W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Good.

Mr. AKIN. I yield to my good friend from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. AKIN. I am very concerned about our discussion tonight because I am afraid somebody may be watching and they are thinking, oh, my goodness, there isn't any hope, things are terrible and bad. Yeah, we are in a big financial mess because we have been doing the wrong policies. But I want to take about 10 minutes, I want to talk about let's wipe the slate clean. Let's stop all of this foolishness and let's talk about what we do to fix it. Because we can do that. I want to go first of all to my good friend----

Mr. AKIN. I love talking about solutions, because you know what those solutions are about? Those solutions are about freedom. And that's a good word. And that's what America has always stood for. And that's what we need to talk about for a minute. But I do want to yield to my good friend, Congresswoman Lummis.

Mr. AKIN. So things have changed, and it has gotten even worse, hasn't it?

Mr. AKIN. That's a great point. And let's repeat that. What you just said was, you don't raise taxes during a recession. And what we are going to talk about here tonight--there are some bad assumptions that were made that are destroying our country and that are destroying our budget, our economy, and just killing jobs in America and creating a whole lot of hardship. But it doesn't have to be that way. There is potentially good news. But we just have to follow the principles, just like airplanes follow aerodynamics, we have to follow the principles of economics. And one of those--you just got to the bottom line--is, you've got to ease off on the taxes. And there is a logical reason for it. Let's just take a look, though, so people understand the gravity of what we are looking at. This is who owns our debt. This debt is created because we are promising all kinds of benefits to American citizens, all kinds of promises that we are going to give them health care and we are going to give them housing and food and education and all the stuff that the Soviet Union also promised their citizens. And who is picking up the tab? A lot of foreigners are buying our debt. Here it is. Foreign holding of American debt was 5 percent in 1970. That was when I graduated from college. Foreign holdings, 1990, 20 years later, go from 5 to 19 percent in 20 years. Now, 20 years later, in 1210, foreign holdings, 47 percent. Is that healthy? How much longer are the Chinese and the other foreign countries going to continue to pay us money that we don't have to pay off American voters just to keep them happy? This is a glide path that will end up in a crash. The gentlewoman, Congresswoman Lummis, has suggested that, even now, trying to pull this thing out is going to take a number of years. This isn't something that can be turned around overnight. And I think this 20-year kind of pattern reflects the fact that what we are talking about is really serious here, but it still is basic economic principles.

Mr. AKIN. How are you going to pay that mortgage payment now?

Mr. AKIN. The problem with Freddie and Fannie is you don't get something for nothing. I'm an engineer. I mean, it's one of those things, if it isn't there, it isn't there. So what we're doing is we're using Freddie and Fannie to make loans to a certain number of people who can't afford to pay them. Then that means, Where is the money going to come from?

Mr. AKIN. I think that's good. It paints a vivid picture, but there is a problem with Freddie and Fannie.

Mr. AKIN. Five million?

Mr. AKIN. You didn't even mention that little small detail of the government becoming the master. The government is getting so big, the government employees are making so much money it's effectively becoming not the servant, but the master.

Mr. AKIN. I think what you're saying is important. You're using some doctors' analogies.

Mr. AKIN. I thank the gentleman. I think you're articulate, and I think that that's accurate to say: there is a good bipartisan sentiment that when a small nation is trying to defend itself, we have always stood for people. The basic principle of people being allowed to be free and have some self-determination as to how they're going to rule their own country and be free from the fear of terrorists, that's something that Americans can really agree on. I appreciate you taking time on that subject, and also my good friend from New York taking the time to organize the hour. Very good job. Thank you.

Mr. AKIN. Well, thank you very much, gentleman. And thank you for the leadership you've shown tonight. Democrat's Management of The Economy

Mr. AKIN. I would now change gears here and get on to another subject. We're dealing with some weighty topics tonight; the previous was of course international relations, the other is closer to home, and it's really the question of the economy: the Democrats' management of the economy, what should be done with the economy, how does that affect jobs and how does that affect all of our lives. I guess it sounds like kind of a boring subject in some ways; but on the other hand, it so much influences and affects every single person in our country that I guess we have to put up with a little bit of talk about economics just to make sure that we're not destroying our country or destroying our jobs and putting our grandchildren into debt. And so the whole topic of economics and jobs can be a little perplexing, but it doesn't have to be. I do apologize ahead of time that I am, by training, an engineer. Someone once said that engineers shouldn't be allowed in political office perhaps because they're too logical, or whatever the reasons are. But I do think it's important to back up just a little bit to say where we are here in the economy and how we got to where we're going and what mistakes have been made. I'm not one to want to just criticize and not offer a solution, so I'm going to try to do that. I'm going to try to draw some practical applications as we wrap up in a while as to what we should be doing, what policies should be changed, what does America have to do to pull ourselves out of the economic nosedive that we're currently in. It's not a graveyard spiral. There were days in the early days of airplanes that when a pilot pulled his airplane up into a stall, fell over backwards, he would get into what was called a graveyard spiral. And the pilot would grab the stick of the airplane, pull it back violently to try to get the nose of the airplane to pull off from the ground and the airplane would just keep spiraling down and crash into the ground. It ruined the pilot's whole day. Our economy may be at a graveyard spiral, but there are things that we can do to prevent it from crashing, but we're going to have to do that and do it soon. So that's what I want to take a look at. I want to back up just a little bit to the days back at this superconservative oracle, The New York Times. This is September 11, 2003. This is really the beginning of President Bush's Presidency, and he goes to the New York Times--and this is September 11, but it's not 2001, it's 2003--and it says here, this is the article: The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. That's interesting. President Bush was saying in 2003 that we've got to take a look at this finance industry and the overhaul of this housing finance industry. And under the plan disclosed at a congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. Interesting. This is way before the mortgage-backed security thing hit the fan and the whole stock market crashed and all that sort of stuff; this is way before that. So President Bush, he's saying, okay, let's regulate these because they're out of control. They've lost $1 billion or something. And he thought, well, that's not pocket change. Here's the President asking for this authority, and what do we have from then in the minority? We had this from Representative Frank, he says: These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing. Now, people who know Freddie and Fannie know that these guys were big players here on the Hill. They had lobbyists that were terribly effective, went around and distributed a whole lot of money to a lot of people, and they didn't want anybody playing in the deal they had going. So what happened here? Well, what happened was the House--at that time in Republican control--passed a bill to regulate Freddie and Fannie. It went to the Senate, and what do you think happened to it? Well, in those days, Republicans had a majority in the Senate, but they didn't have the 60 votes necessary for cloture, and so the bill was killed by Democrats in the Senate. Freddie and Fannie continued on their merry way, and all of a sudden, a number of years later, what other people had seen--Bush had seen years before--was going to happen, it happened, and we had this great big crisis start. Now, that was all connected with ACORN, the organization that was pushing banks to make loans that normally a bank wouldn't make because the people that the loans were going to be made to couldn't afford to pay them. So we started going on this track of passing out loans to people that couldn't afford to pay them, and every time we sold one of those loans, somebody made some money. And what did they do with all of those bad loans? They dumped them all on Freddie and Fannie. And as you know, you just keep doing something like this, pretty soon the music is going to stop and there are going to be people without chairs. That's what happened in the savings and loan problem. Now, what is going to be the solution? Well, we are going to talk a little bit about that, about where we are going with the economy and about what we need to be doing. I am joined now in the Chamber by a good friend of mine, Dr. Paul Broun, from the Atlanta, Georgia area, if I recall properly--not Atlanta but, rather, some other part of Georgia.

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey.)

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, it's a treat to be able to rise and say the en bloc amendment is fine, just as most of what is in the bill is fine. Unfortunately, there is an amendment that's being offered which threatens to poison the entire package and to do great damage to our military, and that is an issue that you've heard from earlier this day, the idea of repealing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell legislation. Now, the way it works currently in the military is that if you happen to be homosexual and you want to serve in the military, that's fine. And as long as your particular sexual tastes don't get in the way of performing the mission, there's no problem. The point is that the military has a job to protect our citizens, and we don't want things getting in the way of that. If you were to commit adultery, you could be discharged because that gets in the way of our performing our mission. Now, we face an amendment here, which is opposed by all of our military leadership, which says we're going to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. What, then, does that look like? I mean, currently the policy is you could be gay, and as long as it doesn't get in the way of doing your job, everything is fine. So now we're going to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So what exactly are we asking? Are we asking the military then to protect or condone homosexual behavior if it does get in the way of performing the mission? What exactly are we talking about? Are we talking about creating separate dormitories, for instance, if we have sexual harassment? What will this have to do with recruitment? People that have a 17- year-old kid that may be wanting to sign up, what will this do to recruitment? What's it going to do to the morale of the troops? What's it going to do to small-unit cohesion? And, also, the other piece of the military is about these soldiers that are giving their time and lives are confined to very tight areas and pushed together in very difficult circumstances over long periods of time. What is the effect of that? And all of these questions are sitting out there, and the military leadership is saying, yeah, we don't know the answer to those questions. Give us some time to take a look at it. We don't want you to pass this until we can see what's going on with this. Now, I have three sons. They've graduated Naval Academy. All of them went Marine Corps. One survived his experience in 2005 in Fallujah. And when our sons and daughters are serving and laying their lives or their bodies on the line so that we can live in peace and freedom, that is a very sacred kind of sacrifice they're making for us. So why would we belittle that by jumping into something? We're being asked to pass something that we don't even know what we're passing. We don't understand the implications or how it would look. And yet we're going to jump into this for, what, some sort of political deal to satisfy some vocal but small minority using the lives of our own children? I will not have any part of betraying the interest of our kids just for political purposes.

Mr. AKIN. Just to respond briefly here on the subject of missile defense, I know we are working with some en bloc amendments. We're comfortable with those amendments. There is some disagreement on missile defense, and I think at least a considerable vulnerability that many people on our side are very concerned with was the decision not to build a ground base system in Poland and the radar in the Czech Republic, but instead, to suggest that the Aegis class cruisers could cruise around in the ocean and take care of the mission to stop ballistic missiles, particularly a longer range ballistic missile possibly equipped with a nuclear warhead coming out of Iran. The fact of the matter is that the Aegis class missiles do not have the velocity necessary to stop a longer-range ballistic missile. And the only way we had to do that was, quite simply, the ground-based system, which is a 20-ton missile; the Aegis class missiles are more two ton. So there is a factor-of-10 difference in the weight of the missile. Obviously, the much larger missile can develop the velocity it needs to go after a very high-flying, fast-moving ballistic missile that could come from Iran as early as in the next few years. And so there is a serious concern that, in terms of missile defense, we do not really have protection over Western Europe and our troops that are stationed in Western Europe. Of more concern to us was some level of obfuscation that we received from the Pentagon as to what the real capabilities of this potentially Standard Block 3 missile--it's called the Standard Block 3, 2A--and what sort of velocities that could attain. From the most reliable sources that I personally have been able to discuss this with and keeping things within the nonclassified setting, that missile we have very little hope will ever develop the velocity necessary to take out a high-flying ballistic missile. So we have a big gap in our ballistic missile capabilities, and that gap is the size of Europe. And we are betting on the development of a missile that just does not have the physical size or capabilities of developing the velocities we need to protect Europe. We don't think that's good strategy. We think that's a weakness in the bill. I still support the bill, it's a good bill--unless we put bad amendments on it. This block of amendments is okay, but we do have some weaknesses.

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, we are now considering a rule on the Armed Services bill. The rule allows 10 minutes to debate the question of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. A question in terms of policy which probably has more far-reaching implications than how many aircraft carriers we have is going to get 10 minutes just before Memorial Day. I think maybe some people in the rules department here don't really want to see this fully investigated or discussed. The current rule of Don't Ask, Don't Tell says that if you are homosexual and you want to serve in the military, that's fine, but, if your behavior disrupts the mission, you can be discharged. The question then becomes, if we repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, what does that mean? Does that mean that we are going to then protect or condone homosexuality? Does it mean that we are going to have to create separate barracks? How do we deal with sexual harassment? What are the implications on recruiting? What are the implications on morale? What are the implications in terms of small unit cohesion? All of these are big question marks, and there are many more besides. Does this impact, for instance, the different benefits and how benefits are delivered? Well, the military leadership doesn't know the answer to these questions any more than we do, so they have said, Please, don't do this. Let us have time to take a look at it, see how it affects overall our national security. But we are being asked, in a period of 10 minutes, that we want to repeal this. So we are being asked once again to pass legislation when we don't even know what it means. That hasn't worked very well in the past. Now, I have three sons, graduates of the Naval Academy, all three Marine Corps. One survived his experience in Fallujah in 2005. And it seems to me that when people are willing to give their lives and their limbs for our country, that that is quite a sacred obligation that they have placed in our hands as legislators to be careful how we handle that trust. And so as we consider something that has very far-reaching implications, is this something that we should do lightly, and particularly with little respect for them? The military leadership, of course, is opposed to this. They are asking us for time. They are wanting to take a look and see what that means. Are we going to then protect and condone homosexuality in the military? That is a big question. And how does that work out? And is this the way that we show respect for the people who are willing to offer their lives and their limbs for our country? Is this the sort of thing that George Washington or our Founders would be proud of that we are doing today in this little quick flash before Memorial Day? And why are we wanting to do this? To tickle the fancies of a very vocal but very small minority for political purposes. I will not betray my children or our armed services people just for mere politics.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 5136--that's the National Defense Authorization Act--which we have before us at this time, and it was approved unanimously by Republicans and Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee. And we believe overall a proper balance has been struck on this bill. I was personally concerned about some problems with our missile defense system, but I made several amendments looking to get a little more information from the administration on these programs. Those were adopted. In addition, we were concerned about the department's assessment even in the most rosy scenario that we are short on strike fighters. And I was pleased that we are able to add some additional F-18s to the budget to at least, in a small way, mitigate that particular problem. I would be remiss, though, if I were to stand here and say that everything is well. As much as I support this bill, it is possible to mess up any good thing. And the idea of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell at the last minute with an amendment that doesn't even come out of our committee, that has, at the most, 10 minutes to debate and has more far-reaching implications for defense than almost any single item in this bill is the height of folly. Approaching Memorial Day weekend, for us to try to slide this little fellow in, this little political gimme to some vocal but very small interest group over the interests of our sons and daughters who serve in the service, in spite of the objections of the military leadership, starting with the Secretary of Defense coming down the chain of commanders saying, Give us time to figure out, what does it mean to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The current policy says that if you're gay and you want to serve in the military, that's fine, but don't let it get in the way of the mission. If we take that out, what does it mean? We need time, and we don't need some fast little political fix to mess up an otherwise good bill.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. So, when we're talking about a cozy relationship here, it's very cozy.

Mr. AKIN. So Obama's person in charge, Salazar, who is in charge of this thing, basically hired somebody out to basically do this oversight?

Mr. AKIN. What was her name, gentleman?

Mr. AKIN. As to my understanding, doesn't the law require that the President in a major environmental disaster like this--I've been told that the Federal law requires that the President take charge of the situation. Has he been down there basically running it and calling the shots?