Floor Statements

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 4 o'clock and 57 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, April 23, 2012, at 11 a.m.

I rise today in strong support of H.R. 9, the Small Business Tax Cut Act.

In my home State of Georgia, there are more than 150,000 small businesses which employ over 1.5 million people. These are the folks that tell me every day when I come home that a tax break would allow them to hire more employees. Consider this: between 2005 and 2008, more than 130,000 new jobs were created by small businesses in Georgia. But under the current administration, in just 1 short year, Georgia's small businesses have had to let go nearly all of those jobs. That's a crushing 120,000 people out of work because of the Obama administration's policies.

Democrats somehow think that they can solve our unemployment crisis by raising taxes. But job creators know that the only way that they can put people back to work is if they have more money to hire folks. That's why I support H.R. 9 and also why I introduced my JOBS Act, H.R. 660, which would lower taxes for everybody. I urge my colleagues to support both bills.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I rise today in support of H.R. 4089, the Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012, a bill that will protect hunting and fishing on public lands and preserve the use of traditional ammunition and fishing tackle.

I am an avid hunter and sportsman. In fact, I'm a life member of Safari Club International and my life member number is 17. I began coming to Washington, D.C., as a volunteer advocate for hunting and fishing rights and for gun owners' rights and responsible conservation. I'm also honored to be a life member of the National Rifle Association. I know the importance of ensuring that our hunters' and our anglers' rights are protected, as well as ensuring the sustainability of wildlife.

This legislation is a compilation of four pro-hunting, -shooting, and -fishing bills offered by my friends Jeff Miller of Florida, Don Young of Alaska, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Dr. Dan Benishek of Michigan. I commend all of them for their great work on this issue. I am also pleased to say that I cosponsored all of their legislation.

Of note, I would like to personally thank Dr. Benishek for allowing me to amend his portion of the bill, the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage Opportunities Act, that we marked up in our Natural Resources Committee.

In this Congress, as I have done in the past two Congresses, I introduced H.R. 1444, legislation that would require that hunting activities be considered as a land use in all management plans for Federal land. My amendment was complementary to Mr. Benishek's legislation, and it is included in this legislation that we are voting on today.

Sportsmen devote their time, their money, and their efforts towards ensuring that our Nation's fish and wildlife are sustainable for all Americans to

enjoy. In return, I urge my colleagues to support the Sportsmen's Heritage Act so that future generations can continue to hunt, fish, and enjoy God-given natural resources.

I urge my colleagues to support the Sportsmen's Heritage Act so that future generations can continue to hunt, fish, and enjoy the God-given natural resources that were bestowed upon this country.

I rise today to commemorate a very important medical breakthrough that happened hundreds of years ago in Jefferson, Georgia. And that's the invention of general anesthesia. Tomorrow is Doctors Day, and I am pleased to take this time to honor Dr. Crawford Long, who gave the first general anesthetic for a surgical procedure in 1842. If it weren't for Dr. Long's discovery of ether as a general anesthetic, the world of medicine would not be as profound or innovative as it is today.

This is a proud claim for the city of Jefferson, Georgia, for the 10th Congressional District, and for the State of Georgia as a whole. It is a little known fact that Dr. Long's statue is in the U.S. Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection, but this tribute is well deserved, given his significant contribution to both science and to medicine.

I hope that all Georgians passing through Washington will take the time to stop by Dr. Long's statue to reflect upon this great Georgian's wonderful achievement to science and to humanity.

I rise today to give a tribute to a friend, a television broadcast icon, the talented and eloquent Monica Kaufman Pearson.

In 1975, Monica became the first African American, in fact, the first female, to anchor a daily evening newscast in Atlantic. Years later, it was revealed that she beat out Jane Pauley and Oprah Winfrey for the coveted position. And just like these high-profile women, Monica has risen to achieve extraordinary success.

For her diligent reporting and superb storytelling, she has won 30 Emmy Awards and numerous honors. However, Monica does not simply report the evening news. I can confidently say that she is one of Georgia's finest. Throughout the years, she has lent her voice to efforts and charitable causes within her community, living out her motto: It's what you do with what you have that makes you what you are.

On behalf of the United States Congress, it is my privilege to honor America's and Atlanta's top news leader, Monica Kaufman Pearson, for her outstanding career and significant contributions to broadcast journalism.

We love you, Monica, and we'll miss you. God bless you.

Dr. Fleming, I appreciate you yielding me some time.

Mr. Speaker, the American people need to understand very clearly that this administration, this President's policy on Medicare, as well as our Democratic colleagues here in the House and the Senate, can be summarized by four Ds: They want to deny that there's a problem; they want to delay fixing it; they want to destroy Medicare as we know it today; and they want to demonize those of us who want to fix it so that it is a good and solid program for the future generations of this country.

That's exactly what we're trying to do here tonight is focus upon the fact that, number one, they do want to deny it. They even deny that there's a problem. They keep saying that they want to save Medicare as we know it today, but Medicare is not sustainable as we know it today because it's going broke. And it's going broke because of failed policies of this administration, and it's getting worse and worse.

Hopefully, we'll see the Supreme Court throw out the Affordable Care Act, the President's reform bill, which is going to be disastrous. It's going to destroy the doctor-patient relationship. It's going to destroy budgets, from individual budgets, businesses' budgets, States' budgets, even the Federal budget. IPAB, as Dr. Harris was talking about, is going to be disastrous because we're going to have rationing of care.

Our Democrat colleagues and this President want to deny that there is any problem. They want to delay doing anything about it. In fact, the Ryan budget, our budget that we passed last year, started the dialogue, started the process of looking at trying to fix Medicare for future generations. But our Democrat colleagues don't want to do that. They want to delay fixing it. They just want to posture. They want to try to do anything that they can to not face the fact that we've got to deal with Medicare and the financial problems it has that my good friend from Maryland, Dr. Harris, talked about.

Their policy is going to destroy Medicare. They're already destroying Medicare Advantage. We've seen, as Dr. Fleming talked about, we've already seen the President's Affordable Care Act has destroyed Medicare Advantage and has cut $500 billion, one-half trillion dollars out of Medicare. And then they want to demonize us who want to do something about it.

I introduced my Patient Option Act, which is a comprehensive health care reform plan. It deals with Medicare. It helps to save it for future generations. I introduced it in the last Congress. We reintroduced it to put in place a repeal section to repeal ObamaCare and replace that disastrous law that we have in place, the Affordable Care Act, for something that makes sense, that will lower the cost of all health care services and products for everybody in this country.

We are tweaking it, and I'm going to reintroduce my Patient Option Act just in the next week or two. It's just a little over 100 pages. It's a comprehensive bill. It's market-based, and it puts the doctor and patient in charge of making all health care decisions, not some bureaucrat here in Washington, D.C., that the President and our Democrat colleagues want to have in every single doctor-patient relationship. Whether you're on Medicare or not, they want to insert a bureaucrat from Washington, D.C., to make those decisions for you.

The American people need to know, Mr. Speaker, that our colleagues on the Democratic side and this President, if they have their way, they're going to deny there's a problem. They're delaying fixing it. They're going to destroy Medicare as we know it, and they want to demonize us that want to fix it.

We're not going to sit still. We're not going to have it. We're going to continue to fight to make Medicare available, make insurance available for everybody at a lower price. That's exactly what Republicans are doing.

We have a plan--many plans. Actually, there have been numerous bills introduced by many colleagues on our side, physician colleagues. Dr. Tom Price from Roswell, Georgia, orthopedic surgeon, one of our Georgia colleagues, introduced his plan. We've got many plans here.

So we're fighting to save Medicare. Our Democrat colleagues and this administration, this President, are going to destroy it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 233rd anniversary of the Battle of Kettle Creek, one of Georgia's most memorable victories during the American Revolutionary War. The battle, which took place on February 14, 1779, demonstrates the popular patriotic spirit that defined our fight for freedom, as a small group of militiamen fearlessly confronted and conquered a force twice its size.

In pursuit of Colonel John Boyd and his force of British Loyalists, Colonels Andrew Pickens, John Dooly, and Elijah Clarke led Patriot rebel forces to attack at Kettle Creek. Despite being outnumbered and far less experienced, the fearless patriots rallied and decisively won the day. They inflicted many times the casualties and took the remaining contingent as prisoners. Following this extraordinary triumph, Colonel Pickens declared, ``Kettle Creek was the severest check and chastisement the Tories ever received in South Carolina or Georgia.''

For this reason, and on the occasion of its anniversary, it is my honor to acknowledge the victory at the Battle of Kettle Creek and pay tribute to the courageous soldiers who fought on behalf of their new sovereign Nation. Furthermore, I extend my sincere appreciation to organizations such as the Washington-Wilkes Chapter Sons of the American Revolution, Kettle Creek Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington Wilkes Historical Foundation, and the Kettle Creek Battlefield Association for their efforts to discover our heritage and preserve our history for future generations.

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to unite with my fellow Americans as we observe this remarkable event in Georgia history and recognize the indispensable role that the Battle of Kettle Creek achieved in the American Revolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support a bill that I recently introduced, H.R. 3883, the Budget or Bust Act. My legislation would force the House and the Senate to pass a budget or else their salaries would be held hostage until they do.

It has been 1,015 days since the Senate last passed a budget. That is 1,015 days that Congress has shirked one of its most basic responsibilities, and they shouldn't be getting paid for their irresponsibility.

Next week, we'll see the President roll out his budget for 2013, which is not part of his constitutional job description. The Budget or Bust Act would restore the power of the purse to its rightful owner, which the Founding Fathers specifically gave to Congress, not to the President. Congress should be deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars, and the President should simply be implementing the budget and policy that Congress puts forward.

I urge my colleagues to support my Budget or Bust Act so that Washington is finally forced to pass a budget and live within its means like the rest of America does.

Mr. Chairman, it's absolutely critical that lawmakers in Washington are informed and aware of how legislation that we introduce will impact our country's economic growth, so today I rise in strong support of the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act, which will basically give us that information.

If this legislation had already been passed, perhaps our economy wouldn't be saddled with the effects of the President's health care takeover, the stimulus bill, and other legislative nightmares all produced by my Democrat colleagues. These only tie up our small businesses, bog down our job creators, and further bury our economy in massive Federal debt.

If we had any idea of how chilling the effects of these bills would be on jobs and our economy, maybe we would have done the smart thing, which would have been not to pass them and instead stayed within the boundaries of our budget. Except, well, I forgot. We still don't have a budget, thanks to the obstruction of Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

That's why I introduced my Budget or Bust Act just today. It would literally force the House and the Senate to pass a budget or else their salaries would be held hostage until Congress does its job. My bill would also restore the power of the purse to its rightful owner, which our Founding Fathers specifically gave to Congress, not to the President.

I urge my colleagues to support both the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act and my Budget or Bust Act so that we can truly understand how our legislation affects the economy, and so that Washington is finally forced to live within its means and Congress is held responsible and accountable, as hardworking taxpayers deserve.

The greatest moral issue that this Nation faces today is the killing of 4,000 babies every single day through abortion. God cannot and will not continue to bless this land while this atrocious practice continues.

The first bill I introduced in this Congress when I was elected in 2007, and in every single Congress since then, has been my Sanctity of Human Life Act that scientifically describes the beginning of life when a spermatozoon, or the sperm cell, enters the cell wall of the ovum, the egg, to create a one-cell human being, the zygote.

Mr. Speaker, it's absolutely critical, if we want to continue to expect God to bless America, that we stop murdering these unborn babies, and I will continue to fight to do so. And I hope my colleagues will see the reality that these are human beings. It's not a glob of tissue; it's a human being created by God, and we have to protect their lives.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to commemorate the 220th anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights to our U.S. Constitution. Some of our most basic freedoms and governing principles are laid

out in this precious document. The amendments listed were meant to protect our individual liberties and our private property. They serve as a constant reminder that our Nation was meant for its citizens to have liberty, with very little government intrusion into their lives.

Today's modern government has, sadly, strayed very far away from the vision that our Founding Fathers had when they ratified the Bill of Rights. It seems like every day we lose a little bit more of our freedom to the ideals of Big Government and to the standards of socialism.

In Hosea 4:6, God says, ``My people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge.''

We have a tremendous lack of knowledge in this Nation about the principles that our Founding Fathers gave us in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and we are being destroyed because those foundational principles are being eroded day by day here in Congress, by Presidents, and by the Federal court system.

Please read the U.S. Constitution. Read the Bill of Rights. Teach them to our children and to our grandchildren so that we can come together and demand a constitutionally limited government, as our Founding Fathers intended. We need to begin to rebuild the principles that have made this Nation the greatest in history, the greatest political experiment in the history of mankind. Those principles are what have made this country so great, so powerful, and so successful; and the only way that we will retain that is if we become knowledgeable and start demanding a constitutionally limited government, as our Founding Fathers meant it.

So please read the Constitution. Please read the Bill of Rights. Read what our Founding Fathers said about it. Demand that kind of governance from our elected representatives all across this country, at all levels of government. Our freedom and liberty depend upon it.

Thank you. God bless you. God bless America.

He turned Georgia football games into larger- than-life experiences. He awakened excitement and pinpointed fear in the depths of Dawg fans' souls and shouted out those emotions on radios statewide. His voice will go down in history

as the soundtrack of some of the most famous play calls, highlight reels, and moments for UGA that will simply never be forgotten.

Whether it was his describing the ``sugar'' falling out of the sky, or begging the Dawgs to hunker down one more last time, Larry Munson had an unmatched ability to find words for feelings that just could not be spoken. To call him an iconic play-by-play announcer for the University of Georgia football team would be a vast understatement. He was a classic city treasure, an Athens legend. And for 42 years, Larry Munson breathed life into the Sanford Stadium and made the Dawgs dance.

He was different from all other sportscasters. Larry Munson was very authentic. He always told it like it was, even when he had given up on a red and black win. He didn't care about political correctness, and he wasn't afraid to scream about stepping on Tennessee's face with a hobnailed boot or breaking his chair--his metal, steel chair with a five-inch cushion--when Georgia beat Florida in 1980 and then went on to win the national championship. He loved Georgia football, and Georgia football loved Larry Munson just right back.

His memory will live on forever in the body of the Bulldog Nation, in the hearts of all Dawg fans, and will live on between the hedges every game day.

On behalf of the United States Congress, here's to you, Larry, one of the best Dawgs that Georgia has ever known. And we'll never forget. We'll miss you greatly, Larry.

Go Dawgs.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and celebrate the 100th birthday of one of the 10th Congressional District's most impressive and dedicated constituents, Mr. Fred Birchmore. Renowned for his round-the-world cycling trips, Birchmore has biked tens of thousands of miles worldwide on a one-speed 42-pound Reinhardt that now sits in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. His travels have taken him 25,000 miles across Europe, and through Africa, the far Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and 2,000 miles along the United States Appalachian Trail. He's traversed deserts, jungles, beaches and warzones, even once crossing paths with Adolf Hitler. Birchmore's adventures on his trusted bike opened his eyes to not only new horizons, but new cultures, peoples, and ways of life that enriched his own in many aspects.

Even more than a sportsman, Fred is a decorated World War II war hero, a loving father of four and has been a devoted husband to Willa Deane Birchmore for 72 years now. His eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren know him to be an adventurer, an intellectual, and an all around outstanding man and role model.

Birchmore is a graduate of the University of Georgia and was a personal friend of the late Larry Munson. He carried the Olympic Torch under the Arch in the Classic City, takes great pride in his possession of the sword of Colonel Sanford who is the namesake of UGA's Sanford Stadium, and still remains a faithful community servant to Athens- Clarke County today.

I am honored to be able to wish Mr. Birchmore a happy 100th birthday on behalf of the United States Congress, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to shed light on a life that has been so filled with adventure, hard work, passion, and love for family, friends, community, and country. Happy Birthday Fred and may you continue to set an example for all those who love and admire you for many more years to come.

In Hosea 4:6, God says:

My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you

have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as My priests;

because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will

ignore your children.

This is a promise from a holy, righteous God who could do nothing else but fulfill that promise. We have to look at this and understand that, in this country, we have a tremendous lack of knowledge about our U.S. Constitution and that we have a tremendous lack of knowledge about the biblical foundations of our Nation and of how our Founding Fathers believed in liberty. We're losing that liberty tremendously because we have a tremendous lack of knowledge.

In Psalm 11, God says:

If the foundations are destroyed, what are the righteous to

do?

I believe it's a call to duty to rebuild the foundational principles that are behind liberty.

Sworn officers of the United States--in fact, all public servants-- have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic; and for decades, sworn officers of the United States have been violating that oath to uphold and protect our Nation's most precious document, the U.S. Constitution. Domestically, there are many by their actions, either intentionally or unintentionally, who undermine our governing document.

Every day, officials, ranging from Federal judges to U.S. Senators to Members of the House to leadership, ignore the original intent of our Founders that was put in the Constitution of the United States. The distortion is so great now that there is little correlation between their words and our actions here in Washington, D.C. This has become the norm for today's body of government, but it was not what the great lawmakers of the past envisioned for America's future.

Today, I would like to focus in particular on one clause of the Constitution in which we have seen a dramatic and dangerous distortion of our Founding Fathers' original intent. The Commerce Clause has slowly been eroded by the selfishness of politicians and of the courts alike. Nowadays, it can be carelessly applied to almost any case that expands the size and scope of the Federal Government as it relates to our economy.

Today, I want to walk you through time, starting with our Founding Fathers' original intent for the clause and then moving through the years to point out specific cases that have led to the deterioration of the Commerce Clause. We'll end with a modern-day situation that I know everybody in this country is familiar with--that being the constitutionality of ObamaCare. I hope that all of our viewers will stay with me throughout the hour, because it is so important that you help me to educate the rest of your neighbors, your families, your friends on how the Federal Government has spiraled out of control.

It's up to the American people--we the people--to demand that Washington gets back to constitutionally limited government as our Founding Fathers intended. We've gotten away from their thoughts; we've gotten away from their intent of our government; and we see the problems that we have today because of that.

There are many aspects that have contributed to the overreach of today's government, but the single biggest offender has been the ever- expanding interpretation of the Commerce Clause in article I, section 8 of the Constitution. In fact, as an original intent constitutionalist, I say we should not interpret the Constitution; we must apply the Constitution as it was intended.

Article I, section 8 of the Commerce Clause states:

To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the

several States and with the Indian tribes.

So what does it mean ``to regulate commerce''?

To understand what is meant by the word ``commerce,'' a great place to start is with the Constitution, itself.

Article I, section 9 of the document states:

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce

or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another,

nor shall vessels bound to or from one State be obliged to

enter, clear or pay duties in another.

What does that mean? ``Commerce'' is between States. Commerce is supposed to go across State lines. That's what ``commerce'' means. The word ``commerce'' was regularly understood by both the Framers of the Constitution and the general public at that time to mean ``trade between States.''

Now, what about the words ``to regulate''?

During that period of time, the term ``regulate'' meant ``to make regular,'' not ``to control'' as it is so often used today. It means to make regular, to make it work, to expand commerce--not to control it. To put it in plain words, the original intent of the Commerce Clause was to make that commerce and trade between the States ``normal,'' or ``regular.'' It was designed to promote trade and exchange, not to hinder it with crushing regulations. Moreover, the Framers of the Constitution wanted to make sure that commerce between the States was not limited by taxes or tariffs. Here are some examples of what James Madison and Alexander Hamilton envisioned.

In Federalist 45, James Madison wrote:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the

Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to

remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.

I encourage people to read the Constitution of the United States. The 10th Amendment says, if a power is not specifically given to the Federal Government by the Constitution, then the 18 things in article I, section 8--that begin here and end here in this little booklet, these 18 things--are all the Constitution gives Congress the authority to vote upon--18. That's it. National defense-national security should be the major function of the Federal Government. It's certainly not meant to expand beyond what the Constitution says, as James Madison wrote in Federalist 45.

Simply put, Madison was reinforcing the point that the powers of the Federal Government, under the proposed Constitution, should be very limited, while the powers within the States are broad in scope and are more individualized and are extremely broad in character.

Again, the commerce clause was not meant to be stretched as thin as it is today, where it can be applied to almost all forms of economic prosperity at both the State as well as the Federal levels. We'll get into more specific examples in just a few minutes.

Here is a quote from Alexander Hamilton, one of the Federalists who wanted a strong Federal Government. He wrote in Federalist 11, where he makes the case that the States should have unrestrained economic interaction with each other to, therefore, bolster U.S. productivity and make our exports more desirable to foreign markets:

An unrestrained intercourse between the States themselves

will advance the trade of each by an interchange of their

respective productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal

wants at home, but for exportation to foreign markets. The

veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, and will

acquire additional motion and vigor from a free circulation

of the commodities of every part.

Hamilton felt as though enterprise would have a greater scope from the diversity in the goods of different States. He also felt as though when an industry suffered in one State, it should be able to ask for assistance from other States.

Hamilton went on to say:

The variety, not less than the value, of products for

exportation contributes to the activity of foreign commerce.

It can be conducted upon much better terms with a large

number of materials of a given value than with a small number

of materials of the same value; arising from the competitions

of trade and from the fluctuations of markets. Particular

articles may be in great demand at certain periods, and

unsalable at others; but if there be a variety of articles,

it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in

the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of

the merchant would be less liable to any considerable

obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at

once perceive the force of these observations, and will

acknowledge that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the

United States would bid fair to be much more favorable than

that of the thirteen States without union or with partial

unions.

He is saying this in an argument geared towards a strong union of Federal Government. But what's he saying there? That the commerce of the States in a whole should be considered. So to sum it up, it is without a doubt that the commerce clause was intended to ensure free trade between the States and to ultimately create the most balanced and desirable American products to sell to foreign buyers.

Let's take a look at some specific cases that led to the destruction of the commerce clause. In the first case, we are going to examine Gibbons v. Ogden. This was in 1824. It is the first case in which the commerce clause was broadened beyond its original meaning under the Constitution. Here's a little background on the case:

The State of New York had passed a law granting two operators, Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton, the exclusive right to operate steamboats within the waters of the State of New York. Operators from outside the State of New York wishing to navigate waters within New York were required to get a special permit in order to do so. Aaron Ogden filed suit, arguing that this State-sponsored monopoly was in opposition to Congress' constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce.

In his opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the word ``commerce,'' as found in the Constitution, includes in its definition the transport of goods between States. This ruling is inconsistent with the Framers' intent, as you can see in Federalist 42 when James Madison wrote:

To those who do not view the question through the medium of

passion or of interest, the desire of the commercial States

to collect, in any form, an indirect revenue from their

uncommercial neighbors, must appear not less impolitic than

it is unfair; since it would stimulate the injured party, by

resentment as well as interest, to resort to less convenient

channels for their foreign trade.

``Foreign trade,'' commerce opening up between the States, not control

within the States, is what he's saying here.

Madison went on to equate commerce with what he described as ``intercourse'' between States and wrote that the definition of ``among the States,'' as stated in the Constitution, was quite broad. He wrote:

The word ``among'' means intermingled with. A thing which

is among others is intermingled with them. Commerce among the

States cannot stop at the external boundary line of each

State, but may be introduced into the interior. It may very

properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more

States than one.

As a result, subsequent courts have ruled that Congress has the power to regulate commerce that not only is truly interstate in nature but also commerce which affects more than one State.

As Matthew Clemente of FreedomWorks pointed out in a recent series on how the commerce clause relates to the expansion of the Federal Government through health care, this broad interpretation of the commerce clause has resulted in justifications of a number of Federal laws that regulate purely intrastate activities.

In the end, the Marshall court struck down New York's law because of its view that Congress, not the States, has the power to control navigation within each State so long as it relates to interstate commerce. And this opened the door for even looser readings of the commerce clause in later cases.

So just to quickly recap, in this case the court ruled that Congress has both the power to regulate both commerce that is truly interstate in nature and actions related to commerce which affect more than one State, even if not through one common channel.

But the reality is that in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton repeatedly equates commerce with trade between nations, as we've already seen. He does not ever give it a broader meaning related to activities carried out within each State, which may also affect activities in other States.

Let's look at another case. In this one, it's Swift & Co. v. United States in 1905. The case revolved around a number of meat dealers in Chicago that had formed a meat trust in which they agreed not to bet against one another in an effort to control meat prices. At the same time, the members of the trust convinced the railroads to charge them below normal rates to transport their product. The U.S. Government stepped in, attempting to use the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up this trust.

Using the open door left by Marshall's expansion of the language of the commerce clause in Swift, the court went a step further and ruled that ``activities involved in the `stream of commerce' were fair game for congressional regulation''--totally against the original intent. In his opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that the elements of the meat trust's scheme were such that it was clear that ``the participants meant to monopolize the meat trade within the State of Illinois.''

Holmes took this observation a step further by saying that while the trust's intention may only have been to create a monopoly within its own State, the trust's ``effect upon commerce among the States is not accidental, secondary, remote, or merely probable.'' He went on to differentiate this case from cases related to manufacturing, stating that ``here, the subject matter is sales, and the very point of the combination is to restrain and monopolize commerce among the States in respect of such sales,'' due to the fact that the meat at issue likely had roots in several different States, not just Illinois, and that its end destination could also have been within a different State, that, in effect, it was affecting the ``stream of commerce.''

Thus, the ruling in Swift had the effect of allowing congressional regulation of actions which could potentially affect commerce in other States--not what actually would affect commerce, but potentially affect commerce in other States--such as the sale of items which could be considered to be within the stream of commerce. Again, a further expansion of the original intent.

Again, to recap what this case has shown us, the court ruled that activities involved in the stream of commerce, or potentially could be involved in the stream of commerce, may be regulated by Congress. But in reality, this decision had the effect of allowing Congress to regulate not just actions which could affect more than one State, but also actions which are considered to be within the stream of commerce. As a result, it widens the breadth of issues over which Congress might assert authority under the commerce clause, totally against the original intent.

Next in Stafford v. Wallace in 1921, we see Congress passed the Packers and Stockyards Act in 1921 to create new regulations on meatpackers in response to charges that their practices were unfair, discriminatory, and encouraged the formation of monopolies.

In Stafford, the court reaffirmed its decision in Swift that we just talked about, finding that Congress could regulate activities within stockyards--seen as local in nature--because they are a part of a channel of commerce.

Writing the decision, Chief Justice William Howard Taft stated that ``the object to be secured by the act is the free and unburdened flow of livestock from the ranges and farms of the West and the Southwest through the great stockyards and slaughtering centers on the borders of that region, and thence in the form of meat products to the consuming cities of the country in the Middle West and East, or, still, as livestock, to the feeding places and fattening farms in the Middle West or East for further preparation for the market.''

And he went on to state that in his opinion any practice which ``unduly and directly'' affects the expenses incurred during the passage of livestock through stockyards is an ``unjust obstruction to that commerce,'' and as a result, Congress has the ability to step in and regulate it.

Here the court rules that the commerce clause allows Congress to act if it believes that a local entity is preventing the ``free and unburdened'' flow of a good which could have its roots in multiple States, such as cattle moving to stockyards and to packing plants. But in reality, this simply reaffirmed the Swift decision which allowed Congress to insert itself into any activity that affects more than one State.

Then in Wickard v. Filburn, this case threw open the doors, widely opened the doors to allow Congress to regulate any activity that might relate to interstate commerce. I'm sure the Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves if they knew what kind of power the court bestowed on the Federal Government with the decision in this particular case.

So let me give you a little background information on this case so you can grasp how ridiculous the court's decision was in this case. Roscoe Filburn was a farmer who was penalized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for harvesting more wheat than he was allotted by a USDA regulation that set quotas for wheat crops. Filburn filed suit, claiming that he was not going to sell the extra wheat, that he was only going to be using it on his own farm for his own family; and, therefore, the Federal Government should not have any say in the matter. Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote in his opinion that ``the commerce power is not confined in its exercise to the regulation of commerce among the States. It extends to those activities interstate which so affect interstate commerce.''

He went on to write, as this poster shows:

Even if an activity be local, and though it may not be

regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be

reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic

effect on interstate commerce.

In other words, anything could be considered under the commerce clause. Anything could be regulated by Congress. Anything. And that's what we see today.

Most recently, in 2005, the court reaffirmed the decision in Wickard v. Filburn in the ruling of Gonzales v. Raich, which shows the court's anti-original intent interpretation of the commerce clause to date. This, I remind you, was just a few years ago in 2005. This is the widest interpretation of the commerce clause, showing that Congress may not even need to show evidence that an action could affect interstate commerce before it is able to regulate it.

This case also established that Congress needs only to find that a ``rational basis'' exists for believing that an action could affect interstate commerce in order to regulate it. Again, in this case the court ruled that Congress may regulate any activity which might relate to interstate commerce. How inane. How unconstitutional. The reality is it's just absurd that Congress should have this power under the commerce clause to stop a farmer from using his own crops to feed his own livestock and his own family simply because his doing so may result in his not purchasing wheat from elsewhere within the marketplace.

The cases we just discussed show the court's willingness to use the commerce clause to justify congressional regulation on just about any activity which might affect commerce. However, the Rehnquist court broke from this trend and decided two key cases which limited the use of the commerce clause when the regulation was not firmly based on economic activity. I firmly believe that we need to move even more drastically in the direction that the Rehnquist court established.

In 1995, U.S. v. Lopez was the first case where a distinction was drawn between using the commerce clause to regulate economic activity and using it to regulate any activity which could potentially impact commerce.

Alfonzo Lopez was a high school student who was charged with possessing a firearm on school property under the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. Lopez challenged the act, claiming that the commerce clause does not grant Congress the authority to say where someone may or may not carry a gun. Attorneys for the Federal Government argued that the possession of a gun--and this is just so far out and crazy, it's hard to believe, but this is exactly what they argued--the Federal Government attorneys argued that possession of a gun on school grounds could lead to violent crime--well, the gun doesn't make it lead to violent crime, but that's what they were claiming--and this would increase insurance costs. And it would also deter visitors from coming to the general area, thus dampening the local economy. They also argued that students who fear violence at their schools are more likely to be distracted in the classroom, resulting in a less-educated workforce and an overall weaker national economy. Boy, that's far reaching, but this is what your Federal Government attorneys argued in this case.

In his opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote:

The possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no

sense an economic activity that might substantially affect

any sort of interstate commerce. To uphold the government's

contentions here, we would have to pile inference upon

inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert

congressional authority under the commerce clause to a

general police power.

We have seen that over and over where Congress has generated a bigger and bigger Federal criminal justice system under the Commerce Clause when we have absolutely no constitutional authority to do that.

Rehnquist went on to say:

Congress could regulate any activity that it found was

related to the economic productivity of individual citizens:

family law, including marriage, divorce and child custody,

for example. Under theories, it is difficult to perceive any

limitation on Federal power, even in areas such as criminal

law enforcement or education where States historically have

been sovereign. Thus, if we were to accept the government's

arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an

individual that Congress is without power to regulate.

And he is absolutely correct. He added:

Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps

down that road, giving great deference to congressional

action, but we decline here to proceed further.

The quote on this poster shows Rehnquist admitting how in cases I have already talked to you about, the cases in the past, the Commerce Clause has been stretched very thin and often misapplied. In Lopez, Rehnquist ruled that Congress may not use the Commerce Clause to regulate noneconomic activity, even in cases where it could find a tangential connection between that activity and the health of the economy at large.

U.S. v. Morrison, in 2000, built on the findings of Lopez and reaffirmed the Court's opinion that Congress could not reach to the Commerce Clause to regulate activity which only tangentially touched interstate commerce.

In 1994, Christy Brzonkala was sexually assaulted by two of her college classmates. She filed suit against them under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which provided a Federal civil remedy for ``victims of gender-motivated violence.'' Her classmates argued that Congress had no authority to regulate violence against women under the Commerce Clause. Attorneys for the Federal Government argued that gender-motivated violence, and the fear of such violence, substantially affects interstate commerce.

Again writing the opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist stated:

The Violence Against Women Act is supported by numerous

findings regarding the serious impact that gender-motivated

violence has on victims and their families.

And it certainly does.

But the existence of Congressional findings is not

sufficient, by itself, to sustain the constitutionality of

Commerce Clause legislation. As we stated in Lopez, ``simply

because Congress may conclude that a particular activity

substantially affects interstate commerce does not

necessarily make it so.''

He added:

Thus far in our Nation's history our cases have upheld

Commerce Clause regulation of intrastate activity only where

that activity is economic in nature.

In this case, the Court ruled that Congress is not able to use the Commerce Clause to regulate noneconomic behavior. At the same time, the Constitution delegates such regulation to the States as an exercise of the State's police powers, not the Federal Government's, but the police's, the State's police powers.

This particular case is just chock full of great quotes, and I'd like to just take a few minutes to read some of them, the first being on this poster.

The Constitution requires a distinction between what is

truly national and what is truly local.

Given petitioners' arguments, the concern that we expressed

in Lopez that Congress might use the Commerce Clause to

completely obliterate the Constitution's distinction between

national and local authority seems well founded.

The next quote out of that decision reads:

If accepted, petitioners' reasoning would allow Congress to

regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated

impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment,

production, transit, or consumption.

He went on to say:

Indeed, we can think of no better example of the police

power, which the Founding Fathers denied the Federal

Government and reposed in the States, than the suppression of

violent crime and vindication of its victims.

Lastly, Rehnquist closed this case by saying this:

If the allegations here are true, no civilized system of

justice could fail to provide her a remedy for the conduct,

but under our Federal system that remedy must be provided by

the State and not by the United States.

As you can see through Rehnquist's decisions in these two cases that we just talked about, the Commerce Clause cannot and should not be utilized to expand the police powers of the Federal Government. The crimes in these cases that were treated as Federal crimes should have been handled either by the State or locally. We do not have constitutional authority to create an ever larger Federal criminal justice system. In fact, initially, there were only three Federal felonies: treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. And that is counterfeiting against coinage, money.

Now let's come to an issue that is important right now. It's one of the biggest assaults on freedom to date, and one of the worst perversions of the Commerce Clause that I have ever seen. And I'm talking about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare.

Using the decisions in Lopez and Morrison, it is clear that Congress lacks the authority to institute the individual mandate set forth in ObamaCare, as well as all the State mandates that are in that law.

The individual mandate requires all citizens to have some form of health insurance, whether they want to have it or not. Chief Justice Rehnquist made it clear in Morrison that just because Congress has stated that it has an interest in regulating what kind of health care Americans purchase--or whether they purchase it at all, whether they purchase it or don't purchase it--does not make it so.

And it is not a stretch to infer from Rehnquist's decision that he would have also struck down the individual mandate, especially given the fact that he opposed the idea of the Commerce Clause allowing Congress to regulate anything that could have a substantial effect on employment, production, transit, or consumption.

In a series of articles written by Matthew Clemente of FreedomWorks, he argues that even in the wildest expansions of the Commerce Clause, the cases all involved an individual or company which was proactively trying to engage in commerce.

Here, we see the opposite. Individuals are being told that in order to go about their lives free from penalty, they must purchase a certain product.

Folks, this is socialism. This is not freedom and liberty. The argument has never been made that the Federal Government can mandate that all citizens must purchase a certain product. My Democrat colleagues mandated it through this bill, through this law, that the President has demanded, ObamaCare. If Congress wants to promote the purchase of health insurance in a constitutional way, it should pass legislation which is constitutional under the original intent of the Commerce Clause that would allow individuals to buy coverage across State lines. This would adhere to the original intent of the Constitution and would allow people to buy insurance, health insurance, at a much lower price than they can today and would get a whole lot better products.

Congresses, Presidents, court judges, every public official in this country swears an oath. I swore the oath when I was sworn into the United States Marine Corps in 1964.

I swore the same oath in 2007, when I came and stood behind this podium. In 2007, I swore to that oath, in 2009, and 2011. Every Member of this body swears to uphold and protect the Constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic.

We have a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution. A lot of those domestic enemies of the Constitution are wearing black robes and they're sitting on benches in Federal courts all across this land. They have violated their oath of office. Every Member of this body swears to uphold the Constitution. There's violation after violation that occurs right here on this floor.

Think about it: if we don't have a solid foundation upon which to build all our laws, all of our society, then we have no foundation at all and the society is going to fall; it's going to fail. As we read in Proverbs, God says:

There is a way that seems right in the eyes of man, but its

path is the way of death.

It's going to be the death of this Nation.

I hear colleagues, particularly on the other side, say the Constitution is a living and breathing document; the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what is constitutional. And that, my friends, is not factual. The only arbiter of what is constitutional or not is the Constitution and what our Founding Fathers said about it.

If we don't restore a constitutionally limited government, we're going to lose our freedom, we're going to lose our liberty. The bright and shining star of liberty that's been over this Nation for over 200 years is upheld by six pillars. The first of those is a constitutionally limited government as our Founding Fathers meant it. The second one is the free enterprise system, uninhibited by taxes and regulation. The third is the rule of law, where everybody, every entity in this country is treated equal under the law. And certainly we're not being treated equally under the law today.

The fourth is property rights, where people can own and control their property and government cannot interfere with that ownership. And if it does, if it takes it or devalues it, the Constitution says that they should be appropriately compensated for the loss or the devaluation of that private property.

The fifth pillar that holds up that bright and shining star of liberty is the pillar of personal responsibility and accountability. And the middle pillar that holds up the center of the star of liberty is the pillar of morality. In fact, John Adams said our Constitution is written for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the governing of any other. I hear colleagues say, well, you can't legislate morality. They are so wrong. Every law, every piece of legislation, no matter what level of government, is somebody's idea of what's right and what's wrong.

Every law is legislating morality. Our Nation was founded on the premises of Biblical truths, on the Judeo-Christian principles that have made this country so great and have given us the liberty that we have as a Nation.

But, friends, we are standing right on a precipice. We are staring down into a deep, dark chasm of socialism. And the question is, are we going to be pushed off, are we going to leap off and fall into that deep, dark chasm of socialism, where we're going to lose our freedom and liberty? Or are we going to turn around and march up the hill of liberty and regain for this Nation what our Founding Fathers fought and died and sacrificed so nobly for, that liberty? It's up to us.

Right now, today, we are getting the kind of government that the American people have allowed or demanded. We cannot afford to do so anymore. We have to turn around and march up that hill of liberty and reclaim it and start rebuilding those six pillars of liberty that are being eroded. They're being eroded by Democrats and by Republicans, by conservatives and liberals alike.

Going back to that first poster I put up here where God talks in Hosea 4:6, He says, ``My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.'' We have a tremendous lack of knowledge of how we've gotten away from the intent of the Constitution. Even lawyers and justices and judges don't have a concept of the original intent of the Constitution. In fact, in most law schools in this country, even in the course of constitutional law they do not teach the Constitution, they do not teach the original intent. They do not teach the principles that have made this country so powerful, so rich, so successful as a political experiment, the greatest of all of human history.

What do they teach? They teach case law, where Justices in the Supreme Court have ruled on the constitutionality of a case and have ruled unconstitutionally. They should be removed from office because they're destroying our liberty, they're destroying our freedom. And it's up to the American people to say, no, we're not going to put up with this anymore; we're going to make a change.

You see, the most powerful political force in this Nation is embodied in the first three words of the U.S. Constitution: ``We the people.'' We the people can make a difference. I want to remind you of what one U.S. Senator, Everett Dirksen--former U.S. Senator--at one time said. He said when he feels the heat, he sees the light. What he means is if he's heading in one direction and enough of his constituents contact him and say, buster, you're heading in the wrong direction, if enough people contact him, because he's going to stand firm on the principle of his reelection, then he will begin to see the light.

There are Members of this body and the one across the way in the U.S. Senate, as well as Presidents and our Presidential candidates, that need to feel the heat. They need to feel the heat of liberty. They need to feel the heat of ``we the people'' that demands that different kind of governance, demands going back to the original intent of the Constitution. Because if we don't, our children and our grandchildren are going to live in a socialistic state such as we see in Cuba and Venezuela, we saw in Communist China and the Soviet Union.

We the people have to get up in arms and start building grass fires of grass-root support all over this country for candidates and for Members who are already elected and say we're not going to put up with this anymore.

The only arbiter of the constitutionality is the Constitution and what was meant in the Constitution by those who wrote it. Now, I'm asked all the time, Paul, you weren't around then, how do you know what they meant? Our Founding Fathers didn't have video games and TV and the Internet. They wrote. They read. I encourage American citizens all over this country to read, read what our Founding Fathers said about the Constitution. Read what they meant by it. Because if we

are destroyed by a lack of knowledge, if you turn that around, think about it, we're not destroyed with knowledge.

Then you go on in Hosea 4:6, God says He's going to ignore our children, He's going to reject our children. The future of this Nation depends upon we the people standing firm and saying we're not going to put up with this anymore. We're going to go back to the original intent. We're going to do the hard work of knowing what our Founding Fathers said. We're going to do the hard work of demanding of our elected representatives that they stand by the principles, the foundations that have made this country so great, so powerful, so successful.

There are many Members of this body that need to feel the heat. There are many of the people in this body that need to see the door because they don't stand on the Constitution, they don't uphold the oath of office, they don't do what they have promised their constituents and the American people that they're going to do.

There are judges all over this country, Federal judges, that need to be impeached and removed from office because they're not upholding the Constitution. They're not defending the Constitution. They're not doing what they promised that they would do. They're violating their oath of office.

It has to stop, and the only way we're going to stop it is for we the people to stand up and say, no more. We're not going to elect anybody who's not going to uphold the Constitution in its original intent. We've got to get the hard work done of restoring those six principles, the six principles that have upheld that bright shining star of liberty over this country for so long.

And I'm excited because we see grass roots all over this country beginning to rise up. We see a sleeping giant that's beginning to wake up and stretch its arms and legs and beginning to walk. The press calls it the Tea Party. Well, there's not a Tea Party. There are many tea parties. There's FreedomWorks, there's Americans for Prosperity. There are groups, grass-roots groups like the NRA and Gun Owners of America and Right to Work and other groups that believe in the Constitution.

We're beginning to see the sleeping giant of we the people waking up. It's time to not only wake up and stretch our arms and legs and to walk, but we've got to run. We've got to do the hard work of re- establishing liberty in this country.

We're losing our liberty, friends, and we're going to lose it all. We're standing on that precipice staring down in that deep, dark chasm of socialism. Are we going to allow ourselves to be pushed off by courts, by Congresses, by Presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike?

Or are we going to turn around as a people and demand liberty and start marching up that hill of liberty? It's going to be a mountain climb, but we can do it.

I'm excited because I see that great sleeping giant, the most powerful political force in America, embodied in those first three words of the U.S. Constitution, We the People. Our Founding Fathers believed in we the people. That's the reason, when they wrote the document they put the letters in such large script, much, much larger, probably four or five times larger than the rest of the text in the document, because we the people is the key, that force of we the people.

So the question I have to ask today, Are we going to jump or be forced down into that deep, dark chasm of socialism, or are we going to be a free people? Are we going to demand the liberty?

It's up to each and every freedom-loving citizen in this country today to demand a different kind of governance. I believe we can do it, I believe we will do it because we the people love liberty in America. And I'm trusting in we the people to do the right thing and demand constitutional limited government at all levels.

God bless you, and God bless America.

I yield back the balance of my time.

During the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin wrote a speech urging the assembly to begin their morning session with daily prayer. Franklin wrote: I have lived a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-- that God governs in the affairs of men.

He went on to say that: Without God's concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we, ourselves, shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages.

Just as Benjamin Franklin suggested, we must continue to affirm that God has a place in blessing our government, in guiding our lawmakers, and that He has the ability to lead our Nation back to a path of righteousness and prosperity.

``In God We Trust'' has great meaning in our Nation, and we must encourage its display in all public buildings and government institutions. So I urge my colleagues to pass House Concurrent Resolution 13.