[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 14, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H2562]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SPENDING SINCE TARP

  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. I was in my office today, Mr. Speaker, and I 
was watching the Joint Economic Committee. And one of my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle was talking about how one of his companies 
had 300 employees that were in entry level positions and they were 
getting minimum wage and the employer was telling him how they were 
going to have to lay a lot of them off because of the inability of them 
to get loans and for other reasons.
  The reason I came down to talk about this is because there is no 
question that if we have a tight money policy that it's going to affect 
small businesses. In addition to that, when we load additional 
regulations and costs onto small businesses, it's going to cause them 
problems and they are going to have to lay people off.
  I was reading in the paper this week the new health care bill is 
going to cost AT&T $1 billion. They are going to have to take that out 
of their bottom line. It's going to cost the John Deere & Company $150 
million; Caterpillar, $100 million; Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, 
$90 million; AK Steel, $31 million; Valero Energy, $20 million. All of 
these companies are going to pay for that, and they are either going to 
have to take it out of their profits or they are going to have to take 
it out of the hides of their employees by letting some of them go or 
they will have to send some of their operations offshore.
  As long as we have more government and more government programs, it's 
going to cost jobs. Because somebody has to pay for those. The money 
doesn't come out of the sky. So if an employer gets a regulation that 
costs him money, if an employer is taxed and it's going to cost him 
money, then he has to find someplace to get that money in order to have 
a bottom-line profit, unless you believe the government should run 
everything and we should have socialism in this country or a socialized 
economy. And some people think that's where we are headed, and I think 
that is very unfortunate.
  But let's just take a look at some of the things that the 
administration has done since they have taken office that have been a 
burden to small business and has cost us jobs.
  Incidentally, I would just like to say that all the great programs 
and plans that the Obama administration had was supposed to keep 
unemployment below 8 percent, and it's still around 9\1/2\ to 10 
percent and there is no indication it is going to go down.
  But, anyhow, the Economic Stabilization Act, which part of it was 
this year and part of it was last year, in 2008, so we can't blame all 
of that on Obama, but the TARP bailout was $700 billion.
  And then in January we had $73.3 billion in the State Children's 
Health Insurance reauthorization, a worthy program, but it costs a lot 
of money.
  The stimulus bill was $1.16 trillion when you add in the interest, 
money we don't have.
  In February, we had the omnibus spending bill, which was $625 billion 
when you add in interest.
  In June, $105.9 billion in the supplemental.
  Last year we had the consolidated appropriations mini omnibus bill of 
$3.55 trillion, again money we don't have.
  And then in March of this year, we had the health care bill, which 
was estimated to cost, if you talk about 10 years of taxes and 10 years 
of coverage, about $3 trillion or $2.5 to $3 trillion.
  You load all this on the back of small business, and there's no way 
that you can continue to keep everybody employed. You're going to tax 
them.
  Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, is bringing 
before his committee the CEOs of AT&T, Deere & Company, Caterpillar, 
because he says they really shouldn't be telling people these things 
because these aren't accurate figures. Well, they are accurate figures: 
the $1 billion it is going to cost AT&T, the $150 million it is going 
to cost John Deere & Company, the $100 million it is going to cost 
Caterpillar, and on and on. They have to report that by law, and 
because they have reported it, Mr. Waxman wants them to come before the 
committee to try to make them look like they are blowing these figures 
up. The fact of the matter is business and industry in this country is 
suffering and because of that we're going to see more unemployment.
  Now, you add to that by the end of this year the tax cuts that were 
put in by the previous administration are going to expire, and the 
President has said he's going to let them expire, which means those tax 
cuts are not going to be there. So that again will, in effect, be a tax 
increase. And then you add to that Mr. Volker, as I said in my previous 
1 minute, is talking about a value-added tax of about 15 to 20 percent. 
That's going to be a terrible thing for the economy and for jobs.
  So I would like to say to my colleagues, if you want to create jobs, 
cut taxes and cut spending. That's the answer. And cut government 
regulation.

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