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“200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1282-H1289 on Feb. 12, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I appreciate so much the privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives on this 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
I've watched, of course, Lincoln's life and history from the perspective of actually a youth who was pointed out to me by my family back in those years. So I have always paid a lot of attention to Abraham Lincoln.
As our 16th President of the United States, the man who saved the Union--who did a lot of things--but a man who saved the Union, kept us from being forever divided. I played a little with the history and the question of that. What would have happened if the Civil War would have ended with a division rather than the unity of the United States of America?
All history that flows from that date--from the 1860s--of this country, would be changed. The history of any involvement that we might have had during the Spanish-American conflict; during World War II; as we heard, from Judge Poe; World War II; Korea; Vietnam, all of the wars, but also the geopolitics, the economy. We would not have become the preeminent economic power in the world if Abraham Lincoln hadn't come along and this Nation hadn't been blessed with him at the time it was.
His perseverance to save the Union has positioned this Nation to go forward to a level of destiny I believe unimagined by our Founding Fathers and unimagined by Abraham Lincoln himself.
One cannot say enough about what Abraham Lincoln did for this country or for the free world, Madam Speaker. But here we are today, on the 200th anniversary of his birth, celebrating these two centuries of prosperity that we've had, and I mean the prosperity of liberty, the prosperity of freedom, the prosperity of the Union holding together, and the constitutional point being preserved that this is an indissolvable Union of the States, of the several States and, today, of the 50 States, Madam Speaker.
I can't help but reflect that today is the day that it was planned by our current President of the United States, President Obama, to bring this huge spending stimulus package to the floor of the House of Representatives for what they anticipated and hoped would be a final passage vote of the conference report here in the House so that the bill may or may not have been handled by the Senate today, but so it had the chance to at least have been passed in this Chamber--this Chamber--where Abraham Lincoln served one term before he went back and went through some political bumps in the road and then became President of the United States.
And one can walk through those doors and down the hallway and stand on the brass plate, the very spot where Abraham Lincoln's desk was when he served this country in this United States House of Representatives, where we are today, Madam Speaker.
Abraham Lincoln, the man who saved the Union, the man who stood on constitutional principles, the man who abhorred slavery but still understood that the language in the Constitution allowed for it. The man who cleared the way so we could pass the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments. The man who made it possible that we could have constitutional protection for rights of all men, and later paved the way for the rights of all women. Abraham Lincoln, Madam Speaker.
Abraham Lincoln, his ghost is with us, his spirit is with us today. But this was the day that the man who's postured himself as a second Lincoln wanted to see this massive stimulus plan come to this floor for a final passage.
It's not going to happen today, Madam Speaker. And I'm grateful it's not going to happen today because for me to hold back my tears thinking about what that says about the memory of Abraham Lincoln, to move an agenda that is a massive, irresponsible spending agenda to the floor of the House as a way of commemorating and connecting the 44th President of the United States, who is from Illinois, with the 16th President of the United States, who was a conservative from Illinois who stood for these constitutional principles. I can't think how they can be any further apart from a monetary perspective, Abraham Lincoln and President Obama, than what we see here today.
Abraham Lincoln was a conservative, Madam Speaker. Abraham Lincoln was a constitutionalist. Abraham Lincoln was on a strong national defense. Abraham Lincoln believed a series of things that I think this Chamber needs to hear about. And they don't fit very well with the legislation that has been pushed out of the White House today, or with the legislation that has been pushed from the Speaker's office.
And so, Madam Speaker, Lincoln--Lincoln, the conservative; Lincoln, the objective person who believed in personal responsibility; Lincoln, the man who was credited with saying, You can't help the poor by punishing the rich, You can't help the weak by weakening the strong; the whole series of those other statements made by President Lincoln--
and here we are with this massive spending bill, this $838 billion spending bill. And when you add the interest on it, it has been back down now to something like $791 billion in the negotiations. And you add the interest on it and you come to $1.138 trillion sitting today in a conference report that is being printed, we think, with the idea that America's economy will be stimulated if we just spend enough money.
John Maynard Keynes wasn't born in time to influence Abraham Lincoln's philosophy. If he had been, I do not think he would have found favor with Abraham Lincoln or the cabinet. But Keynes was a contemporary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Keynes did advocate that spending money stimulated the economy. Just by the virtue of spending the money, it stimulated the economy.
And so the simplest way to describe that would be--first, I need to tie this together. That President Obama has often articulated his belief that spending money stimulates the economy. He has said that--
and the language is, ``Stimulus is spending,'' if we remember his angry speech the other day. ``Stimulus is spending.''
And so he's advocated this spending as if it doesn't matter where it goes, it just matters the size of it. And as I've listened to him speak, my disagreement is I don't believe the New Deal worked. His argument is that if FDR would have just not lost his nerve, if FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, father of the New Deal, which has directly reflected the policies promoted by John Maynard Keynes, if FDR had just spent enough money, the New Deal would have gotten us out of the Depression. Well, Madam Speaker, it didn't get us out of the Depression.
And the President, the current President, President Obama, has said that we are going to grow this economy by spending. Stimulus is spending. And indexing it into this belief of Keynes. Here's what Keynes said. ``When it comes to public works, the more wasteful, the better.'' Because if you waste a lot of money spending it on public works, at least you're not competing directly with the private sector and taking away the things they might be doing that actually stimulate the economy. That private sector is generally the productive sector of the economy, Madam Speaker.
And, Keynes went on. Now, remember, this is at the basis, the foundation for FDR's New Deal, which is the basis for Barack Obama's new ``new deal,'' this uber new deal that hangs out above us today, that seems to have been at least temporarily suspended by the image of Abraham Lincoln and maybe the conscience of Abraham Lincoln, holding this thing back, maybe for another day, maybe longer.
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Here is what Keynes said: If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez fair to dig the notes up again, there need be no more unemployment.
Keynes said if we would just print a lot of Federal money and put it in bottles and go to the coal mine and bury it in the ground, and then dump the coal mine full of garbage and step back and watch the flurry of activity, that we would solve unemployment. That seems to be the approach that is brought today. It brings to mind for me the movie that the Beatles published some years ago, Magic Christian. If you remember the scene in Magic Christian where there was all kinds of garbage and refuse and just revolting material dumped into this swimming pool along with a lot of money, and there you had greedy people diving into the swimming pool and fighting each other for the money to get their hands on it. The same image: Keynes, the Beatles, Magic Christian; Keynes, FDR, Barack Obama. Their economic policy is the same. Nancy Pelosi's economic policy, the same.
We are here today doing all we can to hold back this disaster that is intergenerational theft of hundreds of billions of dollars cumulating into multiple trillions of dollars that are debt that we will not pay in our lifetime but will be debt that is passed along to our children and grandchildren. And if we saddle this economy, they may not be able to pay it in their lifetime, even if they come to the senses that we can't seem to get in a majority on the floor of this House.
I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Missouri. I am looking forward to the input that he would have on this economic issue, Mr. Akin, such time as he may consume.
Mr. AKIN. I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate your comments. And I think that, as we have been trying to discover more and more what is in the bill; now, it is a secret what is in the bill, in spite of the discussions about transparency and the chance that people will have a 48-hour window to actually read what is in the bill. Yet, the bill we still have not seen it. There have been people out saying, well, here is the deal we cut. But in terms of transparency and 48 hours, that of course was just campaign rhetoric, apparently.
But what it seems like, as we look more and more at this thing, is that this is really a form of financial infanticide, because what we are going to be doing is burdening not only our children but our grandchildren.
But I would like to back up just a minute on the gentleman from Iowa, a man that has been a small business owner, a great Congressman, and a great commonsense guy, and I want to just sort of back up because there is two theories about how to treat the situation. And I think it is important that we state that, as a Republican, and I believe you as a Republican gentleman, believe that this is a serious situation that we are facing.
At a town hall meeting, a little girl stood up and she said, ``My daddy just lost his job from 40 hours to 24 hours. Is there anything in this bill that is going to help my daddy?'' And the answer to that question is, ``no.'' And that is exactly the reason why we have to vote
``no,'' because it doesn't solve the problem.
Now, there are two theories about how you approach the situation that our economy faces right now. And one of them, this word Keynesian, which is some old musty historical guy, some Lord Keynes from England, I suppose, and he had a theory that was convenient for government people; and that was, the more government money you spend, the better off you are. And the guy who really tried that theory, worked for FDR. He was Secretary of the Treasury. His name was Henry Morgenthau.
Henry Morgenthau went out and, boy, did he spend money. And he did just exactly what the Democrats are doing he said that they want to do, and that is to build schools and to do all of these different public works projects. And at the end of 8 years, he appeared before the Ways and Means Committee. Now, this guy was doing Keynesian economics before Keynes even made it popular.
At the end of 8 years he appears in the Congress here before the Ways and Means Committee and he says, ``It did not work.'' He said, ``We have spent money and spent money for 8 years, and I am telling you, it does not work. The unemployment is just as bad now as it was 8 years ago, and, to boot, we have a tremendous debt.'' Now, that was our first experiment with the idea that you just go out and spend tons of money and everything is going to be okay.
Now, I don't know too many households in America, Congressman King, that have such a lack of common sense that when their family budget gets in trouble, that they go buy a brand-new car, take out a second loan on their house, buy a motorboat, and just go spend money to make it better. There are not too many people that have that little common sense. And yet, right here in Washington, D.C., we seem to have all of them that doesn't have any common sense ready to jump on this idea that just spending a whole lot of money is going to make the problem better.
Now, we haven't even talked about what we are spending the money on yet. The theory is that we are going to do stimulative things, such as building roads and bridges and stuff, which in fact most of this bill has nothing to do with that at all, just expanding entitlements. I really don't understand how millions and millions of dollars spent on sexually transmitted disease education is really going to put people to work.
But aside from that, I just wanted to mention one other thing, and that is something that is a problem of scale. Sometimes numbers get so many zeroes behind them that people get a little batty and don't realize what they are talking about. So let's try and put this $800 billion into perspective. And it is not $800 billion; it is going to be more than $1 trillion, because what this does is it commits us to all kinds of additional spending which it is not going to stay anywhere near. But let's just say we talk about $800 billion. What does that mean?
Well, one of the things we have heard for the last 7 years is all of the money that we have wasted on the war in Iraq and how much money the war in Afghanistan has cost us. So let's start, first of all, go back to the beginning of the war in Afghanistan 7 years ago, the beginning of the war in Iraq 6 years ago, let's add it all up. Add all of those two wars up from the beginning of when they started, and it is less than what is in this bill. So that 800-some billion dollars, that is a pretty fair amount of money.
Let's put it in other terms. Let's picture, we now currently have 11 aircraft carriers in the military. Those are considered the most valuable assets, other than just the American cities that we have. We really try to protect our 11 aircraft carriers. How many aircraft carriers could we build for $800 billion? Well, if we got them at the old price, about 250. Can you picture 250 aircraft carriers end to end? But let's say we get the newest, most fancy brand-new aircraft carriers. Still, even with no discount for buying a large number, we are talking 100 aircraft carriers. The debt service in one year on this
$800 billion would buy us 9 aircraft carriers.
And so what are we going to do? We are talking about protecting mice in the Speaker's district, and we are talking about all of these things that have nothing to do other than just spending a whole lot of government money.
So, first of all, the question is: Does spending a lot of money do any good? And the answer is: Historically, the Japanese tried it and it didn't work for them, either, any better than it did for FDR. They turned a recession into a depression using this theory.
And so what the common sense is, the Federal Government has got to stop spending so much money. That isn't too complicated. People are saying Republicans don't have an answer. We have got an answer: Don't spend all this money. What part of ``don't spend money'' don't you understand? It seems so simple. Everybody else in America can figure it out. Why can't we figure it out?
We don't want to spend a lot of money. What we want to do is we want to let the capital, the money, remain with the people that actually create the jobs. Don't we?
And I see that you have got a number of other really qualified people to join you on this hour. I just thank you for taking the time to try to get the truth out on a bill that is still smoke and mirrors.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, and thanking the gentleman from Missouri for his many hours here and for his many hours in front and behind the scenes standing up for our American values. It triggers in my memory how much money an aircraft carrier can be built for.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that if you add up the commitments that the United States has made within the last year in economic stimulus plan in one kind or another, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including the rebate check, including the $700 billion bailout, the risk in Fannie and Freddie and these bailouts, it comes to $9.7 trillion. That is with a ``T.'' And if we applied the $9.7 trillion to the home mortgages in America, it would pay off 90 percent of the home mortgages in America. That is how much money is at risk here, taxpayers' money, the people's money in this country, Madam Speaker.
I would be so happy to yield so much time as she might want to utilize to the gentlelady from Minnesota, Mrs. Bachmann.
Mrs. BACHMANN. And I want to thank the stunning representative from Iowa, Mr. King, who is putting this effort together for this hour. There are many of my colleagues who are here, and many more who want to join and add their words to the wonderful repertoire we are having this evening.
As Mr. King had mentioned, it is absolutely true; as we look at the risk that we put the American taxpayer at, we are looking at essentially $9.7 trillion of potential risk.
One fact you mentioned, that potentially 90 percent of all home mortgages could be completely paid off with that amount of money. Here is another fact. You could take that $9.7 trillion that the American taxpayer is on the hook for, and you could write a check today to every man, woman, and child in the world for $1,430. That is how much money we are on the hook for.
And the reason why I wanted to have the opportunity to stand up right now; my husband and I have been married 30 years, we have 5 biological kids, and we have been blessed to have 23 foster kids. I can't look my 22-year-old in the eye and say to him, ``Harrison, this stimulus is good for you and good for your generation.'' Why? Because I know for a fact that just the Social Security burden alone, the unfunded net liability that the next generation will owe just on Social Security will equal 25 percent of their income when they come into their prime earning years. That is before this level of spending.
We are looking at $1 trillion in spending. $1 trillion just in stimulus spending is equal to the entire amount of money that we have in currency, in the currency today, in the United States. This is an enormous amount of money. And that doesn't include the $2 trillion that the Federal Reserve has also just been in the process of promising this week. We had a $3 trillion day here in Washington, D.C. just a couple of days ago.
But the great news is that we do have an answer to these economic doldrums. Republicans don't disagree that there is a problem. There is a tremendous problem. But we also know the solution.
How do we know? Well, there is a Harvard long-term study that was completed in 2002, and it said very simply this, ``After studying 18 economies, we know what the answer is to increasing economic competitiveness. It is this: Governments need to cut government wages and they need to cut transfer payments, which are welfare payments.'' How do you characterize a downturned economy? Very simply: Increase taxes.
We know what the solution is. Imagine if last year, under the Democrat controlled Congress and under President Bush, had we chosen to reject $1 trillion in new spending, and instead had we put in place permanent tax cuts in the capital gains tax, zeroing that out, cutting the corporate tax rate down to 9 percent, cutting marginal tax rates for every American, our problem this year would be finding enough workers to fill the jobs.
There is a reason why we aren't seeing an investment in the United States; it is because we are currently the second highest tax rate, corporate tax rate, in the world. We can change that very quickly. And now when the rest of the globe is in economic doldrums, wouldn't it be a pleasure to have the United States be the best climate for investment? We can do that.
That is what the Republican plan aims to do. That is what all of us are down here tonight to offer that positive solution to the American people.
We are going to hear a lot about how bad this bill is. In fact, we know it is bad, because Senator Judd Gregg just announced that he is withdrawing his name for consideration as Commerce Secretary under President Obama for two reasons: One being that the stimulus package is so bad he can't be associated with it; and, number two, he is so outraged that the current Obama White House has taken the Census out of the Commerce Department, where it has historically been, and pulled it into the White House for what we believe are obvious political reasons that he has said, ``I can't abide by this. I am gone.''
That is why we are here tonight. That is why I commend you, Representative King, for holding this forum, because we know we have solutions that work. And, after all, the American people deserve no less. And I thank you.
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Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota for the quick mind that she has and the background that she has not only as a tax attorney, but also as a mother and a foster parent. She is someone who has also plied the trade and understands taxes and the incentives that are involved. She has been involved in the private sector for many years starting and operating businesses successfully. All of this background gets threaded into the judgment that comes here. And that was how it was envisioned, that we would bring our skills from our private life to this Congress and work together.
The stimulus package, I might add, Madam Speaker, is not one of those. It didn't benefit from one side of the aisle here. It didn't have the bipartisan negotiations. It didn't really reflect the free market attitudes of the Republicans. It only reflects the grow government, grow entitlement and grow the dependency philosophy of Democrats. And part of me says, well, if it is going to be one or the other, then let the people decide. And if they can't decide for allowing for a legitimate debate and amendment process here on the floor of the House, then perhaps they will decide in the next election, Madam Speaker. And that is what this is about is making this case. I'm very well aware of the inertia that is there. But I still say, maybe, maybe the image of Abraham Lincoln is holding this disastrous stimulus plan back. Maybe America will come to pass and actually people will wake up tomorrow morning having had an epiphany and come to their senses that spending money for the sake of spending money is the equivalent, as Keynes said, of digging a hole and burying it. And the President said we're not just digging a hole and filling it back up. But yes, we are. We are with about $2 out of every $3 in the stimulus plan.
I recognize some Members here on the floor. Since I have spoken to the Illinois issue, I have been looking forward to hearing from a son of Illinois, since this is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, the gentleman with all of the vigor that Illinois could muster on any given day, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo) for so much time as he may consume.
Mr. MANZULLO. The Republicans have been offering an alternative to this $800 billion stimulus. The Republican plan includes, among other things, decreasing the lowest two income tax brackets by 5 percent, which results in a $3,300 income tax cut for married couples, money that you can use for any purpose that you want. And it includes a 20 percent tax deduction for small business income and a home buyers tax credit of $7,500. A real stimulus means that the country needs to be able to present something to the American people and say, look, here is what you can do in order to restart the lines of production to get the economy going again.
Mostly what we see is a trickle-down economy. And people from the other side of the aisle don't like me to mention it because that was associated with Reagan. But the trickle-down stimulus means you pour money in from the top, and you use it as a bandage in hoping that sometime the economy will recover and people will start buying again. It doesn't work that way.
Let me give you an example of a trickle-up economy, an economic stimulus, that is so simple. Two years ago, this Nation sold 17 million new cars. Then that dropped to 10 million new automobiles. And at an average price of $25,000 per vehicle, that means that there was $175 billion in direct sales of motor vehicles that simply vanished. If you take that by any economic factor, three or seven, whatever it is, that is $1 trillion that was deleted from our economy. And that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people not only directly involved in manufacturing automobiles becoming unemployed, but the OEMs and the people on supply lines, and in fact people such as Ron Bullard, who has a place called Bison Gear in St. Charles, Illinois, just over the congressional line from the district that I'm pleased to represent. And Ron Bullard makes electrical motors. And a couple of years ago, he put in two lines of equipment, Hoss equipment, proudly made in America. And with those two lines, he is going head to head with the Chinese and the Mexicans making a better and cheaper electric motor and serviced locally. And many of those motors go into the manufacturing process. And so when we look at the impact of the loss of orders in the manufacturing cycle, we can't even begin to realize how big this is.
Take this example: If we gave a $5,000 voucher to every person who wants to buy a brand new automobile, and we brought automobiles up to the 15 million sold as opposed to the 17 million that were sold, the total cost to the taxpayer is $75 billion. Well, that is a lot of money. It is 15 times 25, 15 times $5,000 for the voucher. So somebody could go into a Chrysler dealer, for example, and buy a brand new Jeep Patriot proudly made in the 16th Congressional District, which I serve, and instead of paying $20,000 for it, you pay $15,000, a little under
$300 for 5 years.
There are enough people working in America today that would love to buy a brand new automobile at 20 to 25 to 15 percent off. It is a quick turn-around. You exchange the VIN numbers on the cars for a $5,000 check coming directly from Treasury to the automobile dealer. And what does that do? It gets rid of the cars that are on the floors of the automobile dealers. It gets rid of the cars that are sitting on the lots of the manufacturers. People go back to work making more automobiles. People come off unemployment compensation and start paying income tax. And when people start buying automobiles, State and local sales tax coffers start up again. OEMs put their people back to work.
We need to restart the entire supply chain of manufacturing in America for us to have the opportunity to come out of this economic doldrums, or whatever word we want to find for this recession. That is trickle-up economics. The voucher goes directly for the intended purpose. People go back to work. The economy gets restarted. This is what we need as part of the Republican stimulus. This is what America needs.
What is the cost to restart manufacturing to sell 15 million cars in America? Seventy-five billion dollars. That is a lot of money, but it is a long, long way from the $800 billion in spending, very little of which is related to stimulating the economy.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Illinois and appreciate listening to him.
I have listened also to the President of the United States. And one of the pieces of this recovery package as he describes it and in the stimulus package as some others describe it and the ``porkulous'' package as others describe it, is that there would be no earmarks. I remember the Presidential campaign. I remember John McCain and Barack Obama both taking the pledge that there would be no earmarks in their administration.
And I want to point out that President Obama made the point specifically about this recovery package that there would be no earmarks. And he said, ``we will ban all earmarks in the recovery package.'' I'm quoting the President of the United States. ``And I describe earmarks as the process by which individual Members insert pet projects without review. So what I'm saying is, we're not having earmarks in the recovery package, period.'' That is the clear statement the President of the United States recently made within the context of this recovery package.
And so, Madam Speaker, I brought along this little poster to illustrate how a deal doesn't long stay a deal. We've already heard that we were going to have a bill up for 48 hours for public scrutiny before it would come to the floor for a vote. That looks like that is a thing of the past. Remember the language, ``individual Members will not be inserting pet projects without review. So what I'm saying is, we're not having earmarks in the recovery package, period,'' Barack Obama.
Well, Madam Speaker, here we have a pet, a mouse, a pet project, a pet project of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. This little mouse here, a desert mouse, I don't know what he is, a sand mouse, it is a mouse that Nancy Pelosi has been seeking to create habitat for for some time. It is her pet project, this pet mouse.
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Would the gentleman yield? It is a salt marsh mouse, a salt marsh mouse from San Francisco.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman. Hopefully I didn't offend the mouse. He is a salt marsh mouse, a salt marsh mouse from California, and conservatives are more numerous, I recognize. However, this $30 million is an earmark in the stimulus plan, in the recovery plan. It is a direct violation of the mark laid down by the President of the United States that there wouldn't be any special projects set up by individual Members, period. No earmarks. Well, here is $30 million for the salt marsh water mouse of California. This mouse, who has not affected my life in any way whatsoever, but will affect yours soon, because we will be paying taxes, interest and debt on this $30 million mouse.
Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. KING of Iowa. I would yield.
Ms. FOXX. I think specifically the money is for those mice in San Francisco, California, not just California, but specifically San Francisco, California.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady. I would hope they would not be San Franciscan monk mice. But I appreciate they are salt marsh mice with San Francisco leanings.
And I might say also if you take a look at this mouse real closely, there has got to be an earmark right there in that mouse. The salt marsh mouse with San Francisco leanings, not a monk mouse, has an earmark in him. And it is a $30 million notch punched in there that is identified by the Speaker of the House, who has taken positions against earmarks, but has not apparently sworn off them for herself. And so this is just one piece.
This is $30 million out of what is over $1 trillion stimulus package, a porkulous package. This is just a symbol of what we're up against. And by the way, nobody has seen the draft of this bill yet. We only see the reports on the discussions that leak out of the rooms where it is being drafted. It is not going to be hanging up on the Web for 48 hours. It is not going to have the scrutiny of the public. It is simply going to be a bill that is written in the dark and rushed to the floor under a rule that doesn't allow open discussion beyond a limited amount of debate on the rules and a limited amount of debate on the conference report.
So, since we have had a good look at this salt marsh mouse, and we have had a good look at his earmark, I think it is important to go to someone from California who knows a little bit about conservatives in California who I think hopefully are not an endangered species like the salt marsh mouse, the gentleman, Mr. McClintock, from California.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding. Being from California, I do have to note how frustrating it is to see the same folly that has brought California to the brink of insolvency now being practiced here in the seat of our national government. After all, there are still 49 other States that Californians can move to if the left succeeds in bankrupting California. If they succeed in bankrupting America, I wonder where we will all move.
We've had a lot of fun tonight with the salt marsh mouse. He is about to be a very wealthy mouse. I think it is also important for us to note that this Congress is on the eve of a momentous decision, a decision that is going to follow us and follow our children many, many years into the future.
I particularly want to compliment the gentleman from Iowa for taking to the floor tonight on the eve of this vote to try again to sound the alarm to our fellow Americans of what is at stake. And I again want to urge the majority to consider very carefully the damage that they are doing to our Nation's economy by passing this unprecedented spending bill. There is still time, fleeting time, to heed the warnings from economists across the Nation that this bill will do long-term damage to the growth of our Nation's economy for many years to come. This is not mere economic theory, Madam Speaker. It is the consistent effect every time and everywhere that a government has tried to spend its way to prosperity.
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Tonight history is shouting its warnings at us. Never has a nation spent its way to prosperity, and many nations have spent their way to ruin and to collapse. If government bailouts and handouts and loan guarantees actually worked, we should today be enjoying a period of unprecedented economic expansion. After all, we began down this road more than a year ago with the failed Bush stimulus plan, and now we have squandered or placed at risk some $9.7 trillion; as the gentleman said earlier, enough to buy up 90 percent of all the mortgages in America, not 90 percent of the bad mortgages, 90 percent of all the mortgages.
Another way to look at that, as an economist pointed out recently, is that that figure vastly exceeds the modern-day inflation adjusted cost of the Space Race, the Vietnam War, the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, and the New Deal combined. The problem is, this policy doesn't work.
Now, we've been told from a residence about a mile from here, not to,
``come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.''
And yet, Madam Speaker, that is exactly what this administration and this Congress are now doing. This is exactly the same policy that the Bush administration pursued for more than a year, to no avail, and we're hearing the same tired rhetoric to justify it. Different singer, same tired old song.
At best, the proponents of this policy are trading a fleeting economic surge for a sustained, chronic and long-term reduction in economic growth. And there's a simple reason for that.
The $800 billion that they have to borrow just to finance this single bill, let alone all of the other trillions of dollars that they have either spent or placed at risk, that $800 billion they have to borrow for this plan comes from exactly the same capital pool that would otherwise have been available to loan to employers seeking to add jobs, or home buyers seeking to buy homes, or to consumers seeking to buy consumer goods. They're literally taking $800 billion from loans that could have been made to expand the economy, and shifting them to loans that are going merely to expand government. And that $800 billion, plus interest, will have to be repaid from the future earnings of American families, directly sapping the future economic growth of our Nation.
On average, this single measure will reduce the disposable income of every taxpaying family by more than $7,000. Now, instead of reducing their disposable income by $7,000, maybe we ought to consider increasing their disposable income by reducing their tax burdens now. That's what the Republican alternative proposes, a plan that economists tell us will produce twice the jobs as the President's plan, at half the cost.
And to those who doubt that, listen to the President's own numbers. He's repeatedly promised that the $800 billion in this bill will create or save as many as 4 million jobs. That comes to $200,000 per job. We could literally save half of what he has proposed spending if we were to send $100,000 checks to each of those 4 million lucky families. That's by the President's own numbers.
Now, nobody here suggests the government should do nothing in the face of this terrible recession. But this plan is actually worse than doing nothing, because it robs us of our economic future.
Madam Speaker, perhaps we need to add the Hippocratic Oath to the oaths of office for the President and the Congress. First do no harm.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from California. And picking up on the point that you've made so succinctly, the projection, as reported this morning, is that this ``porkulus'' plan will create or save 3,675,000 thousand jobs. And the formula is that, this is a rule of thumb formula that's also used by the Federal Reserve, that if you spend enough money to increase the Gross Domestic Product by 1 percent, that equates into roughly 1 million new jobs. So if you increase it by 3.675 percent, by spending money, whether you dig a hole and bury it in the coal mine, as we talked earlier, wherever it goes, that's the rule of thumb.
And I'd point out also that the President has taken this position that it's create or save. Well, anything can save a job. Doing nothing would save jobs. And this formula that's only indexed back to a loose idea that investing, spending money, just spending money creates jobs, that's all it is. It's just that formula, that rule of thumb.
And looking at the order of arrival on the floor, I think it might be appropriate to hear a little from Texas before we go back to the other coast. And I'd appreciate it if the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), my good friend, would illuminate us with some of his wisdom.
Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Iowa for yielding.
This is a deeply troubling time. And all of us know people who have lost their jobs and people who are endangered.
I got the message just earlier that Lone Star Steel shares a lot of employees in my district and Ralph Hall's districts, that, as I understand it, they were holding out, hoping that there would be true stimulus would be coming so that they could keep people working. But they've apparently indicated today they're letting 1,200 people go, suspending their employment.
It appears, we've been hearing over and over from the Democratic leadership, and even from the President, people are losing jobs every day. And if this stimulus, so-called stimulus package, ``spendulous'' package, if it were really providing hope, then people wouldn't have been losing their jobs for the last year. They just wouldn't. People would have held on and said, the hope, the change, the help is coming that's going to help us keep providing jobs and open up new jobs and save these jobs. But they're getting it. And every day, people are being laid off because everything they've heard about the ultimate spending package is not providing hope.
There's no hope. There's no change in this bill. It's a massive spending bill. And much of it, we'd heard before, is going to be spent in the next, well, 2 years or more from now. So that's very disconcerting.
We were told that the reason that we had to have someone who had cheated on his taxes be made the Treasury Secretary was because he had worked hand in hand with Secretary Paulson. Well, to me, that was a good reason not to confirm him, that he had worked with Secretary Paulson. Good grief. That did no good as far as we can tell.
And then he announced his plan yesterday, and he was so stirring and so uplifting, the market immediately fell nearly 400 points.
But I did a town hall meeting, and I guess that was Tuesday maybe he announced that. But I did a telephone meeting with some people, and a lady from my district, Ms. Maxwell, has just retired from the IRS. And she said there are lots of IRS agents who are outraged, but they work for the IRS still and they don't want to lose their job so they're not going to say anything.
But the fact is, she said, when you work for the IRS, if you make a mistake on your income tax, you're gone. She said that she had gotten
$600, she'd won $600 at a casino in Shreveport, and she forgot to report it by the end of the year. And they were going to fire her because she forgot to list it. Immediately, when she remembered, she amended the return right after she'd filed it. But the thing that saved her was she had overpaid her taxes, so she didn't owe money that had to be paid back, that she overpaid. And she said, so her supervisor went to battle for her, and she just barely was able to keep her job, and then just recently retired.
Every IRS agent is expected to make no mistakes on their, and especially intentional, like Geithner signed that form saying, I certify I will pay all the taxes if you just give me the money. And he didn't do it. And now he's in charge.
The market doesn't have confidence in him. It keeps going down the more he talks. He was not indispensable as we were told by this administration. As my former pastor used to say, the cemetery is full of indispensable people. We needed somebody who was a leader, not somebody that cheated or was completely negligent on his taxes. And so we're not getting the leadership we need.
But people, in the meantime, are hurting. We have proposals that would stimulate the economy, and it galls me to no end to see this kind of throwing money at the problem, and not trusting the American people, the real power behind this country, to do what will be necessary to save the country.
And, in fact, what we have here is an atmosphere of arrogance in Washington that says you can't trust the American people. We don't want them to have their own tax dollars back because they might not spend it the way we want them to. And that's why Senator Kerry said here, ``But a tax cut is non-targeted. You put a tax cut into the hands of either a business or an individual today, there is no guarantee they are going to invest their money. There is no guarantee they are going to invest their money in the United States. They are free to invest anywhere they want, they choose to invest it.'' That was just a few days ago by Senator Kerry.
The bottom line is, they don't trust the American people to use their own money. A tax holiday for two or 3 months with people getting their own money back, let them save the economy. They can do it.
This plan is a disaster, and it's not fair to the American people.
I appreciate my friend yielding.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time and thanking the gentleman from Texas.
I'd like to briefly recognize the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) before I go to California for an insert here of a piece of knowledge I think we need.
Mrs. BACHMANN. Thank you, Representative King.
Just listening to this very important discussion among all of our colleagues, it just struck me that it seems very telling to me that President Obama, who has strong majorities in both the House and the Senate, seems to be pointing as his nemesis in this very historic debate to radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as being the nemesis in this debate of this wasteful historic level of spending. And so I just wonder if it's a coincidence that now we have Democrat Senators who are calling for Congress to reinstate the fairness doctrine, to now silence these voices.
I think the American people need to pay attention to what happens when we challenge this current Democrat majority, because now we're hearing United States Senators calling to silence the very voices that have tried to sound the alarm so the American people can know what's happening here in this Congress.
And I yield back.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, we would soon have Al Franken's version of fair and balanced. And before we go to the salt marsh mouse expert of California, I just want to point out that President Obama said that there would be no pet projects, and no earmarks. But we have this pet project of the pet of the Speaker of the House, this San Francisco $30 million winner of this stimulus plan, even though it violates all the rules that have been laid out here, except maybe he will be on display for 48 hours before he comes to final passage.
Gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren) for so much time as he may consume.
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I thank the gentleman from Iowa.
Let me make several points. First of all, as we look at this stimulus package, the American people are asking us what's in it. It's difficult for us to tell because we haven't seen it. But we do know it's premised on the proposition that if excessive bad spending got us into this problem, excessive bad spending is going to get us out. And I would just suggest this to the gentleman from Iowa.
Did not we learn our lesson from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
There were a small number of us on the floor just a couple of years ago who tried to apply the brakes to a runaway situation. But we were overwhelmed by the sentiment that, you know, the taxpayers can pay and pay and pay, or stand behind and stand behind or go into debt interminably. We can promise more than we can perform. We can do it for all good intentions, and it will never, the day will never come when we have to actually deal with the consequences. That should be an object lesson for us now. How long ago was that? That's just a couple of years ago. And yet, here we are now dealing with that same situation.
The second point I would make is this: As we understand in this plan, they have put the Davis-Bacon provisions in, with respect to the stimulus infrastructure projects. Let me just say this: That cuts down on the number of jobs that will be created. Don't worry about a fight with the unions. That's not the point. The point is, when you impose those stringent standards on the States and localities for their infrastructure projects, you will have fewer jobs created.
{time} 1745
The third point I would like to make is this: How are we going to pay for it? We're going to pay for it out of public debt. We're going to have this nearly $800 billion stimulus. In another 2 weeks, we're going to be on this floor, and we're going to be talking about a $410 billion omnibus spending bill, followed by an additional $100 billion supplemental.
How are we going to pay for that?
We're going to have to go to the market. We will, in fact, have to go to the market. The Bureau of the Public Debt will attempt to borrow
$2.1 trillion in a single year. This is 4 times the amount of debt we have ever tried to put on the market in a single year. You don't think this is going to have consequences? It is.
I am the proud father of three. I have three grandchildren. I have two step-grandchildren. My youngest grandchild is 1 year of age. What we do tomorrow will affect him far more than it will affect me or any of my constituents of an older age, because he is going to have to pay. When we say, ``you don't have to worry about that,'' just think back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It not only helped destroy the housing industry, but it had a corrupting influence on the banking industry, and it has cascaded into the entire economy. Maybe we ought to think about that before we vote tomorrow.
I thank the gentleman.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from California.
I happen to remember that debate. The last one I heard on Fannie and Freddie was an amendment offered by Congressman Leach on October 26, 2005 right here, and it was the chairman of the Financial Services Committee today who came down and who most vigorously opposed requiring the capitalization and regulation of Fannie and Freddie, and they're beginning to clean up that which is now a $5.5 trillion contingent liability for the taxpayers of America.
I would like to turn to Ohio. I recognize our time is a little short, but we will grant however much latitude the gentleman from Ohio might like to have.
Mr. Latta.
Mr. LATTA. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I would really like to follow up a little bit on what the gentleman from California just said.
I come from a State and from a district that has heavy manufacturing, and we're hurting out there, and there is no question about it in my district in the State of Ohio. America is hurting. You know, the stimulus package has been talked about. We're not talking about a package that is going to help America. This has turned not into a jobs bill but into a spending bill.
If I could just follow up a little bit, I was on a tele-town hall last night with my constituents. The big question those people had was: What's in this for me? How is it going to help me? I couldn't tell them. I couldn't tell these folks how this package was going to help them. Just today, they asked: What happened to that $700 billion that we just had in that financial bailout? It's gone.
As the gentleman from California said: What's going to happen right now?
Well, we're going to raise the national debt ceiling that we have here for Federal debt to over $11.1 trillion. It just went up last fall to $10.3 trillion. He is absolutely right. Where is this money going to come from? Well, we're going to go out, and we're going to have to get our tin cans out and ask for it from our foreign creditors out there, who already own $3 trillion of our debt today. The Chinese own $682 billion. We're going to have to say: Can you bail us out? Those people are saying: Wait a minute. We've got our own problems in our own country right now.
As the gentleman so rightly pointed out, when that day comes as to when these countries say, ``we're not going to bail you out,'' we're going to have to raise the rate that we're going to get for that interest. As had been pointed out a little bit earlier, what is going to happen is that our credit markets are going to dry up.
Today, I had 14 local bankers in town. These folks are worried. They're worried about what happens when it's a tight market right now and they're trying to get out there. They want to get out there and lend and make sure that people can run their businesses and that people can buy houses. Yet the problem we're going to have is that the Federal Government is going to take that money, and there is going to be a huge sucking sound around this country of the dollars coming into the Federal Government as it's using that money to borrow. We can't have that happen because, when that does, we're going to be in the same situation that we were in years ago until we can get those markets back and can let them borrow and start again.
So I just want to sum up. I know there is another speaker here.
The American people are rightly concerned. The people of the Fifth Congressional District are rightly concerned as to what this bill is going to do, not for them but to them. So I thank the gentleman for sponsoring and for yielding. Thank you very much.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Ohio, and I thank all the folks who have come down here to lend some wisdom.
Recognizing we have about 2 minutes left, unless he should run out of material, I will be happy to yield the balance of time, or so much time as he might consume, to the gentleman from Louisiana.
Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding.
This is a very critical debate. It is a debate on the most important issue facing our country. We are talking now about the single largest spending bill in the history of our country being rammed through with very little debate. There are closed-door, backroom deals being cut right now on the actual final product that we're going to vote on today. None of us here can even see it. We were told this was going to be the most transparent administration. The American people can't even go online right now and see it. They can't even get a copy faxed to them because there is no copy available. It's being debated behind closed doors and with no public input, and we're starting to hear about some things that may be in it. I think it concerns a lot of people as they have already seen some things that are in this bill that are very concerning.
We are hearing that there are going to be billions of dollars for a railroad between California and Las Vegas. I don't know about you, my good friend from Iowa, but we used to hear that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I guess now what happens in Vegas is going to affect every taxpayer in this country. Billions of dollars on that one item.
There is language that we're hearing is going to be in this bill that will undermine the welfare reforms that were made in the 1990s, welfare reforms that have been dramatically successful in helping people get off of welfare and get off of that government dependence and finally get jobs--good, healthy jobs, good-paying jobs, good careers. For those single women who are out there who are, maybe, single mothers who are finally getting a good career opportunity, that is being taken away from them with the undermining of this welfare reform that is in this language.
The health care czar, this is something that we have never even heard about before. Now we're finding out there is language that is going to create some kind of health care czar that will basically be able to ration health care.
So there are some major changes in here that do not stimulate the economy at all, that do not create any jobs but that make some very dramatic policy changes that will affect adversely many, many millions of people across this country and that will hurt our economy even worse at a time when we need to be turning it around. We have presented good alternatives to try to get our economy back on track which would create jobs in the middle class for those small businesses.
I just want to read one final word before we leave, because all of this massive spending is creating tremendous debt. Just look at what FDR's Treasury Secretary said after the New Deal with all of the spending they did.
``We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. I say, after 8 years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot.''
Let's not make the mistakes of the past.
I yield back.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to thank you for your indulgence this evening, and I appreciate your attention.
I would yield back the balance of my time.
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