W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Yes. And that's one of the factors that totally destroys jobs--and that is the uncertainty factor. So if you want to ruin jobs, raise taxes a whole lot, create a lot of uncertainty, and then spend way beyond your means. That's what we're doing. It's a war on business. There are a couple of different things. We talked about these tax increases that the Democrats did. Here's something they didn't do at all. They haven't fixed the problem with Freddie and Fannie. These are two timebombs ready to go off again. They started the big crisis before when we mismanaged Freddie and Fannie. As much as people go ``boo'' and ``hiss'' at George Bush, in September 11, 2003, he was asking for authority to regulate Freddie and Fannie because they were out of control. And the Democrats blocked that legislation in the Senate, and now we have a meltdown on our hands. So there's some things that are taxes, some things that are spending, and some things that are no action at all that all feed into this problem. So this sounds kind of boring.

Mr. AKIN. The point you bring up, gentlemen, I was not a Boy Scout, but we had a bunch of boys that were Boy Scouts. And one of the things that they learned, which we did, because my wife and I were outdoors people and did a lot of backpacking and canoeing and all, is that when you come to a campsite, you always want to leave it better than the way you found it. It was just sort of like a tradition among outdoorsmen. And that tradition very much reflected the mindset of my parents' generation, the people that fought World War II. My father is 89 and was with Patton in the Army. But there was a general way of thinking in that generation. And the mindset was that they were going to sacrifice a lot of things they wished they'd had as kids in order to give their kids something better. They're going to leave the campsite better than it was left for them. And so my parents' generation, if they made a mistake, it was they tended to spoil us. They tended to give us everything we wanted, whereas they had had to really--the other generation, they might not have had a college education but said, My son is going to be a doctor. My son is going to be an engineer. I'm going to make sure they have enough money to go to college, which I didn't have a chance to do. And that was their mindset. And that's what breaks my heart about such a boring subject as budgets is because of the fact that we're not following--we're leaving that campsite look like a dump truck full of litter just got dumped on it. We're leaving litter that our kids can't pick up, our grandchildren won't be able to pick up. And that's just wrong. And it is not the American way. And yet what's it spring from? Our own selfishness politically that we have to appease--which is wrong in the first place. It's theft and we're going to steal money from a lot of people that aren't even alive yet and we're going to spend it and hand it out to people. And that's a sad place to be in. So we're doing two things. So we're increasing taxes radically, but we're increasing spending even more. The ironic thing is that when you increase taxes, you also kill the goose that's laying the golden eggs and you start to take in less revenue. Here's a list of some of them. This cap-and-tax bill that we passed. This thing is supposed to be about global warming. It's supposed to be about reducing CO2. The only thing this thing does is create more taxes and more government regulation and probably more CO2 to boot. If they wanted to stop CO2--if people were honest about stopping CO2--let's assume you're a greenie and that your CO2 is really bad and we've all got to stop breathing. How are you going to do it? You're just going to double the number of the nuclear power plants and you wipe out all the equivalent of all the CO2 burned by every passenger car in America. But that's not what this bill does. It supposedly is about global warming, but in fact it's just more taxes. And the health care tax thing. This deal here, that bill, they had to struggle to keep it under a trillion dollars. The President said, I won't do it if it costs a dime. No. He did it because it costs more than a trillion. So there's another great big tax. Death tax. Capital gains. They're going to expire. So we're going high in taxes. But does that mean we're cutting back on spending? No. This, my friend, is why if I were a Democrat I wouldn't want to put a budget out there. Take a look at that picture. My friend from Arizona.

Mr. AKIN. I don't think they want them to see that graph.

Mr. AKIN. This then resulted in Republicans in the House passing a bill. Where's it go then? We sent it to the Senate. What happened in the Senate? You needed 60 votes to pass it. And so what happened? The Democrats killed this in the Senate, just like they killed the energy bill in the Senate that was designed to help us with gas prices; just like they killed, as you know, gentlemen, the tort reforms in the Senate to reduce health care costs; just like, as you know, my friend from Arizona, they killed the associated health plans that we passed time after time here on the floor to try to allow small businesses to pool their employees to get a better price on health insurance. Now we were accused of doing nothing. We didn't do nothing. We sent a lot of legislation to the Senate where they didn't have 60 Republican votes, and it was killed by Democrats. Here's what happens here. But have we done anything about Freddie and Fannie? No. It's still hugely in debt, and we're just basically bailing it out all the time. What's the result of that going to be? It's going to be a lot of trouble. Here's one of the pains. This is what hurts, one, is unemployment. Look at the private-sector employment numbers here. Look at the red line. That's the public-sector employment. Have we created jobs? Sure have. We hired a whole lot of census workers. But the jobs that pay for the government are going down because these policies make a difference in peoples' lives. Whenever I think of unemployment--you gentlemen are both gentlemen. Both of you have wives and kids. And I suppose that somehow wired back in the back of our minds, certainly in the back of mine, when I have a wife and kids, I need to take care of them. That's the fundamental thing that I'm supposed to do as a dad. If I fail at that, then I'm a miserable failure in my own mind. And I'm picturing a set of policies that the Democrats proposed to put people into houses they couldn't afford to pay for, so they're going to default on their mortgage, and they and their kids are going to be sitting on a sofa out on the street as they have been thrown out of a house. That, to me, is kind of a nightmarish thing. And that's that unemployment. It looks like a boring number on a chart, but it's people who are hurting. It's people who are living back with their parents. It's parents who are digging into their savings to take care of their kids because there are no jobs. So these things may be boring, but they sure have a lot of pain associated with them and a lot of consequences associated with them. This was a promise that if we gave lots of money to different States that had been mismanaging their budget with this supposed stimulus bill, I think it was supposedly $787 billion, but turned out to be $800 billion. And we spent all this money. And this is what's supposed to happen. It's supposed to reduce unemployment. Here's what the unemployment really is. Because we didn't learn from Henry Morgenthau. You have can't spend your way into prosperity by spending Federal money. These things have consequences. They hurt people. This isn't just boring numbers on a graph. That's actually what the actual unemployment is. So there's a consequence to these policies. The tragedy is there are solutions to this stuff. It isn't that hard to do. What we ought to do is just learn from JFK. We can learn from Ronald Reagan, but try to be a little charitable. JFK got it right. There's a solution to this. We don't have to do this. All we've got to do is simply cut spending and cut taxes. Everybody knows that. I've used the analogy--were you a pilot, Congressman Franks?

Mr. AKIN. I thought it would be appropriate to talk about what these bars mean. It's pretty straightforward. These were Republican years under Bush, and this shows the deficit. We're not proud of this deficit. Shouldn't be any. The worst year under Bush was this one where Speaker Pelosi ran the Congress. So this was Bush's worst year for deficit right here. So we go from 2009 to 2010 with President Obama, and he's three times the Bush level of deficit and this year is even higher. Now, one of the ways to measure these things is this deficit is a percent of our gross domestic product, all of the stuff that we make in America. This is running at about 3.1 percent. This is about 9.9 percent right here. Now, these numbers have consequences, and the consequences are your children and your grandchildren. But it also could precipitate a crisis a lot sooner, and we really don't know what that crisis looks like. What happens when you go to the bank and your ATM doesn't work? You worked all of your life and you have savings in the bank and there isn't any money in there because you can't get any money out because the dollar bill isn't worth anything. Have we ever experienced that before? We've seen some high inflation that's not pretty. What happens if the banking system just stops working because we pushed this too far? What is the civil unrest? What happens with our just-in-time food inventories when there is no more food on the shelves and when there is no more gasoline at the gas pumps because we have pushed this too far? How far is too far? I don't know, but I know this: This isn't the right direction that we are going. I yield to my friend from Georgia.

Mr. AKIN. I think that Congress has tended--our job is to spend money. That's what Congress is designed to do. Of course we do too good a job of it. And the question is we have been overspending for a long time. We overspent when President Bush, we Republicans, when he was in. And I know you gentlemen joined me in some very tough votes in saying, no, we can't do that. But we have overspent to a degree all the way along. But what happened is we've taken this thing to an entirely new level. And I have some charts that I think explain that. But I want to hear from my good friend from Georgia.

Mr. AKIN. I think he also promised that nobody making less than $250,000 would be taxed, right? Yet, if you flip on a light switch, you are going to get taxed. How do you square those?

Mr. AKIN. I'm not sure about the intent. Yes, your whole idea about little Lord Keynes and his idea about spending one's way into prosperity strikes me about like grabbing your boot loops and trying to fly around the room, you know? I don't know if he was a boot loop kind of guy, but anyway, he was certainly different in his view of economics. My good friend from Arizona.

Mr. AKIN. Unusual. And what are the implications of all of this? You know, the Congress didn't pass a budget, but the administration sent us a budget. This is kind of a complicated looking chart. But this isn't very complicated in a lot of ways, because this thing is receipts. This is the money coming in. And this is outlays. Now, this is the sort of chart that you need to have some first-graders, because they could give us some real wisdom. We could say which one of these circles is bigger? Is it the red one or the blue one? The red one is bigger. So we're spending more than what we're receiving. That says your budget's in trouble. That's not very complicated. And it's so much in trouble that the U.S. Congress doesn't want to acknowledge that fact. They say, well, if we don't see it, maybe--it's like at night, you know, when you have a bad dream. If you pull the covers up, maybe it will go away. That seems where we are. My good friend from Arizona.

Mr. AKIN. Well, that's convenient, because then anything that doesn't work you can continue to blame BP. The problem is, there's all this oil all over the place, that little detail. You know, I agree with you entirely. BP was wrong. What I'm not clear on, was it more of equipment or was it more human. I suspect from what I've heard, it seemed like it was more operator error than it was technology. But, be that as it may, it seems to me that the only thing that eclipsed the foolishness and the incompetence of BP is the Federal Government response that's even worse.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. I really appreciate you mentioning Star Parker. She is really a fun person. She has a great personality, is a lot of fun. She's cute, and she is very articulate. And she has an amazing story about how the government tried to trap her into all of this welfare stuff and all of the behaviors that would destroy her life. She came out of it through the power of Jesus Christ, started her own business. Now the government gives her trouble. While she is trying to run a business, doing the right thing, the government is taking shots at her. And she says, Whose side are you on, government? You know, when I was doing the wrong stuff, you were encouraging me. When I am doing the right things, you are giving me a hard time. What's the story here? As I said, I started with a picture of that little green wagon and those two kids. One of them pulling, the other one pushing. The guy looking over his shoulder said, Are you pushing or pulling back there? You know, it just seems like, is the government trying to help us or is it trying to destroy us? And it seems like every decision we have seen is more dependency on Big Government. Thank you, Doctor. It's a pleasure to join you, and God bless America.

Mr. AKIN. It is a vacuum of leadership, isn't it?

Mr. AKIN. The question that raises my blood pressure is it seems to me like President Bush was almost accused for bringing on Hurricane Katrina. Yet we've got one of the biggest leadership vacuums in terms of this oil spill every time you hear about something. There was also that moratorium about we're not going to drill any more wells at all. The equivalent would be, if an airplane falls down, we're going to cancel every air flight in America. You know, there were some reasons there was this disaster. From what we're hearing, there were enough coverups and different things, so we don't really know exactly what happened. Though, apparently, the equipment, at least if it's functioning properly and has been properly checked out, should work. So there was some human error involved, clearly, and possibly some equipment that was not properly inspected. There are some problems, but that doesn't mean you shut every oil rig in the gulf down while you're trying to figure out who did something wrong. Wasn't it over 100,000 jobs that were just going to, all of a sudden, disappear?

Mr. AKIN. Is that 40,000 jobs just in the oil industry alone?

Mr. AKIN. I know America likes to win, but I don't know that we want to do better than Hugo Chavez. That's not exactly where most Americans want to be going, I don't think.

Mr. AKIN. Yes. Now an average guy on the street--let's just say they're reading some newspaper headlines over the last 18 months. Now what's the impression they get? First of all, there's this huge bailout, a Wall Street bailout. So you get these firms on Wall Street that are getting billions of dollars of taxpayers' money. That, of course, makes people get really happy and excited about that. So we're bailing out Wall Street first of all. Now there are people that are making a case that the economy was in very bad shape and that we had to drop $700 billion. We didn't vote for that. But there are people that make the case that, Well, there were these things that were failing. So we drop all this money into Wall Street. We bail out banks. We bail out insurance companies. And then the bailout fever really gets started, which we predicted would happen if the Federal Government basically opens the kitty to any group that wants to bail out anything, and we start buying out Government Motors--I think it used to be called General Motors before--and Chrysler. So we're doing that. And then we decide, Hey, it would be a great idea if we bailed out college kids who want to get loans. The government's going to take that over. And now the government is in the process of collecting other things that it can own. Of course notably, 17 percent of the free side of the economy which used to be where you worked, Doctor, in health care. So now the government's taking over 17 percent of the U.S. economy in the health care area. They're nibbling and just salivating about taking over the energy business. So if you're an average guy on the street, and you start connecting the dots--which many people may not. But when you start to think about it, the government's taking over everything. So it's not an odd thing for somebody just taking a look at the headlines and looking back at the last 18 months to say, Holy smokes, what's going on here?

Mr. AKIN. I do yield.

Mr. AKIN. And he did spend too much money. In fact, you and I, gentleman, voted ``no'' on some of the things he wanted to spend money on. His worst budget, though, was when Speaker Pelosi was in charge of this Congress in 2008, right here. That was his worst deficit, $459 billion in deficit that year. Not proud of that, $459 billion. The people said that Bush spent too much money. And here we come to the very first year of President Obama, and it's $1.4 trillion. That's three times the worst Bush deficit. And so if you had that followed by an even bigger deficit this year, you had unemployment at 9 percent, if you were one of the Democrats, would you want to pass a budget right now? I think they're running for cover. You know, we have an expression in Missouri, it's called ``hunkered down''--``hunkered down like a toad in a hail storm.'' It seems like to me, if I had anything to do with that level of deficit spending, I would be hunkered down. In fact, I think I would have resigned and gone to try to do something else with my time because this is totally destructive to our country. And you raised the question, Is the objective to precipitate such a crisis that they consolidate power in the Federal Government? At least it seems like to me the American people are going to go, Oh, my goodness. You're going to need to create an awful good crisis for us to ever trust the Federal Government with the kind of quality of leadership that we've been seeing.

Mr. AKIN. I do yield.

Mr. AKIN. That all goes to the same thing we're just talking about. I don't really naturally like to be dumping on people for mismanaging something, but this is so outrageous. I mean, the only thing that could top the outrageousness of BP is the outrageousness of the administration to be sitting here 2 months after this situation without a clear-cut plan. I would think the President would have some boards like this and say, Look, the first thing we've got to do--and this is just like somebody has been hit in an automobile accident. They're bleeding. You're a doctor, Dr. Broun. And you stop the bleeding, is one of the first things you do. I would say, Well, we've got to stop that oil coming out of the floor of the ocean, and here's the plan to do it and we'll do this, this, this, and this, in this order. And it's going to require these resources and we're putting the team together and the plan to do that. Now we've got this situation with jobs down there. And Congressman Broun's got an idea to help on the income tax side of it. Congressman Scalise has got a plan as to what to do with some sand berms to stop this oil from coming into the harbor. And you put the team together to make decisions and deal with this. And so instead of fixing blame, you fix the problem. And all we've heard is the government getting in the way. My understanding is private companies have more oil booms out there to collect oil than the Federal Government did. And there are types of booms--I heard they're called fire booms--where they're a material that's more or less fireproof. It corrals the oil. Light the oil on fire and they can burn the stuff up before it drifts onto the shore and causes a lot of trouble. And the thing that drives me crazy is here is this example of the government just totally failing and the gall of the administration to turn around and say we've got to pass a great big tax increase and we're going to give the Federal Government power to tell you you've got to put a 220-volt plug in your garage for your electric car and you can't build a wing on your house without making sure the carbon footprint is right and we're going to tax anybody every time you flip a light switch and we're going to try and pass this piece-of-trash bill, and the excuse for this is the fact that we haven't dealt with the problem in the ocean. I don't understand how people can have such great, great faith in the Federal Government. It just blows my mind. And, of course, you know, gentleman, the health care bill. Every day that comes out, we find more and more problems, all things that we were saying were going to happen. And it shows that the real objective here isn't health care at all. That's the ironic thing. This Obama benchmark progress report. Here's the thing about jobs. Is it going to help with jobs? No. It fails this measurement. Costs. Today, I want to lay out the details of a plan that not only guarantees coverage for every American but also brings down health care costs. Is it going to bring down health care costs? No. The whole thing is a scam because all it does is businesses will dump their employees in the Federal Government. And so why do we have so much trust the Federal Government should be entrusted with health care? You're a doctor. Would you want to trust your body to the Federal Government when we've seen this record?

Mr. AKIN. The funny thing is, the very words they spoke kind of come back to condemn them. They're kind of condemning themselves because here's the Democratic whip, Congressman Hoyer, he's saying, Budget is the most basic responsibility of governing. That's 2006. The most basic responsibility of governing is what? The budget.

Mr. AKIN. And here's the guy in charge of the budget, Congressman Spratt, If you can't budget, you can't govern. So this is what they're saying in 2006. And now we take a look at what's coming forward and we say, Where's the budget? Here's the Hill: Skipping a budget resolution this year would be unprecedented. The House has never failed to pass an annual budget resolution since the current budget rules were put into place in 1974, according to a Congressional Research Service report. So, since 1974, Republicans and Democrats have met in this Chamber and every year they put a budget together. Some of them were a lot better than others. Some were tighter. Some tried to balance the budget. But they have always had a budget. Didn't always get passed. Didn't get taken care of. But they always had a budget. Until when? Until this year. And why? Why is it Democrat leadership says it's absolutely essential to have a budget, and they don't have one this year? Why do you think that is?

Mr. AKIN. Well, Saul Alinsky was a Communist, wasn't he?

Mr. AKIN. Just from what we've talked about in 10 minutes tonight in terms of this leadership vacuum, we are seeing a threat to 40,000 jobs. Just in your State alone, it's 40,000. We're not talking about the barbers and the restauranteurs and all of the other people who are supported by it. It's just 40,000 hard jobs which are being thrown down the drain when a panel of people who really have studied and know the industry are simply saying, Look, go out to the different oil rigs. Make sure that they're inspected and up to spec because, by the way, MMS, the Federal agency supposedly doing this, has not done that. Make sure that they're up to spec, and then let them go ahead because there is nothing wrong. We have drilled thousands of wells in water, and they have worked fine. Just because one goes bad, you don't shut the whole industry down. So we are threatening 40,000 jobs. Also, in spite of what the panel recommended the President do, we are continuing to endanger the environment, and they are always screaming they care so much about the environment. Though, they are the very ones preventing you from trying to protect the environment. The thing that strikes me is: Why do we put so much trust in the competence of the Federal Government? That's what is striking me. That's part of the reason I thought it was good to take off a little bit and talk about the gulf situation. We've got this proposal now. The President wants to use the fact that a company mismanaged its oil well and that he and his administration have made a complete mess of the management of that crisis to say now what we need to do is to have the Federal Government do this cap-and- tax bill, which is more taxes, more red tape and government regulation. When the last government agencies didn't even do their jobs, now he wants us to buy more of this, not to mention the fact that we've already passed this huge tax increase for health care. Now we're supposed to trust the Federal Government to take care of our own bodies. We took a look at what it's doing down there in the gulf. I sure don't want the Federal Government tampering with my body. I'll end up with two left arms, which would be a pretty terrible fate for a conservative like me.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Could you hold that right there for a minute because I think you're on something that I think we ought to be exploring a little bit here tonight, but we do have an item of business. I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Arcuri).