[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 45 (Monday, March 16, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3426-H3433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S BUDGET SPENDS TOO MUCH, TAXES TOO MUCH, AND BORROWS 
                                TOO MUCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for yielding, and I thank you 
for this opportunity and the kindness to be able to address this body 
on the issue of taxes. We're very excited to be able to have this 
opportunity.

[[Page H3427]]

  I'm joined this evening by two wonderful colleagues, Mrs. Foxx of 
North Carolina, and also Mr. Garrett of New Jersey, who have indicated, 
also, willingness to speak to this important topic.
  We see that there is a tremendous change that is about to occur in 
our Nation. And I just want to begin by talking about the real problem 
that we have at hand, and that's the issue of certainty versus 
uncertainty in our economy.
  There are many people right now who have been unwilling to make 
decisions about investing in the economy, spending money, buying 
something, should they save money, should they spend it, can they get a 
job? And the worry has been ``certainty.'' What's going to happen next? 
They feel like one shoe has dropped, when will the other shoe drop? 
What's it going to be? What's going to happen? People are just nervous.
  I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, I was back in my district this 
weekend, I'm sure you were, too, and people that I saw are very worried 
about what's coming down the horizon because they just saw, in the last 
55, 60 days, they saw our Congress spend $1 trillion dollars and more, 
once you count the debt service on the stimulus bill. They're very 
nervous when they see that level of spending. They've never heard of 
that before. It's historic, it's never happened before.
  They saw that, and then right after that they saw us take up the 
appropriations bill for the rest of the year which spends for the 
Federal Government, and it's $410 billion. And then they heard it had 
9,000 earmarks contained in the bill. And they thought, what in the 
world is going on? I thought this was an emergency. I thought this was 
a time when we're supposed to be careful with our money. And the 
American people are socking away money as much as they can.
  It was just only about a year or so ago that we saw that the savings 
rate in the United States was minus 1 percent. During the Great 
Depression, the savings rate was minus 1.5. What was the savings rate 
in January? It was plus 5 percent. It's plus 5 percent because the 
American people have figured out, we're in trouble. And so they are 
battening down the hatches and they're doing everything they can to 
make sure their ship is in order, their house is in order so they at 
least have a job and so that they can at least take care of their 
bills.
  What has Congress' response been? It has been to spend $1 trillion, 
and then $410 billion--plus 9,000 earmarks contained in that bill--and 
sandwiched in between was something called a Fiscal Responsibility 
Summit. Now, people are scratching their heads saying, you people call 
yourselves fiscally responsible when you've just spent that kind of 
money, let alone what's happened with the Federal Reserve and all the 
money that the Federal Reserve has committed?
  The reason why I'm bringing that up, Mr. Speaker, is because today 
marks a very important anniversary. I know Mr. Garrett remembers this 
anniversary. It was 1 year ago today that for the very first time in 
the history of our country the Federal Reserve opened the discount 
window to a private investment bank called Bear Stearns. We all 
remember that, it was $29 billion. Just preceding that, this body had 
spent the outrageous sum of $168 billion in a stimulus package that was 
supposed to rescue our economy from diving into the doldrums. So what 
did our body do? We spent $168 billion, and we got into helicopters and 
we dropped checks all across the United States and said, ``Have a good 
time. Spend money so that our economy doesn't tank.'' Our economy 
tanked because people said you can't spend money like that and think 
that your house is going to be in order. So people got nervous, they 
got very worried.
  Then they saw us bail out a private investment bank at $29 billion. 
Well, it wasn't long after that that we heard that Freddie and Fannie, 
the secondary home loan mortgage companies, they were in bankruptcy. We 
had to bail them out. So the Federal taxpayer had to cough up $200 
billion to bail out Freddie and Fannie. This really scared people.
  At the same time, the Federal Government took $400 billion and 
infused that money into the Federal Home Loan Association. People 
thought, my stars, what's about to happen? Well, they didn't even catch 
a breath, and the Treasury Secretary said, now we need $700 billion; 
we've got to have $700 billion for the TARP program, which was to have 
money to be able to buy troubled assets, the mortgage security bailout.
  And we were told we had to get this done within a week or the whole 
economy was going to fail. Well, we had that tussle, we had that 
struggle. And you remember, Mr. Speaker, that last September we were 
all here in this Chamber. We came in, the galleries were filled with 
people, the press was up in the press box; what were we going to do? We 
were going to pass this historic level of spending, $700 billion, and 
the vote failed. It was a Monday. No one could believe it. So there was 
regrouping going on; took another vote, the vote passed. Only this time 
it was wrapped in another $110 billion worth of very expensive gift 
wrap called ``vote buying.'' And so that bill was passed. Pretty soon, 
the year went by, and between this body and the Federal Reserve 
trillions of dollars flew through the door.
  People were looking for hope and change; I was looking for hope and 
change. And when January 20 came and the Obama administration was sworn 
in, what did we see? We saw over $1 trillion worth of spending out of 
the gate. And what did it do? Has it calmed the waters? Has it brought 
us certainty? Are you kidding? We saw GDP tank. We saw the Dow Jones 
Industrial Average go to such historic lows, no one could believe it. 
We were looking at 6000 on the Dow Jones. We saw job losses spike 
through the charts, unbelievable levels of job losses. Where is the 
certainty?
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I'm here to say, there is a certainty that we can 
tell the American people tonight, and that certainty is that their 
taxes are just about to have the roof blown off. They're going to have 
the roof blown off. And it was here in this body, not too long ago, 
when President Obama stood right here and he told the American people 
in that camera right up there, he said, ``I will not raise taxes on 95 
percent of the American people. You can take that to the bank.'' And in 
the course of his remarks, he said that he is going to pass the cap and 
trade tax. That's the new tax on energy, which 100 percent of Americans 
are going to be spending.
  That's what we want to talk about tonight, Mr. Speaker. We have to 
talk about this tonight. We've been talking about all the spending; now 
it's time to talk about the taxing. And it's really a shame because the 
time to have been talking about taxing is when we were talking about 
spending.
  We didn't even have a paragraph of conversation on this floor about 
how we're going to pay for all this spending. Congress just had a sugar 
high. It's as though every Member of Congress just ingested a 24 pack 
of Mountain Dew and said, ``Hallelujah. I'm on a sugar high. We're 
going to spend money and we're going to rev this economy up.'' Well, 
I'm telling you, if you had a 24 pack of Mountain Dew, you would not 
only be on a sugar high, you would be zooming, but you would crash. And 
that's about what we are going to be seeing. That crash is called 
taxes, Mr. Speaker. And the American people haven't seen anything yet 
when they open up their tax bills.
  At this point, I would like to yield to the gentlelady from North 
Carolina to take it from there. And we're going to go in a game of 
tennis here tonight. We're going to volley back and forth and we will 
have a great discussion on taxes.
  I yield to the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
  Ms. FOXX. I thank my colleague from Minnesota. It's a little hard to 
follow her. She is so energized and so enthusiastic. The rest of us 
here tonight are that way, too, but we don't have the same presence she 
has, but we are so fortunate to have her in the Republican Caucus.
  I want to add to what she is saying, and then yield in a couple of 
minutes to our colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), who has a lot 
to say about this subject tonight.
  I want to point out that our colleague from Minnesota has set the 
stage for what we're going to talk about tonight, and there are lots of 
things to try to remember. She has

[[Page H3428]]

gone over a whole list of all of the spending that was done last year, 
what has been proposed so far this year. But I want to help people just 
keep in mind three simple concepts about what has been happening in 
this Congress so far.
  The budget, which the Democrats support, President Obama's budget, 
spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. Those are three 
simple concepts for us to keep in mind. We can talk a lot about 
bailouts, stimulus, budget, omnibus budget--there are many, many terms. 
I know the American people have difficulty keeping up with them because 
I have difficulty keeping up with them. It's like you're in a whirlwind 
here with so many things happening.
  The Democrats are living what the Chief of Staff of the President and 
the former head of the conference here said. He said, ``Let's never let 
a crisis go to waste.'' He wanted, with a Democrat-controlled Congress 
and a Democrat in the White House--talk about being on a sugar high, 
that is really a sugar high because this is the first time in over 8 
years that they have had that situation. And I think it's important 
that we point that out because there are still many people in this 
country who don't realize that the Democrats are in charge, they've 
been in charge. In fact, our economy started tanking when the Democrats 
took over the Congress in 2007. I think I have a chart to show that; 
but again, I think it's really, really important to talk about that.
  I want to say that our colleagues who were speaking just before we 
were made a comment about how it's Congress' job to assure jobs for 
Americans. Well, the budget they support and the policies that they 
have followed thus far have done just the opposite. They've done 
everything they can to kill jobs in this country. And let me point it 
out.
  The Democrats took control of the Congress in January of 2007. That's 
not something they like to be reminded of. They want to say that all of 
the economic problems that we have in this country are the result of 
George Bush's presidency. However, we had 55 straight months of job 
growth up until January of 2007; that's when the Democrats took 
control.
  And look what started happening? This is the chart. The graph is a 
little bit tough to read, but this is the loss of jobs going up. We 
probably should have had it going down to make it be a little more 
specific on what we're talking about. But as they said, they don't want 
to let a crisis go to waste, but they don't want to accept the 
responsibility for what their getting in control of Congress did.
  For 6 years, the first 6 years of President Bush's administration, 
the Republicans were in control. Did they do all the things they should 
have done? Did they do everything right? No. They absolutely did not. I 
was here for 2 of those years, and colleagues of mine did our best to 
cut spending. And we actually did cut spending that cycle, but we never 
got any credit for it because of the news that came out about the 
elections and that kind of thing.

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. If the gentlewoman from Minnesota would 
yield.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I yield to the gentleman.
  Ms. FOXX. This is my colleague from New Jersey, Scott Garrett.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I just want to touch on that one point as 
far as the perception of what the Democrats did and what the 
Republicans did. And I do this not for any partisan reasons because I 
do honestly believe that all of us here tonight actually believe, as 
the majority of the American public believes, that we are in a 
difficult situation; that people are hurting; that jobs are being lost, 
as your chart so adequately demonstrates there; and we don't need to be 
partisan about it, but we do need to set the record straight. And I 
will tell you this little story.
  I have served here for 6 years now, and I have served on the Budget 
Committee. And I was here when the Republicans were in charge. And I, 
like you, was frustrated with the fact that many times during our 
tenure in office when Republicans controlled the House we were spending 
too much money. You and I voted against a lot of those expenditures, 
but as a party we were. And that's why in 2006 the American voters 
voted with their wallets, if you will, and said let's throw them out 
and let's put in a party that is campaigning on a platform of fiscal 
responsibility. And the reason I point out that I serve on the Budget 
Committee was because for 4 years when they were in the minority, they 
were saying a lot of the things that you and I agreed with and that you 
and I were saying, that we were spending too much money and were going 
in the wrong direction. So I perhaps naively hoped that in 2006 when 
they took the majority, they were going to put in practice much of what 
they said about the budget on their campaign trail in their rhetoric. 
But, you know, they didn't. They don't do it in 2006, and they didn't 
do it now in the 2008 election as well. And that's where we are right 
now.
  However, I will credit them with being able to say that they have 
inherited the problems, but, of course, the facts don't speak to that 
as well. You're looking at a chart right there that says ``jobs lost 
since the start of the Democrat majority,'' and even without my glasses 
on, I can see at the bottom of the XY-axis, it is January of 2007, and 
that is the starting point, and then the line goes off the charts. All 
you need is a little rocket on engine of how to succeed in business 
without really trying and just shoot up through the end over there, if 
you're familiar with that movie, and you would see that during their 
tenure, you lost the jobs. But it's not only the fact that they didn't 
inherit the lost jobs because they were in control of the House and 
Senate. I don't have a little easel here, but let me just share this 
chart. I don't know whether you have one up there by you as well.
  The other mantra that they will say in the media, and I've been on TV 
shows and radio shows, and the anchors will say, well, didn't the 
Democrats inherit all of this spending? Not exactly, not when you 
really look down to it. Let me give you about five quick points that I 
can run through here. This too is going back to the bottom of your XY-
axis, January of 2007, when Harry Reid was in charge over in the Senate 
and Speaker Pelosi was in charge here as Speaker of the House. Let's 
see what has occurred from January, 2007, to where we are now, and this 
is March. I will just run through a few quick numbers.
  The omnibus, most recent, fiscal year 2009 omnibus, $410 billion. 
That didn't occur under Republican control. That occurred under 
Democrat control, spending. Stimulus 2, $187 billion, again occurred 
under Democrat control and leadership. Auto bailout, of course, that 
too, $14 billion, and that occurred again during Democrat control of 
the House and Senate. TARP, something that I have been on the floor 
hours upon hours talking and railing against how we're spending so much 
money there. First it was $350 billion at the end of last year, and 
then they added another $350 billion on that. People say we're bailing 
out Wall Street. We're just finding out now where some of that money is 
going. Apparently it's going to AIG executives, who made some of these 
great decisions that brought that company down to where it is today, in 
bonuses and what have you. So there's $700 billion in TARP under 
Democrat control. The next one, pre-TARP loans, $300 billion. And, 
finally, a stimulus bill, stimulus 1, that was July of last year, if 
I'm not mistaken, $152 billion.
  So you add them up, and I'm not going to do that in my head, but you 
have 400, 187, 14, 700, 300, $152 billion. This all occurred during the 
time that Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid were running things on the 
floor. They could have stopped, and it's easier in the Senate than 
here, but they could have stopped each and every one of these. They 
could have put any restrictions on each and every one of these. And 
maybe the gentlewoman from Minnesota would like to chime in on this 
one, and that is to talk about how they didn't put any restrictions on 
these points. They basically said here's $700 billion, out the window, 
any way you want to spend it.
  Ms. FOXX. And is it your memory also that President Obama, then 
Senator Obama, came back here off the campaign trail and put his 
blessing on the TARP bailout? It was my understanding that the Congress 
was controlled by the Democrats and that

[[Page H3429]]

President Obama, then Senator Obama, said, ``I support it too.'' Is 
that your memory?
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. It's absolutely my memory. And the reason 
I remember it is because there were a few of us in the House who were 
raising our hand at that time and saying what are we spending $700 
billion on? The idea was the so-called purchase of toxic assets, which 
never did occur, and we said shouldn't there, A, be other alternatives 
considered; B, another implementation; and, C, shouldn't there be 
restrictions or strings, if you will, attached to some of this? All of 
that was dismissed and put aside. But you're absolutely correct. 
Senator Obama at that time supported it, as did the leadership of this 
House. Not only did they support it in this House, they pushed it 
through so quickly that none of us really had an opportunity. We never 
had any markup on this bill.
  That's the other little frustrating thing about all of this, and the 
American taxpayer must be so frustrated with how, quote, ``their 
government,'' and it is their government, works, how Washington works. 
We spend the money today, and then a day or a week or a month from 
then, we'll come back and say we are going to have a hearing on this 
and see exactly what we spent the money on. We spent $350 billion, then 
$700 billion without so much as a markup on it, which is, for folks who 
don't know, the way the bill goes through and you can say I want to put 
this in or take that out. Without so much as a markup, we spend this 
$700 billion; then Congress can comes back and says let's take a look 
at this. We saw that on TARP 1. We saw that on TARP 2. In essence, you 
could say we did that on the stimulus as well. We rushed right through 
how many pages? I'm forgetting.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. It was 1,073 pages on the stimulus, which not one 
Member of Congress read. It wasn't released to the public until after 
midnight. I kept my staff here until 9 o'clock at night hoping we could 
have a chance to read this bill. I released them at 9. It didn't come 
on-line until after midnight. And had the Members of Congress stayed up 
all night and had we not taken one break and just read it, we would 
have had 23 seconds per page to read that. Not one person could read 
it.

  I think there is a reason for it. We know why. There was no stimulus 
contained in the stimulus bill, nothing that would help small 
businesses. We even had essentially an admission of that this morning 
from President Obama because President Obama said now he has to have a 
plan for small business. There wasn't much of anything to speak of in 
the stimulus bill or in his budget bill for the rest of the year; so 
now he wants to have a new small business bill that is quite a bit of 
money. But what does it do? It funds the SBA, government. It funds more 
government. It has no nothing to do with tax reductions for small 
business.
  You talk to any businessman. I'm a small businessman with my husband. 
We started a business from scratch, and I'll tell you what would help: 
Lower the tax rate for businesses. American businesses pay the second 
highest tax rate in the world, 34 percent. Imagine. You want to have 
certainty in the marketplace? Bring the corporate tax rate from 34 
percent down to 9 percent.
  The world right now is nervous. We think we're nervous in the United 
States. The world doesn't know where to invest. How do we know that the 
world is nervous? This weekend, and this is humorous, you have the 
specter of the Chinese communists lecturing the Obama administration, 
could you please stop spending so much money, President Obama? You're 
making me nervous. I'm worried that I am going to lose my Chinese debt 
pretty soon if you don't get a grip on your spending. Then you have 
European socialists saying to the Obama administration, gee, we don't 
want to spend all the money that you want us to spend.
  Isn't it interesting that you have an American President now that's 
making the world nervous? We were all told that the President was going 
to bring the world together. We were going to have unity. All of our 
allies were going to be on board. Our allies are running like mice off 
a sinking ship saying we don't want any part of this out-of-control 
spending because our allies have been down that road themselves.
  I'll tell you if this out-of-control spending would have worked, 
Japan would have been looking great for 10 years rather than this 
``lost decade.'' Europe would be the beacon, the envy of the world for 
investment. Instead, these are economies in shambles, and I think 
that's what the American people are worried about.
  And I yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey. I think they're 
worried because they know. The American people get it that they're 
going to have to pay the bill.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. The American people get it, although we 
did that hear from our President here a couple of weeks ago. He said, 
``I get it.'' Unfortunately, I don't think he does. I think what he 
does get is the idea of a new movement he is leading, and that is a 
movement of redistribution of the wealth in this country, and basically 
he's doing it by burdening the responsible taxpayer, the responsible 
family, the responsible American, and putting it on the irresponsible 
ones. And it's sort of funny, and maybe ``funny'' isn't right word for 
this, but if you look at the budget documents that came out, the title 
of it is ``An Era of Responsibility.'' This is anything but an era of 
responsibility.
  And I will close with this: Just as I was hopeful in 2006 and 2007 
for the Democrat leadership that they would be responsible in this 
area, I honestly was hopeful that when President Obama became the 
President that he would fulfill his pledge that he would give the 
American public and all of us in Congress the opportunity to have 4 or 
5 days actually to have any bill up on the Web site so they could see 
it and read it and comment on it otherwise. And you pointed out so 
accurately that in this case with an 1,100-page bill, it went through 
and no one saw it.
  Ms. FOXX. I wanted to say some of the same things. I think that you 
and I and conservatives here in Congress really were hopeful that when 
the Democrats took control of Congress, when President Obama was 
elected, that they would keep their promises.
  I agree with you. We wanted change. We wanted to cut spending. We 
wanted an era of different government. But all we have dealt with has 
been a series of broken promises. One promise after another.
  You highlighted the issue of not having 5 days to read the bill. I 
think that that's an extremely important thing. The American people 
take our job seriously even if some of our colleagues don't take their 
job seriously, but they expect us to be here to vote and they expect us 
to read the bills. I am getting more and more questions from people, 
have you read the bills? I am being much more diligent about reading 
bills these days because of that. But all we have gotten are broken 
promises from the President and from the Democrats who are in charge. 
And I think that's really a sad situation.
  Earmarks, for example, as our colleague from Minnesota pointed out, 
the bill that was passed the other day, the omnibus bill that was 
passed the other day, had 8,500 earmarks in it. Now, it may be that 
some of those are worthwhile projects, but we had a promise from our 
President that he would not sign any bill with any earmarks in it. He 
would go through line item by line item and take those out. That is 
another promise that's gone by the wayside. It's just not going to 
happen.
  I think what we are seeing is the comment that he made without his 
teleprompter that he does believe in wealth transfer. I think we know 
now why he always wants a teleprompter in front of him because when 
allowed to speak off the cuff sometimes he says some things that really 
reveal what it is. The comment about ``never let a crisis go to 
waste,'' of course, he didn't say that, his Chief of Staff said it. But 
the wealth transfer I think is something that the American people are 
beginning to understand.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. You had mentioned that you felt that the President 
maybe was revealing his true colors in an off-the-cuff remark, but I 
have in front of me a copy of the President's budget. This is in black 
and white and anyone can read it. And this is page 5, ``Inheriting a 
Legacy of Misplaced Priorities.'' I think the President is pretty clear 
about wealth transfer. He's been very clear. He's got it down in black 
and white. And I will quote from it. It says this: ``While middle class 
families

[[Page H3430]]

have been playing by the rules living up to their responsibilities as 
neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy 
have not.''

                              {time}  2115

  He is saying that people, the top end, have not been playing by the 
rules. Now, this is a canard that gets repeated over and over and over 
again, saying that people have not been paying their taxes, somehow 
it's been unfair and they have skimmed.
  But as the gentleman from New Jersey knows, and that as our colleague 
who has joined us, Dr. Broun, knows, I know the gentlelady from North 
Carolina is aware of this, the top 1 percent of income earners in the 
United States pay 40 percent of all the taxes in the United States.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Wait a minute, would you please repeat that for 
the people who are watching tonight so that they understand very 
clearly what you just said? Say it slow for us down south.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I know these Minnesota accents are a little tough to 
get through, but I also want to mention, just for point of reference, I 
am a Federal tax attorney. That's my background. That's what I do. 
Taxes are us.
  But the top 1 percent of income earners pay 40 percent of all the 
taxes. The top 5 percent of income earners in the United States pay 60 
percent of all taxes. The top 10 percent of all income earners pay 80 
percent of all taxes.
  Today in the United States, 40 percent of all Americans pay no taxes. 
And under President Obama's plan, 50 percent of all Americans will pay 
no taxes.
  This weekend I was up in the northern part of my district, probably 
no one in this group made more than $50,000 a year. All the people I 
spoke to were very upset with President Obama's plan. They were upset 
because they believe in tax fairness. They believe that every American 
should pay something, no matter what their income is, everybody should 
have something in on the deal.
  Why? We all benefit from national defense. We all benefit from roads. 
We all benefit from corrections. All of us benefit. All of us should be 
paying it.
  I will yield to our counterpart from Georgia.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank the gentlelady.
  I just came from a meeting where I heard some very interesting 
information about this taxing, this cap and tax, as we are calling it. 
The Democrats call it cap and trade.
  But there is a video called ``Apocalypse? No!'' This was Christopher 
Lord, Christopher Monckton, one of the greatest outspoken people in 
this world, about how the global warming is just totally a farce, and 
he was talking about how it was going to hurt the poorest of people, 
not only in the United States but in the world. He was begging for us, 
not as a Congress, as a government, for us to not put this cap and tax 
policy in place, because what it's going to do is it's going to put 
people out of work, it's going to lock them into a welfare state, which 
is going to hurt everybody's pocketbook long term. It's going to hurt 
small business, it's going to hurt the economy of not only the United 
States, but the world.
  And he was begging us not to pass a cap and tax policy here in the 
United States and was saying that we in America need to do the right 
things. He was showing us graphs, and the lies, actually, that are 
being put out by a NASA scientist by the name of Mr. Hanson and others 
who are promoting this, now they talk about climate change.
  But Lord was saying in the last 7 years we have actually had global 
cooling, global cooling. So they have stopped talking about global 
warming because we have had global cooling for the last 7 years. And 
this was in the normal variability of climate going up and down over 
the years.
  And he was pointing out that sun spots, sun activity actually has 
more to do with the temperature than the CO2 that has been 
emitted.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Yes, that's the solar flares, that's true.
  As a matter of fact, in President Obama's budget, which he has 
already submitted, and which we are going to be taking up, and we are 
going to be voting on with appropriations, he has already included, as 
a baseline part of his budget, remember, his budget is historic.
  It's so huge, the trillions of dollars are so huge we can't even get 
our arms around it, 646 billion in new taxes for the energy tax. I am 
sure that the gentleman and his constituents from Georgia, and I am 
sure that the gentlelady from North Carolina and her constituents, and 
the gentleman from New Jersey and his constituents would be interested 
in knowing, well, what does that work out for me? What does that mean 
that I am going to owe?
  Well, people in the Sixth District of Minnesota, we need heat. We 
don't have a choice in wintertime. We have to turn our furnace on. This 
is very, very large concern, and I hope we have time to discuss it 
before the Democrats ask us to vote on this bill.
  Because we are looking at a good $4,000 per household in increased 
costs right away to pay for energy. Energy touches every part of our 
life, and we have got a graph up here that talks about what President 
Obama and the Democrats' tax plan will do.
  Gas prices are going to go up. We all remember how much fun it was 
last July to pay over $4 a gallon and we thought we were quick on our 
way to $6 a gallon, $8 a gallon? Well, remember that? Welcome back to 
it. That's called cap and tax. Welcome back to now seeing your home 
heating fuel, or in the case of Georgia, going up 40 percent. Can you 
imagine if your constituents get an electric bill that will be 40 
percent higher than what it was before?
  Remember also what happened at the grocery store last summer when gas 
prices went up. The food prices went up. Why? Energy is in everything 
we eat.
  Also if you go to Wal-mart, if you go to Target to buy something to 
wear. Energy is a component, a basic building block of everything.
  I know that the gentlewoman from North Carolina has a great graph on 
this.
  Ms. FOXX. Well, there is a chart here that showed that in addition to 
the high rate we are going to be paying for the cap and tax that the 
President has in his budget bill, what I wanted to point out and wanted 
to ask the gentlelady, it's my understanding again that the President 
promised that he was going to cut taxes for 95 percent of taxpayers; is 
that right?
  Mrs. BACHMANN. That's right. That's what he said to the American 
people.
  Ms. FOXX. And yet he left out saying he is going to raise taxes, 
though, a lot more for 100 percent of the people by instituting cap and 
tax.
  Again, they like to call it cap and trade, but it's going to be cap 
and tax. Because as you so eloquently pointed out, it's going to raise 
the cost of energy for everybody in this country. And these people, I 
think they are just playing God.
  I think they think that we human beings are going to offset the 
action of the sun. They think they are God, and they are going to be 
playing that role.
  But I wanted to point out something tonight that we haven't said that 
I think is very important to point out, and I think our colleague from 
New Jersey reminded me this is something we should be saying, we know, 
as Republicans, that Americans are hurting. We know lots of people in 
our districts who are suffering as a result of the actions and the 
policies that have been taken, particularly in the last couple of 
years, and we don't want that hurt to go on.

  So Republicans have been offering alternatives. The Democrats are 
accusing us of being the Party of ``No.'' You know, that's a cute 
little thing that they can try to hang around our necks.
  But I saw something today in Roll Call, can't take the credit for it, 
wish I could. I love it the way cartoonists can sometimes put in just a 
couple of words what we are thinking about, but there is a cartoon that 
says the Party of ``O'' and showing a picture of a donkey.
  Now, I like that. We are not the Party of ``No'' because we have 
presented alternatives. Last year we presented alternatives when it 
came to energy. We had an all-of-the-above energy plan. We have an 
alternative to the budget.
  We had an alternative to the stimulus, but we are being accused of 
being the Party of ``No,'' but I think calling

[[Page H3431]]

them the Party of ``O'' is the appropriate thing to do, because they 
don't want to take responsibility. It's all a sham.
  I tell you, again, this place reminds me of the emperor's new 
clothes. You know, there is this feeling that there is something out 
there, and it's going to take people who are willing to say the truth 
to tell the American people. Those stories you heard, those promises 
you were made, not true.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I just want to inject, actually, this economic 
situation that we are in is not too tough to figure out. It's real 
doable. We have a plan for it, and it's pretty simple.
  We have a very high rate of tax on investments. If we would take that 
tax off, it's called capital gains, and zero it out and shout out from 
the house tops, for 4 years we will have a zero capital gains. You 
invest, take your money off the sideline, put it into the marketplace, 
any profit you get back, it's yours, 100 percent.
  If we would have a zero capital gain, and if we would take our 
corporate tax rate from 34 percent down to 9 percent, cut everyone's 
marginal tax rate by 5 percent, even President Obama wants to increase 
the death tax. We say kill the death tax. That's not a good idea to 
have Uncle Sam reach into somebody's coffin after they have died and 
take 45 percent of what they own.
  And get rid of that alternative minimum tax. You do that, next 
quarter you have an increase in GDP and jobs. Next quarter you have the 
Dow Jones up. Next quarter, you are going to see unprecedented levels 
of growth and unprecedented levels of investment in the United States 
from the world markets. This is pretty easy to solve.
  But the Obama administration has taken a completely different view. 
They have taken the view of the French Revolution, which is to tax, 
tax, tax and spend, spend, spend. And now they have even taken another 
cue from them, off with their heads.
  Because in their budget proposal, by their own language, the evil are 
the top 1 percent of income earners. And that's who they want to whack 
off their heads.
  But the Wall Street Journal even had a great article that said this. 
It said you could confiscate the wealth of everyone making $75,000 or 
more, it still wouldn't be enough to pay for all the spending that 
President Barack Obama wants to spend.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. And there was a whole bunch of points I 
wanted to raise on the things you said right then, but I will go with 
the whole bunch of them.
  On the middle point with regard to taxation of capital gains and what 
have you, it may sound, at first blush, that when you say, well, we 
have to address the capital gains situation in this country, we are 
talking about the rich out there. But when you realize that as across 
the board, Americans are hurting generally pretty much across the 
board. A lot of people who are hurting are senior citizens, retirees, 
people who rely upon their pensions, whether it's union pension or 
private pension or otherwise.
  They are saving to pay for college, what have you, they are seeing 
those funds go down. What can we do to try to turn that around?
  I can't guarantee that it would turn around by tomorrow, but, as you 
said, pretty darn soon if you can get the trillions of dollars, as 
people say, are sitting on the sidelines and to start investing it. How 
can you do that?
  You can do that in a couple of ways. You hit on the main ones by 
lowering the capital gains tax. Honestly, right now, people aren't 
saying I don't have any capital gains in this marketplace. But if you 
gave that incentive to say get into the market today, you will be tax 
free or have a lower rate, people would get off the side and they would 
get into the market immediately.
  The other point that I just wanted to touch on, the other point here, 
I will spend 2 minutes on it. In the spending plan we have had in the 
last several weeks, actually several months now, we have had hundreds 
of billion of dollars. And this is a side note, other people are 
criticizing the other side of the aisle, how much debt the Bush 
administration added during their 8 years in office, it was something 
like $4.6 trillion in his 8 years in office.
  Just in 3 years, it's doubling. But, basically, remember these 
numbers, President Bush was in office for 8 years, he saw it go up 
about 4.6. President Obama has been in office for less than 2 months or 
something like that, a month, and you will see the debt go up by $5.6 
trillion in a 3-year period of time. It is incredible.
  Part of that money, where is that money going to, deals with what the 
gentlelady from North Carolina was talking about before. And that is to 
the whole foreclosure situation, home pricing, what have you, and just 
follow with me on this.
  Their argument is this, foreclosures are happening out there right 
now. We agree. That is causing problems across the board and it is 
causing a devaluation of people's homes across the board. Therefore, 
everyone must pay higher taxes, increase spending to try to prevent the 
foreclosure problem.
  Now, you raised some of the avenues of what we could do to address 
foreclosure, and I can go into them as well. But I just want to give 
some facts, and I can do it with a picture. It's not a cartoon like Ms. 
Foxx had over there, actually had a picture. This was actually in USA 
Today, and what does this chart show, yes, it's pretty neat. It shows 
county-by-county the number of foreclosure actions, defaults and 
notices on auctions and repossessions per 1,000. Basically, this is a 
chart to show you where the problems are in this country.

                              {time}  2130

  So as people look at this and they think to the rhetoric that we hear 
from the other side that, Oh, there are a lot of foreclosures. Yes, the 
rate has gone up in specific areas out here in California, Arizona, and 
certainly down here in Florida and up in your neck of the woods as 
well. But the vast majority of the country, fortunately, is not seeing 
the systemic problems of more than 60, more than 40, or even more than 
20.
  What does that mean? That changes the whole nature of the discussion 
as to how we go about fixing the problem. If the problem is in certain 
areas, then you don't need a specific blanket approach across the board 
in order to do it. You don't need to raise taxes on small businesses or 
families in my neck of the woods or in your neck of the woods to solve 
the problem.
  You need to target some of the relief. More importantly, you need 
some of the Republican solutions, and I'll yield back to you on this, 
as the RSC, the Republican Study Committee, has already come out with, 
addressing capital gains, corporate taxes, section 179, and the like, 
as far as encouraging businesses and individuals to get their 
entrepreneurial spirit going again.
  Those sort of things will address this problem in a way that will 
affect everyone and improve lifting up the prices again and getting it 
back to the marketplace where we want it to be.
  So I just wanted to bring that one little chart to try to set the 
record straight as to where the foreclosure problem is in this country, 
how it is actually impacting only a segment of the economy, and what we 
need to do is address this in a widespread approach, as I'm sure you're 
addressing and I'm sure the gentleman from Georgia would also like to 
address as well.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Isn't it interesting that we are getting a blanket 
approach to about everything there is. I know the gentleman from 
Georgia had brought up the whole cap and tax thing, where we have to 
have a global warming tax, an energy tax, and everybody has to pay.
  I thought it was interesting. I was back in the district over the 
weekend and I heard President Obama on the radio admitting essentially 
and saying that he wants to have this new energy tax passed, but he 
does not want implementation to occur until after 2012.
  The reason why, he said, is because the economy is in such rough 
shape right now, businesses and the economy couldn't take it. And 
that's a general admission that this new energy tax is going to tank 
our economy. As a matter of fact, I had a conservation over the weekend 
with some people who are experts in this area, and they said this new 
energy tax literally has the potential of reducing American's standard 
of living 30 percent. Thirty percent reduction in standard of living 
because of this energy tax.
  The worst feature of all is that it gives all the power to 
Washington, D.C., and takes at way from the individuals by putting this 
right of taxation in the Federal government's

[[Page H3432]]

hands. It's almost like an invisible tax that is put into every aspect 
of our lives. How do we ever get rid of it? How do we deal with it?
  We are losing freedom by the boatload. That's the difference between, 
I think, what the Republican agenda is and the Democrat agenda. We 
believe in the Constitution. We believe in the first amendment, 
religious freedom, freedom of speech. We believe in the second 
amendment, the right to hold and bear arms. We believe in these 
important values. We believe in bedrock values for our country.
  Marriage should be between a man and a woman; life should be 
protected from the moment of conception. We believe in these values. We 
believe in securing our Nation. We believe in taking on the enemy and 
winning and not being ashamed to win.
  One thing we don't believe in are open borders. We don't believe that 
we should have open borders. We believe that we should deal with the 
drug problem that is coming across, and the illegal alien problem. And 
we believe in low taxes. We don't believe in high taxes. And our 
country will change forever if this new energy tax comes in.
  Did the gentleman from New Jersey have something you wanted to say, 
or can I go to the gentleman from Georgia?
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you for yielding. In fact, you're exactly 
right. I think one point I really want to reiterate about this cap and 
tax or cap and trade issue--whose going to be hurt the worst? It's 
going to be the poor people in this country because groceries will go 
up, the cost of medications will go up so the elderly and the sick and 
the people who are on fixed incomes will have more to pay for their 
drugs.
  It's going to hurt the poorest and the people who are in the least 
position to be able to take care of paying this higher tax. And this 
cap and tax is going to hurt everybody. But it's going to cost jobs. So 
that is going to make more people unemployed. Not only that, as the 
chart says, President Obama's budget spends too much, it taxes too 
much, it borrows too much. But it also hurts the poor too much.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. It hurts the poor and it hurts every segment of the 
economy.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Absolutely.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Because, remember, how did this start? The housing 
problem. Mr. Garrett started talking about that with foreclosures. This 
hurts the housing segment where you showed on the chart--Florida, 
Arizona, California, Nevada. They have all sorts of trouble. What does 
President Obama want to do? He wants to take away the home mortgage 
interest deduction that will hurt people who have already made 30 
years' worth of plan on their finances. They took this interest 
deduction out, and now it's going to be taken away from them. That is 
going to hurt the housing industry.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Absolutely. Every single policy that we hear 
from this administration is going to hurt the most vulnerable in our 
economic system.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. It's raising taxes.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. In fact, he wants to cap charitable giving in 
this country, which means people won't give to the Salvation Army, 
people won't give to the Red Cross.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Imagine what it will do to churches. Imagine--already 
churches are being decimated. There's a foundation in Minnesota that 
does good work all across the world helping people to learn how to 
hear. They have had donors already this year pull $300,000 worth of 
donations because they are going to lose that donation.
  We're going to see donations dry up to some of the best 
organizations; ministries, churches, synagogues. This is serious, 
what's happening right now.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. If the gentlelady will yield, down in my part 
of the country, down the in southeast, we had a couple of little 
hurricanes a few years back. Hurricane Katrina and Rita.
  If you look at the Federal response and compare it to the private 
response, where FEMA came in. People are still living in trailer 
houses. The neighborhoods are still empty, businesses are still 
boarded. But where the private sector, churches, synagogues, and other 
private entities went in to help these people in need, communities are 
back functioning. People are back in their homes, they're back in their 
businesses. The communities are back functioning.
  What that shows is that the private sector works a whole lot better 
than how the bureaucracy works when it has all of its encumbrances. How 
it crawls slowly and how it cannot really respond.
  Now, we have an administration that wants to take money away from 
those entities that work the best to help people. I just don't 
understand it.
  We have, as Republicans, we have solutions. We are not just the Party 
of ``No,'' as Ms. Foxx was saying. We have presented solution after 
solution after solution.
  Unfortunately, on the Wall Street bailout, President Bush and his 
Democratic Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, wouldn't consider our 
proposals. Our proposals were to cut the capital gains tax. That would 
even bring a lot of money offshore into America and free up a lot of 
capital so banks could start loaning to banks again. Banks could loan 
to people again. We had other solutions that President Bush and Hank 
Paulson wouldn't consider.
  Since then we have had proposal after proposal that this House, the 
Senate leadership, as well as President Obama will not consider 
anything that we bring forward, which, actually, every single solution 
that we bring forward will help small businesses, it will create jobs.
  Just in Georgia, the proposal that we had on the stimulus would have 
created twice the number of jobs--73,000 new jobs above what the 
Democrats say that they hope to save or create, using their own rules.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, the jobs that are being 
created are new government jobs. They aren't new jobs in the private 
sector. They're government jobs that will somehow have to be continued 
and sustained.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. We would have created 73,000 more jobs in 
Georgia alone, under the Republican proposal, at half the cost. And we 
would not have borrowed any money at all. We would not have borrowed 
from our grandchildren like the stimulus bill or ``non-stimulus'' bill 
did.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, the cost of these jobs 
in the stimulus were easily $300,000 per jobs. Some of these jobs were 
$650,000 per job that they created.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I was just going to raise that point. As I 
am standing here listening to your facts, I'm looking down at the floor 
at the well and I see President Obama's budget and the three points 
that are a takeaway from tonight: Spends too much, taxes too much, and 
borrows too much.
  It spends too much of our current hard-earned dollars that everybody 
has to work so hard to earn; it taxes too much on the American family 
and the small business and the farmer; and it borrows too much from our 
children and our grandchildren because they will be the ones who 
actually pay for all this.
  On the spending side of the equation, I know it's hard to get your 
hands around some of these numbers sometimes. You just did when you 
gave the number. First it was 2 million, then it was 3 million, then it 
was 4 million jobs that this administration said they were going to 
save. Whichever number it is, if you add it all up and divide it out, 
you're right, it comes to around $300,000 per job that they're going to 
be spending to save.
  But it's a heck of a lot of people in my district, and I'm sure even 
more down in Georgia, who would love to have a $300,000 job, even if it 
is only for a week, a month, or half a year. That's the type of job, by 
the way, that the government's creating---short-term job. These are not 
careers.
  Once this job screwing in light bulbs, which was one, or painting a 
fence, or another, once that job is done, that job is done.
  So on the spending side of the equation, and you were alluding to 
this point before, what it means is we are getting to the point where 
around over a quarter of all the growth and wealth of this country--
GDP, gross domestic product--all the growth and wealth, over 27 percent 
is going to be sucked right out of this country, across the borders, as 
my picture here of the

[[Page H3433]]

United States, and brought right here to Washington or this body and 
all the bureaucrats to spend however they want to.
  Is that what Americans want--more than a quarter of the wealth of 
this country to be spent right here as opposed out of their own 
pockets?
  And taxing too much. You hit the numbers before as far as the tax 
rates and how it's going to hit on the families and the budgets. And 
the last one on borrowing too much, the debt of this country, again, 
it's impossible to wrap your hands around these things, but the debt of 
this country, the public debt will reach 58.7 percent of the GDP this 
year, and eventually rise to two-thirds of GDP in a couple of years.
  Last time it was like that was in early 1950s after the war, and what 
have you, and it's been on a steady decline ever since even then. 
Charts show it's a rocket ship going right back up again, all in the 
last 3 months and projected over the next 10 years.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield? The sad thing is our 
children and grandchildren are going to live at a lower standard. Their 
standard of living is going to be lower than ours today because they 
are going to be saddled with this huge debt.
  You cannot borrow and spend your way into prosperity. In fact, our 
President has, if you all remember, came and told the Republican 
conference that he wasn't going to make the same mistake that Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt made when FDR got scared and quit spending. Our 
President said he was going to continue to spend. And it's just wrong. 
That policy during the Depression did not get us out of that 
Depression.
  Warren Buffet just last week said he thinks we've been pushed off the 
edge and our economy is heading into a very severe depression or a very 
severe recession. And we may well be. I hope and pray that we aren't.
  But, I know this. Every single thing that this administration and the 
leadership in this House and this Senate have proposed is going to hurt 
our economy. It's going to deepen the recession, it's going to prolong 
it, and may push us into a severe depression.
  We keep hearing this is the worst economic time since the Great 
Depression. No, this is the worst time since Jimmy Carter and those 
failed policies. What our President has done is he's bought into that 
philosophy, that Keynesian economic policy, which is socialism. That's 
is exactly what he's bought into.
  In fact, the way I have described it in some floor speeches is that 
we have a steamroller of socialism being shoved down the throats of the 
American people. It's going to strangle the American economy and it's 
going to slay the American people economically. And it's going to.
  That steamroller of socialism is being driven by Nancy Pelosi and 
Harry Reid. We have got to stop it because it's going to hurt the poor 
people in this country. It's going to hurt the small businessmen and 
women in this country. It's going to hurt the most economically 
disadvantaged in this country.
  We have policies that we are proposing that will actually help small 
businesses, that will create jobs. It will create paychecks instead of 
welfare checks. That's exactly what we are trying to promote, is giving 
people a paycheck instead of a welfare check.

                              {time}  2145

  Mrs. BACHMANN. We haven't even talked yet about socialized medicine. 
We talked a little bit about cap and tax. We haven't even talked about 
socialized medicine. Find me one model anywhere in the world where 
socialized medicine has delivered better care at a cheaper cost. You 
want to talk about tax increases, socialized medicine will break the 
bank in the United States, because now President Obama even voted for 
the SCHIP bill, which we all know will now for the first time swing the 
door wide open for illegal aliens. I know one thing, the people in my 
district are not interested in paying for the health care for illegal 
aliens that are coming across our border to be yet one more magnet to 
bring people in that should come here legally. That is a very real 
concern that we are addressing, and that is why I think people are so 
concerned right now about what they are seeing on the taxing climate.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. And health care issues, and we have a 
doctor here with us tonight, is obviously something we are all 
concerned about. We know too many people who are in small businesses 
who just say, I just can't afford to buy insurance for my employees. We 
know too many individuals who are not working right now, and they say 
they cannot afford to pay for the health insurance costs, not because 
doctors charge too much, and we have a doctor right here, but just 
because of the nature and the system that we have in place.
  The system we have right now, again, to get back to the facts, we do 
not have a free market health care system in this country; we have a 
government-regulated monopolized system in this country. But we do 
agree, the three of us here, I believe, without putting words in your 
mouth, that we do have a problem with health care affordability for a 
vast majority of Americans, and we do need to address that. But you do 
not address that, as is done in President Obama's budget, which spends 
too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much, by putting in 
placeholders of $634 billion, which we do not have today, which goes to 
point three, borrows too much, that $634 billion to pay for our health 
care today, which will basically come from our kids and our grandkids. 
We do not solve the affordability issue by simply spending more money 
and taxing more money. You do it by ways that I know the good doctor 
has addressed on this floor before, by reforming the system, getting 
out inefficiencies in this system, providing for the competition on 
various levels under the system, to basically overhauling the system to 
make sure that health care is available to every American citizen, 
young and old alike. We have talked about that on the floor before. We 
need to do that. Spending, taxing, and borrowing is not going to fix 
the health care system.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Let me tell you about one government regulation 
that came in to the health care system when I was practicing medicine 
down in rural South Georgia to show you and just give you a picture of 
how much government regulation increases the cost for all of us.
  I had a small automated lab with quality controls, because when I did 
tests I wanted to make sure that the tests were appropriate and that 
they gave good results so that I could treat my patients in the best 
way. Well, Congress passed a bill that was signed into law called the 
Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act, CLIA. If a patient came in to see 
me and had a red, sore throat and I want to find out if they had a 
bacterial infection or a viral infection, I would do a CBC. It cost $12 
and I could do it in 5 minutes. CLIA shut down my lab. I had to send 
them to the hospital. It cost $75 and took 2 to 3 hours. That is with 
just one government regulatory burden.

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