[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 31, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H4133-H4134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      DEMOCRATS REWRITING HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, it is very interesting to come and listen to 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It is clear they are 
living the book ``1984'' by George Orwell because they are constantly 
rewriting history to suit their purposes. I want to say that if there 
is anybody out there who hasn't read ``1984'' by George Orwell, or 
hasn't read it in a long time, I strongly urge you to do so because we 
are obviously living through what Orwell predicted. We are just a few 
years later than he suggested it would be.
  I love the attitude of my colleagues, too, who say we are going to 
give all of the money to the rich. It displays their approach to our 
country. Their attitude is that the government owns all of the money 
and if money is not taken from citizens, then it is being given to them 
by the government.
  Our country is the greatest country in the world, founded on 
capitalism and founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and founded on the 
rule of law. The money doesn't belong to the government, it belongs to 
the hardworking people who earned it. I think that in a nutshell sums 
up their attitude: The government should be in charge of absolutely 
everything, and we are seeing that play out with the proposals coming 
out of this administration and out of this Congress. Again, they are 
doing their best to make excuses for it by rewriting history.
  Our economy was doing very well under the Bush administration until 
January 2007 when the Democrats took control of the Congress. They like 
to ignore those 2 years they were in control of Congress and President 
Bush was still President. We had 55 straight months of job creation. 
Suddenly that ended in January 2007 when they took over. Gas prices 
started going up, and they reached their peak under this Democratically 
controlled Congress. And I think it is very, very important that people 
be reminded of that.
  They have said that President Bush created the largest deficit in our 
Nation's history. That simply is not true, and it isn't true that 
President Obama has inherited the largest deficit in history. But we 
are going to do our best to straighten out that issue.
  They also like to say that the Republicans have no alternatives to 
what the Democrats are proposing. That also is not true. We have always 
had alternatives. This session in particular we have brought forth very 
specific alternatives. Last week we presented a 16-page document 
primarily of principles. This week we are releasing our balanced budget 
resolution, and we will have a balanced budget and it does the kinds of 
things that the American people expect to be done. It will be balanced, 
unlike the Obama budget which puts us greater and greater into debt

[[Page H4134]]

and creates a deficit. Our budget improves every single year and 
achieves a surplus in 2019 which is when the Obama budget has a huge 
deficit and a huge debt.
  Under our budget, the national debt will decline by more than $6 
trillion, compared to the President's budget which averages deficits of 
more than a trillion dollars a year. It is true that we give tax 
relief, but that is important. Again, we want the American people who 
earn their money to keep more of their money rather than turning it 
over to the government under duress and allowing bureaucrats to spend 
that money.
  We will also fully fund defense which is the number one role of the 
Federal Government. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
constantly forget to talk about that. The Federal Government is the 
only government in our country that can provide for our defense. We 
suffered a terrible situation on September 11, 2001, and we have not 
had another episode since then because the administration kept us safe.
  We also create a zero-growth baseline for nondefense spending, and we 
assume repeal of most of the provisions in the so-called stimulus bill. 
We make no changes in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. However, 
we do clamp down on wasteful and low-priority mandatory spending. We 
are also going to assume savings from an earmark moratorium, something 
that the American people desperately want to see.

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