[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 22 (Wednesday, February 4, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H1013-H1014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DEFICIT SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate my friend from Ohio 
pointing out the problems that arise with the trade deficit. That has 
been a problem.
  When I first came here and was sworn in on this House floor back 
January of 2005, what I began to hear from the other side of the aisle, 
correctly, was that the Republicans controlled the White House, they 
controlled the House, and controlled the Senate, and they are spending 
too much money. They are engaged in deficit spending, and it has to 
stop. And they were right.
  In my first 2 years here, we had on some bills the White House asking 
for way too much money; and, to try to be a party that went along with 
the President, many of my colleagues would say we have got to do this, 
we are in charge, and money got spend when it shouldn't have been 
spent. And we should have been better about not having deficit 
spending, but we blew it, and the American voters called us on it, 
properly.
  I say us. I was often not happy and on the contrary, and some in my 
party called me a troublemaker and still do. But we call them the way 
we see them. And the fact is, deficit spending was wrong when it was 
being done by a Republican White House and Congress, or requesting from 
the Congress and the Republican Congress was doing it, because it is 
the Congress that does the appropriations, and it is wrong today. And 
so in November of 2006, when the Democrats were put in the majority in 
both the House and the Senate, I was hoping we would see the end of 
deficit spending, just as they promised. But that is not what happened. 
The deficit spending has gotten increasingly higher, and now in the 
first few weeks of this new term it has hit an all-time high.
  You can't spend your way to prosperity. It doesn't work when you are

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spending your grandchildren and your great grandchildren's money. And 
you know, you have to know some day when we are dead and gone they are 
going to be cussing our names: Why did you run us up into such debt so 
we couldn't live like you did because you wouldn't control your 
spending? That is our obligation, and we owe so much better to the 
children and the generations to come.
  There was a Rasmussen poll today that came out, and it says 45 
percent of the American public are in favor of a tax cut-only stimulus 
bill. Stop the run-away spending on things that aren't stimulus. Why 
would Congress do that? Why did Congress do it, and why is it 
increasing in such a dramatic scale?
  Well, there is an atmosphere of arrogance that is growing all the 
time in Washington that the people out there who are stimulating the 
economy, they are working, they are doing all they can, well, there are 
some in Washington who think they are just too stupid to spend the 
money so that it stimulates the economy, so we must have people in 
Washington, who know so much more and are so much better at spending 
other people's money, let the people in Washington spend the hard-
working folks' money.
  In the last couple of weeks we had $350 billion, the second half of 
that bailout that was such a mistake back in September, that other half 
has been allocated and approved. Then you add the $819 billion plus 
whatever the Senate is going to add, you put those together, it is 
around $1.2 trillion. Why is that a significant number? Because $1.2 
trillion happens to be the amount basically that every individual 
income taxpayer in America will pay for 2008 income tax. You want to 
see the economy stimulated? You give back every dime that every 
individual taxpayer paid in 2008, you will see the economy stimulated.
  I am not even advocating that. I am just saying, give people back 
their money in their next two paychecks, the next two months' 
paychecks, a 2-month tax holiday, a 16\2/3\ percent tax cut for this 
year. A study by Moody's Economy says that will increase the GDP more 
in 1 year than any other tax proposal out there. It would be a 2-month 
tax holiday. And for those who don't make enough to pay income tax, you 
get to keep your FICA, so everyone, just like President Obama promised, 
will get an income tax holiday. You will get your money back.
  But I was told last week when President Obama--and you can't be in a 
room with that guy and not really like him. He is a likeable, smart, 
congenial man. And when I was telling him about the tax holiday idea, 
it is not 3 months, 6 months, next year, it is in your next paycheck. 
He wanted the idea talked about, and now Larry Summers won't call me 
back.

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