[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2722]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  BRING FEDERAL SPENDING UNDER CONTROL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, when a family is deeply head-over-heels in 
debt, they don't go out and borrow even more so they can double or 
triple spending, even if it would help the economy. And that is exactly 
the situation our government is in in regard to the so-called stimulus 
package, which we will take up again next week.
  I voted against the big bailout of our financial firms both times. 
But the majority voted for this, and raised our national debt limit to 
an astounding $11.315 trillion. No one can comprehend a figure like 
$11.315 trillion. However, even worse, the Government Accountability 
Office has told us that we have over $55 trillion in unfunded future 
pension liabilities.
  If we don't bring Federal spending under control, we will soon not be 
able to pay all of our Social Security, veterans' pensions, and all the 
other things we have promised our own people with money that will buy 
anything.
  The Federal Government has become addicted to spending. The stimulus 
is a short-term fix that will cause even more serious problems in the 
very near future. Drug addicts prove every day that short-term fixes do 
not satisfy for very long.
  When another Member of this body was asked a few days ago on MSNBC 
that, since our house was on fire, did we not need to pour water on it? 
He replied, Yes, but what we are doing with this stimulus package is 
like pouring kerosene on that fire.
  The bill has some good things in it, but we simply cannot afford 
them. Probably the falsest charge made against those who oppose this 
stimulus is that we have to do something, and that if you vote against 
this, you're voting to do nothing.
  First of all, we have, through the Treasury Department and the 
Federal Reserve, taken hundreds of billions of dollars worth of action 
in just the last few months. Because we rushed into some of those 
moves, we have been finding out that some of that money has been spent 
in ways that are simply ridiculous and in ways that justifiably angered 
the taxpayers.
  One example. In fact, the Bank of America took $7 billion of the 
first $15 billion it received and increased its investment in a bank in 
China.
  Now we are rushing through this stimulus package, and the taxpayers 
will find out over the next few weeks or months some of the ridiculous 
or wasteful things this money will be spent on.
  What we should do is give these hundreds of billions in actions 
already taken some time to work, coupled with some really effective 
stimulus moves, like a cut in the payroll tax and a tax credit for 
people who buy or build homes or purchase cars or equipment.
  Now, some of our leaders seem to be looking back in a dreamily but 
blind way to the New Deal. Most historians do not seem to realize this, 
but most economists realize that the New Deal delayed our recovery 
during the Depression.
  In fact, in today's Washington Times, Mr. Speaker, 203 leading 
university economists have signed a full page ad which says, ``We, the 
undersigned, do not believe that more government spending is a way to 
improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and 
Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great 
Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's 
``lost decade'' in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over 
experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. 
today.''
  These economists continue, ``To improve the economy, policymakers 
should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, 
investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the 
burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost 
growth.''
  That is an ad signed by 203 leading university economists in today's 
Washington Times.
  Unemployment--just speaking about that--unemployment averaged over 17 
percent a year all through the 1930s, and even averaged 10 percent 
during World War II. The Nation did not really begin the return to 
prosperity until after World War II ended.
  Those who do not believe this should read a 2003 book by Jim Powell, 
called FDR's Folly--How Roosevelt and his New Deal Prolonged the Great 
Depression. Mr. Powell quotes David Kennedy, who wrote a Pulitzer 
Price-winning book in 1999, called Freedom From Fear, about the Great 
Depression.
  Mr. Kennedy wrote, ``Whatever it was, the New Deal was not a recovery 
program or, at least at any rate, not an effective one.''
  Economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway wrote in 1977 that New 
Deal policies raised, ``labor costs, prolonging the misery of the Great 
Depression, and creating a situation where many people were living in 
rising prosperity at a time when millions of others were suffering 
severe deprivation.''
  Vedder and Gallaway estimated that by 1940, unemployment was eight 
points higher than it would have been in the absence of higher payroll 
costs imposed by New Deal policies.
  Economists Thomas Hall and J. David Ferguson reported, ``It is 
difficult to ascertain just how much the New Deal programs had to do 
with keeping the unemployment rate high, but surely they were 
important. A combination of fixing farm prices, promoting labor unions, 
and passing a series of antibusiness tax laws would certainly have had 
a negative impact on employment.''
  Economist David Bernstein reported, ``New Deal labor policies 
contributed to a persistent increase in African American 
unemployment.''
  Historian Michael Bernstein made a case that New Deal agriculture 
policies ``sacrificed the interests of the marginal and the 
unrecognized to the welfare of those with greater political and 
economic power.''
  Mr. Powell summed his book up by saying, ``A principle lesson for us 
today is that if economic shocks are followed by sound policies, we can 
avoid another Great Depression. A government will best promote a speedy 
business recovery by making recovery the top priority, which means 
letting people keep more of their money, removing obstacles to 
productive enterprise, and providing stable money and a political 
climate where investors feel that it's safe to invest for the future.''

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