[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1225-1226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   HOW STIMULUS FUNDING COMPARES TO OTHER TOP GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because in this last week and 
next week, we are going to be considering in this Congress spending 
more than we've ever spent since World War II.
  With the Troubled Assets Relief Program, otherwise known as TARP, and 
I like to call it the bailout, Mr. Speaker, the bailout is $700 
billion. The bailout was a mistake by the last President, and I believe 
it will be a mistake from this administration. Only $350 billion is 
left of that bailout bill, and Congress is probably going to spend that 
also. Out of the first $350 billion, we don't even know where any of 
that went because the administration didn't have to tell us.
  The legislation being considered now for this bailout bill and this 
stimulus package is being considered under a false promise that more 
spending in the wrong places is going to help the economy. It's being 
considered under the false promise that it's going to create millions 
of jobs. It's simply throwing bad money after bad programs.
  The reality is that this plan does very little to help working-class 
families that are having to pay bills, that are having to make 
mortgages, that are having to make car payments. People are struggling 
day in and day out, some working two jobs to try to pay health care, 
raise the kids. This stimulus bill does not help them.
  Instead of providing relief and jobs for Americans, this Democrat 
stimulus package, when combined with the bailout, totals over $1.5 
trillion, but it still contains things such as $50 million for the 
National Endowment for the Arts. That's not going to help anybody. 
That's a waste of money, Mr. Speaker. The first half of this bailout 
bill has already been spent, and it would be a mistake to spend the 
second half of $350 billion without knowing where that money is going.
  But for me, everything has to be in perspective. And $1.5 trillion is 
a lot of money. I don't know how much money that is really. I have 
heard somebody say if you stack it up in $10 bills, it would stretch 
over 4,000 miles. That's $1.5 trillion.
  So to put it in perspective, Mr. Speaker, I created this graph here. 
This shows you how this stimulus bill, along with the bailout bill for 
Wall Street, compared to other American

[[Page 1226]]

expenditures since World War II. This is how it compares to it, Mr. 
Speaker:
  What it shows is that the Vietnam War costs just under $700 billion. 
That is the entire war. The Iraq War that we're fighting now, that we 
have been fighting since 2003: $600 billion. Our entire interstate 
highway system that we drive on every day: $42 billion. That's what it 
has cost for the roads that we drive day in and day out. That puts 
things in perspective for me.
  Education spending since 1965, Federal education spending, this is 
all that we have spent compared to this bailout bill: under $400 
billion. Let me say that again. Our entire education spending since 
1965 by the Federal Government: under $400 billion. Congress is going 
to spend almost $400 billion in one day and hardly any of that on 
education.
  Lastly, I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, that if this money was 
spent now, if it was spent tomorrow and it all went into jobs and it 
all went into infrastructure, that would be different. But according to 
analysis of this bill, only $3.8 billion of the $1.5 trillion is going 
to be spent on infrastructure by 2010. That's only 12.7 percent of this 
money that is going to be spent on infrastructure.
  So when you hear people talk about spending this money, creating 
jobs, does it really do that? Are we really spending that? Are we 
really injecting this much money into the economy so it will create 
jobs right away? That is not what we're doing, Mr. Speaker. What we are 
doing is creating government programs that my son and my daughters are 
going to be paying for for years to come.
  Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues said it best when asked why this 
TARP, this bailout bill to Wall Street fat cats, and this stimulus bill 
was a bad idea. And his answer was very simple: We simply don't have 
the money.

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