[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8143-8144]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1600

                        TURN THIS ECONOMY AROUND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about America's 
economy and where Americans are at right now. We have seen a lot of 
trouble over the last 2 years, and it needn't be that way.
  We could turn this American economy around next quarter. We could 
truly bring hope and change to the American people if we would put into 
place a positive solution that would give people certainty about where 
they are going to go in this economy, and we can. We know it's 
possible. It's really fairly simple.
  All we need to do is this: we need to get people investing in the 
economy, and you do that by making incentives for that. I am a former 
Federal tax lawyer. I have lived this life, I know how it works.

[[Page 8144]]

  Right now we have a high rate on our capital gains tax. 
Unfortunately, the Obama administration is looking at increasing that 
tax. We need to go just in the opposition direction. We need to cut the 
investment tax called capital gains down to zero. The best thing we 
could do is make that tax permanent to the investor community.
  Let Americans know, if you take your money, and if you put it at risk 
opening a business, hiring people for jobs, in the next 4 years your 
risk will be paid off because you will have a 0 percent interest rate. 
That's capital gains.
  If we would permanently lower the capital gains to zero for 4 years, 
we would have incredible domestic investment, as well as foreign 
investment. Even better, we can take the business tax rate--the United 
States today has the second highest business tax rate in the world, 34 
percent.
  America is not an attractive place to invest money. We can change 
that. We can go from 34 percent on our business tax and bring that down 
to 9 percent, make it permanent.
  What are foreign investors looking for? A safe haven for investment. 
They want to invest in the United States, but we have a very punitive 
investment climate.
  If we would bring down that business tax rate to 9 percent, we would 
be able to bring foreign money into the United States and invest and 
create jobs. Rather than seeing jobs flee the United States to other 
countries, we will see them come right back into the United States.
  That's what we need now, more jobs, more stability, more certainty. 
We have had enough with economic uncertainty from 2008 to the present. 
Let's change that equation. We can have a positive alternative.
  First, zero capital gains. Second, lower the business tax rate to be 
one of the lowest in the world.
  Third, cut every American's tax rate down by at least 5 percent. We 
can do that, and that will help Americans keep more of their money.
  Fourth, we need to kill the death tax once and for all. If even one 
American pays the death tax, it's immoral. Why in the world should 
Uncle Sam be able to reach in the coffin after death and still try to 
pull the wallet out of an American who is deceased? This is immoral. It 
shouldn't be.
  Then, finally, the alternative minimum tax, we should zero out the 
alternative minimum tax, which is putting a second tax burden on 
already overtaxed middle-class Americans.
  Also, Sarbanes-Oxley, Sarbanes-Oxley has actually chased capital out 
of New York City over to London. We need to get that investment capital 
back in the United States.
  That's a pretty simple plan. If we would stay here for the rest of 
the day, and if we would stay here tomorrow, as Members of Congress, we 
could very quickly and simply pass this commonsense legislation that 
has worked time and time again.
  Don't just take my word for it, a woman from Minnesota--take a look 
at Harvard. Harvard did a study back in 2002 that examined 18 different 
world economies, and they showed the same thing. They said, what do you 
do to make economies work, and what do you do that makes economies not 
work?
  Here is what you do, you lower the wages of government employees, you 
lower transfer payments, welfare payments, and you lower the tax rates. 
That's what you do, the study concluded, to make economies revive.
  What you don't do is increase government spending. What you don't do 
is increase taxes.
  What we have seen in the last 60 days is what you do to make an 
economy not work or bring more uncertainty into our economy.
  The American people deserve a positive solution, and we have got one. 
Let's get to work, let's stay here, let's make it happen. Instead, what 
are we seeing happen? We are seeing more spending and higher taxes.
  And what did the Federal Reserve try to do this week? They announced 
that they are going to do another $1 trillion in purchases. And they 
just announced today another $300 billion in buying up long-term 
Treasury securities. They have already lowered the interest rates to 
zero, so now they want to flood more money into the money supply, but 
this reduces the value of dollar.
  There is so much we can do to change the economy. Let's get busy.

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