[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 108 (Wednesday, July 21, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H5905-H5912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1800
THE ECONOMY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. AKIN. Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker, and good afternoon, friends.
This evening we're going to continue in the discussion which has been
ongoing.
We've just been treated to a whole series of wonderful promises and
all the wonderful things the Democrat Party is going to do for America
and how we've created all these jobs and we're doing this and that and
the other thing. The only problem is, it's not working.
Now, Republicans, and myself particularly here on the floor, talked a
year ago about the proposals to create jobs and what the Democrats were
going to do with the economy, and we said it's not going to work. It's
not that we're being naysayers; it's just that we understand how the
economy works and the fact that the proposals that have been made don't
work. The American public is starting to understand that they don't
work because unemployment is still very, very high, much higher than
the numbers actually show because after somebody has been looking for a
job for a year, they're taken off the unemployment list. So when you
see 10 percent or 9.5 percent unemployment, the actual number, because
the people who are not counted, who are not working, is far higher.
I think it's helpful to go back and just understand some basic things
about economics. I was dazzled, I was amazed Monday of this week as I
was going through the airport and I saw our President talking and
accusing Republicans in the Senate of being hypocrites--I think
``hypocrite'' was the word he was using--in the fact that they didn't
want to continue people's unemployment. You know, the thing that
strikes me as being odd is to have a whole series of policies that are
well calculated to get rid of private sector jobs and then be surprised
at the fact that there aren't any jobs. And you don't have to really be
a wizard in economics to understand that the policies of the last 18
months have killed jobs. In fact, there are Democrats that understand
that. We're going to talk about one here in just a minute.
I'd like to go back to 2003, when George Bush was President. I want
to go back to September 11 of 2003, which was the date of an article
that appeared in The New York Times, not exactly a conservative
newspaper. This article said, The Bush administration today recommended
the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finances
industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. So here's
2003, the Bush administration says something is wrong with Freddie and
Fannie. What's wrong with Freddie and Fannie? Oh, they lost $1 billion
here or there. Well, you're not supposed to do that. Economically it's
considered a little sloppy on the books.
Well, how did that happen? Well, it happened because of the fact that
we had created a bunch of laws which said that you have to, if you're a
bank, make loans to people who can't afford to pay the loans. Now, I
suppose this might have been sold as compassion at one time, but
somehow to me it seems like to put anybody in a loan that they can't
afford is certainly not compassionate and is not a wise thing to do.
But anyway, we did that over a long period of time, the idea being to
get more and more Americans to own their own homes, which is nice if
they can afford it.
Well, what happened, under the last year of Clinton's administration
they increased the percentage of the loans that had to be made that
people couldn't afford to make. And what happened also at the same
time, the Federal Reserve dropped the interest rate
[[Page H5906]]
to almost zero and so there was this huge housing bubble starting up.
Houses got more and more and more valuable and people could buy a
house, get a loan from someone saying you don't have to make any down
payment and you don't have to make any payments at all for 3 years. So
you could let the government finance this new big house you built, and
3 years later it might have come close to doubling and you could sell
it and just pyramid your money. It was a great deal as long as the
music didn't stop.
Well, President Bush said we need to have more Federal authority in
Freddie and Fannie. Freddie and Fannie are quasi-public, quasi-private
companies. And so what happened over this period of time is that
Freddie and Fannie essentially went bankrupt. And when they did, boy
did it hit the fan. So we are going to see, this is what Bush was
saying he wanted to do. Here was the response of some of my Democrat
friends. If they were so good at economics, they wouldn't have gotten
it this far wrong.
Here it is: Freddie and Fannie are not facing any kind of financial
crisis. Oh, they're not facing a financial crisis, huh? Okay. Who is
this? This is Congressman Frank, who is now in charge of fixing this
problem, which he hasn't fixed yet. These two entities, Freddie and
Fannie, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. They've got plenty
of lobbyists with plenty of money to slop around on Capitol Hill, so we
kind of like them. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more
pressure there is on these companies, the less we'll see in terms of
affordable housing. Interesting. They're not in any kind of financial
problem, huh? They brought the entire world economic system down
because of these policies.
Now, people had the gall to say that free enterprise doesn't work. My
goodness, it wasn't free enterprise when people are forced to make
loans that they can't afford to pay. The loans were then cut and sliced
in pieces and sold all over the world. So everybody had these things,
and there was no market anymore for them. And so we were called in in
Congress a number of years ago, a couple of years ago--not quite 2
years--and told, hey, you've got to do this big bailout, $700 billion
you've got to give to get the economy back in line. Why? Because of the
fact that we didn't manage this thing correctly.
Now, the interesting thing is, now with the economy going bad, the
Democrats in power, with that going on, they came up with how to fix
the economy. We're going to talk about that and why it is that--it's
not that we're mean spirited, we're just saying mechanically,
economically, it won't work.
I'm joined tonight by a very fine Congressman from the State of
Georgia. I think he may be the newest Congressman from the State of
Georgia and just did very well in his election the other day. I think
he's got one more election to go, and he'll be down here more
permanently. But we're delighted to have Congressman Graves from the
great State of Georgia. And I don't remember exactly where your
district is. Could you give a little intro about where your district
is?
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Sure. I am from Georgia's Ninth Congressional
District, which is north Georgia, north Georgia mountains, a beautiful
part of the State.
Mr. AKIN. That's God's country up there. Is that the Blue Ridge
Mountains?
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Yes, Blue Ridge. The city of Blue Ridge is
part of the district. And I live in the small town of Ranger, a little
bitty town, a little farm community.
Mr. AKIN. How close is that to the Chattooga River?
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. To the Chattooga River.
Mr. AKIN. That's about an hour or two drive from Atlanta.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Yes, that's not far away at all, you're right.
Mr. AKIN. My brother is a ``rambling wreck from Georgia Tech.'' He
used to go kayaking on the Chattooga and got up into that country. It's
a beautiful area, and I think the citizens from up there are wise to
have elected you, Congressman. We enjoyed a conversation last week on
the floor.
I'd like you to jump in if you'd like to about how this whole thing
is going. I was coming through the airport on Monday, and I heard the
President screaming and yelling at Republicans about the fact that we
didn't want to continue year after year after year paying people for
not working and screaming at us that we're insensitive to the job
situation. And I'm thinking, this guy has done more to destroy jobs in
America than anybody in the history of the country just about, and he
has the gall to say that.
And it made me think, it's so simple, I don't see how people can miss
it. If you hammer businesses, then you're not going to have jobs. If
you destroy companies, then there are not going to be jobs because jobs
come from companies. And if you hate companies and you hate the private
sector, then how are you going to have jobs? So how can you, with a
straight face, complain about jobs when you're trying to destroy the
companies that make the jobs? It seems sort of straightforward to me. I
don't even know how to explain it any simpler than that. Please join
us.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Well, what you're addressing is free market
capitalism. We know it works, and America was founded on that. And the
fact that the administration today continues this crazy level of
spending and then blames businesses for not hiring--and we've heard
about hope and change and saved and created jobs, all these different
theories out there. But the one theory we know they're using right now
is that Keynesian theory of economics, and that is, the infusion of
money through the government into choices of their own.
So they're spreading that wealth that we all know that they said they
would not do, but spreading wealth. And where does that money come
from? Where does that wealth come from that's being spread? It's coming
from the citizens of the United States, the taxpayers themselves, the
small business owners.
So if we're going to turn this economy around, we've got to apply a
new theory of economics, the supply side theory of economics--free
markets, capitalism, competition, all those things that just energize
the economy. That's what I look forward to, a new governing majority
here in Congress that is going to bring free market and capitalism back
to the United States.
{time} 1810
Mr. AKIN. Well, I'll tell you something. I sometimes wish the
Democrats would just learn from themselves and from their own mistakes,
you know, because here is a guy, Henry Morgenthau, who was a
contemporary of little Lord Keynes, and he tries this idea. I think it
is the equivalent of, if you're from Texas, having those boots with the
loops in the back, and you reach down and grab those loops and lift
hard and try to fly around the room.
The theory is, if the government spends enough money, the economy is
going to get better. Now, if any father of a family in this country did
something as stupid as that, they'd probably lock him up and put a
little white suit on him, you know? To think that if you're in trouble
economically that what you should do is go out and spend a ton of
money--I mean maybe the theory is to spend a whole ton of money, eat,
live and be merry because tomorrow we die, but as an overall theory of
economics, this is really silly.
They tried it. FDR tried it. This is this guy, Morgenthau, who has
come back after 8 years, after taking a recession and turning it into a
Great Depression. This wasn't just harming free enterprise and
companies. Literally, those companies closed their doors. It wasn't
that they were just sort of hunkered down. It wasn't that they were
just sort of lean and waiting for better times. They closed the doors
and stopped the businesses. So this is what he said. In Congress, he
said this:
We have tried spending money. We are spending money, more than we
have ever spent before, and it doesn't work.
I wish the Democrats could just listen to their own people. It
doesn't work.
He says: After 8 years of the administration, we have just as much
unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot.
This is Henry Morgenthau.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Was that in 2010? It sounds like today,
doesn't it?
[[Page H5907]]
You know, it's interesting you bring that up because that's what we're
dealing with here in the Congress. What the Senate is voting on,
whether today or tomorrow, is the extension of unemployment benefits,
right?
Mr. AKIN. Right.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. If the policies of the Obama administration
were working so well and if they were saving and creating so many jobs,
then why do we need to extend unemployment benefits? Doesn't it seem
like an admission to the fact that it doesn't work, that they are
failed policies?
Mr. AKIN. That's why I said I have a hard time understanding how you
do this with a straight face.
We've just heard of all these fantastic Democrat programs that are
working fantastically, that are going along, and everything is fine.
Yet we're saying, But we've got this little problem of no jobs. So the
government spent even more money, and instead of understanding the
nature of Americans--that ``can do'' spirit that makes America such a
special place--and instead of trying to set a system up where people
can have jobs and bites at the American dream, we say, ``No, we're just
going to pay you not to work.''
You know, that's kind of degrading to people.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. You hit on the solution, which is, if we
empower the American people--empower the taxpayer, empower the business
owners--they will drive us through these tough economic days without
any problem because of that entrepreneurial spirit, that ``can do''
spirit, that grit, that willingness to dig deep and to work hard. We
know that has pulled us through so many challenging days. You know,
what we've heard for the last couple days--I've heard and I'm sure you
have--is the Democrats blaming a previous administration over and over
and over.
Mr. AKIN. Oh, man. It wasn't just the Bush administration that
brought Hurricane Katrina. It brought every bad thing that ever
happened in the whole world.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. They failed to take responsibility for the
fact that they took the majority in 2006, that they swore in their very
own Speaker in 2007 and yet failed to take responsibility for the
actions with the unemployment and with the job losses that we see
today. Just blame it on someone else, a previous administration.
Mr. AKIN. You know, there is one thing that is awful hard to argue
with--just the plain numbers.
In this year of 2008, Bush was President, but Nancy Pelosi was
Speaker of the House. This was the worst spending year of the Bush
administration. Did the Bush administration spend too much money? I
would say, as a conservative, yes, he did.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Well, let me ask you this.
Mr. AKIN. $459 billion right here.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Well, where does spending originate? We have
branches of government, right? We have three of them.
Mr. AKIN. Right.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. I believe spending and allocation of
appropriations originates in the House of Representatives, not in the
executive branch, but in the House of Representatives.
Mr. AKIN. Right.
In 2008, that was Bush's worst year--$459 billion. Now take a look at
the first Obama year. I mean talk about a runaway deficit. This cannot
continue without the Nation's literally falling apart economically. So
what you are seeing is the result of this incredible level of Federal
spending, and its effect is very corrosive to jobs.
So how is it that you can say, ``Oh, Republicans don't want to keep
paying people for not working, and they don't care about
unemployment''? It's like you guys are the ones who are doing
everything possible to create the unemployment.
I am joined by my good friend, Congressman Bishop, if you would like
to join us.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Thank you.
I am actually very honored to be here with two friends who are
talking about the significant problems we have in this country--simply,
the lack of jobs. As we all know, government does not create jobs, but
government can create a policy to discourage jobs, and that is
specifically where we are today.
If I could, I'll just go in a slightly different direction from where
the two of you have headed so far.
Mr. AKIN. Yes.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I have my good friend here--the newest Member
from the good State of Georgia, so we've got a good southerner here. We
have somebody from the Midwest, and I am actually from the West. With
all due respect, I think my part of the Nation is taking a bigger hit
in this economy, because of government decisions, than are the others.
The unemployment rate in the West is actually higher than any other
section in this country.
Mr. AKIN. Wow. Why is that?
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. It has been that way for the last 12 months. So,
somewhere, somebody has to figure out what is unique about my State and
about our area in the West that has given us this wonderful distinction
of having the best joblessness in the Nation for well over a year.
I think, obviously, there are a number of causes, but it is also, I
think we can say for a certainty, that many of the new policies and
regulations that have been adopted during this administration, coming
out of Washington, are flat out not helping when we could be unleashing
economic upturn as well as providing domestic energy independence for
this country, which is a boon to economic development. Yet we're doing
the exact opposite.
Let me show you three charts, if I could, simply to illustrate.
You know, every time I come here, I rant about the amount of public
lands that we have. The Federal Government owns 650 million acres. That
means that 1 out of every 3 acres in this country is now owned by the
Federal Government. Unfortunately, in my area--the West--1 out of every
2 acres is owned by the Federal Government.
For example--and this is a different chart than I have used before--
if the amount of land owned in the West by the Federal Government were
owned in the East, that is how much area, the area in blue, would be
owned and operated and controlled by the Federal Government. If, on the
other hand, we in the West had as much land owned by the Federal
Government as you out in the East--and by that, I mean everything east
of the Rocky Mountains, that is how much of our territory would be
controlled.
So, obviously, there is a unique element there, which simply means,
of the 12 States that have had the slowest growth in their economies,
the biggest joblessness increase--and I hate to say that--then 6 of
those 12 are in the West. Georgia gets in there. I'm sorry. I didn't
leave you out. Six of those 12 have to be found in the West.
If you want to go one step further and look at the 20 largest
counties with 25,000 or more inhabitants, counties which have the
highest unemployment and joblessness rates, of those 20, 19 of the 20
are found in the West. You have to go down to number 20 before you
finally have somebody--in this case, it's Michigan--that breaks through
with a higher unemployment rate than Western counties have.
So I am going to make the contention that there is a reason the West
has been hit very hard in what I simply like to refer to as an
``inexplicable war on the West.'' I think the numbers bear it out, and
part of it is because of policies. Without taking too much of your
time, let me just list off a couple, a slew, of some of those
administrative decisions.
Mr. AKIN. Well, I am really interested in what you're going to say
because it seems to me that there is a war on Missouri going on and a
war on free enterprise going on, but I didn't know about the war on the
West, so I am all ears. Please.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Well, we'll all join in the battalion because we
are all faced with the results of these decisions.
Let me just check off a couple of things that have happened in the
West that have destroyed jobs in the West.
Obviously, in my State, the first thing this administration did is
cancel 77 oil and gas leases in the State of Utah, but what we don't
know is they have also halted scheduled oil and gas lease sales in
Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Wyoming, because of the
climate of this administration, only is able to lease about 5 percent
of the leases that are put on bid because of what we are doing here.
[[Page H5908]]
This administration banned uranium mining permits in the State of
Arizona. They put multiple restrictions on oil shale development
causes.
In California, they blocked water that goes to ranchers in the
central valleys there. So, in some communities in California, up to 40
percent of those agricultural communities are now faced with
unemployment. This administration tried to provide $400 million in
stimulus to that area. Well, it's sad. They didn't need to do that. All
they needed to do was to turn the water on, and it's free.
Unfortunately, much of that stimulus money went to districts that voted
to keep the water turned off, which created the unemployment in the
first place.
I spoke to the economic development director from the State of Utah,
who is in charge of tourism and movies. The West is a great set for
lots of movies, but one of the problems the movie industry is facing in
the West is, when you go on government lands, the permitting process to
just go on there and do this clean energy of companies is taking so
long that we basically don't have the situation taking place.
Mr. AKIN. So wait. Now you're really making a case. What I'm hearing
you saying is there is a systematic series of decisions which literally
creates unemployment. They are government decisions. It is worse in the
West because the government controls more of the West, and those
decisions systematically destroy jobs while the President comes on and,
with a straight face, says that Republicans are hypocrites because of
the fact that we don't want to keep paying people for not working.
{time} 1820
It just amazes me.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Let me throw a couple more statistics at you, and
then I want to do some dialoguing here because the numbers are good,
but we have to put them in context eventually.
This administration is always big about saying, well, we need to have
alternative energy sources to help our economy grow. I think we need to
have all kinds of energy sources. But the Chamber of Commerce has
identified 380 renewable energy projects that have been blocked or
stalled over the past 4 years. The total cost of those stalled projects
is $560 billion in lost economic activity and approximately a quarter
of a million jobs that were not allowed simply because--it doesn't
matter whether we're talking about fossil fuels or wind power or solar
power or nuclear power--we're not doing anything to develop new energy
sources.
Western Energy Alliance did a survey to find out what would be taking
place in the West, these areas that I'm saying have been heavily hit.
Seventy-four percent of the respondents to the survey by the Western
Energy Alliance said their companies are downsizing capital investment
in the Rocky Mountain area. That's $1.1 billion of investment that has
been shifted from the Rocky Mountains to other parts, simply because of
the inability of the government to try and help us to develop energy
sources. That is $2.8 billion in infrastructure that would have come
into the West and has not.
And it has a ripple effect. If you stop an oil lease or a gas lease
or a wind power project or a solar power project in the West, you also
stop projects that are on private lands abutting that area, and you
stop the need of having truckers bring the equipment in and bring
people in. And then you lose the mechanics jobs, and you lose the jobs
from the hotel industry where they are surfaced.
Ninety percent of the respondents say that their company will
continue to divert investment in the Rockies until there is a change in
the regulatory process.
We don't have to have this joblessness. This government is creating
it by policies that are not intended to build jobs but actually prevent
jobs from being created.
I yield back.
Mr. AKIN. The question I have is: How does the President think he can
get away with doing this? I mean, all of these people that work in
these different companies, when those decisions are made and they get
rid of jobs--we were doing the same thing, weren't we, with telling
people they couldn't drill for oil in the gulf? Didn't that put lots of
people out of work? I don't understand why people don't see that and
realize that you can't have a war on private business in America and,
at the same time, say you're worried about jobs, because it seems like,
to me, people get jobs in businesses. And if you destroy businesses--of
course, their concept of jobs is, We'll hire more people for the census
workers, I suppose.
Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. If I might interject real quick here, and I'm
going to have to leave the conversation in a few minutes, but what
we've seen for over 12 months now is unemployment at, what, 9.5
percent, and we've heard a lot about saving and creating jobs. We've
seen a lot of bailouts, buyouts, stimuluses, cash for clunkers,
financial reform, TARP 1, 2, and I'm sure there will be many more. The
fact is they're not working.
But we're going into January of this year and taxes are going to go
up on every citizen of the United States. Every tax bracket will be
raised. Capital gains will go up. The dividend tax will go up.
Inheritance tax goes up. The marriage tax goes up as well.
And I'm curious, how does this administration, how does the
leadership of this House face the American people this November and say
that is going to create jobs, that's going to get you back to work?
Taxing you more to fund failed programs of the last 12 months is going
to get you back to work. I don't know how they're going to do it.
But I'm going to stand before my constituents with a positive message
and let them know that there are men like you and me and others in this
Chamber that are going to stand up daily and stand up and put forth
positive solutions to get this country back on track. And we're going
to get it back on track, but it's going to take a lot of work, and it's
going to take pushing government out of the way and empowering the
American people to once again dream and dream big.
Mr. AKIN. That is such a refreshing breath, or a little breeze
anyway. We're hoping it will be even more refreshing in November.
But what you're saying is, and the bottom line is, the government is
not the thing that creates the jobs. And what we've seen is, for 18
months, a policy that says the government is going to take over
everything. They fired the President of General Motors. They're going
to take over insurance companies. They're going to take over banks.
They've decided not only are they going to take over the insurance of
flood insurance, they're going to take over the loans for students.
They're going to take over whatever it is, one-sixth of the economy
with their socialized medicine.
If they could have, they wanted to take over the energy sector with
their cap-and-tax bill, which would do nothing for global warming
except for more taxes and more big bureaucratic government. And the
solution to every problem is more taxes and more government, and they
don't learn from the people, from their own party. You know, JFK
understood that you've got to back off on taxes.
I thank you very much, gentleman, for joining us, the Congressman
from--Mr. Graves District, I think it's the Ninth District of Georgia,
and really a fine addition here. And I appreciate the fact you have
some business sense and some common sense, because America really needs
to get back on that.
And I also appreciate my good friend, Congressman Bishop from Utah.
We'll get back to him in just a minute. But the talk about it was the
largest tax increase in history. This is the dumbest thing in the world
to do when you have a bad economy and no jobs. JFK understood what to
do. He cut taxes and cut government spending.
And what are we doing? We've got the largest tax increase in history
coming up here. Those paying 10 percent will pay 15 percent. Those
paying 25 will pay 28. Those paying 28 will pay 31; 33 goes to 36; 35
goes to 39. That's the biggest tax increase in the history of our
country. It's exactly the wrong thing to do.
It's not that we're being naysayers. It's not that we're being
critical. It's just that it won't work. And the solutions are
straightforward. What you want to do, you want to cut spending and you
want to cut taxes.
And here, this is this wonderful recovery plan. The Democrats said,
if you vote for this $800 billion jobs bill, if you vote that, this is
what's going to
[[Page H5909]]
happen is this blue line. They said, if you don't vote for it, this
light blue line is what's going to happen. You could have unemployment
as high as 9 percent if you don't vote for us spending $800 billion,
supposedly get the economy back and going.
And so, on a strictly party line vote, the Democrats put in their
nifty plan, and here's what happened, actual unemployment. And they're
saying the economy is so good and so strong that we now need to extend
people's unemployment benefits. There's something about that that just
doesn't add up.
My good friend from Utah.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. And I appreciate that. I think if you keep--I
don't know if they can keep the cameras on that particular chart, but
it is a telling chart. And it's one of the things that I think you are
trying to say, that we have yet to learn lessons from history.
It is very clear that we are trying with the stimulus bill, a few of
the other bills, right now, creating jobs by having tax-funded jobs
being created. Unfortunately, that's a sector that's growing, but
that's not a sector that will continue and build and has a multiplier
effect in the economy. To do that, you have to have the private sector
involved.
I hate to say this, but when we went into the Great Depression, there
was the history. We'd already learned after the end of World War I how
lowering tax rates actually increased the amount of revenue and spurred
the economy. Same thing you mentioned also that took place in the 1960s
that President Kennedy clearly understood, and it's happened several
other times in the history of this country.
But at the beginning of the Depression, there were many people within
the business community who had money to invest in business that could
have spurred the economy, created jobs, and grown our economy out of
the Depression. But they did not invest that money, primarily because
they were afraid of what the tax and regulatory policies of the
government would do, and, therefore, they simply sat on it. That's what
happened as part of the problems we had in the Depression. People with
investment opportunities did not do so.
Unfortunately, I think we find ourselves in that same situation.
{time} 1830
The future tax policies, and you just mentioned we don't know what
will happen at the end of this year, but it could be catastrophic in
raising taxes. But in addition to the regulatory policies that we have
placed in effect, the effort of the continuous deficit spending that we
have done, all of those have added to a portion of unrest within the
business community and it simply says, ``I'm going to wait to see where
I'm going to invest to see what actually happens eventually.'' That is
why the government doesn't actually create jobs, but the government
policies can destroy the ability for those jobs to be created at the
same time.
So I appreciate what my good colleagues have been saying, because it
is true. Our regulatory policies and our tax policies have created so
much nervousness within the system, we are not doing that which could
encourage a multiplier effect within our economy, and that is exactly
what we need at this particular time.
Mr. AKIN. So what we have seen, according to what you're saying, is
very clear. First of all, you've got the tremendous, tremendous level
of spending, which is exactly the wrong thing. And what is happening
with that tremendous level of spending, you're getting what you would
expect, you're getting a lot of unemployment, and that's making it
worse and worse.
As you do that spending, of course, we have a question of who owns
our debt. In 1970, the foreign debt holdings were 5 percent. It doesn't
seem like 1970 was so long ago to me. In 1990, 20 years later, foreign
holdings had gone from 5 to 19 percent. Now 2010, another 20 years
later, total foreign debt is now 47 percent. Those are not numbers that
make people who understand business and understand economics
comfortable with where we are in this country.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Before you actually put that chart down, I think
you understated that sentiment. It's not just people who understand
business are not comfortable with that. I don't understand business and
I look at that chart and I'm not comfortable with that. Any normal
American would look at that and say something is desperately wrong with
what we are doing.
Mr. AKIN. What we have is foreigners basically bailing us out. As
long as they're willing to do that. But pretty soon they're going to
say, If you want us to bail you out some more, you're going to have to
pay me more interest. And boy, it's going to be a problem then.
This is a comparison. Sometimes it's helpful because when you start
talking about billions and trillions of dollars, you say, man, the only
thing I can understand is a hundred or a thousand dollars. And so here
we are compared to other countries. This is deficit as a percent of
gross domestic product. This is the United States here. We are third
only to Spain and the United Kingdom in terms of our deficit. The
United States is third only to Greece and Italy.
You take a look at these European countries, and they're not just in
nifty economic shape. In fact, I heard a statistic today, I don't know
if you had heard this before, gentleman, but I was told that if you
take a look at what we call the poverty level in America, a person in
America living at the poverty level is doing better than a person in
the middle of the middle class in Europe. That's what socialism buys
you.
I will say that again. A person at the poverty level in America is
doing better economically, right at the poverty level line, than
somebody who is a middle class person, an average middle class person
in Europe. That says that all of this Keynesian socialistic stuff is
terribly inefficient. And here we go right down the line trying to
imitate the examples of Greece and Italy and the United Kingdom with
the fact that we're just overspending radically.
We go back to this thing. It just seems like, I've talked about this
a lot of weeks, you've joined me, and this isn't that complicated.
There are things that kill jobs. One of them is excessive taxation.
When the government takes too much money, the people that have the
businesses can't invest because they're giving their money away. So
what are you going to do? You tax all the well-to-do people. It's well-
to-do people who own the businesses. You can't have it both ways. If
you want to destroy the businesses, you're not going to have any jobs.
It can only be one of two ways.
Insufficient liquidity. We have the wrong laws in terms of that
policy. You have just given us an incredible example of red tape and
government mandates just destroying the job market out west. Those are
amazing numbers.
Did your office pull those numbers together, gentleman?
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Actually some of them we did, but the one
especially about renewable energy products, the 380 renewable energy
products that have not been allowed to go forward, which would be
another quarter of a million jobs and $500 billion in economic input,
that was done by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That actually happens to
be nationwide; not just in the West.
Mr. AKIN. Wow.
And then, of course, the economic uncertainty as you're saying. When
you see the government taking over the auto industry and the insurance
industry and then going to take over the health care industry, that
makes people that understand economics very uncertain. They're not
going to put a lot of money into trying to create jobs. They'll make
jobs. There's a president of a company in St. Louis called Emerson
Electric. Emerson Electric says, we'll make jobs; we're just not going
to make them in the United States because we can't afford to.
We have created a set of policies that are so toxic, we have done so
well with this list of job killers and doing every one of these things
very well that he said, Yeah, we'll create jobs, but they're going to
be in foreign countries because we can't afford to do business in this
country because we've made the environment so toxic.
And yet we talk about saying, oh, my goodness, we've got
unemployment, we've done all this wonderful stuff, but now we've still
got to do more to help the unemployment, if what we're doing was so
wonderful.
Take a look at these policies. Sometimes a picture is worth a
thousand
[[Page H5910]]
words. Here we have the President saying, ``Now give me one good reason
why you're not hiring.'' You've got the government taking over health
care, the cap-and-trade, the global warming thing, and all these other
taxes that are coming along. As it turns out, health care has got a lot
more hidden taxes than we realized in it.
Here's the poor shop owner of the china shop with these bulls
marching around; he feels like hiding behind his desk here because of
the fact that we just can't seem to understand some very, very basic
economics.
Here is what we're doing. One of the big killers, of course, is tax
increases. These are the corporate tax rates across the entire world.
You see the green line over there, it says the United States has the
second highest corporate tax rate. We say, gosh, I can't figure out why
we don't have more jobs. But look at what we're doing. It's foolish
policy.
And then you can take a look at the largest tax increase that we're
looking at starting in 2011 unless Congress acts. Married people; the
standard deduction is going to be changed.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Would the gentleman from Missouri simply restate
what that first line in black actually means. Unless Congress acts,
taxes will go up.
Mr. AKIN. Yes.
Well, if you recall, in 2001, the Republicans inherited a recession.
So they had to do something about it. As President Bush was running for
office the first time, he said, what we've got to do is cut taxes and
cut spending. So what they did was we cut taxes three different times
in different ways. Those taxes, because of the way the Senate worked,
they were going to go along until 2011, so it was a 10-year tax cut. At
2011, the taxes were going to revert back to the way they were at 2001
when we were in the middle of a big recession.
So we did those tax cuts, particularly a tax cut in 2003 or so, and
that was dividends and capital gains. What that did by cutting those
things, we allowed those businessmen to invest in their own business.
And we saw employment jump up. We saw the economy jump up. And
ironically by cutting taxes, the Federal Government raised more money
than they had when the taxes were higher. And that worked fine.
So now with the economy in the pits, what we're going to do is raise
these taxes, which is just plain crazy. I don't know how long we have
to stand on the floor and say, look, the idea of continuing to spend
and tax is not what's going to create jobs.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. So what the gentleman is telling me is that if
Congress does nothing, there will automatically be a marriage penalty
increase. Child deductions will go down. There will be another death
tax increase. There will be a capital gains tax increase; a dividend
tax increase. Unless we do something proactive, it will automatically
happen.
Mr. AKIN. That's correct.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. And so far we're a half a year away from the
deadline and we have yet to do anything proactive about it.
Mr. AKIN. Not only have we failed to do anything proactive, but the
Democrats have made it absolutely clear that they will not renew these
tax cuts. They're not going to do this. So we know that we're going to
end up with the biggest tax increase in our history right on top of
this huge unemployment and a recession going on. This is not wise.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. While you're there, if the gentleman wouldn't
mind for just a minute, let me talk about another concept of taxes
which I don't think many people are aware. These are things that will
automatically happen. But there are bills that will be coming to the
floor sometime soon that deal with tax increases on our form of energy
production.
Now one of those things listed in there in the cost of doing business
is also the cost of energy that takes place. There is a bill that
passed the Natural Resources Committee, it's called the CLEAR Act,
which purportedly dealt with what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico
which is a terrible crisis and needs to be changed in some way.
{time} 1840
But deep within the bowels of this bill is a $2 per gallon tax
increase on all oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico, and a 40 cents I
think it's per trillion cubic feet of natural gas that will be produced
in the Gulf of Mexico. And one would assume, if we are dealing with the
Gulf of Mexico, that money could be for restoration work, for cleanup
work, for those who have lost jobs and lost income during that period
of time. Unfortunately, that's not what that money will be used for if
this bill passes.
That money is all going to go to the Federal department into a
specific fund which would now bypass appropriations and be just under a
billion dollars a year to buy more land in the Federal inventory. So
the amount of blue on this chart could grow in every section of this
country, but once again primarily I get the fun of it in my State,
where most of the public land is.
That is a tax increase on business solely so the government can grow
its hold on the amount of property we own here, and in so doing will
infringe upon the ability of producing better energy in the future. And
like I say, if we were actually moving forward in alternative energy,
as we say we want to, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. But this
administration is also shutting down alternative energy projects at the
same time it is shutting down traditional energy projects. And that's
another tax that goes onto that multitude of taxes you are talking
about, and actually goes on to compound the amount of spending that
we're doing.
Mr. AKIN. I think that what you are saying is the list I gave you
before is incomplete. I said the government wants to take over autos,
they want to take over insurance, they want to take over student loans,
they want to take over flood insurance, they want to take over whatever
it is, a sixth of the economy with socializing medicine, but it's not
enough for them to own all that. What they also want is they want to
own the land.
So they're going to tax businesses with some sort of a pretext this
is a little tax because of the gulf oil spill, and they're just going
to use it as a slush fund to buy up more land. It goes back to Rahm
Emanuel, he is chief of staff for the President, his incredible
statement that let no crisis go without taking full advantage of it.
So we've got a crisis that is largely perpetrated by the Federal
Government in the gulf. Certainly BP was culpable for doing some things
wrong. But their poor decision-making seems to be eclipsed by the total
failure of the Federal Government to deal with something that's fairly
fundamental. It's called a hole in the bottom of the ocean. And if you
were really going to be on top and show people that the Federal
Government was something you could really trust, you would put a fusion
cell together, you would get people to make decisions, instead of
Governor Jindal asking the Federal Government for permission to dredge
up a little sandbar to stop the oil and waiting more than a month, as
the oil comes into his wetlands, to get an answer.
I mean the Federal response to this thing, and a lot of the problems
on the oil rig, were because of all kinds of Federal regulations as
well. So we have this idea of the containment dome. Here's another
containment dome that's not working. We're spending some money, and
we're spending it at an unusual rate, a rate that would destroy our
country if it continues that way.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman expressing I think the
frustration that many of us in Congress are feeling in the direction in
which this country is going, and that we can look at concept after
concept of either outrageous spending, poor policy that deals with tax
policy, poor regulatory policy, poor energy development policy, put
those all together, and it still spells a lack of jobs. And what was
supposed to be a time period where we were going to be creating all
sorts of jobs is simply one where we have lost jobs.
Unfortunately, what we are also finding unique about this recession
is people who have lost their job are staying unemployed longer or
taking part-time jobs instead. The length of the joblessness is
unusually long in this type of recession. And I think part of that goes
back to the policies that this country is pushing forward that do not
encourage investment in our economy and do
[[Page H5911]]
not multiply our economy impact, when we have historical evidence of
how that could easily happen. We are ignoring that.
Mr. AKIN. I think we need to make sure that given a particular period
of time--and I appreciate your joining me here. Thank you very much,
Congressman. I am so thankful for some of the very, very fine people
that are good thinkers, very thoughtful, coming from all areas of our
country that have a deep interest in America.
What you have going on here is a systematic attack on the fabric of
what America really is. And you have a belief system if there is a
consistency in Federal policies, and that consistency is that the
government is taking everything over, and the American public, at least
a certain percentage of the American public, is really getting
concerned about that. They are concerned because they feel like we're
losing our country. The government is not our friend, the government is
not our servant. The government is becoming our master. It's becoming a
tyrant. And it's taxing us to the point and it's spending to the point
that it's going to destroy our country.
You take a look at what's going on in Europe, and you see that we're
competing with some of the most fiscally irresponsible nations in
Europe in terms of our numbers, in terms of our spending, in terms of
our taxation. And this has got a lot of people scared, a lot of people
scared. And they have very good reason to be. And the fact of this
matter is you can hear all kinds of economists talk about fancy
theories, but it's not very complicated. It's as simple as a lemonade
stand.
If you tax that lemonade stand too much, the guy that runs it can't
afford to keep it going. If you tax it just less than too much, you
make it so he is never going to add any new lemonade stands, because
that takes extra money, and you took all his extra money away. So when
the government takes money and creates jobs, or hires more people, now
the government--supposedly, the rate of pay of a government employee is
twice what it is of an employee in the private sector. If the
government keeps doing that, what happens is it pulls money out of the
economy. That creates the unemployment, and then you start to go into
this joblessness situation.
So here we are. These things are not complicated. Too much taxation.
JFK understood that you can't do that. You've got to cut taxes. Ronald
Reagan understood that. George Bush understood it. And when they cut
taxes, what happened was we pulled out of the recession.
Insufficient liquidity. This is one of those policies just like
Congressman Bishop was talking about, where the Federal Government is
making bad business decisions, making it hard for businesses to get
loans. And most of the businesses don't even want loans because the
environment is so toxic for business there is what we say in Missouri,
they are hunkered down like toads in a hailstorm. Because they're
saying, oh, my goodness, we've got all this economic uncertainty and
all this red tape that's being generated, we don't know what's going on
next. And as that happens, they're not investing the money. So what
happens? We don't have jobs.
So this is all very predictable. It's about as simple as a lemonade
stand. If the government red tape tells you that you've got to test
every glass of lemonade you make, and you have to put 10 different
tests on it, it makes it so expensive that you can't sell the lemonade.
This stuff is not that complicated.
What's happened is the government is no longer the servant of the
people; the government is taking over massive sectors of the economy,
and they are spending way beyond what there is any possibility that we
can maintain. And most people, when they take a look at this level of
deficit spending, they realize that something has to change.
Now, there's a couple different ways that you can change it. The
first you could do is you could just take everything the Federal
Government's doing and try to freeze it or reduce it. The problem is
that's not going to get it. The second thing you could try to do is get
rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse. Well, there are no line items that
say waste, fraud, and abuse. And you're not going to fix this problem
by getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.
What has to happen is we have to go back to some sense of sanity and
realize that the Federal Government's job is not to play God, not to
try to be all things to all people, but have the Federal Government
become limited once again and do the things that it must do. Most of
the things we're trying to do now could be done by States. We should
send those decision-making policies back to the States. And what we
need to do, instead of spending this much money, we need to do the few
simple things that the Federal Government can do and must do.
What are those things? Well, first of all national security. States
are not going to be able to run our military. That's not the job for
State government. That's a job for Federal Government. And the other
thing is, of course, our law enforcement system, the fact that we don't
want terrorists running around inside our country. So the justice that
the Federal Government should be rendering is external, that is our
military, and internal in the sense of our police, and laws, justices,
courts, et cetera, and jails.
{time} 1850
So those are the basic things the Federal Government has to do.
When the country started a long time ago, Washington, D.C. was a
boring place. They only had a couple of laws on the Federal books. One
of them was against piracy on the high seas. That was something that
the States weren't having to deal with. That was a Federal job. Piracy
on the high seas. Another one was counterfeiting. The Federal
Government makes the money supply. You don't want people
counterfeiting. That was a Federal law. And so you had a few Federal
laws, but all kinds of other things were done at the local and State
level.
But here what we've got going on is the government is trying to be
God to everybody, trying to be all things to all people; and what's
happening is it doesn't work. It never worked in other countries. I'm
amazed that we would be foolish enough to do this level of spending.
We saw a country, it was called the US--It's something that I recall
historically, called the US, and they had a philosophy of government in
this particular US that said the government is going to give you food
and housing and education and a job, and it's also going to give you
health care. That country was called the USSR. That country
economically failed and collapsed. We all saw it coming. We were
frightened of it because of their nuclear weapons, but we saw that
their economy didn't work.
And what are we doing with this? Every single thing the Soviet Union
was doing, which is the government is going to take care of your
housing, it's going to take care of your food, it's going to take care
of your health care, going to take care of your education, and your job
because the government is taking over all of these businesses. We're
repeating the same thing that didn't work. And Americans all across
this country--I'm not talking about just Republicans, Democrats, and
independents--it's just people are starting to get it that we're on the
wrong track.
So it led to the bumper sticker that said, Had enough change yet? I
think that's one of the things the President promised was change. And I
think he's certainly keeping his promise in that regard, if in no
other.
So these are things that are really upsetting people; and when you
take a look at the combination of what's going on, these are really,
really serious. The comparison of these other countries I think is
really telling. When you see deficit as a percent of GDP and the United
States is third worst in terms of deficit--debt is a percent of GDP;
United States is the third worst. You go, This is not good at all.
Then you find out the statistic that I just heard about today, which
says that the poverty level, the line that says you're in the poverty
level in America, that line is the average of the middle class in
Europe. The average person in the middle class in Europe lives below
our poverty level.
So do we want to go down the direction of what these European
countries are doing with the government taking everything over, all
kinds of rules and regulations that hamstring the free enterprise
system? I think not.
[[Page H5912]]
I'm going to close this evening by talking a little bit about the
America that I love.
The America that I love was populated by these crazy people that came
here, and they had dreams to do amazing things, things that a lot of
people would have said in Europe that you can't do that. And yet these
people came to this country with these dreams, and the dreams as they
worked on them became a vague possibility and then even a possibility.
And finally they became a reality. And so America was built one dream
at a time by different creative people that came to our land.
I think first of all of my favorite historic group of people, the
Pilgrims coming to this land; and just over a hundred Pilgrims came.
They had a dream of creating a civilization different than anything in
Europe. You know, the teachers always say the Pilgrims came here for
religious freedom which, of course, is silly. They had religious
freedom in Holland. They didn't come here for that reason. They came
with a much more grandiose idea. They wanted to build a new
civilization unlike anything they'd seen in Europe.
And so they gave us certain ideas. They separated church government
from civil government. They wrote a written Constitution called the
Mayflower Compact, the first time in all of human history that a group
of free people under God created a civil government to be their
servants. The civil government servant, not master. That piece of paper
signed on the great table of the Mayflower. In ye name of God, Amen.
Goes on to say, We do covenant and combine ourselves together into a
civil body politic for the glory of God, the advancement of the
Christian faith, and to frame such just and equal laws would be meet
and necessary.
The first time there was a written Constitution under God of a group
of free people making a civil government to be their servant, the
entire foundation of the American civil government founded in 1620
because these people dared to have a dream, and when they came here
within the first 3 months, half of them died. And the Mayflower going
back to England said, You guys better give up. You started here as a
little over a hundred, 103 people. Now you're down to barely just 50.
You need to come back to England and give up. They said, No. We believe
God called us here for a purpose.
So they said as they were dying as they got older and as Plymouth
Colony survived and did well, they said they thought that they were
stepping stones for people who were going to come after to build a new
nation because they had a dream in their hearts of what this country
could be. By the way, they threw out Socialism in Plymouth Colony
because they knew it was unbiblical. They understood in 1620 what we
don't understand in 2010.
They were followed by other kinds of people, all of the diversity of
these people that came with all of these crazy ideas. One of them built
a hundred light bulbs and not one of them worked. And his attitude was
very cheery. He said, Now I know a hundred ways to not make a light
bulb. He kept trying and pretty soon Thomas Edison made his first light
bulb.
So America was built this way on free enterprise by people having the
courage to take a try at something and fail and try again. But it
wasn't built by the government trying to give everybody jobs and the
government taking everything over. They were trying to get away from
those big kings of Europe. They wanted the government to be simply a
servant, just a facilitator, a facilitator so people could enjoy what
they believed were their God-given rights, to life, to liberty, and to
the pursuit of happiness. They could pursue happiness. They knew the
government could never guarantee happiness. But they just new that they
could try.
And so it was for generations and generations. America became one of
the most unique and exceptional countries in the world because it was
based on a new idea, a new set of principles. Some people call it free
enterprise. Some people call it the American Dream. Some people talk
about it as the can-do attitude. And what we're doing is we're killing
that dream.
And that's why we stand here on the floor and talk about these
policies. What we're trying to do is to turn America back into Europe.
We left Europe. We don't want to go back to Europe. Some people may
want to go back to Europe. Be happy if they'd take a one-way ticket
over there. Don't turn us into Europe with the socialistic policies of
the government taking over everything.
We've seen so many examples of the Federal Government being lousy at
doing what it does. We think about the efficiency of the post office,
the compassion of the IRS. Think about the Energy Department. The
Energy Department--people aren't aware it was created so that we
wouldn't be dependent on foreign oil and ever since the Energy
Department was created, we're more and more dependent on foreign oil.
Talk about something totally failing in its mission.
And we've just seen what happened in the gulf oil spill. We've seen
taking the President 50 days before he even contacted the head of BP.
The President having the authority to put a team together of the best
resources not only in the country but in the world and being unwilling
to take these big ships that foreign countries owned that could come
and suck up all of that oil and process the oil and spit the water out.
But no, we're not going to do that. Dithering around with more and more
government bureaucracy. Is this the sort of thing that we really want
to put more trust in our Federal Government?
We've seen historically that federal governments of foreign countries
have killed more people of their own citizens than all the wars of
history since the time of Christ. If you add up all of the people
killed in wars since the time of Christ historically, there are less
people killed by war than there are by governments killing their own
citizens. Do we not have some natural fear of excessive government? I
don't understand why we have this irrational faith in the efficiency of
big government. It seems to me that it's just a very, very unwise place
to be putting our faith. Why do we want to go back to Europe? It
doesn't make sense.
I think we need to think, rather, in terms of the bright light and
the freedom that comes from people being allowed to succeed or to fail,
for people to be able to pursue their dreams. The Bible tells us that
for every single human being in this world, God made a special job for
them to do. And when people have the courage to just chase after what's
in their heart, the dream that's in their heart, that's what makes
great civilization. That was one of the things that distinguished
America that made it such a unique and different Nation because people
were able to follow the dream that was in their own heart.
And how can you do that if the government starts to keep taking
everything over and taking more things over and taxing you and making
it impossible for you to do the kinds of things that Americans for
generations have done?
There are two views of America that we see. The view that you see now
is the view that reflects the Democrat Party. What you have seen for 18
months is total Democrat decision-making. The Republicans on most of
these issues vote ``no,'' and we are totally ignored because we are,
quite frankly, 40 votes short in this Chamber. And ignored in the
Senate as well.
So what you see is Democrat policy, what you see is European policy,
and what you see is the destruction of the American Dream. And that
must stop.
____________________