[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12281-12282]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       WE NEED SMALLER GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shuster). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, because of the corporate scandals at 
WorldCom, Enron and Global Crossing, C-SPAN a few days ago asked people 
call in on the question of whether they had lost their faith in 
American corporations.
  The problem is that bigger and bigger government has led to and 
resulted in bigger and bigger businesses controlling or dominating 
almost every industry or business sector. Almost every major problem we 
have today has been made worse because liberals over the last many 
years have made our government at the Federal and now even at the State 
levels far too big.
  Big government, in the end, really helps only extremely big 
businesses and the bureaucrats who work for the government. The big 
giants in every industry have come to the government and have gotten 
the government contracts, the favorable regulatory rulings, the tax 
break, the insider sweetheart deals in trade deals and so forth. So the 
big keep getting bigger and small businesses and small farms go under 
or struggle to survive, and now even medium-sized businesses even 
barely hang on.
  Despite the most economic leverage of any Nation in the world and the 
fact that every nation drools to get into our markets, we have not used 
this economic leverage to help American small- and medium-sized 
businesses and workers, and instead have helped only big multinational 
companies.
  Liberals always claim they are for the little guy. Yet their policies 
have hurt the little man in almost every way. For example, big 
government has driven medical costs almost out of sight.
  Another example, liberals expanded the FDA and made it so big and 
bureaucratic that it now takes an average of over 10 years and over 
$850 million to get a drug to market. This is why prescription drugs 
cost so much. People wonder why and do not realize it is their own 
government that has done it to them.
  Big government liberals and their allies in the environmental 
movement protest every time anyone wants to cut any trees, dig for any 
coal, drill for any oil, or produce any natural gas. This has caused 
many small companies to go out of business and forced them to merge and 
has driven up prices and destroyed jobs. This has hurt the poor and 
lower-income and working people most of all.
  I am sick and tired of seeing so many American jobs go to other 
countries. However, when big government taxes and regulates small 
businesses or small farms out of business, it simply means that the big 
keep getting bigger. Then the big giants have to go where labor and 
regulatory costs are the lowest, and they are much more likely to move 
out of the country, and then our people wonder why we keep losing so 
many good jobs. Well, it is primarily because of a Federal Government 
that has grown so big and so bureaucratic that it is simply out of 
control.
  In the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, we recently 
learned that some 400 pages of proposed EPA regulations would run 
40,000 small farmers out of business. We had farmers in our hearing 
crying because their own government was about to do them in.
  I am told that in 1978 we had 157 small coal companies in east 
Tennessee. Now there are none. All the small- and medium-sized ones 
were regulated out of existence by Federal mining regulators under 
intense pressure from environmental special interest groups which get 
their contributions mainly from extremely big business.
  We have just had some 500 square miles of forests burning in several 
States out West. Two years ago, the previous administration followed 
policies that caused 7 million acres to burn and over $10 million in 
damage.
  The head of the Forest Service told the Washington Times that ``there 
might have been 40 to 50 Ponderosa pine trees per acre at one time. Now 
you've got several hundred per acre.''

[[Page 12282]]

  Yet environmental extremists oppose even any thinning of the trees, 
no cutting at all, and even oppose removal of dead and dying trees. The 
Washington Post said the combination of drought and refusal to thin the 
forests has been deadly and has caused all these fires because there is 
such a tremendous build-up of fuel on the floors of the forest.
  The opposition to cutting the trees has driven many small logging 
companies out of business and once again has destroyed jobs and caused 
another industry to be limited primarily to big grants.
  When big government liberals make it impossible for small drug 
companies and small businesses in every industry to survive, it 
decreases competition and drives up prices. This hurts lower-income 
people the most.
  When big government liberals and wealthy environmental extremists 
force mom-and-pop mining or logging companies or small farms out of 
business, it destroys jobs and opportunities not only for loggers and 
miners and farmers but also their lawyers, accountants, secretaries and 
salespeople. This is a big part of the reason why so many college 
graduates cannot find good jobs and have to go to graduate schools and 
work as waiters and waitresses.
  When I was growing up, a poor man could start a gas station. Now, 
because of all the environmental rules and regulations and red tape, it 
takes a multimillionaire or a giant corporation to start one.
  Mr. Speaker, to sum up, big government liberalism is killing the 
little guy. Liberals and environmental extremists are the best friends 
extremely big business has ever had, and it is no wonder we are seeing 
the major corporate scandals we are reading and hearing about today. 
Unless and until we downsize our Federal Government, we will continue 
to see even more.

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