April 29, 2009.  Mr. Speaker:  It comes down to this: Free societies punish acts.  Authoritarian regimes punish opinions and thoughts.  The supporters of this bill speak of punishing violent acts – but we already punish those violent acts, as well we should.  This measure calls for additional punishment not for the violent act itself but for the opinion behind the act.

April 29, 2009.  Mr. Speaker:  It comes down to this: Free societies punish acts.  Authoritarian regimes punish opinions and thoughts. 

The supporters of this bill speak of punishing violent acts – but we already punish those violent acts, as well we should.  This measure calls for additional punishment not for the violent act itself but for the opinion behind the act.

Before we embarked down this path, the opinions of a criminal were irrelevant – it was the act that we proscribed and it was the act that we punished. 

Many civil libertarians warned us back then that if we placed in the hands of government the ability to define what opinions it likes and doesn’t like – and then punished those opinions on top of the acts themselves – we would have started down a very slippery and dangerous slope.

That point was clearly illustrated when the committee voted down an amendment to include military personnel under the “hate crimes” law.  The supporters of this measure have made it very clear that they are actively involved in singling out particular opinions for special protection and other opinions for special punishment – the very definition of inequality.

 In his famous letter arguing for the separation of church and state, Thomas Jefferson said, “The legitimate powers of government reach actions and not opinions.”

 This measure clearly exceeds the legitimate powers of government and takes us another step away from the concept of equal protection under law.

April 29, 2009.  U.S. Representative Tom McClintock (R-Granite Bay) announced today he will lead a community forum in Quincy on May 11, focusing on the human cost of environmental over-regulation.

The forum will be held May 11 from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM at the Tulsa E. Scott Pavilion at the Plumas County Fairgrounds.

Rep. Wally Herger and Rep. Rob Bishop, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on National Forests and Public Lands will participate on the panel.

In 1992, Congress passed the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Restoration Act, promoting forest tree-thinning to prevent massive wildfires in eight Northern California counties.  Nine lawsuits and at least 157 timber sale appeals have blocked efforts by the Quincy Library Group to manage the forests.  As a result, large forest fires have plagued the area for years and decimated the livelihood of local residents.   Earlier this year, Sierra Pacific Industries announced the closure of its sawmill in Quincy, California because regulatory and litigation costs now exceed SPI’s profit margin.  As a result, 150 jobs have been lost in Quincy – a town of 450 families.

“There is nothing more damaging to the ecosystem of a forest as well as to the livelihood of nearby residents than a forest fire,” McClintock said.  “I look forward to examining the testimony of those involved in the effort to re-establish responsible forest management practices in order to outline a solution to remove the obstacles in their path.”

-30-
 

April 22, 2009.  M. Speaker:  The statue of Ronald Reagan could not possibly arrive at the United States Capitol at a more appropriate time in the history of our nation.  In these difficult days, we need to remind ourselves as a nation what it was like when it truly was “morning again in America.”

April 22, 2009.  M. Speaker:  The statue of Ronald Reagan could not possibly arrive at the United States Capitol at a more appropriate time in the history of our nation.

 In these difficult days, we need to remind ourselves as a nation what it was like when it truly was “morning again in America.”

 They say it is always darkest before the dawn, and Ronald Reagan took office at a more difficult time than the one we are having right now. 

 We tend to forget: the double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, interest rates above 20 percent, mile-long lines around gas stations, American embassies seized with impunity, an American military so weak it couldn’t even mount a successful rescue mission.

 The arrival of this statue – and all that it represents – is a potent reminder that when our nation has drifted off course, it has always found its way back to those grand and uniquely American principles of individual rights, personal responsibility, limited government and free enterprise that define us as a people.

 It’s true that Ronald Reagan was a great communicator.  But as William Saracino has said, Reagan wasn’t communicating cookie recipes.  He was communicating the self-evident truths of the American  tradition.  And those truths resonated throughout the nation and ultimately produced that bright moment when we realized that it was, indeed, morning again in America.

 May this statue of Ronald Reagan remain here always as a promise that America’s greatest days still lie ahead, and that her founding principles will always shine as a bright beacon toward a safe harbor in the stormy tempests we have encountered and have yet to encounter.
 

April 21, 2009.  Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Granite Bay) today introduced legislation that allows banks to immediately pay back Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds to the U.S. Treasury.  Banks which were pressured to accept TARP funding are now facing serious obstacles, uncertainty and continued government control in their efforts to return the funds to taxpayers.

 “It is a travesty that banks seeking to repay taxpayer money should be prohibited from doing so after taxpayers were promised that repayment would be made as soon as humanly possible,” McClintock said.

The bill is narrowly written to amend the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to require the Secretary of the Treasury to unconditionally and immediately accept such repayments, and does not otherwise interfere with existing regulations of the banking system.

“The Administration says it wants out of the banking business but when it is presented with that opportunity it seems to balk.  When banks want to give us our money back we shouldn’t argue the point,” McClintock said.  “The TARP bailout was the wrong thing to do and getting that money back to the Treasury is the right thing to do.  Our Treasury Secretary needs to ‘Just say Yes’.”
 

House Chamber, Washington D.C.  April 21, 2009.  Mr. Speaker:  Many Americans have been shocked in recent days to learn that banks seeking to repay TARP money have been told the treasury will not allow them to do so.  Taxpayers were promised that this money was only to be used to buy up toxic assets and that it would be repaid to the treasury as soon as humanly possible.

House Chamber, Washington D.C.  April 21, 2009.  Mr. Speaker:  Many Americans have been shocked in recent days to learn that banks seeking to repay TARP money have been told the treasury will not allow them to do so.

 Taxpayers were promised that this money was only to be used to buy up toxic assets and that it would be repaid to the treasury as soon as humanly possible.

 And yet, when several banks have attempted to do precisely that, they’ve been told that the treasury will not allow them to do so.

 This is a travesty.  Just a few weeks ago, many members of this House reacted to the AIG bonus fiasco by saying, “We want our money back.”  And yet when some banks have attempted to do just that, they’ve been turned away at the treasury gates.

 M. Speaker, today I have introduced legislation to require the Secretary of the Treasury to accept TARP repayments unconditionally and immediately when they are presented.  I hope that I can count on the support of all those who promised constituents these funds would be repaid at the earliest possible opportunity.
 

April 15, 2009.  Tea Party Rally held at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California.

Sacramento, California.  April 15, 2009.  Let the word go forth today from gatherings like this across the nation that the silent majority is no longer silent.  We are stirring.  We are awakening.  We are many.  And we are Americans – the latest generation of Americans who have been called upon to defend our liberties and the constitutional principles of limited government that protect our freedom.

Think about how far we have strayed from what Jefferson called the “sum of good government.”  He described it as (quote) “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”  

Somewhere along the line we lost that government.  Isn’t it time that we got it back?

 Our opponents seek to portray us as angry taxpayers.  No, we are not angry taxpayers.  We are resolute Americans.  And today, we here highly resolve that the liberties defended on far-off battlefields by ten generations of American patriots and heroes will not be casually thrown away here at home – not on our generation’s watch. 

We are here because we, as a people, are awakening to the danger of a government that spends too much and borrows too much and taxes too much, because we know what that means.

 We know that you can’t spend your way rich.

 We know that you can’t borrow your way out of debt.

 And we know that you can’t tax your way to prosperity.

 No nation in the history of the world has ever spent, borrowed and taxed its way to economic health.  Not one.  But history gives us many examples of nations that have spent, borrowed and taxed their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy. 

 We Californians already know where these policies lead, because under a tragic succession of governors, we have watched them turn our once Golden State into an economic basket case.

 We watched as they increased spending at unsustainable rates; as they ran up unprecedented debts; and as they imposed crushing new taxes. 

 Today in California, run-away government spending has impoverished our economy; interest costs are eating our budget alive; and our tax burden is producing one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

 We have the highest income tax in the nation.  Next door, Nevada has NO INCOME TAX, and yet California just increased our income tax yet again.  We pay the highest sales tax in the nation. Next door, Oregon has NO SALES TAX.  And yet, California once again has increased the sales tax by 13 percent.  And they have just doubled our car tax.

And yet, despite record levels of taxes and record levels of borrowing, this government still can’t manage to provide a decent road system or educate our kids or protect our families from predators.

 The $13 billion tax increase that they just forced on our families is the biggest tax increase by any state government in our nation’s history.

 And we remember what happened the last time they did this.  We remember what happened when Pete Wilson imposed a $7 billion tax increase.  While the national economy expanded, Wilson’s tax increases broke the back of California’s economy; they produced the biggest plunge in retail sales in 30 years and then produced two consecutive years of billion-dollar-a-year declines in state revenues while the rest of the nation prospered.

 That was a $7 billion tax increase.  Can you imagine what a $13 billion tax increase will do in the most difficult recession in a generation?  Well, we’re about to find out.

 The Census Bureau tells us that an unprecedented number of Californians are now fleeing to the 49 other states.  But if we allow these same policies to destroy our country, where will we go?

President Obama’s budget relies on the biggest tax increase by the federal government in our nation’s history: back-breaking new taxes on small businesses, on investment, on energy production and on charitable giving. 

 This is not complicated stuff.  If you increase taxes on productivity you get less productivity.  If you increase taxes on energy production you get less energy.  If you increase taxes on charitable giving, you get less charity.  If you increase taxes on investment you get fewer jobs.  

Obama’s budget would double the national debt in five years and triple it in ten.

 Let me repeat that.  All of the debt that our nation has accumulated from the first day of the George Washington Administration to the last day of the George Bush administration – will literally be doubled in the next five years and tripled in the next ten if Obama and Pelosi and Reid prevail.

 We’ve watched how too much spending, too much borrowing and too much taxing has wrecked our state of California.  We are now watching it threaten to ruin our country.  And we have had enough.

 Our opponents expect that we will vent our frustrations today and then go home.  They expect that we’re going to grudgingly cut our family budgets by another $1,300 a year to pay for Schwarzenegger’s new taxes.  They expect later this year, we’ll cut our family budgets by another $1,500 to pay for Obama’s new taxes.  And that’ll be the end of it.

 I’ve got news for them.  This is just the beginning. 

 When we go home today, we’re going home to organize…

We need to write letters to the editor, post blogs on the Internet, make entries on facebook and myspace.  We need to twitter and call in to radio shows and stand up at public meetings and be sure that every voter understands that … “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”

We’re going to agitate and agitate and agitate everywhere we can in every forum we can find – every single one of us.  This is a fight that every one of us is in and where every one of us can make a difference…

 And whenever we get tired or discouraged, we’re going to remember what the American Founders first pledged in defense of our freedoms when they signed the Declaration of Independence.  You remember their words: they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.  And they meant it.

Every one of them faced the gallows, but they signed anyway.  Every one of them faced losing everything they owned – but they signed anyway. 

Think about how little history demands of our generation in defense of those very same freedoms.  We are not asked to give our lives – only a portion of our time until we have set things right.  We are not asked to give our fortunes – just a portion of our resources to support the … causes that will restore our freedoms.

But our sacred honor – history does expect that of us in full – that we will focus our time and our resources and not slacken or tire until we have retrieved our liberty, restored it and passed it on inviolate to our children.  Because ladies and gentlemen, if we fail that test, what history will demand of our children and grandchildren is unthinkable.

 When Abraham Lincoln made his way to Washington, his train stopped in a little town in Ohio and he spoke these words to the folks who gathered there that day.

 If he were here today, I think he would have said exactly the same.

 He said, “I appeal to you, my fellow citizens, constantly to bear in mind that not with the president, not with the office-holders, but with YOU is the question, ‘Shall the liberties of our nation be preserved to the latest generation?”

Longworth House Office Building.  March 31, 2009.  M. Chairman:  On behalf of my constituents I want to thank the committee for holding a hearing today on California’s water crisis. 

I think we need to be very clear that although the drought is a catalyst, the underlying problem is not an act of God but rather acts of government.

It has been estimated that roughly half of California’s current water supply is consumed to meet various environmental regulations, most of which began in this very room.

These laws are not only squandering half of our existing water supply; they are blocking the construction of long-overdue projects like the Auburn Dam.

My district, in Northeastern California is the headwaters for the mighty Sacramento River – a considerably larger watershed than the Colorado. 

Yet, we store 70 million acre-feet on the Colorado and only 10 million acre-feet on the Sacramento.

The end result is that the most water-rich region of California is plagued by water shortages so severe that many of my communities are in Stage 1, 2 and 3 drought alerts. 

And this, despite a relatively wet winter that has restored our reservoirs to near normal levels.  It seems that God has done his part – now it is up to government to restore this water to protect the quality of life of the endangered human populations in this region.

People are suffering, the economy is suffering, and we have the ability to relieve this suffering.  I look forward to hearing testimony today and discussing some common-sense solutions to this government-created problem.

M. Chairman, Representatives from the California Cattlemen’s Association are in attendance today.  Since the committee has declined their request to appear today to give live testimony, I would ask for unanimous consent to allow them to submit written testimony for the record.
 

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  April 2, 2009  M. Speaker:  Today this house passed HR 1256, which takes tobacco regulation to a whole new level and at the same time imposes onerous new fees that will be passed on to consumers as higher prices.  The entire debate on that bill was over what method government should use to do so.  Before we close today’s proceedings, I would like to offer a different perspective.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  April 2, 2009  M. Speaker:  Today this house passed HR 1256, which takes tobacco regulation to a whole new level and at the same time imposes onerous new fees that will be passed on to consumers as higher prices.

 The entire debate on that bill was over what method government should use to do so.  Before we close today’s proceedings, I would like to offer a different perspective.

 Many years ago, author and commentator Bruce Herschensohn made this point.   He said, for every pleasure in life, there is a corresponding risk. 

 I think that’s a universal truth: For every pleasure in life, there is a corresponding risk.

 And he pointed out that it’s true that with enough taxes, laws, restrictions, regulations, penalties and lectures, government can produce a virtually risk-free society.  But it will also be one of the most colorless, pleasureless, tedious and miserable societies ever conceived by the mind of man.

 I believe that is the case. 

The health risks of smoking are real and they are well documented.  Our schools rightly make a concerted effort to inform every child of the health risks associated with tobacco products, and they do a good job of it.  Our government warns every adult of the risks associated with tobacco products, and they do a good job of it, too. 

 As a result, I don’t believe there is a single individual in the United States who doesn’t well and fully comprehend the health risks of tobacco. 

 But once those warnings are issued, how much further should government go to make individual decisions for rational adults as they weigh the risks of smoking for themselves?

 Ten years ago, after California had imposed yet another tax on tobacco products, I received a letter from a woman who said, “I am 81 years old and have been smoking my whole life.  If I have to quit smoking now I’m going to die.”  She then went on to meticulously calculate how much the new tax would cost her from her limited, fixed income and asked if I could help.

 M. Speaker, in every society, in every part of the world, in every period of history there is always a large group of people who simply want to be left alone to live their lives according to their own best judgment and there’s always a smaller but more domineering group who believe they’re so good at running their own lives that they are naturally entitled to run everyone else’s.

 Rarely has the conflict between these two groups come into sharper focus than in the ongoing efforts to restrict, regulate, tax, harass, and intimidate individuals who, after weighing all the risks, decide to smoke anyway. 

 Personally, I think they’re making a bad decision.  But they probably think others are making a bad decision when they decide to go skiing or bungee jumping or skydiving or thousands of other pleasures that incur corresponding and calculated risks.

 And I would ask tonight, whatever happened to the notion of personal responsibility?  And whatever happened to the notion, as Jefferson put it, of a “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another (but) shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement…”

(end)
 

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  April 2, 2009  Mme. Chairman:   I feel one of those rare bi-partisan moments coming on.  Throughout these budget debates, my friends on the Left keep saying that our problems are rooted in the fiscal mismanagement of the Bush Administration.  The Gentleman from Virginia just presented a chart titled, “Record Deterioration of the Budget Under the Republican Administration.” 

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  April 2, 2009  Mme. Chairman:   I feel one of those rare bi-partisan moments coming on.  Throughout these budget debates, my friends on the Left keep saying that our problems are rooted in the fiscal mismanagement of the Bush Administration.  The Gentleman from Virginia just presented a chart titled, “Record Deterioration of the Budget Under the Republican Administration.” 

I agree.  There’s no denying it.  George W. Bush increased spending twice as fast as Bill Clinton.  He turned a budget surplus into a chronic deficit.

But if we all agree that Bush spent too much and borrowed too much, then why in the world would we want to pursue the same folly on a far greater scale?

 Why would we take the Bush Administration’s unsustainable rate of spending growth and send it even higher?

 Why would we take that budget deficit and triple it?

If budgets that spend too much and borrow too much are the road to economic prosperity, then why aren’t we enjoying a period of unprecedented economic expansion?
 
 The fact is, these policies don’t work, and it doesn’t matter whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican.

 They don’t work because government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy that it has not first taken out of the economy. 

 They don’t work for the same reason that you can’t spend yourself rich or borrow your way out of debt or tax your way to prosperity.

 If you want to know where these policies lead – just look to my home state of California.

 Three governors – Republican and Democrat – did exactly what my friends on the left assure us is the road to recovery. 

They increased spending at unsustainable rates, they ran up unprecedented debts and they imposed crushing new taxes. 

 And the result is that today, California has been transformed from the nation’s Golden State to a state of collapse.

 A record level of government spending has not produced prosperity.  It has produced one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Interest costs driven by years of borrowing are now eating its budget alive.

Its tax burden is producing a population exodus unknown since the days of the dust bowl.

 In fact, the state has spent so much that it has just imposed the biggest tax increase by any state in American history.

 The state has borrowed so much that it is now in very real danger of defaulting on its obligations before the end of the summer.  

 The President and the Democrats in Congress are making exactly the same mistake that the Bush Administration made and that three California governors made, only on a much greater scale.

 Perhaps at a moment like this, it is time that we recognized the first law of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.
 

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  April 1, 2009  Mr. Speaker:  The American people are awakening to a danger of a budget that spends too much and borrows too much and taxes too much, because they know what that means.

 They know that you can’t spend your way rich.

 They know that you can’t borrow your way out of debt.

 And they know that you can’t tax your way to prosperity.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  April 1, 2009  Mr. Speaker:  The American people are awakening to a danger of a budget that spends too much and borrows too much and taxes too much, because they know what that means.

 They know that you can’t spend your way rich.

 They know that you can’t borrow your way out of debt.

 And they know that you can’t tax your way to prosperity.

 No nation in the world has ever spent, borrowed and taxed its way to economic health.  Many nations have spent, borrowed and taxed their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy.

 If you want to know where these policies are taking us, just look to my home state of California.

 There, a tragic succession of governors increased spending at unsustainable rates, they ran up unprecedented debts and they imposed crushing new taxes. 

 And the result is that today, run-away spending has impoverished our economy; interest costs are eating our budget alive; and our tax burden is producing one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and the biggest outmigration of domestic population in history.

 Indeed, we debate this budget on the very day that California begins collecting the biggest tax ever imposed by a state government in our nation’s history (the natural consequence of run-away spending) – just as President Obama’s budget relies on the biggest tax increase by the federal government in our nation’s history: back-breaking new taxes on small businesses, on investment, on energy production and on charitable giving. 

 This is not complicated stuff.  If you increase taxes on productivity you get less productivity.  If you increase taxes on energy production you get less energy.  If you increase taxes on charitable giving, you get less charity.  If you increase taxes on investment you get less job creation. 

 I’ve watched too much spending, too much borrowing and too much taxing wreck my state of California.  I beg you: do not let those same policies ruin our country.