W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, on July 29, 2010, I was absent from the House and missed rollcall votes 483, 484, 485, 486 and 487. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall 483, ``no'' on rollcall 484, ``no'' on rollcall 485, ``no'' on rollcall 486 and ``yes'' on rollcall 487.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chair, I was absent from the House and missed rollcall votes 488, 489, and 490. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on rollcall 488, ``yes'' on rollcall 489, and ``yes'' on rollcall 490. Amendment No. 12 Offered by Mr. Graves of Missouri

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, on July 28, 2010, I was absent from the House and missed rollcall votes 476, 477, 478, and 479. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall 476; ``yes'' on rollcall 477; ``yes'' on rollcall 478; and ``yes'' on rollcall 479.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, on July 27, 2010, I was absent from the House and missed rollcall votes 470, 471, and 472. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall 470, ``yes'' on rollcall 471, and ``yes'' on rollcall 472.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, on July 27, 2010, I was absent from the House and missed rollcall votes 473, 474, and 475. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall 473, ``yes'' on rollcall 474, and ``yes'' on rollcall 475.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, on July 26, 2010, I was absent from the House and missed rollcall votes Nos. 467, 468, and 469. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall No. 467, ``yes'' on rollcall No. 468, and ``yes'' on rollcall No. 469.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker, and good afternoon, friends. This evening we're going to continue in the discussion which has been ongoing. We've just been treated to a whole series of wonderful promises and all the wonderful things the Democrat Party is going to do for America and how we've created all these jobs and we're doing this and that and the other thing. The only problem is, it's not working. Now, Republicans, and myself particularly here on the floor, talked a year ago about the proposals to create jobs and what the Democrats were going to do with the economy, and we said it's not going to work. It's not that we're being naysayers; it's just that we understand how the economy works and the fact that the proposals that have been made don't work. The American public is starting to understand that they don't work because unemployment is still very, very high, much higher than the numbers actually show because after somebody has been looking for a job for a year, they're taken off the unemployment list. So when you see 10 percent or 9.5 percent unemployment, the actual number, because the people who are not counted, who are not working, is far higher. I think it's helpful to go back and just understand some basic things about economics. I was dazzled, I was amazed Monday of this week as I was going through the airport and I saw our President talking and accusing Republicans in the Senate of being hypocrites--I think ``hypocrite'' was the word he was using--in the fact that they didn't want to continue people's unemployment. You know, the thing that strikes me as being odd is to have a whole series of policies that are well calculated to get rid of private sector jobs and then be surprised at the fact that there aren't any jobs. And you don't have to really be a wizard in economics to understand that the policies of the last 18 months have killed jobs. In fact, there are Democrats that understand that. We're going to talk about one here in just a minute. I'd like to go back to 2003, when George Bush was President. I want to go back to September 11 of 2003, which was the date of an article that appeared in The New York Times, not exactly a conservative newspaper. This article said, The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finances industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. So here's 2003, the Bush administration says something is wrong with Freddie and Fannie. What's wrong with Freddie and Fannie? Oh, they lost $1 billion here or there. Well, you're not supposed to do that. Economically it's considered a little sloppy on the books. Well, how did that happen? Well, it happened because of the fact that we had created a bunch of laws which said that you have to, if you're a bank, make loans to people who can't afford to pay the loans. Now, I suppose this might have been sold as compassion at one time, but somehow to me it seems like to put anybody in a loan that they can't afford is certainly not compassionate and is not a wise thing to do. But anyway, we did that over a long period of time, the idea being to get more and more Americans to own their own homes, which is nice if they can afford it. Well, what happened, under the last year of Clinton's administration they increased the percentage of the loans that had to be made that people couldn't afford to make. And what happened also at the same time, the Federal Reserve dropped the interest rate to almost zero and so there was this huge housing bubble starting up. Houses got more and more and more valuable and people could buy a house, get a loan from someone saying you don't have to make any down payment and you don't have to make any payments at all for 3 years. So you could let the government finance this new big house you built, and 3 years later it might have come close to doubling and you could sell it and just pyramid your money. It was a great deal as long as the music didn't stop. Well, President Bush said we need to have more Federal authority in Freddie and Fannie. Freddie and Fannie are quasi-public, quasi-private companies. And so what happened over this period of time is that Freddie and Fannie essentially went bankrupt. And when they did, boy did it hit the fan. So we are going to see, this is what Bush was saying he wanted to do. Here was the response of some of my Democrat friends. If they were so good at economics, they wouldn't have gotten it this far wrong. Here it is: Freddie and Fannie are not facing any kind of financial crisis. Oh, they're not facing a financial crisis, huh? Okay. Who is this? This is Congressman Frank, who is now in charge of fixing this problem, which he hasn't fixed yet. These two entities, Freddie and Fannie, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. They've got plenty of lobbyists with plenty of money to slop around on Capitol Hill, so we kind of like them. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we'll see in terms of affordable housing. Interesting. They're not in any kind of financial problem, huh? They brought the entire world economic system down because of these policies. Now, people had the gall to say that free enterprise doesn't work. My goodness, it wasn't free enterprise when people are forced to make loans that they can't afford to pay. The loans were then cut and sliced in pieces and sold all over the world. So everybody had these things, and there was no market anymore for them. And so we were called in in Congress a number of years ago, a couple of years ago--not quite 2 years--and told, hey, you've got to do this big bailout, $700 billion you've got to give to get the economy back in line. Why? Because of the fact that we didn't manage this thing correctly. Now, the interesting thing is, now with the economy going bad, the Democrats in power, with that going on, they came up with how to fix the economy. We're going to talk about that and why it is that--it's not that we're mean spirited, we're just saying mechanically, economically, it won't work. I'm joined tonight by a very fine Congressman from the State of Georgia. I think he may be the newest Congressman from the State of Georgia and just did very well in his election the other day. I think he's got one more election to go, and he'll be down here more permanently. But we're delighted to have Congressman Graves from the great State of Georgia. And I don't remember exactly where your district is. Could you give a little intro about where your district is?

Mr. AKIN. That's God's country up there. Is that the Blue Ridge Mountains?

Mr. AKIN. How close is that to the Chattooga River?

Mr. AKIN. That's about an hour or two drive from Atlanta.

Mr. AKIN. You know, there is one thing that is awful hard to argue with--just the plain numbers. In this year of 2008, Bush was President, but Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House. This was the worst spending year of the Bush administration. Did the Bush administration spend too much money? I would say, as a conservative, yes, he did.

Mr. AKIN. $459 billion right here.

Mr. AKIN. Right.

Mr. AKIN. Right. In 2008, that was Bush's worst year--$459 billion. Now take a look at the first Obama year. I mean talk about a runaway deficit. This cannot continue without the Nation's literally falling apart economically. So what you are seeing is the result of this incredible level of Federal spending, and its effect is very corrosive to jobs. So how is it that you can say, ``Oh, Republicans don't want to keep paying people for not working, and they don't care about unemployment''? It's like you guys are the ones who are doing everything possible to create the unemployment. I am joined by my good friend, Congressman Bishop, if you would like to join us.

Mr. AKIN. Yes.

Mr. AKIN. Wow. Why is that?

Mr. AKIN. Well, I am really interested in what you're going to say because it seems to me that there is a war on Missouri going on and a war on free enterprise going on, but I didn't know about the war on the West, so I am all ears. Please.

Mr. AKIN. My brother is a ``rambling wreck from Georgia Tech.'' He used to go kayaking on the Chattooga and got up into that country. It's a beautiful area, and I think the citizens from up there are wise to have elected you, Congressman. We enjoyed a conversation last week on the floor. I'd like you to jump in if you'd like to about how this whole thing is going. I was coming through the airport on Monday, and I heard the President screaming and yelling at Republicans about the fact that we didn't want to continue year after year after year paying people for not working and screaming at us that we're insensitive to the job situation. And I'm thinking, this guy has done more to destroy jobs in America than anybody in the history of the country just about, and he has the gall to say that. And it made me think, it's so simple, I don't see how people can miss it. If you hammer businesses, then you're not going to have jobs. If you destroy companies, then there are not going to be jobs because jobs come from companies. And if you hate companies and you hate the private sector, then how are you going to have jobs? So how can you, with a straight face, complain about jobs when you're trying to destroy the companies that make the jobs? It seems sort of straightforward to me. I don't even know how to explain it any simpler than that. Please join us.

Mr. AKIN. Well, I'll tell you something. I sometimes wish the Democrats would just learn from themselves and from their own mistakes, you know, because here is a guy, Henry Morgenthau, who was a contemporary of little Lord Keynes, and he tries this idea. I think it is the equivalent of, if you're from Texas, having those boots with the loops in the back, and you reach down and grab those loops and lift hard and try to fly around the room. The theory is, if the government spends enough money, the economy is going to get better. Now, if any father of a family in this country did something as stupid as that, they'd probably lock him up and put a little white suit on him, you know? To think that if you're in trouble economically that what you should do is go out and spend a ton of money--I mean maybe the theory is to spend a whole ton of money, eat, live and be merry because tomorrow we die, but as an overall theory of economics, this is really silly. They tried it. FDR tried it. This is this guy, Morgenthau, who has come back after 8 years, after taking a recession and turning it into a Great Depression. This wasn't just harming free enterprise and companies. Literally, those companies closed their doors. It wasn't that they were just sort of hunkered down. It wasn't that they were just sort of lean and waiting for better times. They closed the doors and stopped the businesses. So this is what he said. In Congress, he said this: We have tried spending money. We are spending money, more than we have ever spent before, and it doesn't work. I wish the Democrats could just listen to their own people. It doesn't work. He says: After 8 years of the administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot. This is Henry Morgenthau.

Mr. AKIN. Right.

Mr. AKIN. That's why I said I have a hard time understanding how you do this with a straight face. We've just heard of all these fantastic Democrat programs that are working fantastically, that are going along, and everything is fine. Yet we're saying, But we've got this little problem of no jobs. So the government spent even more money, and instead of understanding the nature of Americans--that ``can do'' spirit that makes America such a special place--and instead of trying to set a system up where people can have jobs and bites at the American dream, we say, ``No, we're just going to pay you not to work.'' You know, that's kind of degrading to people.

Mr. AKIN. Oh, man. It wasn't just the Bush administration that brought Hurricane Katrina. It brought every bad thing that ever happened in the whole world.

Mr. AKIN. So wait. Now you're really making a case. What I'm hearing you saying is there is a systematic series of decisions which literally creates unemployment. They are government decisions. It is worse in the West because the government controls more of the West, and those decisions systematically destroy jobs while the President comes on and, with a straight face, says that Republicans are hypocrites because of the fact that we don't want to keep paying people for not working. It just amazes me.

Mr. AKIN. The question I have is: How does the President think he can get away with doing this? I mean, all of these people that work in these different companies, when those decisions are made and they get rid of jobs--we were doing the same thing, weren't we, with telling people they couldn't drill for oil in the gulf? Didn't that put lots of people out of work? I don't understand why people don't see that and realize that you can't have a war on private business in America and, at the same time, say you're worried about jobs, because it seems like, to me, people get jobs in businesses. And if you destroy businesses--of course, their concept of jobs is, We'll hire more people for the census workers, I suppose.

Mr. AKIN. That is such a refreshing breath, or a little breeze anyway. We're hoping it will be even more refreshing in November. But what you're saying is, and the bottom line is, the government is not the thing that creates the jobs. And what we've seen is, for 18 months, a policy that says the government is going to take over everything. They fired the President of General Motors. They're going to take over insurance companies. They're going to take over banks. They've decided not only are they going to take over the insurance of flood insurance, they're going to take over the loans for students. They're going to take over whatever it is, one-sixth of the economy with their socialized medicine. If they could have, they wanted to take over the energy sector with their cap-and-tax bill, which would do nothing for global warming except for more taxes and more big bureaucratic government. And the solution to every problem is more taxes and more government, and they don't learn from the people, from their own party. You know, JFK understood that you've got to back off on taxes. I thank you very much, gentleman, for joining us, the Congressman from--Mr. Graves District, I think it's the Ninth District of Georgia, and really a fine addition here. And I appreciate the fact you have some business sense and some common sense, because America really needs to get back on that. And I also appreciate my good friend, Congressman Bishop from Utah. We'll get back to him in just a minute. But the talk about it was the largest tax increase in history. This is the dumbest thing in the world to do when you have a bad economy and no jobs. JFK understood what to do. He cut taxes and cut government spending. And what are we doing? We've got the largest tax increase in history coming up here. Those paying 10 percent will pay 15 percent. Those paying 25 will pay 28. Those paying 28 will pay 31; 33 goes to 36; 35 goes to 39. That's the biggest tax increase in the history of our country. It's exactly the wrong thing to do. It's not that we're being naysayers. It's not that we're being critical. It's just that it won't work. And the solutions are straightforward. What you want to do, you want to cut spending and you want to cut taxes. And here, this is this wonderful recovery plan. The Democrats said, if you vote for this $800 billion jobs bill, if you vote that, this is what's going to happen is this blue line. They said, if you don't vote for it, this light blue line is what's going to happen. You could have unemployment as high as 9 percent if you don't vote for us spending $800 billion, supposedly get the economy back and going. And so, on a strictly party line vote, the Democrats put in their nifty plan, and here's what happened, actual unemployment. And they're saying the economy is so good and so strong that we now need to extend people's unemployment benefits. There's something about that that just doesn't add up. My good friend from Utah.