Speeches
July 31, 2009. Mr. Speaker: I rise to pay tribute to a young man who gave his life last week while fighting the Backbone Fire in the Trinity Alps Wilderness.
Thomas Marovich, Jr. was just 20 years old. He was in his second year with the U.S. Forest Service assigned to the Modoc National Forest. He was training with the Chester Helitack Crew assigned to the Backbone Fire when a training accident claimed his life.
He was born and raised in Hayward, but had come to Northeastern California to protect our forests, our communities and our citizens from the ravages of fire.
July 28, 2009, House Chamber, Washington, D.C. Mr. Speaker: In order to support the Democrats’ healthcare plan, we are asked to accept three arguments that are fundamentally absurd:
First, that the same government that pioneered $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats is somehow going to control healthcare costs;
Second, that the same government that runs FEMA is going to make our health care system more efficient and responsive;
Third, that the same government that runs the IRS is going to make our healthcare more compassionate and understanding.
July 21, 2009. House Chamber, Washington, D.C. M. Speaker: I want to thank my colleague from Utah, Mr. Bishop, for organizing this special order for the House tonight, and for the attention he has devoted to the suffering in my district caused by the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement that seems to be so firmly in control of our national policy on public lands.
July 10, 2009. Competitive Enterprise Institute. I know that everybody likes to poke fun at California – but I can tell you right now that despite all of its problems, California remains one of the best places in the world to build a successful small business.
All you have to do is start with a successful large business.
Laugh if you will, but let me remind you that when these policies finish wrecking California, there are still 49 other states we can all move to – and yours is one of them.
House Chamber, Washington, D.C. June 26, 2009. Madam Speaker: When we discuss Herbert Hoover's mishandling of the recession of 1929, the first thing that economists point to is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that imposed new taxes on over 20,000 imported products.
The Waxman-Markey Bill is our generation's Smoot-Hawley. It imposes new taxes on an infinitely larger number of domestic products on a scale that utterly dwarfs Smoot-Hawley.
House Chamber, Washington, D.C. June 12, 2009. M. Speaker: 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.
Tough Love for California. House Chamber, Washington, D.C. June 11, 2009 M. Speaker: Gov. Schwarzenegger of my home state of California has called for the federal government to underwrite as much as $15 billion of Revenue Anticipation Notes that the state has to issue to avoid insolvency.
I think that would be a colossal mistake, and that such an act would not only dig the nation deeper into the hole it is in, but would actually make California’s fiscal condition worse.
House Chamber, Washington, D.C. May 19, 2009. Mr. Speaker: I rise today with the sad duty of recognizing the death in combat of Army Specialist Jeremiah P. McCleery, age 24, of Portola, California.
Mr. Speaker, if you read the observations of his friends you very quickly realize that this was not only an irreplaceable loss to his family and a monumental loss to his community – but also a terrible loss to our country.
Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Washington, D.C. May 16, 2009. Here, in the winter of our despair, I want to pause to take stock of the state of our nation on this date of May 16th.
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.