W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, Congressman Scalise, thank you very much for your perspective, and I appreciate your optimistic and positive approach. We're not here just to say something won't work. We've got a better way to solve the problem. We've got something that has worked time after time historically, and the approach that is being proposed, which is just massive government spending, not only did it not work for Morgenthau, who was the guy who was the champion of this Keynesian economics for FDR, but it's never worked subsequently. It didn't work for the Japanese for 10 years, as they ran up huge debts, spent a whole lot of money. And the average American in this country has got enough common sense to realize that just dumping a whole lot of money, if you're in financial trouble and you're the captain of your own little family, you're not going to go out and buy brand new cars and run up a whole lot of debt. It doesn't make any sense. And for government to do that, the public knows that won't work either. But I want to get back to my good friend, Congressman Latta from Ohio, and I did interrupt you, and I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, I think the gentleman, what you are saying is--and you're saying it in a pretty sophisticated way, but just some poor old guy from Missouri, what I think you are saying, just like when we issued all of these loans that people couldn't pay, what we're doing, in a national sense, is we're like running down a dead-end street, and pretty soon, as we keep printing more and more money and keep getting more and more foreign countries buying our debt, there's going to become a time, a reckoning, and boy, it's really going to be unpleasant when we hit that stone wall at 70 miles an hour. Is that getting in the direction of what you're saying, Congressman? I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, I very much appreciate your perspective in getting to the positive solution. And I would yield to the gentleman. We've just got a minute or two, but if you'd like to join us, I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, that is the question, isn't it? How is this going to work? And I think that really there are two theories here in terms of the way you handle the problem that we're in with the economy. One is you spend money like mad, which is what FDR tried to do and turned a recession into a Great Depression, and the Japanese followed that same example, went down the same street for 10 years, had a great big depression over there because they had a bunch of these guys thinking you could, quote, stimulate the economy by spending money like mad that you don't have. But that raises the question in that we already have the amount of debt that you're talking about. We should have great economy if that theory worked, shouldn't we?

Mr. AKIN. I mean, we've got a tremendous amount of debt; therefore, we shouldn't have any economic troubles. And just as Henry Morgenthau found out, it doesn't work. And the approach that is being done by the Pelosi Congress and what is being asked for by our new President is based on this Keynesian model of economics which really doesn't work. I also promised my good friend, the gentleman from the congressional district in Ohio, Congressman Jordan, wanted to let you have--we've got about 5 minutes or so here. I wanted to let you have a chance to chip in on the whole conversation. You have been very helpful, and your thinking is highly respected, I know, in our caucus.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time for just a second here, what you're talking about is where I really wanted to get to with this conversation tonight. We're not just saying things won't work. Yes, what's being proposed, putting the government tremendously into debt, a lot Federal spending does not solve the problem, but there is a way to solve this problem. It's just going to require a little discipline, like some good wrestlers in the State of Ohio know, and I want to let you continue with that because we have a solution, a positive way, a bold approach to take care of this problem. We don't have to turn a recession into a great depression. But the solution that's being proposed always created depressions from recessions. We don't want to do that. We've got a way to solve the problem. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Just reclaiming my time for a second, you're talking in kind of economic terms, but further, what does that mean to the average person in our district? It means a lower standard of living, doesn't it? It means you can't make ends meet. It means you're not going to buy the food you want to buy. And I yield again.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, I think what you're saying in a polite, sort of sensitive way is California has been spending money at an incredible pace, and the question is, should Nebraska have to subsidize California? And that's really what we're talking about, isn't it? I yield back to the gentleman from Nebraska.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. I think we've got just a very short amount of time left. But your point is so good. Our objective is not just to say what won't work but to say what won't work because we know it won't work, and instead, let's adopt something that's helping those families. I was talking about it earlier, the picture that just keeps jumping in my mind--and this is happening all over the world because of our lack of bold and decisive and disciplined action here--the picture that comes to my mind is the house with the foreclosure and the easy chair and the sofa sitting on the sidewalk. And I'm thinking about the mom or the dad of that family and the pressure that they feel where they're just dumped right out of their house. This is not just economic numbers, this is the people of our country. I yield my last 30 seconds.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. AKIN. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. So reclaiming my time, you're just giving an example of this absolutely crazy runaway policy that we have. It's basically a free money, you don't have any job, you don't have any money, borrow whatever you want and speculate and hope things work out right.

Mr. AKIN. I would yield to the gentleman from Georgia who is quite an authority on this subject. Thank you for joining us tonight, gentleman.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Could I reclaim my time on that point? One of the things that you might think of is, if you're talking about jobs, one thing that might occur to you is that, depending on what you call a small business, 50 percent of the jobs are companies that have less than 100 employees, or if you consider a small company bigger than that, 80 percent of the jobs in America are small business. So wouldn't you think, if you were really coming home--using your analogy with the bread and the milk, if you're really coming home with jobs for America, don't you think you would have some provision in there for particularly small businesses? And yet this bill, for every dollar in there for small businesses they've got $4 for seeding and sodding the Capital Mall. That seems like a weird set of priorities. And I see your analogy to the DVDs, and I would yield back to my good friend from Louisiana.

Mr. AKIN. If I could reclaim my time for just a minute, those are strong words that you're saying, and yet there is an element of truth to what you're saying because, first of all, we're taking advantage of a crisis that people know is a crisis and we're exploiting the crisis to push a solution which is a big government solution. This money is being placed into places in the budget which once those things are jacked up, nobody is willing to touch. So basically what you're doing is you're taking these entitlement programs and you're inflating them and you're increasing the rate at which essentially the government is going to grow beyond the ability of the American taxpayer or the economy to finance it. Essentially, when the government gets that big, we start to think in terms of words like ``socialism,'' even though that's a strong expression. But I yield back. I just thought you were making some interesting points.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, I think you've raised an interesting question, and I think the American public is probably watching this far more closely than a lot of Washington insiders may think. And when the American public understands the size and the scope of what we are dealing with, we're looking here, this bill is 33 percent larger than all of our spending on Social Security.

Mr. AKIN. This is 33.4 percent more than we spend on defense in this country. There's a reason for us to have a sense of urgency and to use strong language. To me, this is a bridge to bankruptcy is the way I would put it. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. AKIN. If you allow me--

Mr. AKIN.--to just reclaim my time for just a minute, it seems that we have quite a number of different historic models to look at now where the Keynesian approach of big government spending has fallen on its face. It was not just the Great Depression, it was also Japan. And if you really want to say that, you could also quote America right now, because we have spent way more money than we should have spent, and yet our economy is not so strong. So if the theory is spend a whole lot of money you don't have, it should have worked by now because we've been practicing that more than I wish we had as a Republican conservative. And so there are models. And yet at the other end there are models showing what you're saying, that productivity of the businessman in America is what really works. It happened that productivity of businessmen in Ireland really worked very well. You could almost contrast Ireland and Japan using the two different approaches. And as you know, gentlemen, you've had the responsibility of meeting payroll and running a small business, the discipline that's required to do that. And you also have the satisfaction of seeing a worthwhile product that is added to the market and is there for some period of time because of the fact that you have enriched Americans through the work of your business.

Mr. AKIN. Well, it's just a treat to have you here and to bring that free enterprise perspective that you have. And there is something that just seems kind of amazing to me in a way, the irony in a way, of the fact that this whole problem with the economy that we're dealing with, even now and for the last couple of years, is the result of people that were liberal Democrats unwilling to regulate Freddie and Fannie. And that's recorded right on the old New York Times. The President says, You've got to get these wild-and-woolly loans under control. They said we're not going to do it. And boy it hit the fan. And it seems to me there's an ironic twist that this quote that I put up earlier, the chairman, the current chairman of the Financial Services Committee--who is now tasked with getting us out of this problem--there's a certain irony in the fact that this is the guy that makes the quote, ``These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Franks of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. It seems ironic to me that he makes that statement, the whole top blows off everything, and now he's in charge of fixing this thing. The thing that concerns me is is the way he's going to fix it is going to make it worse. And what we've done here today is we've spent more money than we spent in Afghanistan and in Iraq over the last 6 and 7 years, and we did it hardly with a blink of an eye.

Mr. AKIN. Yes, I do yield.

Mr. AKIN. And of course the Democrats are in charge. They got 60 percent of the votes today. They passed a really historic--it puts America into uncharted waters. And it was a very bold stroke on their part, but I'm arguing not as a Republican, but simply as an American, that the stroke that was taken is going to cause a whole lot of trouble. I really appreciate if you could stick with us. We are joined also by a very respected Congressman, Congressman Cassidy from Louisiana. And we're just delighted to have you here with us this evening and talking about some really boxcar size numbers, really some unprecedented times that we are going through here. And this particular solution that was passed today without any Republican votes in favor of it just makes the Marshall Plan look like child's play, even when you adjust it for current value of money. But Congressman Cassidy, please jump in. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Well, reclaiming my time, I believe the people of Louisiana are probably watching one of their newest sons with his experience on the floor. You know, there's something fresh about somebody coming in here that hasn't been, in a way, influenced by all of the pressures and everything that Washington may try to exert on someone. And it sounds to me like you're talking just plain old American common sense. And I think an awful lot of Americans don't want Republicans and Democrats and all that stuff going on, they want solutions to problems. What we have today is basically a 10-year-old shopping list that has nothing to do with real genuine stimulus because that has to come from the private sector. And this bill does everything to harm that because it's taking money out of the economy, it's spending money at an unprecedented rate. And I just think that you are so much on target and your common sense--obviously you may be new to Congress, but you're not new to what's going on in the world. And it's just a treat to have you here. I hope you will stick with us, and we will continue this as a little bit of a dinner table kind of conversation. I notice that we're also joined by a good friend of mine from Georgia, a medical doctor, someone that has already risen to be highly respected among Congressmen. And I would yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. AKIN. Gentlemen, I think we are done with our 1 hour. I'd also like to recognize the good judge from Texas and appreciate your stopping in. We will try to fit people in again. We will have this discussion, I believe, next week.

Mr. AKIN. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.