[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 125 (Thursday, September 16, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H6797-H6800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         COVENANT WITH AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today I'm here to urge our 
Democratic leaders to listen to the Republican Party, to listen to the 
Republican Party's bipartisan plan for taking immediate action on our 
already ailing economy.
  If we let the Bush tax cuts expire, those tax cuts enacted in 2001 
and 2003, Americans nationwide will face the largest tax hike in United 
States history. Indeed, that tax hike will amount to $3.8 trillion, and 
this at a time when unemployment hovers at around 10 percent and our 
national debt has hit an all-time high at $13 trillion--yes, $13 
trillion with a ``T,'' an unbelievable amount of debt.
  We need to freeze Federal spending. We need to cut taxes across the 
board, for everyone at every marginal tax rate level across the board. 
The state of the economy today is that 16 million people are 
unemployed. That equates to a 10 percent unemployment rate. Indeed, it 
is probably close to 17 percent. Mr. Speaker, if you count people who 
have just given up, who have been looking over 6 months for a job, 
there are none to be found, and also the number of people who are 
employed, yes, but underemployed, it would be close to 17 percent. So, 
indeed, the Republican Party and our leader says we need to freeze 
Federal spending, indeed, roll it back to the level of 2008, and cut 
taxes across the board.
  And if we don't do that, Mr. Speaker, many companies that might have 
been in a position to expand and, therefore, put people back to work 
will choose not to because of the uncertainties associated with these 
tax hikes as well as other disastrous Democratic policies like 
ObamaCare. We need to come together, and we need to pass legislation 
immediately that cuts spending and kills all of the pending tax 
increases.
  Mr. Speaker, we just returned to Washington, did we not, after 6 
weeks in our districts, all 435 of us? I had many opportunities during 
that 6-week period of time to meet with my constituents face to face, 
eyeball to eyeball at town hall meetings. We called them America 
Speaking Out meetings, wanting the American people to know that at 
least one party wanted to hear from them, wanted to hear from Main 
Street, and did not want to force-feed on the American people, on our 
constituents, some grandiose plan that Members of Congress come up 
with. God knows that plans that Members of Congress have come up with 
over the last 4 years have certainly not helped one iota.
  So I used this opportunity, my colleagues, I used this opportunity to 
speak to my constituents, but mainly to listen to them and to find out 
and write it down and bring it back to Washington to share it with my 
colleagues so we can make a pledge and make a commitment.
  Indeed, one person, Mr. Speaker, suggested that why don't you call it 
this time, rather than a Contract with America that we remember from 
1994, why don't you call it a Covenant with America, just like the 
covenant that God had with Moses and the Jewish people, something that 
is an absolute pledge of your sacred honor. Sacred honor, you heard my 
friend from Nebraska, Representative Fortenberry just moments ago on 
the floor, talk about the Constitution, sacred honor and our sacred 
documents.
  And I think that is what the American people want. I don't think they 
will accept anything less. They are tired of the same old same old--
excessive government spending and higher taxes that are making our 
country look a lot like Greece, Mr. Speaker.
  So, I'm happy to have this opportunity, under the direction of my 
leadership, to take this time to talk to my colleagues about what we 
really need to do and what we really need to do in a bipartisan way.
  No wonder, Mr. Speaker, that the approval ratings of Members of 
Congress on both sides of the aisle is 11 percent. People wanted to 
change 2 years ago.

                              {time}  1520

  People wanted a change 2 years ago. They made a change, but, indeed, 
it was not quite the change that they expected.
  I want to refer my colleagues to this first poster, this first slide 
that I have here in the way of a cartoon, and hopefully all of you 
Members in the back of the Chamber can see this. It is a china shop, 
and it shows this depiction of our President going into the china shop 
talking to the clerk. And the caption is, as the President is speaking, 
``Now, give me one good reason why you're not hiring.'' And of course 
behind the President are all of these bulls, these bulls in a china 
shop. This bull of cap and trade, this bull of health care reform, 
breaking all of the china.
  Mr. Speaker, to ask the question: Now, give me one good reason why 
you're not hiring. Well, the American people can give a lot of good 
reasons why they are not hiring if indeed they have any capital left 
with which to hire or to expand their business, to increase the square 
footage, to put in a new product line, and to bring in additional 
workers for their small business. It is not happening because of bad 
policy, bad policy coming from inside the Beltway, not bad policy on 
Main Street.
  Mr. Speaker, again as I did these town hall meetings, and I guess we 
did six or eight of them across the 11th Congressional District of 
northwest Georgia, nine counties that I represent, a great district, 
and I guess I would not be unique among us to say I think I have the 
best district of all 435, but I

[[Page H6798]]

know we all feel that way about our districts. But the people told me, 
when I asked about the economy, what was concerning them the most, and 
we discussed the economy, and I asked, Why are we faced with a 10 
percent unemployment rate? Why are 16 million people out of work, and 
why is it getting worse?
  This is what they said: Excessive taxation; insufficient liquidity, 
which means they can't borrow any money. The banks are not lending. The 
small banks are having to set aside money to cover loan loss reserves 
and to abide by this mark-to-market accounting principle. People who 
have loans and are making payments on those loans, all of a sudden 
these loans are called and they have to come in and put up more 
collateral. And, of course, the regulators are really cracking down to 
the lending institutions. Poor mom and pop businesses can't borrow any 
more money. And if they have some money, or maybe there is someone who 
is unemployed who has a little nest egg who would like nothing better 
than to finally start that small business that they have wanted to 
start for years, they are finally almost forced into a situation. There 
are no jobs out there, so maybe they have $25,000 or $30,000 saved up 
and they want to start that little restaurant on the corner. They are 
not going to do it because of economic uncertainty, not knowing, Mr. 
Speaker, what is coming next that is going to hurt them rather than 
help them.
  And the last bullet point on this particular slide, Mr. Speaker: 
Redtape, government mandates. OSHA. EPA. The new health care law. 
ObamaCare. The requirements for providing health insurance--and not 
just any health insurance, but one policy dictated by the Federal 
Government that these people understand they can't afford to abide by, 
so they don't start that business. So the unemployment rate, it 
continues and it gets worse.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, this next poster that I want to share 
with you has a lot of verbiage on it, and I know that it is difficult 
to read, so I will go through the bullet points with you. This is what 
it says. The latest Congressional Budget Office, CBO, that's the 
bipartisan accountants hired by the House of Representatives, the 
director of course is chosen by the Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, 
but the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office and their economic 
outlook, the first bullet, this year's deficit is estimated to reach 
$1.3 trillion. As a share of the overall total economy of this country, 
the deficit is 9.1 percent, roughly three times the average of the past 
40 years. Let me say that again. The deficit for this year, $1.3 
trillion, is 9.1 percent of the total economy of the whole country, and 
that is three times what it has averaged over the last 40 years. 
Amazing.
  The second bullet, the debt held by the public, is projected to rise 
to $9 trillion, or 62 percent of the economy this year, nearly twice 
the 40 year historical average. Total debt, including borrowing from 
the Social Security trust fund and other Federal funds, will rise to 
$13.5 trillion.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, the CBO also estimates that economic growth 
will remain sluggish over the next few years and unemployment will 
remain unbearably high for years to come. The looming tax increases and 
health care overhaul both contribute to slower growth and fewer jobs.
  Colleagues, this next poster that you see basically depicts the slide 
that I just read to you in regard to the budget doubling and the 
tripling of the debt held by the public in billions of dollars, and 
this does not even include the Social Security trust fund that has been 
raided of about $1.5 trillion that has to be paid back.
  So, colleagues, as we spend the next couple of weeks here in 
Washington before we break and go home before these midterm elections, 
what do we have to do? The President is talking about, and the Speaker 
of the House, Ms. Pelosi, and the leader of the Senate, Senator Harry 
Reid, are talking about letting the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 
remain in place for all taxpayers except those who have an adjusted 
gross income of $200,000, or $250,000 for a family.

                              {time}  1530

  These are the very people who create the jobs in this country because 
many in that category are small business men and women who are not C 
corporations; they are subchapter S, or they pay their taxes as 
individuals. If you let those tax rates go from 33 percent to 36 
percent or in some cases go from 36 percent to 39.6 percent and you 
leave the corporate income tax rate at 35 percent--and I have a flyer 
that I will show you, colleagues, in just a few minutes comparing the 
corporate tax rate in this country with other industrialized countries 
across the globe--it's astronomically high.
  So how do we expect to get out of this deep recession, this economic 
morass, this high unemployment rate of 16 million-plus unemployed by 
raising taxes on anybody? It makes absolutely no economic sense.
  I would urge my colleagues to come together with us in a bipartisan 
way. Let's do what Leader Boehner has suggested, which is to leave the 
tax cuts in place for everybody at every marginal rate at least for the 
next 2 years, and let's cut spending this year to 2008 levels.
  Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be joined 
by my classmate and colleague from the great State of Minnesota, the 
ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee, 
Representative John Kline. I will gladly yield to Representative Kline.
  Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I thank my colleague. I thank my colleague 
for his words here this evening and for his leadership on this and on 
so many issues.
  I just found it striking, Mr. Gingrey, that what you are talking 
about here is not only staggering debt, as the current chart indicates, 
but that you are talking about taxes. I want to take just a minute to 
put this into context.
  We have been suffering with a struggling economy. We have watched the 
gross domestic product decline each quarter for the last three 
quarters. As you know very well, we have been looking at unemployment 
above 9 percent for 16 consecutive months, and this is after the 
passage of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill that the President said 
would keep unemployment below 8 percent. We have been at 9 percent or 
more and at 9.6 percent most recently, and now there is a proposal to 
impose the largest tax increase in American history on January 1, which 
is, of course, what will happen unless Congress takes action, unless 
the majority party in this body brings forth legislation that will keep 
that from happening.
  I just wanted to join with my colleague, with Leader Boehner, with 
everybody on this side of the aisle, and with a growing number of our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle who say let's don't do that, 
who say let's don't raise taxes on any American. Particularly to the 
point you were making earlier, let's don't raise taxes on the job 
creators. We are trying to create jobs. We are trying to let the 
private sector create jobs at the same time the majority party here is 
talking about imposing a crushing tax increase on the very people on 
whom we are relying to create those jobs.
  So I just wanted to stop by to applaud your efforts here, to thank 
you for doing this today, and to add my voice to a growing number in 
this body who say let's don't do this.
  Madam Speaker, let's don't do this.
  Mr. President, let's don't do this.
  Let's do not add to the tax burden of those who are creating the jobs 
in the private sector. Let's don't increase taxes on anybody in 
America. I think we need to say that loudly and clearly, and I have 
increasing hope that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will 
recognize that that is a terrible thing to do in this economy and that 
we must move quickly.
  As my colleague knows very well, there is an election coming. 
Congress will go into recess again here in 3 weeks or maybe 4 weeks or 
sometime, and I don't think we should leave and go into recess until we 
have taken care of this issue.
  Again, I thank my colleague, and I yield back my time.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank so much my colleague 
from Minnesota, Representative Kline, for dropping by and for pointing 
out the things that we have been talking about.

[[Page H6799]]

  Quite honestly--and he alluded to the fact, I think, that we are 
beginning to get a little bit of bipartisanship on this issue. In fact, 
I was hoping, Mr. Speaker, that there would be a colloquy today between 
Majority Leader Hoyer and the minority whip, Representative Eric Cantor 
from Virginia. I wanted to hear what Mr. Hoyer might have had to say 
about this.
  I've been reading in the newspaper--and maybe some of my colleagues 
have seen these articles, too--that maybe the Democratic leadership, 
represented so much so, of course, by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and 
hopefully by the leader, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
Ms. Pelosi, would begin to sort of go our way on this. I know a lot of 
Democratic rank-and-file Members, particularly those, Mr. Speaker, of 
the conservative wing of the Democratic Caucus--the so-called Blue 
Dogs--are very concerned about increasing taxes on anybody at a time 
such as this.

  As Representative Kline pointed out, the tax increase of letting 
every one of those marginal rates go back up to the pre-2001 level 
basically eliminates the 10 percent tax bracket, and it expands the 15 
percent tax bracket. I pointed out earlier that it raises the 36 
bracket to 39.6, 33 to 36, 28 to 33, and 20 to 28.
  In addition to that, what is expiring is the Child Tax Credit of 
$1,000, which will go back to $500, Mr. Speaker. The tax on dividends, 
which under the current law and enacted in 2003, is 15 percent, but if 
we let that expire, that tax rate on dividends will go to whatever 
one's marginal rate is, and if you happen to be at the 39 percent tax 
rate, that will be the tax on dividends. Many, many of our seniors are 
relying on dividends--on dividends and their Social Security--as their 
only sources of income. To tax that at nearly 40 percent, in some 
cases, is just cruel. It is unconscionable.
  So, again, I do thank my colleague for weighing in on this; and this 
current slide, my colleagues, kind of shows that. The blue line on the 
graph shows the Democrat projection with the stimulus spending that was 
enacted and passed in February of 2009. So we're talking--what?--a year 
and a half ago. It was $862 billion, I believe, in that stimulus 
program that was supposed to get our economy back on track. That money, 
by the way, was money borrowed--yes, borrowed, in large part, from 
China and Japan. We hear that concern voiced so often. Yet that's what 
we did. We borrowed $862 billion, a lot of it from China and Japan, to 
stimulate our economy.
  The pledge from the administration, from President Obama and from 
Congress was that this is what we need. If you pass that, our pledge to 
the American people is this unemployment rate, which was at 7.6 percent 
back a year and a half ago, will not get above 8 percent. We will stop 
this hemorrhaging of jobs by creating all of this spending for shovel-
ready projects. I don't know how much of it went to that, but it was 
probably less than 5 percent of the $862 billion. Here, the graph 
depicts it.
  So in the first quarter through the third quarter of 2009, that 
unemployment rate, which was 7.5 to 7.6 percent, wasn't going to go any 
higher. This is what the projection was going out to 2013. It was that 
our unemployment rate, because of the stimulus package, would gradually 
come back down to traditional levels of 4.5 to 5 percent, which was 
essentially full employment.

                              {time}  1540

  But this is what happened, my colleagues. The red line is what 
happened, unfortunately. And here we are in the third quarter of 2010, 
and what is our unemployment rate? Darn close to 10 percent. In fact, a 
couple of quarters ago it was over 10 percent. And as I said earlier 
about the unemployment rate, it's really worse than 10 percent, because 
many people have been out there beating the pavement, wearing out that 
shoe leather trying to find a job for 6 or more months, and they are 
still unemployed. And a lot of them, unfortunately, have just given up. 
Many of the jobs that we saw were census workers. That work has been 
completed, and unfortunately they're back in the ranks of the 
unemployed.
  My colleagues, what I've been talking about, of course, in this next 
slide depicts it--the Bush tax cuts and what to do with them. The first 
bullet, ``Democrats are poised to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire 
at the end of this year.'' The effect of that would be a $3.8 trillion 
tax increase that will affect every American who pays income taxes. 
Unfortunately, only about 53 percent of Americans do pay income taxes, 
and that's part of our problem. But how in the world could we do this 
to the hardworking, tax-paying people?
  Go back to that first slide of the bull in the China shop. 
Colleagues, that's what we're talking about. You break a lot of dishes 
when you raise taxes $3.8 trillion over a 10-year period of time. And 
answer this question for me--rhetorically, of course. What tax increase 
ever created a job? I don't think one ever did, and I don't think one 
ever will.
  I spoke a little earlier about the corporate tax rate. Why is our 
corporate tax rate higher than--I don't know the total number of 
countries that we have here listed along the X-axis, but it's about 20, 
25--Iceland, Ireland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Turkey, 
Switzerland, Korea, and on and on and on? And our corporate tax rate, 
effective, is almost 39 percent. That's the green column. Only Japan, 
at 40 percent, has a higher corporate tax rate than the United States. 
That makes no sense. We can't compete in the global economy with taxes 
like that.
  I had talked a little earlier about the different tax rates and what 
will happen if we let the tax cuts, the lower rates, expire and we go 
back to those rates prior to 2001. I talked about dividends going from 
a 15 percent rate to, in some cases, a 39.6 rate. I didn't mention 
capital gains, but capital gains are now at 15 percent. That will go 
back up to 20 percent. And we, of course, talked about ordinary income 
and how those tax rates will go up for every marginal level.
  We mentioned the Child Tax Credit of $1,000 per child, which will go 
back to $500 per child. I did not mention, but it's on this slide. I 
didn't talk about the marriage tax penalty, which under the current law 
had been eliminated, but starting January 1 of 2011, that marriage tax 
penalty kicks back in, costing a couple an additional $595 a year. That 
might not sound like a lot of money to Members sitting in this Chamber, 
Mr. Speaker, but it's a lot of money for a man and woman in their 
retirement twilight years on a fixed income. And, of course, I did 
mention that the lowest tax bracket marginal rate of 10 percent would 
completely be eliminated.
  Well, let's get back for a few minutes to what I think we can do in a 
bipartisan way. This particular slide, Mr. Speaker, says it's the 
Republican plan. But you know what? I wish I had changed this slide 
before I got here on the floor this afternoon and scratched that out 
and put the ``Bipartisan Plan.'' Because other than the point that my 
people made to me at town hall meetings during the August recess about 
wanting us to do something about the economy, stop taxing them and 
regulating them to death, leave them alone, give them the opportunity 
to show their entrepreneurial skills, they said this, too: Why is it 
that you men and women in the Congress can never seem to work in a 
bipartisan way and do something for us, all of you? We love you, 
Congressman Gingrey, but you're part of the problem, too. You're all 
worried, it seems to us, about the next election, and you don't seem to 
be thinking about the next generation.
  And I had to look them in the eye, eyeball to eyeball, and say, You 
know what? You're right. And my pledge, if I become part of the 
majority in 2011, is that we will work in a bipartisan way. And I hope 
my leadership is listening, and I hope that that will be part of their 
pledge.
  So this poster really should scratch out the ``Republican Plan'' and 
put ``Bipartisan Plan.'' And I don't know why in the world we couldn't 
all agree on this. And we ought to do it now, not wait to see who's in 
control. The American people, I don't think--in many instances, they 
don't care who's in control as long as we're doing the right thing, as 
long as we are doing the right thing.
  But this slide says, number one, freeze all of those tax rates for 2 
years. We're in a desperate situation. Is that asking too much to not 
increase the tax burden on the American people and small businesses and 
corporate America for 2 years? And secondly, cut spending back to 2008 
levels.

[[Page H6800]]

  There is a little asterisk, colleagues, on this poster. If you can't 
see it, I'm going to read it for you: ``If the President is serious 
about job creation, there's one clear way forward, and that is for us 
to come together and pass legislation immediately that cuts spending 
and stops all of the approaching tax hikes.'' The bipartisan plan; 
that's what we need, Mr. Speaker. That's exactly what we need. That's 
what the American people are expecting of us.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm going to shift gears just a little bit because it 
does pertain to the economy. I want to talk a little bit about illegal 
immigration. There is a situation in this country that has got to stop, 
and that is this idea that children born in this country of illegal 
immigrants are automatically United States citizens. Now, that's based 
on a misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment. I keep the Constitution 
with me all the time. Representative Fortenberry, Mr. Speaker, was 
talking about the Constitution, our sacred document, a little bit 
earlier. But the 14th Amendment was ratified to our Constitution in 
1868.

                              {time}  1550

  There were no immigration laws in 1868. It had nothing to do with 
illegal immigrants and bestowing citizenship on a child born of illegal 
immigrants. No. It was all about giving rights, constitutional rights, 
to former slaves, just as was the 13th Amendment and the 15th 
Amendment.
  The 15th Amendment: ``The right of citizens of the United States to 
vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any 
State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'' 
The 13th Amendment: ``Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except 
as a punishment for a crime, shall exist within the United States, or 
any place subject to their jurisdiction.'' Slavery was abolished by the 
13th Amendment. The 14th Amendment says, ``All persons born or 
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof.'' Illegal immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof.
  And the reason I bring this up, Mr. Speaker, is because it costs 
about $10,000 for every childbirth in this country. When 10 percent of 
those births are illegal immigrant births, you're talking about close 
to 400,000 times $10,000, pretty soon you get to about $40 billion 
worth of cost, something that this country cannot afford. And that is 
why people are insisting that we abide by our immigration law, not 
enact new law but just simply abide by what has already passed.
  It's something that I'm going to continue to talk about. I look 
forward to having a dialogue with my other colleagues that have been so 
active and involved in this issue, folks like Representative Gutierrez 
from the great State of Illinois, and I think we can talk and do this 
in a bipartisan way and come together, because people want a secure 
border and they want to abide by the rule of law. And they realize when 
they are among the 10 percent, Mr. Speaker, who are unemployed, that 
have been out of work for more than 6 months, and there are 16 million 
of them, that you can't afford to not have a secure border. You can't 
afford to have yet another magnet to attract more people to risk their 
lives trying to come into this country illegally. All of these things 
are interrelated. We need to be sensible about this, and we need to 
recognize so many of these problems.
  Mr. Speaker, again as I said at the beginning of the hour, I 
appreciate the opportunity that my leadership has given to me to talk 
to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle about what we can do to 
restore this economy and have a recovery that is not a jobless 
recovery, to put people back to work. And it starts with lowering the 
amount of Federal spending. Can you believe that we are this year going 
to spend $1.3 trillion more than what we take in in revenue? And we're 
on the track over the next 10 years to triple our national debt? In 
fact, it will be by the year 2020, if we continue at this rate, over 
$20 trillion of debt. That is more than our gross domestic product. So 
let's draw a line in the sand, let's go back to 2008 spending, that's 
the least we can do, and let's not raise taxes on anybody.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________