[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24802]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I know I get a big kick, Mr. Speaker, out of 
listening to my colleagues come down here and talk about the sky 
falling. After 9/11 we had an economic downturn and tourism suffered 
and all the ancillary industries suffered, airlines suffered and the 
economy started going down. We had scandals on Wall Street, and those 
scandals led to further economic problems. President Bush suggested to 
the Congress that the way to stimulate economic recovery and growth was 
the same thing that President John F. Kennedy did back in the 1960s, 
and that was to cut taxes. And so we cut taxes.
  And because we cut taxes, there has been growth in the economy for 
the past several years. The unemployment rate has been down. The 
economy has been growing. Everything has been going well.
  Now we have been hit with some other things that are very, very 
disconcerting. We had the Katrina hurricane, and we had another 
hurricane that hit Florida recently. These hurricanes are going to cost 
a lot of money. Some people think it will cost $60, $70, or $80 billion 
before it is over. It will not be the $250 billion that was talked 
about, but it will be around $50, $60, or $70 billion at least.
  Now I would like to say to my Democrat colleagues, for whom I have 
great respect, to join with us in the next few days in passing a cost-
savings bill, a cost-savings bill that will cut about $50 billion out 
of spending. That $50 billion can be used to offset some of the costs 
for the Katrina disaster and the other disasters we have experienced 
recently.
  I know it is going to involve some hard decisions. I heard one of my 
Democrat colleagues just a few minutes ago come down and start talking 
about some of the programs that are going to have to be cut. And I 
admit there will be difficult choices to be made, but that is what we 
are all about around here, making difficult choices, difficult 
decisions. It is extremely important that we make the hard choices so 
we control spending and make sure we do the right things for economic 
growth in this country.
  The way to do that is when we have this cost-savings bill come before 
the body in the next few days, my Democratic colleagues who are 
concerned about the deficit, who are concerned about spending, who are 
concerned about Katrina and the costs involved, join with us in this 
cost-savings bill to save about $50 or $60 billion in rescissions and 
across-the-board spending cuts. Because if you do that, we can keep 
this country on an even keel. So please join with us when this bill 
comes to the floor.

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