[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 37 (Tuesday, March 3, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H2911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WE HAVE SEVERE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

  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. Madam Speaker, we have got severe economic 
problems. People are losing their homes. People who are staying in 
their homes are having a very difficult time making their payments, and 
we really need to do everything we can to help them.
  Now, the Obama administration has a budget that they proposed, and I 
wish everybody in America was paying attention. I can't talk to them 
directly, but if they were paying attention, I would like to tell them 
that President Obama's budget cuts their mortgage interest deduction. 
It reduces their mortgage interest deduction.
  So if you have a house, Madam Speaker, and you are paying your 
mortgage, the interest on that mortgage is tax deductible, and he is 
going to reduce, get this, he is going to reduce the tax deductibility 
of part of your mortgage interest.
  I am sure that's going to really stimulate the purchase of homes and 
help the economy. This is not what he promised. It's going to be, in 
effect, a tax increase. And we have got charitable institutions around 
this country, churches, the Salvation Army, all kinds of charitable 
institutions that do so much good for this country. And we really, we 
really admire them for that, and we give money to them, and we deduct 
that money from our taxes because it's a charitable contribution.
  And, you know, President Obama's budget is going to reduce the amount 
that you can deduct from your taxes for charitable contributions. Now, 
I don't know, I don't know what the purpose of that is. I guess he is 
trying to raise more money in taxes.
  But the fact of the matter is those charitable institutions are going 
to get less money because you can't deduct all of that money from your 
taxes, as you have in the past. They are reducing it dramatically.
  And so where are the people going to go who depend on those 
charitable institutions if they don't have the money to help them? 
Well, you guessed it, the government. We will just raise your taxes and 
spend more money on bailouts and everything else to help those who are 
in need.
  But right now, if a charity wants to help somebody, we can give them 
money and we could deduct it from our taxes. I wish everybody in 
America realized this. We were promised so much, we were promised 
everything was going to be better, that taxes were going to be lowered, 
that everybody is going to be living better, and everything has been 
going south.
  We are spending money like it's going out of style, trillions and 
trillions of dollars, so much money that people can't even comprehend 
it and our kids and our grandkids are going to be paying for it with 
higher taxes and very high inflation. And, folks, let me just tell you, 
my colleagues, that inflation ain't too far off, because as fast as 
they are printing money, it's going to happen pretty fast.
  So let me just say to my colleagues and everybody, we really need to 
take a hard look at that budget, and we should not allow charitable 
deductions and the taxes on it to be reduced, the tax deductibility 
reduced. And mortgage interest, we should not allow there to be a 
reduction in the tax deductibility of mortgage interest. It will hurt 
the economy.
  I hope President Obama is listening.

                          ____________________