HR 822
House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
November 16, 2011

Today the House will consider HR 822, a long-overdue measure to assure that states recognize the concealed weapons permits issued by other states.

This very simple measure has unleashed a firestorm of protests from the political left. I noted one polemicist, who obviously has not read the Constitution, fumed that this is a Constitutional violation of states' rights enshrined in the tenth amendment. 

What nonsense. Article IV of the Constitution could not possibly be more clear: "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."

It is precisely this article that requires one state to recognize driver's licenses, birth certificates or arrest warrants issued by another state. Without it we are not a union but a loose confederation.

We are told it is "dangerous" and "risky" to allow honest and law-abiding citizens to exercise their lawfully issued permits in other states.

Upon what basis do they make this claim? Certainly not upon any empirical data.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
November 2, 2011
Mr. Speaker:

The International Monetary Fund estimated that as of Halloween night, the debt of this nation surpassed its entire economy for the first time since World War II.  We all know that if you live beyond your means today you must live below your means tomorrow.  That’s the tomorrow that our generation has created for the children who were dressed up as princesses and cowboys when they came calling on Monday.  That is our generation’s eternal shame, and something that our generation must set right.  

The House is expected soon to vote on a balanced budget amendment that is critical to stop this plunder of our children.  There are a number of excellent proposals out there and I would have no trouble supporting any of them.  

I do rise, however, to express the hope that the final product of these deliberations proves worthy of the wisdom that guided the drafting of the Constitution. 

The beauty of the American Constitution is in its simplicity and its humility.  The American Founders recognized Cicero’s wisdom that “the best laws are the simplest ones.”  And they realized that they couldn’t possibly foresee the circumstances and conditions that may confront future generations and therefore they resisted the temptation to micro-manage every decision that might be made centuries in the future.  Instead, they set forth general principles of governance and erected a structure in which human nature itself would naturally guide future decisions to comport with those principles. 

In crafting a balanced budget amendment, we need to maintain these qualities. We should not attempt to tell future generations specifically how they should manage their revenues and expenditures in times that we cannot comprehend.  The experience of many states that operate under their own balanced budget amendments tells us that the more complicated and convoluted such strictures become, the more they are circumvented and manipulated.

Many have quoted Jefferson’s 1798 letter to John Taylor as support for a balanced budget amendment.  Here’s what he actually wrote: 

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing." 

What is a balanced budget? It’s simply a budget that doesn’t require us to borrow.  Then why not just say so, as Jefferson did?  

This generation is facing spiraling electricity prices and increasingly scarce supplies.  Californians have had to cut back to the point that their per capita electricity consumption is now lower than that of Guam, Luxembourg and Aruba. 

What is the administration’s solution?

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced yesterday that the administration is moving forward with a plan to destroy four perfectly good hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River capable of producing 155 megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the planet – enough for 155,000 homes.

Why would the administration pursue such a ludicrous policy?

They say it’s is necessary to help increase the salmon population.  We did that a long time ago by building the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery.  The Iron Gate Fish Hatchery produces five million salmon smolts each year – 17,000 of which return annually as fully grown adults to spawn.  The problem is, they don’t include them in the population count!

And to add insult to insanity, when they tear down the Iron Gate Dam, we will lose the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery and the five million salmon smolts it produces every year.

Declining salmon runs are not unique to the Klamath.  We have seen them up and down the Northwest Pacific Coast over the last ten years as the result of the naturally occurring Pacific Decadal Oscillation – cold water currents that fluctuate over a ten year cycle between the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.  During the same decade that salmon runs have declined in the Pacific Northwest, they have exploded in Alaska.  We’re at the end of that cycle.

The cost of this madness is currently pegged at a staggering $290 million – all at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers.  But that’s just the cost of removing the dams.  Consumers will face permanently higher prices for replacement power, which, we’re told, will be wind and solar.

Not only are wind and solar some three times more expensive, but wind and solar require equal amounts of reliable stand-by power – which is precisely what the dams provide.

We’re told that yes, this is expensive, but it will cost less than retro-fitting the dams to meet cost-prohibitive environmental requirements.  If that is the case, then maybe we should re-think those requirements, not squander more than a quarter billion dollars to destroy existing hydro-electric dams.  Or here’s a modest suggestion to address the salmon population: count the hatchery fish!

From the Floor of the House Chamber, Washington, D.C.

July 20, 2011

Mr. Speaker:

On June 26th, a roadside bomb in Julula, Iraq claimed the life of a young man from Oroville, California.  He was Army Staff Sergeant Russell Jeremiah Proctor, age 25, on his third tour of combat duty.  

He was laid to rest last week in solemn ceremonies in California.  Sgt. Proctor leaves behind a grieving widow, a devastated family, and a nine-month old son who will know his father only by reputation.

And it is reputation that I want to speak of today.  I never met Sgt. Proctor.  I, too, know him only by reputation.  

This amendment would save roughly ten percent from this appropriations bill, or $3 ¼ billion, by getting the federal government out of the energy subsidy business.

For more than 30 years, the Department of Energy has squandered billions of dollars subsidizing research and development that no private investor would touch – with the promise it would make our nation energy independent.  Every year we have spent untold billions on these programs and every year we’ve become more dependent on foreign oil.

We are now running a deficit that threatens to bankrupt our country, and this requires us to cast a critical eye on every expenditure that has failed to achieve its objectives.  And none has failed so spectacularly as the Department of Energy’s subsidy of energy research which has left us billions of dollars poorer and stuck with mediocre technologies that only survive on a lifeline of public subsidies.

The opposition will attempt to depict this amendment as a Luddite reaction to “green technology.”

It is exactly the opposite.  By stopping the government from doling out dollars to politically favored industries – by stopping it from picking winners and losers among emerging technologies competing for capital – we restore the natural flow of that capital toward those that are the most economically viable and technologically feasible.

For more than three months, our nation has been amidst a quiet constitutional crisis that carries immense implications.

The Gentleman from Florida is sadly mistaken to dismiss this as a meaningless philosophical discussion.  This issue strikes at the very heart of our Constitutional form of government.

On March 19th, completely without Congressional authorization, the President ordered an unprovoked attack against Libya.