Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140404 : v

CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings April 4, 2014

What the last generation did for us. Thank goodness i have a friend on the other side saying that. He pointed out, to whom much is given to, much is required. We have been given much, we have been blessed more than any nation in the world. We have more freedoms than solomons israel could have dreamed of, more individual assets that any nation in history. We have been given much and as a result, this generation has ecome so selfcentered, so selfindulgent, so obese, that we want to engeorge ourselves at the expense of future generations. Now let me just say, i havent decided what im going to do about the ryan budget. Im still going through it. And paul ryan and i have had some very severe disagreements during my nineplus years here, but i know this, he does not want to hurt future generations. He wants to do for the next generation what the last generation did for us. And we will not we cannot do that if we are spending money so generations that to follow us will be paying the debt and the interest on those debts without getting a dime of the benefits that we engorged ourselves with in this generation. So it is time to be responsible. Something i disagree with my colleague, when he said basically the ryan bill destroys medicare as we know it, i dont know if i like what paul ryan has been able to do about medicare. I would have handled it differently. Its one of the things im struggling with, but what he is trying to do is what democrats should have done for 40 years before the republicans took office or at least i guess well, no, for 40 years, they had the majority before the 1994 election, and they put us on a course to destroying Social Security. And in the 1960s, after medicare was passed, we have been on a course to bankrupt medicare, so our grandchildren and greatgrandchildren will not having anything for themselves because we spend it on ourselves. I dont know if it was the best way to do it, but i know what he is trying to do. He is trying to make sure we protect our seniors and we make sure that we can have future generations have some of the same protection. And from what i was reading he is trying to do that. Some changes will come, Social Security from what im reading, but not anybody 56 and older. Im still making up my mind on the bill, but i know what paul ryan was trying to do. He was trying to do an honorable thing for future generations, just like my colleague said he felt we should be doing. Ell, i want to get another topic today that have been on the minds and hearts of people all over the country this week fort hood, texas, had a mass shooting. First one was back in a cafeteria and that caused texas to rise up and pass a concealed carry permit law, as driven by a woman whose parents were killed there, because she had had to put her gun in the glove come partment and couldnt take it in and could have saved her parents if we had a concealed carry permit in place at the time of that shooting. And i have had people ask, as i know my friend from georgia has, what have you guys in Congress Done since the last shooting at fort hood to protect our soldiers . What has the commander in chief done to protect the military members under his command . We saw in afghanistan under this commander in chief that in half the time he had twice as many fatalities, even more than that in injuries of our military members in afghanistan at the time of the bush administration, about twice as many fatalities. We have seen what happened there. But what about right here . Well, after the first fort hood shooting, as an outrage to every military member and everybody who understands everything about the military, when this commander in chief allowed the incident to be called workplace violence, when clearly hassan, according to all the witnesses, stood up, made the universal cry that a radical islammist terrorist makes, claiming in essence that hes going to kill innocent people on behalf of a god who likes people like him to kill innocent people, just as they think theres a god that liked planes being flown into buildings to kill innocent thousands men, women and children. Thats a god i dont know and i know thats a god i will never meet. But i want to talk about what we should be doing for our soldiers. Ive got a bill that legislative counsel is working on right now and will be filing it early next week. We anticipate calling it the the save our soldiers bill. S. O. S. They have been crying s. O. S. , its just that nobody in their highest chain of command has listened. Congress is listening and we are going to get something done if there are enough people down the hall in the senate who worry about their election next november, that they will actually take this bill up and do something to protect our soldiers, other than lip service. Lip service doesnt really protect you against an incoming round. And at this point, i would like to recognize my dear friend from South Carolina, mr. Duncan for such time as he may use. Mr. Duncan there was a tragedy this week at fort hood, texas and the people of South Carolina stand with the people in texas sm the president s former chief of staff and now the mayor of chicago, Rahm Emmanuel said, never let a crisis go to waste. Thats what we are seeing going on today with harry reid to use the recent fort hood tragedy to pursue his agenda of control. He said this week that the recent shooting should renew discussion about gun control and went on to talk about background checks and Mental Health issues. Mr. Speaker, these comments have nothing to do with the facts at hand. However, harry reid wants to use this as a way to restrict americans Second Amendment rights. I dont agree with his motives, but i do agree with his suggestion that we need to revive a discussion on the Second Amendment. It should reawaken our discussions about americans constaugs kneel afffirmed rights to keep and bear arms to defend ourselves, to defend our families, to defend our property and ultimately to defend this great nation. With regard to our military, the gentleman from texas and i had a conversation earlier, i fully understand when you join the military, you give up some rights. You give up the right to speak unless you are spoken to. You give up the right to assemble peacefully. You assemble on the parade ground. You dont have a right to trial by jury. We set the jury of a Court Martial for the military. I get that. But yet, we trust these soldiers with both hightech and lowtech Weapons Systems that they use to defend this great nation but we turn around and create these gunfree zones on their bases, which have resulted in two incidents, gunfree zones which have resulted in two incidents at fort hood, two incidents of the killing of unarmed and lawabiding citizens. And ill mention as the gentleman from texas did, that we have the president who wants to call this an episode of workplace violence, well, nothing could be further from the truth. Islammist n was an jihadist intent of doing arm in the war against america that we see waging all over the world like places like afghanistan and iraq. The folks that were wounded there and the soldiers that were killed at fort hood, they deserve the medals that they have earned and call it for what it was, it was an episode of terrorism in the original fort hood shooting, and requires, i believe, that those victims receive the medals and thats something i renew the call on. I raise this issue about the tragedy just this week and the gunfree zones to my constituents via twitter and facebook and this is some of the things they had to say. One said our own soldiers without guns shot down on our own base. A ban on guns gives the criminals free targets. Criminals do not obey the laws. Steve says, the victims at fort hood are not dangerous. Ken said, we dont need more gun laws but fewer gunfree zones. I agree with him on that. Its time for america to wake up. The only law breakers in fort hood, texas, in both of these events, were the killers themselves who took a firearm into a gunfree zone. M reminded of an old adage that says when seconds count, the police are just minutes away. Think about that, america. Time to let our soldiers defend themselves and let lawabiding americans defend themselves and reassert our Second Amendment rights in this country. I appreciate the gentleman with s. O. S. Law. Look forward to cosponsoring that and lets let allow lawabiding americans, sailors, soldiers, marines, airmen to defend themselves. Put on the beach when someone needs to be rescued, guess what, the folks need to be rescued by having the ability to defend themselves. I thank the gentleman from texas for giving me time to talk about this important issue, may god bless him and may god bless the republic of texas and the United States of america. I yield back. Mr. Gohmert the gentleman from South Carolina has made clear why im such a big fan of his. Its so ironic though, and yes, i know, i was in the army and im not trying to by naming it the save our soldiers bill, it is generically speaking, inclusive of our soldiers, sailors, marines, coast guard, everyone in our uniform military. Thats who it pertains to. But we wanted a title that people would remember and think of all of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guard, people that are protecting us. But the greatest irony still comes back to this. We have military members who are. Alified to fire tank weapons we got military members i think the largest i fired in the howitzer. 105 we have rocketpropeled grenades. All kinds of things that our litary or are able to utilize. We got airmen who operate airplanes that drop thousands and thousands of pounds of bombs nd yet for too long, Political Correctness has said, but even ough they may fire 105 howitzers or modern weapons we have, tanks, drop thousands of thousands of bombs, we cant trust them to carry a little pistol. ,. They may be on a ship, they may fire rounds that are bigger than i am, but, gee, we might not better trust them with a pistol. And what weve seen over and over in the tragedies here in , the norm is es for a criminal who wants to shoot and hurt and kill people to go to a gunfree area. Thats why the shooter at the theater in colorado could have gone to much closer theaters. But those theaters did not restrict the right to have weapons in them. So, they probably would have had someone who could have pulled a gun very quickly and ended the rampage. From the reports of what happened this week at fort hood female he hero, military member, pulled her weapon, he took his own life rather than risk ending up in a wheelchair or worse. He wasnt going to take chances on firing at anyone else once someone had a weapon leveled on him. ve lost enough lives in gunfree zones. Its time to allow the the biding lawabiding, qualified to protect themselves, to save our military. And i hope that our leadership will allow the bill to be brought to the floor here because i know good and well if we bring it to the floor here, im hope to open to amendments, suggestions. We get a bill like that passed here, then the pressure will be on the senate. And, yes, i know senator reid preblingts his democratic members all protects his democratic members all he can. If theres a bill that his members would get defeated for voting against, then he just doesnt bring it to the floor for a vote. Protecting his members from having to cast a vote for a bill thats a good bill or against a bill that would get them defeated because it was a good bill. He just keeps it from going to the floor. Weve seen that in so many of the bills weve passed from the house, that would have an immediate helpful effect on our economy it would have an immediate economy. It would have an immediate helpful effect on our government. And for heavens sake, i know the Mainstream Media will never get this right, even our own speaker didnt understand what happened that day apparently. Of ast fall our house representatives, a majority at least, believed that obamacare was very detrimental to this nation, to its economy, to its to peoples health. And so what did we do . We did what we believed and we voted to completely defund obamacare. Thats what we believed, that was the vote we did first. But understanding that in washington you have to have two ouses pass a bill, we passed a compromise measure that simply said, look, obviously obamacare is not ready for primetime. Youve had going on four years to get ready and its not ready for primetime so we are offering you a gift, democrats in the senate, and democrats in the house. Were offering a gift. Our compromise is this, we pass the bill, it said lets suspend obamacare for a year, clearly its not ready, many people will be hurt, that was an incredible gift of a compromise to the Senate Democrats and the House Democrats and even to the president himself. But our democratic friends down the hall had bought into the mainstream conventional wisdom that if the democrats could cause a shutdown, the Mainstream Media would protect them by blaming republicans and then that would help them win the majority in the house in the next election. So harry reid refused to even bring that gift, that republicans that gift that republicans in the house offered to the Senate Democrats, the president and House Democrats. He wouldnt accept it. I bet there are times that there are democrats in the house and senate that really wish they had accepted our offer of compromise and said, ok, all right, we dont want to do it, but ok, well suspend obamacare for a year. There are some in our party that felt like, gosh, if we send it for a year suspend it for a year, who knows what will happen in a year from now, maybe were better off letting america find out how bad it is, so then we can get it repealed outright. But we knew the suffering that would ensue once that bill could icked in and how we want people to suffer like we knew they would once obamacare kicked in . But harry reid wouldnt bring that to the floor. And so i didnt think it was wise when theyve rejected a clear offer of compromise down the hall, by refusing to even bring it to the floor for a vote, we funded everything harry reid wanted, we just had a oneyear suspension on obamacare. So then we came back and said, ok, the president has unconstitutionally signed an executive order that put off the businessman date for a year , so well offer what was an incredible compromise, we will agree to postpone the individual mandate in a legal manner, not unconstitutional, but a legal manner, and well go ahead and put in writing that the businessman date would be suspended for a year business mandate would be suspended for a year and that would protect the president s order. And harry reid wouldnt bring it to the floor for a vote. He knew good and well if he brought either one of our compromised bills to the floor compromise bills to the floor that there would be democrats that would either have to vote for the bill or for sure lose their senate seat come november. Democrats in the senate, that is. So he protected them and didnt allow that to come to the floor and his members seemed quite happy to just sit back and let harry reid try to protect them by not allowing them to vote. Then at 1 10 a. M. On october 1, when it was clear to us here in he house that harry reid was not going to even accept a gift of a oneyear suspension or the following compromise, offer, gift of a year suspension of the individual mandate and the year suspension of the business mandate, then we did what was almost unthinkable, bid against ourselves for the third time. We voted to approve conferees , and these are people who would have reached an agreement if the senate had bothered to even appoint conferees or negotiators. And it was understood here, if harry reid will go ahead and appoint senate conferees, they can start immediately and before even anybody is required to be at work at 8 00 a. M. , we could probably have a deal get it passed and people will have never known there was a shutdown for eight hours. But harry reid was so determined to follow through on what was the mainstream conventional wisdom, harry, if you just cause a shutdown the republicans will be blamed. They didnt even know the speaker would accept the blame because he didnt know what we d that day, but theyll be assessed the blame by the Mainstream Media and then you can get the majority back. So he forced a shutdown, actually tried to do that a few years ago and our leadership on the republican side capitulated at 10 30 the night the shutdown was going to begin, at 12 00 midnight, probably if the truth be known the democratic leader, harry reid, may have hoped that he would have a shutdown at midnight that night because he consistently said its my way or nothing, my way or nothing, no compromise whatsoever. And of course our leadership came back and said, well, we actually cut 26 billion and it turned out we did no such thing. But anyway, we came so close to a shutdown that night, but some of us still have enough faith in the American People that we believe a majority will ferret out the truth, come to the truth, regardless of what the Mainstream Media says, regardless of what anybody on television who gets a thrill up their leg when they see certain democrats, no matter what they say, they will eventually, the majority of the American People will eventually come to the truth. And that will save our nation. So, clearly there are areas in which we agree, as my democrat friend indicated when he said, lets do for the next generation what the last generation did for us. Thats all i want to try to do. Lets give our children and grandchildren a nation where they have the freedoms that we have enjoyed, where they have the privacy that we used to joy, where they dont have 20 trillion of debt from the prior generation, because the prior generation was so selfish , so selfcentered that they didnt even care to clean up the waste, fraud and abuse in the government. I read an article that talked in terms of a massive amount of fraud just at the state department. Here was an article, april 4, today, from the fiscal times. The state department has no idea what happened to 6 billion used to pay its contractors. In a special management alert made public thursday, the state departments Inspector General warned, quote, significant financial risk and a lack of internal control at the d

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