called to the woodshed by this current President, they were able to strike about $200 billion or $300 billion from their estimated costs of ObamaCare only to find, once it passed, it got put back in. Well, if CBO has a margin of error of $300 billion out of every $1 trillion they estimate, then it's probably not something we ought to keep. It's kind of like the Energy Department. When they're that bad at what they do, it's time to get rid of them and do something new.

But you can't blame the folks who are there. Their hands were tied with rules that were put in place in 1974 up until the last 5 or 6 years with the most liberal Congress in our history, the same Congress that said we weren't going to stay with our commitments to allies in Southeast Asia. We left, some estimate, 2 million people to be killed when we fled Southeast Asia. Now this President seems to be following the same trends that we saw with Jimmy Carter: turning on our allies, hurting our friends, helping our enemies--and there's always a price to be paid for that.

So we've got ObamaCare put in place. Over $1 trillion could be saved. Just repeal the thing, and let's start with real reform.

Even though CBO refused to score it, Newt Gingrich told me, if I could get that bill scored, it might revolutionize the discussion on health care. So, naturally, CBO wouldn't score something like that even after they were requested by the ranking Republican on Energy and Commerce--the committee of jurisdiction--and by the ranking Republican on the Joint Committee on Taxation. They both requested it be scored, but CBO didn't score it. It might have interfered with ObamaCare being passed. The bottom line was it would have given seniors a choice.

Do you want to keep being on Medicare and have the Federal Government tell you what you can or can't have, and have to go out and, with the precious few dollars you have from Social

Security, have to pay AARP or somebody else's Medigap insurance or wraparound insurance or supplemental insurance? Do you want to have to keep paying precious dollars?

Or would you like the alternative of having the Federal Government buy you basically the best private insurance you could have with a high deductible--of $3,500, $5,000, whatever we want to say, whatever ends up being the most cost-effective--and we would give you cash in a health savings account that you'd control with your own debit card, where you'd make the decisions? The only restriction is it would have to be for health care. You couldn't use that money for anything else. Give people a choice. Let them decide if they want to quit buying Medigap insurance.

I know, as wonderful as AARP is, 2 years ago, I think, they cleared over $400 million in clear profit from their supplemental Medicare insurance. So you hate to cut in on a charitable institution like AARP's massive profits like that off people who can't afford to buy the product. But gee, let's give seniors a choice.

Then, of course, we would need to give incentives to young people. Put your own money into a health savings account. It would be your money, but it could only be used for health care. You can't pull it out for something that's not health care. You can gift it to other people's health savings accounts. When you pass away, if you've got money in there, you can pass that on and have someone inherit that from you into that person's HSA, but once it's committed as health savings account money, it has to be spent on health care.

Yet we've been told if that happens, then the vast majority of young people in their twenties and thirties would have so much massive amounts of money built up by the time they'd be eligible for Medicare, not only would they not want Medicare, they wouldn't need it. They'd have plenty of money to do what they wished.

Now, that would get us off this road to the dustbin of history, because we have bankrupted ourselves on entitlement programs. At the same time, what an incredible deal--you'd get better health care; you'd get more control; you'd put patients back in control; you'd put patients and doctors back making the decisions.

I'm a big supporter of health insurance, but the trouble is for a number of years now we haven't had health insurance in America; we've had health management. I'm very concerned that, unless health insurance companies get back in the business of health insurance instead of health management, then there will be some bill that ends up running them out of business.

It, of course, will be ObamaCare if it's not repealed. Then it will be the government controlling things--a massive takeover.

As I've said before, ObamaCare is kind of like the cap-and-trade bill. They're all about the same thing. It's all about the GRE--the Government Running Everything. That's what it's about.

We could save money and return freedom to people who have not had it in the area of health care, and they would control their destinies. But there are some people here in Washington who genuinely, honestly believe they need to be making the personal decisions for people across America because, gee, they're smarter, and they would make better personal decisions for people who haven't done so well on their own.

Thinking like that caused the original Revolution. They didn't want some king who thought he knew more about what they should do with their lives making the decisions about their personal lives. Some have drawn the parallel that there is a correlation between the American Revolution and the French Revolution when compared to the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement, because the American Revolution was about one thing: It was about liberty.

There were people who signed and pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. They were all at stake. And many who signed, pledging their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor, lost their lives and their fortunes--but their sacred honor was intact when they died.

The Declaration of Independence says we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights and that among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Nobody is guaranteed happiness. Yet the Founders knew that we were endowed by our Creator with these rights. But like any endowment, like any inheritance that's passed on from a loving father, if you're not willing to fight for it to the death, if necessary, you will not keep your inheritance. If you make stupid decisions with your endowment, with your inheritance, you're going to lose it; you won't keep it.

Many countries have suspected they were endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, but they didn't fight to preserve them. They never fought to grasp them to begin with, and they've never had them.

Some have had them and squandered them. We have been given such a gift by our Creator and by those who were willing to defend our inheritance so that we could enjoy that incredible endowment. Of course, we find out that there are some people in the Occupy movement who have big trust funds, massive amounts of money to keep them going, and they're out there complaining about people with money, got their laptops or their iPads, don't appear to be hurting too much. It appears some of them were born on third base and have gone through life thinking they hit a triple. Well, they haven't, and they need to be grateful for the people that got them to third base, but they're not.

We can get spending under control, but we've got to get back to a moral Nation. As the Founders said, this government was never intended to work as a government for immoral people, for a people who did not grasp and understand the gift from their Creator, and that they had a Creator.

We know that there are those who, in this country, are atheists because they have the freedom to do that, and that's fine. They have the freedom of religion, but the late Bob Murphy from Nacogdoches, Texas, used to say, you know, I used to feel sorry for atheists, he said. I do, I feel sorry for atheists because they have to tell the world, while they're trying to act like intellectuals, they have to try to tell the world that they believe the equation nobody plus nothing equals everything.

As Bob used to say, how embarrassing, to act like an intellectual and say I believe the equation, nobody plus nothing equals everything. Because the truth is, we were endowed by our Creator. It didn't just happen. These incredible gifts didn't just appear. We are endowed by a loving Creator.

I learned a lot about the nature of God as a father who loved his children. I learned even more about the nature of God as a judge and chief justice, how you don't want to punish people. You got a taste of that as a father. But there has to be laws, there has to be enforcement, there has to be equal enforcement and people not be above the law.

Well, when you get people in positions of authority who think they're above the law, that they should be in a position, as was King George III, to decide legislative, judicial and executive decisions, we're in trouble.

In North Dakota, there has been the largest oil find since the discoveries in Alaska. Some think the shale finds of oil in North Dakota may even exceed Prudhoe Bay. It's big.

We, those of us who believe in God, should be thanking God for the endowment of all the natural resources in this country. We have been richly blessed, and yet we have got an administration that says hands off: this might make us energy independent, this might move us down the road to stop sending money to countries that hate us, to stop sending money to countries who are funneling money to terrorism.

This energy resource blessing that we've been given, if we used it, would create jobs; but we're not going to allow it because we want to use something they call alternative energy. The reason, as someone recently said, it is called alternative energy is because it isn't real energy. You use more energy getting the energy out than you actually get back.

That's been seen with wind energy; and we know that these massive windmills, though producing some small amount of electricity, they've chopped up a lot of birds in the process.

And yet what has been this administration's position in response to the biggest oil find in modern history in North Dakota, Slawson Exploration Co. of Wichita, Kansas, was charged under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for killing 12 birds that--these aren't endangered species, they're migratory birds, like mallard ducks--after landing, allegedly landing in oil waste pits in western North Dakota.

So our Justice Department, which abandoned prosecution of funding of terrorism around the world against the United States and our friend Israel, it has abandoned that responsibility, they are purging their training records of any reference to radical Islam. They are refusing to go after the people that want to bring down this country. They're appointing people on the Homeland Security Advisory Council who have glowingly talked about Ayatollah Khomeini, or the Holy Land Foundation, that funneled money to terrorism, they're putting people like that on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, giving them secret clearance and letting them peruse our classified documents. That's what this administration has been doing.

But these energy resources could make us energy independent, and what are they doing? They're putting their foot on the throat of anybody that tries to produce them to the point that they will ignore the tens of thousands of birds that have been killed by windmills and go after the biggest oil find in modern history in America and charge them criminally because maybe there were 12 ducks that got into some of their oil.

It's incredible what this administration is doing--they think to help America. But, clearly, just as clearly in retrospect as President Carter hurt this country, hurt those who love liberty by recognizing the Ayatollah Khomeini as a man of peace, proudly proclaiming his coming back to Iran, and thousands and thousands and thousands of people have died because such a man was encouraged to come to power.

Just like this administration did in Egypt, like this administration has done in Libya, without really knowing who we were helping, and now the Muslim Brotherhood that is devout in pursuing an international caliphate that would put the lovers of liberty in this country under the shackles of following sharia law, it's a disgrace.

There is so much damage that this administration has been doing; the Justice Department going after people because they believe there is a God.

I will just close with what Ben Franklin said in the Constitutional Convention, 1787, toward the end of June:

How has it happened that we have not once thought of humbly

applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our

understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great

Britain when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer

in this room. Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were

graciously answered.

He ultimately said:

If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice,

is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We've

been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that ``unless the

Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.'' I

firmly believe this.

He also said:

I firmly believe that without his concurring aid, we shall

succeed in our political building no better than the builders

of Babel.

He was right. We've had over 200 years of blessing as a result. It's time to acknowledge the result of our blessing and the source of our blessings.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 3 o'clock and 10 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, December 5, 2011, at noon for morning-hour debate.