House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  May 25, 2010.  M. Speaker:

     The failure of this House to pass a budget at a time of unprecedented deficit spending speaks volumes about the house majority.

      In order to resolve a crisis you must first be willing to face it.   If you can’t face the problem, you can’t deal with it.

     That’s what the budget process is: the painful but necessary assessment of our financial affairs.   Without it, there cannot be even a theoretical solution. 

      I’ve seen this before in California.  As left-wing majorities took control of our financial affairs and boosted spending at a reckless pace, we watched the orderly budget process disintegrate into a mere sham.  Unable and unwilling to face up to the consequences of their out-of-control spending, they simply abandoned the budget process. 

     Ultimately they brought the most prosperous state in our nation to the brink of bankruptcy. 

     M. Speaker, California is an example to be avoided and not imitated. 
 

House Floor, May 20, 2010. Text of Remarks.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  May 20, 2010.  M. Speaker:

 I rise to take strong exception to the speech of the President of Mexico while in this chamber today. 

 The Mexican government has made it very clear for many years that it holds American sovereignty in contempt and President Calderon’s behavior as a guest of the Congress confirms and underscores this attitude.

 It is highly inappropriate for the President of Mexico to lecture Americans on American immigration policy, just as it would be for Americans to lecture Mexico on its laws.  

 It is obvious that President Calderon does not understand the nature of America or the purpose of our immigration law. 

Unlike Mexico’s immigration law -- which is brutally exclusionary -- the purpose of America’s law is not to keep people out.   It is to assure that as people come to the United States, they do so with the intention of becoming Americans and of raising their children as Americans. 

Unlike Mexico, our nation embraces immigration and what makes that possible is assimilation.

A century ago President Teddy Roosevelt put it this way.  He said:

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." 

That is how we have built one great nation from the people of all the nations of the world.

The largest group of immigrants now comes from Mexico.  A recent RAND study discovered that during most of the 20th Century, while our immigration laws were actually enforced, assimilation worked and made possible the swift attainment of the American dream for millions of immigrants seeking to escape conditions in Mexico.

That is the broader meaning of our nation’s motto, “E Pluribus Unum” – from many people, one people, the American people.

 But there is now an element in our political structure that seeks to undermine that concept of “E Pluribus Unum.”  It seeks to hyphenate Americans, to develop linguistic divisions, to assign rights and preferences based on race and ethnicity, and to elevate devotion to foreign ideologies and traditions, while at the same time denigrating American culture, American values and American founding principles. 

In order to do so, they know that they have to stop the process of assimilation.  In order to do that, they must undermine our immigration laws. 

 It is an outrage that a foreign head of state would appear in this chamber and actively seek to do so.  And it is a disgrace that he would be cheered on from the left wing of the White House and by many Democrats in this Congress.

 Arizona has not adopted a new immigration law.  All it has done is to enforce existing law that President Obama refuses to enforce.  It is hardly a radical policy to suggest that if an officer on a routine traffic stop encounters a driver with no driver’s license, no passport, and who doesn’t speak English, that maybe that individual might be here illegally.

 And to those who say we must reform our immigration laws – I reply that we don’t need to reform them – we need to enforce them.  Just as every other government does.  Just as Mexico does.

 Above all, this is a debate of, by and for the American people.  If President Calderon wishes to participate in that debate, I invite him to obey our immigration laws, apply for citizenship, do what 600,000 LEGAL immigrants to our nation are doing right now, learn our history and our customs, and become an American.  And then he will have every right to participate in that debate. 

Until then, I would politely invite him to have the courtesy while a guest of this Congress to abide by the fundamental rules of diplomacy between civilized nations not to meddle in each other’s domestic debates.
 

Washington, D.C. - Congressman Tom McClintock (CA -04) made the following remarks today at a forum held at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. to discuss the Greek bailout.

Remarks on the Greek Bailout
May 19, 2010

 I spoke with Marvin Goodfriend of Carnegie Mellon just before we came out and I don’t want to steal his thunder but he appears to have come up with a radical new economic theory that if you spend more than you take in year after year eventually you will run out of money.

 I tried to explain to him that I’m from California and we’ve been doing things that way for years.  Do you know the difference between Greece and California?  About three years.

 The first law of holes seems applicable in this case: When you’re in one, stop digging.  That goes for my home state of California, whose fiscal affairs are just a few years behind Greece; and it goes for America whose fiscal affairs are just a few years behind California. 

America must not become an enabler for the fiscal folly of Europe.  Nor should it become an imitator of that folly.

Under this administration, it is doing both, and Americans have had enough.

Shakespeare’s advice applies to profligate nations just as it applies to profligate sons: neither a borrower nor a lender be.  It’s about time we heed that advice before we destroy our country.

If we cannot afford to allow Greece or the European Union to collapse, then we certainly can’t afford to bail them out. If we all agree that their fiscal policies are unsustainable, then it naturally follows that prolonging those policies simply deepens the ultimate crisis.  The issue is not whether their policies will collapse but when – and whether they take America with them when they do.

Three outstanding art students garnered awards in the Congressional Art Competition -- An Artistic Discovery -- a nation-wide high school art competition sponsored by Members of Congress.   The contest was open to all high school students within the Fourth Congressional District.  The winners are:

1st Place Winner:
Aimee Pitcher
South Tahoe High School
Art Teacher: Candi Lincoln
Title of Entry: “Sapphire”

Aimee’s winning piece, “Sapphire” was created using Adobe Photoshop. It is a stylized depiction of a girl circa 1912.  The piece will hang in the Cannon Tunnel along with the other first place winners from across the nation.   Aimee also won two round trip airline tickets to Washington D.C. to attend the official Congressional Art Reception 

2nd Place Winner:
Carrie Etherington
Woodcreek High School
Art Teacher: Dave Branstetter
Title of Entry: “Liberty and Justice For All”

3rd Place Winner:
Yia Yang
Oroville High School
Art Teacher: David Tamari
Title of Entry: “Mask Woman”

The judging for California’s Fourth Congressional District was held was under the direction of Placer Arts Council executives Angela Tahti and Shawn Baldwin.   Judges were Auburn City Councilman Kevin Hanley, Deb Jensen of El Dorado Arts Council, Elgin Cannon of Lassen County Arts Council, Penel Curtis of Nevada County Arts, and Paul Harrar, School Arts Liaison with the Nevada County Superintendent of Schools.

Aimee Pitcher (1^st Place Winner) and Tom

Aimee and her first place artwork, “Sapphire”

2^nd Place Winner Carrie Etherington, Tom and art titled “Liberty and Justice For All”

3^rd Place Winner Yia Yang and artwork “Mask Woman”

House Floor, May 6, 2010.  Text.

              Task Force Seeks to Restore Constitutional Balance of Power Through Federalism

   WASHINGTON, D.C. –  Today, Representative Tom McClintock (R-Granite Bay) joined Republican Study Committee (RSC) Chairman Tom Price (R-GA), Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT) and nine other Republican Members of Congress to officially launch the newly formed 10th Amendment Task Force, a project of the RSC.  The Task Force will develop and promote proposals that aim to disperse power, decision-making, and money from Washington back to states, local governments, and individuals. 

   The Task Force was created in response to the concentration of power and the one-size-fits-all solutions from Washington.  Representative McClintock made the following remarks at today’s press conference:

   “I believe that it can be stated as a universal maxim that the failures of our government can be traced to a single cause: the abandonment of federalism.

   “The tenth Amendment was not written to protect states rights.  Experience has shown that state governments can be just as abusive of their authority as any other government.

    “The tenth Amendment is rather about dividing governmental authority to limit the abuse of power that naturally occurs when it accumulates into too few hands. 
  
    “The Founders knew that the ultimate check upon an abusive or dysfunctional government is the ability of people to walk away from it.  By limiting the federal government to those enumerated powers that serve a truly national objective, our Constitution disperses the remaining powers among 50 states and a hundred fold more communities.
  
     “Those states that are governed unwisely naturally lose population and commerce and revenues to those that are governed well.  It is a self-correcting mechanism.

      “In 1821, Jefferson warned that "When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

       “We have reached that point, and the time has come to restore the genius of the American founding by restoring those principles of federalism that are the foundation of our freedom and the natural ramparts that protect us against both folly and despotism. 
 
       “I can’t imagine more important work than that which this task force now sets out to do.”

WASHINGTON, DC – Representative Tom McClintock (R – Granite Bay) delivered the following remarks on the House floor today in opposition to the costly “Cash for Caulkers” weatherization program:

Learning from Experience (NOT)
House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
May 6, 2010

M. Speaker:    

Since “Cash for Caulkers” is based on the “Cash for Clunkers” program maybe somebody ought to ask, “How did that one work out?”

            In fact, economists at Edmunds.com did exactly that.  And they discovered that of the 690,000 cars sold under “Cash for Clunkers,” 565,000 sales would have happened anyway.  That means that the taxpayers ended up paying $24,000 for every genuine sale it actually “stimulated.”

            It gets worse.  All that the program accomplished was to entice people to move up their purchase decisions by a few months – which then caused below-normal sales in the months that followed.  In other words, Congress spent $4 billion creating a car bubble.

            With that fresh economic wreckage just months behind us, we are about to create a $6.6 billion home improvement bubble.  We can now replace our “Honk-if-you’re-making-my-car-payments” bumper stickers with “Honk-if-you’re-paying-for-my-home-remodeling.”

            What will this actually accomplish? 

            First, a lot of fraud.  We already know that the Energy Star Program approved 15 out of 23 fake products that were submitted to them by the GAO, including a gasoline powered alarm clock.  One can only imagine what home improvement scams taxpayers will fund from this one.

            Second, it will pay for a lot of remodeling that would have been done anyway.  That was the expensive lesson of “Cash for Clunkers.”

            And third, it will pay for remodeling that makes no economic sense except for the rebate.  After all, when remodeling actually saves money, people do it on their own. And if it doesn’t save money – why should taxpayers be forced to pay for it? 

            Benjamin Franklin observed that “experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”  This measure offers a sobering corollary: that there are some people who cannot even learn from experience.  We call those people “Congressmen.”

Natural Resources Committee, May 5, 2010.  Text.

Representative McClintock delivered the following remarks today in the House Natural Resources Committee on House Resolution 1254.  The resolution directs the Secretary of the Interior to transmit to the House of Representatives specific information relating to potential National Monuments designations. 

Full Committee Markup – Natural Resources Committee
May 5, 2010

 Mr. Chairman:

 I speak in support of this resolution with an urgency bordering on desperation for the people of Modoc and Lassen counties in my Congressional district who are directly in the path of the proposal to close some 3 million acres of the Modoc Plateau as a National Monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906. 

 I want the committee and the administration to understand something.  These folks have already been devastated by federal land use restrictions.  This region is one of the most timber-rich and mineral-rich areas of the United States, and yet federal restrictions have left it economically prostrate: Modoc County currently suffers an 18.2 percent unemployment rate and Lassen County 16.7 percent. 
 
 National Monument status could close the Modoc Plateau to future mineral exploration, timber development, or even grazing, and local communities could face still more job losses and reduced tax revenues.  This is one of the most rural areas of my district; they are suffering from a shrinking tax base because the state and federal governments already control over 60% of the land.  An expansion of land use restrictions will only further stifle an already struggling economy.

 The preservation of public land is not an end in itself – it is a means to an end: the public good.  And the public good is not served by the mindless closure of vast tracts of land at the expense of the sustainable use of our natural resources, responsible stewardship of our public lands, and the freedom and property rights of our citizens.  Monument designation authority was created by the Antiquities Act of 1906 as an emergency power to protect small archeological areas from looting. 

 The use of this authority to place off-limits some three million acres of land just for the hell of it is a gross abuse of power by this administration and has devastating consequences to the people and the economy of my district. 

 Our current administration is now planning to further restrict land use and they are ignoring our requests for information. 
 
 This should be a public process with public comment, especially if, as the Chairman has just stated, this is just the formative phase of an unprecedented initiative using the very limited and very specific Antiquities Act. 

 President Obama issued a statement in support of “Sunshine Week” on March 16, 2010 and said: “I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our democracy and ensure the public’s trust in their government.” 

 It is obvious that President Obama is not holding Secretary Salazar to this standard, which is not acceptable to me or my constituents and should not be tolerated by any Member of Congress.

 I urge the Chairman to reconsider his opposition to the resolution and to take a stand on behalf of transparency, candor, and a lot of folks in regions like Modoc and Lassen who are struggling not only against both a severe recession AND needless restrictions heaped on them by their own government.