Rep. Louie Gohmert tells Newsmax that running up a huge national debt future generations will have to repay is “one of the most immoral things this country has ever done.”
The Texas Republican also asserts that the recent budget battle in Washington has made it clear that it’s easier to raise taxes than to cut spending.
And he says America should consider using drones to monitor illegal immigrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Rep. Gohmert was elected in 2004 and is a member of the Tea Party Caucus.
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In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Gohmert says that despite any negative impact that could result from sequestration or a government shutdown, “people have got to understand that we’re serious about stopping the massive load we are putting on our children and their children. It is one of the most immoral things this country has ever done.
“Slavery and abortion are the two most horrendous things this country has done but when you think about the immorality of wild, lavish spending on our generation and forcing future generations to do without essentials just so we can live lavishly now, it’s pretty immoral.
“I’m hoping and praying that we’ll do the right thing so that we will not be referred to as ‘The Worst Generation,’ when we lavishly spent on our generation to the horrible detriment to future generations. And I’m hoping that we’ll make that clear through the sequester, through the budget discussions, and maybe the Senate will actually have a budget that we can work with.”
Asked why Republicans appear to be increasingly eager to stop the cuts required by sequestration, Gohmert responds: “I’m not really sure. I was concerned about them back in July a year and a half ago when this was first proposed. I’ve urged my conference not to adopt the debt ceiling bill that expanded the debt so high. I didn’t want automatic sequestration cuts. I thought we should go about it in a much more reasonable fashion.
“What we have seen in the last year and a half has made it very clear it is actually easier in Washington to raise taxes than it is to make cuts.
“As Admiral [Mike] Mullen pointed out, the biggest threat to our national security is this massive overspending. Bringing in $2.4 trillion and spending $3.6 trillion, that cannot keep up any more than an individual can bring home $24,000 and spend $36,000 every year and last more than a couple of years before nobody will deal with them.
“My biggest concern is because of the threats that the president has put out there, it seems clear he wants to make sure any cuts hurt the American people the most they can so that people will feel this little bitty 2 percent cut. We’re overspending by over $1 trillion of the $2.4 trillion coming in and he wants to make sure that America feels it.”
As for the notion that Republicans could be willing to work with Obama on tax reform, even if it means slightly higher rates, in order to secure funding for the Defense
Department, Gohmert tells Newsmax: “I would love for the president to talk about tax reform. It ought to be a freestanding agreement. He wants everybody to pay their fair share but when you hear ‘fair share,’ you ought to talk flat tax. Two deductions and a flat tax. Everybody pays the same rate.
“Nothing he has proposed will cause Warren Buffet to pay the same rate as his secretary. A flat tax will. So I hope we’ll do that.”
Regarding those Pentagon cuts, Gohmert adds: “One of the things I hope and pray will happen is that we will pass a bill and the Senate will agree to give the military the most flexibility to put cuts in place where they create the least effect on our military.
“I remember in the late ‘70s when I was in the Army, there were cuts to the military that Carter pushed for and got. And I noticed then there were some perks that could have gone away. The perks didn’t go away.
“Thank goodness Reagan got elected in ’80 and he came in and shored up the military as it needed to be.
“But we’ve seen that with the federal government, they’re not going to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. They’re going to cut something like vaccinations that you will really notice.”
As for the possibility that the country could face a government shutdown by the end of March if there is no agreement on the budget, Gohmert observes: “What you see when there’s a government shutdown is that essential federal employees still have to keep working, and that might be a good thing, to see who really is essential. Then we could let the rest of them go and start refunding government from there.”
Turning to another hot topic, immigration, Gohmert says that despite tightened security along the border, there is still “massive” illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that “the line between Mexico and the U.S. is now more secure than it’s been in decades,” and attributes that in large part to the money the Obama administration has spent on border security.
But Gohmert cautions that it is only “a little bit more secure than it was. It was one of the concerns that we had during President George W. Bush’s term. Let’s secure the border and then we can move forward with immigration.
“And it depends on how many decades back. Three decades, yes, it’s more secure than it’s been in a while, but there’s still massive migration across the border illegally.
“You go back several decades to when President Wilson was president, and I’m not a big fan of his time as president, but we had Pancho Villa come across the border and kill American families. President Wilson realized it was a crisis and depending on who you believe there were tens of thousands, maybe as many as 100,000 National Guard troops, federal troops put on the border.
“Gen. Pershing went with 10,000 to 20,000 American troops into Mexico pursuing Pancho Villa. I’m not advocating going into Mexico, pursuing these drug cartels and al-Qaida groups that are partnering with them, but we do need to secure what we have.
“If you took the money that this president has squandered on solar companies that have gone bankrupt, we could build a fence that is secure and we could maintain it and we could have drones to follow that. I know he’s anxious to kill Americans with drones overseas, but why not monitor non-Americans trying to come illegally into this country on our own border?”
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