[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 13, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H929-H935]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    GETTING THE NATION BACK ON TRACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to come 
tonight and talk a little about spending, talk a little bit about the 
budget, talk a little bit about reform, talk a little bit about 
entitlements, and talk a little bit about earmarks.
  What we want to do, Madam Speaker, over the next hour is talk a 
little bit about what is going on in Washington, what is broken, what 
needs to be fixed and have a big-picture discussion. We can talk about 
line items. We can talk about things down in the weeds. But what we 
want to talk about tonight is a philosophical difference between the 
Republicans and the Democrats on how we are going to get this country, 
Madam Speaker, back on track.
  Now the President's budget lays out critical fiscal issues that the 
Congress is going to have to deal with in the near future. Key among 
them are balancing the budget, promoting sustained economic growth, 
slowing the growth of Federal spending and addressing the coming 
entitlement crisis.
  First on deficits. Last year at this time, after several years of 
dramatic declines in the Federal deficit, we found ourselves on what 
may be described as a glide path to balance in the near term. Now that 
path has been interrupted, mainly due to the slowdown in the economy 
and the stimulus package, but we will still balance the budget.
  Even while addressing current challenges in the economy, the 
President's budget achieves balance by 2012 without raising taxes. Now 
let me say that again, because I think that is extremely important. The 
President's budget achieves balance by 2012 without raising taxes by 
demanding the Federal Government get in control of guess what? 
Spending.
  The budget also achieves balance through sustainable fiscal policies 
that support economic growth and job creation. It maintains the tax 
policies that have supported the solid growth which until only recently 
succeeded in producing appreciably higher revenue, appreciably higher 
revenue, and dramatic reductions in the deficit, and we have got some 
charts to show you just that.
  Finally, the President's budget recognizes that our Nation's 
challenges go well into the next few years. It takes a significant 
critical step towards addressing the greatest threat to our Nation's 
future strength and prosperity, the unsustainable growth of our largest 
entitlement programs.
  While the President's budget doesn't fix the entitlement problem in 
one fell swoop, it does propose specific reforms, ones which would 
reduce Medicare's $34 trillion in unfunded liability by nearly a third, 
and that would be a tremendous step, Madam Speaker, $10 trillion, and I 
congratulate the President on this step.
  These are issues that we can debate on how best to approach that. But 
to cut the unfunded liability by $10 trillion is remarkable. And if the 
people want to criticize the President's specific proposals for 
addressing that problem, that's fine. Then let's make sure they come 
forward with solutions on how we can fix this stuff. Don't just tell me 
the problem. Tell me how to fix it.
  We must reform these programs so they can meet their mission of 
providing health and retirement security and a reliable safety net 
today and in the future. The administration has a proposed plan, but it 
is Congress who has the power of the purse strings. It is Congress who 
will decide the Federal budget. And it is Congress who is ultimately 
responsible and accountable for ensuring a sustainable path to our 
Nation's future.
  Let me show a couple of charts to kind of substantiate what we are 
talking about, Madam Speaker.
  The first chart. Now a lot of people have said the Bush tax cuts, 
let's make them permanent. Let's do away with them. When we talk about 
the Bush tax cuts, what are we talking about? We are not talking about 
the Bush tax cuts. We are talking about real things. We are talking 
about capital gains. We are talking about the marriage penalty. We are 
talking about dividends. We are talking about a death tax. A child tax 
credit. Things that affect everyday Americans, Madam Speaker.
  Now this chart shows the best Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. If you 
look at the red first, this shows what happened before the tax cuts, 
and the blue shows what happened after the tax cuts. Now my friends on 
the other side have always said, well, what we need to do, we need to 
tax the rich. We need to make sure that they are paying more than their 
fair share.
  Let me show this. After the Bush tax cuts, the top 1 percent, their 
taxes actually went up. That's right. The top 10 percent, guess what? 
After the Bush tax cuts, their taxes actually went up. The top 50 
percent, after the Bush tax cuts, guess what? Their taxes actually went 
up.
  Now, again, the Democrats will argue, well, we need to do more for 
the little man, for the guy that is in the middle. Look at the bottom 
down here. The bottom 50 percent after the Bush tax cuts went into 
effect, their tax liability actually went down. So the argument that we 
need to tax the rich more to save the little man doesn't quite fit that 
chart, does it?
  Let's show another one. Job creation before and after the Bush tax 
cuts. If you look at the red lines going south, or below the line, this 
is before the Bush tax cuts. Look what happened after the Bush tax 
cuts. Now it appears to me on this chart that job creation went up. So 
we have got the lower 50 percent that are actually paying less, and we 
are creating more jobs.

                              {time}  1915

  An interesting concept. Let me show another one.
  Now, Madam Speaker, I really love this one. This is one that me being 
from South Carolina can truly understand. This is before the Bush tax 
cuts. Then, after 2003, everything was fully implemented. The line goes 
increasingly up. So even after the Bush tax cuts were fully 
implemented, revenues to the Federal Government soared through the 
roof.
  It just proves that when you allow Americans to keep more of their 
hard-earned money, that they know how to spend it better than we do. 
They are going to buy a new truck. They are going to build a new 
building. They are going to hire a new employee. They are going to grow 
the economy. And the way you grow the economy is through the private 
sector and not the public sector.
  Now, let's change subjects just a little bit. Spending. No matter 
what we do, whether it is tax policy, whether it is changes here or 
changes there, we have got to get spending under control. The red line 
assumes that my friends on the Democrat side are successful and the 
Bush tax cuts are going to go away. We will have higher taxes. The red 
line shows here that the taxes are increasing.
  But look at the green line. The green line, Madam Speaker, is runaway 
spending, and you can't address one without addressing the other, 
because unless we get our fiscal house in order, none of it is worth 
anything.
  Now, I want to read you a quote here. Comptroller General David 
Walker came in front of our committee and said, ``You are not going to 
tax your way out of this problem. You're not going to grow your way out 
of this problem. You are not going to do it by constraining spending. 
You are going to have to do a combination of all these things, and the 
biggest thing is going to be entitlement reform, Social Security and 
Medicare, health care being a much greater challenge. And

[[Page H930]]

we need to start soon, because time is working against us.''
  Let's look at entitlements. Now, of course, the top of it says 
``mandatory spending.'' There is actually nothing mandatory about this, 
because Congress can change this if we need to. It is entitlement 
spending.
  In 1995, entitlement spending was roughly about 49 percent of our 
Federal budget; in 2005, which, by the way, was 3 years ago, 53.4 
percent of our budget. And, lo and behold, unless we do something to 
address entitlement spending, by 2018, it will be 63.3 percent of our 
budget.
  Now, you look at the interest, how it has kind of stayed the same, 
actually gone down a little bit. But discretionary spending has gone 
from 36 to 29 percent. Roads, education, infrastructure, defense, 
things that are vital to our Nation, things that are vital to our 
national security, are being eroded because of this monster that we 
call mandatory spending.
  This is the last chart I want to show. Now, again, I want to applaud 
the President for trying to attack entitlement spending. There is $34 
trillion, as we speak, of unfunded liabilities. And what his budget 
proposes is an estimated $10 trillion trying to trim that off.
  Now, my chairman, Chairman John Spratt from South Carolina, an 
honorable man, sat right in the committee and said these are draconian 
cuts to Medicare, to Medicaid. But, Mr. Chairman, tell me how to fix 
it? Let's have an open and honest debate on how to address entitlement 
spending, because, Madam Speaker, this is the camel that broke the 
straw's back literally; not the straw that broke the camel's back, but 
the camel that broke the straw's back.
  Madam Speaker, I can go on, and I want to do that, but I have some 
tremendous partners here with me tonight that want to talk about 
spending, that want to talk about runaway spending, that want to talk 
about this system that, personally, I think is broken.
  The first gentleman I would like to recognize is a dear friend of 
mine, a classmate of mine from the great State of Minnesota, 
Representative Colonel John Kline.
  Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman.
  Madam Speaker, this is a huge topic that we are talking about tonight 
of tremendous personal importance to every American. My dear friend and 
colleague from South Carolina said that we want to talk a little bit 
tonight about budgeting and about things that are broken in Washington 
and about spending and all manner of things.
  You know, when we budget, whether the President sends over a budget 
and then Congress works its will on that budget, we are assigning 
priorities on how we spend taxpayer money, how the government is going 
to spend that money, and that ought to be a deliberative process, and 
it is a deliberative process. But then we throw it out the window.
  We have a couple of things that I wanted to touch on tonight which 
break the system. One of them is a subject that has been much in the 
news lately, and that is porkbarrel spending, earmarks. This is a 
system that is completely broken in Congress and in Washington, DC.
  Spending for pet projects for Members of Congress has nothing to do 
with an orderly, reasoned system for setting priorities on how we set 
spending. Decisions are made not on the merits of a proposed project. 
No, not at all. Decisions are made based on how long a Member has been 
in Congress, perhaps what committee they are assigned to, perhaps what 
party they are in. It has nothing to do with the merits of the project.
  So we spent last year over $15 billion, that is the entire yearly 
budget for the State of Minnesota, $15 billion on these pet projects, 
and done in a way that had nothing to do with an orderly system for 
assigning priorities on how we spend money.
  I don't think I ought to be asking the people of the Second District 
of Minnesota to spend money on a project for the LA fashion district. I 
am sorry, I just don't think that is the right set of priorities. We 
ought to establish those priorities through the institutional system 
that is here in Congress. We don't do that. We award money based on an 
entirely arbitrary system.
  My friend, our friend, my friend from South Carolina, Mr. Barrett, 
and others that are here with us tonight know that we have a friend, 
Congressman Jeff Flake from Arizona, and every time we have a spending 
bill he brings up six or eight or 10 or 12 examples of this porkbarrel 
spending and tries to shed some light on it and get a debate and give 
us a chance to vote on whether or not we think that is the right 
priority for how we spend taxpayer dollars. But do you know what? It is 
not a debate. It is not a debate. It is not going to have anything to 
do with the merits of the project.
  Mr. Flake's amendments almost, I can only think of one exception, 
never pass. And why is that? Because the system is broken. Members of 
Congress don't want to vote against that earmark, because they are 
afraid that somebody will vote against their pet project. It is a 
broken system. We need to check it.
  Is it a lot of money? Well, the entire annual budget for the State of 
Minnesota, we think that is a lot of money, and we ought to get that 
under control. And it is symptomatic of problems we have here.
  Another problem that is symptomatic of a broken system is what 
happens after we go through the process of debating the budget, 
deciding on a budget, deciding on how much money we are going to spend 
for defense, for education, for transportation and roads, 
setting priorities in the way we should be setting priorities.

  Then what happens? The system here in Washington, in Congress, says 
that we have to have a spending bill, an appropriations bill that 
dictates how much money we are going to spend in theory in keeping with 
that budget. But what happens? These bills come up. They are loaded 
down with this porkbarrel spending. We get to the end of the fiscal 
year here in Washington, which is the end of September, and we don't 
have these bills passed.
  We get to the end of October, we get to the end of November, and 
suddenly there is pressure to get the spending bills passed, and the 
system that has been in place here for a long time is to do what? Take 
all of these spending bills and roll them up into one great big 
monstrous bill of spending which they call an omnibus. This omnibus 
ends up breaking every rule, every priority of spending. It is just one 
big, huge massive spending bill. That is part of what is broken in 
Washington.
  Now, my friend Mr. Barrett is talking about entitlement spending, and 
I am sure we have colleagues here tonight that are going to talk about 
that and other issues that are trillions of dollars, but we can't even 
get the relatively small pieces right here.
  I am very pleased to say that many people in my party, in the 
Republican Party, have stepped up and said we have had enough of this 
porkbarrel spending. We need to take serious action to stop this 
nonsense. Some of us have said we are not going to participate, me 
included, until it is fixed. Many of my colleagues have done the same 
thing, some of them here in this room tonight. But as a party we have 
taken the position that we need to fix this.
  I was very pleased to see that one of our Democrat colleagues today 
was in the paper saying no more earmarks, because the system is broken, 
and we welcome that sort of bipartisan support and recognition of a 
system that is completely, absolutely broken and needs to be fixed.
  I know it is symptomatic of some bigger problems. It is not huge 
money, but it is big enough money that we ought to step up and fix it. 
And then we ought to fix these other underlying problems like this 
gigantic omnibus mess, because the green line that my friend showed of 
this increased spending has got to be brought under control. Even in 
the wildest dreams of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, 
they can't raise taxes enough to fix that. We have to get the spending 
part of this equation under control.
  I believe, as I know Mr. Barrett does and some of our other 
colleagues here tonight, that keeping the tax burden low and allowing 
American families and businesses to spend money according to their 
priorities will keep this economy growing and tax revenues will 
continue to flow. We just have to get the spending side under control.

[[Page H931]]

  I thank my friend for yielding some time to me and letting me address 
a couple of the issues in this big picture that he has been trying to 
lay out for us tonight. I know we have other colleagues, so I yield 
back.
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman.
  Madam Speaker, I guess it is a philosophical question: Who do you 
trust? Who do you trust? Do you trust a Federal bureaucracy that has 
grown and grown and grown? Or do you trust the men and women in South 
Carolina? Do you trust the men and women in Minnesota? Do you trust the 
men and women in Texas or Tennessee? Because they are the ones out 
there day after day busting their humps, making a living, trying to 
make ends meet. And all they want is a fair shake. All they want is for 
us to spend their money wisely.
  I have never met a constituent, Madam Speaker, that didn't say ``I 
don't want to pay my fair share.'' But every one of them will tell you 
``I don't want to pay more than my fair share.'' And it is incumbent 
upon us, it is incumbent upon the United States Congress, to do the 
right thing.
  With that, Madam Speaker, there is a lovely lady in the Chamber 
tonight that is a budget hawk, that is a stalwart when it comes to 
conservatism in the House, a lady that speaks with a gentle voice but 
carries a big stick, and I am talking about my dear friend from 
Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank you so much.
  Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding 
the time, and I thank my colleagues for taking the time to come and 
talk to our colleagues and also to the American people a little bit 
about the issue of spending.
  You have the right to know how we spend your money. Madam Speaker, I 
think that that is something we need to think about. This is not our 
money. It is not the government's money. This is the taxpayers' money. 
And to each and every individual, each and every taxpayer who is 
listening, you do have a right to know how your money is being spent.
  The gentleman from South Carolina spoke so well to the issues that 
are encapsulated in the budget process. Some of you may be wondering 
about that budget document. Yes, the President did get it out to us 
last week. You can actually download the budget document if you want to 
see it. It is about 2,000 pages.
  You think about how small the Constitution is and how big the budget 
is for this one year. But at Whitehouse.gov/OMB/budget/FY2009, the 
fiscal year 2009 budget, you can go to that Web site and you can 
actually print it off and go through and search and look at it, as the 
gentleman said, entitlements, and the entitlements that are there, the 
mandatory spending, as it is called, even though it is items that just 
don't seem to be addressed.

                              {time}  1930

  They are put on auto pilot, if you will. And it really takes strength 
to get in there and address Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security 
and those items that have been put on auto pilot.
  Are these items things that are going to continue to grow every year? 
Yes, indeed, they do. Do they need to be addressed? Absolutely, they 
need to be addressed. And the gentleman is right in that, as he was 
pointing out the amounts of money. And then just making a small little 
reduction in that spending, you have a Budget chairman who is saying, 
oh, my goodness, draconian cuts. We can't do that.
  So it is important to keep up with actually what is in that document. 
And I do encourage everyone to print that out, look at it, and stay in 
touch with us as we continue on a regular basis to come to this floor 
and talk about how this body spends your money.
  Now to follow the good members of the Budget Committee, the gentleman 
from South Carolina and a couple of Members you will hear from yet a 
little bit further tonight and to follow some of the process, the 
process of getting this budget together. The President proposes that 
budget. You can go to budget.house.gov/republicans, and you can follow 
the actions that are going to take place as we talk about spending, 
talk about how the limits are going to be set for the different 
categories in the budget, as we go through amending that budget and the 
House putting its mark on that budget. We are the keepers of the purse. 
And I invite you to follow those actions.
  Those of us that are in the Republican Study Committee, which are 
bringing you this hour tonight and this discussion, you can follow what 
we are doing with the budget at house.gov/hensarling/rsc, and we 
encourage you to do that.
  We do recognize this is your money, it is not the government's money, 
and you deserve information on what is happening with spending. As you 
have heard from the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), and also from 
South Carolina (Mr. Barrett), you deserve that info so that you can 
decide if you think you are getting a good value for the tax dollars 
that you are sending into the Federal Government. So work through this 
with us, and then you make the decision as to what kind of value you 
think you are getting.
  Now I will tell you, I am one of those that thinks the President 
spends too much. I have disagreed with how much he spends. I think this 
body spends too much. There are all sorts of good ideas that are out 
there. But every time there is a good idea, you have a price that has 
to be attached to that. And it is not only a price as to what we are 
spending here, but it is also the price that is paid because neither 
the private nor not-for-profit sector is going to fill that need or 
address that need if the public sector is doing it.
  I think as we talk through the issue and as you are listening to the 
Members that will speak to you tonight, you will agree, government 
spends too much. As you have heard tonight, taxes are too high. The 
American people are overtaxed and government has overspent. The 
bureaucracy is bloated and the bureaucracy needs to be trimmed back. 
Every year they take a little more and a little more and a little more 
and go through this process of baseline budgeting, never going back to 
dollar zero like you do, like we all do with the family budget. Every 
year they just add on. So the bureaucracy is bloated. And in this 
season of a new year and new resolutions, the Federal budget is one 
that needs to be put on a diet. But we all know that government has an 
insatiable appetite for the taxpayers' money.
  There are some actions that need to be taken. As you have heard 
tonight, you see the mandatory spending, the things that are on auto 
pilot approaching 60 percent of this budget. It's time to get our hands 
around that. We're looking forward to beginning some of that process 
this year, just as we've begun it every year with the budget discussion 
and driving that debate a little bit further to make certain that 
fiscal responsibility is restored to this House, to make certain that 
future generations of Americans have a free Nation in which they can 
grow up, which they can dream big dreams, where they can have great 
adventures and they have the confidence of knowing they have a 
government that is going to work well, a government that is going to be 
efficient and effective in the tasks that they undertake and the 
services they provide.
  I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding.
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. I thank the gentlelady.
  Madam Speaker, I couldn't have said it any better. Mrs. Blackburn 
does a beautiful job, and we really appreciate her coming down and 
sharing some thoughts with us tonight.
  My next speaker again is a classmate of mine, a wonderful man, the 
author of the Family Budget Protection Act, which was a fantastic piece 
of legislation, and I hope he talks a little bit about it tonight, also 
the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, and a dear friend, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).
  Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for 
his leadership in this body, and I thank him for his friendship.
  Madam Speaker, I know of no one in this body who represents greater 
integrity and greater honor than the gentleman from South Carolina. His 
district was very wise to send him to the United States House of 
Representatives. I want to thank the gentlelady from Tennessee who 
preceded me who is one of the most dynamic Members

[[Page H932]]

we have in this entire body for the clarity and persuasion of her 
speech, a lady who knows how challenging it is for families to be able 
to put food on the table, put gasoline in the car, pay for their health 
care expenses, and knows that ultimately it is the family budget that 
ends up paying for the bloated Federal budget.
  Now I didn't join the Budget Committee because I enjoyed numbers. In 
fact, I think probably the worst grade I ever made in my life was in an 
accounting course at Texas A&M University many, many years ago. But I 
joined the Budget Committee because ultimately the budget is about 
priorities. And, Madam Speaker, I came to this body because I believe 
America needs greater freedom and greater opportunity. And you can't 
have more freedom and more government. You have to choose between one 
or the other. And sometimes, Madam Speaker, especially at a time of 
challenging economic times, you have got to decide which is more 
important, a government check or a paycheck. And right now government 
increasingly is taking a bite out of that family paycheck to pay for 
bloated Washington spending.
  Well, Madam Speaker, I don't know if the American people know it, but 
right now the Federal Government is spending over $23,000 per American 
family. It is the first time since World War II that the government has 
spent that much money, over $23,000. Madam Speaker, I wonder how many 
families that are listening to this debate tonight think they are 
getting their $23,000 worth out of the United States Federal 
Government.
  Now some will say government has great needs. But you know what, it's 
not always how much money you spend in Washington that counts, it's how 
you spend the money. And I want a Federal Government that does a few 
things well, like guards my family and the families of all Americans 
against radical Islamic terrorists. I want a Federal Government that 
can control our borders. I want a Federal Government that will provide 
a social safety net for those who are too old, too young, and too 
disabled to help themselves. But outside of that, I want people to go 
out and have greater freedom and greater opportunity, and have the 
greatest welfare system known to mankind. And when I say welfare, I 
mean greater education, greater housing, greater nutrition. That 
program is called the American free enterprise system, and it is under 
assault. And one of the things that is assaulting it is the Federal 
budget.

  Now let's talk about the fight that is taking place in Congress right 
now, and that is a fight about whether or not Americans ought to 
receive a huge automatic tax increase that our friends on the other 
side of the aisle, Madam Speaker, the Democrats, have passed into 
legislation.
  Right now over the next 3 years there will be a huge automatic tax 
increase on the American people. Now is that what this economy needs 
now, when people are concerned about their job losses, when they are 
having trouble filling up their Ford F-150 pickup trucks, when they are 
having trouble buying milk at the grocery store? I have a 5-year-old 
and a 4-year-old and they're very thirsty and they drink that milk. And 
it is expensive.
  And so the question right now is, should there be a huge automatic 
tax increase on the American people? Well, Madam Speaker, the 
Republicans think that there shouldn't be, that we shouldn't have a 
huge automatic tax increase. Let me tell you what the Democrats have 
passed.
  Right now, if we don't change this, the top tax income bracket will 
go to 39.6 percent, an increase of 13.1 percent. Now why is that 
important? We always hear, well, you know, this is the wealthy and they 
need to pay more taxes. Well, you know who files at this rate, Madam 
Speaker, is small businesses. And, guess what, you can't have 
capitalism without capital. I used to be a small businessman. I signed 
the front of a paycheck. I used to sign the back of the paycheck, but I 
signed the front of the paycheck and I have risked capital. So now all 
of a sudden the Democrats have put into law a 13.1-percent tax increase 
on hundreds of thousands of small businesses across our Nation at the 
very time when they are trying to meet their payroll. What sense does 
that make, Madam Speaker?
  Capital gains. The capital of capitalism. Democrats want to increase 
taxes on that 33.3 percent. If you want to talk about something that's 
going to send more jobs overseas, it's increasing the tax rate on 
capital gains. Dividends go up 164 percent. That's right, 164 percent, 
under the automatic tax increases that the Democrats are going to 
impose on us.
  The death tax. You have already paid taxes on it once. You shouldn't 
have to visit the undertaker and the IRS on the same day, and yet that 
is going to go from zero up to 55 percent, Madam Speaker.
  The child tax credit is going to get cut in half. And the lowest tax 
bracket for the lowest wage earners in America, their taxes are going 
to increase 50 percent. Under the Democrat plan, Madam Speaker, it is 
going to go from a 10 percent bracket to a 15-percent bracket.
  Now is this the recipe that our economy needs? I don't think so. I 
don't think so. But yet Democrats tell us, well, we need more money 
because we've got to do all this Washington spending. Well, if you look 
in the rearview mirror, Madam Speaker, you will see that over the last 
10 years government has grown by about 75 percent, and yet the family 
budget, which has to pay for that Federal budget, has only grown 30 
percent.
  Now ultimately something has to give. And so again our Democrat 
colleagues, Madam Speaker, tell us, well, we have to raise taxes. And 
all those tax increases that they want to impose right when the economy 
is having troubles, they say, well, we've got to raise taxes to somehow 
balance the budget.
  Well, Madam Speaker, if people would look at this chart, we don't 
have a taxation problem, we have a spending problem. Right now the 
difference between this blue line and red line is this huge massive tax 
increase that the Democrats want to impose upon hardworking American 
families, on farmers, on teachers, on small businesses. And look at how 
much revenue it gains you. And this, Madam Speaker, not to get into too 
much inside baseball, is what we call a static analysis. This assumes 
that raising people's taxes has no impact on economic growth. We know 
that's not true.
  So given the Democrats' every single assumption, if they do this 
massive tax increase which is going to amount to roughly $3,000 per 
American family over the next 3 years, it doesn't get anywhere close to 
the green line. That's the spending line. That is the line that 
represents the Federal Government on automatic pilot. That is if no new 
programs are added, that is how much is going to be spent. And what 
does that represent? Don't take my word for it; take the Comptroller 
General's word for it, the chief fiduciary officer in the United States 
Government. He says that line right there represents either, number 
one, a doubling of taxes on our children, or it represents a Federal 
Government that consists of almost nothing but Medicare, Medicaid, and 
Social Security. And anybody in charge of counting money for the 
Federal Government will tell you the same thing. Where is the ethic in 
that? Where is the morality in that? Imposing that kind of burden on 
the next generation? But, no, we have so many colleagues that care 
about the next election and not the next generation.

                              {time}  1945

  Almost 6 years ago I got in the next generation business because I 
have a 5-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son, and I care desperately 
about their future. So we have to do something about out-of-control 
spending, and yet our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the 
Democrats, every single day they add a new program, completely 
oblivious to the cost on our children and grandchildren, the least of 
these, those who cannot vote and those yet to be born.
  If we are to work our way out of the economic challenges we have 
today, much less spare our children and grandchildren a doubling of 
their taxation to where we would be the first generation in American 
history to leave the next generation with a lower standard of living, 
if we are going to keep our faith with our forefathers, if we are going 
to show fidelity to the future generations and be good stewards

[[Page H933]]

of the American dream, we have to defeat these massive Democrat tax 
increases. We have to defeat their massive increases in spending.
  Madam Speaker, it all starts with something we call earmarks, 
congressional earmarks. As a dear friend of mine in the Senate, Tom 
Coburn of Oklahoma said, ``Earmarks are the gateway drug to spending 
addiction.'' There are too many bridges to nowhere, there are too many 
indoor rainforests. There are too many teapot museums. And the American 
people are waking up that all too often somebody in this body has taken 
a bite out of their paycheck so that some Member of Congress can keep 
his. The system is broken.
  Republicans in this body have called for an earmark moratorium. They 
have called for a select committee to clean up this system where the 
American people too often see money going into campaign contributions. 
Money coming in one end of Washington, DC, and they see earmarks coming 
out the other end. The system is broken. It has to be changed, and all 
the Democrats have said is no, we are not going to join you. They have 
gone the complete opposite direction.
  I am proud to be a member of this Republican conference that is 
trying to clean up this earmark mess, trying to control spending and 
control taxation so we can get this economy going and Americans can 
keep their jobs and have a brighter future for themselves and their 
children and their grandchildren.
  I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for his leadership, and 
thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. Mr. Hensarling, I thank you for being 
here tonight and for your hard work. Your steady leadership with the 
RSC is truly appreciated. We appreciate you coming down here tonight.
  Madam Speaker, my next speaker tonight is a gentleman that we call 
our songmeister in the Members' prayer breakfast every Thursday 
morning, a gentleman who is dogmatic when it comes to being a true 
conservative, when it comes to spending constraint, and when it comes 
to doing what is right in the United States Congress, the gentleman 
from Missouri (Mr. Akin).
  Mr. AKIN. Well, thank you very much for yielding me some time here. I 
agree with you entirely that Congressman Hensarling from Texas really 
does us proud, and we think an awful lot of his constituents for 
sending Mr. Hensarling here. He is a great leader and really 
understands the basic principles and levers on what makes Congress 
work.
  Mr. Barrett from South Carolina, I appreciate your managing the time 
before us this evening, and your integrity and leadership, and the fact 
that you are pretty smart and on top of these issues. We need people 
like that here.
  The question before us tonight, do we want tax increases or tax 
decreases. It is a pretty simple choice: Tax increases or tax 
decreases. Historically there were two guys, one guy plugging each one. 
One was called little Lord Keynesian economics. That is the one that 
said what we want to do is we want to do tax increases. If the 
government just spends enough money, by golly, it is just like standing 
inside a bucket, grabbing the handle and lifting up, and we will just 
float our way out of any economic problems. So the idea is government 
will spend a lot of money and increase taxes. That is a Keynesian 
approach.
  The other approach was advanced a little later, after Keynes, and it 
was Milton Friedman. He said no, when you have your economy in trouble, 
you are starting to get into a recession, you want to do tax decreases. 
Now that might sound like a crazy idea because if you cut taxes, you 
think, I won't be able to pay for all of the things that government is 
doing. We already have a deficit, how can you cut taxes.
  Well, one of the ways to take a look at which one of these ideas is a 
better idea is take a look at how it has worked historically. We have a 
long record on that, actually. You can go back to the 1920s, and Calvin 
Coolidge cut taxes at a time when the economy was having a hard time, 
and the economy surged. In fact, they gave it a name, they called it 
the Roaring 20s.
  Next was FDR. Now FDR in his earlier years, he was in trouble 
politically, so he got a clever idea. He said I am going to take some 
Federal money and start building using Federal money in the States 
where I need some votes. He goes out and doubles and then triples the 
budget of the Federal Government. The Federal Government was only 
spending about 3 percent, and he took it up to 9 percent. That was the 
1930s and 1940s. And, of course, the Great Depression was brought on by 
that extensive spending on the part of the Federal Government and the 
tax increases that were necessary to try to cover that.
  In 1960, and this is a place where we step a little out of the 
political pattern. In general, Republicans have been on the side of 
cutting taxes. But here was a Democrat, John F. Kennedy. In 1960 he 
said the economy is in trouble, and we need to cut taxes. JFK did that, 
and we had 7 or 8 years of very strong economy.
  So again, when you cut taxes, the economy surged and did better.
  In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was stuck with a very difficult economy. 
He did a huge tax cut. Everybody says Reaganomics, it was foolish to 
cut taxes, except it worked. We had a tremendously strong economy. It 
was that strong economy that allowed Ronald Reagan to spend money on 
defense and basically economically break the back of the Soviet Union, 
thus winning the Cold War.
  Then we came back with Bush I and Clinton. They went back to the 
raise-taxes formula. The economy gets in trouble. Bush II comes into 
office in 2000, and we have a recession starting. What happens, in 2003 
he does a major tax cut particularly where it was necessary to help 
small businesses to help invest in the economy, and now we have had 
about 5 years of a very strong economy because of the tax cuts.
  Well, where are we today?
  The Democrats today are really into the idea of tax increases. Not 
only have they raised billions and billions in additional spending in 
2007, but they have proposed the mother of all tax increases. That does 
make me scared around Thanksgiving when you hear about the mother of 
all tax increases, a $3-plus trillion tax increase. That is going to 
repeal all of the Bush tax cuts.
  So now you have the economy that is pretty shaky right now, and what 
are you going to do; you are going to slam it with massive tax 
increases, and that is the formula that goes right back to little Lord 
Keynesian that the Democrats are pushing.
  The question could be asked, we are not being able to cover all of 
our bills, how can you talk about cutting taxes, being responsible when 
you talk about cutting taxes, wouldn't you have to pay all of these 
bills for the government. Well, here is an interesting thing, and it is 
one that I heard talked about but I never really quite analyzed it. I 
would like you to picture in your mind that you are king for the day 
and your job is to try to raise some money for your government to do 
some programs. The only thing you get to tax is a loaf of bread.
  So you start to think this one out. You see this loaf of bread 
sitting in front of you, and you think, am I going to put a one penny 
tax on a loaf of bread, and you start calculating how many loaves of 
bread that we use in the country, and figure out what you raise. You 
think, why not charge $100 for taxes on a loaf of bread.
  Then you think maybe no one would buy the bread then. Common sense 
says somewhere between a penny and $100 there is some level of tax on 
the loaf of bread that if you increase it, you will lose tax revenue. 
And if you decrease it, you will lose tax revenue. So what is going on 
here is that there is some optimum level of taxing, and when you go 
beyond it, even though you raise taxes, you are actually crashing the 
economy and you are not going to collect as much money because the 
economy is going to die.

  You think about the fact in this last Bush administration people were 
complaining about the tax cuts and the cost of the war. The interesting 
thing is if you add the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the 
cost of the tax cuts, they don't equal as much as what the recession 
was costing us in the beginning of 2000. Recessions are very expensive. 
So if you drive your taxes too much, the economy slows and you don't 
get the tax revenue. You can raise taxes as much as you want, but if

[[Page H934]]

the economy is sick, you are not going to get revenue in.
  So that's the logic. It is like a loaf of bread. If you tax it too 
much, you actually get less revenue coming into the government.
  Now the thing that I find ironic about this whole thing, we have all 
of this history in America and we know that tax cuts are the medicine 
you need when you have a recession. We don't want excessive spending, 
and we cannot afford these huge tax cuts. And the ironic thing is that 
the socialistic Europeans have figured this out. We have the economists 
who figured it out, and yet we are not acting on the intelligence that 
we have. The Europeans, they figured hey, this is a good deal, we will 
cut taxes and our economy will grow. And so they whacked taxes 8 or 9 
years ago, and their economy is going gangbusters. All of Europe asks, 
What did Ireland do? Oh, Ireland cut its taxes. And so good old 
socialistic Germany and socialistic France, they are working to cut 
taxes. They figured it out.
  And here we are, the people who actually came up under Milton 
Friedman with this understanding of economics, and what are we doing, 
we are talking about the mother of all tax increases. This is insanity. 
I can't understand why the Democrats want to do this. If I were a 
Democrat, I would want to hand out pork and programs to people; I would 
want a strong economy. I would want to cut taxes so I would have more 
money to spend. It doesn't make sense to pass these huge, massive tax 
increases.
  I think we could learn from history, or we could just learn from the 
Irish.
  I certainly appreciate the gentleman from South Carolina yielding me 
the time to talk about this. The question is are we going to do tax 
increases or tax decreases? If you care about the economy and if you 
care about the future of our children, the answer has to be that we 
have to use the Milton Friedman approach and we have to get control of 
our spending and we have to cut our taxes.
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman. I can certainly 
tell one thing, Madam Speaker, and I know the other folks in the 
Chamber will agree, that the gentleman from Missouri is certainly 
passionate and believes in what he is talking about.
  Madam Speaker, now it is an honor and a privilege to turn to one of 
our newer Members, but a Member who has proven himself time and time 
again, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).
  Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for 
yielding, and appreciate this opportunity that RSC has put together to 
talk about taxes and spending and some of the challenges we face as a 
country.
  We live in the greatest country in the world, but we do face some 
serious challenges. Obviously we face the challenge of terrorism, the 
threat from people who want to do our country harm and who don't 
believe in the great values that made us the greatest country in human 
history.
  Also, we face another challenge, and that is the challenge of dealing 
with the fiscal situation that confronts us as Members of Congress. 
Just some numbers. The previous speaker from Missouri talked about tax 
issues. It is important to understand, you hear from time to time tax-
and-spend politicians, it is really not that, it is really spend and 
tax. Spending drives the equation, and we have got to get Federal 
spending under control.
  Just some numbers. The greatest economy in human history is the U.S. 
economy. It is the largest economy ever, a $14 trillion annual economy.
  The second largest economy in the world is the nation of Japan, 
approximately $3.2 trillion.
  The third largest economy, if I can use that term, is the Federal 
Government. We all just saw the budget that came out last week, a $3 
trillion Federal budget. We have a $3 trillion annual operating budget, 
and we have a $9 trillion national debt. The Federal Government spends 
$23,000 per year per household; the top 25 percent of income earners 
pay 84 percent of the taxes. So when you hear these elected officials 
say we have to give tax cuts to the middle class, we are going to tax 
the rich, it is already happening. So when people talk about only 
taxing the rich, what they really mean is they are going to tax 
taxpayers. Every single family is going to pay more.
  We have to get spending under control if we are going to keep taxes 
low so families have more of their money to spend on their goals and 
their dreams, their kids and their grandkids.
  Last year I was proud to be part of the RSC who worked hard at 
lowering spending. In fact, we didn't really work to lower spending. 
What we said to the majority party is, let's spend what we spent last 
year. We offered a series of amendments. The way the process works 
around here is we have to have 12 appropriations bills in law by the 
end of our fiscal year, which is September 30.

                              {time}  2000

  So as those bills were moving through, we offered a series of 
amendments that said, let's spend what we spent the previous year. 
After all, all kinds of families, all kinds of business owners, all 
kinds of taxpayers in this great country have had to do that from time 
to time. Doesn't it make some sense for the Federal Government, where 
everyone instinctively knows we have waste in spending, doesn't it make 
sense for the Federal Government to maybe just live on what they did 
the previous year? But no, the majority party wouldn't do that. And 
they increased spending on those bills at three and four and in some 
cases five times the rate of inflation. And all we said was, let's just 
hold the line.
  And the argument we got when we offered our amendments was, you know 
what, if we can't spend more, the world's going to end, the sky's going 
to fall, all kinds of terrible things are going to happen. We just 
can't do that. We've got to spend more.
  Well, as the process unfolded, and so that the American people 
understand, Madam Speaker, we didn't have any one of those bills, not 
one single bill was enacted by September 30. And so on September 30, we 
had to pass what's called a continuing resolution, which is a fancy way 
of saying, let's live on last year's budget.
  A few weeks into that, I came to this floor, same spot here, and gave 
a speech. I said, you know, a few months ago, a few weeks ago we had 
talked about the fact that we wanted to hold the line on spending and 
we were told that if we didn't increase spending, all kinds of bad 
things were going to happen; the sky was going to fall, the sun 
wouldn't come up.
  I said, you know what? For the past 6 weeks we've been living on last 
year's budget and imagine this: The government's still running. The 
sun's still coming up; the world hasn't ended. I said, how can that be? 
And my rhetorical question was, You know what? If we can do it for 6 
weeks, I bet we could do it for 6 months, I bet we could do it for a 
whole year, and save the taxpayers a lot of money and, more 
importantly, and maybe most importantly, begin to better position 
ourselves as a country to deal with the long-term problems that we know 
are out there.
  It is important that we get spending under control because when we 
do, we can make sure our economy continues to grow, we can keep taxes 
low, and we can let families have the kind of resources they need, 
their resources, to spend on their goals and dreams.
  The last thing I will say is this before yielding back to the 
gentleman from South Carolina.
  The way the world works is this: The economic leader in the world is 
the military leader in the world. Right now that is one country, the 
United States of America, and that's a good thing. It is good when 
American leads.
  You know, folks at home in Ohio, folks back home in Carolina, they 
get it. They understand that instinctively. I think maybe the only 
people who don't understand that fact is the editorial page of the New 
York Times.
  I love the line Cal Thomas has, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. He 
talks about how normal people perceive things, and how sometimes the 
elite national press perceives things. And he has a great line. He 
says, I get up every morning, I read my Bible and the New York Times so 
I can see what each side's up to. And there's some truth to that 
statement.
  It's important that we lead economically. We can do that by keeping 
spending low and keeping taxes low. And when we do that we can be the 
leader of the world, which is a good thing for safety around the 
planet.

[[Page H935]]

  With that I would yield back to the gentleman. I appreciate again his 
putting this hour together and talking about this very important 
challenge that we face as a country.
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from Ohio so 
much.
  My last speaker, Madam Speaker, I don't know what to say. I mean, 
he's awesome. When you need somebody watching your back in a fight, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry) is the guy I want beside 
me. It is my pleasure to introduce him.
  Mr. McHENRY. Thank you. I appreciate your kind words, Congressman 
Barrett, and I really appreciate your leadership. I know the people of 
South Carolina do as well. As deputy ranking Republican on the Budget 
Committee, he has his work cut out for him leading us on the Budget 
Committee.
  I want to bring out just a few facts for the American people tonight, 
Madam Speaker. Congressman Jordan pointed out very aptly the size of 
the Federal Government, just so the American people can understand what 
a $3 trillion government costs, what that actually means though. You 
say $3 trillion. What does $1 billion look like?
  Well, sure, Bill Gates could tell you what $1 billion looks like. 
He's got that in his checkbook. But for the average American, what does 
that mean?
  And to point out the fact that it's larger than most countries are. 
We have the third largest economy in the world held just in our Federal 
budget; greater than the whole economy of China. It's absolutely 
amazing.
  But when we talk about boondoggles in government, folks in North 
Carolina know about that. Look, in western North Carolina, where I 
represent, in Hickory, where I'm from, Cherryville, I've got to tell 
you, the American people know the government's wasteful.
  If you're out in the eastern part of the State like in New Bern, for 
instance, if you're out there, you recognize this stuff, but let's talk 
about a great, enormous in size and scope boondoggle that we have here 
in Washington, DC.
  There are 111,000 bureaucrats here in Washington, DC. Some don't do 
much. Others are very active. But 111,000 bureaucrats. The average wage 
for those bureaucrats here in Washington, DC is $89,561 a year. That's 
amazing to me that the sheer size of that, the average wage is so high. 
It's enormous.
  But in the Department of Education, we know that education is 
critical. It's especially critical in western North Carolina. We have 
3,224 bureaucrats here in Washington, DC in the U.S. Department of 
Education. The average wage is $93,773. Now imagine that. The average 
teacher in America makes $47,000 a year. I would much rather take that 
money from the bureaucrats and put it in the hands of teachers who are 
actually educating children.
  Madam Speaker, we have a crisis on our hands with the size and scope 
of government. We have to limit the size and scope of government. We 
have to bring the budget to balance and do it without raising taxes.
  I appreciate and applaud my colleague from South Carolina for hosting 
this special order so we can bring out these facts to the American 
people, because as their family budgets tighten, so should the Federal 
Government's budget.
  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina. In closing, Madam Speaker, when I was 
working in the furniture store, my furniture store in Westminster, 
South Carolina, I had a guy named John R. McAllister. I called him 
Hoss. And Hoss would come in every Friday to see me and he'd make his 
payment. And it didn't matter whether I was working in the back or 
working on a truck or unpacking furniture, Hoss would look me up and 
come grab my hand and shake it and say, thank you for what you're 
doing. You know, Hoss McAllister probably didn't have an idea close to 
what I did. But I think about Hoss McAllister tonight, Madam Speaker, 
and all the Hosses out there that want a fair shake.
  We're going to do the right thing. We're going to keep taxes low. 
We're going to give more money to Hoss so he can make a living.

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