[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 39 (Thursday, March 5, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3031-H3032]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SPENDING IS OUT OF CONTROL

  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, things are happening so fast in 
this body and the other body and down on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at 
the White House, I don't see how Members of Congress--let alone the 
American people--can keep up with it.
  Let us just take a quick look at what happened in the last 7, 8, 9 
weeks. We got the second tranche of the TARP bill. That TARP spending 
was $700 billion. People can't get their arms around what $700 billion 
is, but $700 billion to save our economy.
  And then the automobile industry had problems. And so we had an auto 
bailout, first tranche, of $14 billion. And then we had to have an 
economic stimulus package because the economy wasn't responding as we 
wanted it to. So we passed an economic stimulus that was $787 billion 
more; and with interest, that was well over a trillion dollars.
  And we have an omnibus spending bill that's pending in the Senate 
right now tonight for $410 billion. And the President has a budget he's 
proposing to the Congress for $3.9 trillion, and $635 billion of that 
is the first down payment on a national health care of a socialized 
medicine approach for helping us with our health care problems in this 
country.
  Now, yesterday, Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby were talking to the 
Fed and said, ``We want to know where this money's been going.'' And 
the Fed said, ``We're not going to tell you.''
  Now, can you imagine the Senate Banking Committee or the House 
Banking Committee being stonewalled by the Fed saying, ``We're not 
going to tell you where we're spending these trillions of dollars''? 
And Geithner over at Treasury said he may have to put another $2 or $3 
trillion into the financial institutions to keep the economy moving.
  Now, you go past that and you say, What about taxes on the American 
people: $1.6 trillion increase in the budget, and the 2001-2003 tax 
cuts that we've put in place are going to expire. When those tax cuts 
expire, that, in essence, is a tax increase. And this is no time for a 
tax increase.
  And the death tax, which we were trying to do away with so we could 
pass businesses onto the next generation without a huge tax liability 
that would run them out of business, they're going to do away with the 
death tax cut.
  Now, in addition to that, we have what's called a carbon tax or an 
energy tax. That's going to be $646 billion in new taxes that's going 
to be passed on to the consumer every time they turn on their lights or 
buy a gallon of gas or use a lump of coal.
  Now, they're going to reduce the mortgage deduction. If you've got a 
house and you've been deducting the mortgage interest on it, they're 
going to reduce. The administration and the Democrats in this body are 
going to reduce or try to reduce the amount of tax deductibility on 
your mortgage interest. And I'm sure that's going to be a reason to buy 
new houses when you do away with one of the incentives for people by 
doing away with part of their mortgage deduction interest on interest.
  And then for charitable institutions--and this is happening so fast, 
you can't keep up with it. Charitable institutions--your church, the 
Salvation Army, the Boy Scouts of America, all of those whom you 
support and give money to--they want to reduce the tax deductibility 
for those contributions. Every charitable institution in this country 
ought to be marching on this Capitol saying, ``Hey. Enough. We need 
those tax deductions so we can encourage people to help us so the 
burden of helping people in this country doesn't fall completely on the 
Federal Government.''
  But sometimes I wonder if this White House and this administration 
and the Democrats don't want the government to take over everything in 
a socialistic approach to government.
  Now, the 2010 budget would increase the national debt by $12.3 
trillion over the next 10 years, $12.3 trillion more. And that is more 
of the debt that's been accumulated since the beginning of the Republic 
in 1789 until today. That's how fast we're spending this money.

[[Page H3032]]

  And in 2007, when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle took 
control of the Congress, CBO said we would have an $800 billion surplus 
in 10 years; and after 2 years of their leadership, instead of an $800 
billion surplus in the next 10 years, we're going to have a $7.8 
trillion deficit. Now, they'll try to blame that all on the White 
House, but they were in charge of the spending because they had control 
of both Houses of Congress.
  Now, there was an article written just yesterday saying the money 
supply in this country has been increased by three times almost, 271 
percent. What does that mean? That means we have almost three times as 
much money in circulation. It's being hoarded by a lot of people 
because they're scared to death. But when that money gets into 
circulation, we're going to have very high inflation. You're going to 
see the cost of bread and milk and gas and everything go through the 
roof.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, there is so much more to tell and so little time. 
I will be back, and I hope the American people are paying attention, 
Mr. Speaker.

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