[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 10 (Tuesday, January 26, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H359]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PRESIDENT OBAMA'S BUDGET FREEZE

  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, I listened to my colleagues, and 
I think we are all of one accord when we say we want to see jobs 
created in this country and we want to see the unemployment rate go 
down. But the way you do that is the way Ronald Reagan did it when he 
was President. And he came in when we had 12 percent unemployment and 
14 percent inflation. He came in and he cut taxes across the board. 
What are we doing instead?
  Well, since January when the President took office, we have spent 
$73.3 billion that we didn't have on one program. We spent $1.6 
trillion, including interest, on the stimulus bill; the omnibus 
spending bill, $410 billion. If you add interest, that's $625 billion. 
In June, we spent $106 billion, with a lot of pork in it, on the 
defense supplemental; and then on the consolidated appropriation bill, 
the mini-omnibus bill we passed in December, it was $3.5 trillion.
  And then you include the things that we passed in this House which 
have not been enacted into law like cap-and-trade. That's $846 billion 
in new taxes. And the proposed government-run health care program, if 
it were to pass, it would cost between $1 trillion and $3 trillion.
  Now, since the opposition party, under Speaker Pelosi, took control 
of this body, the Federal deficit has increased from $162 billion the 
first year she was Speaker in 2007 to $459 billion in 2008. And then it 
went up by a huge amount to $1.42 trillion in 2009. This is just an 
unsustainable growth rate.
  And over the last 3 years, we have increased the debt ceiling five 
times since she took office as Speaker. This is something that's 
unbelievable. It went from $8.97 trillion in January of 2007 to $12.39 
trillion today, which is an increase of $3.4 trillion, or 38 percent, 
in just 3 years. Now you're talking about spending $3 trillion a year--
more than half of that borrowed money--and we are talking about how we 
are going to get control of it.
  Tomorrow night the President is going to be speaking from right there 
just below the Speaker's lectern, and the President is going to try to 
address our economic problems. And as I understand it from some of the 
reports that have come out, he is going to talk about freezing 
spending, or a partial freeze, over the next 3 years that would reduce 
the budget by less than 1 percent, or $15 billion, in the first year.
  Now, don't get me wrong. I am for freezing spending. But when you 
look at what has happened in the last year or two, especially during 
the last year, it's unbelievable. We had an 8 percent boost in spending 
in the omnibus bill the President signed into law in March and a 12 
percent boost that he signed in right at the end of last year in 
December. We're spending money like it's going out of style.
  Now, what is the answer? The answer is that we get together and 
realize the way to create jobs is to stimulate the private sector, and 
that is by cutting taxes, cutting personal income taxes, cutting 
corporate taxes, cutting capital gains taxes. That will give business, 
industry, and individuals more disposable income for investment and to 
buy products. If the government continues to spend like we're doing 
right now, we're digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole, and 
it is not going to solve the unemployment problem.
  I heard some of my colleagues down there talking about how things are 
getting better. We just had 10\1/2\ percent unemployment. Now it's at 
least 10 percent unemployment. And when you add in those who are 
working part-time who want a full-time job, it's probably more like 17 
or 18 percent of the people that are either out of work or have given 
up.

                              {time}  2000

  It's just terrible. So what do we do? We ought to do what has been 
done by John F. Kennedy in the past and what Ronald Reagan did when he 
was President. And that is to say, let's cut taxes. Let's give a shot 
in the arm to the private sector. They create jobs. Government cannot 
and will not create jobs by spending, spending, spending.
  Tomorrow night when the President speaks, he will get a lot of 
applause from probably both sides of the aisle when he says some of the 
things he is going to say. But the thing that concerns me the most is 
the ``spending freeze'' he is talking about. It's not really anything 
but a drop in the bucket. It's not even a drop in the bucket when you 
talk about a 1 percent spending freeze over the next 3 years, when 
you're talking about a multitrillion-dollar deficit that goes on and on 
and on, and you're talking about a spending freeze that is going to 
save maybe $4 billion or $5 billion. It's just nothing.
  So I would admonish the President, or suggest to the President, that 
he start moving toward cutting taxes, stimulate the private sector and 
cut the huge deficit spending we are facing.

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