[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 29 (Thursday, February 12, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E261-E262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE HISTORY OF SAYING ``NO'' TO ECONOMIC RESCUE EFFORTS HAS BEEN A 
           DISASTER FOR OUR COUNTRY. JUST ASK HERBERT HOOVER.

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 12, 2009

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, in response to the 
gravest economic crisis to face our country in generations, Congress is 
on the verge of approving President Obama's economic recovery package 
to save or create between three and four million jobs and put our 
country on a path toward economic growth. That is a good thing. And it 
is happening despite the opposition of every one of my Republican 
colleagues in the House. Their opposition is rooted in the history of 
saying no to government intervention in times of crisis; they were 
wrong during the Great Depression and they are wrong today.
  The public is being told by critics of this plan, which invests in 
education, renewable energy, transportation, and health care, that it 
spends too much money and is not the answer to what ails our economy. 
The critics say that we would be better off relying on the private 
sector and tax cuts--the same strategy that got us into this mess in 
the first place. It was this very same Republican strategy that turned 
a record budget surplus into a record budget deficit and sent the 
economy into a nose dive.
  When the House approved president Obama's plan last week, not a 
single Republican in the House of Representatives voted

[[Page E262]]

for it. When the Senate approved it this past weekend, only three 
Republicans there voted for it.
  For months now, economists from across the political spectrum have 
warned Congress and the President that we had to act in a bold and 
swift manner to rescue the economy. The economy, they said, was 
literally shutting down.
  The housing and banking crises froze the credit markets, sent our 
economy into a tailspin, and wiped out trillions in personal wealth. 
Nearly 600,000 Americans lost their jobs in January of this year alone, 
and 3.6 million Americans have lost their jobs since December of 2007. 
These numbers are staggering, and they are only going to get worse.
  In the face of this crisis, the President called on the nation to 
heed the advice of the economists and pass his economic recovery plan. 
It is true, this is a very expensive plan that we will vote on again 
tomorrow, costing nearly $800 billion over the next two years.
  But the economy will lose far more value than that over the same 
period of time if we do not act. President Obama has said, and I agree, 
that doing nothing is not an option. Similarly, he has been honest by 
saying that he cannot promise that this plan alone will turn our 
economy around.
  The plan we will approve tomorrow over the objections of my 
Republican colleagues is not a silver bullet. Alone, it will not right 
the wrecked ship that is our economy. However, along with a strong plan 
to unfreeze the credit markets and help homeowners afford their 
mortgages, this plan will help rescue the economy and put people back 
to work.
  Unemployment will continue to rise in the near future no matter what 
we do. That is always the case in a recession. But if we enact this 
plan, the unemployment rate will not rise as fast. Fewer people will 
lose their jobs if we act now, and many more people will have economic 
opportunity ahead when the economy does recover.
  Madam Speaker, it is regrettable that despite the evidence of the 
need to act, the other party has chosen as their response to America's 
problems to stay the course and just say ``No.'' They are saying in 
effect, we will not help you. You are on your own.
  They do this much like their predecessors did when they faced the 
Great Depression. The Republicans were wrong then and they are dead 
wrong now. And the American people should not for a minute be fooled 
into thinking otherwise.
  If people will remember back to the days before President Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, rescued the economy from the grips of the 
Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover looked into the economic 
abyss and said, don't worry.
  For 75 years, Republicans have carried the sad mantle of Hooverism 
because of their obliviousness to the severity of the coming Depression 
of the 1930s and the need for government action.
  Today, as in the 1920s, Republicans are trying to frame Democrats as 
wasteful spending interventionists and themselves as guardians of the 
U.S. Treasury and the private sector.
  Not only are they misleading the public and hiding their own record 
of deficit spending, they are severely misreading the public mood for 
bold action.
  My Republican colleagues, for reasons of antiquated ideology and 
partisan opportunism, have failed to appreciate the urgency of the 
situation.
  I encourage my colleagues to dust off the book, Crisis of the Old 
Order, historian Arthur Schlesinger's study of the failures of Hoover 
leading up to the election of 1932. It is instructive of the mistakes 
Hoover made then and points to the grave errors the Republicans are 
making today.
  When the country called out for action, the President Obama answered, 
the Republicans said ``No,'' as reflected by Minority John Boehner's 
instructions to his colleagues to oppose the bill, even as President 
Obama came to the Capitol to extend his hand and urge their 
cooperation.
  The Minority Whip, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said the ``no'' was going 
to be the Republicans' strategy to the economic crisis. The Republican 
national spokesman of late, radio host Rush Limbaugh, added to the 
``No'' strategy by asserting on air that he wanted President Obama to 
``fail.''
  From Schlesinger's book, we see that in 1931-32, as the economic 
crisis was worsening, President Hoover similarly was clueless. ``Nobody 
is actually starving,'' he said. ``The hoboes are better fed than they 
have ever been. One hobo in New York got 10 meals in one day.''
  Hoover shunned the idea of strong government action, as Obama is 
calling for today. ``What the country needs is a big laugh,'' he said 
in 1932. ``If someone could get off a good joke every 10 days, I think 
our troubles would be over.''
  In 1932, Hoover asked Will Rogers to think up a joke that would stop 
hoarding. He told Rudy Vallee, ``If you can sing a song that would make 
people forget the Depression, I'll give you a medal.''
  And he told Christopher Morley, ``Perhaps what this country needs is 
a good poem . . . Sometimes a great poem can do more than 
legislation.''
  Compare those comments to what Roosevelt said. ``We need to correct, 
by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from 
which we now suffer . . . The country needs . . . and demands bold, 
persistent experimentation . . . Above all, try something.''
  Hoover declared he wanted ``to solve great problems outside of 
Government action.'' For the federal government to act would undermine 
``the very basis of self-government.''
  The Depression, Hoover declared, cannot be solved ``by legislative or 
executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action 
of the cells of the economic body.'' Again, suggesting the private 
sector in all circumstances needs to solve economic crises.
  Republicans for generations have stood on the sidelines, and they are 
doing it again, when the country is calling for their assistance. 
Tragically, they are deaf to the needs of the American people, they 
remain locked in ideological indifference and partisan politics, taking 
as their model the failed Hooverism of the 1930s which let the nation 
slide into Depression while waiting for poems and songs instead of 
taking bold action.
  They brought nothing but negativism and political posturing to the 
table when President Obama offered an opportunity to join in a 
bipartisan effort to rescue the nation.
  Their actions are a tragedy. Fortunately, however, my Democratic 
colleagues in the House and Senate, and a small number of courageous 
Senate Republicans, have joined President Obama's call to action and 
will this week answer the pleas from average Americans for help. We 
will act now, and we will continue to act until we have turned the 
economy around for the benefit of every American and our nation.

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