and standing up strong against the party that would take us back. . . ñw when it comes time for the questions, think about how he will look on the national news is what you say cited to be newsworthy. everything is a is on the record -- everything i say is on the record. when we get to the question and answers, i will try to give as many of you an opportunity to make a comment as we wish to. if someone says something you agree with, you can applaud, tell them that they are great. this is not a public debate society. hey few care not to speak in public, that is what these cards are for. you just need to write it where we can read it and you need to give as a way to give effect to you. i will take as many questions as i can. if you decide to place template congressman, if i have to say i don't know, i have a record for that and i can research the answer for that. that is basically it. the first and no one to comment on, america speaking out, that is a website that the republicans are using in the house of representatives to try to get your ideas. you have to give out your name. we try to use those on the floor of the hhouse of representatives. foif we win the vote, your idea might be brought up for a vote. there is no web tracking or anything like that. we just want to be a part of the process. we are getting ... a lot of good feedback. -- we are getting a lot of good feedback. the first one is about to the budget situation. you can have two years of the balanced budget deficit. president obama took office, for you can see that his budget which does include the stimulus funding for, the budget deficits have just exploded. last year was 1.5 trillion dollars. we cannot sustain our way of life indefinitely with these budget deficits. we cannot tax our way out of it, we must cut spending. i have a bill and this says the current. >> programs, you get your social security benefits. if this is not been earned entitlement, we cut this across the board until we get the budget balanced. we treat everyone the same. i treat his program the same as i treat her program or his program. we can get a 60% vote to exclude your program from that budget reduction. there is a fail-safe mechanism. we simply must start making those types of choices. under the current budget situation, every program has increased. every now and then we will try to cut one program. i think that i can count on one hand the number of federal programs we have cut unless 546 years. the pressure is to increase spending more you would have an automatic way to reduce spending unless there was some special taact. the next thing is the new health care law. you really cannot see this from where you are but that is ok. the main thing that you need to know is that hot the changes health care as we know it today. this is to the government mandated system, a government controlled system, i think this is unsustainable. there is an employer mandate him that every employer has to make. there is a low-cost option and the high cost option. that is good in principle. within that, the government puts minimum benefit levels for each of these options and they also can regulate if not dictate and oversee the prices that are paid. but the alternative is a health government benefit exchange. some of these options will be privately run. if the employer provisions, since it mandates about what to the employer must pay, in most cases that will be like a lot bronze plan that is like 10,000. thiswe already have data for sof the big corporations that are looking at this. they have said that it makes sense to drop the employer sponsored plans and go with the public option because we saved a lot of money. if you are a family that has your health-insurance through a private employer sponsored plan, when this kicks in, your employer will drop that and put you in these public health benefit changes. you will not get a subsidy here unless you are a low income americans. the health choices the minister is dictating what we put into these plans. there also depicted in with the plan's cost. you're going from a situation that is a private based plan. how many of you think you will like that? you will not. there things that we need to do in health care. we do need to make sure that if you have a pre-existing condition, you have the option to be in some plan that we get coverage. if you are 18 and it just came off of the parent's plan, if you may fear that -- feel that you would like to spend your money on college education rather than a health care plan. one of the good things is that it says that you can stay on your parents' plan until you are 25 or 26. we are against this. the energy and commerce committee that i am on, we will toughly to oversight on this. the tax cut. all the tax cuts put into place under president bush go away. you might think that is a good idea but if you are paying taxes, this is probably not a good idea. the 15% bracket for low income americans, this goes away. all of the intermediate and brackets go up. the capital gains minimum, this is currently 15%. the marriage tax penalty exclusion which i believe this $70,000, this is cut back to 46,000. the alternative minimum tax exclusion is cut almost in half. most of you have these taxes deducted through the payroll deductions. you could see this as a couple of reductions. we are going to have a tax increase if we don't have some kind of breakthrough for. the last thing before take questions, i would like to talk about afghanistan. they put me in the obama suite. i expected there to be read phone and have the president call and talk to me but that did not happen. the good news is that we are in pretty good shape in afghanistan. this is not something that you see in the press. we have a good leader, general petraeus, he is using the troops that the president has sent. they are putting the troops out where the trouble spots are. we are training and getting the army ready and the police force. the command-and-control situation is excellent. the ability to put people where they need them. militarily, you love scene al qaeda retreat to the balance of the mounds. this to pence on the ability of the afghan government to work with the people. we take that for granted here in the everyone. afghanistan is not have a history of the people telling the government what to do in afghanistan. they have a travel system based on brute power. it -- they have a tribal system based on brute power. we are working as we implement a military strategy. there is a civilian counterpart to every general, colonel, capt., lieutenant, master sgt. we have a lot of effort not just on the battlefield but in helping the afghan people put in schools, put in roads, put in water projects, new agriculture projects. they are focusing on agriculture so that when they send out a combat patrol, as soon as the area is secure, they will set out their civilian groups. they're teaching them to do poultry farms, irrigate, things like this. they are trying to bring afghanistan into the 21st century in terms of economic issues. i do not think that we will have a military situation that we can pull the troops out next july. we are sending out the combat groups and they are not getting their -- they are just now getting there. the situation may improve significantly. if we can improve the civilian side of things, i think the future is hopeful. i am optimistic about a positive outcome in afghanistan. we will record the questions. the only reason it is if i have to get an answer from you that i don't know right now. first, will start off with mr. harris. he came to mudflows the last night and he had thought she came to midlothian -- he came from midlothian and he did not get to ask his question last night. he gets to go first. >> i would like to give a little bit of background. the first is the subject of the mosque proposal of ground zero. most are ignoring the main issue. as written in the koran that once a site is controlled by 80 islthe islam religion, they will hang onto it until the bitter end. this is concerning. also about iran building nuclear weapons. this has an impact on america. if this is built near grand 0, it is a toehold and the perceived victory concept of 9/11. further, the source of the money is in question. no one knows where the money's coming from, is it possible that the u.s. is finding some of the smallesmosque. we have made comments to israel as though they are a friend. this ship has beehoulsd have be. we need to support israel with 100% against the threat of iran. we need to allow them to construct the housing that was put on hold by president obama. the president's proposal of dividing jerusalem is impossible. the defense program from lockheed martin is to be deployed. the u.s. is facing serious economic problems using the term "political correctness" instead of the concept of reality. we should reduce government salaries, live within the income, and stop grants and overseas. history has shown that trying to buy friendship does not work. in closing, i want to say thank you for the signing of the -- for self-defense. >> i did not know what he was going to say. he did give me just as he walked in what he was going to say. let me comment on the situation of the moscoque. our founding fathers, we believed in separation of church and state, freedom of expression, freedom of religion which includes freedom to not have a religion if you choose to do that. there's no question that the people of the muslim faith have the right to practice their religion and to build mosques. they don't necessarily have to be right where we had a huge tragedy. people of all faiths and nationalities were killed. i know that the zoning board had a tough vote on this and i think it passed by one vote. i would hope that the leaders of new york city and new york state would go to the islamic community and ask them to relocate that mosque. i don't think that they should build this where they are planning to build it and i think that this is an affront. that was an attack on the united states of america. we would hope that the imam would use judgment that is tolerant of the feelings of some of the people that have lost their loved ones. i oppose that must not being built anywhere but being built where they're trying to build it. what can you do to help me is to as much as he can to help yourself and your family so you need less help from the federal government. i would encourage anyone, if you take the time to come to the town hall meetings, you are already registered to vote. you can help those candidates, bring your friends and neighbors to vote for those candidates. if you choose to vote for joe barton, i will not be disappointed. just participate in the democratic process. >> i has been to a couple of your things before. why has a couple loews short questions asked you. -- i have a couple of short questions to ask you. if you come back to congress and say the republicans have a majority or say they have maybe a one-vote majority and if they could not repeal delonthew law,d they vote for non funding? the second question deals with the border. everyone in the news, all of these so-called experts, generals, colonels, whatever, one thing they don't seem to catch, they want to say it is a national guardsman down there to watch people come across the border. i am a vietnam veteran. you cannot -- it is never possible to set up a barrier to keep people from coming into a country unless you have flyer covering it. you must have a response of force that will come in with force and knock them out. you cannot do this. a fixed defense, this will only challenge an enemy, it will not stop them. why isn't someone saying something like that in the congress? what i am saying is basic defense tactics in the military. thank you. >> ok. on the health care olaw, the moe votes you have, the easier it is to change or repeal it. i don't think that this is required. hopefully, you have a republican majority. there will be a lot of democrats that want to vote to change things. they will have just come out as a close election. 60% of the people disapprove of that particular law. i don't think that we will repeal everything but we will be able to repeal a lot of it and change it and try to fix the stuff that needs to be filled. -- needs to be fixed. an alternative is to not fund implementation. the decision would be made by the speaker and our majority leader. don't count your elections before they happen but if we were in the majority and we did not have the votes for a straight repeal, that would be something that we could look at. this is in the rules. this has been done before. we're not trying to build a berlin wall. some of the people coming into this country are really bad people. i cannot consider this to be a military job. i don't see reason to have an armed military that automatically decides that they can shoot. i do support the military to assist in the border patrol and the local law enforcement. i have ni am not ready to say ti want an armed and aggressive military presence. we should be able to control the borders without having to resort to this type of thing. we have the responsibility to tell the officials to enforce law. we are trying to enforce the law. that is a little bit unusual in american history. >> if you don't have armed forces the police, military, whatever. if you don't have this to cover the approaches, it will be like every night on television, you see 100 people coming across the border and no one is there. >> i have been to the border several times. i've not visited in the last year were a key. we are doing a lot better about retaining things of this sort. if we could ever get the economic situation balance, i think the legal immigration issue is an issue that can be solved. the much more difficult issue is the drug war. there is a real war. there were 100 deaths and the rate of last month. -- in laredo last month. there's so much going on down there that is not in the news or in newspapers. i commend the president of mexico really trying to stop the cartels. if there's one thing we should probably be doing more this would be assisting the mexican officials in combating the drug trade. >> -- they will not be stopped by a virtual wall. they will be stopped because someone steps up and stops them. i don't say that you have to shoot them but you should have the common sense to go out and catch them if you see them on camera. >> we need more personnel on the camera. we need to stop people. we need to remove them back to their own country. i have no argument about that. >> [inaudible] passed a budget for the va. you all were heading home and i was catching a flight, i was catching the 1 after you. the medal of honor association took a bunch of us from the hospital and they threw a big banquet for us. there are veterans out here now that are waiting for their disabilities that cannot work. i think that there va is taking their time and people are taken out of their houses because they cannot work and their houses are being foreclosed on. the biggest force that we have no overseas our reserves. we need to see about changing a bill for the compensation that the reserves get because we're working from the korean war era instead of updating now so that we can be compensated. i have 25 years in the service. all i am compensated is with what i get to the g8. i get nothing to compensate me on my service to this country until after i turn 60. >> we have changed the disability rolls 10 or 15 years ago because there was a lot of fraud and a lot of people were on disability that did not deserve it. we made it much more restrictive and we went too far. now when you are eligible and qualified, this -- >> [inaudible] disability and he was stationed in thailand at one of the basis where they were restoring agent orange. this is not recognized by the government and he does not get any help. >> i think you have a good point. the current evaluation system for disability is too long and too complicated and it is almost an automatic rejection the first time, the second time, rejected, finally the third time, you get qualified. that is something that really needs to be looked at. that would be an issue that the republicans and democrats in the next congress can work together on. i don't think that would be a difficult solution. if you have served your country and have been disabled because of your service, you are fully entitled to disability. it should not take an act of congress to get it for you. >> my note last recollection is that they don't eat pork over in afghanistan so why are we teaching them to raise pigs? >> that is what the colonel from the national guard said that the afghans were interested in. that is what he told us. that was something that they wanted help with. a lot of the country is muslim but there is a christian group there as well. we thank you for your service and we thank you for coming. let's go to the young man in the time. >> my question is very close with this gentleman, what are the differences which for the techniques we are using in iraq and afghanistan to guard the borders that we are unable to get close to on our southern border? >> i am not sure -- >> we are guarding borders all of the world today. i'm sure they have the borders secure so we know who is coming in and out. >> i hate to use the words "i don't know," but i would think in iraq, for example, that the iraqi government is guarding the border and we are assisting them as needed. >> we have to be protecting these borders for the safety of our military. these must be rather harsh tactics to keep people that would cut all of our throats in this room if they could to keep them out. if we're able to use those tactics, what are -- what is stopping us from doing this? how come we are not using these technologies here? >> we are not in a military confrontation with the government of mexico and canada. >> we are being invaded by mexico. >> they are allies and friends. >> there making cartoons showing their own citizens how to sneak into and of the country illegally. >> new mexico and canada are our allies. you have an economic disparity between mexico and the united states. we have people wanting to come in illegally or for economic reasons. those people, while in large numbers, there's pressure on social welfare, they are not a threat momentarily. the drug cartel is a threat and a matter how you cut it and the terrorists are a threat no matter how you look at this. the two of the groups are military threats. we can use economic cooperation over time. >> i would have to disagree because they are taking jobs and driving down wages. they have bankrupted some many hospitals and schools systems are forced to educate children of illegal immigrants. this is shaking the foundations of our country. >> you will not use a military tactic on that border. you can use barriers or the armed forces in a secondary -- >> how does the military assist civilian law enforcement unless they have a gun in their hand with bullets and the gun? force and the fear of force or the application of force is the ultimate end to disobedience of someone coming across the country. are you saying that the military could help the civilian law enforcement to keep illegal aliens -- >> i don't have a problem supporting the governor of texas if he asks the governor to send federal troops to make it emission of the national guard to assist the border patrol and the sheriff's department and local police forces and homeland security on the u.s. and mexican border. what i don't want to do is to put the second armored division of fort hood taxes on full combat alert on the u.s.-mexico border. >> how many sexual assaults and murders happen daily because of illegal immigrants from mexico? >> i don't have that at the top of my head. >> the have an