W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Thank you for those most appropriate comments, Roscoe. The second gentleman that I think we need to recognize, Under Secretary Stackley, has really helped tremendously with his level of detailed knowledge about how you work these contracts. And he got the contracts, as Chairman Taylor mentioned, reorganized to some degree a couple of years ago, and now we have two excellent bids before us. Now, one of the things that people know that have been around Congress a little bit is Congress has trouble making decisions rapidly or even wisely sometimes. I don't think that's the case today. Today, Secretary Stackley came to a number of us and said, look, there's two different ways we could go, the way we were planning to go, which is we down select, buy 10 ships, and then we resubmit bids to a number of different vendors. He said the other alternative, which is very interesting, is that we just go with both contractors and buy the 20 ships right off the bat. And so as we had a chance to ask some questions, though not to the degree that many of us would have felt comfortable with, it became apparent that we would save money for the Navy and we could project more seapower more rapidly by going with both contractors, buy 10 from each side. Now, the ships are different, as has been mentioned this morning. Certainly, an aluminum trimaran is a lot different than a monohull. It has its difficulties in anchoring in certain places or docking in certain places because it is so wide. But each has their place overall in the Navy. Now, these ships, to try to put them in perspective, there may be some people who are not immersed in the detail here, we're not allowed to talk about the price that's been bid, but, generally speaking, you're looking at, you could buy five of these for the cost of one nuclear-powered submarine. So what we're talking about is a ship that is inexpensive enough, and we have enough of them that it allows America to project its seapower to little corners of the world where otherwise we don't have a presence that we need to have. About a year or so ago, there was a lot of talk about pirates, and everybody got their best pirate voice out and talked about the pirates that were seizing commercial shipping. Some of that was allowed because of the fact that we didn't have as many ships as we might like in certain areas. This would be just one example of where these ships might become useful. They would become useful in hunting submarines and for all kinds and varieties of other missions. And so this proposal that's before us is a result of some very good work by both Under Secretary Stackley, his coming to us and saying, look, there is a better way to do this but, Congress, you have to be able to respond and be agile on your feet. Fortunately, there is a uniform agreement across the people that have been working these projects that, in fact Secretary Stackley is right and this is what we should do. So hats off to Secretary Stackley and particularly to Chairman Taylor for the good work that's been done. I'm obviously speaking in favor of the proposal before us here. And there was some sense of frustration early on in trying to get the numbers and to get through the details that we had to in order to make a decision here; but I am very comfortable that what we're doing is the right thing. The opportunity before us to pass this piece of legislation allows us to prove that it's wrong once in a while that Congress can't be agile and make wise decisions. We will look to the Navy and to Secretary Stackley to help to continue to manage this program and make sure that the bids come in as we expect, that the Navy gets a good buy, and that we work to where we should be with enough ships to secure and give Americans the security that we believe is necessary and to provide a safe and peaceful world. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, some years ago, actually quite a number of years ago, I had an opportunity to witness a total solar eclipse. That's one of those things that happens very, very rarely, and it was quite interesting. Today, we are looking at another eclipse of reason that happens very rarely. For the first time in 48 or 50 years, the Congress has not passed a defense bill. Now, that's pretty serious. First time in 48 years, no defense bill passed by Congress? And what are we here today debating? Well, we're debating the idea of an imposition of somebody's social agenda that they want to impose on the military. Now, it would seem to me that, at a minimum, we would want to get down a defense bill before we got into this particular topic. But no. No. Instead, we are going to try to impose something when we are fighting two wars. Now, the fact of the matter is that, in spite of a survey that tried to be biased, you have got the leadership of the Air Force under General Schwartz, leadership of the Army under General Casey, and the Marine Corps leadership under General Amos all opposing making these changes on this instantaneous basis, imposing this social agenda. So we are kind of experiencing something like a solar eclipse, except it's an eclipse of reason, an eclipse of common sense. I have three sons that have served in the Marine Corps, two who are currently in the Marines. Let me tell you, even with the somewhat biased survey, 60 percent of the marines said, This is a lousy idea. So why are we, at the end of the year, when we have no defense bill at all, going to get into some of these social agendas? I don't think this is what the American public expects Congress to be doing. I don't think we need an eclipse of reason.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. You know, just stopping your story for a minute there, it strikes me that the policies that killed your grandfather's dream in the Great Depression were the same policies that we've been following for the last 2 or 3 years. There's nothing new about it. It was excessive Federal spending, excessive Federal taxation all packaged up as Keynesian economics. And Henry Morgenthau, after he killed that dream, came to this Congress and said, Guys, it didn't work. And we're not listening to it, and here we go again doing the same thing. I just feel like we have got to learn something from history. And your grandfather is such an inspiration. And certainly what he passed on was the vision of the fact you can make it in this country. You can go from being poor to being well-to-do if you work hard and you try hard and you live that dream that's in your heart. That's what America's supposed to be about. I yield.

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleagues for joining us in the discussion here about really the future of America.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. I appreciate your yielding for a moment, because what you are talking about, I guess economists would say, there is sort of an economic lot size. If you have a farm worth 2,000 acres, that may be viable; but if you have to sell off 55 percent of your land, 55 percent of your tractors or your combines or your equipment, and then you divide it across several siblings, it won't work anymore. So what you have done is not only have you taken away something that was part of the dream that somebody saved all their life to pass on to their kids; we are saying we are going to punish people who want to pass things on to their kids. That is not the American dream. That is killing the American dream. Now, you raised another thing, and I would like to talk about this. I have heard people, talk show hosts and others, talking about this, and I feel like they are not approaching it from the right way. You are talking about class envy, and it is always the upper class and the middle class and the lower class, and, ``I am for the middle class.'' And it is all this class, class, class stuff. And I feel like saying: Stop. Wait just a minute. I thought America was a classless society. I thought America was a place where you could come here dirt poor, end up as a millionaire, and nobody really made a whole bunch of stuff about that. They didn't tag you with, you can't go to dinner at somebody's house because you are not the right class. That is the way it is in Europe, but that is not the way it is in America. The America I know is classless. And I don't look down my nose at somebody doing a hard job, because the guy working hard is probably going to be the guy who is going to be the millionaire, he is probably going to be hiring my kid to mow his yard for him. So why do we talk about classes? Why don't we talk about jobs and the American dream? That is what I don't understand.

Mr. AKIN. I appreciate your yielding. Certainly I think the point that you have said eloquently I tried to make earlier tonight, and that is what you are looking at here is not the Republican solution. It is not a good economic solution. It is not a good moral solution. It is something that is a Christmas-New Year's solution on something that people have seen for 3 or 4 years coming along, plenty of time, if we really wanted to deal with it. The other thing is that all of the discussion that I hear is so amazingly oblique to what we should be thinking. It is all about, well, does the middle-class guy get more? Does the rich guy get more? Does the poor guy get more? It is not about that. It is about America. It is about the fact that we have got an economic recession going. It is about the fact that we want the American dream to have some fresh life breathed into it and economic policies that don't rip people off. It is about the fact that socialism is theft. It is not a legitimate function under the Constitution or the government. It is about the fact that we want the government to be the servant and not the master. It is the time now for us to blow the whistle and say, enough already. It is time to get back to the system that was designed by our forefathers, and not this endless class warfare gibberish which misses the fact that we are USA Americans.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor TSgt William Timothy ``Tim'' Wymore, an 18 year veteran of the Missouri Air National Guard and of Operation Enduring Freedom. I have the honor to count Tim Wymore as a constituent. During a ``Hometown Heroes Salute'' on 4 December the Missouri Air National Guard paid special tribute to TSgt Wymore for his service. I am grateful to the Guard for recognizing Tim's contribution to the security of our country. In 2004, Tim deployed to Balad, Iraq, one of our largest air bases, with Missouri's 131st Bomb Wing. He was one of only five members of his unit sent to Iraq. While everyone who goes to war is affected, some return more affected then others. Tim Wymore is one such person. Tim is one of thousands of our service members exposed to hazardous materials while operating in and around the burn pits in Iraq. Since returning, Tim's health has deteriorated to the point where he is unable to work. He's been in and out of the hospital and today cannot stand on his own and relies on oxygen to breath. Through it all, Shanna, his wife of 25 years has not only stood by his side, but fought to get the benefits and care he deserves from a system sometimes indifferent to his suffering. I got to know Tim and Shanna after they contacted my office seeking assistance with the Veterans Administration. Madam Speaker, I stand here today to honor TSgt Tim Wymore, so I won't take further time to elaborate on how the system has failed to support this warfighter. I will only say that I will continue to work to see that the Veterans Administration is held accountable for how it serves our citizen soldiers. Despite his suffering, Tim Wymore remains a patriotic citizen and father. In fact, rather than try and dissuade his son from serving in uniform, he supports his youngest son Cody's decision to follow in his footsteps and enlist in the United States Air Force. I pray God bless the Wymore family and the United States of America.

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure to be able to join you and my colleagues this evening. We have had a busy day and dealt with a lot of different questions and issues. And, yet, on the minds of Americans I believe all across our country people are thinking about the economy, they are thinking particularly about jobs, and they are also thinking about what appears to be imminently approaching, at least the beginning of the new year, the largest tax increase in the history of our country. That's an odd thing to be approaching at a time when there is a high level of unemployment and a lot of uncertainty in terms of the economy. And of course that is a matter of some considerable debate and discussion and different political maneuvering. We won't talk so much tonight about political maneuvering, but try to stick more in the area of some understanding of economics and the things that we need to be doing to put America back on the right track. I think Americans really want Congress to fix it. They don't want to hear a lot of discussion and talk. They want to know let's just get things organized, get it straightened out, get the economy going, get people back to work. You know, there is a choice people really have in our country of two different things. One, you can have bureaucracy and food stamps, or you can have a job and a paycheck. I think most people in America really want a job and a paycheck. So that's what we are going to talk about tonight. I am joined by a couple of my esteemed colleagues, people that are very long on common sense, so they are my friends, but also people that I believe that very much are respected not only by their own delegations, the people that elected them, but increasingly known across the country. I am joined by my good friend Dr. Gingrey. I don't know how many careers he's had. That's why he got the doctor part. He delivered a bunch of babies, I believe, down in the Atlanta area, and also has been a State senator, and now has joined us here and helped us on a lot of health care questions. But also pretty good on these economic things. And G.T., all the way from Georgia, all the way across over to Pennsylvania, and another small business man who worked in health care businesses privately, but also a Member of Congress and a good conservative friend of mine. I am going to start off, before I call on them to join our discussion here this evening, and just talk a little bit about something that when I first came to Congress 10 years ago seemed a little odd to me. In fact, as an engineer it almost seemed like water running uphill, because people were saying that if you cut taxes, the government can take in more money. Now, that seems like an odd thing, doesn't it, that you can cut taxes and have the government take in more money. Well, what's going on there is an effect that when you crank taxes up high enough, you stall the economy. When the economy stalls, you can keep running the taxes up, but you don't get any more revenue because things are not working right and the machine isn't churning out any money, so you actually lose money. I came up with a way of explaining it. And we had a chance to have Art Laffer, an economist back with the Reagan administration, who came up with this understanding. And he explained it in different ways the other night earlier in the week. But the point of the matter is that you can actually cut taxes and the government gets more money. Here is the way it might work. Think about a loaf of bread, and you are king for a day, and you got to tax the loaf of bread. What are you going to tax it, a penny or $10? You go back and forth in your mind and say penny, it's easy. I can get everybody to buy just the same loaf of bread that they do today. So we would sell a lot of loaves of bread and maybe get a penny for each one. But that doesn't add up very fast. Maybe I can charge $10 on a loaf of bread. Well, maybe people wouldn't buy very much bread, but boy when they did, I would get 10 bucks. Well, common sense would say there is someplace between a penny and $10 on a loaf of bread where you can collect the most taxes. And that's what's going on. When the government cuts taxes, it actually gets the economy going. And this chart shows that. It's called the Laffer Curve. This red is the tax rate, and then this here is the Federal revenues. So what we are seeing here is that you have a ratio. As you start to drop taxes, actually the Federal revenue goes up. And that's what's happened a number of times. We are going to talk about that. But would either one of my colleagues want to join in and talk a little bit about where we are going, what we ought to be doing? What do we do on the biggest tax hike in the history of the country? Are we going to let that go into place in January or not? What do you think?

Mr. AKIN. Same way. Dr. Gingrey, I see you in a contemplative air there, and we would love to hear a little wisdom on the subject of free enterprise as well, my friend.

Mr. AKIN. I really appreciate what you are saying, and I didn't think I was going to be saying anything complimentary about our President, because it seems like all his policies relative to the economy and jobs and all seemed like it was highly destructive. He was making the same mistakes that FDR made. He wouldn't listen to Henry Morgenthau. We on the floor came out here, both of you gentlemen, week after week after week now for the last couple of years. We talked about the idea of the stimulus bill and the idea that you can grab your bootstraps and lift and fly around the Chamber; it's about as reasonable as fixing a bad economy by a Federal Government spending money. It doesn't make any sense in a commonsense way, and it has never worked, never worked historically. But both of you have made references to what does work. And if you are Democrats, you don't have to listen to Ronald Reagan and Bush. You go back to JFK, as you have said, and he basically used this same economic principle. The idea is whether politicians like it or not. What has to be done is that you have got to stop the Federal spending and you have got to reduce taxes and you have got to create some stability and, if you can, knock that red tape down and then give the economy some time to breathe. And that money will eventually work into those businesses, and they will start to hiring people. Now, we saw that happen here. This is a--I have a couple of charts here, antiques. They are a couple of years old, but they are talking about when the second part of this Bush tax cut came in place in May of 2003. I hate to admit it. I was here at that time and we saw this. So I have got a series of charts, but this May 2003 is in the center of these different charts. And if you take a look, this is job creation. In this case, this is job loss that goes down; job creation goes up. And the red is before the tax cut and the green is after. Now, what you see going on here is we are losing jobs heavily, 2001 to 2003. Then by May of 2003 you have 1 month that we have lost jobs. But after that, it's all increases in jobs. So this is the kind of thing that I assume the President must have looked at and gone, Oh, my goodness. I have tried our stimulus bill. We have spent $787 billion. I think they spent it before they really thought the economy was that serious. So in that money, they had bailouts for the California teacher pensions and the Illinois teacher pensions. It wasn't even FDR stimulus. It was just basically pork; robbing other States to pay for the mismanagement of teachers' pensions that California and Illinois had done. So it had all kinds of stuff in it, but it really wasn't even much of a stimulus bill. They said it was going to generate, I think it was, 3 point something or other million jobs, and the result was we lost 2 million jobs and unemployment went all the way up close to 10 percent. So that didn't work for the President. And now he has got some true believers in the House and the Senate, the Pelosi and Reid gang. They still think that you have got to tax everybody out of house and home and you can have all these jobs, but the President has had 2 years and the jobs have been going down, going worse and worse. So I think maybe he's starting to pay attention to this effect. And so this first chart is actually job creation. And I have a couple of the other ones as well that we can talk about. But I want to give either of you an opportunity. If you really want to talk specifically about jobs and tax cuts, here's an example of the tax cut, and here's what happens in terms of jobs. And I think the moral of this story is a very, very complicated economic principle which is frequently lost on my liberal friends, and that is, if you want jobs you've got to have employers. And if you don't have employers you don't have employees. It's complicated, I know, but try to grasp it. You have to have a business in order to have people working for a business. And if you destroy the business, you don't have any jobs. And that's the moral of the story. And that's why you're going to have to allow some people to have enough money to invest in their business. And it may mean there will be some Americans that achieve the American Dream. They're actually going to be rich. They're going to have a lot of money. And just because somebody else has a lot of money doesn't mean that they're having that much fun. But maybe they are. But that's okay because the American dream goes like this: you start poor and you have something to look forward to and before too long you actually make some money and come out okay. That's the whole point of the American Dream. The American Dream does not work. You're rich and the government taxes you into the dirt. That's not the idea. That's how the communist dream works. This is America. We've got to go from letting people who don't have so much to save and get wise and get smart and try these different ideas and pretty soon, by golly, they have some money. That's the way it's supposed to work. My good friend from Pennsylvania.

Mr. AKIN. The nightmare act.

Mr. AKIN. Well, you brought up a tender topic here basically. And I appreciate you gentlemen joining us. I appreciate your commitment to the American Dream. And God bless you and the American public.

Mr. AKIN. Well, I really appreciate your perspective, and I think you are right. I had a similar experience back in my district in the St. Louis area. We had a meeting that we had on Main Street. You know, you have got to have a Main Street. In downtown St. Charles, across the river from St. Louis County, there is a Main Street in downtown St. Charles. So we asked a bunch of small business owners, I think about 40 or 50 of them, to come to a meeting about a year or so ago. We just asked them. I said, Here's the deal. I am just collecting information, and I have my own opinions as to what you are going to say, but I want you to give me your best shot. What are the things that are going to create unemployment? And, of course, the converse of that is, if you don't do those things, then employment will come back. What are the things that are really enemies to just wrecking the economy? And they gave me a list of five things. We didn't actually put them in order, but the one that came to their mind first was taxes. It was just basically along the same lines as what you are saying, gentlemen. Because, if you are a small business man and you get taxed and taxed and taxed, it takes away the money you have to invest in new processes, new technology, new lines of equipment, adding a wing on the building, putting some machine tools in there, whatever it is. All those things create jobs. But if you take all their money away, then they can't make those investments. Now, if you do what FDR did and you do it over a sustained period and you keep lowering the boom on them, you will not just cause them to hunker down and not hire. You will just put them out of business. Then it will be a long time before that business ever comes back again. So far, I don't think we have shut them all down yet; although, a lot of businesses have had to close. There are still businesses out there. If they had the revenue, and if the Federal Government would get off of their case, I think we could see some jobs turning around. But the very first thing they mentioned was taxes, and the second thing you mentioned was uncertainty. They mentioned that about second. So you were exactly in line with the St. Charles people. People in Pennsylvania and the State of Missouri----

Mr. AKIN. I about forgot what that word meant.

Mr. AKIN. But, gentleman, you did mention the point that if you take a look at what it is businesses need, they need to have the taxes off their back. But they also need a certain sense of stability, because you're not going to make a decision that's really going to be with you for a long time if you're not, if everything looks turbulent in front of you. You want to kind of hunker down and wait and get through the not knowing where things are going to bounce. And you see if those tax cuts are permanent, that gives you that sense of, okay, now we know what the environment is that we're in. And people take some risks if they think, okay, things are going to be stable a little bit.

Mr. AKIN. I got an email before I left St. Lewis from one of those people. And the choices are really more bureaucrats and food stamps or more jobs and pay checks. You know, that's the choice. Are you on the bureaucrat/food stamp team, or are you on the jobs and pay checks? And most of the people I know, they kind of hold their head up and they'd really like to have a good job and a decent pay check. You feel better at the end of the day than a bureaucrat telling you what to do and giving you food stamps. And that's the choice. And this guy was complaining about all these tax cuts for the rich. Blah, blah, blah, you know. And the fact of the matter is that the people that this thing affects is the people who own the businesses. And if you don't allow them to have some of their own money to plow back into the business, you're not going to have the jobs. And people miss that. And then it's always this class warfare, rich and poor. This guy's too rich; we ought to take him down, you know. And it's because we forget the American Dream. It's okay for some that you have some money. It's okay for them to run a business and hire people. That's what we want. That's what we're trying to accomplish. And that's what this all shows, that when you ease off on the taxes, it's a blessing to everybody. And I know my good friend from Georgia is not going to let that talk about the American Dream go by without a comment or two, because I'll tell you, that Georgia delegation's looking like they're some pretty patriotic folks, and I'm proud of your State for who they're sending down here to Congress.

Mr. AKIN. I appreciate your perspective. One of the things, when you keep looking at this from the poor people/rich people kind of continuum, that is really the wrong question to be asking. The question should be: What do we need to do to put the economy back on track? That should be the question. What do we do to provide jobs and paychecks? That is our objective, not to discuss whether somebody is paying too much or their fair share of taxes. I forget the exact numbers, but as I recall, I think it is the top 10 percent of people who pay income taxes, pay something like over 70 percent. All of the tax money that is paid to the Federal Government comes from only 10 percent, and the bottom 40 percent pay zero. Now that is a pretty graduated income tax, that you have only the top 1 percent paying a very, very high amount, I am trying to remember if it is as much as 50 percent but it is quite a lot. But all of this stuff about the rich and the poor and the pay, it really should be about America. It should be about the American dream. And it should be common sense that when the economy is in bad shape, the one thing you do not hear anyone with any common sense saying is that you want to increase taxes. That is just plain nuts. And yet that is exactly the train wreck that is about to happen January 1 if this Congress doesn't take action. I at least credit the President for getting the message. He got it late. I don't know whether he has true religion or not, but he appears to be on the right track. At least they are going to keep these things going for a couple of years so in the middle of a recession we don't hammer the economy with another shot. But let's look at this from a logic point of view. Here is another chart. This is the GDP after the tax relief. This is the same tax relief in 2003 May. In May 2003, we did the tax cut here for dividends, capital gains, death taxes. Take a look at what the GDP is then doing. This is gross domestic product before the tax cut. You can see, it is kind of a shaky line. The GDP not up to 3 percent, dropping down so we are actually losing it on a couple of different quarters here. Then you put this tax cut in place and look what happens to GDP. It looks like you just gave it a shot of fertilizer all of a sudden. So you can see there is quite a difference in the average. So not only from the first chart that we saw here, not only did the tax cut affect job creation, job creation is much better. It doesn't surprise you, when the job creation is up, so also your gross domestic product is up. These are a couple of charts that show this effect, that tax cuts don't really lose the government money. They actually get the economy going. That is why JFK did it. That is why Reagan did it. That is why Bush did it. It worked in all of those instances. That is what we should be doing. In this case, unfortunately, what we are talking about is not a tax cut. What we are talking about is a tax increase which we are trying to prevent. It is a very different thing. If we prevent an increase, it means that the damage won't be done. But these things economically, they work both ways. If you do one thing it makes it better; if you do the reverse, it makes it worse. So why do we want to do a big tax increase? It doesn't make any sense. My last chart, this kind of completes it. Here is the tax cut right here. This is Federal revenues. This seems to be an odd chart, doesn't it? You have 3 years of decreases. As we are going into this recession, you have capital gains, dividends, and death tax, and all of a sudden you have cut taxes and what is happening? Federal revenue is going up. That is why the deficit under Bush, even though we had a couple of wars going on, things were looking better because we had 4 years. This chart was made back in 2007, I guess, because we had 4 years of straight increases where we did this. So do you want to reverse this thing now? Do you want to put the biggest tax hike in the history of the country and have that effect go the other way so Federal revenues plummet, jobs plummet, and GDP plummets? Is that what we want to do for January 1? I don't think so. I appreciate you gentlemen being out here on the floor tonight and standing up for the commonsense Americans who know. We say if there is a recession going on and the economy is not strong, we say what you have to do is cut taxes. You have to cut government spending. You have to cut redtape. You have to create certainty. The average person on the street in our districts understands that. The average business person says of course. Even an awful lot of people who are carpenters, machinists, they are people who work with their hands. They are people with a lot of common sense. They understand when you are in a recession, when you have economic problems, you don't go out and just bust the budget spending money. They look at what goes on in this city and they think, what in the world is wrong with that place? We need to get some people in there that will talk some common sense. Fortunately, we think that the President is, whether it is because he really believed or because he just felt the political heat, has put us back in the right direction not to reverse this very thing that worked so well for us. Now this doesn't solve the problem we are in; it just prevents an evil from happening. But right now that looks good. I see my friend from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey, has joined us again, and I yield to Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. AKIN. I thought that was socialized medicine. That's what I call it.

Mr. AKIN. Well, you know, I really appreciate your perspective, particularly as a medical doctor. As to the whole medicine thing, you know, the public just isn't behind it. We have had enough trouble with the government running Medicare and Medicaid. As to those things, all of the economists-- liberal and conservative--say that, at the rate they're growing over time, because of the changing demographics of the population, they are going to put us in the poorhouse nationally in terms of spending. Well, if the government can't manage Medicare and Medicaid, how are they going to manage the entire medical system? The public does not want the Federal Government running our health care system, and that's what was shoved down our throats. That $1 trillion price tag, as you correctly point out, gentleman, that is a very optimistic trillion-dollar price tag. It is going to cost much, much more than that. You're right. The Republican leadership and all of us are committed to trying to stop that bill. That's not so easy to do, but at least we will try to de-fund it. Eventually, if there are enough votes, we will try to repeal it. There are certainly things that need to be done to health care in America to improve it but certainly not just throwing it under the bus and having all of health care taken over by the Federal Government. That has to be repealed, and then we can start with what we are going to do to the existing system. So that's just one of a whole series of these things, which is just runaway Federal spending. Boy, is that ever a recipe for disaster. You know, you mentioned your constituents were upset and angry and worried and scared and all those kinds of things. The three of us here on the floor have been feeling that way also for 2 years. I was ready to move away to some island somewhere if the election results hadn't come along the way they did. Now, at least, I think there is a little ray of hope. Today, we've been talking about the fact that we want to change the way things are done down here. We've taken a few steps even today, announcing how the House is going to be run in a much more businesslike kind of way. We're going to know what our schedules are, and we're going to know when the last votes of the week are so we'll actually be able to plan our time and schedules and do a better job in visiting with our constituents. I think that is a very encouraging first step. I think the other thing that was very encouraging to me--and I don't want to get too much into the touchy-feely department. You know engineers don't do well in the touchy-feely department. But I remember our first meeting a couple of weeks ago. The Republican Party got together in a conference, and we had won the biggest election since 1946, which I don't remember. I was born in '47, so it was a year before I was born. We had the biggest victory we have ever had, and the tone in that room was dead sober, and the attitude was: We've been given another chance, and it's time for us not to do the same old things. It's time for us to really do what is right and to use some common sense. Let's get this mess under control. Let's stop the Federal spending. Let's start cutting the things that need to be cut, and let's start backing off on the taxes in order to get this economy back on track. We don't think that the American Dream is bureaucrats and food stamps. We think it's jobs and paychecks. That's the course that we think the public has told us to take. Common sense, a good bit of hard work and good management is what is required--and also learning a little bit of something from history. That's where we have to be going. There is a strong commitment now. Even the President has seen this, and we are encouraged. Congressman GT, I just really appreciate the fact that you run your own business and that you have that just commonsense kind of experience to know what it takes to make it work. A lot of Americans understand that; but somehow or other, for a couple of years, the majority down here just hasn't gotten that. The fact of the matter is we are, right now, kind of sitting at this precipice. You know, we're just a week or two away from January 1; and the question is: What is going to happen on this massive tax increase? Are we going to get, after these last 2 years of not only socialized medicine, but the idea of cap-and-tax or cap-and-trade or whatever it was about the global warming thing? You know, I asked my constituents a question on a survey: Are you more concerned about global warming or about our dependence on foreign oil? Do you have a guess as to what the results on that were? About 80 percent said, We're worried about being dependent on foreign oil. Let's keep this conversation somewhere in the reasonable zone. Anyway, I yield to my good friend GT.

Mr. AKIN. Whoo, what did you do wrong?

Mr. AKIN. And they want to pass it onto their kids. So the death tax is going to tax them, whereas if they had gone out and got drunk and gambled it away, they wouldn't have to pay any tax. So what sort of incentive is that? It's immoral, you're right. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Mr. AKIN. Would that have been about 1870s or so?

Mr. AKIN. And yet he's having to buy his own company back from the government.

Mr. AKIN. It's a death tax.

Mr. AKIN. They've already been taxed all through their lifetime. They have saved something up for their kids and they die.