Remarks by Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA)

Mr. Speaker:

I rise in opposition to Section 1021 of the underlying Conference Report (H.R. 1540, the National Defense Authorization Act). 

This section specifically affirms that the President has the authority to deny due process to any American it charges with “substantially supporting al Qaeda, the Taliban or any ‘associated forces’” – whatever that means.

 Would “substantial support” of an “associated force,” mean linking a web-site to a web-site that links to a web-site affiliated with al-Qaeda?  We don’t know.  The question is, “do we really want to find out?”

 We’re told not to worry – that the bill explicitly states that nothing in it shall alter existing law.

 But wait.  There is no existing law that gives the President the power to ignore the Bill of Rights and detain Americans without due process.  There is only an assertion by the last two presidents that this power is inherent in an open-ended and ill-defined war on terrorism.  But it is a power not granted by any act of Congress.  At least, not until now.

 What this bill says is, “What Presidents have only asserted, Congress now affirms in statute.” 

 We’re told that this merely pushes the question to the Supreme Court to decide if indefinite detainment is compatible with any remaining vestige of the Bill of Rights.

 That’s a good point, IF the Court were the sole guardian of the Constitution.  But it is not.  If it were, there would be no reason to require every member of Congress to swear to preserve, protect, and defend that Constitution.

We are also its guardians.

 And today, we who have sworn fealty to that Constitution sit to consider a bill that affirms a power contained in no law and that has the full potential to crack the very foundation of American liberty.

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Video link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTTdkiQh_qQ

M. Speaker:

The government’s continuing failure to address our nation’s gut-wrenching unemployment stems from a fundamental disagreement over how jobs are created in the first place.  

We are now in the third year of policies predicated on the assumption that government spending creates jobs. 

We have squandered three years and trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth on such policies, and they have not worked because they cannot work.

Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy until it has first taken that same dollar OUT of the economy.

True, we can SEE the job that is saved or created when the government puts that dollar back into the economy.  What we can’t see as clearly are the jobs that are destroyed or prevented from forming because government has first taken that dollar OUT of the economy.  We see those millions of lost jobs in a chronic unemployment rate and a stagnating economy.

Government can transfer jobs from the productive sector to the government sector by taking money from one and giving it to the other.  That’s at the heart of the President’s plan to spend billions of dollars to hire more teachers and firefighters and police-officers.  But these temporary government jobs come at a steep price: every dollar spent sustaining one of these jobs is a dollar taken from the same capital pool that would otherwise have been available to productive businesses to invest in creating permanent jobs.

Government can also transfer jobs from one business to another by taking capital from one and giving it the other.

That’s how we got Solyndra.  We put a half-billion dollars at risk to create 1,100 jobs (that’s $450,000 per job).  Now that half-billion dollars are gone and so are the jobs.  And who pays for these losses?  Other businesses and their employees – meaning fewer jobs created. 

What government can do very effectively, is to create the conditions in which jobs either flourish and expand, or whither and disappear.

When we place additional taxes on productivity, jobs disappear.  The President says he only wants to tax millionaires and billionaires, but the tax increases in his so-called jobs plan actually hammer more than 75 percent of net small business income – at a time when we’re counting on those small businesses to create 2/3 of the new jobs that our people desperately need.  That is insane.

When we place additional regulations on productivity, jobs disappear.  That’s what we’re watching in real time: thousands of pages of new regulations from Obamacare, from Dodd-Frank, from the EPA stifling American job creation.

It’s no secret why business isn’t expanding – just ask a businessman.
 
They’re scared to death of the additional taxes and regulations they may be facing in the next few years and are pulling back to see what happens.  Ask bankers why they’re not lending and you’ll hear the same answer.

House Republicans have laid out a comprehensive plan to revive the economy through the same policies that worked under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980’s; under John F. Kennedy in the early ‘60’s; under Harry Truman in the mid-‘40’s and under Warren Harding in the early ‘20’s.

Reduce the tax and regulatory burdens on the economy and jobs flourish and multiply.

For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obamacare by itself will cost the economy a net loss of 800,000 jobs.  A few weeks ago, the Natural Resources Committee received testimony that just by getting government out of the way and opening up American energy resources to development, the economy  could generate 700,000 jobs and $660 billion of direct revenues to the national and state treasuries. 

Repeal Obamacare and open up American energy resources – there’s 1.5 million jobs right there – at NO cost to taxpayers.

Imagine doing that across all sectors of the economy.  That’s what Republicans are proposing to do.  The fact that the President doesn’t recognize this as a jobs plan leads me to conclude that he simply doesn’t understand how jobs are actually created in the first place.
           
When Ronald Reagan inherited an even worse economy from Jimmy Carter, he reduced the tax and regulatory burdens that were crushing the economy – just as Republicans propose to do today.

Indeed, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, if the economy under Obama had tracked the same as it did under Reagan, 15.7 million more Americans would be working today and per capita income would be $4,000 higher than it is today.

M. Speaker, Freedom works.  It is time that we put it back to work. 

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Link to video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUdCFRim7Lk

Link to speech on Congressman McClintock’s website:  http://mcclintock.house.gov/2011/10/putting-freedom-back-to-work-1.shtml

House Floor remarks by Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA) in support of the Amash/ Kucinich Amendment to HR 2219 to deny authorization for the use of funds for the war in Libya   

Mr. Chairman: 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.

 In doing so, he crossed a very bright line placed in the Constitution specifically to prevent so momentous and fatal a decision as war from being made by a single individual.

 The American Founders were explicit on this point. For centuries, European monarchs had plunged their nations into bloody and debilitating wars on whim and the Founders wanted to protect the American Republic from that fate.

 James Madison explained why this way:

 “In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department…the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man…War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied, and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed…Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.”

 The president has tried to justify this act in a variety of ways: that bombing another country is not really an act of war; that there wasn’t time to consult Congress (only the United Nations Security Council); and that it was a morally justifiable humanitarian act.

 Never was there a greater provocation or clearer moral justification for war than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And never was there a more activist president than Franklin Roosevelt.

 Yet, within 24 hours of that attack, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress in this very hall. He clearly recognized that as commander in chief his authority only extended to ordering “that all measures be taken for our defense.” He recognized that under our Constitution, anything more required an act of Congress, which he sought and obtained.

The unprovoked attack on Libya was not authorized by this Congress, and is accordingly unconstitutional and illegal.

 Indeed, two weeks ago, the House considered a resolution authorizing a war with Libya and it rejected that measure by nearly a three to one margin. It then considered a second measure to authorize acts of war against Libya just short of actual combat. It rejected that measure as well.

 The precedent being established right now by the President’s deliberate defiance of the Constitution and the clear will of Congress has profound implications for our nation’s future.

 If this act is allowed to stand unchallenged, it means that the checks and balances painstakingly built into the Constitution on the supreme question of war and peace have been rendered meaningless.

 Weeks ago, the House voted to deny authorization for the use of funds for the war on Libya effective October 1. This amendment simply follows through on that decision in the actual appropriations act.

 Frankly, we need to do more than that. Clearly one of the conditions for increasing the debt limit must be to assure that no funds – either borrowed or raised – in the current budget or the next – should be used to continue to support this illegal act.

 And we need to remember that a war, once started, cannot always be turned off by an appropriations act. Once we have attacked another country without provocation, we have created an aggrieved belligerent that now has cause to pursue that war regardless of what Congress later decides.

 That’s why this precedent is so dangerous and why the President’s actions are so devastating to our very form of government. And that’s why we need to speak clearly and unequivocally at every opportunity through measures like this offered today by the Gentlemen from Michigan and Ohio.

http://mcclintock.house.gov/2011/07/cutting-off-funding-for-ongoing-military-action-in-libya.shtml

June 3, 2011

M. Speaker:  Lets be clear: without prior Congressional authorization, under the War Powers Act, the President may only commit armed forces to hostilities for sixty days if there is a direct attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions or its armed forces. 

There was none, so there is no sixty day clock and the President’s unprovoked attack on Libya – from Day One – constituted an illegal and unconstitutional act of the highest significance. 

If the President felt there was moral justification to attack Libya, he was constitutionally required to make his case to Congress and get its authorization.  He did not.

Some say, “we’re already committed; it’s too late for Congress to order a withdrawal without harming America’s reputation or undermining her allies.”  If we take that position, then we have just changed the Constitution to read as follows: “The President may attack any country he wants for any reason he wants and the Congress has no choice but to follow.” 

The President has crossed a bright Constitutional line and this Congress has a clear moral and Constitutional duty to intervene.

If we fail to do so, we will have destroyed the work of the American founders by fundamentally changing the legislative and executive functions on the most momentous decision our nation can make and take our country down dark and bloody roads the American Founders sought to avoid.

http://mcclintock.house.gov/2011/06/kucinich-resolution-on-libya.shtml

March 31, 2011

M. Speaker:

When the President ordered the attack on Libya without Congressional authorization, he crossed a very bright Constitutional line that he himself recognized in 2007 when he told the Boston Globe “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

The reason the American Founders reserved the question of war to Congress was that they wanted to assure that so momentous a decision could not be made by a single individual. They had watched European kings plunge their nations into bloody and debilitating wars and wanted to avoid that fate for the American Republic.

The most fatal and consequential decision a nation can make is to go to war, and the American Founders wanted that decision made by all the representatives of the people after careful deliberation.  Only when Congress has made that fateful decision does it fall to the President as Commander in Chief to command our armed forces in that war.

The authors of the Constitution were explicit on this point.  In Federalist 69, Alexander Hamilton drew a sharp distinction between the American President’s authority as Commander in Chief, which he said “would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces” and that of the British king who could actually declare war.

To contend that the President has the legal authority to commit an act of war without Congressional approval requires ignoring every word the Constitution’s authors said on this subject – and they said quite a lot.

There seems to be a widespread misconception that under the War Powers Act, the President may order any attack on any country he wants for 60 days without Congressional approval.  This is completely false.  The War Powers Act is clear and unambiguous: the President may only order our armed forces into hostilities under three very specific conditions: (quoting directly from the Act): “(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”

Only if one of these conditions is present can the President invoke the War Powers Act.  None are present or alleged to be present, and thus the President is in direct violation of that Act.

The United Nations Participation Act requires specific congressional authorization before American forces are ordered into hostilities in United Nations actions.  The North Atlantic Treaty clearly requires troops under NATO command to be deployed in accordance with their country’s constitutional provisions.  The War Powers Act specifically forbids inferring from any treaty the power to order American forces into hostilities without specific congressional authorization.

The only conclusion we can make is that this was an illegal and unconstitutional act of the highest significance.

The President has implied that he didn’t have time for Congressional authorization to avert a humanitarian disaster in Libya.  He had plenty of time to get a resolution from the United Nations.  I would remind him that just a day after the unprovoked bombing of Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt appeared in this very chamber to request and receive congressional authorization.

Some have said that the President can do whatever he wishes and that Congress’s authority is limited to cutting off funds.  War is not a one-sided act that can be turned on and off with Congressional funding.  Once any nation commits an act of war against another, from that moment it is AT WAR — inextricably embroiled and entangled with an aggrieved and belligerent party that has casus belli to prosecute hostilities regardless of what Congress then decides.

Finally, I’ve heard it said, “we did the same thing in Kosovo.” If that is the case, then shame on the Congress that tolerated it.  And shame on us if we allow this act to stand unchallenged any longer.

This matter strikes at the heart of the Constitution.  If this act is allowed to stand, it will fundamentally change the entire character of the legislative and executive functions on the most momentous decision a nation can make and take us down a dark and bloody road the American Founders fought so hard to avoid.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYPbQLqMdLk
Rep. McClintock website: http://mcclintock.house.gov/

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I have read your letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the
President pro tempore of the Senate dated March 21, 2011 concerning your order
that United States Armed Forces attack the nation of Libya. You cite the authority
of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 and your “constitutional
authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief
Executive.”

The Constitution clearly and unmistakably vests Congress with the sole
prerogative “to declare war.” Your letter fails to explain how a resolution of the
United Nations Security Council is necessary to commit this nation to war but that
an act of Congress is not.

The United Nations Participation Act expressly withholds authorization for the
President to commit United States Armed Forces to combat in pursuit of United
Nations directives without specific Congressional approval. The War Powers
Resolution states that the President’s power to engage United States Armed Forces
in hostilities “shall not be inferred . . .from any treaty heretofore or hereafter
ratified unless such treaty is implemented by legislation specifically authorizing
the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities…”

The War Powers Resolution unambiguously defines three circumstances under
which the President as Commander in Chief may order United States Armed
Forces into hostile action: “(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory
authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United
States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” Your letter cites none of
these conditions.

Nor can the power to order an act of war be inferred from the President’s authority
as “Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.” The Constitution’s Framers were
explicit on this point. In Federalist 69, Alexander Hamilton draws a sharp
distinction between the President’s authority as Commander in Chief as “nothing
more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces”
and the authority of the British king “which extends to the declaring of war and to
the raising and regulating of fleets and armies ~ all which, by the Constitution
under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.”

With all due respect, I can only conclude that your order to United States Armed
Forces to attack the nation of Libya on March 19, 2011 is in direct violation of the
War Powers Resolution and constitutes a usurpation of Constitutional powers
clearly and solely vested in the United States Congress and is accordingly unlawful
and unconstitutional.

Sincerely,

Tom McClintock
Member of Congress

M. Speaker:

Last year I voted to extend the PATRIOT Act for one year.   I regret that vote and was glad to have been able to correct it, although I am pained that the House voted otherwise yesterday.

 During this past year, I have become convinced that the provisions of the so-called PATRIOT Act are an affront to the Bill of Rights and a serious threat to our fundamental liberty as Americans. 

The Fourth Amendment arises from abuses of the British Crown that allowed roving searches by revenue agents under the guise of what were called “writs of assistance” or “general warrants.”  Instead of following specific allegations against specific individuals, the Crown’s revenue agents were given free rein to search indiscriminately.

In 1761, the famous colonial leader, James Otis, challenged these writs, arguing that “A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege.” Two hundred and fifty years later, the PATRIOT Act restores these roving searches.

In the audience that day in 1761 was a 25-year-old lawyer named John Adams.  He would later recall, “Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance.  Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there, the child, ‘Independence’ was born.” 

The American Founders responded with the Fourth Amendment.  It provides that before the government can invade a person’s privacy, the executive branch must present sworn testimony to an independent judiciary that a crime has occurred, that there is reason to believe that an individual should be searched for evidence of the crime and specify the place to be searched and the things to be seized.  The John Doe roving wiretaps provided under the bill are a clear breach of this crystal clear provision.

The entire point of having an open and independent judiciary is so that abuses of power can be quickly identified by the public and corrected.  The very structure of this law prevents that from occurring.

I also object to the so-called “lone wolf” provision of the Act that allows a person who is not acting in concert with a foreign power to be treated as if they were.  This malignant fiction utterly blurs the critical distinction between a private person protected under our Constitution and an enemy combatant acting as an agent of a foreign power. 

My Chief of Staff, Igor Birman, was born in Moscow.  His family emigrated to America when he was 14.  He tells of the days leading up to their long-awaited departure.  His father had technical expertise and the authorities were desperate to find some pretense to cancel the family’s exit visa.

A week before they departed for America, the family returned home to find that Soviet authorities had turned their apartment upside down looking for anything that could be used to block their emigration.  This was not the result of suspected criminal activity, but rather the same kind of open-ended search the Fourth Amendment protects us against.

His younger brother was terrified and hysterical.  His mother calmed the little boy by saying, “Don’t worry.  We’re leaving in a few days for America.  This will never happen to us there.”

Our country is threatened by foreign governments and multi-national terrorist groups which are actively working to do us harm, backed by a fifth column within our borders.  But we have faced far more powerful governments and far better organized networks of spies and saboteurs in the past without having to shred our Bill of Rights. 

The freedom that our Constitution protects is the source of our economic prosperity, our moral authority and our martial strength.  It is also the ultimate bulwark against authoritarianism.  Abraham Lincoln was right.  No transatlantic military giant – let alone some fanatical terrorist group – can ever “step across the ocean and crush us at a blow.”  And no foreign power can destroy our Constitution. 

Only we can do that.    As Lincoln said, “As a nation of free men, we are destined to live forever – or die by suicide.”

As Chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee of Natural Resources, my colleagues and I are excited and eager to undertake the mission outlined in House Resolution 72: to identify the federal regulations in this field that are impeding job creation and slowing the economy.

The only problem is deciding where to begin.

A generation ago, the principal objective of our water and power policy was to create an abundance of both. It was an era when vast reservoirs and hydro-electric facilities produced a cornucopia of clean and plentiful water and electricity on a scale so vast that many communities didn’t even bother to measure the stuff.

But that objective of abundance has been abandoned in favor of rationing shortages caused by government.

The result is increasingly scarce and expensive water and power that now undermines our prosperity as a nation.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the Central Valley of California. The last Congress sat idly by as this administration deliberately diverted 200 billion gallons of water away from the most abundant agricultural region of our nation – all to satisfy the environmental left and its pet cause, a three inch minnow called the Delta Smelt.

These willful diversions cost over 20,000 farm workers their jobs, inflicted up to 40 percent unemployment rates in the region; destroyed more than a quarter million acres of the most fertile farmland in our nation and forced up the price of groceries for us all.

Or we could look to the Klamath, where this administration is pushing to tear down four perfectly good hydroelectric dams that generate 155 megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the planet – enough to power over 150,000 homes — because, we’re told, of catastrophic declines of salmon.

When I suggested building a salmon hatchery instead, I was informed that there already is one: it produces 5 million salmon smolt each year – 17,000 of which return to that river as fully grown adults to spawn – but they’re deliberately ignored in the population counts. To add insult to insanity, as they tear down these dams in the name of saving the salmon, they’re also tearing down the fish hatchery.

Or we could begin in Colorado, where they’ve sacrificed over 1,000 megawatts from the Glen Canyon Dam for the humpback chub – at the expense of a long neglected species called Homo sapiens.

Ronald Reagan was right: in this crisis, government is not the solution to our problems – government is the problem. The good news is that’s within our power to correct – and it was clearly the mandate of the American people in 2010.

And we will act on that mandate beginning with a series of hearings and actions directly related to this much-needed resolution.

###

Remarks delivered in the House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January 6, 2011. M. Speaker:

I rise to express the hope that historians will look back on the 112th Congress as the session that restored American prosperity – and to express my strong agreement with the new leaders of this House who have declared that every action of this body must be measured against this goal.

We speak of “jobs, jobs, jobs,” but jobs are a product of prosperity. And prosperity is the product of freedom.

Government does not create jobs or wealth – it merely redistributes them. Jobs and wealth can only be created through the free exchange of goods and services in a free market. Government’s role is to create and protect the conditions which promote prosperity.

If I give you a dollar for a cup of coffee, what’s going on in that transaction? I’m telling you that your cup of coffee is worth more to me than my dollar. And at the same time, you’re telling me that my dollar is worth more to you than your cup of coffee. We make that exchange and both of us go away with something of greater value than we took in – each of us goes away richer.

That is the freedom that creates prosperity. That simple exchange – whether for a cup of coffee or for a multi-billion dollar acquisition – is what creates wealth.

But now suppose some third party butts its nose into this transaction. “The coffee must be between 110 and 130 degrees; it has to include a swizzle stick; it must be covered if it is to be consumed more than 25 feet from the point of sale” – and on and on. Every one of these restrictions reduces the value of that exchange for one or both of us.

That’s the fundamental problem that we face today. Our government has not only failed to protect the freedom that creates prosperity, but it has become destructive of that freedom.

To create jobs we must restore prosperity and to restore prosperity we must restore freedom.

We must restore the freedom of choice that gives consumers the ultimate say over the output of our economy. In a free and prosperous society, consumers vote every day with their own dollars on what kind of light-bulbs they prefer, on how they wish to get to work, on what foods they like, on how much water they want in their toilets, on what kind of cars they want or on what kind of housing they desire. These consumer choices signal – every day – what things are actually worth and what our economy will actually produce. Government is destroying the elegant simplicity of this process, and this Congress must reverse that destruction.

We must restore the freedom of individuals to enjoy the fruit of their own labor so that they can make these decisions for themselves once again.

That’s why excessive government spending is so destructive to prosperity – it destroys the freedom of individuals to make their own decisions over what to spend and where to invest their own money. It robs them of both the ability and incentive to create prosperity.

Presidents like Coolidge, Truman, Reagan and Clinton who have reduced government spending relative to GDP all produced dramatic increases in productivity, prosperity and the general welfare of our nation.

And Presidents like Hoover, Roosevelt, Bush and Obama who have increased government spending relative to GDP all produced or prolonged or deepened periods of economic recession, hardship and malaise.

Our government is embarked on the latter course, and this Congress must reverse that direction.

Government has an important role to play in the marketplace. It is there to assure that representations are accurate and that contracts are enforced – in other words, you have to tell the truth and you have to keep your promises. Government exists to assure that the currency is stable and reliable and that property rights are secure.

When it fulfills this fundamental role, it maximizes the freedom that a buyer and a seller have to assess their own needs and resources and to make those exchanges that allow both to go away better off than they were. When it steps beyond this role, it destroys the conditions that maximize prosperity.

M. Speaker, let us together revive and restore the freedom and prosperity of this nation and fulfill that sacred command inscribed on our Liberty Bell: “To proclaim liberty throughout ALL the land, and unto ALL the inhabitants there of.”

http://mcclintock.house.gov/