East Texas

BY PHILLIP WILLIAMS
Special Correspondent

GILMER — U.S. Rep. Louis Gohmert, at a Republican dinner in Gilmer on Saturday, said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s proposed health care plan is “scary stuff,” and assailed Obama’s proposal to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Gohmert, R-Tyler, addressed topics ranging from energy to the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor in addressing the Republican Party of Upshur County’s annual Texas Independence Day dinner. By the Tyler Morning Telegraph’s count, about 70 persons attended at the Yamboree Exhibit Building.

In a nearly 50-minute address, Gohmert said Obama’s message on health care is, “(Government officials) are going to start controlling your life if they get their way.”

The congressman charged that, under Obama’s plan, the government will decide “what kind of health care you get ... That’s scary stuff.”

Gohmert said taxpayers now pay more than $8,200 in state and federal money per U.S. household for government-financed health care, and he didn’t know how long that figure could continue increasing.

He said it appeared medical savings accounts were the way to restore the doctor-patient relationships inasmuch as “insurance is supposed to protect you from catastrophic events. That’s what it was originally for.”

He said he was willing for government to give the poor $3,000 for a deductible, and remove insurance companies from the picture to restore competition in health care.

“We can get control of health care again,” Gohmert asserted. “We gotta get government out of the thing that is about to break our government” — Medicare and Medicaid.

Gohmert added that the federal government should “only help those who cannot help themselves.”

Turning to the war in Iraq, the congressman said it “is really going better,” and that Obama’s plan for withdrawal would create “a vacuum in the Middle East ... We’ll be paying for decades to come.”

Concerning energy, Gohmert said he didn’t believe Congress must “arbitrarily impose” alternatives to gasoline by the laws it passes. He defended energy companies for investing in exploration.

He charged that Democrats are passing laws that raise energy prices, but blaming Republicans. That “makes no sense,” Gohmert said.

The representative also said he has asked Democrats why they want to run off union workers, as the U.S. is the only country that’s talking about raising corporate taxes instead of lowering it.

He said Ireland helped its economy by cutting such taxes to a “dirt cheap” level.

Gohmert said he was extremely concerned about the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, saying it would lower property tax revenues.

He said Shelby County officials told him it would lose 44,000 acres of now-taxable property to the corridor.

“You think the state is gonna reimburse you (for lost tax revenue)?” Gohmert asked. In addition, “We’d be turning over control of our Texas roads to a Spanish company (under the project),” Gohmert said.

On another issue, Gohmert faulted the economic stimulus plan recently approved by Congress and signed by President Bush. He said he didn’t like giving $40 billion in tax rebates to people who pay no taxes.

Gohmert defended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress recently allowed to expire.

“We’re probably losing 50 to 60 percent of our intelligence” since the law lapsed, he said. “It may be next year before we pay the consequences.”

While Bush wanted to renew that act, Gohmert said, the “White House was not as strong as it needed to be” on border security and immigration.