[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11622-11628]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            DEFINING MOMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. I appreciate being joined here with my colleague from 
Illinois to talk about somewhat of a new issue, I think, in the 
Congress, but more of a broad overview of the situation here in the 
United States and the situation of the Congress where we might be 
headed as a country and some new ideas that might be in order.
  Mr. Speaker, I can't help but think during this special time of the 
references of our current situation to the Great Depression in the 
1930s and the FDR administration, how Franklin Roosevelt dealt with 
those issues and a contract, a social contract that was written during 
those times that was felt to be necessary in order to deal with the 
trying times of the day.
  And I am not suggesting that the Depression is anything like what we 
are facing now. We are lucky to not be dealing with 30 percent 
unemployment, although there are some places in California that have 
that. Nationally we are not there. But there are some similarities.
  And I was reading a book the other day by Jonathan Alter, a very 
interesting book, called ``The Defining Moment.'' And it was that time 
during the first 150 days of the FDR administration that it dawned on 
FDR that he was writing a new social contract.
  Jonathan Alter said it well when he wrote: ``FDR knew he was on the 
verge of proposing nothing less than a rewriting of the American social 
contract. Instead of every man being the captain of his own fate, he 
envisioned the ship of state carrying a safety net. He favored what he 
called cradle-to-grave coverage, including national health insurance. 
But he knew that trying to insulate average Americans from the ravages 
of the market was a long-term process.'' So, in public, he borrowed a 
term from the private sector and spoke vaguely of social insurance.

                              {time}  1930

  It dawned on me that having been here a number of years, having had a 
Republican majority for about 12 years, having thought of reading the 
signals back in 1994 that the American people wanted a change in their 
government, and less government, the fact that perhaps during that time 
a new social contract would have been something that could have 
succeeded in achieving those goals while we were in office.
  Now, the Republicans, when they came in charge, didn't do what they 
had promised to do in reducing government, and that has led to us being 
in the minority now. I think the Republicans get that, and I think we 
are in a position now where we are trying to assess, where do we go 
from here? And it dawned on me that it is probably no surprise that we 
are drawing up these similarities to the Depression and the time for a 
new deal. We have a President in the White House who has been 
characterized as the next FDR and very popular and spending money like 
FDR, but I think that leaves to Republicans the opportunity to define a 
new social contract, and that interests me.
  And I have to go back to times of the contract with America; and that 
was a contract, but it wasn't necessarily a social contract. It was a 
political contract. If the American people gave the majority in the 
House to the Republicans, they would bring 10 bills to the floor, and 
that was it. It didn't really speak of a social contract in that what 
government would do and then the rest of society would do as a response 
to that. It didn't really define a new social contract that we need 
today.
  So I would like to encourage some conversation about that or along 
those lines. I am so proud to be joined by my friend from Illinois, Mr. 
Roskam, and also my friend from South Carolina, Mr. Inglis, to discuss 
it.
  Mr. ROSKAM. If the gentleman would yield. I thank the gentleman for 
gathering us today and for his leadership, and really having a 
conversation that I think is very important, Mr. Speaker, to talk about 
where we are, because my sense is that we are at a very pivotal point 
in our public life right now and when the types of changes and the 
types of choices that are being presented to the public are choices 
that we are going to reflect back in 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years and 
say that was the time.
  I remember my mother grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, and she was born 
in 1930. She remembers and I remember her telling me about what it was 
like for her as a little girl turning on the radio and hearing the 
voice of Adolph Hitler, and just that sort of ominous feel. And now I 
am kind of projecting here, but I am imagining that my mother as a 
little girl sort of knew that there was something that was going on, 
and that time that she was involved in was formative.
  And I would suggest to you, take the World War II reference and 
abandon it now, and this time that we are in just has a feel about it. 
It has a poignancy to it, and it has a sense that decisions that are 
going to be made are going to be made and have long-term implications, 
and I think that one of a couple of things is going to happen.
  My hope and expectation is that we are going to make decisions and we 
will say, thank goodness that there were clear-thinking people in 
Washington at the time that the wheels were coming off the cart. But 
the alternative is that we surrender so much freedom and we give up so 
much to a benevolent government that sort of pats us on the head and 
says: We are going to take care of all your problems. And then we wake 
up, and when the government fails--and we've seen that time and time 
and time again lately. We wake up and we don't have those tools that 
should be ours, and instead they were squandered and they were given 
away at a time of panic and at a time of legitimate fear.
  So here we are on the floor of the House of Representatives, and we 
are in the midst of this conversation as a country and we have got to 
look carefully at where we have been and then figure out where we are 
going. And I think any honest assessment of where we have been takes a 
look back and says: Okay, United States of America, you have been given 
an inspired Declaration of Independence. You have been given a 
Constitution that is the envy of the world. You, as a Nation, and your 
predecessors have gone through the Civil War. You have gone through the 
turmoil of slavery. You

[[Page 11623]]

have gone through world wars. You have gone through a Depression like 
we were talking about a minute ago. You defeated communism. You 
defeated fascism, and here you are at this moment where great decisions 
need to be made. But do so as a Nation with a proud heritage, as a 
Nation that has understood where it has come from and where it needs to 
go.
  But don't panic. Don't underreact. Don't act as if there are no 
problems, because there are problems. We know there are great 
difficulties. We know we have a health care system that is 
unsustainable. We know that the world is an increasingly dangerous 
place. We know that the amount of money that is being spent here in 
Washington begins to feel like generational theft. It really is too 
much. So we are rightly sobered by these things. But as we are 
contemplating solutions, we ought not be dismissive of this incredible 
heritage that we have been given.
  I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
  Mr. INGLIS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think what you just 
said is very true. The thing I would add to it is that it is also 
important that we not abandon hope in the midst of that awareness. You 
just talked about the important awareness of the trials that we are in. 
We need to be very much aware.
  We also, I think, need to approach them with a hope that--well, it 
depends on where you come from. From my perspective, it is this: The 
reason I have hope is I believe there is a sovereign God who is in 
control of all things and, furthermore, I think he is good. So if you 
put those two things together, I have every reason to be optimistic. 
Now, I do need to be aware of the risks that we face and, therefore, 
respond to them and anticipate them, but also with the hope that 
America has been through similar kinds of troubles before and met 
incredible challenges.
  Since I serve on the Science Committee and Foreign Affairs, I always 
mention the scientific kind of things. I am not a scientist. I just 
play one occasionally on the Science Committee, by the way. But when 
you think about the things that the United States has done, we finished 
the transcontinental railroad in the midst of the Civil War. We 
finished the Panama Canal when the French had abandoned that effort 
after losing tens of thousands of people to malaria and other causes of 
death in Panama. We were the nation that fought and won World War II, 
that very quickly responded to the arms race, to Sputnik, and all of 
that.
  In South Carolina, part of our claim to fame is the Savannah River 
site was and, as I understand it, still remains the largest 
construction project in the history of the country. All the stainless 
steel in the country was going to Aiken, South Carolina, to build the 
canyons that would develop some of the elements related to our nuclear 
arsenal, the bomb plant as we call it in South Carolina. Then, in 1961, 
President Kennedy said we must go to the Moon, make it our goal to go 
to the Moon before the end of the decade. And we did it, 1969.
  So the amazing thing to me is that we accomplished all of those 
things with technology that now looks very old. The Apollo mission was 
all designed on the slide rule. Actually, the shuttles were designed on 
slide rules.
  So when you take what America has done with this entrepreneurship, 
this belief in freedom that the gentleman was just mentioning, and 
charge that up in the right way so that you marshal those forces and 
you go out and you conquer these problems, that is what we are about. 
And I think what our friend just mentioned is very good about the 
importance of this free enterprise system and the American Dream.
  To me, the American Dream is this: It is the fulfilling of the God-
given desire to create, to contribute, to care, and to live at peace 
with one's self, one's neighbors, and one's God. That is the American 
Dream. And it starts with an understanding that it is the opportunity 
to do those things, not the guarantee. And that is, I think, what 
separates us from the other party is they are talking all the time 
about guarantee. We talk about opportunity. The gentleman from 
California, I think, talks about opportunity.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. It is very interesting. Yes, we do talk about 
opportunity. But I am reminded about the opening line to Common Sense, 
which was the book written, that sparked the American Revolution, by 
Thomas Paine. In the very opening sentence he says: Writers have so 
confused government with society as to leave no distinction between the 
two.
  It is a reminder today that there is more than one institution in 
this country. In fact, if you go back to the Bible, in Genesis there 
were institutions created there. God said, go forth and multiply; He 
created the family institution. He said, tend to the garden. He created 
the business institution. And He said, worship me, which meant love God 
above all things and love your neighbor as yourself. And then 
afterwards, Cain killed Abel, and we needed another institution to keep 
from killing each other, and that was the government, and so we had 
four.
  Even back in the Revolutionary time, there wasn't really a clear idea 
about what institution did what in society so that we could have the 
opportunity that we are looking for. Right now, I think, with this New 
Deal social contract that I believe that we have in place now, which 
started in the 1930's, Ronald Reagan, the great President that he was, 
the conservative that he was, still was not able to distinguish between 
all of those, and the growth of government still happened during that 
time. The Contract with America wasn't necessarily anything more than a 
promise to bring 10 bills to the floor. It had its purpose. It was good 
in many ways, but it didn't address what Thomas Paine thought was the 
confusion out there about what is government doing, what do we call 
this remaining society part, and what does it look like, and who does 
what in this country. Does government raise families or does family 
raise families? Does government provide jobs or does government protect 
people and business is the one and should be allowed to provide the 
jobs and the economy?
  And so when we look today at the new administration, the change in 
majority that we have right now, the growth in the budget, the 
intention of taking over 17 percent of the business sector and the 
health care sector, bringing it in under government control and 
creating a new bubble that will happen, and that is replacing fossil 
fuels with solar and energy production with massive subsidies that will 
rack up the national debt like we have never seen, it does make you 
wonder about whether or not at some point in time the old ATM is going 
to stop giving out cash. And then what are we going to do? Because we 
have based our society on a complete reliance of government while 
ignoring the value of the other institutions, and while relying more on 
government, we weaken the other institutions. That, I think, is what 
frightens me the most.
  Everybody wants the President to succeed, but we wonder whether he 
will under the policies that he has adopted. And our hope is there with 
him, but there is a realistic expectation that if a liberal left policy 
of dramatically increasing the size and influence of the government is 
going to collapse upon itself I think at some point in time.
  Mr. ROSKAM. I jotted down what you just said: Relying on the 
government, we weaken these other institutions, and that is really to 
the point. You know, the gentleman from South Carolina was talking 
about sort of an orderliness, if I could paraphrase, an orderliness. 
And I know the three of us and I know every Republican in the House of 
Representatives recognizes the role of government. There is an 
appropriate role of government, and the gentleman just gave a glimpse 
into the seeds of that, and it goes back ancient of times in 
civilization, and it was to create a structure for fairness and follow-
through and an ability to have an expectation of what the ground rules 
are.

                              {time}  1945

  But when government bleeds over into responsibilities that aren't 
really

[[Page 11624]]

the government's, and when people give the government that kind of 
responsibility and ultimately that authority, then you see where this 
ends up. And it is not a good picture.
  Going back again to Genesis, I am reminded of the story of Isaac and 
his two sons, Esau and Jacob. And as you know, in that Near Eastern 
culture at that time, the oldest son who was Esau had the birthright. 
He had the property right. Give me a little grace here. It was about 90 
percent ownership expectation that the oldest son was going to get the 
estate, the cattle and the household. And then the number two son kind 
of picks up the scraps. That is sort of the way it was in that time. 
Well, as you know, the account is that Esau comes in out of the field, 
and he is famished. He is crazy hungry. And we have all been like that. 
We know what that is like, just being so hungry you can hardly see 
straight. And his brother, Jacob, the number two son, is cooking some 
sort of stew. And Esau comes in and says, Give me some stew. And Jacob 
says, Give me your birthright. And Esau agrees to it. And now I'm 
collapsing the story down, but Esau gets passed over. He gives up his 
birthright.
  I have this sense that we, as Americans, right now are in a position 
where we have this birthright that has been given to us not really 
through work of our own, but it is this birthright that has been 
entrusted to us. It is the ability to start a company, the ability to 
innovate, the ability to really capture what it is you want to do; and 
yet we are being coaxed, as a country, right now by some people who are 
saying, Give up that birthright. Just give it up. Here. We will give 
you ``stability.'' And in the name of ``stability,'' many, many people 
are sacrificing a fundamental birthright. It hasn't happened entirely. 
But we are sort of on that verge. You get the sense that that is what 
is beginning to happen.
  One of the reasons that I'm a Republican is because I think the 
Republican Party has this high view ultimately. Many times it is not 
articulated well. Many times we bumble along. And we are far from 
perfect. But do you know what? There is a core there that says, We know 
what that birthright is. And it is a system that has been the envy of 
the world that has created more prosperity for more people than the 
world has ever seen before. And yet we are being told, Just give it up. 
Just give it up, and you will get stability in exchange.
  And I would submit that is a very, very bad deal. And we ought not 
make that exchange.
  I will yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. INGLIS. And you mentioned ``orderliness.'' I think what we are 
talking about here in part and what Mr. Radanovich has been talking 
about is the rule of law, the importance of knowing that you can count 
on the rule of law to allow you to, among other things, enjoy the 
fruits of your labors. When you trade that away and you don't have that 
assurance, you have this system like you're talking about where there 
is stability or there is a guarantee rather than an opportunity. If you 
don't have the certainty that you can, because of the rule of law, have 
the certainty of knowing you can enjoy the fruits of your labor, then 
there is just less labor. It is just the way it is. That is human 
nature.
  Dick Armey, our former majority leader, was the first person I heard 
say this. He said, ``Communism is that system where he who has nothing 
wants to share it with you.'' And so it really is a pretty good 
definition I think of communism. And of course I'm not accusing anyone 
here of advocating communism. But I do think that when you break this 
connection between industry, work, labor, and reward, funny things 
start happening. You lose incentive, and you lose the certainty of 
reward.
  The thing that we do believe in, we Republicans advocate this thing 
of orderliness, or rule of law, very highly. We value that very highly 
because there are some economies around the world you can look at where 
they are blessed with many resources, but yet they lack the rule of 
law. And as a result, there is no certainty that your work will be 
rewarded, and, therefore, there just isn't as much work. There isn't as 
much industry. If you can't own the fruits of your labor, then you 
labor less. And for some people, this is a real problem. There is a 
deep philosophical divide that, I think the gentleman here can agree 
with me, we face a lot. Some people really have a Utopian view of 
humankind and think that we will some day move beyond this need to have 
a linkage between work and reward. But I think that what we realize is 
that, no, you will never break that link. You don't want to break that 
link. It is just the way it is. And so you want to make clear there is 
a clear linkage, and then people keep working. They keep innovating.
  It is why, for example, we think that economies around the world that 
steal our intellectual property are so offensive to us. We think, no, 
we had people who worked hard, who studied hard, who invested time, 
energy and capital to create something, and now you have gone and 
stolen it and are selling it on the streets for $5 a copy when it 
really costs a lot more than that to develop. And some people think 
that is sort of Western imperialism maybe, but I think it is pretty 
clear that what we are talking about is effort and reward. And you have 
to keep those together and make opportunity for effort and reward.
  I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. I thank the gentleman.
  You raise an excellent point, and you speak of the virtue of work. 
And I'm reminded of virtue. I just have to think about where this 
virtue that you say comes from, and discussing previously the idea of 
what other institutions do and what they provide to us in our society. 
One of those is the issue of virtue. Where does that come from? And 
there is a chapter in the Bible in Second Peter where it addresses the 
issue of where freedom and independence come from. And it really starts 
with faith. And so the growing of that virtue doesn't start here. It 
starts in the faith institutions. Call it ``church,'' call it 
``religion,'' whatever you want to call it; it starts with faith. And 
that, as outlined in Second Peter, produces virtue which produces 
freedom and independence. And it all goes into the ability that you 
describe and that is the desire and the ability to go and reap the 
rewards of your own labor.
  The point I would make in response to yours is that that faith 
institution has to be really strong in the country because the Founding 
Fathers relied on it to be the virtue builder in a free society. They 
restricted government and religion because that had been the forms of 
tyranny over the last thousand years. Benjamin Franklin was leaving 
Independence Hall after they signed the Declaration of Independence. 
Somebody said, What have you given us? He said, Liberty, if you can 
handle it. And he was really talking about this idea that self-
government doesn't come without virtuous people, and virtue originates 
in a sector that has been beaten down quite a bit. I think that is one 
of those institutions that has been suffering from Big Government.
  I would love to take just a second to illustrate the most artful 
example and the best form of describing how we love one another as 
ourselves. It is charity. And if you look at a cross-section of charity 
in this country, I have identified about $1.2 trillion of charity that 
occurs in the United States every year. Americans give about 1.5 to 2 
percent of their gross income to charity on average, and that accounts 
for about $300 billion a year that goes to churches and nonprofits and 
the like. Surprisingly, corporations and foundations only give about 
$100 billion a year. That makes $400 billion. The balance, $800 
billion, comes from government charity, that is the forced levy of 
taxes on you and me. Twenty-five cents of our tax dollar goes to 
government charity in the form of Medicaid, food stamps--rack them up--
farm subsidies and everything else. It adds up to about 25 cents on 
every dollar. And if the Founding Fathers were relying on the faith 
institutions to be the originators of virtue through faith, freedom and 
independence, it is getting less

[[Page 11625]]

than one-third of the charity that is operating in this country today, 
while the lion's share of it goes to government which, at best, can 
sustain people at where they are.
  The story you described about the person who is hungry and the main 
motivator of going to work and improving your life and doing things 
better, how can they be motivated when the charity is coming from a 
government institution that doesn't really encourage them beyond their 
own current situation and never really educates them on the need to 
work and why and the benefits of it? So I'm not surprised that there is 
more of a dependency on government, the growth of government, the 
overreliance on it, and this trend toward Big Government, because you 
have to follow the charity money. Frankly there are less of those 
virtues in this country because the faith institution has been weakened 
by the growth of government, and they are not able to--and they are the 
source that brings up this notion of freedom and independence, which is 
wanting in this country.
  Anyway, I was intrigue by your thoughts of how people are motivated 
to work and what are the original origins of that ethic. And it is 
severely underfunded and being run over today by government.
  Mr. ROSKAM. These choices that we are dealing with remind me of a 
story I heard about a young woman who was a foreign exchange student 
here. I forget what country she was from. But she came over here as a 
high school student or a college student and spent 1 year here like so 
many foreign exchange students do. And someone asked her, So what did 
you think? Wind it up for us. What did you think about this year that 
you spent in America? And what was the thing that made the biggest 
impression on you? And they were thinking, oh, computers or the highway 
system or the cool kids at school or whatever some of those predictable 
things were. But she said something that was very, very unusual. And 
she said that the biggest impact on her was the number of people who 
approached her and said, So what are you going to do? What do you want 
to study? What do you want to grow up and be?
  And sometimes we lose track of that. I think that is such a common 
experience for Americans, an expectation that one generation is going 
to supersede the next generation in terms of achievement. But for this 
girl, it was revolutionary. She came from a culture that didn't really 
support that, where that wasn't the expectation. And so for her to go 
around and be reaffirmed on these dreams, that dream of possibility, 
all of a sudden it was like, wow, I could do a lot of things.
  One of my favorite authors is an author named Paul Johnson. Paul 
Johnson is a living British historian who likes the United States. So 
it is nice to read his stuff. He really likes America. And in one of 
his books called ``A History of the American People,'' Paul Johnson 
talks about our Founders and compares them to the advisers of King 
George III. And so he goes through this list and he says, basically, 
you have got this A Team, this unbelievable group of people who founded 
our country. And you know all the names, Jefferson, Washington, 
Hamilton, Monroe and Madison and a whole cast of great leaders. And he 
says that they were such special people, but they were ultimately 
eclipsing themselves because the combination of them was so great.
  And he said there was a second and a third tier of leadership 
underneath them that in any other generation would have been tier one 
people, but they just had the dumb luck to be on the scene with this 
incredible group of talent. And Johnson writes and compares that to the 
advisers of King George III, the King of England during the Revolution. 
And I'm overcharacterizing this, but it is as if we weren't playing 
fair. That is how good our Founders were compared to the leadership on 
the other side.
  And Johnson makes this point: he said all kinds of factors go into 
history, into how history turns out and how things happen. There are 
economies. There is weather. There are wars. There are a whole host of 
things. But ultimately the single most important thing in the 
determination of history is the people who are in charge at the time--
and now this is the Peter Roskam footnote--and the choices they make.

                              {time}  2000

  And so here we are, we are at this time, almost a tumultuous time in 
our public life where there is a great deal of fear out there. There is 
a great deal of anxiety and restlessness. People have been so 
disappointed for the last couple of months about solutions that they 
have seen and expectations that Washington and big institutions were 
going to come through for them. And ultimately, many of those 
institutions have failed.
  One of the reasons that I am here and one of the reasons that I am 
part of the party that is the Republican Party is because there is that 
real bedrock of knowledge that, notwithstanding all of the challenges, 
there is this high view of the individual and a confidence that given a 
fair set of laws, given a fair shake, given a fair opportunity, there 
is going to be, on balance, a very good result. That is not to say we 
don't have responsibilities because we do. But this view that somehow 
government is going to come in and make problems go away is, I think, 
profoundly naive. And we need to be mindful of surrendering so much of 
our national identity and so much of ourselves to a government that 
hasn't always deserved our confidence.
  Mr. INGLIS. I would add to that, these were exceptional people that 
you just listed that believed in some very exceptional ideas.
  I am a conservative. We are all conservatives here speaking tonight. 
And to some extent, conservatives are people who sort of want to keep 
things together the way they are. And I am also conservative 
philosophically as in wanting to have things like free markets and 
things like that. But it is also true that at times conservatives are 
people who want bold change, bold strokes, not just keep it the way it 
is, we really want to change things.
  So those folks you were just mentioning were very bold in believing 
some pretty audacious things. Like we hold these truths to be self-
evident. In other words, they are not going to make any further 
explanation of it. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men 
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
inalienable rights. Among these are the right to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness.
  That was a bodacious thing to say in 1776. You could say the 
conservative personality thing was to continue to believe in the divine 
right of kings. But here were these upstarts in the colonies who said 
no, listen, we have studied the laws of nature and of nature's God, as 
Mr. Jefferson said in that document, and we come to a different 
conclusion. And then he stated the conclusion that we hold these truths 
to be self-evident. I think it is very exciting just to see how bold 
they were.
  Now fast forward to where we are today, and we have a big challenge. 
Our challenge today is that our pollsters tell us that for the first 
time in awhile, maybe in our lifetimes, people don't believe that their 
children will be better off than they have been. I think that is worth 
examining and figuring out why that is.
  When we started this wonderful adventure here in the United States in 
1776 with those incredible words of change and things being self-
evident, we carried that on. That was sort of our heritage. As Tom 
Friedman writes, America is young enough and brash enough to believe 
that every problem has a solution.
  Much of the world has long ago left that nation, but they need us, 
the Americans, to believe that every problem has a solution. And I 
would submit that it comes from the DNA we developed in 1776 when we 
said that all men are created equal. Hello, that is not what the rest 
of the world thought. And we are endowed by these certain inalienable 
rights. That, I would submit, carries through to the thought that yes, 
by my sacrifice today, or my putting my kids through college or

[[Page 11626]]

whatever it is, can create for them a better standard of living than 
mine, which I think is something that has driven this country to its 
economic success.
  It seems to me it is tied in with that DNA and that political 
understanding, and that comes, as the gentleman from California was 
saying earlier, was really from a faith understanding. So it really is 
connected to a series of very big thoughts in America that gets us to 
the place now of a big challenge, which is do we believe that our 
children will be better off than we are.
  Unfortunately, a big number of our fellow citizens think not. I think 
it is worth asking, why is that and what can we do to convince them 
that no, really, America's best days are still ahead if we just stick 
to these principles, we return to our principles.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. I am intrigued by the gentleman from Illinois's 
thoughts about this person who was so amazed that someone asked her 
what she wanted to do with her life.
  Speaking about the authors of the Constitution and the Declaration of 
Independence, how important it is to be able to decide your own fate 
and be able to choose. And I believe, I think the progress of 
civilization, it moves from tyranny to self-government. I think we are 
on that march. There are a lot of bumps along the way and a lot of 
misconceptions about how order and society ought to be, but I think the 
beauty of the Declaration of Independence was that government was 
reined in and religion was put in its place, and after that you had the 
freedom to be able to--by and large, there were still a lot of problems 
in the United States even in its beginning, but it was the beginning of 
that.
  In the 1830s, a gentleman by the name of Abraham Kuyper, he was a 
Calvinist Prime Minister in the Netherlands, he originated a concept. 
And again, this was while European countries were still figuring out 
their social contract and who was responsible for what, but he came up 
with this notion called coram deo, a Latin term, but it meant living 
life in the face of God.
  It reminded me of what you said about this young child having her 
choice. And it was quite a bold statement for the time, but the 
statement was that government had no authority to be able to limit your 
freedoms in life, and neither did the church or any other form of 
authority, that that connection between the individual and God was the 
supreme connection.
  And when Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence 
that we have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, what a huge step in moving from tyranny to self-government. 
This idea of Kuyper and living life in the face of God came afterwards 
in the 1830s. This is when Darwin came out with ``The Origin of 
Species'' and Karl Marx and fascism and some of these others things 
were being mulled about. I think he set a new landmark about what are 
our freedoms. And to me, it further illuminates what a social contract 
might be, but that that individual had those freedoms.
  I can't help but think in addition to that what the mandates were in 
the Garden and the ability to create a family, to go to work and 
worship God and love each other as ourselves, and have a government 
that protects you, and the freedom to be able to live life in the face 
of God through those institutions that were built up. Not everybody has 
those freedoms. Not everybody has a loving father and mother. Not 
everybody has learned the ability to work or has the ability to go do 
that. Not everybody has the freedom to worship God and love their 
neighbor as they wish.
  I am kind of intrigued about what a new social contract would look 
like if we are back to the social contract of cradle to grave by 
government, government is getting too big, it is likely to come to an 
end of itself one way or the other. And if that is the case, what do 
Republicans present? And do you present it in a way that people 
logically say by golly, I want to go with that.
  Mr. ROSKAM. I think that is the great invitation. That is the 
conversation that we are having with the American public. That is what 
is such a dynamic part of where we are today.
  There was a great theologian in one of the early church fathers, 
Saint Ambrose, who said we don't impose on the world; we propose a more 
excellent way.
  I think that is, in part, at the essence of what we are about right 
now because, you know, we have all seen, everybody knows what a 
government that is too big and too unwieldily looks like. That story 
doesn't end well.
  I think about the cartoon ``The Jungle Book'' with the Walt Disney 
cartoon and it has the snake, Kaa. The snake, Kaa, is very charming and 
gets young Mowgli in his eyes, and basically Mowgli becomes transfixed. 
And Kaa is able to manipulate him. Kaa says ``trust in me'' and he 
comes up with a song, and I will spare you in my singing of that song. 
Ultimately this young Mowgli is completely bewildered. And where does 
he end up? He ends up in the coils of Kaa, the boa snake.
  I think there is a little bit of wow, that sounds really great. That 
program sounds good and that sounds like something that is great and 
stable, but my fear is and my hesitancy is that to surrender what the 
American public is being asked to surrender by, with all due respect 
the Democratic leadership in this Congress, is, I think, regrettable. 
The amount of money. And it is being done gently. It is being done very 
smoothly. It is being done cleverly, if I might say so; but it is being 
done in such a way to basically coax people into surrendering things 
which I think they will do so with great regret.
  I think the invitation is come along on this more excellent way. Come 
along on a way that says we acknowledge the difficulties of where we 
are. And we are rightly sobered by the challenges our country faces 
today. None of us here on this floor are pumping sunshine, acting as if 
everything is great, because it is not great. We are really sobered by 
the challenges we face.
  But notwithstanding those challenges, we don't panic and we don't 
surrender freedoms that are our birthright. In the exchange, we end up 
with some sort of stability that I think is going to be completely 
unsatisfying in the long run.
  Getting back, I think the gentleman from South Carolina and the 
observations he made about sort of the predictability of contract and 
the work ethic, not long ago I was traveling in another country that 
doesn't have a good solid rule of law. And the officials that we met 
with were talking about the issue that they characterized known as 
impunity, meaning you could commit crimes with impunity. You can do it 
and get away with it.
  One of the countries that is in this hemisphere has a murder 
conviction rate of 3 percent. Think about that, 3 percent of the 
murders that occur in that country end up in a conviction.
  What does that mean? If you can commit murder with impunity, what 
does that mean for somebody trying to start a business? What does that 
mean to try and enforce a contract, or stand up for your rights as an 
entrepreneur and get things going? And I would submit to you it is 
almost impossible. And many of these problems that we see around the 
world, not all of them, but many of them are exacerbated by this idea 
of impunity, the ability to just do whatever you want.
  So here we are. We are having a conversation as a country right now 
about what do contracts mean? What does it mean when you sign a piece 
of paper? We have seen coming out of the White House some very 
aggressive moves trying to rewrite contracts. Again, I would submit, 
over an extended period of time, that is a scene that doesn't end well 
either. In the short term, that can be very satisfying if you are on 
the right side of that deal. But at some point in the future, you may 
not be on the right side of that deal.
  Ultimately, what does it do? It creates a disincentive for people to 
put themselves at risk. It creates a disincentive for people to be 
creative. What we need at this time in our history, with all of the 
challenges that we have, a whole host of things, the economy and 
everything, we need our best and brightest leaning into this thing.

[[Page 11627]]



                              {time}  2015

  We need people saying, ``You know what? I'm here. I want to 
participate. And I know if I do, there is a reward for me, and it's a 
reward that is borne of my innovation and my entrepreneurship and my 
willingness to put myself and my capital at risk.''
  I will yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. INGLIS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We have been 
describing here, I think, as the gentleman from California really 
started us off with the idea of what we really deeply believe with our 
faith really gives us a concept of respect for individual rights and 
the need to protect those rights. And then we have talked some about 
the dignity of work and protecting and affirming that dignity through 
the rule of law. The gentleman from Illinois was just mentioning that.
  That leads us to policies. And these all flow from that deep well of 
what we really deeply believe and then it comes up to the surface level 
of instant policy or the policies of today--the policy questions of 
today.
  The one that I think we need to answer is: Is it possible for our 
children to live a better life economically than we have? I think the 
answer is yes, as long as we do what we know works, and that is to have 
a system of taxation that is not confiscatory, that allows you to keep 
the rewards of your work. So you want to keep taxes relatively low. You 
want to keep regulation relatively light and effective, not burdensome, 
not a gotcha, but rather calculated to produce results that are 
reasonable, and light touch.
  Then, you have got to reduce litigation somehow so that there is some 
certainty that you will not lose what you have done by becoming somehow 
the guarantor of someone else's outcome. You can't ask somebody else to 
guarantee their outcome. If you do that, that is the way you end up 
with too much litigation, and the result is that people move productive 
capacity away from a developed nation to an undeveloped nation.
  They decide, ``Well, we will go take our risk with a less established 
rule of law, because in the developed country which had this rule of 
law, you now have such high taxation, regulation, litigation, it's too 
much risk for us. We are not going to get the reward.''
  So, for us, really what it is, is a matter--to answer that question, 
whether our children's future can be brighter than ours, the answer is 
yes, if the top level here on what bubbles up to policy--if we keep 
taxes relatively low, keep regulation relatively light, and we keep 
litigation down, the result will be people will want to do business 
here and there will be opportunities for our children and our 
grandchildren.
  I'd be happy to yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Thank you. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina. 
I know the gentleman holds in such high esteem the words of the 
Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence, and what a 
wonderful contribution to the world that was, but I can't help but 
think what Thomas Jefferson might have worded differently had he gone 
through the sixties--had he been a flower child in the sixties or had 
he lived through the Great Depression; the collapse of business the way 
it did.
  I think what I admire the most about what they did was the reining in 
of government and religion and putting them in their proper place. 
There was the assumption that, as Thomas Paine said, the rest of 
society would be families and business and they would operate according 
to the norms.
  I'm not one of those people that say we have got to get back to the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence, we have got to get back 
to our founding principles, because I think this is more about looking 
forward with new illumination built on that.
  But what I find interesting is that, had Thomas Jefferson gone 
through the Great Depression or was a hippie in the sixties, or at 
least was around when that was happening, would he have reworded life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness a little different. I wonder.
  Would he have made a statement about the need for every child to have 
a mom and a dad, or, you know, the need for business to not be taken up 
by wrong principles and end up in collapse, and what would have been 
his advice on how to deal with the Great Depression?
  The bottom line is: Would he have worded those opening lines of the 
Declaration of Independence any different? And I don't have the answer, 
but it would have been interesting to have a conversation with him 
today, where he has the knowledge of what occurred after that.
  Not that I would ever suggest that it needs to be rewritten, but it 
does speak to me of perhaps some new inalienable rights that have been 
illuminated since then because of the history of the United States and 
what has happened over time and what we have experienced and what our 
world has become and the results of new knowledge, new science. So, I 
wonder.
  I think it's kind of interesting because we have the opportunity, I 
think, in the form of a new social contract, to plow new ground and to 
be bold to develop a contract that really does speak to and contribute 
to this rise of out of tyranny to self-government. We're not there with 
self-government yet.
  I think the gentleman from Illinois references things that are at 
risk. I really do believe it's the leadership we provided in the world 
since the foundation of the country and the Declaration of Independence 
and the statement of rights that we are going to lose if we are overly 
reliant on a large Federal Government that has increased dramatically 
in these last few months at the expense of these other institutions, 
including business, that is more encumbered daily and provides less 
incentive to go out and do the things that we have talked about--going 
out and prospering and earning an income and taking care of yourself, 
and benefiting from it, as well as families and the virtue-building 
power of faith.
  I think that is what we stand to lose. I sure don't want that to 
happen.
  Mr. ROSKAM. I think one of the things that we find ourselves in this 
quandary as Americans is sort of a gotcha mentality, right? The 
gentleman from South Carolina referenced that a minute ago. I think of 
my fourth-grade teacher. My fourth-grade teacher's name was Lillian 
Anderson. She was a dear woman. I had her her last year, which you can 
interpret as I drove her to retirement, I suppose.
  Ms. Anderson was one of those teachers, though, when you would go and 
do work, she would come back and make the corrections. And it was sort 
of a gentle way. I mean, she would look at the report and, ``Oh, Peter, 
you didn't indent this.'' We've all gotten those marked-up papers from 
teachers.
  So you think about American businesses today who are looking at a 
regulation. They have an assignment. They have a law that is passed by 
Congress, and then some Federal agency has come up with a rule 
interpreting that law. As we know--we have all dealt with 
constituents--some of the laws are clear as mud, and some of the rules 
are even worse.
  So you're a small business owner, you're a big business owner, 
whoever, and you're not sure what the rule means, and you're doing your 
best. You are legitimately doing your best. And you realize, ``You know 
what? We've messed this up. It wasn't through malice, it wasn't through 
manipulation, it wasn't through cheating or deception. It's an honest 
mistake.''
  Well, other countries have figured this out. Other countries have 
created a regulatory environment that is not a gotcha environment. 
Other countries have figured out you can go to a regulator and say, 
``Look, this is what we're doing. This is how we're interpreting this 
rule. Are we doing the right thing?'' And in these other countries they 
will look at it and say, ``No, you're not doing the right thing. Here's 
the right thing to do. Don't do this anymore. And if you do this in the 
future, you will be punished, but we acknowledge that it wasn't 
intentional and you're not trying to deceive or defraud anybody.''
  Can you do that the United States of America under this current 
environment in our country? No. If you're doing something on balance 
and you have an ambiguity about it, 9 chances

[[Page 11628]]

out of 10, you're crazy if you go to a regulator and say, ``You know 
what? This is what we're doing. What do you think?'' They will come 
back to you and say, ``You have the right to remain silent.'' And we 
know the Miranda rights. It makes no sense.
  So what we have got to do, I think, in this country in order to 
create prosperity and in order to create an environment where we are 
regulating for the right things instead of regulating for the sake of 
regulating--and there's a big difference there. If we're regulating for 
the right things, that means someone can come in and say, ``Look, we're 
doing this,'' and the regulator says, ``Don't do that anymore.'' Or, 
alternatively, ``Yeah, you're doing the right thing. Proceed. Off with 
you. And be lively.''
  I think there is an attitude that has to develop in the United 
States. And I think Republicans that I have interacted with in the 
House of Representatives get it. They get the idea that government is 
not supposed to come along with a heavy hand, to go back to the 
gentleman from South Carolina's language, with a heavy hand and come in 
and just pound and pound and pound and just take the life right out of 
some entrepreneur or somebody who's self-employed or starting something 
up.
  But instead, it's supposed to come in with a light touch. And if 
there is a legitimate area where there's wrongdoing, then we all agree 
there needs to be a reconciliation to that.
  So none of us are saying, ``Don't punish the wrongdoer,'' but there 
is an attitude, there is a way to get to that point that honors 
business people and honors and recognizes that people that are starting 
companies in all of our districts. They are the ones that are putting 
capital at risk, they are the ones that are working. They don't have 
lobbyists that are coming here to Washington, D.C. They are not 
represented here, except by us.
  I think that as we are moving forward, we ought not fall into sort of 
this harsh language--harsh antibusiness language--that we see coming 
out of the leadership on the other side of the aisle that actually has 
a very low view and paints everybody with a bad brush.
  Are there some bad actors? There sure are. Are there people that need 
to be punished? There sure are. But let's not drag business through the 
mud with an expectation that an entrepreneur or somebody who wants to 
work hard isn't well motivated. I think that that sort of degrading of 
business is a point that we need to be very, very mindful of.
  I know our witching hour is approaching.
  Mr. INGLIS. Madam Speaker, may we inquire of the time?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Dahlkemper). The gentleman has 1 minute 
remaining.
  Mr. INGLIS. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from 
California, who started us off on a high note. We went from high notes 
to policy, and now we're back to a high note, maybe, for conclusion.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. I appreciate the time from the gentleman from South 
Carolina. I think I would just leave with the note that the social 
contract that we are operating with right now is cradle to grave. It 
started during the Depression. We're back at it with full force now.
  If we were to create a new social contract, what would it look like, 
in opposition to something like that? If we were to hold up to the 
American public a different social contract, try to imagine--and I'd 
even implore the public to do this, too--what would the alternative 
look like? I think it's something to think about. Because we are 
obviously unsustainable for the rest.
  I just want to send my prayers to a colleague here who is away on a 
family matter and couldn't join us tonight.

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