[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12965-12973]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  THE GOVERNMENT, THE ECONOMY AND JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, it's a treat to be able to join you this 
evening to talk about the things that are of great significance to our 
country and to every individual citizen that lives in America. I 
thought that as we got into the subject of where things are with jobs 
and the economy tonight I might start by introducing it in a little 
different way than we do sometimes here on the floor, and what I'm 
going to be talking about tonight really is the fact that there is this 
fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats. And most of 
the fighting and argument comes really in the answer to just one 
question. It's kind of a really simple thing. And the question is this: 
What should the Federal Government do? That's really what divides us. 
That's what makes all the people here in this Chamber disagree with 
each other, and sometimes even scream and yell, but at least 
respectfully disagree with each other, because we have a fundamentally 
different idea of what the Federal Government should do. That's a huge 
part of what we discuss. And, of course, the more that the Federal 
Government is going to do, it is going to cost more. And the more that 
it costs, the more regulations and all that you have, the more laws 
that are passed. And, inevitably, as the government does more, people 
have less freedom.
  So there is some sort of a question, well, you know, what should the 
Federal Government do. So we're going to be talking in a way about that 
tonight because it is the question of politics, essentially. And of 
course the Democrat position is--it's almost like the law of gravity, 
that wherever there's a problem, the answer always is more taxes and 
more government. The government should fix that problem. That's what 
they think. And the Republicans always say, well, we want less taxes 
and less government, and they tend to go that way. So we're going to 
talk a little bit about that.
  We're also going to talk about sort of a theoretical question that 
sometimes I used to ask interns. We had an intern program. These are 
students that are in college and are just about to graduate from 
college. And I would ask them this question, and that is, Is it 
possible for the government to steal? Can the government steal from 
people? And you'd see they'd get these quizzical or puzzled looks on 
their faces. Can the government steal? Well, what does that mean? And 
you'd see them thinking, Well, I guess it's impossible because the 
government can kind of do anything they want and, therefore, the 
government can't steal.
  Of course if you come to the conclusion that the government can't 
steal, then that means that you believe the government owns everything. 
Do you really believe that? Many people are taught that in school. As 
they get older, as they work hard for a living, they start to take a 
different perspective. They worked hard for that dollar bill, and 
they're not so sure they want the government to confiscate it.
  Anyway, we are going to be talking a little bit about the conditions 
in our economy and where we are. Why is it that we have a problem with 
jobs? Why is the economy flat on its back? Why do we have a sense that 
things are not well in America? And there are some answers to those 
questions. It's not complicated. We simply look to the people who have 
gone before us and see what those are.
  I am joined here this evening by a new Member of Congress, a young 
man that shows tremendous promise and is joining us here on the floor 
tonight from Georgia. Georgia seems to be a good State for growing 
congressmen. And my good friend Congressman Graves is joining me on the 
floor here tonight from the State of Georgia. We are here early enough 
that it may be that even some of your constituents will have a chance 
to say, Hey, that's my guy. We sent him to Congress, and he's doing a 
great job.
  Welcome, Congressman, and we are going to get into things here in 
just a minute. I thought I might start, though, by going back a little 
bit to how did this economic problem come to be.

                              {time}  1750

  And of course history just kind of continues to go along. But if I 
had to pick a point, this is kind of an interesting one. This is 
September 11, but it's not 2001, it's 2003, 2 years after the attack on 
New York City, September 11, 2003.
  This is the New York Times, not exactly a conservative oracle, is 
reporting some news and this the news. It says that the Bush 
administration today recommended the most significant regulatory 
overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan 
crisis nearly a decade ago.

[[Page 12966]]

  And it goes on to say that under the plan disclosed in the 
congressional hearing today a new agency would be created within the 
Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie 
Mac. Why? Because they just lost about a billion dollars, and they 
weren't running their house very well.
  Now, Freddie and Fannie are not government organizations. They're 
quasi-government. And when Freddie and Fannie started doing some wild 
and wooly things economically, the problem was that the assumption was 
the Federal Government would come and bail them out. And so Freddie and 
Fannie are getting out. This is 2003. Real estate market's booming.
  President Bush says, watch out, Freddie and Fannie are getting in 
trouble. I need more authority as President to control Freddie and 
Fannie. Freddie and Fannie, paying many lobbyists up here on the Hill, 
dishing out hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, thousand 
dollar bills, just passing them out all over here. So there's Freddie 
and Fannie. They're starting to get in trouble. President Bush says 
we've got to regulate them.
  Now the Democrats, on the other hand, the guy who is now in charge of 
taking care of regulating Freddie and Fannie because he's in the 
majority now, this is Congressman Frank, the Democrat, he says, these 
two entities, Freddie and Fannie, are not facing any kind of financial 
crisis.
  Well, that's interesting. We, of course, 20/20 hindsight we say, 
well, obviously you were wrong. I'm sure he would admit he was wrong. 
They were facing a financial crisis. And as Freddie and Fannie start to 
crash and collapse, we start to see the recession that's upon us. And 
so that was a piece of it.
  Now, Freddie and Fannie, their whole concept was that we're going to 
require banks to make loans to people who really can't afford to pay 
the loans. Now, how that's compassionate I'm not so sure because I 
wouldn't want to be in debt to some loan for my home that I couldn't 
afford to pay the mortgage payments on.
  But many people were encouraged to take loans out on houses because 
they're going up in value so fast during those years. You just go ahead 
and take the loan, postpone paying any interest payments. Five years 
later turn the house over, you doubled your money. It sounded good for 
a while until the music stopped, and then you didn't have a chair to 
sit in. And so we have the beginning of this financial problem that was 
based on liberal social policy that said that banks have to loan money 
to people who can't afford to pay those mortgages, and we'll just sort 
of sweep it under the carpet.
  Well, then as the economy crashes, what happens? Well, we go back to 
the same old mistake we've made in the past. Unfortunately, with the 
stimulus bill the Democrats didn't learn from their mistakes. I wish 
they would learn from other Democrats. They may not want to learn from 
Republicans, but at least learn from other Democrats.
  This guy, Henry Morgenthau, is Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Treasury 
Secretary, and he's the one that started with the recession which 
turned into the Great Depression because they did the wrong things.
  So he says now, after 8 years--their idea was that if you grab the 
loops of your boots and pull hard enough, you can fly around the room. 
The idea is if the government spends enough money, it will make the 
economy do really well. And so they tried it for 8 years. And this is 
his report to Congress.
  He says, We have tried spending money. We're spending more than we've 
ever spent before, and it does not work. I wish they heard those words: 
``it does not work.''
  I say, after 8 years of the administration, we have just as much 
unemployment as when we started, and an enormous debt to boot.
  You want to know why we've got unemployment? Because we haven't 
learned from going back even to FDR's Treasury. This was Keynesian 
economics. It says if the government hires a whole lot of people, 
spends a whole lot of money, it's going to make the economy okay. But 
the trouble is, it doesn't work.
  I'd like to ask my good friend from Georgia now, Congressman Graves, 
if you would just join us. Let's talk a little bit about this whole 
situation because I don't want to be just critical of the Democrats. I 
will be critical of them, not because I don't like them, but because 
they're wrong. Their economics are wrong. They're doing the wrong 
thing. They're hurting the American public.
  People are out of jobs, and what we need to do is say, that's not the 
right way to do it. But we have to have a good solution. We have to 
offer something constructive.
  And let's talk about that. I yield.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. It's great to join you tonight on this 
discussion. I think it's the number one discussion going on across 
America right now, and that's our economy, how's it going to get back 
on track.
  And we've seen 15, 16 failed months of economic policy coming out of 
Washington, DC right here. And as I spent my time on the recess, and I 
had the opportunity 31 individual times to speak to various groups on 
those 12 days, I can tell you the economy is on the tops of the minds 
of the people.
  Mr. AKIN. It sounds like the people from Georgia got their nickel's 
worth out of their Congressman. Thirty-one separate meetings?
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Thirty-one separate addresses or speeches over 
12 straight days.
  Mr. AKIN. I wouldn't want to be your car.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. But I can tell you, it's the number one topic 
on the minds of north Georgians, is how to get this economy back on 
track.
  But what astonished Georgians so much was that just 4 days before 
July 4, the day of independence, the day of celebrating independence 
from tyranny and bondage of years ago, 4 days before that, $167 billion 
of indebtedness was created on 1 day here because of the Federal 
Government. That's the numbers, 1, 6 and 7, with 9 zeroes behind it, a 
phenomenal amount, nearly $1,500 per person here in the United States 
just on 1 day.
  Mr. AKIN. You're saying $167 billion of indebtedness just up to the 
time of just before the 4th of July?
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. No, just on 1 day. That was June 30, June 30 
of this year alone, which was more than the deficit of 2006 altogether.
  And you look at the stated budget of the State of Georgia, the annual 
budget is about $17 billion today. So almost 10 times the budget of the 
State of Georgia for an entire year was borrowed in 1 day here for the 
Federal Government.
  Mr. AKIN. Wow, that's a lot of borrowing.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. So Georgians want to know how are we going to 
get back on track. So I spent part of my time this week on what I was 
calling my Economic Advisory Tour. We decided we're going to tear down 
the walls that we see here in Washington where Washington is not 
listening to the constituents. Instead, we're going to open up 
communication. Instead of Washington pushing down ideas on job creation 
on the private sector, why don't we get the ideas from the business 
leaders themselves, the risk-takers, the entrepreneurs, the ones that 
have the vision and the dreams themselves.
  And so we had a great tour this week. And we came up with a simple 
formula. We're not that far away. In fact, we have, what, in America, 
17 million Americans without a job, 27 million businesses all 
throughout the Nation; and we know all those businesses want to expand, 
succeed, have a profit because we believe profit's a good word here in 
the Republican Caucus.
  But you have 17 million unemployed. You have 27 million businesses, 
so the formula is simple. If just one business out of every three would 
hire one person in the next 12 months, unemployment would be cut in 
half. And you know what? I didn't say government.
  Mr. AKIN. That's pretty straightforward. All you have to do is just 
create one job per every three businesses, and there's no more 
unemployment.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. And we didn't say if government would hire one 
more American. We said the private sector. So the question comes

[[Page 12967]]

down to this, and this is probably what would be a great discussion 
tonight is, Why? Why are businesses in north Georgia and all across 
this Nation saying, you know what? I'm not going to hire somebody right 
now, even though I want to. I want to expend my business. I want to see 
my profits grow, my sales increase. I want to invest in capital, but 
I'm not right now.
  Mr. AKIN. Not going to do it. Hey, you know, I'd really like to pick 
up because, as you said, there are people sitting around having dinner 
in America. In fact, I'm a little hungry myself. I'm going to look 
forward to getting some chow. But they're sitting around there talking 
about the same things you and I are talking about here tonight.
  And we've talked about one solution, which was the government takes 
$800 billion. That's what the Democrats did with their stimulus bill, 
and they said, if you don't pass this stimulus bill, do you know what's 
going to happen? We might get unemployment as high as 8 percent if you 
don't pass this stimulus bill. So the Republicans didn't vote for it, 
but they pushed it through anyway. Spent $800 billion.
  And it really wasn't even good old FDR, you know, ``stimulus.'' It 
wasn't concrete to build hydro-plants or roads. It was basically taking 
money from one State, like in the State of, I don't know about Georgia, 
but Missouri, we're fairly conservative and we have a balanced budget, 
and we're not overspending. And yet you've got Illinois or California, 
they're overspending on the pensions of a lot of, like, teachers and 
things. So they take money away from our States, and I assume Georgia 
is probably a little bit more cautious fiscally. They take money away 
from our constituents and send them to the other States where the 
governments have been out of control spending.
  Well, anyway, so they get this idea.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Wealth redistribution.
  Mr. AKIN. The old wealth redistribution. The old socialism deal. So 
anyway it is $800 billion. And here is what actually happened. This is 
putting people back to work the big government, Democrat way. Look what 
happens to the employment in the private sector. It's this white line. 
So 2007, 8, 9, 10, you see there is unemployment. And yet if you take a 
look at the red line, that's the Federal Government. It's hiring all 
right. Instead of letting the businesses keep some of their money and 
hire people, instead they're hiring government workers. So that's how 
it works.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. If I remember right, what, about 700,000 
temporary workers for census data gathering, which already a third of 
them have been laid off.
  Mr. AKIN. The trouble is really the government can't stimulate the 
economy. The whole assumption is silly, because all the government does 
is takes money and spend it. But if you hire a government employee, 
does that create a job? The answer is no, because for every one 
government employee you have two jobs you have lost from the private 
sector because you are sucking money out of the private sector. So when 
you have the government spending a lot, you take jobs away. That's 
what's going on. That's why the jobs are going.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. If I could expand upon that, because you make 
an interesting point. Because what I have started to understand, just 
from talking to business owners, is that the labor pool is a zero sum 
game. You are either in the private sector or you are in the government 
sector, one or the other. And so as the government sector expands, you 
are actually drawing intellectual capital and wealth out of the private 
sector all together and expanding the governmental sector. So the 
inverse of that would be if we want to shift some intellectual capital 
and wealth back to the private sector, we must shrink the governmental 
sector.
  Mr. AKIN. It's one of those things, it's sort of an inevitable law. 
And you can't just let the government continue to grow and grow and 
grow, because eventually it takes over everything like a cancer.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. I guess to illustrate that point even more 
clearly, let's assume government is the solution here. And we hear a 
lot of people say government's the solution. So why don't we make every 
American a government employee? Why wouldn't we do that if everyone 
could have--
  Mr. AKIN. Don't you go giving people ideas here in D.C. Somebody will 
try and do that you know.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. But they say that's the solution, to expand 
government. That's what creates jobs. So why don't we do that for 
everyone?
  Mr. AKIN. Of course, obviously, that doesn't work, does it?
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. It doesn't work. Why? You are right. The 
answer then is the private sector.
  Mr. AKIN. This is what was promised with the government bailout. You 
know, we are going to do the stimulus bill, $800 billion. And if you do 
the stimulus bill, these are the numbers the administration and the 
Democrats said--this is what's going to happen to unemployment; it's 
going to go down. And if you don't pass the bill, they said this is 
what's going to happen. But we did pass the bill, and that's what 
happened. Obviously, their economics don't work. They don't understand 
the facts.
  So where have we gone? Here is the picture right here. This is the 
nasty little secret down here. You remember hearing that they used to 
say that George Bush spent too much money.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Right. Eight failed years, if I remember 
right.
  Mr. AKIN. See, those are these blue years, was George Bush. And then 
right here was a Bush year, but this is when Speaker Pelosi was in 
charge of Congress. So this was in a way, if you give Bush credit for 
when Pelosi was in Congress, Congresswoman Pelosi, then this would be 
his worst year, which is about $460 billion worth of deficit. That's 
his worst year.
  The next year, 2009, was when President Obama and the Democrats ran 
everything. Take a look at this jump. My goodness, it's a three times 
worse deficit than the Republicans had run under Bush, and Bush was 
spending too much money. And I agree we were spending too much money. 
And then the next year, 2010, it's even worse.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. So if you go back to your other graph that 
talked about employment and the growth of employment, or I guess in our 
case what we are talking about is the growth of unemployment today, you 
would see it probably correlates with that deficit spending.
  Mr. AKIN. If you spend more money, look what happens. You start to 
lose jobs.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Yeah.
  Mr. AKIN. Now, does that make sense? Is that logical? Now, you know, 
I was talking to a bunch of people, too, as I went around my district. 
And you know, people make economics way too complicated. I said, look, 
it's not that complicated. It's like a lemonade stand. Just picture you 
run a lemonade stand. It doesn't have to be complicated. And if you 
want a little business, if it's a lemonade stand or a machine shop or 
whatever it is, you want to make some jobs, you want to do some jobs, 
what you want is you have got to allow the guy that owns it to make 
enough profit from it so that he will add another wing on it, and he is 
going to sell tea mixed with lemonade, and then he is going to have 
peach lemonade, and different things and different products, different 
people. So as he expands his business he hires more people.
  But in order to let him do that, first of all he's got to keep enough 
of his profit to be able to invest it back in his business. I mean it's 
isn't complicated. Don't make economics so hard. And so I am sure you 
are talking to your constituents. My constituents are nodding their 
head up and down, yeah, I understand that. Not that complicated.
  So if you want to know what's going to kill jobs, the first thing is 
excessive taxation. It's just a killer to jobs. Where does the 
government get all its money? Taxation. Did you talk about that back in 
Georgia?
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. We did. And I know we are moving to solutions 
here.
  Mr. AKIN. Good.

[[Page 12968]]


  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. It's easy to look back and sort of, I guess, 
bash the policies of the last several months, but what's important 
right now as a Nation is looking for leadership. I mean there has been 
a lack of leadership coming out of Washington for some time now. The 
Nation's looking for leadership. They're looking for a vision. They're 
looking for a plan. And what we have discovered is it's about certainty 
in the marketplace. When the marketplace has a little bit of certainty 
about what's going to happen in the future, that creates confidence. 
There is no confidence in the business marketplace.
  So your first point up there is excessive taxation. The one thing 
that is certain right now is that because of inaction right here in 
Congress because of the Democrat leadership, taxes will go up this 
January of 2011. Capital gains will rise. Dividend tax will rise. Every 
income tax bracket will rise. The death tax will rise. The marriage 
penalty will rise. All of those will rise. So if we want to bring some 
confidence back to the marketplace, we would make those tax cuts 
permanent, wouldn't you think?
  Mr. AKIN. You are absolutely right. I think you are hitting a couple 
of different points in this chart. The first one I am talking about is 
excessive taxation. But taxation also creates an economic uncertainty. 
And if you have got that lemonade stand and you don't know what's going 
on, you think maybe a tornado is coming, or maybe there is a tornado 
coming from Washington, or whatever it is, what you are going to do is 
you are going to hunker down. In Missouri, we use the word hunker down. 
I don't know if there is a verb to hunker or not.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. You know, that's a favorite Georgia Bulldogs 
statement.
  Mr. AKIN. Is it? Okay. Anyway, if you are talking about economic 
uncertainty, if you don't know what's going on as a businessman, what 
you are going to do is you are going to be very cautious, very 
conservative, and you are not going to hire a bunch of extra people.
  But let's take a look at these job killers. Excessive taxation. 
Lets's take a look at what's coming down the pike. You have to be able 
to see. This is the largest tax increase in history unless Congress is 
going to act to deal with it. First of all, for married people the 
standard deduction decreases if you are married. And then parents, you 
have a child tax credit, it will be cut in half from a thousand to 500 
per kid. If you die this year and you have an estate, you pay nothing. 
Next year if you die, 55 percent tax on it.
  You are a small businessman. You have gotten to be 80 years old. You 
got your business all going, it's really doing good. It's actually a 
farm. It's 1,000 acres with some big pieces of equipment. It's worth 
$10 million, your farm is. And you up and die this year, and you pass 
that farm on to your son and he runs it, no problem. Next year same 
thing happens, you got the nice farm, got it all set up, you die, the 
government says, hey, taps your son on the shoulder, I need 55 percent. 
But he says wait a minute. If I take half the land of the farm then it 
doesn't make the thing work economically. I can't run the farm on half 
the land and half the equipment. If I have to sell 55 percent of it, 
you are going to put me out of business. They say you don't understand. 
You owe the IRS 55 percent of the cost of that farm. And so that small 
business closes down next year because of this policy.
  Because what are we doing? Largest tax increase in history. Take a 
look at some of these tax increases. If you are paying 10 percent, you 
are going to be paying 15 percent next year. Those who are paying 25 
percent of what they earn, they are going to be paying 28 percent. 
Those paying 28 are going to go to 31. Those paying 33 are going to go 
to 36. Thirty-five is going to go 39. Capital gains, dividends, death 
taxes. All of this stuff is going up.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Now, if I remember right, a couple years ago 
we heard a lot about hope, a lot about change. Taxes were not going to 
go up on the middle class if I remember right. But if I look at your 
charts, it's clear that the taxes are going to go up on not just the 
middle class, but every class. Everyone will pay taxes, regardless of 
where they are on the economic spectrum whatsoever. And as a result, 
businesses will not hire as many individuals because their taxes are 
going to go up. And if businesses aren't hiring individuals, 
unemployment continues to rise. Unemployment continues to rise, it 
impacts everyone throughout this Nation. Again we are back in this 
crazy cycle.
  Mr. AKIN. Same cycle again. So basically what you are saying is, 
let's say that you don't make hardly any money at all. And so you are 
saying to yourself, hey, I am not making much money, so I am not paying 
any income taxes. So do I care? I like it if the taxes go up.

                              {time}  1810

  Oh, no, you don't, because what happens if you have excessive 
taxation? You get no jobs. You know, you can't just beat up on 
businesses, say all businesses are bad and then complain there aren't 
any jobs. So if we keep soaking the owners of businesses with excessive 
taxation, we're going to have a problem with jobs.
  So what the solution to these problems is--we're making it sound 
complicated. It shouldn't be complicated. It's simply that you've got 
to back off on taxes and back off on government spending. It's as 
simple as that.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. So the solutions aren't reform and takeover of 
various industry in this Nation. In fact, it's just the opposite, 
because in the 15 counties that I spoke to this week, they said, Look, 
just get out of our way. Let us once again be creative, come up with 
the ideas to dream and to expand my business. But don't put that next 
regulation, don't force health care upon me. Don't increase taxes right 
now at all. Instead, let us, the business owners, the entrepreneurs, 
the risk-takers, the ones who are willing to risk it all and work the 
hardest here and put it all on the line, allow us to do that without 
government interference.
  Mr. AKIN. This is kind of an amazing chart. These are all different 
countries all around the world down here, and there's a little green 
line there. And this is the corporate tax rates. And this little green 
line happens to be the United States. And the only one with higher 
taxes on corporations is Japan. And we wonder, gosh, we can't 
understand why we've lost jobs in this country. Well, we've got the 
second highest corporate tax rate going, not to mention the taxes on 
individuals, as you're saying.
  So we're not doing the job. And part of the reason we're doing all of 
this taxation, of course, is because we're spending too much money.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. It seems that there was a report put out by 
the Heritage Foundation that indicated that America is now classified 
for the first time as ``mostly free,'' I believe, given their ranking 
system. And that would be a great illustration. I don't think most 
Americans realize that America is second highest in the world when it 
comes to corporate tax rates, behind Japan, that all of these other 
nations that you have on this chart have lower tax rates than the 
United States of America. And we wonder why jobs go overseas to other 
countries.
  Mr. AKIN. Right. And that's the thing. People get really upset. In 
fact, the Democrats that were talking before we came on tonight, 
they're very upset that all of these jobs went overseas. And I'm 
thinking to myself, Well, who's pushing all of the jobs overseas? You 
create an environment in America that is hostile to business and the 
jobs are going to go overseas. It is as inevitable as water running 
downhill.
  And what do we do? We keep increasing taxes, increasing government 
spending, and the smart executives and corporations in America that 
have plants and facilities all over the world, they keep creating jobs. 
It's just the jobs aren't here. The jobs are going overseas because 
they've created such a hostile environment that the jobs aren't going 
to be here. And how do they make the environment hostile? Well, first 
of all, by too much in taxes, and the second thing, of course, is too 
much spending.

[[Page 12969]]

  Here's a containment dome. We've had some trouble with oil leaking 
out of containment domes. And here's one. This is a containment dome. 
There's another containment dome, and it's not working either. It sure 
isn't working. Take a look at the rate of the spending that we've been 
doing. And the spending is always followed by, of course, a whole lot 
of taxation.
  And so the first thing is, if you want to get this thing back on 
track, if you want to do the opposite of job killers, you want to 
create jobs, then what you need to do is you want to cut your taxation. 
This is one of those things I started out by saying I wish the 
Democrats would learn from the other Democrats, and one of them they 
could learn from was JFK. JFK had a bad economy and he did the right 
thing. He cut taxes. And when he cut taxes significantly, guess what 
happened? More jobs, stronger economy.
  And the funny thing is--now this is sort of odd. If you cut taxes, 
the Federal Government will actually take in more money in revenue than 
if you didn't tax it. Have you thought about that? It's almost 
counterintuitive.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Well, it explains exactly what we need to do. 
You're right. It's counterintuitive, but it works. Just as if that were 
to work, then the opposite must be true if you increased taxes. That 
means your revenue decreases. There is a great illustration in the 
State of Georgia. They're trying to increase the tobacco tax in order 
to fill a budget hole. But prior to that, the administration here had 
raised tobacco taxes. And as a result of the raise of tobacco taxes 
from the Federal level, income of the State tobacco taxes had decreased 
by 20 percent.
  Mr. AKIN. So let's do that again, because these numbers are 
interesting.
  You're saying Georgia basically did a little experiment along these 
lines. It was a specific tax on one product--that is, tobacco--and they 
increased the tax on tobacco.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. They were proposing to increase the tax on 
tobacco. Then they looked, and they looked at what had happened just 
prior to that. And it was the year before, and it was the 
administration here that actually raised taxes on tobacco. And as a 
result of that, the revenue for the State of Georgia actually declined 
20 percent. Without the State of Georgia raising taxes, the Federal 
Government raising taxes, but the State of Georgia's taxes that they 
would normally collect from tobacco actually declined by 20 percent. 
This shows that when you increase taxes, you actually--productivity or 
consumption, all of those things, decrease and therefore it's more 
damaging to the economy.
  Mr. AKIN. I was trying to explain that to some--because I give some 
of these talks to my constituents, and one of the ways I try to explain 
it is let's say that you're king for a day and your job is to tax a 
loaf of bread and you want to get as much tax revenue as you can by 
taxing bread. And so you go through this little exercise in your mind 
and say, I can tax the bread $10 a loaf or one penny a loaf. If I taxed 
at one penny a loaf, nobody would notice, and I would get a penny times 
all of those loaves of bread. But if I got $10 on a loaf, wow, I could 
make a lot of money, but then maybe nobody would buy any bread because 
it's too expensive. So common sense would say somewhere between a penny 
and $10 you're going to come to an optimum place where you can get the 
most tax on it and people will still keep buying bread. If you increase 
it, you actually lose revenue; If you decrease it--so there's an 
optimum spot.
  And what's happening is the government is taxing people so much, by 
increasing the taxes, it basically stalls the economy and so their 
revenue drops.
  Now, if I were a happy socialist, if I were really one of these guys 
that wants the government to do everything for everybody----
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Is there such thing as a happy socialist? I 
mean, help me with that.
  Mr. AKIN. That's the trouble. There aren't very many of them that are 
happy because they're so worried about somebody else making money that 
they don't think--if I were a happy socialist, I would want a strong 
economy so I had more money to swap around to my buddies, you see. But 
instead what we're doing is we raise the taxes so much, it kills the 
economy and we don't have as much money to work on.
  Now, the Federal Government doesn't notice it so much, but State 
governments that have balanced budgets--Missouri has a balanced budget 
amendment. We have to balance a budget. And if you're a legislator or 
Governor, particularly in a State that has a balanced budget--and most 
of them do--when you have a recession, it is a tough time to be the 
leader of your State because people hate you because you have to keep 
cutting things to keep the budget balanced. Of course, down here, we 
just let it go.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. It's that print, spend, and borrow mentality 
down here.
  What you were referring to a minute ago, there's a line of 
demarcation that I refer to as the tipping point that occurs. And 
whether it's an economy or anywhere else, there is a great book written 
on that very subject matter of how that occurs throughout time in 
various ways.
  So what we need to do right now is look for solutions that tip the 
other way. I think we Republicans are certainly the ones for less 
taxes, less government, personal responsibility, and it's those 
positive solutions that I think Americans are looking for right now. 
They're looking for that glimmer of, I guess, sunshine out there that 
says we're going to get through this.
  I'm telling you, we are going to get through this. We're going to get 
through this as Americans together working hard, once again, dreaming 
and not being dependent on the Federal Government to be the solution.
  Mr. AKIN. You're absolutely right. I like the idea of being positive. 
And the solutions, one of them was JFK. He cut taxes, and the 
recession, after a period of about a year, turns right around and 
things go along well. Ronald Reagan did the same thing. Massive tax 
cut. As soon as he did that, the economy--takes a little while--the 
economy turns right around because there's money now being invested not 
in more big government but the businessman puts that money into 
different new ways of creating, buying another milling machine, another 
wing on the building, more money for research and development to come 
up with a better way to make a product. And all of those things 
together, when the money goes back to the small business man, they 
start to hire people.
  I think--what is it?--companies with 500 or fewer employees employ 80 
percent of Americans. So if those smaller businesses from 500 employees 
on down, if they got more money to spend on their own business, that's 
part of the solution. And everybody does better when that happens.
  Of course, another thing that kills jobs is this insufficient 
liquidity. The businessman can't borrow money because it's all tied up 
in banks. Of course, we've got that problem going on now, too, and part 
of the reason is the government is gobbling up so much money with their 
incredible, incredible level of Federal spending which, once again, we 
point to this chart. This is what's happened under Obama the first 2 
years of his Presidency. It's three times more deficit than Bush, in 
his worst year, had.
  So this liquidity is a big deal to the businessman. And the banking 
rules right now make it hard for small business men to get liquidity. 
And as you mentioned, the economic uncertainty. Who is going to take a 
risk when you see the lineup of what's happened to us? First of all, 
you've got Wall Street bailout, and then you've got Cash for Clunkers, 
and you've got this stimulus bill where we waste $800 billion.

                              {time}  1820

  And then we passed cap-and-tax at three o'clock in the morning. It 
was supposed to be about how bad CO2 is, and what's the 
solution to the bill to keep CO2 down? You guessed it, a 
whole lot of taxes and a whole lot of red tape and government 
regulations
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Those taxes are only on Big Business, right, 
that

[[Page 12970]]

wouldn't impact the consumer? That seems to be the argument that is put 
out there, but we all know that it's not Big Business that pays taxes. 
It's not the corporations that pay taxes. It's all passed down through 
the consumer through the cost of any goods and services as any other 
cost would be in a service or in a product.
  But I've been here 30 days. Thirty days I've been sworn in here as a 
Member of Congress.
  Mr. AKIN. We are glad to have you, too. We wish we had some more 
people who would vote along the lines of getting these jobs going and 
getting the economy going.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. It is an honor to represent Georgia's Ninth 
Congressional District. I tell you, in Georgia what an incredible 
State. I know your State is great as well. But we have 13 Fortune 500 
companies, three Fortune 100, the world's busiest and largest airport, 
the fourth busiest port in the Nation, an incredible university system 
and so much when it comes to entrepreneurial sprit.
  Mr. AKIN. But you haven't mentioned Georgia peaches yet. You've got 
some good peaches down there.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. But a great State, so much to work with there, 
but there's that uncertainty that lies out there.
  So in my 30 days here, the House voted on TARP II--of course, I 
opposed that--the expansion of unemployment benefits to a far-reaching 
amount, and then the war supplemental budget which was 61 percent un-
war related, and it goes one thing after another, whether it is 
financial reform or whether it is this reform or that reform, just in 
my 30 days. So there is a little bit of certainty out there in the 
business community.
  The certainty is that something's going to come down from Washington 
that's going to put another burden on them, another tax on them and it 
is killing job creation today. It's time to change that certainty 
around and say you can be certain that coming out of Washington it's 
going to be less taxes, less government, personal responsibility, and 
liberty and just for all. Let's get back to free markets and 
capitalism.
  Mr. AKIN. That's what it boils down, too, isn't it? Two different 
visions for America. One of them is there are all these people who are 
victims and the government has to take care of them and you don't have 
to be responsible and you are just going to be part of this permanent 
welfare idea. And I don't think Americans by and large really want 
that. I think Americans really like the idea more of having the courage 
to live some dream that God puts on their hearts.
  You know, the way that this country was founded, they believed that 
every single person that God created in this world had some purpose, 
some job that God had in mind for them to do. So what they did was they 
came up with the idea that the only thing that you got in trouble for 
up in New England was if you didn't work. You see, over in Europe they 
had all these classes and they had certain people who didn't want any 
calluses on their hands because they didn't like the idea of working.
  But the people that came to this country said, no, your job is to 
work hard because God made a job for everybody to do. In the process of 
doing that, they created almost a classless society because how can you 
look down your nose at somebody else if God made one person to be an 
accountant, another person to be a blacksmith, another one to be a 
farmer? How could you look down your nose if somebody is doing what God 
called them to do?
  But it was always the idea of hard work and being honest and so 
people could be free and chase the dreams that they had in their heart. 
But I don't think people are happy when the government is dishing them 
out, you know, always dependent on the government, you see, and I don't 
think that's what America is all about. I don't think Americans are 
happy with the system where they're just constantly going to be 
dependent on the government. I think people love freedom in this 
country.
  As you talk to people around your district, I ask people if you had 
to summarize what is America all about--I love to ask that question. 
Let's say somebody from some foreign country came and they had a bunch 
of TV cameras and put it in your face, and you've lived in America. Can 
you tell me just in a sentence what is the basic secret of what makes 
America such a special place. And the word that I always hear is 
freedom, freedom. It is not like, no, that the government's going to 
take care of me. No, it's the idea of being a free person, and that's 
something that's so precious to us in this country.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. You're right, and it's great, and that's what 
we've got to get back to is allowing the freedom to succeed and the 
freedom to fail, wouldn't you say? I mean, that is a freedom as well. 
Not government bailouts and government taking care of businesses that 
make poor decisions or take a risk that just doesn't work out, for 
whatever reason. But, you know, when we think about where we are going 
in the future--and I think we've got a great future--we just have to be 
positive. We have to come up with positive solutions and solutions that 
aren't the government being the solution but empowering the private 
sector.
  We've come into a new era I believe, and I believe it's coming. I 
would like to say the sun is setting on an era, and that's the era of 
the champions of government, that the sun is setting on that and now a 
new dawn is arising and that is going to be the champions of the 
taxpayer.
  So as we move forward through these next weeks and this great recess, 
I think America is waiting for this Congress to take a recess so that 
they will stop passing policies that are damaging to small businesses 
and elect a new governing majority here coming up soon and we have 
positive solutions that just reduce the business owners and, once 
again, empower them to be the job creators instead of empowering 
government to be that.
  Mr. AKIN. You know, when people make a mistake--we were talking quite 
a bit about socialism, and liberals really just hate it when you 
mention that word ``socialism,'' but really an awful lot of Americans 
don't know socialism when they see it. And it is very dangerous, it's 
deadly, and it goes to the idea of what's the job of the government.
  And if you go to our Founders, right off the bat the Pilgrims had 
socialism imposed on them by the loan sharks from England, and they 
pitched it out. They knew it wasn't any good. They knew that socialism 
was really a system of stealing where the government would take from 
one person and give to another person. If you go to the founding of our 
country, it was built on a bright vision. There was a fresh air; there 
was a vibrancy and enthusiasm because you could fail. There was an 
incentive to do well.
  The understanding was that the job of the government was limited and 
limited in a particular way, and that was, the job of the government 
was justice. And Lady Justice was depicted--they chipped her out of 
marble, you know, and she's sitting there and she always had this 
blindfold over her eyes and she held up the scales, and the scales were 
what the law says and your own actions. But she always had that 
blindfold on. Well, what did the blindfold mean? Well it meant when you 
came before the government, before Lady Justice, she didn't peek 
whether you're black or white or male or female, rich or poor. She just 
said this is the way the law applies evenly to all people.
  But socialism does something different. Lady Justice peeks and says 
this one's rich, this one's poor. I'm going to take from this one to 
give to this one and then we get sophisticated and we steal from 
everybody and pass it around to everybody else in the government. It 
gets more and more inefficient, but Lady Justice is peeking. That's 
socialism. It's wealth redistribution. It is institutionalized debt. 
It's morally wrong, and worst of all, it doesn't work.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. Right. And I believe Bastiat over 150 years 
referred to that as ``legalized plunder'' in the book, ``The Law,'' 
where he knew that anyone that was taking without permission and giving 
to someone else was

[[Page 12971]]

plunder. And in the case of taxation here in the United States and the 
raising of taxes that we're going to see in January 2011 just due to 
the inaction of the leadership here in Washington, that is an increased 
legalized plunder that is going to occur.
  Mr. AKIN. Which really kind of wraps back around. I promised when we 
started we'd ask a couple of these really basic questions, that is, Can 
the government steal? A lot of kids say, well, the government can't 
possibly steal. The fact of the matter is the government can steal when 
the government does stuff that it's not its job to do. And one of the 
things it's not its job to do is to take something from one person and 
give it to someone else and that's, of course, what the President said 
that he wanted to do with the government. He announced that before he 
was elected that that was his plan, to take money from Joe the plumber 
and give it to someone else.
  And, of course, he said he wouldn't tax anybody that made less than 
$250,000, and yet that silly cap-and-tax bill that we passed in this 
Chamber before you were here--you don't have the shame of having that 
having gone through here--but if you flipped a light switch, you start 
paying a tax. You know, it isn't a matter of 250,000 bucks, you flip a 
light switch you're going to be taxed.
  And that socialized medicine bill, wow, is that ever a disaster. 
They've got taxes in there on wheelchairs. I thought I saw a taxing on 
everything that moves or doesn't move, but they've even got taxes on 
wheelchairs in that thing, and of course the problem is that's what 
kills jobs. It's messing the economy up, adding to the insufficient 
liquidity, the economic uncertainty and of course the red tape and 
government mandates.
  You put this package together and you can go both ways. You can have 
a vibrant economy, people free and prosperous and out there chugging 
along, good economy, or you can just keep on dialing in more and more 
government interference, more tremendous levels of spending, and 
basically what you're doing is you're killing freedom.

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. When you think about it, imagine if you had 
the opportunity to implement the policies that you felt were best to 
get jobs moving forward here in this Nation. If it was me, I would say, 
let's empower the private sector. Let's allow them to be the job 
creators, not government. Let's reduce the tax burden. Let's start with 
the capital gains tax, the corporate tax rate, as well as many of the 
other tax rates involved in there. But then not only reduce taxes, cut 
spending. You have to cut spending in association with those tax cuts. 
In addition, we need to cut it beyond because of the spending level 
that we're currently on. But when you think about spending, everyone 
around here says, well, you can't cut spending. And you have to ask the 
question: Are we running at an efficient level here as government? We 
know the answer. The answer to that is no. In my opinion there are no 
sacred cows. It is time to cut government and cut it and cut deep when 
it comes to cutting government. Americans all across this Nation are 
cutting their budget, and there are a lot of important things in their 
budget. I believe it's time for the Federal Government to cut their 
budget tremendously, reduce taxes, reduce the regulation, and let the 
private sector once again flourish.
  Mr. AKIN. I think you're absolutely right.
  The idea, though, that we can bring the level of spending that we've 
got going on under control by just trying to get efficiency, I think 
that's probably optimistic. I think what we have to do is decide that 
there are some things that Washington, D.C. should not be doing in the 
first place. We shouldn't cut it; we should just totally eliminate it. 
It should just stop. None. We need to take a good look at our Federal 
spending and say, What are the things the Federal Government has to do? 
We have to defend our Nation. We know that much. Because the States 
aren't going to do that. We have to make sure there's no pirates on the 
high seas. There used to be a law, it was one of the few Federal laws 
against piracy on the high seas. There was a Federal law when America 
started that was against counterfeiting, because that was not a State 
job; that had to be a Federal job.
  There are very few jobs that originally started at the Federal level. 
And then everything else, we have to push them back to the States. I 
would be happy to say, look, if the people of California, or 
Massachusetts, or Tennessee want to have socialized medicine, let them 
try it and see how it works. They could learn from Massachusetts. It 
didn't work well. They could learn from Tennessee. They about shut down 
medicine in Tennessee. If States want to try these things, let the 
experiments begin at the State level. But at the Federal level, we have 
got to basically stop a lot of stuff. The first place I would start 
with would be just what Ronald Reagan said, shut down that Department 
of Education.
  I had a group I was talking to down at a Honda dealership just a 
couple of days ago and I asked them, How much benefit do you think 
you've gotten from a whole bunch of Federal bureaucrats that work in 
the Department of Education? Has it helped your kid any at all? There 
were these blank looks. No, I don't think it's helped a whole lot.
  So what happens if you sell the building and just shut down the 
Department of Education at the Federal level? Why can't that be done at 
the State or local level? I think we have to ask those tough questions. 
Maybe you could make a case, gosh, it would be nice if; but we can't 
afford it.
  Here's a number: Debt and deficit as a percent of GDP. This is 
deficit. Here's the United States. We're right alongside of Greece and 
Spain and the United Kingdom. We're right in there with these European 
countries that are struggling, and we're not much better off than they 
are. We're way overspending.
  Here is debt as a percent of GDP. You've got the United States. There 
are only two other countries that are worse than we are, that's Greece 
and Italy.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. If you had to simplify that for the American 
viewers out there, and I see that says about 91 percent of our debt as 
a percentage of GDP. How would you simplify that in terms of the 
average household at home and they have income coming in, their pay as 
it relates to debt?
  Mr. AKIN. Let's try and speculate a little bit. Let's say the income 
for the whole year, they make a hundred bucks. So what does this mean, 
91 percent? If their income is a hundred dollars for the year, what 
does that mean? That means they've got an incredible level of debt. 
They're not going to get back out from under it hardly.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. You're saying that 91 percent of that goes to 
debt; that income has to go to debt.
  Mr. AKIN. That's the problem.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. If the liability was called in at that point. 
It is a liability of 91 percent.
  Mr. AKIN. Yes.
  So the point is, what do we do here in America? We basically have to 
stop thinking that the Federal Government is God and that it's going to 
solve every problem. We've got the Federal Government now, they're into 
the automobile business, the insurance business, the student loan 
business, they're in the flood insurance business, they're in the food 
business, they're in the housing business.
  It kind of reminds me, there was this country that I grew up paying 
close attention to in the U.S., and it had this philosophy that the 
government is going to give you food, and it's going to give you a 
place to live, some shelter, it's going to give you an education, the 
government's going to give you a job and it's going to give you health 
care. We looked at that country and thought, That's not going to work. 
And it didn't work. The whole country crashed economically. It was 
called the USSR.
  Here we are today, and what does the Federal Government try to do? 
Give people housing and food and education

[[Page 12972]]

and a job and health care. How are we different? What we have to 
understand is the Federal Government has to be reined in to do just 
what it's supposed to do, which is justice. That is, provide a set of 
laws where everybody is equal before the law and a national security 
that protects us from terrorists and other people that wish us ill. So 
that Federal Government is just going to have to go on a diet.
  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. That's right.
  I've only been here 30 days and I can tell you, this government is 
way too big. It does not run efficiently. There are many tasks that it 
should not be involved in whatsoever. We've seen those pass this House 
just in my few short weeks of being here. As I think about where we're 
going and I think about the solutions that we're all seeking, the 
Economic Advisory Council that I've put together across the 15 counties 
of the Ninth Congressional District is going to be one of the most 
dynamic councils I believe we have ever seen, because these are the 
business leaders, those that are on the ground hiring and making 
decisions for their business, that are making tough decisions; what to 
cut out of their budgets, what hours are they going to operate, what 
supplies are they going to buy. And we're asking them that question, 
What is keeping you from hiring that next employee? Because it goes 
back to that, if one out of three businesses would just hire one person 
in the next 12 months, unemployment would be cut in half. That's how 
close we are.
  So what is it that the government is doing to prevent you from hiring 
that next employee? I am excited that soon I will be bringing back what 
I believe are going to be some powerful recommendations to the House of 
Representatives right here and say, From the Ninth Congressional 
District, from the business leaders in north Georgia, here's what they 
say needs to be done in order to get this economy back on track.
  Mr. AKIN. I think you and I have a pretty good idea what they're 
liable to say, because they have enough business sense to know what's 
happened historically. They know socialism doesn't work, and they know 
what you've got to do is as the jobs and wealth and freedom, those are 
things that come from free people. It isn't the government that makes 
jobs. It's the businesses. It's all of the innovative Americans that 
are out there, that are living that dream in their heart. From the 
beginning days of this country, there are these people, these crazy 
people that came to this land with some dream of something they wanted 
to do.
  I remember there was one guy that had this idea, he wanted to build 
light bulbs. He built a hundred of them and none of them worked. His 
attitude was, now I know a hundred ways not to build a light bulb. 
These crazy people came with these dreams in their hearts, the dream 
became a vague possibility and eventually it became a reality, and 
America was built, one dream at a time. It got to be so common, we 
called it the American Dream.
  I know, gentlemen, as you travel in Georgia and you talk to those 
people, that you really get to love them out there, and you hear the 
stories:
  ``Well, my wife and I were sleeping under a park bench, but we had 
this idea for a little business. That was 20 years ago. Well, now, my 
goodness, we've done pretty well. The kids are in good shape. We've got 
a nice house. I think I might be selling the business.''
  We do this, this, or that. Who would have thought it? We've got one 
guy in Missouri. He started a little company called Innoventor. I love 
this story. Talk about somebody with some imagination. He had grown up 
on a hog farm. Some of us that are from suburbia, we're not too fond of 
the by-product of those hog farms. But he had a lot of that by-product 
kicking around trying to figure out what to do with it. And so this guy 
took all this pig manure and he put it into a tank and he ran the 
temperature up and the pressure up in the tank according to some basic 
principles of the way that we work with petroleum products and figured 
out a way to turn all that pig manure into this thick oily sludge which 
they then use to make asphalt.
  And so he's got a section of road in the State of Missouri that's 
paved with asphalt made from pig manure. Of course the first question 
is, does the road smell? He says, No, when you get it up to this 
temperature, all the ammonia and things that you associate with smell 
is gone. But here's a guy that took something that nobody wanted, 
people looked at it as a liability, and he's got an invention that's 
going to turn that pig manure into asphalt to pave our roads with.
  That's the kind of thing that makes America. I thought that was a 
colorful example. I know you've got stories of your own from Georgia. 
My brother was a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech. I know they've 
trained some good engineers down there.

                              {time}  1840

  Mr. GRAVES of Georgia. There are great talents and opportunities in 
Georgia. And as I know we are wrapping up our time probably here, and 
as I sort of close out, it goes back to that zero sum. It is a zero sum 
game when it comes to employment.
  You are either expanding the private sector, or you are expanding the 
governmental sector. And I believe our objective, and I am glad that 
you are of like mind with me, that as we consider the deliberations 
over the next several weeks, that those who are watching tonight know 
that there are two men, plus more here, who really want to see the 
private sector expand, and expand through innovation and the excitement 
of the idea.
  So I sort of liken it to the flame. There is that entrepreneurial 
flame out there. It has been dampened. It has been dampened quite a bit 
over the last 15-16 months with the policies coming out of Washington, 
and I believe it is our objective and I believe we can do this.
  It is time to once again fan that flame and get that dampened spark 
flamed back up and get that entrepreneur fired back up about that 
American dream that you just spoke of.
  I will close with this story, because my son who is 10 shared with me 
the greatest illustration last year. We were debating allowances. We 
were talking a dollar for this task and a dollar for that task. And he 
stopped me and he said, dad, if you give me a dollar to do something 
that I should already be doing, doesn't that just take away from what 
mom can buy groceries with? Wouldn't it be better if I made something 
and sold it and added to the family?
  I mean, what a phenomenal example from a 10-year-old boy who 
understands productivity and wealth accumulation. That is something 
that excites me, that that young generation gets it.
  Mr. AKIN. Well, you know, that is a heartwarming story, and it shows 
the basic nature of your 10-year-old son. He understands that somewhere 
along the line, that he was made to do something, and even that God 
maybe has a plan for him, and his thinking was, I want to help my dad.
  You know, there is nothing I think as a Christian that inspires me 
more than a passage in the Bible that is in Ephesians. It says that we 
are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus. That means that each one 
of us is a unique and special person.
  But not only that. Here is what exciting. He says unto good work 
which God prepared for us to do, every single one of us has a purpose 
in this world, and the purpose is to do some good work, which our 
Father wants us to do. And it is a pretty exciting thing if you are not 
cynical to say, you mean I can actually do something that would please 
my Father in heaven?
  You see, I think the freedom that we treasure in America was given to 
us so that we could do that mission that we were created to do. That is 
what freedom is all about. It is not to abuse, not to have the 
government take from one person and give to another person. It is about 
each one of us doing what we were called to do and living that American 
dream.
  Then as the country builds and becomes strong and we have this 
attitude that everybody has a purpose, everybody, there is no one that 
isn't included in that, and that the freedom we

[[Page 12973]]

enjoy is freedom so that we can do what we were created to do in the 
first place. When we have that kind of attitude, it gets contagious, 
and all over the world people are going to say, hey, look what is going 
on in America. Isn't that exciting? Those people really do believe in 
freedom. They understand the difference between socialism, which is big 
government doing something that is stealing, it is dishonest, and 
allowing people to follow their god-given direction.
  That means as you said though that people will fail sometimes. We 
try, we fall down, we have to get up and try it again. If we didn't 
understand that, none of us would know how to walk. We fall down the 
first few times. And I found that out trying to ski as well. You know, 
there is a part of my anatomy that worked as a brake for quite a while. 
It got pretty sore.
  But we keep getting back up again, and that is necessary in a free 
kind of society. But I think America loves that sunlight and bright 
light of freedom and that fresh air and the enthusiasm of the 
challenge, and the fact that every one of us has a purpose that we were 
put on this earth to do.
  The Lord has given us the simple commandment, thou shalt not steal, 
and when somebody takes something from one person and gives it to you 
and you didn't earn it, you see, that is short-circuiting the way God 
made everything, and that is why it didn't work. It didn't work for the 
Soviet Union, it hasn't worked in these other countries.
  Socialized medicine doesn't work. Yes, you get insurance, but you 
can't get any health care. That doesn't do you any good.
  Well, I appreciate your joining me, and thank the good citizens from 
Georgia for sending up such a great Congressman, Congressman Graves. Is 
a pleasure joining you.

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