W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Congressman, if I could reclaim my time for just a minute because you're making some great points. I would like to back up to just a little bit higher altitude. What I'm hearing you say is, first of all, the package that the Democrats are proposing includes a whole lot of spending. If it's got a whole lot of spending, the assumption then appears to be that if the government spends a whole lot of money, it's going to make everything better. Now when you had to run the treasury of Colorado, is that the approach you used, that when you got in trouble you spent more money? I would yield.

Mr. AKIN. As a small businessman, then, when you got in trouble economically, did you spend a whole lot of money to get out of trouble?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, it seems like what I'm hearing from the Democrats and Republicans is that people look at this from a totally different point of view. What I keep hearing the Democrats saying is we've got to stimulate spending. Most of the people I know, if they had money, they would love to spend it. They don't need to be stimulated to spend the money. And it seems like what you are saying is that it's not that we need to stimulate spending, what we need to be doing is stimulating productivity, that we need to be having those jobs created by small business or larger businesses and that those jobs then put money in people's pocket and then they're going to spend naturally. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. Twelve percent jobless rate, rate of inflation at 14, and what was the interest rate?

Mr. AKIN. In other words, it seems to me that in that we already have a huge Federal debt, if going into debt more was going to make the economy good, we'd have a rip-roaring, great economy right now if you agree with that Keynesian assumption that was started. I'm just going to go way back in history, a little bit even before my time, to the guy who was in charge of spending a whole lot of money the first time this Keynesian notion came to be. This is a guy that worked for FDR, the guy who started this whole thing. And his theory was spend enough Federal money and the economy's going to turn around. So we start with a recession and it becomes the Great Depression. Eight years later this guy, Henry Morgenthau, he is appearing before the Ways and Means Committee right here in Washington, D.C., and he's talking about this theory about spending in order to stimulate the economy that we've heard for the last hour and he talks about how well it worked, because this is a guy that thought it was a great idea, this Keynesian model. He says: ``We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I say after 8 years, the administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot.'' And here we go again. It's like we can't learn from history. This is the author of this whole program and it just doesn't work. It wouldn't work for your small business, would it, gentlemen? And it didn't work for the State of Colorado. That's why you have a balanced budget, because you have the same common sense most American families know, that when you get in trouble you don't go buy a new car and run up a whole lot of debt. We're joined tonight by another great colleague, a gentleman from Virginia, been a legislator for many years, a very good friend of mine, Congressman Forbes. It's just a treat to have you here. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, I claim the same badge.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time for just a minute, because I'd like to underline what you said. You're working on the same assumption that has worked historically, time after time, and that is to look to the productivity of the private sector to create wealth instead of government to redistribute it. You know, we just tax or don't tax, we slop the money around, but we don't create anything, the government. I yield back.

Mr. AKIN. Well, my understanding, though, is, gentleman, that they had money, at least in the version that came from the House, for millions of dollars for education on sexually transmitted diseases. Now, that's a totally different definition of stimulus, isn't it? How does that help us to get jobs in the economy?

Mr. AKIN. It's just such a treat to have the gentleman here from Virginia, Congressman Forbes, who gives us such good advice. You have a great voting record, such tremendous common sense. I think the American public agrees with you. We've taken just a bunch of phone calls and a sense of where our district is all the way out in the State of Missouri, and the people realize that just massive, massive levels of Federal spending is not going to solve this problem. And it isn't about stimulating people to buy stuff. It's about productivity. It's about a very positive vision that you've set forth this evening, the fact that we can rebuild, that we have the can-do attitude in America that if we just let freedom work, we can take care of this problem, and there are very simple, straightforward solutions that through history have worked. And what you're proposing is that very simple idea. The other alternative is, quite frankly, socialism, redistributing a whole lot of wealth, huge, massive government spending, and at the end of all of that, the author of that Keynesian economics under FDR said, 8 years later, we're tremendously in debt and we've got the same unemployment we had. It flat didn't work. Thank you so much for joining us.

Mr. AKIN. We're joined by another great colleague of mine from the State of Indiana, my very respected friend and senior statesman, Congressman Burton.

Mr. AKIN. Could I reclaim my time for just a minute? Because I think what you're saying is so important. People are saying that today things are worse than at any time since the Great Depression. And yet what you just said was that under President Carter, what did you say the rate of inflation was?

Mr. AKIN. What was the jobless rate?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. 28 billion out of 800-something billion?

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time for just 1 minute. Let's just go back and talk about what has worked. It is not that we are in unchartered territory in terms of the condition of our economy right now. We've got some problems, but we can deal with them. And what we can do is use what has worked in the past. And one of the things that worked was what President Kennedy did, and then President Reagan did it, and then Bush did it very selectively in the year 2003. And what it was was not just any kind of tax cut, but a specific kind of tax cut which gets businesses going, which encourages innovation and the creativity of better processes, and taking the risk to hire new people to make products that are better and less expensive. So it is that productivity engine that gets going. It worked for JFK. It worked for Ronald Reagan. And it worked in the second quarter of 2003. So yielding back, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just want to underline the fact that this, what you're proposing has hard evidence historically it is working, not to mention Ireland in contrast to Japan, Ireland dropped their corporate tax rates, and their businesses just shot up like a skyrocket. Japan did the opposite, and they had 10 years of malaise. Yielding again to the distinguished gentleman.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. I just really appreciate, Congressman Burton, your long experience here in Congress, the fact that you have really earned a great reputation. It is a treat to have you here and to have this common sense and this warning about inflation. This is a form of theft. It is a form of theft because everybody, particularly old people who are trying to live on a fixed income, are going to be penalized because their money just won't go as far. And that is what happens when you start to spend massive amounts of money. We're talking, if you take a look at the debt after World War II, you're looking at 6 percent. We're jumping this thing to 10 percent. This is unchartered waters. And that is the kinds of spikes that we're talking about is inflation. This is very, very serious. And it demands a good solution and not just shooting off more Federal programs. I will yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. It just seems to me that every family in America has the common sense to know that when times get tough, one thing you don't do is go out and spend money like mad. We have already been spending money like mad. In fact, we allowed this whole situation to get away from us because of a bunch of social programs that there was no fiscal accountability on them. We tried to control it. But we were blocked by the Democrats. And so now we have got ourselves in a little bit of a fix. But it is not the end of the world. As you said, gentleman, it is not as bad as it was under Carter when we had double-digit inflation, we were double- digit on unemployment and those kinds of things. We're not there yet. It is important we do the right thing but not just waste a whole lot of money on things. I'm joined by a good friend of mine, a judge from Texas. And he is a sober judge, too, which is a good kind. I think it is the only kind they have in Texas. And so I would yield to my dear friend from Texas.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. So what you're saying is this big bill that is proposed isn't necessarily about creating jobs at all. It is talking about creating new Federal programs. When is the last time you ever saw a Federal program die?

Mr. AKIN. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. What you're talking about here is really unchartered water for us. What we saw that FDR did back in the Great Depression was spending a whole lot of money, and we still had a high unemployment rate. In fact, his top guy, his Secretary of the Treasury said, after 8 years, all we've done is get ourselves into debt. We've got the same level of unemployment. And so one of the things that we've been hearing to some degree is that the President has been claiming is the Republicans don't want to do anything. It is not that we don't want to do anything. It is that we don't want to do the wrong thing. We don't want to do something that historically has never worked. That is crazy. It didn't work for FDR. It was tried by the Japanese where they kept throwing more and more of their money at their economy. And the thing was just absolutely wallowed in the water, and the Japanese economy, for 10 years, was a mess. And yet you look at what is the right thing to do and it is a little bit of discipline, isn't it? It is the idea that the Federal Government should tighten their belt and stop spending so much, and they need to return the money back to the private sector to get it working again. And the ironic thing about this is that when that is done, the bottom line is that the government gets more money in tax revenues. So everybody does well when the economy is strong. But when we suck all the money out of the private sector and use it all and spend ourselves and our grandchildren into debt, that is not a good solution. So we don't want to do the wrong thing. It is not that we don't understand the pressure and what is going on in the economy. Judge, I have some constituents that have written me a few letters, as you can imagine. I'll bet you have got some, too, on this subject. Here is one. This is one that comes from Town and Country, Missouri. ``For those of us who pay our bills on time, have no car payments and live beneath our means, I appreciate your effort,'' he is talking about my effort to vote ``no'' on all of these stimulus, and I guess I call it ``porkulous'' plans, ``at some point, will you ask your Democrat colleagues to once in a while think of me when they seek to take my money and give it to my neighbor who either can't or won't pay his bills and be responsible for his life?'' Now what we're talking about here is socialism. We're going to take, after the economy takes a hit, we're going to spend money like mad. We're not going to create jobs. We're just going to slop it around and hope somehow it is going to make the economy better. And the facts of history are that it doesn't work. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, Judge Carter from Texas, you say, well, now wait a minute, we're talking about an economic question. And you're all of a sudden moving over to a subject of essentially government rationing of health care. Why in the world would you be talking about the government rationing of health care in a bill like this? Well, the reason is because that was put in the bill. You know, when you get some hundreds and hundreds of pages of legislation, nobody's had a chance to read it except a few people they slip stuff into it. And one of the things is the idea if we're going to move to the government running all of health care, somebody's going to have to decide how we're going to control costs. And so the way to do it in a socialized medical system is that some bureaucrat has to tell you I'm sorry, Judge, you're just too old for that replacement hip that you have to have. Now, people think wow, that's really wild and wooly. That would never happen in America. Well, it's sure going on up in Canada. There is an example of a guy younger than I am, so this is getting close to home and he, just like I do, he needed a new hip replacement, and the Canadians said no, we can't afford to give you that. And by the way, if you had enough money to pay for it on your own that would be a crime. So what's he do? He comes down to America. But that's slipped into this bill too, is the beginning or greasing the skids for this rationing of health care by bureaucrats, and I believe that, and I think Republicans believe that those health care decisions need to be made by the patient and by the doctor and not by some bureaucrat rationing health care. I'd yield to the gentleman for this point.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, figuring it out in a very short period of time. Within a day or two, you're going to have to vote on this thing and you're supposed to go through that huge stack of a bill and the system's designed that way so you can hide stuff in it. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, the Republican Congress did pass that. Several times in a row he vetoed it and finally, I guess it was the third time around I think he did sign the Republican Congress bill. But I yield to my good friend, Judge Carter.

Mr. AKIN. There was an interesting cover on Newsweek. It says, we are all socialists. But judged by the way you're talking, reclaiming my time, it doesn't sound like you're quite a socialist yet, and I think there's an awful lot of people in your district and in my district that are thankful for your common sense and your willingness to just basically state it the way it is. Now, I'd just like to take a minute or two here and talk about the fact, and you alluded to this, as other Republicans have, this isn't the end of the world. We've been in a lot worse places back when Carter was President. It's not as bad as the New Deal yet, unless we keep doing the wrong things. But the vision of a bright and prosperous America where freedom reigns, where people's God-given rights, particularly to own property, are respected, that still is there. That heritage is deeply ingrained in American spirit and a pride and a joy. People aren't interested in a handout in America. They're more, or some are, but most true Americans are much more interested in a good job and being able to be responsible and provide for their families. And there is an economic system that allows that to happen. It's what we've always done in America. It's called free enterprise. It's not such a big surprise. Now, what one of the things that seems to be a little disjointed, and that is, where I disagree with my Democratic colleagues, and that is, there's a connection between businesses, particularly small businesses, and jobs. And that is, the connection is, that the businesses hire people, and if you hammer the business into the dirt, you can't be surprised if there aren't as many jobs there. And so the solution to this is not for government spending. If government spending were the solution, we would have a great economy right now. We've been spending way too much money, and you and I have voted, Judge, to make sure that we don't spend as much as we have been. But here's actually graphs that show this concept of allowing free enterprise to work. This vertical line on the chart is the second quarter of the year 2003. Now, we've done some tax cuts in these first couple of years. But take a look at what was going on with jobs. All of these lines that go down means it was a month that we lost jobs. But if you look over here, after we did the dividend capital gains tax cut, now this is not a popular tax cut because what you're doing is you're allowing people that own small businesses to keep more of their money so they can invest it in their own business. When they do that, they create jobs. Look what happens. All the vertical lines are months when we had a net increase in jobs in America. So if you're caring about unemployment, which we should be if we have any heart in us at all, what we should be saying is, let's do what works. The people who create the permanent jobs that make the economy go, 80 percent of them are small businesses. So you cannot take all their money away from them by overspending Federally, and expect them to have any money left over to do an improvement. I would yield to my good friend, the judge from Texas.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. That statistic just kind of got my attention. You're saying that this package, it's going to cost us $280,000 for every job we create?

Mr. AKIN. Gentleman, I yield, but if you could sign me up for one of those jobs, that sounds pretty good to me.