Speeches

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. March 25, 2009 M. Speaker: Abraham Lincoln once told of a farmer who said, "I ain't greedy for land – all I want is what's next to mine."

Our federal government is starting to resemble that farmer. HR 146 is a massive land grab that would literally put more land into wilderness designation than we have actually developed. That pretty much means no human activities other than walking through it – as long as you don't touch anything.