[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 27, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H594-H599]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2006, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GINGREY. It is my privilege this evening to have the opportunity 
on behalf of our leadership to take this hour and talk about a number 
of things, particularly to discuss this economic stimulus package that 
we are going to be voting on very soon, probably tomorrow. And we will 
get into that, and hopefully some of my colleagues will join me on the 
floor.
  But, before I begin that discussion, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take an 
opportunity to rise and to recognize a great woman who I am blessed to 
call Aunt Eleanor on her 95th birthday. Eleanor Gingrey Murphy turned 
95 years old today, Tuesday, January 27, 2009.
  Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend her birthday celebration, 
but I wanted to take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to honor Aunt 
Eleanor and wish her a happy and a healthy birthday. Eleanor Gingrey 
Murphy has lived a great life and has been a blessing to both her 
family and to her community.

                              {time}  2115

  She was born on January 27, 1914, to Charlie and Effie Eubanks 
Gingrey, my grandparents, in Warrenville, South Carolina, just outside 
of my hometown of Augusta, Georgia. At the time of her birth, she had 
two older brothers, Bill and my father James Gingrey. About 2 years 
after her birth, her youngest brother Charles was born.
  Just before Aunt Eleanor's fourth birthday, her mom died in 
childbirth at age 26. My grandfather, Charlie, worked hard as a mail 
carrier and later as a carpenter to provide for his four children. But 
times were tough, Mr. Speaker, and the children often had to take care 
of each other when aunts and uncles were not available. After school, 
they often roamed the woods, learning the names of wild berries and 
fruits that were edible, and they would collect them and bring them 
home for food. Eleanor was left to do all the cooking for the family at 
an early age; and she must have learned well, for she is a wonderful 
cook today.
  After high school, Eleanor followed her brothers to New York, where 
they had hitchhiked in their mid teens to search for work. While in the 
Big Apple, she met Bill Murphy. Bill Murphy, an Irish immigrant who 
immigrated legally to the United States with his family from Limerick, 
Ireland. Eleanor and Bill fell in love and were married in 1937 at the 
St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in New York City. They had both been 
working at a little restaurant, Mr. Speaker. Some of my New York 
colleagues may remember it; I think it was called the Horn and Heart, 
where you put a little coin in a slot and you could see your food and 
you pull out a sandwich or a salad or a bowl of soup.
  Well, they were blessed with five sons, my cousins, Larry, Billy, 
Charles, Tom, and Kenneth. Shortly after the birth of their second son, 
Billy, Eleanor and Bill left New York City, and they settled their 
family in a little town called Edgefield, South Carolina.
  Tragically, my Uncle Bill left this world at the age of 44 after 
suffering a heart attack while supervising a sandlot baseball game that 
he had organized among his own sons and the African American neighbors. 
Once again, Aunt Eleanor was left to care for her family. Her boys were 
now becoming teenagers. At the time of my uncle's death their ages, Mr. 
Speaker, were 12, 13, 16, 17, and 19. And, believe me, times were not 
easy. Eleanor enrolled in nursing school, and she earned her LPN in 
order to support her family. Her oldest son Larry had to cut short his 
Navy enlistment to help out at home.
  Through the years, Eleanor's family has continued to grow with her 
love and her support. She now has 12 grandchildren, and 20, and I 
understand soon to be 21, great grandchildren. Aunt Eleanor is a devout 
Christian woman who has a deep love for her family. She often remarks 
how blessed she has been to be able to watch her children become old 
men. Fortunately, that includes her nephews and niece, of which I am a 
proud member.
  Eleanor Murphy is a remarkable, remarkable woman with a generous and 
a loving spirit, and I ask all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
to join with me tonight in wishing my aunt, Eleanor Margarite Gingrey 
Murphy, a happy and a blessed 95th birthday. And I thank you, Mr. 
Speaker, for allowing me to take the first part of this hour to discuss 
this wonderful, wonderful woman and to pay my respects to her.
  Mr. Speaker, this is quite a week. We are going to be voting tomorrow 
on a bill that would spend $825 billion to stimulate our economy. I 
know that we all agree, both Republicans and Democrats, in this body 
and 100 Senators in the other body, that these are dire economic times. 
This country is in a deep recession, and something truly needs to be 
done about it. We need to stimulate the economy, we need to grow jobs, 
we need to free up credit markets, and we need to do it quickly.
  My concern, Mr. Speaker, is that this package is not the right 
package. Sure, there are some tax cuts in the package and there are 
some spending programs; but when this was first described, the idea was 
there would be monies spent for infrastructure projects all across this 
country, restoration of roads and bridges, money spent on rapid transit 
and repairing decaying infrastructure. And each State was asked to 
prepare a list of projects, and States including my own of Georgia 
laboriously went through this process to find projects, so-called spade 
or shovel ready projects that we could immediately get started or 
purchasing right away and getting these projects underway and putting 
people back to work. And it was an estimate that several hundred 
billion dollars would be spent on the these projects.
  But as this program has developed, and we now today at the 11th hour 
looking at this bill as it has been marked up on the House side, what 
we see is far different from what was originally projected. It is not 
unlike what

[[Page H595]]

happened before the first of the year back at the end of the 110th 
Congress when Secretary Treasury Paulson came to the Congress, to both 
the House and the Senate, and said: Look, the sky is falling; we are in 
dire economic straits. And I have a plan; it is just three pages long, 
but I have a plan. And I am going to ask you to authorize me to spend 
$800 billion to purchase something that was referred to, Mr. Speaker, 
as troubled assets, so the program became known as the TARP program, 
Troubled Asset Relief Program.
  And I am not going to try to get too deep into the weeds of all of 
this, but the bottom line is that many financial institutions across 
the country were holding literally 50, 75, in some cases hundreds of 
billions of dollars worth of these collateralized, securitized 
mortgages, many of which contained subprime loans that had questionable 
value, particularly with the value of homes going down, and sometimes 
the mortgage alone on these homes was worth far more than the value of 
the home that they represented. But in any regard, that is what the 
Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board 
said to us, and that we needed to give them that authority to do it, 
and to do it quickly.
  So, basically, over my vote and many on my side of the aisle, this 
bill did pass, and $350 billion was spent and spent quickly. But, Mr. 
Speaker, to this day I don't believe one thin dime has been used to 
purchase a troubled asset. No. The Secretary of the Treasury, former 
Secretary of the Treasury made a decision that maybe the British had a 
better plan, one that was not discussed with us at any time, at any 
time, as we deliberated and debated that bill. And we finally made some 
changes to it, and it went from a three-page bill to a 110-page bill, 
and at no time was there any discussion though of taking that money and 
literally giving it to the large national banks and regional banks to 
restore their capital and to purchase stock in these banks, preferred 
stock, and so the government would literally take an ownership interest 
in our banking system.
  So that is basically what happened. No troubled assets were 
purchased. And what happened to the credit markets and the ability for 
a small business man or woman to get a loan from a bank, or indeed a 
person to get an automobile loan or someone to borrow a little money to 
send their child to college or get them through that last semester? 
That money was frozen. There was nothing available. And so this 
program, to my way of thinking, Mr. Speaker, hasn't worked at all. And 
it is pretty depressing when it was not even something that we in this 
Congress had talked about. This was just a decision that was made 
because the Secretary of the Treasury said: Well, there is some fine 
print or a section in the bill that says I have the authority to do 
this. And he did it.

  And so now as we come back for the 111th, and just before President 
Obama was sworn in for his inauguration on January 20th, former 
President Bush asked for the rest of the money, so to speak, another 
$350 billion; and yet, again, no real restrictions on how that money 
was going to be spent, and no accountability, no transparency. And so 
we on this side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, have some real concerns 
about what we are doing to this country and the amount of money we are 
spending.
  Now, talking about the TARP program, that is a total of $800 billion. 
And now we are on the eve, literally, of passing another piece of 
legislation where we spend $825 billion, but some say it will end up 
being $1.5 trillion, or possibly even more, on a massive spending 
program that is a far cry from what we were originally told; that is, 
most of this money would be put immediately to work on spade ready or 
shovel ready infrastructure projects across this country repairing 
roads and bridges and some for mass transit. And when we look at the 
content of the bill and we see things like hundreds of millions of 
dollars to resod the National Mall and several hundred million dollars 
for a contraception program, to me, that has very, very little, if 
anything, Mr. Speaker, to do with stimulating the economy. It just 
simply does not.
  Fortunately, and I commend President Obama for this, there are some 
tax cuts in this economic stimulus package. But some $80 billion of 
$250 billion of tax cuts are literally going to people, Mr. Speaker, 
who currently are not paying any Federal withholding tax. They have no 
obligation to, because with their income and the amount of deductions, 
then they don't owe any Federal income tax but they do pay a payroll 
tax. So this is a refundable tax credit for those individuals, and it 
amounts to, as I say, approaching $70 billion. And it is really taking 
money out of the Social Security system and the Medicare system that 
benefits that group of people more than any other in our population.
  A little lesson on Social Security, Mr. Speaker, is that individuals 
who are eligible for Social Security, who are in the lower income 
levels, their monthly check on Social Security replaces far more of 
their income than the monthly check to someone who is a higher income 
earner. Someone at a higher income level may get 15 percent or less of 
their income replaced by Social Security; but individuals at that lower 
income level who pay no withholding tax, their income replacement by 
Social Security is up to 40 or 45 percent.

                              {time}  2130

  And so to literally take that money and take it out of the Social 
Security system, to me it seems like it penalizes them more than it 
helps them. That is something that hasn't really been discussed. I 
haven't heard others discuss it, Mr. Speaker. But maybe we will hear 
more about that tonight from some of my other colleagues.
  There is one most important point that I would like to make. And of 
course, President Obama very respectfully came to the Republican 
Conference today. I think he was very forthright with us. I think most, 
all of my colleagues on the Republican side would agree that the 
exchange was respectful, sincere and honest. There were honest 
differences of opinion in regard to what kind of taxes we really feel 
like we need to stimulate this economy. We Republicans feel very 
strongly that the tax breaks need to be across the board, that 
everybody that pays taxes needs to have a tax cut, not have a 
preponderance of the tax break going to those who currently don't pay 
any taxes. But most importantly, even more importantly than individual 
lowering of marginal rates, is to help our corporate men and women, 
small businesses. I'm not talking about IBM or General Motors or Apple 
Computer or anybody in that category. I'm talking about small 
businessmen and women, the ones that, quite honestly, because we goofed 
up the TARP program, are having such a desperate time getting a loan, a 
bridge loan to keep those businesses going and to keep the employment 
rate up in this country. They're not getting what they need. So we feel 
very strongly that there should be a significant lowering of the 
corporate income tax rate, maybe from 35 current down to 25 percent.
  We feel like that a person who has a 401(k) or an IRA plan, Mr. 
Speaker, who is under age 59\1/2\ and normally would be penalized and 
have to pay a tax burden for taking money out prematurely from one of 
those plans, in this desperate year or two, there should be no penalty 
for withdrawing money out of a 401(k) or an IRA to possibly pay the 
heating bill or pay for a child's surgery or to ward off foreclosure 
when they are a couple of months behind on a mortgage payment.
  Those are the kind of things that we, on the Republican side, have 
tried to bring to the committees of jurisdiction that marked up this 
bill last week, the Appropriations Committee, the Ways and Means 
Committee and the committee on which I now serve proudly, the Energy 
and Commerce Committee. And every little amendment, there weren't many, 
Mr. Speaker, that we got approved in Energy and Commerce last week, lo 
and behold, when it was all said and done, those amendments were pulled 
out of the final bill. And so the bill that we are seeing today, which 
is kind of an amalgam of those three bills sort of put together, maybe 
rewritten by the majority leader and the Speaker of the House, none of 
those Republican amendments, those well-thought-out amendments, after a 
12\1/2\ hour markup, a lot of hard work went into that, and all of a 
sudden, poof, they are gone.
  And so when President Obama was at our conference today, Mr. Speaker, 
we

[[Page H596]]

talked to him about that. And he listened. I think he sincerely 
listened. He made no promises. But I thought it was a very good 
opportunity, a very good exchange and a good start. And as he pointed 
out, we would love to be able to have a bill that we could agree on 
that had a good chance of stimulating this economy and stimulating it 
quickly and that we could do it in a bipartisan way.
  But for that to happen, Mr. Speaker, he is going to have to make some 
changes that we Republicans can believe in. Let me repeat that. That 
has been the motto, ``change you can believe in.'' He, in this bill, to 
get Republican support, is going to have to make some changes that we 
Republicans and the people that we represent, literally 48 percent of 
the population of this country, that they, too, can believe in. And so 
we can only hope that as this bill is marked up in the Senate, and 
clearly, the two will not be the same, and ultimately there will be a 
conference report and some changes will be made. And I hope that 
President Obama, in working with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader 
Reid, Mr. Speaker, we can work with the Republican minority with our 
Leader Boehner, John Boehner, a gentleman from Ohio, and the Senate 
minority leader, Mitch McConnell, a gentleman from Kentucky, that we 
can get together and this can be a work that we can be proud of that 
has a good chance of success, that truly we will be pouring water on a 
fire and not gasoline on a fire.
  So with that, Mr. Speaker, I see that I have been joined by one of my 
colleagues, indeed one of my classmates from New Jersey, a gentleman 
that has served on the Financial Services Committee, he served on the 
Budget Committee, and I think he has an understanding of this whole 
process far deeper than most Members. Let me just put it that way.
  And so I'm pleased to have with us tonight my good friend from New 
Jersey, Scott Garrett. And Mr. Garrett, I will yield some time to you.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Well, I thank you for the introduction and 
thank you for yielding as well. I don't know if I can live up to the 
level as being more informed and better versed than many of my 
colleagues, but let me just try to make a couple of points here in the 
next couple of minutes.
  You are right when you begin by laying out a little bit of a history. 
And when you do so, what it points out is that really we have been down 
this road before. Several months ago, we were right here on this floor 
debating a similar issue, when then Speaker Pelosi said that the sky 
would fall if we did not take immediate action in the stock market and 
the credit market and the rest. And of course, at that time we were 
talking about TARP 1, TARP 1, a spending of $350 billion, because we 
were in the midst of a crisis, we were told, a crisis that required 
that there be absolutely no alternatives considered. In fact, the 
Treasury Department said they looked at other ideas and immediately 
dismissed them. In fact, when we were not even allowed to have a markup 
or a hearing on it to consider alternatives, no, they had picked the 
right solution to the problem that we were facing in the fall and 
winter of last year, and that was their TARP 1 piece of legislation, 
and we had to rush it through this body, pass it and have the President 
sign it. And we did that over my objection, and I believe your 
objection, as well.
  At that time we said it was going to solve the problem. But what was 
the end result? Of course, well, they said if we didn't do it, the 
stock market would drop about 1,000 points. But by gosh, look where it 
is now, several thousand points down. And the credit markets, I was 
just in my office earlier today, credit markets, securitization of 
housing in the commercial markets, are still equally tight as they were 
then.
  That was followed by TARP 2. It was just a week ago Wednesday of last 
week. We were again on this floor, and again we were told that we were 
in a panic phase, a crisis phase, if you will, and we had to vote on 
TARP 2. And what was TARP 2? TARP 2 was an additional $350 billion that 
would again go to now the new administration with no strings attached. 
And this is the rub that so many of my constituents are so angry about 
that basically we are just writing a proverbial blank check here, 
passing it off to the administration, they can use it for whatever they 
want, buy toxic assets, buy banks, nationalize the banks. If you saw 
Speaker Pelosi on TV the other day, she refused to use the words 
``nationalization of the banks.'' But in essence she said that is 
exactly what they were doing, buying up the auto companies.
  We could have our new Treasury secretary, if he wanted to, he could 
go out and buy a TurboTax for every American in this country so those 
people would be able to figure out how their taxes are done and make 
sure that they pay their right taxes. That is what we basically granted 
when we passed last Wednesday an additional $350 billion, again, over 
my objection, and I believe over your objection as well, when that TARP 
bill went through. And now here less than a week later, we are on the 
floor discussing an additional $800 plus billion, again because we are 
in a crisis, we are told, and if we don't move now, it will get even 
worse. And we were told, again, just as in TARP 1, as in TARP 2, no 
opportunity for hearing, no opportunity really for input, no 
opportunity for amendments and the like, so that we were in panic 
phase.
  And with that, I would just like to refer you over to an article that 
was actually in today's ``Weekly Standard'' written by John Stossel, 
who I'm sure you're familiar with. The headline of that is, ``This Is 
No Time to Panic.'' And I think that is extremely important to 
consider. And it lays it out pretty well. The subheadline is, ``our 
economy has recovered before and we can do so again.'' And what he 
basically lays out here is just take your time, move in a careful and 
cautious manner, consider all the alternatives which you were not 
allowed to do in 1 and 2, and move appropriately and the economy will 
work its way through with appropriate action in Washington that takes 
all considerations and input to mind. We didn't do that in 1. We didn't 
do it in 2. And I think obviously we are not going to do it with the 
expenditure of $800 billion now.
  So going forward, we should consider a couple of points. What do the 
economists say about this? What do some of their own members say about 
what is about to go on here? Well, the economists, let's talk about 
that. We had the President come and speak to us today in the Republican 
Conference, as you said, and I appreciate the fact that the new 
President came and said he would reach across the aisle and talk to us 
about these issues. Although I will add the caveat, each time we threw 
out some alternatives to him and said, well, we might want to improve 
the bill in this manner or in that manner, I believe for as long as I 
was in the conference, each time one of those alternatives was 
suggested to him, he said, well, I would disagree with you on those 
points, and I really can't accept that amendment or that suggestion as 
a change.
  But I do still appreciate the fact that he would come and listen to 
our talks. While he was there, and other times as well, he said that 
all the economists side with them on the need for a spending plan right 
now as they have laid out. And in essence, it is sort of the same 
argument we have heard before where it says there is no economist on 
the other side. Well, there are economists on the other side. As a 
matter of fact, there are pages of economists on the other side of this 
issue who say that the right action is not the one that is being laid 
out in this stimulus package. The right action is not to put us deeper 
in debt. And it is not just economists outside of the mainstream. I can 
refer you, as well, to economists right in the Obama administration.
  If you look to an article in the February 9 edition of National 
Review by Alan Reynolds, he quotes two economists. One is Peter Orszag, 
who of course is the new administration's head of the Office of 
Management and Budget. And also he makes reference to Douglas 
Elmendorf, who is the new Democrat head of CBO. So these are people 
within the Obama administration who, previous to coming into their 
administration, or the Democrat side of the aisle, I should say, 
disagreed with this approach to stimulus with regard to fiscal 
spending.
  Let me just quote from the article with regard to Peter Orszag.
  ``Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin co-authored a 2004 paper 
with forecaster Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institute at that time, 
who has

[[Page H597]]

now been tapped by the Obama administration to lead the Office of 
Management and Budget. In that report they argued that `budget deficits 
which will occur with this bill, decrease national savings which will 
reduce domestic investment and increase borrowing abroad.' ''
  Big budget deficits, warned Rubin and Orszag, would ``reduce future 
national income,'' and this is the important part as well, risk a 
``decline in confidence which can reduce stock prices.'' So that is his 
new OMB director raising those red flags. Democrats' CBO director said 
the following, and they warn that ``it is critical that efforts to 
fight a recession'' such as we are doing now ``do not end up increasing 
the long-run budget deficit and thus harming long-run growth.''
  Elmendorf rightly noted that ``the idea that Congress should make 
legislative changes to tax and spending policies in order to counter 
the business cycle has fallen into disfavor among economists.'' So 
there it is right there.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If I reclaim my time just for a second, I 
hope you will stick with me, I want to hear more from you. But you 
mentioned the majority CBO, Congressional Budget Office, they came out 
with a report that said that 7 percent, Mr. Speaker, 7 percent of this 
money would be spent in 2009 and up to 38 percent by the end of 2010.

                              {time}  2145

  So we have this dire emergency and we need spending and we need it 
right now, and yet only 7 percent of all of these projects are getting 
into the hands of the people, into the economy, to help grow jobs. 
Where is the emergency?
  Well, I quite honestly, Mr. Speaker, feel there is an emergency. But 
that is why we take exception to this program and the many things that 
are in it that really have nothing to do with emergency spending. I 
mentioned a few of them at the outset. There are others. There are 
quite a few others.
  In fact, Mr. Garrett, I know you would agree with me, Mr. Speaker, I 
think he would, that when President Obama came to the conference today, 
he admitted the same thing. He said look, there is stuff in there if I 
had my complete way, and I am not sure why he doesn't, but he does have 
to deal, of course, with the legislative branch, that being Speaker 
Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid on the Senate side, but there are 
things that I think clearly should be, and I bet my colleague from New 
Jersey would agree with me, it is just regular spending. Whether we are 
talking about some of the trillions of dollars on education spending, 
IDEA, increasing Pell Grants, that is part of a regular process that 
ought to work its way through the authorizing committee, Education and 
the Workforce, and let the appropriators appropriate money under 
regular order. That is not emergency spending. So we have turned this 
$825 billion emergency spending package literally into a Christmas 
tree, and it is not going to help, it is not going to get us out of 
this deep recession. And we need something that is going to work.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate the gentleman yielding and I 
think when you said I would probably agree with you, I do agree with 
you.
  Before I describe the types of jobs that they may be creating with 
this so-called bailout of the economy, you have to ask yourself: what 
is the definition of a job? We have an idea when somebody says I just 
got a new job, they have a job, employment, a career that they will be 
starting next Monday and it will last not just through Monday afternoon 
but through the next year and as long as they perform their duties and 
services appropriately as to the requirements of their employer, that 
they will have a job.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. At least to work long enough to make them 
eligible for Social Security, 10 quarters worth of work.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. There you go. But what the government 
means when they say they are creating jobs, and the Obama 
administration has given us different numbers as to how many jobs, 2 or 
3 or 4 million jobs, we don't know how many jobs that they are 
creating, but a job is when an individual works at least one hour 
during the course of one week, and that means that they have created a 
job. So I could pay you to paint my fence in front of my house for an 
hour, and I just created a job. So we could be creating 2 or 3 million 
of these jobs under this proposal. But is that the type of job and the 
type of recovery that Americans are truly looking for?
  As to what the nature of some of these jobs are, let's look at a 
couple of them. In Anchorage, Alaska, we have talked about building the 
bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Here is street lighting. I guess that is 
putting in light bulbs. That is one job.
  Intercom upgrades, someone is rewiring intercoms in buildings.
  Bus replacement. I am not sure how that is getting a job.
  Also in Anchorage, Alaska, and Alaska does pretty well under this 
bill, potentially. These are proposals coming from mayors across the 
country as far as job-ready projects that they can submit to the 
administration and say let's roll with these programs, Greenbelt Trail 
resurfacing. I guess that is a job that we are looking to spend money 
on.
  Again street light retrofitting.
  Landfill methane recovery project.
  In Huntsville, Alabama, they are looking for money to replace 
bathroom fixtures, software purchases, and replace trolley buses.
  Down in Pines Bluff, Arkansas, they are looking to buy a fire 
department ladder. I am not sure how that creates a job, but that is 
what the mayors are submitting to say they are ready to go, dollar 
ready, and spend this money getting it out the door.
  With regard to that, I think the point should be driven home as far 
as when the money would be spent. The original CBO budget said that 
only a small percentage of the money will actually go out during the 
course of this year.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Absolutely. Again, that was a CBO report and 
it was 7 percent in 2009.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Yes, 7 percent.
  Now the number on top of that that the majority has just come out 
with says actually, we are going to get around two-thirds of the money 
out in 18 months. Think for a second what that actually means. So 18 
months from now will be July 2010. By July, we will be having our 
summer barbecue, and that is when the bulk of this money will be spent. 
That is not when we need to get the economy going, that is not when 
small businesses should be hiring new people, not a year or more from 
this summer, we should be hiring people today, we should be putting 
people back to work today. So the idea that the majority is saying is 
okay is favorable, spending money a year and a half from now as the 
best-case scenario is one that I think most Americans would have a 
problem with.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, and I would say to my 
colleague that the jobs are being lost today. They are not being lost 
18 months from now. God help us if we are losing these kinds of job 6, 
12, 18 months from now. We better be growing jobs and not losing 
15,000, and I think Pfizer Pharmaceutical announced they were going to 
cut 15,000 jobs out of their workforce. Apple for the first time in its 
history I think recently announced a significant job loss. The big 
three automobile manufacturers, despite the fact that they got what, at 
least $5 billion, including GMAC, another billion in the first tranche 
of the TARP money, so these jobs are being lost and lost now. And as my 
colleague from New Jersey points out, we need to save these jobs, save 
the ones that we can and grow new jobs, but not 6, 12, 18 months from 
now but right now.
  I wanted to just mention for my colleagues' sake on both sides of the 
aisle, sometimes it is a little difficult to know what is exactly in 
these massive bills, particularly one that has been brought to the 
floor in such rapid-fire fashion without any input really from the 
minority side, but maybe without much input, if any, from the rank and 
file of the Democratic majority. But, Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, 
including Mr. Garrett from New Jersey, just listen to a few of the 
things that are in this economic stimulus package: $650 million for 
digital TV coupons; $650 million for new cars for the Federal 
Government; $6 billion for colleges and universities, many of which 
have

[[Page H598]]

billion dollar endowments; $50 million in funding for the National 
Endowment for the Arts. That is a perfect example of something, Mr. 
Speaker, that should be funded under regular order. It should be 
debated and a case made whether or not that needs to be increased or 
decreased, not thrown in here in the dark of night and said we are 
going to spend $50 million because it is part of an economic stimulus 
package. It is not.
  There is $44 million for repairs to the United States Department of 
Agriculture headquarters. What do they need new carpet, retrofitting of 
their bathroom fixtures? Can't that wait? Is that going to create new 
jobs? I don't think so.
  There is $200 million as we said earlier for The National Mall, 
including $21 million for sod. I could go on and on. Some might say you 
are nitpicking, you are just going in there and picking out things that 
sound and look bad. Believe me, there are others that sound and look a 
whole lot worse. It is just a recurring theme. So we feel very 
strongly, and I want to spend some time talking about this because my 
colleague on the floor with me tonight, Representative Garrett from New 
Jersey, he and I are both members of the Republican Study Committee, 
the more conservative 108 Republican Members out of about 175 of us 
now, in the minority, who have a better plan, we think, for stimulating 
this economy. We call it the Economic Recovery and Middle Class Tax 
Relief Act of 2009.
  I want to bring out just a few of the things that are in that bill. 
We have submitted it. I am a proud cosponsor of this bill. I think the 
original cosponsors, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, 
Mr. Speaker, and that would be Dr. Tom Price of my great home State of 
Georgia, and Jim Jordan, the gentleman from Ohio, and a couple of other 
members of the Republican Study Committee, but here are some of the 
provisions.
  We would provide an across-the-board tax cut of 5 percent for 
everybody who pays taxes. Every marginal rate, we would cut 5 percent. 
If you are paying 10 percent, it is 5. If you are paying in the 15 
percent bracket, it is 10. If you are paying in the 28 percent bracket, 
it is 23. And we feel very strongly about that.
  We would increase the child tax credit from $1,000 to $5,000.
  We would repeal the AMT. Very quickly, I think the general public has 
heard enough about this to understand it. I know my colleagues 
understand it. AMT, alternative minimum tax, which was put in place 25 
or 30 years ago to make sure that maybe 125 ultra-rich people had to 
pay some taxes, they couldn't use legal loopholes with very smart 
Philadelphia tax lawyers to get out of paying any taxes, and so it had 
to be calculated in two ways and they had to pay an alternative minimum 
tax. Well, it was not indexed for inflation and this year come April 
15, 25 million middle income taxpayers are getting caught by the AMT, 
and that should be repealed. It should not have any kind of a PAYGO 
provision. It is a wrong tax. It was never meant to apply to these 24 
million, and it should be repealed and repealed permanently.
  We want to make the capital gains tax lower and we want to make the 
dividends tax rate 15 percent and permanent. We want to increase by 50 
percent the value of the tax deduction for interest on student loans 
and the tax deduction for qualified higher education expenses.
  We want to make all withdrawals from retirement accounts tax free, as 
I said earlier, during the year 2009.
  There are a number of other provisions in the bill. I know that my 
colleague from New Jersey is very familiar with that. I would love to 
yield to him at this time and we will further discuss the RSC stimulus 
bill which is called the Economic Recovery and Middle Class Tax Relief 
Act of 2009 which we firmly believe will get us out of this recession 
because people will have money in their hands that they will spend and 
we will not have to worry about this massive bureaucracy throwing $825 
billion out the window and hoping that it sticks somewhere.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, before I speak to the many 
merits of that piece of legislation, I just want to reiterate another 
point as to how we got here and what we are getting from the other 
side.
  As I mentioned before, the proponents of the bailout bill that we are 
about to vote on tomorrow would say that the economists are on their 
side and there are no economists on the other side, and I made the 
argument that there are a number of economists who support our view, 
that the way to go is just what you were laying out in the Economic 
Recovery and Middle Class Tax Relief Act.
  I should also point out that even within their own conference, there 
is growing realization that the way to get job creation going in this 
country is not by rushing a bill through this House without due 
deliberations, rushing a piece of legislation that is going to put our 
children and grandchildren in debt.

                              {time}  2200

  And so I just wanted to point out that our friend from the other side 
of the aisle and the chairman of the Capital Markets Committee in 
Financial Services, Representative Paul Kanjorski--who, by the way, 
just an hour or so ago was trying to make a positive amendment to the 
underlying bill and was rebuffed in the Rules Committee--this is what 
he had to say on C-SPAN with regard to his own party. He said, the 
Democrats, ``have lost our way, and that we shouldn't be pressed by any 
silly deadlines.'' He went on to say further, ``We need to take our 
time. And I guarantee you we're going to come back and we're going to 
have to have another stimulus on top of this. We're going to have 
another bailout for Wall Street because we are not doing things 
properly.'' He says, again, ``I think we lost our way in a way. We 
shouldn't be pressed by these deadlines. You know, what makes the 
President's Day holiday''--which is where they were initially aiming 
for--``so important for us to get out of town to get these things 
done?'' Which just goes to show that there are individuals from both 
sides of the aisle who realize that when you're talking about such sums 
of money and when you're talking about such a situation that we're in 
right now, that a solution is not to be found by rushing to judgment, 
nor is a solution to be found by putting all consideration to 
alternatives aside.
  That's why I commend the gentleman from Georgia to making reference 
to the RSC, the Republican Study Committee, proposal. Because what this 
does is to make a realization that the failed policies of the past, as 
far as economic policy of saying that we can spend our way into a new 
paradise of the economic situation, history does not prove that. If you 
think about the Great Depression--which a lot of people are now 
referencing right now--some of them from the other side of the aisle 
will make that argument and say, well, what pulled us out of the 
Depression they'll say was FDR. And I know our new President makes 
reference to himself with regard to FDR, besides Lincoln. But the other 
side of the aisle will say that the way to get out of this doldrums is 
do additional spending such as the New Deal, and that's what they're 
talking about today is another New Deal.
  But if you actually study the history of the Great Depression--and I 
know there is much dispute as to how we got into the Depression in the 
first place, but I will commend the gentleman from Georgia to an 
article written by Robert Higgs which makes the case very well that 
going into the Depression, there is question as to how we got into it, 
not so much into question is how we got out of it. And how we got out 
of it was an opportunity by the private sector to make decisions on 
their own to invest as they wanted to invest, hire people how they want 
to be hired, and to do so without excessive control by the Federal 
Government.
  And I'll bring this all around to your point of why the RSC's bill is 
so important. During the Great Depression you had the FDR, the 
Roosevelt administration, setting up a whole alphabet soup of new 
agencies to regulate the economy. During the Depression, you had 
excessive government expenditures in various sectors of the economy, 
all of which made the private sector basically say, we're going to sit 
back for a little while. We're not going to invest anything because 
tomorrow, where I invest over here, the government may start regulating 
in such a way that I can't make a profit; or tomorrow, if I

[[Page H599]]

decide to invest over here, the government may decide to subsidize my 
competitor, so I will not be able to make a profit.
  So during that time, during the Depression, the investor groups or 
individuals stayed on the sideline. And it wasn't until the Great 
Escape, when the Roosevelt administration began to back off, that 
investors began to get into the market again. The legislation you refer 
to, the RSC bill, would go in the direction of what came after FDR and 
during what we call ``the Great Escape,'' allowing for the investor 
class to say I'm going to invest again. And why are they going to do 
so? Just because of all those great things that you listed right there. 
Section 179 expensing. An investor is going to say, I can start 
investing tomorrow. I can buy this new machine, this new factory, this 
new truck, or what have you, to hire new people because I can expense 
it today.
  I will yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. This is without a doubt. And I'm glad you 
mentioned section 179. I think under current law, section 179, Mr. 
Speaker, of course is that section of the Internal Revenue Code which 
does allow a small business to expense a certain amount of capital 
improvement or equipment purchase in the very first year. But it's 
limited under current law, I believe--Mr. Garrett, correct me if I'm 
wrong--to about $125,000.
  We say, in the Economic Recovery and Middle Class Relief Act of 2009, 
the RSC stimulus package, that that ought to be expanded. And not only 
that, but also to immediately cut the top corporate income tax rate 
from 35 percent down to 25 percent. And my colleagues and my friends, 
that would just align us with the average rate in the European Union. 
We're all talking about the European Union and what they're doing on 
cap and trade and global warming and how we ought to get in line with 
that--even though it will probably break our economy at a time that we 
can ill afford to do so--but yet we let them rob our bank, literally, 
with a more attractive corporate tax rate, and we drive our 
corporations offshore. That makes absolutely no sense. So there are so 
many things that we could do with the tax code.
  And I want to say one other thing before yielding back to my 
colleague. You know, I've heard the majority side talk about the tax 
portion of this stimulus bill, the $250 billion or so worth of tax 
incentives, and this business of refundability of a tax credit to 
people for their payroll taxes, people that don't even pay taxes. And 
the attitude is that, well, the RSC is wrong; you shouldn't cut taxes 
across the board because people at a higher income level--let's say 
$40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year--they won't have to spend that money 
and they will just hold onto it and it won't get flowing in the 
economy, it won't stimulate the economy. But these nearly poor and poor 
people have no choice but to spend that money because they're 
desperate, they have to spend the money. They can't save it, they can't 
pay down their debt, they can't put it in a college fund for their 
child. To me, Mr. Speaker, that is insulting to these people--good, 
hardworking salt-of-the-earth people--who I truly believe know how to 
control their money and know when to spend and know when to save and 
know when to pay down debt and know when to tear up their credit cards. 
But no, we have this attitude that only uncle knows, only uncle knows 
and has to make the decision for us.
  And I'm just afraid, Mr. Speaker--and that's why I'm opposed to this 
bill in its present form--I just feel that we're only going to get one 
shot at this. We are losing too many jobs, the economy is in a severe 
downturn--I think it's fair to say a deep recession--and we need to 
give it our best shot. And we certainly don't need to be throwing 
gasoline on the fire.
  And so I yield back to my colleague for some additional comments and 
then we'll move to close.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. It looks like the time is coming to a 
close. And it just makes me think, as someone else said earlier today, 
there is a culture of arrogance, I believe, in the Nation's Capitol 
when the thought is that the bureaucrats and the Representatives here 
in this House know how to spend the money better than the people back 
at home. There is an arrogance to think that there is elitist--whether 
it's here or some administrative agency--that they are somehow imbued 
with special qualities, that their action of spending a dollar will 
generate more wealth for this country than if you and I or our 
constituents spend a dollar.
  And of course we're not really only spending a dollar, are we? We're 
talking about billions and trillions of dollars. And if this $5 bill 
was actually a $1,000 bill and I put it right here, how many would I 
need of those to have a million dollars? Well, I would need four inches 
of these stacked up here to give to you and then say that you would be 
a millionaire. And how many of these, if these were $1,000, would I 
have to have stacked up here in order to say go out tomorrow and spend 
a trillion dollars--which is just about what the other side wants to 
do? I would need to have this stack go 63 miles into the air, into the 
space. That's how much money we're talking about spending. And the 
arrogance is that we somehow think that we know how to spend it better.
  How much money are we talking about here? And I will close on this. 
If you took all the money that Congress or that Washington ever spent 
on the Marshall plan to rebuild Europe and added that to all the money 
that this country used to buy the Louisiana Purchase some time ago, and 
you added that to all the money that we spent in this country to the 
race to the moon, and you added that to all the money that we had to 
spend to get us out of the savings and loan crisis, and then you added 
to that all the money that we spent on the Korean War, and then you 
added that to all the money that FDR spent on the New Deal, and then 
you added that to all the money that we spent on the invasion of Iraq, 
and finally, if you added all the money that we spent on the entire 
Vietnam War, all those things together would not equal what the other 
side of the aisle thinks that they know how to spend better than the 
American taxpayer. And I think the American taxpayer knows how to spend 
it far better.
  With that, I yield back to you for closing comments.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. My colleague from New Jersey, I appreciate 
those figures. And boy, if that doesn't put it into perspective for all 
of us, Mr. Speaker.
  Let me just say this, and then I want to recognize my colleague from 
Minnesota, possibly, for a minute. But at the end of our conference 
today, Mr. Speaker, with President Obama, our conference chairman, Mike 
Pence, the gentleman from Indiana, said to the President, one thing is 
for sure, you have our prayers. And you have our prayers on both sides 
of the aisle. We'll be praying for the administration, we'll be praying 
for the leadership. We'll be praying for the majority and the minority 
that we can do the right thing for the American people.
  I see that my colleagues are leaving. So as I finish up, again, I 
just want to say, Mr. Speaker, that this issue is much too important 
for partisan politics, but it is about policy. And if we're going to 
be--we, the Republican minority--are going to be the loyal opposition, 
then it is our duty, it's our responsibility to express our concern in 
a respectful way to the President of the United States, to President 
Obama, and to Majority Leader Reid in the Senate and the Speaker of the 
House, Ms. Pelosi, here in this great body, that we have some concerns. 
We want you to listen to us. We want to work with you. We want to save 
this economy so that we can help all the American people.

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