[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 30 (Friday, February 13, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H1596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 RUSH TO JUDGMENT ON STIMULUS BILL VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence this 
afternoon.
  Earlier this afternoon, this House passed the single largest spending 
bill that has ever come across the work activity of this body. There 
was tepid applause on the other side of the aisle for the passage of 
this bill, I think in recognition that none of us really know if it 
will work. Most of us on our side of the aisle don't believe it will 
work, believe it was the wrong issue to do, the wrong way to address a 
very serious issue.
  Americans all across this country are suffering: people losing their 
jobs, losing their homes, struggling to make ends meet. All of the 
things that go on during a recession. These are serious times.
  My colleagues have been up here all day stating over and over ad 
nauseam the lack of consideration given to our ideas on how we could 
have made this better, the overall lack of consideration considering 
the substantial size of this particular bill that was given over the 
last 2 weeks. You hate to use a phrase that's been worn out, but ``rush 
to judgment'' comes to mind when you look at the activity that went on.
  This House voted earlier this week--it was a unanimous vote--which 
doesn't happen except on post office namings--a unanimous vote that we 
would have 48 hours to look at this bill, that our constituents would 
have 48 hours to look at this bill, that America would have a chance to 
see what we were voting on, and that was unanimous.
  And, Mr. Speaker, it's totally within your prerogatives as to when 
things come to the House. That's one of the wonderful things about 
being Speaker, and it is great to be Speaker. But I'm disappointed that 
you didn't honor the wishes, the unanimous wishes of 403 of us, that 
thought we needed 48 hours to look at this bill.

                              {time}  1530

  The real losers in this bill--and there are lots of losers--but the 
real losers in this bill are our future children, future generations of 
Americans who will be forever saddled with the debt that is going to be 
borrowed to pay for this bill. Tucked away in the corner of one of 
these bills is an increase in the debt limit to $12 trillion. That debt 
will never get paid back.
  I had an interesting exchange with a young fifth grader in 
Fredericksburg, Texas, last October who asked me the single best 
question I've ever been asked during a town hall meeting. He said, Mr. 
Congressman, what's the plan to pay off the national debt? And I was 
rocked back on my heels because I had never been asked anything that 
straightforward important, and I had to say, well, young man, there is 
no plan to pay off the national debt. The money we borrow today is 
permanent debt. In order to pay debt off, you have to run a surplus. 
This Federal Government rarely ever runs a surplus, certainly never to 
the tune of $12 trillion
  And so future generations will be paying interest not only on this 
$800 billion but also the $12 trillion that we've accumulated--and 
there's plenty of blame to go around for that--for the rest of their 
lives and the lives of their children and the lives of their children 
because this debt will not get paid off.
  It is a sad day, Mr. Speaker, for the taxpayers and future 
generations of taxpayers that my generation, the one just ahead of me 
and the one just behind me, believe in our core that it is an 
appropriate way to address problems that we're having by taking money 
that we haven't earned, that has not even yet been earned by our 
grandkids and working on problems that we need to solve that are 
important to us. If the problems are important enough that we need to 
spend money on them, then we clearly ought to be spending our own money 
on them and not future generations of Americans.
  So, Mr. Speaker, just before I yield back, I appreciate the time. I 
just wanted to express how disappointed I am in the action of the House 
today in passing a monster of a bill that does not address the jobs 
that it was supposed to. It simply spends more money and is a legacy, 
generates higher spending on an annual year-after-year basis because of 
some of the floors that we've put under many of these problems that we 
couldn't afford before we did this, and we simply can't afford on a 
going-forward basis as well.

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