[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16262]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ECONOMIC GOOD NEWS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about how bad the 
economy is, but I want to tell my colleagues that there is a lot of 
good news out there about the economy. Since last August, we have 
created 1.5 million jobs. There are more new housing starts than ever 
before in the history of our Nation. More minorities are owning homes 
than ever before in the history of our Nation. More people today in 
America are working than ever before in the history of our Nation. The 
economy is strong. In fact, wages are at their highest point higher 
than ever before in the history of our Nation.
  We have heard a lot of gloom and doom about how the President is not 
paying attention to the economy. Well, he has had a lot to overcome. In 
fact, in 1999, we had the tech bubble burst. The NASDAQ dropped by more 
than half its value. November 2000 the recession technically started, 
both before President Bush was sworn into office. Those were tremendous 
impacts on our economy. We had to overcome that. Then, on September 11, 
2001, a fact many Democrats forget, our economy was dealt a severe 
blow. In fact, we lost hundreds of thousands of jobs across the Nation. 
In Wichita, Kansas, alone we lost 13,000 aerospace jobs following 
September 11, 2001.
  But, Mr. Speaker, we have passed tax relief and it has strengthened 
our economy, but we can do much better than that. In fact, when we look 
at the barriers to bringing jobs into America, we see that it is not 
about wages, that it is not about overhead, it is not about something 
that CEOs or employees or small business owners can control. Most of 
the barriers to bringing jobs into America were created right here on 
the floor of the House of Representatives over the last generation.
  It started back in the 1960s, when we started piling regulation and 
more taxes on businesses and individuals. We started burying into the 
cost of building products regulations, trade policies, taxation, and 
medical costs. So now we have come up with a plan, the Republicans have 
come up with a plan to deal with these issues and help change the 
environment so we can bring jobs into America. In fact, we have been 
dealing with this for about 7 weeks.
  We have broken the barriers into eight categories. Six of these 
categories we have confronted right here on the floor of the House, and 
we have passed 25 pieces of legislation. We started out with health 
care security. We passed legislation to help lower health care costs. 
Then we moved to bureaucratic red tape termination, and we passed 
legislation that would help cut the red tape in America and lower the 
cost of doing business. We then went on to lifelong learning, to 
prepare the workforce for the jobs we will be bringing back into 
America.
  We then dealt with energy self-sufficiency and security. We should 
not be paying $2 a gallon for gasoline when we have billions of barrels 
of oil on reserve, and when we have a bad economic policy where we 
cannot build a refinery even if we could get more oil in; or we cannot 
distribute it properly or bring down the cost of natural gas. So we 
addressed that bill during the energy self-sufficiency week with the 
energy bill.
  We then moved on to spurring innovation through research and 
development so that we can continue the innovation that has been the 
real strength of this country over the years.
  And last week we dealt with trade fairness and opportunity. We passed 
another free trade agreement with Australia. This week we are going to 
pass one with Morocco. And these are bringing down the barriers that 
keep us from bringing jobs into America.
  So this week we are dealing with tax relief and simplification, a 
very important issue because our tax system buries cost into our 
products. U.S. corporate tax rates are the second highest in the 
industrialized world, after Japan. America's corporate tax rate is 
higher than even socialist welfare States, like France and Sweden. Our 
competitors, such as Germany and Russia, see the value in lowering 
their corporate tax burdens, and that is just what they are doing.
  One study estimated that a 40 percent marginal corporate tax rate, 
including Federal and State taxes, has the effect of raising the cost 
of U.S. labor by $1.43 an hour. So our employers are taking on these 
costs that they have no control over, but Congress does, and it is time 
we pass legislation that will help lower this burden, especially in the 
area of taxes.
  This week, we are going to amend the IRS code in order to simplify 
taxes for business. Then we are going to simplify taxes for certain 
individuals so they can use the 1040-EZ form. We will use the Tax 
Relief Simplification and Equity Act on the floor as the method of 
bringing down the cost of business here in America.
  Republicans have a solution for the problems. It is not Benedict 
Arnold CEOs, it is not raising taxes on businesses or the top 1 percent 
in America, it is lowering taxes so that we can bring jobs back into 
America. That is what we need to be doing today. This is the debate we 
should be having, and it will be here on the floor this week.

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