Mitt Romney’s first job creation act as president should be to repeal Obamacare and his second should be to end America’s war on producing its own energy, Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.
The fourth-term congressman said Obamacare is “truly killing jobs.” He would like to see Texas miners go back to work and the United States produce its own energy.
Watch the exclusive interview here.
“The very first jobs bill I want to see is the repeal of Obamacare because that is truly killing jobs and … I’ve heard from employers that say, ‘I don’t know. What am I going to have to do next year?’ And so that repeal will be the number one jobs bill I want to see repealed,” Gohmert said.
“And then number two, to stop the war on producing our energy,” he continued. “This president says he’s for all of the above but apparently what he means is all above ground. So if we stop the war on energy, West Virginia miners can go back to work. Texas miners can go back to work. We can start producing more of our own energy. We’ve got so much natural gas. They say with one hand, ‘We’re for all of the above. We want all of our sources of energy.’ And they have departments like the EPA and even the Department of Justice suing over mallards that had oil on them after they had died. There’s a war on domestic energy production.”
Gohmert said the key to creating a contrast between the Republican presidential nominee and President Barack Obama is letting people affected by unemployment tell their stories.
“In the past, the Democrats have showed us the way,” he said. “You go to people who are suffering of this economy. They want to talk about a war on women. There’s nothing worse than creating an environment where businesses are shutting down, businesses being lost by those who are staying in operation. You have people being asked to take cut in pay, people being told they’re going to have to drop their health insurance and not provide that anymore.”
He continued, “When I read Obamacare, it was very clear to me well, if you can pay a $2,000 fine or pay for an insurance policy that may average $12,000, businesses are actually being pushed out of helping with health insurance. So you’ve got people that are finding themselves asking, ‘Hey, I thought Obamacare was going to make sure we had health insurance and now we’re without. We’re going to be without next year.’ Those things are a war on women, they’re a war on people who are just trying to live and this administration is being so destructive. So it’s just getting with the folks, letting their personal stories get out there.”
Instead, he said, Democrats are coming up with distractions, such as claiming the Janesville, Wisconsin plant did not close when Rep. Paul Ryan, in his address to the convention Wednesday night, said it did in April 2009.
“If they would really check the facts, they’d find there were people laid off in December from that plant,” Gohmert said. “They were producing SUVs. But you can find a newscast in April of 2009, saying well, they were still producing cars but as of this week they’re going to have to go ahead and cease production. It was April of 2009. They kept some other employees on. Talk to those employees that were let go in April of 2009. Those are ways you get the message out and, obviously, we’re fighting a mainstream media that is so in the tank for this president. It’s going to take work and we’re going to have to be serious about how we get the truth to Americans.
Turning to immigration, Gohmert said Republicans need to better explain the issue to constituents.
“All of us Republicans have not adequately explained, even though a lot of have talked a lot about it, because Americans don’t understand yet,” he said. “I hear farmers say, ‘Look, we’ve got have immigrant workers come in and harvest our crops or you won’t get fruit and vegetables like you want.’”
He continued, “Well, okay. First of all, we’ve got to secure the borders so we know who’s coming in but we want immigrants, we want immigration legally, we need immigration legally but the way you do that is, ‘Okay, farmers. We’re not going to keep subsidizing you by paying the healthcare for these immigrants coming in. You’re going to need an umbrella health insurance policy that covers all of the people you bring in here to do this work.’ Fine. Let’s give them a visa that for so many days to come in. But then they’ve got to cover them with health insurance.”
Gohmert said the GOP needs to let Hispanics know they are valued for their hard work ethic and their love of faith and family.
“Some people say, ‘Well, you Republicans are anti-Hispanic,’” he said.
“You know the truth is when you get down to the way so many of us feel, and this may be a gross generalization but it’s what I’ve seen in the Hispanic community, in general, they have a love of faith and God, a devotion to family and hard work ethic. That’s what made America great. I have great hope that the Hispanic community can lift us back to those three things that made us the greatest nation in the world. So I have great hope for that and we, obviously, need to communicate that better… how much they mean to us, but we need to make sure it’s legal.”
In discussing national security, Gohmert, reacting to news that Iran has reportedly doubled their centrifuge capabilities since May, said Obama’s strategy of issuing sanctions falls flat when China and Russia aren’t on the same page as the U.S.
Comparing this strategy to Obama’s Afghanistan approach, Gohmert said, “It’s actually parallel to what he’s done in Afghanistan. He apologized to the Afghans, so they kill more of our soldiers. In Iran, he tries to reach out, ‘Oh, we’ll do sanctions.’ How in the world do you do sanctions when Russia and China aren’t participating?”
“There is no such thing as sanctions when China and Russia are doing full business,” he continued. “And we’re giving exceptions. So that’s ridiculous. I was talking to one of the top leaders from Israel and they said, ‘You want the Iranians to stop spinning centrifuges, the U.S. has to have a credible threat to attack.’ As he said, Israel has a credible threat because people believe they will actually attack and they will.”
Obama needs to lay out a credible attack threat, Gohmert said.
“And it can’t be a bluff. The only way we’ll have a credible threat is if we really mean to attack and we should,” he said. “And, actually, when we get serious enough that we’re getting ready, we’re going in to take out everything they got and we may have to hit them with bunker busters more than once in order to take out certain facilities but we need to do whatever it takes.”
Gohmert went on to say, “We cannot let these terrorists have nuclear weapons. And one other thing, during the Carter administration, President Carter pushed the idea that we should never take out the government, the leaders of a government that are at war with us. That was inhumane. How much more inhumane is it to go to war with people that like you and kill thousands and thousands of people that actually, before you attacked them, like you?”
“It’s time for this debate,” he said. “If there are leaders at the top of a government that are at war with us and have said repeatedly they want to take us out, would we be better off to say, ‘Look, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, whoever, you’re entitled to whatever government you want. But when they kill Americans, they attack Americans, then we’re going to take out your government, we’re not going to nation build – we can’t afford it anymore – and you can put in whatever government you want.”
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