[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 17 (Wednesday, January 28, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H750-H751]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   TAX REDUCTION FOR INDIVIDUALS AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS THE ANSWER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, the week has ended, Republicans 
are going on a retreat, I presume the Democrats are going home, and 
there aren't many of us left in the Chamber. And sometimes I feel a 
little bit like some of my colleagues, like a voice hollering in the 
wilderness because it doesn't seem as though we're getting much 
attention on the issues that we raise.
  In the late 1970s, we ended up with hyperinflation. Inflation was 
running at about 12, 14 percent; unemployment was running about 12 
percent. And Mr. Carter brought a man in named Mr. Volcker to do 
something about the

[[Page H751]]

runaway inflation and the unemployment.
  And Mr. Volcker came in to stop the inflation by raising interest 
rates, and he raised interest rates to 21.5 percent. He put a hammer on 
the entire economy of the United States. Businesses went under, the 
real estate industry went under. My business, we had $11 million in 
pending sales in real estate, we were only able to close on $1 million. 
We had to put 10 or 11 people out of work because you couldn't buy 
anything with interest rates being at 21.5 percent.
  So what happened is the American people elected a man named Ronald 
Reagan, who came in and he said America could do better and would do 
better. And the way to do it was to give the American people some of 
their money back so they could spend it to buy things that they needed, 
thereby creating products, thereby creating jobs, and thereby helping 
economic growth. And within about 3 years, the economy turned around, 
and we had one of the largest and longest periods of economic growth in 
the last 100 years. And it was because we cut taxes for business, we 
cut taxes for individuals, and we stimulated economic growth.
  Now we're heading down that path that we headed on down in the 1970s. 
Today we added $825 billion to the deficit. We had a $700 billion 
bailout for the banks and Wall Street not too long ago added to the 
deficit. The total in the last month or so added in spending was $1.539 
trillion, and CBO says it's more than that. This is only going to cause 
more problems down the road. It's not, in my opinion, going to solve 
the problem of joblessness. It's going to add to the necessity for more 
spending.
  This isn't the end of spending. This was asked on television I think 
earlier today: Is this going to solve the problem; is this the end of 
additional spending? It will not be. There are going to be trillions 
more added to the request for spending in the not-too-distant future. 
The President, the Vice President, and his chief economic advisor said 
that we're going to need more, that this was a good step first--a good 
first step, $1.5 trillion?
  We're going to have more, and it's going to cause more economic 
problems down the road in the form of higher inflation, thereby, higher 
prices; and we're going to end up with somebody coming in to try to do 
something about the inflation, like Mr. Volcker did before, to put the 
hammer on it by raising interest rates, which will put a real hammer 
again on the economy of this country.
  We're not solving these problems. We're not solving the problems of 
joblessness. We're not going to create new jobs with this plan we just 
passed today. We're going to create more government, not less. We're 
going to move this government toward socialism and away from the free 
enterprise system.
  And the kids that are growing up today are going to be saddled with 
our debt. They're going to pay for it with higher taxes, higher 
spending down the road, inflation, and a lower standard of living. And 
this is something that we need not do.
  There is still time to reverse this by realizing that the way to 
stimulate economic growth is by cutting taxes, not increasing spending, 
by cutting spending, not increasing spending. And if we do that, we 
will put this country on the road to economic recovery, which is the 
right approach. Not more government spending, not trillions more; 
that's only going to exacerbate the problem.
  So, Mr. Speaker, the week has ended. We've spent all this money, we 
haven't solved the problem, and we're going to continue down the road 
we're on. I hope my colleagues, before it's too late, will realize free 
enterprise and lower taxes and less spending is the way to solve this 
problem, not socialism, more government, and more taxes.

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