[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25611]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1200
               TAKE A LESSON FROM PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

  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. Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration, led by 
its Council of Economic Advisors, indicated that if we spent $1 
trillion with the stimulus bill, that we would create 3.5 million new 
jobs. Well, here it is, what, 8, 9 months later, we've spent a great 
deal of the stimulus money, and instead of creating 3.5 million new 
jobs we've lost 3 million jobs. That's a 6.5 million job swing.
  Yesterday, Dr. Christina Romer, the Chairman of the President's 
Council of Economic Advisors, said that the economic stimulus package, 
$1 trillion--and remember, we're $1.4 trillion in the hole this year--
that the economic stimulus package at $1 trillion wasn't going to work 
anymore for the next several months and we should expect the economy to 
continue to drift downward, with unemployment reaching 10 percent. The 
reason I bring this up is because 49 out of the 50 States have lost 
jobs while we spent $1 trillion to create the jobs.
  Now, just stop and think about that. We're throwing money at this 
situation as rapidly as possible, the government is getting its nose 
into every aspect of our economy, moving toward a European socialist-
type economy, and the economy continues to drift downward. And why is 
that? Because we're taking more and more money and spending it that we 
don't have, number one. And number two, they're going to tax us to 
death at a time when we're suffering economic calamity in this country.
  What should we be doing? Well, Ronald Reagan came into office back in 
1980 when Jimmy Carter had 12 percent unemployment--worse than now--and 
14 percent inflation--worse than now--with a misery index of 26 
percent. And they said you had to raise taxes because we had such 
problems, we had to have more money. Ronald Reagan said, well, I think 
we ought to cut taxes. And so they cut taxes across the board, and he 
was criticized severely for it.
  They said, well, there is going to be a shortfall in money coming 
into the Treasury. We were bringing in $500 billion a year in taxes at 
the time, and 4 years later we were bringing in $1.3 trillion. Do you 
know why? Because when you cut taxes, you give people more disposable 
income, business has more money to invest. And so business invests, 
people buy more products because they have more money, because of that 
they produce more products, more jobs are created, and the economy 
expands. It makes common sense; if you have more money, you're going to 
be able to spend more money.
  And so what happened was we had the longest period of economic 
expansion in the history of this country because we had a President 
that could see what really needed to be done--let the free enterprise 
system work and let people have more of their money to spend. Cut 
government spending and cut government taxes. Well, Reagan did the job.
  So what are we doing today? We've got a government that thinks they 
should control everything, and they're moving toward a socialist 
economy very similar to what you see in France and England and other 
parts of the world that are really suffering and continue to suffer 
through economic chaos.
  All I can say, if I were talking to the President, is, Mr. President, 
get real. Wake up. Forget this socialist nonsense. Take a look at the 
history book and look at what Ronald Reagan did. And if you would do 
that, and instead of raising taxes cut taxes, you would stimulate 
economic growth, put people back to work, and get this economy heading 
in the right direction.
  I don't know if the President pays attention to what we're saying 
around here, Mr. Speaker, but if he does pay attention, I hope he'll 
listen and look at the history books and check out what Ronald Reagan 
did.

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