American Heritage

AMERICAN HERITAGE -- (House of Representatives - February 28, 2006)

Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come and chat with the House and to maybe set the record straight a little bit.

As a freshman Member of the House, we have 24, 25 freshmen on our side of the aisle, and over the past 13 months we have grown a little weary with what we see as the amount of misinformation and disinformation that we so oftentimes see brought by the other side, so we have developed what we call the Official Truth Squad. And so I am here to bring you some messages with some of my colleagues from the Official Truth Squad, which is an effort to try to embrace the American Dream, to embrace the American vision, and to present to the American people and our colleagues the story that Congress is working in a positive manner, that we are optimistic about the Nation's future in spite of some things that you hear from some of our friends on the other side of the aisle.

When I go home and I talk to constituents, I oftentimes hear them say, What is going on up there? Why all the negativity? Why all the pessimism? Why all the misinformation that we appear to hear all the time? And I commiserate with them. So this Official Truth Squad is an attempt to try to bring some light to truth, to some of the information that we believe the American people ought to have in contrast to some of the things that you have heard, even here tonight.

I am pleased to hear the Blue Dogs present a proposal or two. They talk about being fiscally conservative. They talk about being fiscal hawks. But my recollection is a little bit to the contrary of that. There is a wonderful quote that I like from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former United States Senator from New York, Democrat. And he was such a cogent individual. He was one of those individuals who worked for the truth regardless of where it led. And he had this wonderful quote. He said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts." Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. And I really think that that kind of crystallizes what we have heard in this Chamber over the past few minutes.

You have heard the other side talk about deficit spending and how we ought not be spending into the deficit, and they are right. They are right. But when they had an opportunity to decrease spending by nearly $40 billion just a few short weeks ago, not a single one of them, not one of them, voted for it. A $39.8 billion decrease in spending and not a single one voted in favor of it.

You heard them talk about the alternative minimum tax and how it is an unjust tax and it needs to go away, and they are right. They are right. A colleague of mine, Congressman English, has a bill, H.R. 1186, that would repeal the alternative minimum tax. Not a single Democrat on that bill, not a single cosponsor from that side of the aisle.

You hear them talk about the need to balance the budget and not spend so much money, and they are right. They are absolutely right. But when the proposals are put on the table to do away with programs that are wasteful or do away with programs that have significant abuse, where are they? Nowhere to be found.

So you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts. And to crystallize that a little more because the disinformation that we heard over and over about budgetary cuts really does a disservice to the debate, does a disservice to the discussion, does a disservice to the American people, because when you look at the numbers, when you look at the truth, that is not what is going on.

And this evening you have heard the other side talk about budgetary cuts in the area of defense spending and spending on veterans. So, at home, if I were sitting there listening, I would say, well, my goodness, they must have addressed the amount of money that was going to the military or decreased the amount of money going to veterans.

Mr. Speaker, is that not what you would think? That is what I would think if I heard that. But here we have the Defense Department appropriation, budgetary authority from Congress from the year 2000 projected through 2007. In 2000 it was $287 billion. In 2001 it was $303 billion. That does not sound like a cut to me. In 2002, $328 billion. That is real money. That does not sound like a cut to me. In 2003, $365 billion.

Remember, down here in 2000 we were at $287 billion.

So these are the actual numbers. Fiscal year 2006, $411 billion of budgetary authority for the Department of Defense. Mr. Speaker, that is not a cut. That is responsible spending on the part of the United States Congress. And I am proud of the support that we have given to our military. And I am proud of the support that we continue to give to veterans.

You have heard this evening that veterans' budgets were cut. Here are the numbers, the actual numbers, from 1984 through 2005, and I want to draw your attention to what has happened in the last 10 years. In 1994 discretionary spending for veterans: $17.2 billion; 1995, $17.6 billion; 2005, $30.7 billion.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what arithmetic they are using. I do not know where they went to school, but I do know that that is not a cut in anybody's book.

So when we get this kind of misinformation, this kind of disinformation, it does not contribute to the public debate. It is not honest. It is not truthful. So the Official Truth Squad is here to try to bring some truth to the situation.

This is veterans' medical care, and you heard it talked about this evening, how we have these incredible cuts in medical care for veterans. Mr. Speaker, here are the numbers: 1994, $15.6 billion; 2005, $29.9 billion. Mr. Speaker, that is not a cut. It is an appropriate, responsible move by Congress to take care of those who are protecting our freedoms.

So remember what Mr. Moynihan said, You are welcome to your own opinions but you are not welcome to your own facts.

So I would like to highlight this evening what is called the politics of division that seems to be practiced by so many here in Washington, and it is disheartening and it does a disservice to all of us. We are going to talk tonight in a positive way about America. We are going to talk in a positive way about our future. We are going to talk in a positive way about our Founding Fathers and about our history and about our heritage.

And just to identify the destruction of the politics of division that is so often practiced here, I have got a quote from Abraham Lincoln that I would like to share with you and it is kind of his philosophy on the social fabric. He said: "You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot encourage the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could do for themselves."

Mr. Speaker, the politics of division has no place in the public arena. It does a disservice to our Nation. It does a disservice to the debate. Frankly, it is an embarrassment for the individuals that practice it.

So I encourage all Members of Congress, Republican, Democrat, all of my colleagues, to go about our debates and the discussions that we have and the challenges that we face in this Nation in a positive and honest and truthful manner. Then we can get to the right solutions.

As I mentioned, the Official Truth Squad comes almost every evening since we began the first of the year and talks about some positive aspects of America, talks about the importance of honesty and truthfulness in the debate. And tonight we are going to concentrate on our heritage, our American heritage, our wonderful American heritage.

I have been joined by a number of colleagues tonight, and they are going to share a story or two about maybe the Founding Fathers, some heritage that we have. I hope that what that will do is inspire some of our colleagues to remember the principles that brought our Nation about and remember, remember, the ideals that we are bound to uphold.

With that, I am honored to yield to my good friend LOUIE GOHMERT from the great State of Texas. He is a judge by profession and is a member of the freshman class as well, and has just a wealth of knowledge about American history and our heritage. Congressman Gohmert, please share a few words with us.

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Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Thank you so much, Congressman Gohmert, for bringing us those words and the inspiring stories of American history. You have highlighted one of my absolute favorites with Washington withstanding the onslaught of the attack and then meeting the Indian chief years later and the Indian chief telling him that he understood and knew and it was clear that Washington had been touched by the hand of God. That just is so inspiring when we hear those words.

Washington himself talked a lot about our Nation. He talked a lot about what it took to preserve the Nation. He was concerned that the Nation might have difficulty in the future, and he felt that the only way to keep our Nation strong was on what he called teaching the science of government. He said a primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. By that he meant learning about government, learning about our republic.

He went on to say, "In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing than communicating or teaching it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of our country?"

That is why it is important that I think we come here this evening and talk about our heritage, talk about our history, talk about the wonder of America.

It has been said if you want to see the future of a nation and what it will be, look at what the children are being taught. So we hope by some small measure to assist in the education of all of us and to remind us about the wonder and the beauty and the awe of our Nation and its heritage.

I am joined now by Congresswoman JEAN SCHMIDT. Congresswoman Schmidt is a fellow freshman and an active participant in the Official Truth Squad. We are so pleased to have her join us this evening and bring some comments about our heritage and about the principles of our wonderful Republic.

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Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Thank you, Congresswoman SCHMIDT. It is just a pleasure to hear your words and the very inspiring words.

You talk about freedom being infectious. It truly is. But you also talked about freedom not being free, and that the price of freedom, the price of liberty, is eternal vigilance.

I am proud to stand with you this evening and continue, continue to try to assist others to appreciate the fact that that eternal vigilance is necessary now, as never before frankly.

So we appreciate so much your words this evening and your participation.

Mr. Speaker, I am also joined this evening by another fellow freshman, Congresswoman Foxx from North Carolina, just a great, great member of the freshman class, an individual whom I respect highly, who spent a number of years in the education community, understands what it means to impart the importance of our heritage, of American principles and fundamentals.

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Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Thank you so much, Congresswoman Foxx. I tell you, it does my heart good to listen to your comments about the Constitution, about our Founding Fathers, and the kinds of things that they held dear.

I want to just highlight again that Preamble, the first line of the Preamble, "We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union."

The Founding Fathers used these words to remind us that preserving the Constitution that they created is as difficult, maybe even more so, as writing and ratifying it in the late 1780s.

The words remind us that it is we the people that educate ourselves on the issues, become involved in choosing our leaders, and committed, those leaders, make sure the leaders are committed to governing by constitutional principles. And again the issues that we face today are equally as dangerous as those that the Founders faced.

I wanted to highlight very briefly another document that is one of our founding documents, that is the Declaration of Independence. One of the early paragraphs in the Declaration I think crystallizes something that is incredibly important, we all know those words, but I think it is important to repeat them:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," and "that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Incredible, powerful words.

But the message here that I always harken back to is that the power that government has is derived from the people, because the people derive their power from the Almighty, and the power that people have they then cede to government. It is not the other way around.

We do not believe that government has power and gives it to people. We believe that people, because of the inherent power from the Almighty and because of the inherent quality of life, have that power and cede it to the Federal Government and to the State government to bring about the kind of things that Congresswoman Foxx talked about.

The founding of our Nation truly is tied to a reliance on a higher authority and everyone at the time knew that. We have gotten a bit away from that, and I think one of the things that is incumbent upon us as leaders is to make certain that we remember that and that we remind people of that and that we talk about it freely and openly make certain that everyone understands and appreciates the importance of the Almighty.

One of the items that I will close with that moves me so every time I read it is Lincoln's Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting and Prayer. There are a couple of portions of that that I find incredibly eloquent. I quote from the proclamation:

"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence on the overruling power of God, and to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the holy scriptures and proven by all history that those nations only are blessed whose God is Lord.

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us. And we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

"Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended power and to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."

Mr. Speaker, we live in a wonderful and a wondrous Nation, a Nation that has blessed more individuals on the face of the Earth than any nation in the history of mankind. It is our privilege to serve in the United States House of Representatives and to bring this message of hope and optimism and positive speaking to the American people.

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