[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13760-13766]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, Americans all over this country 
are asking, Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs?
  We just heard from the previous speaker bragging about the Recovery 
Act, which has been an abject failure, an abject failure. There have 
been very few private sector jobs created around this country.
  What has been created are a lot of government jobs here in 
Washington, DC. If someone's looking for a job here in Washington, they 
have a lot of opportunities because government continues to grow 
exponentially. Exponentially. But what's not happening are jobs are not 
being created out in Georgia or around this country where they're so 
desperately needed, private sector jobs.
  I was talking to one of my county commission chairmen just recently 
and he said, Paul, 1 year ago in our country, the employment rate was 
14.3 percent. I said, oh my goodness.
  Of course, in my district we have a very poor district, except for 
the two major cities, Athens and Augusta, the Augusta area and the 
Athens area. And this is not one of those counties.
  He said, a year ago the unemployment rate was 14.3. Now it's 10.7 
percent officially. And I said, that is

[[Page 13761]]

great. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Where'd the jobs come from?
  He said, Paul, there aren't any jobs. People have just gotten 
discouraged and quit looking. They've fallen off the unemployment 
roles. There are no new jobs here. We're losing jobs and our people in 
our county are leaving. They're just disgusted. They're disappointed. 
And that's what's happening all over this country.

                              {time}  1700

  How do I know that? Republicans a couple of months ago launched a Web 
site asking the American people to speak out. It's called 
AmericaSpeakingOut.com. And we are asking Americans to go on 
AmericaSpeakingOut.com to register--it's very simple, no cost--and to 
tell us what we should be doing here in Congress right now today not 
only to create jobs, but to get the economy back on track. How to deal 
with health care. How to deal with the issues that the American people 
are facing today. We are asking America to speak out.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, we live in a republic. Representative 
government. And the only way we can continue representative government 
is if Representatives listen to the American people. And I've got a 
sad, sad thing to say--that the leadership in this House doesn't listen 
to the American people.
  I will give you an example. When we were debating ObamaCare, three-
fourths of America did not want that bill passed. Three-fourths of 
America said no to ObamaCare. Two-thirds today say--at least 60 percent 
or more--say repeal it. Repeal it. Our leadership here in the 
Democratic side didn't listen to the American people. President Obama 
didn't listen to the American people. They forced down the throats of 
the American public a bill, which is now law, that was designed to 
fail. It's designed to fail, America.
  Why do I say that? Because it was designed to push people off private 
health insurance, designed to push people into a what's now called a 
public exchange. And that's going to force people into more and more 
government. It's designed to lead us where the President just before 
ObamaCare was passed into law said that he wanted to go, where 
everybody in this country would be on one insurance policy. One pool is 
what he said. That means socialized medicine, where bureaucrats here in 
Washington, D.C., direct the health care for everybody in this country, 
to tell doctors like myself--I am a general practice medical doctor--
how to practice medicine, who we can give care to, what medicines we 
can use, what tests we can do.
  And in fact right now today, the Federal Government tells me or other 
physicians across this country whether we can admit a patient that's on 
Medicare to the hospital or not. It's not determined by the doctor or 
the patient; it's determined by a government bureaucrat that's not a 
doctor, not even a nurse or even a health care professional.
  But more importantly, what is ObamaCare going to do? I spoke to just 
recently the head of a manufacturing entity in my district in rural 
north Georgia that hires over 400 people. And he said, Paul, with the 
tax burden ObamaCare's going to put on me as a businessman, with all 
the big government programs, the stimulus bill and TARP bailouts and 
taking over of the private sector, he said, Paul, I'm trying to find a 
place to move my company offshore, away from America.
  Think about that, Mr. Speaker. If we continue down this road that 
this leadership and the Democrats are leading us down, that plant will 
close. Over 400 people in rural north Georgia will be put out of work. 
They're going to lose their jobs. And in fact, we knew that while we 
were discussing ObamaCare. We knew that it was estimated by experts 
that at least 5 million to 5.5 million Americans were going to lose 
their jobs strictly because of ObamaCare. And that has not changed. We 
must repeal it and replace it with something else.
  I introduced a bill, H.R. 3889, comprehensive health care reform 
system, totally constitutional according to the original intent of the 
Constitution. Totally in the private sector. Would radically change 
healthcare financing. Would radically lower the cost of health 
insurance for everybody in this country. Would solve most of all of the 
problems with portability and uninsurability, et cetera. Would leave 
the doctor and patient in control of their health care decisions. It's 
106 pages, a major piece of legislation, not almost 3,000 like 
ObamaCare was. And it's very simple. You can read it and understand 
what that bill says.
  Our Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, said we've got to pass 
ObamaCare to find out what's in it. Just the other day we heard about 
this financial reform bill that we've got to pass it to find out what's 
in it. The American people deserve more, Mr. Speaker. They deserve to 
know what's in a bill and deserve to know how it will affect them.
  Mr. Speaker, we are killing jobs by bill after bill, by bigger 
government program by bigger government program. It's going to hurt our 
economy, destroy our economy. And we're borrowing from our children and 
our grandchildren's future.
  Mr. Speaker, our children and grandchildren are very probably going 
to live at a lower standard than we live today if we don't stop this 
outrageous spending that's been going on ever since Nancy Pelosi has 
been Speaker of this House. And even more so since President Obama has 
been in office. It's got to stop. It's got to stop.
  Now, I've done many America Speaking Out town hall meetings all over 
the 10th Congressional District in Georgia, just listening to my 
constituency. I have done these in small groups. We've done big town 
hall meetings. We've gone into factories and asked factories and 
companies to speak out and to tell us what we should be doing in 
Congress right now today. In fact, I went to the Coca-Cola plant in 
Athens, Georgia, and spoke to the employees there and asked them to 
speak to me, and encouraged them to go on AmericaSpeakingOut.com.
  I did a town hall meeting in Columbia County in Evans, Georgia, and 
did the same thing. Did one in Athens, which is the most liberal county 
in my district. In fact politically, it's a speck of blue in a sea of 
red. It's a very Democratic county. It's where the University of 
Georgia is. It's a very liberal county. And I did an America Speaking 
Out town hall there. Invited the whole public to come, anybody who 
wanted to come, because I wanted to hear.
  That's what America Speaking Out's all about. We want to hear what 
America thinks we should be dealing with here in Congress. And offer us 
suggestions of how to create jobs. We're asking where are the jobs? The 
policy that's being followed by the Democratic majority is taking away 
jobs. I already mentioned how ObamaCare is going to eventually put over 
5 million Americans out of work, Mr. Speaker, just because of that one 
bill. The stimulus bill's going to put people out of work. It's put a 
few people to work, more government employees than private-sector 
employees.
  But we're asking Americans to speak out, to go on 
AmericaSpeakingOut.com to tell us what we should be doing here in 
Congress today, to offer suggestions, to vote on suggestions that are 
already made or comments already made. Americans can make their own 
comment.
  These are just some of the things that--these are sheets actually 
that my staff wrote to suggestions of legislation that people in the 
10th Congressional District of Georgia suggested that we do. No energy 
tax. Boy, if that energy tax--I call it tax-and-trade, my Democratic 
colleagues call it cap-and-trade--but it's about taxes. In fact, the 
President himself said that his energy tax, the tax-and-trade bill is 
necessary to fund ObamaCare. It's all about revenue.
  The experts tell us that the national energy tax is not going to 
reduce carbon emissions worldwide. It's going to hurt our economy, and 
it's going to put millions of Americans out of work. And Americans 
understand that. And they said no to the energy tax. No to the finance 
bill that was just signed into law this week. Defund ObamaCare. No to 
socialized medicine. Repeal ObamaCare. Pass alternatives to health care 
reform.

[[Page 13762]]

  I would love to see my bill, H.R. 3889, be put into place. In fact, I 
reintroduced it as a repeal ObamaCare to repeal all of this onerous 
bill, onerous law that's going to lead to socialized medicine here in 
the country, as the President has said that he wants to go to, and 
replace it with something in the private sector to maintain the doctor-
patient relationship and to lower the cost of health care for 
everybody. Alternatives to health care reform.

                              {time}  1710

  Keeping bills germane. The American people have told me, even the 
liberals, in Athens, Georgia, ``We need to have bills that are 
germane.'' In other words, we shouldn't tack onto bills things that 
aren't germane to those bills.
  The House passed, and in fact we're waiting on the Senate amendments 
to the emergency appropriations for the war supplemental bill, a $75 
billion bill. Only $33 billion of that $75 billion have to do with the 
military and war supplemental. All the rest of that $75 billion is 
bigger government programs, bigger spending, that the Democratic 
majority pushed through.
  Americans--liberals, conservatives, independents, Republicans, 
Democrats--have told me, keep bills germane. No to cap-and-trade. I can 
go on down this list, but the overwhelming thing I heard, Mr. Speaker, 
where are the jobs? What are we going to do to create jobs in the 
private sector?
  And I've heard my Democratic colleagues just speak over and over 
again about how great this stimulus bill has been. It's been an abject 
failure. Where are the jobs, Mr. Speaker? Where are the jobs, Mr. 
President? Where are the jobs, my colleagues on the Democratic side? 
They're not there. In fact, the policies and the spending that we see 
going on over and over again from bill after bill since this President 
has taken office will actually take away jobs. And it's going to push 
jobs and manufacturers to go overseas.
  I talked to one manufacturer and asked him, What can we do to get you 
to start hiring employees? And he said the best thing you could do is 
lower my corporate income tax rate. My Democratic colleagues say that 
we need to tax the rich, so we need to keep those corporate tax rates 
high. Mr. Speaker, we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the 
world. It's 35 percent. Second only to Japan. In fact, I've talked to 
manufacturer after manufacturer and they tell me, ``Paul, if you just 
lower my corporate tax rate to 25 percent, that would help me be able 
to create jobs in my company.'' Just lower it 10 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, I think corporate tax rates should be zero. In fact, Mr. 
Speaker, not only should corporate rates be zero but dividend taxes 
should be zero. Death taxes should be zero. Capital gains taxes should 
be zero. We should have an immediate write-off of capital expenditure 
for business, not have this prolonged depreciation schedule that the 
Internal Revenue Code forces them into. They have to write the check; 
they should be able to write it off. If we could change just the tax 
law, we would create jobs. In fact, I introduced H.R. 4100, the JOBS 
Act. My JOBS Act is an acronym for Jump-start Our Business Sector. What 
it would do is for 2 years, it would cut in half the payroll tax for 
business as well as for individuals. It would lower the corporate tax 
rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. It would suspend the death tax; 
suspend the dividend taxes for 2 years. And it would lower the two 
lowest income tax brackets down to 10 percent and 5 percent 
respectively.
  And if you think about that, Mr. Speaker, what would that do from a 
monetary perspective? What it would do is it would leave dollars in the 
hands of small businesses and it would leave dollars in the hands of 
the American public; the consumers. That would give small businesses 
the opportunity to expand their business, to buy inventory, to 
modernize, to hire new employees. And it would give dollars to the 
consumers so that they could buy the goods and services that they need. 
It would give some stability to our economic situation so we don't see 
the stock market jumping up and down as we do today. It looks like a 
yo-yo. Why is that? Because there's so much uncertainty. And why is 
there uncertainty out there? It's because of what this Congress and 
what Nancy Pelosi and Company are doing right here and what Barack 
Obama is proposing for more and more government; more and more of the 
Federal Government taking over the private sector. That uncertainty is 
creating a lot of fear.
  I've had businesses, small businesses, large businesses, in my 
district tell me they're sitting on cash but they're afraid to hire new 
employees. Why? Because of ObamaCare. Because of the debt. Because of 
the outrageous spending. Because of the so-called ``financial reform 
bill'' that was just signed into law this week. They're afraid, and I 
don't blame them. I've said in multiple floor speeches here that we 
have a steamroller of socialism being driven by Nancy Pelosi, Harry 
Reid and fueled by Barack Obama. We need to put that steamroller of 
socialism in a parking lot. If we would do so, if we would put the 
steamroller of socialism that my Democratic colleagues are driving, if 
we would put that in a parking lot, we would put certainty back in the 
financial sector and we would see a growth in our economy. But with 
that uncertainty that our leadership of this House and the Senate and 
the President are giving to the private sector, we're going to see the 
business sector afraid; afraid to hire new people.
  Some economists say we're fixing to go into a great depression. In 
fact, some even say we're going into a depression worse than we saw in 
the previous Great Depression. I hope and pray not. I pray that God 
prevents that. But whether we do or don't, I know this: The simple 
truth is bigger government, bigger government spending, more debt being 
created for our children and grandchildren to have to pay is not going 
to solve the economic problems of our country. We've got to stop the 
outrageous spending here that Congress has been doing, that this 
administration is doing, that the previous administration was doing.
  I wasn't here during the first 6 years of the Bush administration. I 
was elected in 2007, is when I took office. But I voted against the 
TARP bill, the toxic asset relief program, because I thought it was 
wrong. It hasn't helped. The second tranche that President Obama forced 
through the Congress, it hasn't helped. Taking over GM and Chrysler 
hasn't helped. Taking over the student loan program; taking over the 
health care system hasn't helped. The stimulus bill has been an abject 
failure, by and large. The company that makes these huge signs to 
proclaim that Barack Obama and his policies are the messiah which costs 
Lord only knows how much has helped that company, but it hasn't helped 
the American taxpayer. It hasn't helped small businesses around this 
country by and large.
  America Speaking Out gives the American people an opportunity to give 
us ideas about what they think, what America thinks about what we 
should be doing now to solve the problems. You see, I'm excited about 
the so-called ``Tea Party movement'' in this country. I've spoken to 
many Tea Party rallies. But, Mr. Speaker, there's a great 
misunderstanding, particularly in the press, particularly with my 
liberal friends, what the Tea Party is all about. We started a Tea 
Party Caucus just this week. I was one of the original signers of 
membership into the Tea Party Caucus. I've done a number of interviews. 
Just yesterday I did one on FOX. I just did one this afternoon. I've 
done many interviews recently. And it's very apparent to me and it's 
apparent to me to the questions that were asked during the news 
conference that we held yesterday, after the Tea Party Caucus started, 
that there's a tremendous misunderstanding, particularly by my liberal 
colleagues and by the press, about what the Tea Party movement is all 
about. And I'm excited about it.
  The Tea Party simply is this: It's freedom-loving Americans, people 
who just basically want to live their lives without all the government 
intrusion. They're teed off. Tea in the Tea Party stands for Taxed 
Enough Already. It's an acronym. And they see the so-called ``jobs 
bill'' that my Democratic colleagues keep bringing to the floor of

[[Page 13763]]

the House. I've already mentioned my JOBS Act which is an acronym for 
Jump-start Our Business Sector. I believe every one of the so-called 
``jobs bills'' that my Democratic colleagues have introduced is an 
acronym for just one big slush fund, because that's what it seems to 
be.
  The American people are angry. They're angry about not being listened 
to. They're angry about seeing their freedom being taken away; their 
jobs being taken away. The previous speaker during the 5-minutes was 
touting how great the stimulus act has been, but it's not been great. 
They have to try to spin how disastrous the spending bill has been. 
It's not created very many jobs. It's created some, but not very many. 
And certainly not very many in the private sector.
  The American people are asking, where are the jobs? When are we going 
to get this economy back on course? We've seen a liberal icon, my 
Democratic colleagues, one of their icons, one of this country's icons, 
John F. Kennedy, considered to be very liberal at the time.

                              {time}  1720

  Today they'd call him a wacko, a crazy man, because he proposed tax 
cuts.
  I hear from my Democratic colleagues that they want to tax the rich, 
they want to tax them even more. Well, who are the rich? It's the small 
businesses of this country. Most small businessmen and women file their 
taxes as a Sub S corporation, which means they file their business 
taxes on personal income taxes.
  My Democratic colleagues say they're making too much money. We want 
it here in Washington to create a bigger government, a bigger 
socialistic government. And what's that going to do? It's going to kill 
jobs. It's going to take jobs away from millions of Americans. And my 
Democratic colleagues want to tax small business to the hilt. They're 
not happy with the high tax rates that small business are already 
suffering from. They want more taxes on the so-called rich, the rich of 
the little mom-and-pop grocery stores, the little hardware stores, the 
small community businesses, men's stores. It's not the Wal*Marts, the 
AT&Ts, the Boeings. Those aren't small businesses.
  But we have developed policy, and the policy of the Democratic 
majority is anti-business, it's anti-freedom, it's anti-job creation. 
Why do they want to do that? It's because they believe, in my opinion, 
that government is the solution to everything. You see, they think, in 
my opinion, that government has to tell them how to run every aspect of 
their lives.
  I'll give you some examples.
  We've already seen where our Democratic colleagues want to tell us 
how much salt we can have in our food. I'm a physician, and I have 
prescribed low-salt diets to my patients. I don't use salt. I hardly 
ever pick up a salt shaker. I don't even salt watermelon or eggs when I 
eat those, or tomatoes. And I know as a physician we have plenty of 
salt for most of our bodily needs unless somebody has a particular 
reason that they lose salt in an abnormal way. Even athletes, for the 
most part, don't need salt. When I was playing football in high school, 
our coach would give us salt tablets. That was absolutely the wrong 
thing to do.
  But my colleagues want to say they want to control salt in our food. 
They say they want to control what kind of light bulbs we can put--in 
fact, that's what they've done--what kind of light bulbs we can have in 
our lamps at home. They want to tell us what kind of cars we can drive, 
how much water comes out of our shower heads. They want to control 
every aspect of our lives, Mr. Speaker, every aspect.
  There's a word for that, Mr. Speaker. That word is socialism. Central 
control from Washington, D.C. We have had a greater takeover of the 
private sector since Barack Obama's been the President of the United 
States than Hugo Chavez--we've had a greater takeover in the private 
sector in this administration than the communist dictator Hugo Chavez 
has nationalized the private sector in Venezuela. That's a shock to 
most people when you tell them that, but that's factual. We've had a 
greater takeover of the private sector under President Obama than Hugo 
Chavez has done in Venezuela.
  It's got to stop. The American people are understanding that. They're 
sick and tired of it. They want their freedom back. They want their 
Nation back. They want their jobs back. They're asking where are the 
jobs, when are we going to put our economy back on the right track. 
That's what we're asking here as Republicans. We've got to stop this 
policy of bigger government and higher taxes, more intrusion in 
people's lives. And Mr. Speaker, that's all we've seen over and over 
again from the Democratic majority.
  In fact, not all Democrats believe in that. I'll give you an example. 
During the debate on ObamaCare, I proposed--in fact, I wrote an op-ed 
along with Congressman Dent and Congressman Shadegg--one's from 
Pennsylvania and one's from Arizona--challenging our Democratic 
colleagues to introduce a Democratic bill that I had the language for. 
All they had to do was write the name of the sponsor in a blank and 
introduce it. It would be a Democratic bill. They could claim it to be 
ObamaCare.
  It would do four things: cross-State-line purchases for businesses 
and individuals; number two, anybody in this country could join an 
association pool--all across the country, multiple associations--to 
have the opportunity to buy and own their own health insurance through 
the association; number three, to encourage States to set up high-risk 
pools to cover those who are uninsurable; and number four, to have tax 
fairness so that everybody in this country could deduct 100 percent of 
their health care and health insurance cost off their income taxes.
  I had Democrat after Democrat tell me this: They said, Paul, that 
makes sense. It really makes sense. But I can't do it. I can't do it 
because my leadership would punish me if I did. If I introduced that 
bill and tried to push it through the Democratic Caucus, my leadership 
would punish me for doing to so. I was told by Democrat after Democrat 
that they were focusing on only one thing, and that's ObamaCare as we 
know it.
  The debate was over whether we were going to have a robust public 
option, a public option not so robust, or a public exchange. And that's 
what we wound up getting, which is actually ``public option lite''--
public option on a diet. All three of those are geared and guaranteed 
to force everybody in this country into a government-controlled health 
insurance program controlled from Washington, D.C.
  The only bipartisan vote on ObamaCare was ``no.'' We had Democrats 
and Republicans voting ``no.'' Every Republican voted ``no.'' Seventy-
five percent of America said ``no.'' But we have it now as law because 
Ms. Pelosi and the Democratic leadership are not listening to America. 
They're not listening to America when America says, Where are the jobs? 
We're doing that. I'm doing that.
  I hold America Speaking Out town hall meetings. Republicans are going 
to be doing that all over this country during this August district work 
period. We want to hear from America. I encourage every American who is 
concerned about where we're going as a Nation, that's concerned about 
public policy--whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, Independent, 
whether you're a liberal or a conservative, whether you consider 
yourself a moderate--I'm encouraging everybody in this country to go to 
AmericaSpeakingOut.com and speak out. Give us your ideas about how to 
solve the problems, the economic problems. Give us your ideas about how 
to solve this unemployment problem.

                              {time}  1730

  I want to hear. That's the reason I've done many, I have even lost 
count, somewhere between 10 and 20 America Speaking Out town hall 
meetings and meetings with small business and large groups over the 
last several months, and I will continue to do so. Republicans are 
doing that all over the country. I wish my Democratic colleagues would 
do the same thing and listen to the American public.

[[Page 13764]]

  Since last August, our Democratic colleagues went and hid because of 
the ire of the American public, at least most of them did, a lot of 
them did. Some you can see that didn't, you can see the result on 
YouTube right now today, Mr. Speaker. There's a tremendous anger 
expressed all across this country to our Democratic colleagues about 
that bill.
  I held town hall meetings last August in the 10th Congressional 
District in Georgia, multiple of them, and I was cheered because I was 
against ObamaCare. I was cheered. America has an opportunity to speak 
out now through americaspeakingout.com, but we need to change the 
policies, Mr. Speaker. We've got to stop this socialization, 
nationalization of our private sector. We've got to stimulate small 
businesses, and the only way we can do that is to give them the money 
they need to expand their business, to buy inventory. My jobs act, H.R. 
4100, will do just that.
  I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the American public that are watching right 
now will ask their Congressmen to cosponsor it. I ask my Democratic 
colleagues to cosponsor H.R. 4100, and let's make it a bipartisan jobs 
act, jump-start our business sector. The way I pay for all that is to 
take the unspent stimulus dollars to pay for the tax reduction. So it's 
paid for, won't create any more debt. It won't borrow from our 
children's and our grandchildren's future. It is a commonsense 
solution.
  But that's not what we're getting from our Democratic colleagues. 
We're getting more government, more central control from Washington, 
bigger bureaucracy, higher taxes that are going to cost Americans jobs, 
send jobs overseas where people in the Philippines or in China or 
whatever are working and doing jobs that Americans could very well be 
doing. But Americans are not having the opportunity to do those jobs 
because the policies of Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid are 
driving jobs offshore, driving jobs away from America. We've got to 
change those policies.
  We do that through tax cuts. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President 
Kennedy, cut taxes, and what happened when he did? We saw a tremendous 
growth of the economy. President Reagan did the same thing, tremendous 
growth of the economy. George W. Bush cut taxes, tremendous growth of 
the economy.
  The leadership of the House right now, today, wants to see those tax 
cuts that were put in place during all the years of the Bush 
administration, wants to see them expire. That's going to kill more 
jobs here in this country, and it's going to mean that farmers and 
small businesses are going to have to close down and sell their assets 
just to pay their higher taxes that are going to be required.
  I'm told from some of my Democratic colleagues that there are many 
Democrats that don't want to see those tax cuts expire. There's some of 
our Democratic colleagues that understand that allowing those tax cuts 
to expire at the end of this year is going to cost jobs. So, again, the 
bipartisan approach to creating jobs is for us to at least keep those 
tax cuts because the jobs that are going to go away if those tax cuts 
expire won't go away. So we'll save jobs.
  The President has a fondness to talk about the jobs he's created or 
saved. Well, nobody can know how many were saved. We've seen some kind 
of funny finance calculations or accounting here because I know of one 
instance, for instance, as an example, that one company got some 
stimulus funds and they gave everybody in their company raises. They 
didn't hire any new persons, not the first new employee. But the 
government counted every one of those increases in wages as a new job, 
as a new job. That's inane. It's disingenuous. It's deceptive. That's 
what we see over and over again.
  We've got to stop that, Mr. Speaker. The American people deserve 
better, and I'm excited about the grassroots movement. If you want to 
call it the Tea Party movement, it's not just the Tea Party Patriots, 
Tea Party Express, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks. I can go on 
and on about different groups, the 9/12 Group. There are many.
  What my liberal colleagues and the press don't understand is that 
this is a grassroots organization, an effort, in all these 
organizations. It's not one monolithic thing. It is American citizens 
all over this country in their local communities that are speaking out. 
They're saying that they're taxed enough already. They see their jobs 
going away. They want to go to work. They see that the policies that we 
have been handed by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, those 
policies are destroying jobs. They're putting millions of Americans out 
of work. And what they see is more of the same, and they don't want 
more of the same. They're taxed enough already. They want to see some 
changes. And I'm excited because I believe we're going to see some big 
changes in November, big changes on November 2.
  See, Mr. Speaker, the most powerful political force in this country 
today is written about in the Constitution of the United States, and if 
you look at the document, if you look at the document itself, our 
Founding Fathers when they wrote the document, those three first words 
of the Constitution were bold and much, much larger, about four times 
larger, three or four times larger than all the rest of the text. What 
are those three words? ``We the People.''
  We the people are speaking. They're saying, Where are the jobs? 
Republicans are saying, Where are the jobs? What I'm hearing from the 
leadership on the other side, from Ms. Pelosi and company, We're going 
to give you more government, more taxes, more government control, 
bigger government, more government jobs, but less in the private sector 
is what the bottom line's going to be.
  Mr. Speaker, we've got to stop this. We've got to stop growing 
government and shrink it. We've got to stop this outrageous spending. 
We've got to repeal or replace ObamaCare with commonsense solutions 
that will maintain the quality of health care in this country, continue 
to allow the doctors and the patients to make decisions instead of some 
Washington bureaucrat, which is going to happen under ObamaCare.
  We've got to stop bailing out Wall Street and start bailing out small 
businesses by giving them the money that they need by allowing them to 
do business and leave the dollars in their pockets. Mr. Speaker, that's 
what's going to create new jobs. That's what's going to put our economy 
back on track. That's what's going to solve this economic downturn.
  I heard, when the President signed the financial reform bill--so-
called, which it's not. It puts in place permanent bailouts for Wall 
Street. It's going to hurt Main Street banks, the community banks. It's 
going to create bigger bureaucracy, more government jobs.

                              {time}  1740

  It is going to make it more difficult for small businesses to go to 
their local banker and get a loan.
  The President, my liberal colleagues, blamed a lack of financial 
regulations on the economic downturn, but that is not what caused the 
economic downturn. They are blind. They want to blame, as the previous 
speaker to me just blamed, the Bush administration. That is what I keep 
hearing. It is all Bush's fault. When are they going to take time?
  Mr. Speaker, when is Ms. Pelosi going to take responsibility? When is 
Barack Obama going to take responsibility for the disastrous, 
disastrous policies that they are forcing down the throats of the 
American people? It is past time for them to take responsibility, but 
they are not doing it.
  They are blaming the Bush administration. What caused the financial 
collapse was the government. It is the Community Reinvestment Act, 
Freddy and Fannie, poor Fed policy.
  There is some blame an Wall Street, absolutely. There is some blame, 
even in Main Street, Main Street banks. Greed is part of the cause of 
that, but it was policy that was established by Congress under the 
Carter administration with the Community Reinvestment Act, then a 
reform, so-called reform, which essentially forced banks to make loans 
to people who couldn't pay it back.

[[Page 13765]]

  Then we have Freddie and Fannie who would buy off those loans, poor 
Fed policy, that kept the interest rates low so that Freddie and Fannie 
could set up these no-documentation or low-documentation loans. That is 
what created the bubble and the burst.
  So it is government. Mr. Speaker, the best way to control quantity, 
quality and cost of all goods and services is a free enterprise system, 
unencumbered by taxes and regulations. You have two things. On the one 
hand you have government control, socialism. On the other hand you have 
the free market system, and the free market system will create jobs if 
we will allow it to do so.
  That is not what we are getting. We are getting bigger government, 
which is going to kill jobs. We need to stop that, Mr. Speaker. We need 
to create what has made this country so rich, so powerful, so 
successful as a political experiment in all of history. We have got to 
go back to those foundational principles, those foundational principles 
that are expressed in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in 
the governing force in the Constitution of the United States, as it was 
intended.
  Psalm 11, God asked a question. He says, if foundation should be 
destroyed, what are the righteous to do? God goes on talking about that 
He is sovereign and He reigns.
  But how does He reign in public policy? How does He reign in this 
country? Well, certainly our Creator reigns supernaturally, but He also 
reigns through those of us who know Him as Lord and Savior, those of us 
who look to our Creator for direction, those of us who look to the 
Judeo-Christian principles that our Founding Fathers held so firmly. 
And those principles are based on personal responsibility and 
accountability. Those principles are based on the free market system, 
on free enterprise, where people have the ability and opportunity to 
succeed.
  But they also have an opportunity to fail. Without an opportunity to 
fail, you don't have an opportunity to succeed. We see class warfare by 
our Democratic colleagues, where they hate the rich. They want to tax 
them to the hilt. They want to have a redistribution of wealth, as 
President Obama keeps talking about.
  But what is he saying? He is saying that he knows how to run 
everything in human endeavor. That is what the leadership here 
believes. They believe in central planning. They believe government 
knows best. They believe that government should tell us what to eat, 
what car to drive, and how to live our lives and what kind of health 
care we can have.
  Those policies destroy the free market, destroy small business. We 
see examples all over the world. Socialism has never worked, never will 
work, and I don't care whose socialism it is, whether it is Stalin's, 
Mao Zedong's, Castro's, Hugo Chavez's or Barack Obama's. It is not 
going to work; it never will work.
  We have got to stop it, and it is up to the American people to stop 
it. The American people need to speak out. Go on 
americaspeakingout.com. Demand from your Congressman, your Senator, 
that we stop this inane policy of creating bigger government, higher 
taxes, more regulation, more government, more control from Washington.
  Say ``no'' to all of that and say ``yes'' to tax cuts, to the free 
market system, to freedom. They want socialism. I want freedom. America 
wants freedom. We have got to demand it, Mr. Speaker, and it is up to 
the American people to do so. America can speak out, can speak out to 
my Democrat colleagues, can speak out to the President, can speak out 
to their Senators, speak out by going on americaspeakingout.com. Demand 
policy that's going to create jobs.
  I see I have been joined by my great friend and an excellent Member 
of this body and the Republican Conference, my good friend, Steve 
Scalise from New Orleans, Louisiana. He knows about this inane, 
disastrous policy that this administration has put in place, how it has 
killed jobs in Louisiana throughout the gulf coast, directly as well as 
indirectly.
  Mr. Scalise, thanks for joining us.
  Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my colleague from Georgia for yielding 
and for talking about this important issue.
  When we talk about jobs, today we had a long debate here on the House 
floor about unemployment. And, of course, if you look at what's been 
happening this last year and a half, the policies that have been 
brought forward by this President and by this leadership here and the 
people that are running this Congress, these policies have been 
creating a lot of the unemployment we have today; and you look, since 
the stimulus bill passed a year and a half ago that you and I opposed 
because we knew that it would be doing nothing other than growing the 
size of government, $787 billion of money that we didn't have, that was 
not only spent to grow the size of government, but the President said 
it had to be spent to keep unemployment from breaking 8 percent.
  Of course, now we are approaching 10 percent unemployment after that 
bill, after that massive amount of debt dumped onto the backs of our 
children and grandchildren. And then we look at more and more policies 
that have been coming since then that are eroding, eroding the economic 
base of this country.
  Of course, we are experiencing some very direct consequences 
firsthand in our State of Louisiana because of the President's ill-
advised moratorium on energy exploration. The President came up with 
this plan after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon tragic event 
that was both a human tragedy and now an environmental tragedy, which 
the President still to this day is not doing his job under the law in 
helping direct the effort to keep the oil off our marsh, which our 
local leaders are battling to do every day.
  Unfortunately, our local leaders tell us--and I have spoken to them. 
Anybody who speaks to them will tell you they are spending more of 
their time fighting the Federal Government than fighting the oil. But 
the biggest insult lately has been this moratorium because the 
moratorium, first of all, was actually opposed by the scientists and 
experts that the President put together after the explosion of that oil 
rig.
  They were tasked by the President to come up with a 30-day report on 
safety improvements. They actually came back with that 30-day report, 
and they made some good safety recommendations that I support. But the 
other thing they said was they opposed the moratorium on drilling that 
the President came out with.
  So when the President gets this report, he doesn't agree with it 
because for political reasons he wants to go and ban drilling, so he 
just discarded the science and trumped it with politics. Not only did 
they say in that report that they were opposed to the moratorium. I 
have spoken to a few of those scientists and experts and they said, 
they lay out a good case why the moratorium imposed by the President 
actually reduces safety in the gulf.
  So here you have got a double whammy kicking people when they are 
down. The people of south Louisiana are down, and yet the President who 
is supposed to be helping us is coming up with policies that are 
hurting the people of south Louisiana. Then this moratorium, not only 
does it go against the safety recommendations of his own scientific 
experts, but it actually now is costing us thousands of jobs.

                              {time}  1750

  There was an unemployment debate going on in this House today. Well, 
one of the reasons we've got unemployment is because of the President's 
policies. He should rescind that moratorium. A Federal court twice now 
told him to rescind it, and he refuses to do so. He refuses to listen 
to his own scientific experts who say it actually reduces safety in the 
gulf because you lose your most experienced crews. You actually 
increase our dependence on foreign oil, and it's imported by tankers. 
And 70 percent of all the oil spills occur on tankers. So now the 
President has increased the likelihood for future spills in the gulf 
with his moratorium that's running more jobs out of our country. And I 
yield back.

[[Page 13766]]


  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Scalise, I appreciate that. And 
not only is it killing jobs, but it's going to make everybody's 
gasoline go up. It's going to make electricity prices go up.
  I said here on the floor in a speech that the President's energy tax, 
cap and tax--or cap and trade, as they call it, some call it cap-and-
tax, I call it tax and trade because it's all about taxes--is going to 
hurt the most vulnerable people here in America. It's going to hurt the 
poor people. It's going to hurt the seniors who are on limited income 
more than anybody else. And it seems to me that this disastrous 
economic as well as environmental disaster that has happened in the 
gulf is being utilized by this President to try to force his energy 
policy, his tax and trade bill.
  I've been criticized by the liberals around the country because I've 
said it's going to hurt the poorest people in this country, and it 
will. In fact, the President himself said, ``It will necessarily make 
electricity prices skyrocket,'' make electricity prices skyrocket, 
necessarily, that's what the President said about the energy tax. It 
would necessarily make electricity prices skyrocket. Who's going to 
have the hardest time paying their electric bill? The poor folks in 
America, those people on limited income, the senior citizens, who can 
least afford to have their gasoline go up, to have their electricity go 
up. It's going to be disastrous. And it's going to kill jobs.
  In fact, the President talks about all the green jobs that are going 
to be produced. Spain put in a similar type of tax, a similar kind of 
policy in Spain, and it did produce green jobs. But Mr. Speaker, for 
every green job produced I think it was 2.3 jobs were lost, a net loss 
of 2.3 jobs for every job that was created. For every green job that 
was created, every green job created they lost 2.3 jobs. And that's 
what our President wants to force on the American public.
  I'm wondering whether he's closing down exploration in the gulf just 
to try to force through his energy tax. I don't know. But I've had 
people, as I've listened at my America Speaking Out town hall meetings 
I've had people across my district say that they wonder about that. I 
was doing an America Speaking Out town hall meeting in Athens, Georgia 
and a lady got up and she said she wanted to see all new energy 
exploration stopped, all new drilling for energy and gas to stop in 
this country. We had about 100 people there. I said, okay, let's find 
out what everybody else thinks. Now, mind you this is the most liberal 
county in my district, very Democratic. I didn't carry it as a 
Republican in any of my elections when there was a Democrat and 
Republican on the ballot. I did carry it in the special election when I 
was first elected, but not since. And I asked the public, we invited 
the general public, I said, how many of you in this audience want to 
see us stop any new exploration of oil and gas? Eight people held up 
their hands. Then I said, how many of you want to see us lift the 
moratorium and start back to exploring and tapping into our own 
resources here in America and continue drilling for oil and gas and 
continue developing our own natural resources our own energy sources? 
Everybody else. I think we had a total of 98 folks, so 90 people held 
up their hands that they wanted to see it continue, eight people said 
they wanted to see it stopped.
  Over and over again I've talked during this special hour about how 
the leadership--Ms. Pelosi and company--have gone against what the 
American people want. They want to see jobs created. We asked them, 
where are the jobs? They want to see their economy stimulated, not 
government. We asked them that.
  Mr. Scalise, I know that you've seen the disaster of the moratorium 
on the jobs in Louisiana, but it affects all the Gulf Coast States 
certainly, not only directly, but indirectly. In just the few minutes 
we have left, could you give us some examples of some of those non-
directly affected people, the fishermen, the people on the platforms, 
et cetera, could you give us some examples of those people who have 
been affected by this moratorium?
  Mr. SCALISE. Sure, I would be happy to share that with my colleague 
from Georgia.
  Of course Speaker Pelosi earlier today, during the debate, she 
actually said that unemployment creates jobs. Now, the logic of that I 
don't think anybody can understand, but that's what her statement was.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Real quickly, the people I talk to don't want 
an unemployment check, they want a paycheck. And I yield back.
  Mr. SCALISE. And that's exactly what the people in the gulf want. The 
people don't want an unemployment check, they want jobs. They've got 
good jobs, and they're being taken away by the President. And what 
they've said is keep this industry going, let's do it safely. And there 
are good outlines of how to do it safely. In fact, most of the 
companies out there in the gulf in even deeper waters than BP weren't 
cutting corners, weren't doing things the wrong way. They were doing 
everything safe, and they were shut down. BP is the only one out there 
drilling right now.
  If you listened, we had tragic testimony from two of the widows who 
lost their husbands in that explosion in the committee I serve on. And 
both of them said it's tragic what happened. The rules should have been 
enforced that weren't enforced, the safety rules should have been 
followed. But they said don't shut down this industry, it's our way of 
life. We know it can be done safely. You need to insist that those 
rules are enforced, which they weren't. Don't shut down the industry.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, where are the jobs? We need to 
have different policies to create jobs than what we've been given by 
Ms. Pelosi and company.
  I yield back.

                          ____________________