Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, three major developments have occurred within the last 6 weeks that are each disturbing by themselves, but extremely alarming when viewed together.

The first was the revelation that for more than 2 years, one of the most powerful and feared agencies of the Federal Government was used to harass and intimidate individual Americans into silence because of their political beliefs. Evidence has already established that hundreds of conservative groups were subjected to invasive interrogations when they sought to participate in the political process. This pattern of conduct was not limited to applications under section 501(c) but included audits of established conservative groups and individuals, as well. This conduct reached the highest levels of the IRS. A similar pattern of abuse has been documented in several other agencies, including the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency. These facts are undisputed, and their implications are utterly toxic to a free society.

The second development was news that the Justice Department had surreptitiously seized the telephone records of some 20 reporters covering Congress for the Associated Press in an obvious attempt to discourage whistleblowers from talking to the press. Fox News reporter James Rosen and his family were stalked by authorities as he tried to get to the bottom of the Benghazi scandal. To obtain the search warrant allowing this, the Attorney General of the United States filed an absolutely spurious claim with the Federal court charging that Rosen had conspired to violate the Espionage Act. That's the same act under which Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was executed in 1953. The message to reporters asking inconvenient questions of this administration could not possibly have been more powerful or terrifying, and this week the head of AP reported that their news sources have indeed dried up in response to these naked acts of intimidation.

The third development is news that the Federal Government has swept up the phone and Internet records of millions of Americans in the name of state security just months after the official in charge categorically denied the existence of this program in sworn testimony to Congress.

The practice of the government searching your personal records without having first established reason to believe that you have committed a crime is expressly forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, adopted in direct response to British officials indiscriminately searching homes and records for evidence of contraband, yet this government has done precisely that on a scale unimaginable in colonial times, in this case searching for evidence of terrorism.

If I know the Web sites that you've visited and what phone numbers you've called, I know a great deal about your political and religious beliefs, your personal relationships, your sexual interests, your mental and physical health and your family finances. And with that information in the hands of officials who already have demonstrated a clear intention and ability to use their power to intimidate political adversaries into silence or to discourage reporters from asking embarrassing questions, our society could very quickly cross a very bright line between freedom and authoritarianism.

As if to underscore the point, the administration spokesman recently told a national television audience that

``the law is irrelevant.'' He called these matters ``a distraction.'' What does that say about a society that once prided itself on being a Nation of laws and not of men?

All around this Capitol, we are surrounded by the trappings of the Roman Republic. They serve as an inspiration, but they should also serve as a warning. The Roman Republic didn't end because Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his legion. It was because that illegal act was not effectively resisted and led to another usurpation and then another and then another over a period of years. It was the accumulation of many such infringements that brought the inexorable decline of freedom and set the stage for Rome's age of tyrants. That's what Jefferson meant when he said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

My great fear, as we adjourn tomorrow to celebrate the 237th anniversary of American freedom, is that sometime between the barbecues and the fireworks we shrug off these profound developments and go about as if nothing has happened. The summer of 2013 has brought us to a crossroads, and I rise today to urge the House to give these events its full and undivided attention.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and service of Luciano Javier Maligad Sr., who passed away on June 21, 2013 at the age of 84 in Elk Grove, California. Luciano grew up in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States, spending years in military service to this country.

As a young teen Luciano witnessed the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and helped American forces by reporting Japanese troop and munitions movements. He later took a job as a civilian contractor for the U.S. Army in Guam and served as a volunteer for three years in the Korean War.

Luciano became a naturalized American citizen in 1955 and joined the U.S. Air Force, deploying to Vietnam. In Vietnam he served as an aircraft and auto mechanic and also helped start a library for active- duty soldiers. Luciano was also deployed to the Netherlands, Hawaii and California, and retired as a Tech Sergeant after 21 years of service.

Luciano was predeceased by his daughter Andrea and is survived by his wife Mary, five children and numerous grandchildren.

He was a man proud of serving his country, thankful for the opportunity to live in freedom and bequeath it to his posterity, and blessed with a loving family.

Mr. Speaker, Luciano's life embodies the true meaning of the American Dream. It is with a grateful heart that I rise today to honor his memory.

Mr. Speaker, the FARRM Bill is now before us. It's a measure originating in the House of Representatives, whose majority was elected on a clear mandate to stop wasting money. Yet all this bill does is continue to waste money.

Yes, it tightens up a little on automatic eligibility for food stamps, and that's a good thing. Yet this modest reform is a poor substitute for the complete overhaul that is desperately needed.

The food stamp program, now called SNAP, was originally intended to provide basic commodities to the truly needy. Yet I cannot count the number of constituents who have complained to me over the last several years about standing in a grocery line and watching the person in front of them use SNAP cards to buy luxuries that these hardworking taxpayers could not themselves afford.

But it is the corporate welfare provisions that this bill continues, and in some case expands, that I find the most offensive.

Yes, the bill shifts us away from direct payments to farmers; but it, instead, grossly expands taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance programs, eating up about three-quarters of the savings the supporters purport to achieve. The practical effect is to guarantee profits to farmers, while shifting their losses to taxpayers.

We're told that if the bill fails, these wasteful programs will continue with no reform. Well, actually, many of the most wasteful programs would expire, like the $150 million to advertise farmers markets.

But the fine point of it is this: If this bill is defeated, the House can take up real reform at any time. If it is passed, we kick that can another 5 years down the road.

To those who say this is a small step in the right direction, I would agree, it is a very small step. It makes tiny and modest changes to an utterly atrocious program. According to the CBO, it would save all of 3.4 percent from the baseline over the next 5 years, hardly a crowning achievement for fiscal reform.

But there's no blinking at the fact that these programs are fundamentally unfair and grossly wasteful, and this bill locks them into law for another 5 years. If the supporters of this bill were actually serious about incremental reform, this would be a 1-year authorization with additional reforms planned next year. It most decidedly is not.

Let me explain clearly what this bill means to an average, hardworking, taxpaying family in my district. That family must struggle and scrimp to keep their shop open. They bear the entire financial risk of failure; and their profits, if there are any, are heavily taxed.

A portion of that family's taxes goes to the agriculture industry for the express purpose of inflating the prices that that family must pay at the grocery store. As a result, when the family goes grocery shopping, it must scrimp again in order to bear these artificially higher prices that have been forced up by their own high taxes.

As that family stands in the checkout line with their ground chuck for the barbecue tonight, they watch SNAP cards used by others to pay for premium steaks that family can't afford for itself, but paid for by that family's own high taxes.

If the economy sours, that family bears its own losses, while it also pays to cover the losses of the same agricultural interests responsible for their pain at the grocery store.

The bill before us continues this travesty for another 5 years, with soothing assurances from its supporters to cheer up, things could be worse. Well, actually, things couldn't be much worse, and they could be a whole lot better.

This bill, for example, could be defeated and replaced with genuine reform. The government could be withdrawn from its corrupt interventions in agricultural markets. The food stamp program could be restored to its original purpose, to provide basic commodities to the truly needy, and individual consumers could be free to determine the price of their groceries by the decisions that they make every day over what to spend at the grocery store, and not on the basis of what deals were cut in Congress.

The Roman writer Phaedrus summed up this bill rather neatly 20 centuries ago. He said:

A mountain was in labor, sending forth dreadful groans, and

there was in the region the highest expectation. After all

that, it brought forth a mouse.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong support of the amendment.

This is one of the most indefensible programs in the entire Federal Government. As Mr. Chabot said, it pays to market U.S. agricultural products in foreign countries, which invites the question of why should American taxpayers pay the advertising costs of some of the biggest corporations in the world?

Who are we talking about here--plucky little startup companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Dole, Del Monte, Sunkist. Companies that are big enough to export produce overseas are certainly big enough to advertise that produce without picking the pockets of every small shopkeeper and worker in America.

This amendment, thankfully, ends this program. It would save taxpayers about $2 billion over the next 10 years.

And as the gentleman said, these expenditures are completely out of the realm of reason:

Two million dollars to the California Prune Board for an evening dining experience for food critics in New Delhi to discuss prunes. Two million dollars, that must have been quite an evening;

$18.9 million going to the Cotton Council so it could advertise on India's reality TV show, ``Let's Design,'' now in its fifth season, by the way. This advertising isn't even being done in America. It is being done overseas, and it is being done to supplement the advertising budgets of giant corporations.

Mr. Chairman, the Republican majority was supposed to end this kind of nonsense, not perpetuate it. I support this amendment, and I believe that it is a test of the determination and sincerity of the House majority in meeting its mandate to stop wasting people's money.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment addresses a very simple question: Why are we spending millions of dollars advertising and promoting farmers markets?

The Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program spends $40 million on such trivialities as redecorating farmers' market stalls and roadside stands to attract yuppie customers. In Colorado, funds from this program paid for a chef competition and bike tour. More than $120,000 in two grants under this program were spent for beer seminars in China.

This program duplicates four other Federal programs that also promote various aspects of farmers markets, and God knows how many State and local programs that also do the same thing. My amendment simply eliminates this program.

I would challenge the supporters of the program to answer three questions.

First: Why should a taxpayer in Latimer, Iowa, for example, pay for a farmer in Lancaster, California to advertise his produce?

Second: Why should a shopkeeper in Lancaster, who has to pay for his own advertising, also pay for the local farmers advertising as well?

And third, and most importantly: How can any Member look his or her constituents in the eye and tell them that a beer seminar in China is worth spending more of their earnings than they make in a year?

We keep hearing how draconian is the sequester. We keep hearing how it's cutting deeply into vital public services. I dare say at least a dozen speeches on this floor this week were dedicated to the painful cutbacks caused by the sequester. We tell schoolchildren they can't tour the White House because we don't have the money due to the sequester. We tell our constituents that they'll have to wait in insufferable lines just to see us in the House office buildings because we don't have the money due to the sequester. And yet we seem to have plenty of money to fund travesties like those that are crammed into this farm bill. Doesn't that bother anybody here?

I believe that rooting out wasteful programs like this one is the principle reason that voters entrusted Republicans with majority control of the House--the House that's supposed to hold the purse strings of this government. I ask my colleagues if we're being true to our campaign promises that we made to our constituents by continuing to fund such obscene wastes of their money as this one.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I begin by asking the supporters to answer three simple questions:

Why should a taxpayer in one community pay to advertise produce for a farmer in another community? I heard no answer.

I asked why should a shopkeeper in one community who has to pay for his own advertising also pay for the local farmer's advertising as well. I heard no answer.

And third, I asked how can any of us look our constituents in the eye and tell them that $120,000, more than most of our constituents make in a year, is a worthwhile expenditure to hold a beer seminar in China. Once again, I heard no answer.

I forgive my Democratic colleagues the error of their ways. They never promised to be careful with the people's money. The Republicans made that promise. And because of that promise, the Republicans were entrusted with the majority of this House. Allowing programs like this to continue on our watch dishonors those promises, and I appeal to my Republican colleagues not to repeat the conduct that turned the Nation's stomach the last time we held the majority.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, in the early 1760s, the Royal Governor of Massachusetts began issuing writs of assistance as general warrants to search for contraband. They empowered officials to search indiscriminately for evidence of smuggling.

These warrants were challenged in February 1761 by James Otis, who argued forcefully that they violated the natural rights of Englishmen and were, in fact, ``instruments of slavery.''

A 25-year-old attorney who attended the trial later wrote:

Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away

as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance.

Then and there the child independence was born.

That young lawyer was John Adams. To him, that's the moment the American Revolution began. The general warrants were the first warning that his king had become a tyrant.

The Founders specifically wrote the Fourth Amendment to assure that indiscriminate government searches never happened again in America. In America, in order for the government to invade your privacy or to go through your personal records or effects, it must first present some evidence that justifies its suspicion against you and then specify what records or things it's searching for.

Last week, we learned the Federal Government is today returning to those general warrants on a scale unimaginable in colonial times by seizing the phone and Internet records of virtually every American.

We're told that this is perfectly permissible under past Supreme Court rulings because the government is not monitoring content, but only the records held by a third party. But if phone records are outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment because they're held by a third party, then so too are all of our records or effects held by third parties. That means the property you keep in storage or with a family member, the private medical records held by your physician, the backup files on your computer maintained on another server, all are subject to indiscriminate search. In fact, many of the general warrants served long ago in Boston were on warehouses owned by third parties.

Even if we were to accept this rationale, then that third party, for example, the phone company, ought itself to be safe from general warrants like those that have apparently scooped up the phone and Internet records of every American. It's argued with Orwellian logic that it's permissible to seize these records indiscriminately since they aren't actually searched until a legal warrant is issued by a secret FISA court. But if general warrants can produce the evidence for specific warrants, isn't the Fourth Amendment prohibition against general warrants then rendered meaningless? And all we know of the secret FISA court and its deliberations is that out of 34,000 warrants requested by the government, it has rejected only 11--hardly a testament to judicial prudence or independence.

We're told that the information will be used only to search for terrorists.

Does anyone actually believe that? Just a few months ago, the Director of National Intelligence brazenly lied to Congress when he denied the program existed at all. Just a few weeks ago, we learned that this administration has taken confidential tax information belonging to its political opponents and leaked it to its political supporters. Is there anyone so naive as to believe the same thing won't be done with phone and Internet records if it suits the designs of powerful officials?

A free society does not depend on a police state that tracks the behavior of every citizen for its security. A free society depends instead on principles of law that protect liberty while meting out stern punishment to those who abuse it. It doesn't mean we catch every criminal or terrorist. It means that those we do catch are brought to justice as a warning to others. This is true whether we are enforcing the laws of our Nation or the Law of Nations.

Indeed, if we had responded to the attack on September 11 with the same seriousness as we responded to Pearl Harbor, terrorism would not be the threat that it is today.

Ours is not the first civilization to be seduced by the siren song of a benevolent all-powerful government. But without a single exception, every civilization that has succumbed to this lie has awakened one morning to find that the benevolence is gone and the all-powerful government is still there.

Mr. Speaker, this is our generation's wake-up call, and we ignore it at extreme peril to our liberty.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Nation learned of the plight of Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old who will die within weeks unless she gets a desperately needed lung transplant. There are no pediatric lungs available, but there may be adult lungs, which her doctors say would be entirely satisfactory for her condition. But because she's nearly 11 years old and not 12, the bureaucratic regulations prohibited it.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius could have modified those regulations to conform to the judgment of the doctors, but she wouldn't. Her warm words of sympathy for Sarah and her family at a Congressional hearing last week were horrific: ``some live and some die.'' Fortunately, a Federal judge intervened and concluded what Sebelius wouldn't, that the regulations are arbitrary and capricious. Thank God, Sarah is now on the adult transplant list, but the incident provided all of us with a chilling look at what health care will be like when bureaucrats like Kathleen Sebelius are making more and more of our health care decisions.

Sebelius constructed a straw man to argue with. She said that we shouldn't have public officials making these choices, and a lung provided to Sarah necessarily means a lung denied to someone else. That is utterly disingenuous. Sarah's family, joined by many Members of the House, were not calling for Sebelius to pick winners or losers but, rather, were calling for her to place the judgment of the doctors ahead of the rigid one-size-fits-all diktats of the Federal bureaucracy in all such cases, not just this one.

The fact is, Ms. Sebelius is picking who lives and who dies. The difference is that she is doing so not by deferring to the judgment of doctors but, rather, by conforming to the cold and rigid regulations that cannot discern between individual cases.

This is the process to which we are about to consign every American as government dictates every detail of their health coverage: sorry, you're a few months too young or too old. Tough luck, some live and some die.

My chief of staff grew up in the Soviet Union where the first question asked when an ambulance was called was, ``Well, how old is the patient?'' That's what bureaucracies do. They choose who wins and who loses, who lives and who dies, and they do so in a blind, cold, unthinking, and unreasonable manner.

The fact is we don't want officials making these choices, which is exactly what Ms. Sebelius is doing. Those decisions should not involve the government but, rather, should be determined by the individual judgment of the professional physicians directly involved. Until the court stepped in, that's what this administration was impeding. And that shouldn't surprise us. This is the same administration that has substituted the individual medical insurance choices once made by families with the one-size-fits-all mandates of the very same Federal officials who dismissively tell dying 10-year-olds ``some live and some die.''

Mr. Speaker, this incident was a dire warning to us all of the danger that lies ahead for every American. Remember that the same IRS that abused its fearsome authority to harass and intimidate ordinary Americans for political reasons next year will have the power to enforce the regulations over our families' choice of health plans under ObamaCare.

Mr. Speaker, each of us as Americans may one day face the same peril as Sarah Murnaghan because of what we set in motion by empowering this government to take an ever-widening role in our health care decisions. We have taken a process that once was determined by individual choice and was once guided by the professional judgment of the physicians who actually gathered around the patient's bed and turned those decisions over to the likes of Kathleen Sebelius.

I'm afraid in coming years we will pay dearly for that duplicity as we move ever closer toward the ``Brave New World'' of bureaucratically controlled health care that we can already see so clearly through a 10- year-old's life-or-death battle with the Federal bureaucracy.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the House leadership for its continuing commitment to restore the open appropriations process of the House.

That process is absolutely essential if the House is to meet its constitutional responsibility to superintend the Nation's finances. It assures that the people's elected Representatives can provide the maximum scrutiny of every public expenditure.

In the recent past, this process has given way to continuing resolutions that simply rubber-stamp past Federal spending, thus abrogating Congress' most fundamental fiscal responsibility. For this reason, I, for one, will not support any continuing resolutions of this nature.

The regular order over the Nation's finances must be reasserted, and the open appropriations process that has begun in the House this week does so. That process, though, is the final step in the procedures established to ensure that our Nation's spending gets careful examination. The first step in that process--and the most important step--is when programs are authorized or reauthorized. Legislation must first be adopted that establishes the programs for which money is subsequently appropriated.

That is an absolutely critical function that ensures Federal programs are constantly being scrutinized and that Congress is asking: Are these programs effective? Are they meeting their goals? Are they worthwhile? Are they worth the money we're paying? Most programs have time limits on them to ensure that these questions are periodically asked.

The legal authorization, then, is the green light to the Appropriations Committee to provide funding for that program. And for that reason, since 1835, the rules of the House have limited appropriations to only those purposes actually authorized by law. Unless and until the program is authorized, the House may not appropriate funds for it under this longstanding rule. Yet this rule is routinely ignored by the Appropriations Committee and by the House.

Last year, the appropriations bills reported out of the committee contained over $350 billion for programs that had either never been authorized or whose authorizations had lapsed years, and sometimes decades, ago. Many of these are vital programs whose reauthorization should be routine, but many are not. For example, the Community Development Block Grant program that paid for a doggy day care center in Ohio and a day at the circus for Nyack, New York, lapsed 18 years ago; and yet every year we keep funding it lavishly.

Most of the outrageous wastes of taxpayer money that end up in various pork reports stem from these lapsed programs. They're established, then they're forgotten, and the spending keeps on year after year.

The excuse for this conduct is that the authorizing committees have simply failed to attend to their duties of keeping authorizations current, including for a number of critical functions, and so the Appropriations Committee takes it upon itself to fund them.

What's to prevent this? The House rules allow any Member the right to raise a point of order against any unauthorized expenditure, but this right is stripped from Members every time an appropriations bill is sent to the House floor, making this rule meaningless and unenforceable.

It has now reached the point that more than one-third of the discretionary spending approved by the House is for purposes not authorized by law. This fact makes a mockery of the leadership's effort to restore regular order to the appropriations process.

I urge the Speaker of the House to direct the authorizing committees to bring the authorizations current for every program within their respective jurisdictions and to give them a year to do so. If, after a full year, the authorizing committees don't believe the programs are worth the time to review, then maybe that's just nature's way of warning us that they're also not worth the money that we continue to shovel at them.

Once the committees have had that year to review these unauthorized programs and to either renew them, reform them, or let them die, I urge the House to restore the right of every Member to challenge unauthorized appropriations on the floor as our rules clearly envision and provide.

Americans elected a House Republican majority with one clear mandate: stop wasting our money. To be worthy of that trust, we can't allow hundreds of billions of dollars to bypass the minimal congressional review that the authorizing process provides.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Dr. Vicki Barber who will be retiring from the El Dorado County Office of Education after an exceptional 30 years of service.

Dr. Barber began her career with the El Dorado County Office of Education in July 1983 and rose through the ranks, first becoming elected as County Superintendent of Schools in 1994. Dr. Barber's success is best exemplified through the numerous awards and recognitions she has received during her 19-year tenure as County Superintendent.

Twice she has been named Superintendent of the Year by the Small School Districts' Association and the Regional Association of California School Administrators. Most recently Dr. Barber was given the honor of Exemplary Leader in the region by the American Leadership Forum. Dr. Barber's true commitment to the field of education and her dedication to the job are shown through these awards.

Dr. Barber is also a board member of the Boys and Girls Club, Marshall Hospital, El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce and has held leadership positions in various local and statewide organizations. She plans to continue her role as an advocate and contributor to public education after her retirement on June 30, 2013. Her legacy will live on in the El Dorado County Office of Education, and she will remain a fine example of the culture of service that ought to be reflected in every public official.

It is my honor to rise today in appreciation and acknowledgement of her service to our community.

Mr. Chairman, ever since the Arab oil embargoes of the 1970s that ravaged our economy and produced mile-long lines around gas stations, an avowed goal of our Nation has been to reduce our reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

In addition to the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity, the Keystone pipeline will bring up to 830,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil a day into the American market--about half of what we currently import from the Middle East. Now, that bears repeating. The Keystone pipeline could cut our reliance on Middle Eastern oil by half all by itself. The left makes much of the fact that our markets are international and that some of that oil might enter that market. Well, that's possible, but I think it is far more likely that it will push Middle Eastern oil out of the American market.

The fine point is this: In the next international crisis, would you rather rely on Canada or Iraq to meet our petroleum needs?

Mr. Speaker, one of the most disturbing aspects of the unfolding scandal involving the misuse of the IRS is what can only be described as an insatiable appetite for names, names, and more names.

Conservative groups--and only conservative groups--seeking to organize under section 501 were subjected to pages of intrusive and irrelevant questions but with a common theme: give us their names. Give us the names of your volunteers. Give us the names of your donors and your family members and your business associates. Give us the names of speakers and audience participants in your meetings.

One man applying to form a group to educate teenagers in constitutional principles was told to turn over the names of his students. As he told a reporter, Can you imagine my responsibility to parents if I disclosed the names of their children to the IRS?

This tactic was not limited to new applications. The venerable Leadership Institute, which has been schooling young people in constitutional principles for 40 years, was put through a year-long audit. The IRS wasn't only interested in financial information, they wanted the names of the students and their college interns and the names of anyone who had subsequently hired these young people. And when the IRS wasn't demanding the names of ordinary Americans or asking what they were reading or thinking or saying, in some cases applicants were given names and told to reveal what they knew about these people.

Mr. Speaker, these are facts that are undisputed by the administration and its apologists. For a period of more than 2 years, these questions were put to Americans whose political opinions had been singled out by one of the most powerful and feared agencies of the Federal Government.

What I would like to know is why? Why did the IRS demand lists of names of thousands of Americans whose only common characteristic is that they disagreed with this administration? Where are these lists now? With whom were they shared? Who wanted to know these names? What possible use would the IRS have to track the names of high school students who simply wanted to learn about their Constitution? But most importantly, what were these names used for and what are they being used for?

I don't have an answer to these questions, but I find their implications deeply disturbing; and they must be answered during the course of the investigations now underway, and they must be answered in full and with certainty.

I cannot conceive of the reasons why the Federal Government would be so interested in compiling such lists; but we know for a fact that they were, and that fact is undisputed. What we don't know is why; and knowing the answer to that question and the other questions raised by this undisputed fact is absolutely essential to a society that values its freedom of speech, its freedom of assembly, its freedom of press, and its freedom of conscience.

We know the ancillary effect of these illegal demands. They dried up donations to these conservative groups. They heavily suppressed volunteer activities. We know some lists were leaked to liberal publications like The Huffington Post and ProPublica. What we don't know is what was the direct purpose of gathering these names.

The administration's spokesman this weekend said the law is irrelevant and called it a distraction. Well, on the contrary, this strikes at the very foundation of a free society, the rule of law, and the right of the people to question the policies of their government without fear of retribution or intimidation.

Seventy-five years ago, Winston Churchill warned of a ``state of society where men may not speak their minds, where children denounced their parents to the police, where a businessman or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinions.''

If it is possible that we have taken even a single step down the road that leads to such places, then that situation should occupy our full and undistracted attention until it is fully and completely rectified, new safeguards are erected against its recurrence, and those responsible are held fully accountable.

Madam Speaker, just a week after the President extolled the benign virtues of Big Government and told university students to ignore those who warn of its dangers, Americans woke up to headlines that this government has been targeting groups and individuals that it doesn't like for intimidation and harassment.

I appreciate the President's sudden interest in getting to the bottom of this. But I must remind the House that more than a year ago, I and other Members rose on this floor to warn of these tactics directed at Tea Party groups by the IRS. At the time, the administration responded by saying that this was just a natural backlog. Well, we now know that was a deliberate and premeditated lie.

It now appears that nearly 500 conservative groups were subjected to invasive review and intimidation. The IRS demanded the names of every participant at every meeting these groups held over a period of years, transcripts of every speech given at those meetings, what positions they had taken on issues, the names of their volunteers and donors and, in some cases, their family members and associates, and copies of privileged communications they had with elected officials. In some cases, the person filing the request was then subjected to a personal income tax audit.

There is no way to estimate the number of additional groups that were discouraged from organizing because of these tactics. Meanwhile, it appears that leftist groups had their applications routinely approved. The impact this had on the 2012 election is incalculable.

We are also learning that these tactics extended well beyond a few low-level rogue employees in Cincinnati. Lois Lerner, the official in charge of tax exempt organizations for the IRS, was awarded more than $42,000 in bonuses while she was directing what the President now calls outrageous behavior. Highly intrusive and unwarranted demands for information also originated from the Washington, D.C., office and at least two satellite IRS offices in California.

Dr. Anne Hendershott, a Catholic sociologist, professor, and writer, came under a personal income tax audit after she exposed a George Soros front group masquerading as a grassroots Catholic organization. She said the questions put to her during a grueling audit were largely political. And this occurred from the New Haven, Connecticut, office.

It appears that evangelical groups were also targeted, as were Jewish groups supporting Israel.

Nor was this misconduct limited to groups applying under section 501.

There is now reason to believe that IRS officials leaked confidential tax information to top officials in the Obama campaign and to liberal groups such as ProPublica and The Huffington Post, which may then have illegally published that information.

During the campaign, Austan Goolsbee and Harry Reid referenced confidential tax information involving Charles and David Koch and Mitt Romney, only to back off when they were pressed for their sources.

Nor does this conduct appear to be limited to the IRS.

Shortly after businessman Frank Vandersloot was attacked by the Obama campaign for his support of Mitt Romney, he came under audits by both the IRS and the Labor Department.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has just released a damning survey of fee waivers granted by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Freedom of Information Act. Left-leaning groups had their fees waived 92 percent of the time. Conservative groups just the opposite--about 7 percent of the time.

And this week, it also became clear that the FBI is using general warrants, banned by the Fourth Amendment, to rifle through the phone records of AP reporters with a clear intention to intimidate whistleblowers and to obstruct the operation of a free press.

We are seeing a pattern of conduct throughout this administration that is absolutely toxic to a free society: government using its powers to intimidate

private citizens who are simply trying to take part in the public policy debate.

Madam Speaker, this cries out for a full investigation by the Congress, and I utterly reject the notion that the ritual naming and firing of a few hapless scapegoats is sufficient. Every government employee who abused their power needs to be identified, exposed, disgraced, dismissed, and debarred from ever again holding a position of authority or trust within this government.

When the Constitution was read by the New York Convention, Alexander Hamilton said:

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their

immediate representatives.

Madam Speaker, the most cherished liberties of the American people are under attack, and we, their immediate representatives, have a solemn obligation to act in the defense of their freedom, their country, and their Constitution.

Madam Speaker, across the country, employers are holding office meetings and the announcements are going something like this: We love you guys, but here's what we make, and here's what ObamaCare will cost us. We can't stay in business with ObamaCare, but if we cut everybody back to 29 hours a week, we can avoid the mandate and stay in business.

There's even a name for them now: the 29ers. ObamaCare was sold on three claims, all of which were false:

That it would save people money. In fact, it's producing crippling increases in health plans costs.

That it would be good for the economy. In fact, the CBO estimates it will cost the economy a net loss of 800,000 jobs.

That if you like your plan, you can keep it. Well, many are finding not only is that a lie but they can't keep their jobs either.

Madam Speaker, let's pull the plug on this before it wrecks our health care and our jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the dedication of the Roseville Fire Station No. 9.

The Roseville, California Fire Department was first organized in 1907 with 16 volunteer firefighters staffing two hose carts to provide nearly 2,500 residents with fire protection. Today the Roseville Fire Department serves over 120,000 residents within 44 square miles. Whether it's a medical emergency, a fire, a hazardous material incident, or natural disaster, the Roseville firefighters are prepared to respond to the needs of their community.

The opening of a ninth fire station reflects the vision of the Roseville Fire Department to operate effectively and efficiently to protect and enhance the safety and well-being of its residents, businesses, customers and partners. The new facility is the result of a community effort that will provide for the advancement of public safety and the delivery of exceptional service for years to come.

Mr. Speaker, it is impossible to overestimate the necessity of fire protection or to measure the countless contributions these firefighters make to our community. It is with great pleasure that I rise today to thank the Roseville Fire Department for its great service and contributions throughout the region.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I had hoped that amidst all the controversies that grip Congress, certainly we should at least be able to agree that the full faith and credit of the United States should not hang in the balance every time there's a fiscal controversy in Washington. I also want to thank Chairman Camp and his Ways and Means Committee for revisions that make this solution much simpler and more practical than the original draft.

Madam Speaker, this bill simply guarantees that the sovereign debt of the United States Government will be paid in full and on time under any circumstances.

Most States have had similar provisions to guarantee their debt in their laws or constitutions for generations. Last year, in testimony to the Senate, Ben Bernanke praised these State provisions for maintaining confidence in their bonds. He told our House Budget Committee that a similar measure at the Federal level would help to protect us against a sovereign default, which he called a ``very high priority.''

And yet, this President and his followers in Congress, who have taken our Nation on the biggest borrowing binge in its history--who've run up more debt than almost all of his predecessors put together--oppose this commonsense measure to strengthen the credit upon which that debt depends.

This bill tells credit markets that even in the event of an impasse on the debt limit, their loans to this government are absolutely safe.

The Democrats have raised three arguments in opposition. First, the whip just said that guaranteeing the Nation's sovereign debt is just an excuse for not paying our other bills. What utter nonsense. I challenge him to name one Member of Congress who has ever suggested that this measure is an acceptable substitute for not paying our other bills. Do they actually suggest that all these other States that have guaranteed their sovereign debts for generations have ever used these guarantees as an excuse not to pay their other bills?

On the contrary, by providing clear and unambiguous mandates to protect their credit first, they actually support and maintain their ability to pay for all of their other obligations.

The second argument that we have heard ad nauseam is that this bill will pay China before it pays our troops. Well, I would remind them, as the chairman said, that more than half of our debt is actually held by Americans, often by American pension funds. China holds just 11 percent. So this measure actually protects Americans far more than the Chinese.

But whether our loans come from China or from grandma's pension fund, without the Nation's credit, we cannot pay our troops or any of our other obligations.

We are borrowing a quarter of every dollar that we spend, and under this administration we have amassed a debt that is now larger than our Nation's entire economy. Our Nation's credit now carries a greater strain and burden than it ever has before. This measure strengthens our credit by guaranteeing that our sovereign debt will be paid in full and on time.

Perhaps the most bizarre argument that we've heard is that by guaranteeing the Nation's credit, we actually undermine it and risk another downgrade in our credit rating. After all, as the ranking member said, a downgrade followed the last debt debate in Congress.

Here are the facts: Standard & Poor's officials had warned for months that Congress had to reduce the projected 10-year deficit by $4 trillion in order to maintain its AAA credit rating. Because of Democratic intransigence, this Congress could only reduce it by $1.2 trillion. So we lost the rating. Facts are indeed stubborn things.

But the opponents are correct in one point--that several officials did express a concern that the impasse could have caused a default in the Nation's sovereign debt. That is precisely what this measure would protect us from in the future.

No one advocates that the government delay paying any of our bills, and this legislation does no such thing. Indeed, this legislation protects our ability to pay all of our other bills because paying those bills depends on maintaining the Nation's credit.

Given the precarious state of our Nation's finances, principled disputes over how the debt limit is addressed are going to happen from time to time. Just a few years ago, then-Senator Barack Obama vigorously opposed an increase in the debt limit that was sought by the Bush administration.

When these controversies erupt, as they inevitably do in a free society, it is imperative that credit markets are supremely confident that their loans to the United States are secure. That's what this bill does.

For once, let us set aside all this partisan posturing and act in the Nation's interest.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the President vowed to veto the Full Faith and Credit Act, charging that it would ``result in Congress refusing to pay obligations it has already agreed to.''

I challenge the President to name one Member of Congress who has ever suggested that this is an acceptable substitute for not paying our other bills. His reliance on this falsehood is a measure of the bankruptcy of his argument.

Delaying payments on our other obligations would do enormous damage. But one thing could do even more damage, and that is the threat of defaulting on our sovereign debt. H.R. 807 takes that threat off the table and assures credit markets that their investments in the United States are absolutely guaranteed, no matter what political storms are raging in Washington.

One would think that a President who has run up more debt than almost all of his predecessors combined would understand the importance of guaranteeing the credit that supports that debt.