[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 27 (Friday, February 17, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H939-H942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE FACTS ABOUT THE PRESIDENT'S ECONOMIC RECORD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate you being here with 
me on a Friday afternoon and for you providing the time.
  I tell you, I couldn't have asked for anything better than to have 
the President's economic message read right before I came down here to 
the floor, because I have exactly that same thing on my mind.
  It is shocking to me--and you will remember, Mr. Speaker, that it was 
less than a month ago that the entire U.S. House of Representatives was 
sitting here in this Chamber, that the entire United States Senate was 
sitting here in this Chamber, the Supreme Court and the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, and that the President was standing right here, not 5 feet from 
where I'm standing today--not 5 feet in front of you, Mr. Speaker--
giving his State of the Union speech. What struck me about that speech 
is that I could have given almost word for word the exact same one.

                              {time}  1340

  Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the rhetoric in this country, the 
rhetoric's the same. Very little divides Republicans and Democrats. The 
President said in the economic address that the clerk just read, ``We 
need to make choices.'' We need to make choices about who we are and 
what we're going to do.
  I happen to have behind me, Mr. Speaker, the President's budget. I 
left the plastic on this one. I have another one that I've poured 
through. And in fact, for folks who are back in their offices, Mr. 
Speaker, I would recommend instead of cutting through the plastic to go 
ahead and go to www.omb.gov. That's the President's Office of 
Management and Budget. The entire Federal budget that he has proposed 
is there on the Web site for all Americans to see.
  It's not a small project to put together, the United States budget, 
and I applaud the President for taking that step. Of course the United 
States Senate, Mr. Speaker, 200 yards from where we stand right now, 
hasn't produced a budget in over 1,000 days. And in fact, the majority 
leader over there, Harry Reid, said just last week that he's not going 
to do it again this year. We have time, Mr. Speaker. We have a common 
set of numbers on which we could base it, and he said, I'm not going to 
do it. It's not necessary. A reporter said, But it's the law. He said, 
It's not important; I'm not going to do it. A reporter said, But your 
Democratic Budget Committee chairman said he's going to mark up a 
budget in the Budget Committee. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid 
said, Well, they can do what they want in the Budget Committee, but I'm 
not bringing a budget to the Senate floor.
  Mr. Speaker, I have got in my breast pocket here the rule book by 
which this United States of America is supposed to run, the United 
States Constitution, this document by which all of our decisions are 
judged. One of the only things this document asks us to do here in the 
U.S. House of Representatives is to pass a budget each and

[[Page H940]]

every year. The Budget Act of 1974 asked that same thing of the House 
and of the Senate. Propose that budget. And the President has done 
that. To his credit, he's proposed a budget.
  But he said in his message that was read moments ago, ``We have to 
make choices.'' And what you will find, Mr. Speaker, if you go through 
this budget, as I know families are across this country--folks are 
curious about what the President is proposing--you will find a budget 
devoid of tough choices. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages in 
my hand, Mr. Speaker, devoid of tough choices.
  The President said in his economic address that you read moments ago, 
that the clerk read moments ago, Mr. Speaker, this is a make-or-break 
moment for the middle class. Nonsense. Nonsense. This is a make-or-
break moment for America. This is a make-or-break moment for this 
experiment that we call our Republic. This is a make-or-break moment 
for all of the values that we share as an independent people.
  This is not a make-or-break moment for the middle class; this is a 
make-or-break moment for every single person who calls America home. 
And if we are going to preserve our Republic, Mr. Speaker, if we are 
going to protect the opportunity society for which America has become 
known, we have to make tough choices.
  Mr. Speaker, have you thought about it? Because it's plagued me since 
I was sworn in last January. I have only been here as a Member of 
Congress a little over a year. What about the old mantra, ``Send me 
your tired, your poor, your huddled masses longing to be free.'' What 
about that, Mr. Speaker? ``Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses 
longing to be free.'' Why aren't the doors of America flung open to 
every freedom-loving person on this planet? And I know the answer. 
Because in the days of America when that was the mantra of the land, 
this was an opportunity society. You came and you succeeded by the 
power of your ideas and the sweat of your brow. Some folks succeeded, 
and some folks failed. Failure is a part of all of our lives. If you 
are not experiencing failure, you are not trying hard enough. If you 
are pushing yourself to your extremes, you are going to find you will 
come up short sometimes. You are going to learn from that, and you are 
going to do better next time.
  But, Mr. Speaker, while a safety net is important to America, a 
safety sponge that sucks you down into it and prevents you from ever 
escaping and being free is not the principle on which this country was 
founded. And day after day after day, we let our country go further in 
that direction.
  Let's talk about the economic record that was just discussed in the 
President's economic address, Mr. Speaker. This is what the President 
said almost 2 years ago today. In February of 2010 he said this: Jobs 
will be our number one focus in 2010, and we're going to start where 
new jobs do, with small businesses. He's absolutely right. More than 
half of all the jobs that get created in this country get created by 
small businesses. That's where the entrepreneurship is. That's where 
the hiring excitement is. That's where the new ideas come from. We love 
our Home Depots. We love our Deltas. We love our UPS's and our Wal-
Marts. But that's not where the job growth comes from. The President is 
absolutely right. Job growth comes from our small businesses. And 2 
years ago almost today, Mr. Speaker, the President knew it. The 
President knew that if we were going to get this economy back on track, 
we have to start with the folks who hire. We have to start with the 
folks who are able to put Americans back to work, our small businesses.

  Mr. Speaker, this is a chart that actually came from the General 
Services Administration, one of the agencies that the President 
oversees. But it was published in The Wall Street Journal. It was 
titled ``Rising Regulation.'' Let me show you what we see here. You 
can't see it, Mr. Speaker, but this chart goes from 1995 to 2011. And 
what it shows is the number of published final rules that cost American 
businesses more than $100 million a year. That's what it takes in this 
country, Mr. Speaker. Before we consider a rule, a really powerful 
rule, before we consider a rule really detrimental to this country, it 
has to cost $100 million. I would tell you if it costs $1 million, it's 
important. I would tell you if it costs $10 million, it's important. 
But our measuring stick says $100 million.
  This is what we see: on average, about 80 such rules a year. Now I'm 
a small government conservative from the great State of Georgia, Mr. 
Speaker. I will tell you, 80 major rules like that a year are sapping 
freedom from individuals, sapping freedom from communities, sapping 
freedom from States, and that's too many. But that's kind of what we 
have as an average over the past 15 years.
  But look what happens, Mr. Speaker. The day that Nancy Pelosi gets 
sworn in as the Speaker of the House, the day President Obama gets 
sworn in as President of the United States, the number of major rules 
costing the American economy more than $100 million a year skyrockets, 
skyrockets. And by ``skyrockets,'' Mr. Speaker, I mean doubles from the 
level that President Clinton was imposing. Understand that. This isn't 
a Republican/Democrat issue. This is an individual philosophy issue. 
The individual that's in the White House matters. The individual that's 
in the Speaker's chair matters. Those individual philosophies translate 
into policies. We had a Republican Congress, a Democratic President, 
and we continued at about a historical average in terms of proposing 
new rules and regulations. But when we elected Nancy Pelosi to the 
Speaker's House, when we elected President Obama to the White House, we 
see the number of major regulations skyrocket. And who do you think 
pays for that, Mr. Speaker? We do, as the American consumer. Everybody 
in America pays for that when they go to buy goods at the shop. Or they 
may pay for that when their job leaves America and travels overseas. 
They may pay for that when the product they used to be able to buy is 
no longer manufactured because a new rule or regulation has put that 
product out of business.
  My mom said that about 100 watt light bulbs the other day. She had 
been hoarding them. We are one of those hoarders, I confess. We need 
those 100 watt light bulbs. We went to the store and couldn't find 
them. They were put out of business by a regulatory burden. The 
President knows he needs to start with small businesses to create jobs. 
That's what he says. But what he does is preside over the most onerous 
regulatory burden increase that our Nation has seen in decades.
  This chart is particularly troubling to me, Mr. Speaker. It's a 
measurement of the ease of starting a business. The United States used 
to be fourth. Today we're 13th. OECD countries, folks looking around 
the world, Where can entrepreneurs succeed? Where can new ideas 
succeed? Where can economies grow, be changed, be vibrant? The U.S. has 
fallen from 4 to 13. Let me tell you who's in front of us on the world 
stage now, Mr. Speaker: Macedonia, Georgia--the country, not my home 
State--Rwanda, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Armenia.

                              {time}  1350

  These are the countries, based on a static list of economic models of 
rules and regulations and opportunities for economic success, places 
where it's easier to succeed in today than in America. That's 
outrageous, Mr. Speaker. The President knows that if we are going to 
create jobs in this country, we have got to start where most jobs do, 
with small businesses. That's what he says. But what he does is preside 
over a decline of opportunity in this country that puts us now below 
Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, and Belarus on the world economic 
stage.
  Mr. Speaker, from the Department of Labor we see entrepreneurship in 
America has reached a 17-year low. Entrepreneurship in America is at a 
17-year low. Business startups are at the lowest level since data was 
first collected in 1994; business startups at the lowest level since 
the data began to be collected at the Department of Labor in 1994.
  Mr. Speaker, this isn't a chart about business success. We all know 
that starting a business is hard. If you've been out there and you've 
tried to do it, you've probably had more failures than successes. It's 
hard to grow a business. This isn't about businesses succeeding. This 
is about Americans who are willing to try. The number of

[[Page H941]]

Americans willing to try has fallen to a 17-year low. And I ask you, 
Mr. Speaker, is this a measurement that Americans have changed or is 
this a measurement that the business climate in America has changed?
  We are the same proud, independent, hardworking, family-loving people 
that we have always been when these numbers were started in 1994. We 
are those same people as a country, Mr. Speaker. But the environment in 
which we live, the economic marketplace in which we operate, that's 
changed. That's changed, Mr. Speaker. Since 1994, you see the 
regulatory burden on small businesses. As we now move to a 17-year low 
in economic activity, Mr. Speaker, you see our regulatory burdens are 
at a historic high. That's not a coincidence. That's causative.
  Mr. Speaker, faced with these challenges, the President has presented 
his budget. And I'll say it again. I said it when I opened, but I want 
to say it again. I appreciate the President taking on that leadership 
role. It's a role that the law requires that he take it on, and so he 
takes it on.
  That would distinguish him from the United States Senate, where the 
law also requires that they take it on but they ignore that 
responsibility year after year after year after year. And the reason 
they do, Mr. Speaker--and I don't mind sharing this with folks. Folks 
know it. Folks back in their offices watching, they know why. Because a 
budget is a moral document. You can't publish hundreds and hundreds and 
hundreds of pages without telling the American people how you feel 
about the challenges facing our Nation.
  As I said in the beginning, this document tells me the President 
feels powerless to confront any of the problems facing our Nation 
because not a single tough decision is made in this entire budget. But 
at least he put that out there for the American people to see; not so 
with our colleagues on the Senate side.
  This is what happened in the President's budget, Mr. Speaker. He 
claims $4 trillion worth of deficit reduction. And again, I want to 
give him credit for that. There used to be a time when folks would send 
budgets to Capitol Hill and brag about how much more money they are 
spending each year. When the President wants to sell this budget to 
Capitol Hill, he's bragging about how much less he's spending than 
previous budgets. He says he's reduced the Federal budget by $4 
trillion over the 10-year window. Kudos. Kudos. Except that's not 
exactly how the numbers shake out.
  Mr. Speaker, of the $4 trillion that he claims credit for, $2 
trillion has already been passed into law. You'll remember this new 
freshman class that you and I are a part of, Mr. Speaker, we came in 
here and we passed the 2011 appropriations bills. We passed the 2012 
appropriations bills. We passed the Budget Control Act. We implemented 
$2 trillion worth of changes to the Federal budget, $2 trillion over a 
10-year window, moving us back towards black and away from red.
  The President claims credit for those $2 trillion that are already 
signed into law, that are already being implemented, that are already 
the practice under which the Federal Government operates. He claims 
credit for those in this new budget. I understand why he wants to, Mr. 
Speaker, but I don't think that's being honest with the American 
people. I think we owe the American people more transparency than that.
  So let me say to you, about $2.03 trillion of the $4 trillion he 
claims: already the law of the land.
  Down here, Mr. Speaker, we see another $850 billion in savings that 
he claims. I am labeling this the war gimmick. And I know ``gimmick'' 
is a value-laden word. I might have been in a bad mood when I labeled 
it that way, but I think it's accurate. So $850 billion, Mr. Speaker, 
the President says he's saving the American people. Why? Because wars 
that were never going to happen, dollars that had never been requested, 
troops that had never been deployed are, in fact, not going to be 
deployed. Hear that. This is $850 billion over the 10-year window, war 
savings, he claims. Money that was never asked for, never appropriated, 
never going to be appropriated, and would have had to have been 
borrowed had we needed it. It's not saved money, Mr. Speaker. It's 
fictional money that was never out there, and the President claims 
credit for it. Why? Because he needs it to get to his $4 trillion 
figure.
  Down here we have debt service gimmicks, Mr. Speaker; money that we 
would have borrowed but we're not going to borrow because of changes 
made in the budget. Again, just to be clear, so far we've looked at $2 
trillion already enacted, $850 billion never requested. We're now 
claiming debt service savings, savings the President is saying the 
American people are not going to have to pay on debt service on all of 
these pots of money that we were never going to have to pay debt 
service to begin with, Mr. Speaker, because they were never the law of 
the land. These dollars were never going out the door. We saved these 
$2 trillion in enacted legislation. We never passed legislation to 
spend this $850 billion out the door, yet we have another $300 billion 
in debt savings.
  Again, is it good news for the American people that we're not going 
to have to pay that extra $300 billion in interest? It's good news. 
Don't let me be the one to tell you it's not good news. It's just good 
news; it's just good news because of what this House has already done, 
because of laws we have already passed, because of decisions we have 
already made. Not one penny of that comes from any new decision made in 
these hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pages, Mr. Speaker. Not 
one penny.
  This chart, Mr. Speaker, lays it out. I had to blow up the tip there. 
You might be able to see just a little bit of green here.
  This dotted white line, Mr. Speaker, is the debt of America. The 
debt, the borrowing that we have all done from our children and 
grandchildren. You and I were not here in this House when that 
happened, Mr. Speaker, but we are responsible for it, just like every 
other American family is responsible for it. We have to pay it back, 
just like every other American family has to pay it back. Sixteen 
trillion dollars today, headed over the 10-year budget window that the 
President has proposed towards $26 trillion.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, what I have here is a dotted white line that shows 
what current law is, current law. I have a red bar, a red graph that 
shows you what the President is proposing. This is what you'll see.
  The President is proposing that our debt increase in 2013, increase 
in 2014, increase in 2015 and '16 and '17 and '18 and '19 and '20 and 
'21. And then, Mr. Speaker, you're not going to be able to see it, but 
way out here--and I've blown it up just so folks can see it back in 
their offices--you'll see a little bit of green because those tough 
decisions, those tough decisions made in these hundreds upon hundreds 
upon hundreds of pages about how to solve the American debt burden 
happen--just this much, but happen--in the year 2021. 2021, Mr. 
Speaker, is when this budget, for the first time, begins to save the 
American people some bit of debt burden over current law.

                              {time}  1400

  We can do better, Mr. Speaker. The President said this is a make-or-
break moment for the middle class. This is a make-or-break moment for 
America. We can do better, and we must.
  Mr. Speaker, when I talk about why it is this budget doesn't make any 
tough choices, you can see it here on this chart. This was actually a 
chart coming from the Wall Street Journal just a few days ago. It talks 
about where the money comes from that pays the American bills, the 
burden here, the moneys that we owe. It talks about where those dollars 
go. On this side where the dollars come from, you'll see, Mr. Speaker, 
about half of it comes from individual income taxes, and about a 
trillion dollars in annual receipts come from Social Security, 
Medicare, and retirement receipts. We see a little bit down here for 
corporate income tax, for excise income taxes, and from duties. This is 
where the money comes from. But look at where the money goes. And this 
is important, Mr. Speaker, because when we talk about making tough 
decisions, when we talk about confronting the mountain of debt that's 
building, when we talk about doing things that will make certain that 
the lives that our children will lead will be more prosperous than the 
lives that we have led, we have to go after those issues that matter.

[[Page H942]]

  These orange colors here, Mr. Speaker, is what we call discretionary 
spending. That's spending that we've taken a trillion dollars out of 
thus far going forward. It's defense spending in this pie piece, 
nondefense discretionary spending, and then that takes us to this giant 
red area, Mr. Speaker. This giant red area has three things in it. The 
big pie piece is Medicare and Medicaid. That's where the money goes. 
Money in this country that the Federal Government spends goes to pay 
health care costs--Medicare and Medicaid, $1.5 trillion this year. 
Social Security, folks have been paying into Social Security all their 
life, they dad gum have a right to get that money back. The bill we 
passed today begins to redefine that commitment for the first time, and 
I'm concerned about that, but $820 trillion going to Social Security.
  And then $250 billion--$250 billion--Mr. Speaker, goes to pay 
interest on the debt. Now, just to put that in perspective, let's go 
back, Mr. Speaker. We've got defense spending, we've got Medicaid and 
Medicare spending, we've got Social Security spending, we've got 
interest on the debt, and in this pie piece, we have everything else--
everything: Our courts, our highways, our environment, our homeland 
security, our immigration and our parks--everything else.
  We spend half as much, Mr. Speaker, half of that amount that goes to 
everything else, we spend on interest payments alone. Half of the 
amount that this country spends on everything except Social Security, 
Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the national debt, national defense--
everything else we spend half that amount on interest payments alone 
this year, when interest rates are at their lowest level in a century. 
Mr. Speaker, what do you think is going to happen when interest rates 
are no longer at their lowest level in a century? This bar is going to 
eclipse everything. So what can we do?
  I'll tell you what we can do. The money is in Medicare and Medicaid. 
The money is in Social Security. Mr. Speaker, I'm in my 40s, we must--
we must--come to people in my age bracket and say, no more. You will 
not get what your parents got. You've got to say that to me. You will 
not receive what your parents received. You've got to say that to me.
  Will there be a safety net? There will. Can we provide certainty to 
folks that it will be there? We can. But if you talk to anybody in 
their 40s, Mr. Speaker, they'll tell you that they expect those 
programs to be long bankrupt anyway. Why? Because they are. So these 
are the tough decisions that we have to make: What are we going to tell 
the next generation? How are we going to protect these benefits from 
the current generation?
  And, Mr. Speaker, this budget does none of that. Not a word, not an 
idea, not a proposal. There is nothing in the President's 2013 budget 
that even hints at the direction he would propose that America go to 
confront these financial challenges.
  Do you think we can dodge these challenges, Mr. Speaker? Do you think 
we can just put these things out of our head and pretend they don't 
exist?
  This is what we're looking at, Mr. Speaker. I wish you could see 
this. What we have here is the debt in this country as a percentage of 
GDP, as a percentage of our total economy. We look at places like 
Greece where the debt has grown so large. This was the debt as the 
percentage of our economy in World War II--in World War II, Mr. 
Speaker, when things had gotten so tough and we were having to ration 
rubber, ration steel, ration sugar and ration salt, when the country 
had come together to fight a common foe around the globe, this was our 
debt as a percentage of our economy.
  Here we are today, Mr. Speaker. We're not rationing rubber. We're not 
rationing sugar. We're not taking those common steps of sacrifice 
because we think our economy is about to go over the cliff. But it is. 
And this red line, Mr. Speaker; if we continue with this blue budget 
that the President has sent to us that makes no tough choices about our 
future, this red line is the debt that's coming. This is what the law 
of the land spends on behalf of your family, and mine, and every other 
American family, Mr. Speaker--and spends our Nation into oblivion.
  The truth is it's never going to get as bad as this chart. The 
Congressional Budget Office which does the projections, their computer 
actually breaks down about halfway through that red line and says that 
there's just no way the economy can continue to function under these 
circumstances. America will no longer exist.
  So the good news is, Mr. Speaker, it's not really going to get to the 
end of that line. But that's the challenge that confronts us, and 
that's the challenge that this budget avoids.
  But that's not why you and I ran for Congress, Mr. Speaker. We ran 
for Congress to make a difference. To a man and a woman in this 
freshman class, Republicans and Democrats alike, Mr. Speaker, I have 
not met one that came here because they thought it was a nifty looking 
business card. I haven't met one that came here because they couldn't 
do anything else and they thought, why not I run for Congress? To a man 
and a woman, every Republican and Democrat I've met in this freshman 
class came to this body because they want to save America from certain 
demise--certain demise. It's not possible demise. It's not maybe kind 
of demise. It is certain demise.
  And so what we did as a body, Mr. Speaker, when the Senate wouldn't 
act, when the President couldn't act, what we did as a body is pass the 
prosperity budget, which is this green line which changes the course of 
America.
  Mr. Speaker, there are two ways to change the course of America. You 
can change the America that we have always had into something 
different. That's where current law is taking us. Or you can reclaim 
the America that we have always dreamed of, that our parents, our 
grandparents, and our great-grandparents passed down to us, sacrificed 
for. We can reclaim that America by making tough decisions.
  Mr. Speaker, we have to make those tough decisions. And with the 
American people behind us, we will succeed. I thank you for the time, 
and I yield back the balance of my time.

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