W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, let's take a look at what this budget is doing because the gentleman from Utah has brought up some good points. What's happened is the Democrats are basically cutting component parts of missile defense. They know it works. They have seen the tests. They know the stuff works. They can't say it doesn't work, but they are not going to fund it. They're funding some of it, but they're not funding some of the key programs that are important. The first thing they're cutting is the number of what's called ground-based missiles. Those are the ones, if you think about a missile and how far it can go, the missiles that go the farthest, we call them intercontinental ballistic missiles, and those missiles, the only way you stop them is with that ground-based defense. And so we're going to freeze the number of those ground-based defenses, but that's not all that we're cutting. What we're also going to do is, we're going to stop the kinetic kill. Is that in the reentry aspect? Is that what that was for, or is that a different part?

Mr. AKIN. So what's happening, though, are they cutting the funding for the airborne laser, also?

Mr. AKIN. So, in other words, what we're doing is we've got the three stages where you can shoot at a missile: when the missile is being launched, which is in some ways the place where the missile is most vulnerable and where you turn it into junk, it falls on the country that launched it at you. Then you've got the mid-course and we're limiting that. And then you've got the reentry part of it. So what you're saying is we're doing some serious cuts in all of those areas. And so here you have Iran just this morning launches this, and their technology is moving fast, moved to solid rocket, multiple stage. They're busy putting the centrifuges together to make the nuclear devices. Let's take a look at what a range of 1,200 miles would mean. Here from Iran, as you come out in these circles, what you are saying is, first of all, you can hit all of Israel, and second of all, you can threaten sort of the southwest part of Europe with that range missile. Is that correct, gentleman from Arizona?

Mr. AKIN. And yet our President has negotiated away, from what we know, putting the radar that we need and the battery of missiles to protect Europe and eastern United States.

Mr. AKIN. Is that what you're advocating?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, now you're stopping the preaching and getting on to meddling. What you're saying is in the first five weeks that this Congress met, we passed this porkulous bill or stimulus bill or whatever you want to call it at $800-something billion, and you're talking about cutting missile defense by less than $2 billion. Did I understand the number correctly?

Mr. AKIN. So we're talking about less than 1 percent, a minuscule part of our defense, to protect our cities from being turned into dust. I don't understand the logic of that. Also, this is a North Korean ballistic missile threat. So it's not just Iran, and Iran threatening Europe. We're also talking about North Korea developing longer and longer-range missiles, and as they stack more--as you have said before, you take these solid rocket motors and you stack them up into multiple stages. You get the velocity to get the distance to start threatening the continental United States from North Korea. And he hasn't shown any signs of backing off. He's still busy making nuclear weapons and still busy working on his warheads. And even if he doesn't use them, he wants to sell them to other people. So why would we want to be cutting our missile defense at this time? It just seems like about insanity. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, these are all different places. If you're going to have to use it up, it's going to cost you $1,900 per household just for the first year of this tax. This just tells you what you'd have to give up to save that money to pay that tax. This one here is all of the meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy products, fruits and vegetables that a family eats in 1 year. That's what you've got to give up to compensate for this tax that's being proposed. Or, maybe you don't want to do that. You want to give up this--all furniture, appliances, carpet, and other furnishings. You can give that up for 1 year.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, wait a minute now. I recall that the President stood on this floor, and one of the things that he made a big point about was transparency. I have a hard time understanding the transparency of the administration cutting a major part of missile defense that's very important, and we're on the Armed Services Committee and we didn't even have a clue that that was going on. Is that transparency? I yield to my friend from Utah.

Mr. AKIN. So we're talking out of both sides of our mouth here again. What you are saying is, on the one hand, they're saying we need more testing, and second of all, they're cutting the budget so we can't test.

Mr. AKIN. It just comes back out to the same thing. There's this hostility to developing the defense that we need to protect our homeland, and the excuses that it won't work have been proven--test after test, these things are working extremely well, and the fact is that if there's any function of this Congress that we should be paying attention to, it's protecting our own citizens. And so I just find it impossible to understand the decisions that are being made in cutting the missile defense. I don't think that's the right thing to do. I can certainly say that on the Armed Services Committee, I will not vote to cut missile defense. And I would yield back to my friend from Utah, Congressman Bishop.

Mr. AKIN. That's absolutely right. I appreciate the gentleman's perspective, and that's coming from a judge. You want to know what has happened and exactly what's going on. Don't put this behind smoke and mirrors. We're talking here about comparing the cost of these taxes being proposed. This is the cost of World War II right here, this big blue circle. This cap-and-trade here at $1.9 trillion is a tremendous, tremendous tax. The other wars--this thing here--would be the war in Afghanistan and the terrorist wars and all. All of these are small by comparison to what's being proposed. So what does that mean for the average family? What are their costs going to be? Well, you can see the energy here. The blue here is gasoline, and the gasoline is going to jump 16 percent. This is just by 2012. You're going to see a 16 percent increase in the cost of gasoline. The green is electricity. That's going to jump 9 percent, and that's just the beginning. That's only by 2012. Then you've got natural gas, which is going to jump 14 percent. Now, when the economy is rough and people are having trouble with unemployment, this somehow or other seems like a pretty strange thing to be talking about, a massive tax increase like this. We're joined by my good friend from Georgia, and I would yield time to the doctor.

Mr. AKIN. Yes, they're sobering. They even make a judge sober. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a pleasure to be able to join you this evening and my colleagues on a couple of very interesting topics. I think the first thing that we will talk about is something that has been on the minds of people since this morning. That was when we got an announcement from Iran that they had just fired a missile some 1,200 miles. That is what they claimed. We don't know the details. We're waiting for a brief on the Armed Services Committee on exactly what it was that Iran did, the nature of the missile that they fired. But this is something that has captured the attention and the concern of Americans because you have coming together here a combination of three things that we find to be of high level of concern. The first is the ability to make these long-range missiles; particularly, we're talking about solid fuel missiles that have multiple stages. That allows a missile to go some considerable distance and therefore target larger areas of the Earth's surface. The second thing is nuclear energy. That is a weaponized nuclear energy in the form of a warhead. So now you have a missile that can go some distance; it has a nuclear warhead on it. That becomes extremely dangerous. And now when you add the third element, that is radical Islam, to that, people who think it is their destiny and their duty to destroy other people who don't think the way you do, you put those three together and you have something that has indeed captured the news for the day. So I thought that would be important today to look a little bit at what do you do when you have an adversary that has a missile, a nuclear warhead, and a will to use it against you. That was the question that was faced historically some years ago by Ronald Reagan. Up to that time, there had been a whole series of treaties and different things had come along, and we had gotten to the point where we said, Well, they have got missiles; they can blow us up. We've got missiles; we could blow them up. And that would be so crazy, we will have a Mexican standoff. We will call it mutually assured destruction. But that really was a very, very foolish idea. I'm joined tonight by one of the foremost authorities in the U.S. Congress on the subject of missile defense and strategic missile defense, my good friend, Congressman Franks. And it's a treat to have you here on the floor, and talk about a timely subject, Iran just having launched a missile. And surprisingly, this has been a matter of a great deal of partisan division and a lot of debate on this subject, and if you could help us with a little bit about the logic and the history. I would like to do the background on missile defense so we can understand what is going on today in context. I would yield.

Mr. AKIN. The thing that is the most amusing on this is that the one major source of energy that we have that makes no CO2 is not being given any credit or is being pushed forward at all, which is nuclear power. We'll talk about that, but I want to yield to the gentlewoman from Wyoming, Congresswoman Lummis. Thank you for joining us tonight. It's just a treat to have you here.

Mr. AKIN. I think we're getting close on time, but the good news is my good friend, Congressman King from Iowa, is here. I think he is going to continue talking on the same subject. I think he might be willing to recognize some of the other Congressmen that want to weigh in on this absolutely crazy sort of tax system that's being proposed. The funny thing is that, just to conclude, this chart right here, this is something the Democrats have been unwilling to deal with or talk about. But, see this little card? There's a little plastic thing here and there's a thing inside there that's the size of two mechanical pencil erasers. There's enough nuclear energy in that little pill right there to equal 149 gallons of oil, 1 ton of coal, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. That's how much energy is in that one little tablet. Maybe we ought to be thinking about real technology. Thank you all for joining me this evening.

Mr. AKIN. Or a rock and somebody had a shield to stop the rock or something. So one offense, one defense. I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead.

Mr. AKIN. Congressman Shimkus is just doing the yeoman's job on the committee. It's a tough thing. Those amendments seem to me so commonsense that I'm kind of amazed that anybody in the political business would dare to vote against something that's saying, hey, it's $5 a gallon for gasoline or unemployment is at 15 percent. Actually, that's not such an odd idea because Spain has put in this same thing that is being proposed here. Their unemployment now is 17.5 percent, and they're suffering. They're calling all the green jobs ``subprime jobs.'' Thank you very much, Congressman Shimkus. We're joined by a very sober judge from the State of Texas, my good friend, Judge Carter. Welcome to our discussion this evening. Let's talk a little bit about these taxes.

Mr. AKIN. Right near 10. So you're saying if it gets to 15, enough already. We've got to ease back on this thing that's hurting us. Because the point of the matter is this tax is going to create unemployment. Right? And if they say, well, it's not going to create unemployment, then they don't have any problem with an amendment saying that at 15 percent unemployment we're going to stop it. Right? But, no, so they're saying no we don't want that amendment, saying they think it will go over 15 percent.

Mr. AKIN. Just reclaiming my time for a minute. What--how much unemployment do we have now? We're not up to 10 percent yet, are we gentleman?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming, you're just saying that what we said is, hey, gas is painful when it gets up there to $3 or $4 a gallon. But you're saying if gas gets to $5, we put an amendment saying enough already; that's enough tax at $5 a gallon. And that was a party-line vote. The Republicans voting, I assume, that they don't want to let it get over 5. The Democrats saying it's okay to tax more than that; is that correct?

Mr. AKIN. Just reclaiming my time. Is this a multistage, do you believe?

Mr. AKIN. I appreciate your passion on that subject. Gentlemen, there's one point that I always like to make on missile defense that it seems like many times people overlook it. And what I hear, just talking to people back in my district they say, well, couldn't these bad guys basically smuggle a missile into our city and just set it off? And they don't really need a missile to do that. And the answer is, they can try, but that's not as easy to do as it appears because the bombs and things do emit some radiation and there's some chance we could catch them. But the other main point is that a bomb set off up in the air is far, far more deadly, hundreds of times more deadly in terms of casualties than one set off on the ground. I think that's part of the reason why you see our opponents developing these ballistic and intercontinental ballistic missiles because of this high level of threat and a very rapid ability to deploy a weapon. And so that's part of the reason why this is a very key topic. And I thank you so much. The gentleman from Arizona has taken a lot of time to understand this, knows it inside and out. He's just about like an expert. And Arizona has been doing the right thing sending you up here. And I think we're going to move on to another topic which is particularly of importance to Americans today, and that's the subject of taxation and energy. Not so long ago, our President said, under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, or that is cap-and-tax system, electric rates would necessarily skyrocket. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers. This is the President in a meeting in guilty January of 2008. Well, he is now the President. And they're talking about this cap- and-tax system that's been the subject of debate now for hours and hours in the Energy and Commerce Committee. And from what we're seeing and taking a look at what's being proposed, the President was accurate in this statement. It is going to be extremely expensive, and electric rates are going to skyrocket indeed. The interesting thing about this though was he stood here at the beginning of this year and said, I'm not going to tax anybody that's making less than $250,000. And yet what's being proposed here is every time you turn a light switch on, you're going to get some more taxation. How much taxation are we talking about? And what's the logic of this? Well, the logic is supposed to be that the Earth is getting too hot, and that's really a serious problem for us. The Earth is getting too hot. And so I thought it was interesting to take a look back historically over the last hundred years, not at the temperature of the Earth, but at what the scientists have been saying down through the years. In 1920, the newspapers were filled with scientific warnings of a fast approaching glacial age, 1920s. 1930s, scientists reversed themselves and they said there's going to be serious global warming in the 1930s. In 1972, Time magazine, citing numerous scientific reports that imminent runaway glaciation is what the Time magazine called it. And by 1975, Newsweek, scientific evidence of an ice age. And so people were being called to stockpile food, and the question of whether we should use nuclear weapons or some method of melting the Arctic ice cap. 1976, U.S. government: ``The Earth is heading into some sort of mini- ice age.'' And now we've got global warming. And so over the period of the last hundred years, well-meaning scientists and, supposedly majorities of scientists, even, have changed their opinion about this global warming about three times or so. Well, the complaint now is that we've got this CO2 that's being generated which makes the Earth warmer and, therefore, we want to tax the CO2. When the government wants to tax something, usually you'd better hang on to your wallet. We're talking about a lot of tax. And tonight we have probably one of the most foremost experts in the House on the whole subject of this what's called cap-and-tax. A man who's been in the middle of these hearings for hours and hours is joining us. It's a treat to have Congressman Shimkus from Illinois. I yield time, gentleman.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. I thank you very much, gentlemen. Congressman King is known for the Opportunity Society that he chairs. He brought in a speaker just a matter of a couple of weeks ago, an economist from Spain, talking about the exact same thing that's being proposed here in America. In fact, the President has referred to Spain as a great example of what we should do. And he informed us that it's a great example if you like 17\1/2\ percent unemployment. What he described was--one of the things that was just amazing to me in terms of the contradiction that's involved was, they closed down nuclear power plants in Spain because they're worried about CO2. Yet, nuclear power plants don't make any CO2 at all. In fact, the chart next to my good friend from Iowa there, the chart is a blowup of that little tiny card in the top left corner that's clipped on there. That little tiny pellet that's the size of two pencil erasers, if you have a couple of those, it takes just--let's see, if you have two of those, it takes all of the energy you need to heat your house for 1 year. Two of those little tiny pellets. Yet, you're talking about two times 149 gallons of oil or 2 tons of coal or the equivalent of two times 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. And so if you're really serious about stopping CO2, aside from the flatulence of the sheep in Australia and all, look, nuclear is clearly the logical thing for us to do. If you could pop the next chart up there, too. These are the sources of emission-free electricity. If you take a look at it, nuclear right now, that's making no CO2 emissions, is 73 percent. Yet, there's no discussion at all about what is going to be done with nuclear. That just seems to be--I mean, what we are really talking about is just a good excuse to tax people. And I'm afraid. I don't want to ramble on too far, but it seems so odd that Spain would basically shut down nuclear in the name of trying to protect against CO2. I mean the engineer in me just says these people have drunk some kind of Kool-Aid. The thing that was frightening--and I will conclude with this--about the Spanish system, was that the country sold off licenses to people to make their clean energy that was solar and wind. And the government would guarantee you a really high rate of electricity if you bought solar panels if you bought one of these licenses. So the people would give these licenses. You've got all these people with licenses. They're buying solar panels and windmills. As they do that, they feed that electricity into the grid, and they get paid a good chunk of change for it, which then of course is then passed on to the taxpayers. They have had a 30 percent increase in electric rates in the last couple of years for the consumer. But for industry, in a year and a half, it's been a 100 percent increase. Here's the bad thing. When the wind and the solar don't cooperate, they tell the aluminum manufacturer, they tell the steel manufacturer, Shut your plant down. Guess what those aluminum and steel manufacturers are doing? They're moving out of Spain. That's why they have got a 17\1/2\ percent unemployment over there. And so I don't think we really want to follow Spain's example. They create this system where now, politically, they can't put the genie back in the bottle because you have all these people on the take and you politically can't say we're going to take away your lucrative business of making all of this electricity because they bought windmills and solar panels which don't work when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. It's a really amazing thing. I sure hope America doesn't go down this big old tax thing. I yield back to my good friend from Iowa and your leadership.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor America's entrepreneurs, those distinguished individuals who support our communities, drive innovation, and keep our nation strong. Small businesses bring fresh ideas to the table, develop the resources to meet the demands of an ever-changing world, and make a meaningful impact on our neighborhoods. Entrepreneurs are responsible for providing 60 to 80 percent of all new jobs, giving them the potential to propel rapid economic growth and expand ever-developing fields. Some of the country's largest companies began as start-ups in small offices, homes and garages exploring these new fields. Limited only by their imagination, these firms performed cutting-edge work in emerging industries that have become the very foundation of our society. As our nation and the world face the most difficult economic conditions in decades, entrepreneurs have the potential to lead us back to prosperity. The resiliency and adaptability shown by small businesses in past recessions demonstrate their capability to meet the challenges standing in their way and emerge stronger than ever. America's small businesses will drive the economic recovery from this downturn and our economy will emerge stronger than ever. Times may be tough, but America's entrepreneurial spirit is tougher. To recognize the monumental achievements of our nation's small firms, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has declared May 17-23 as the 46th Annual National Small Business Week. The House Small Business Committee is celebrating all our country's hard-working entrepreneurial by saluting the Heroes of Small Business, those men and women who have shown the strength, leadership, and resourcefulness that keeps our economy moving forward. I ask that you, Madam Speaker, and the entire U.S. House of Representatives join me in recognizing and thanking Mr. Greg Prestemon for his tremendous accomplishments on behalf of small businesses. Mr. Prestemon has led the St. Charles Economic Development Center (EDC) for 15 years, helping spur the county's rapid population and economic growth during his tenure. Since he assumed the top post at the EDC, St. Charles County has grown by almost 120,000 residents and total valuation assessment has risen from less than $2 billion to $7.2 billion in 2007. For his efforts, Mr. Prestemon was named as the 2008 Non-Profit Executive of the Year by St. Charles Business Magazine. This month, the SBA named the St. Charles EDC as its 504 Lender of the Year after the organization disbursed more than $22.5 million to 37 businesses throughout the region in 2008, valuable assistance that helped create or retain over 1,000 jobs. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Iowa State University and a master's degree in economic development from the University of Iowa. Madam Speaker, Mr. Prestemon has exemplified the remarkable accomplishments of which America's entrepreneurs are capable. This week, he will testify before the House Small Business Committee to share his story. I ask that you and the entire U.S. House of Representatives join with me in honoring him for the extraordinary work he has done for the small business economy. His efforts demonstrate that if given the right resources, America's small businesses can be the catalysts that lift our economic from the current downturn and put us on the road to recovery.