Dan Burton

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The thing that bothers me is the kind of legacy that we are leaving for our kids and grandkids. The amount of money that we are spending right now, $3.69 trillion in the budget, $410 billion in the omnibus, $14 billion for the auto companies; $700 billion, which we spent last year on TARP, $787 billion on the stimulus package. We are spending trillions and trillions of dollars that we don't have, as my colleague just said. I would just conclude by saying that we are spending trillions of dollars that we don't have. Our kids and grandkids are going to be paying taxes that they shouldn't have to bear. In addition to that we are going to have an inflationary problem that is going to rival anything that we have seen in the past. In the 1970s and the early 1980s we had inflation that was 14 percent and we ended up raising interest rates to 21 percent to slow down the rate of inflation to get the economy back in shape, and we ended up with another major recession because of it. We have got to control our spending. We can't spend 8 or $10 trillion like we are doing. And the thing that bothers me the most is the legacy we are leaving to our kids and grandkids. I want to thank my colleague for taking these. He comes down here almost every night or every other night talking about these things. The American people owe you a debt of gratitude for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, something happened last week that really bothered me a great deal. President Obama decided to release CIA documents that were top secret because they said that they showed that there may have been some violations of law regarding torture when we were getting information from terrorists. So I would like to talk a little bit about the whole story or as much of it as I could find. On March 18, the Justice Department told CIA Director Leon Panetta that they were going to recommend to the White House that these memos be released almost completely uncensored. Now, bear in mind these are top secret documents, and when they are top secret like that and labeled that way, that means that there is a security threat, not only to the United States, but to the CIA and the people that did this work for the United States to protect us against terrorism. Nevertheless, these top secret memos were going to be released. Panetta told Attorney General Eric Holder and officials in the White House that the administration needed to discuss the possibility that the release of the memos might expose CIA officers to lawsuits on allegations of torture and abuse. Panetta also pushed for more censorship of the memos, officials said. The Justice Department also informed other CIA officials, seniors over there, of the decision to release the memos, and as a courtesy told former agency directors. Senior CIA officials objected, arguing that the release would hurt the agency's ability to interrogate prisoners in the future. They also said the move would further tarnish CIA officers who had acted on the Bush officials' legal guidance, and they warned that the action would erode foreign intelligence services' trust, other countries' trust in the CIA's ability to protect their national secrets, current and former officials said. Now, I hope my colleagues will bear in mind that these were top secret documents, that four former directors of the CIA said it would threaten national security, it would eliminate tactics that were used in the past to get information from terrorists that probably protected American citizens and maybe saved a lot of lives. Even Leon Panetta told them that there was a problem. And former Vice President Cheney last night said on the Hannity show, which I watch quite frequently, that he saw memos that proved that the tactics employed by CIA members on terrorists did protect Americans from a terrorist attack. Now, if that is the case, and I believe Vice President Cheney when he said that, I believe those memos that show that there was a real help to the country in protecting us against terrorist attack and probably saved a lot of lives, I believe those memos should be released, and I hope that President, President Obama will take a hard look at this. He looked at these documents and said they should be released, even though they were top secret, threatened a lot of CIA members and threatened our national security, in my opinion. So since he did that, I think the President ought to release the memos that show that the tactics used by the CIA did save lives and did protect America from attack by terrorists in this country. If I were talking to the President tonight, Mr. Speaker, I would say that is only fair. If you are going to release the memos and threaten the CIA with lawsuits and everything else because of the tactics that were employed there, if you are going to threaten possibly former Justice Department officials who wrote opinions saying that these tactics could be employed to extract information from terrorists, that we certainly should see the memos that show that the things that they did did protect America and did save lives. I think that is only fair. In addition, I would like to end by saying that I don't think those who did their best at the CIA or the Justice Department to protect America should be prosecuted for doing their job to protect this country.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, this has been a historic day. We just passed a huge bill, cost the American taxpayers $3.5 trillion. It increased taxes at a time when we shouldn't be increasing taxes, and I won't restate everything that's been said here today because I think my colleagues on both sides of the aisle expressed their positions very well. But what I would like to say--and I'm not going to take the whole 5 minutes--is that in October we passed the TARP bill, October of last year, $700 billion. In January, we passed the State Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization, $73 billion. In February, on the 9th, we passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the stimulus bill, for $820 billion plus the interest it will incur, which is about $348 billion. That's $1.16 trillion. On February 9, we consolidated the appropriations for fiscal year 2009 in the omnibus bill, $410 billion plus $250 billion in interest. That's $625 billion in total. And then you add to that the budget which we passed today for $3.5 trillion. We are in the process of bankrupting this country. We are printing so much money and incurring so much debt that our kids and grandkids, I don't know how they're going to be able to live with it. I heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle applauding when we passed this budget today. Those of us on this side of the aisle who have been around here for a while, we were doing anything but applauding. We were thinking about what we've done to this country. You know, China has about $700 billion of our debt. Japan has about $600 billion of our debt. And they don't want to buy any more of our debt. The only reason they're doing it I think is because this is the only game in town, but there is a limit to how much these other countries in the world will spend purchasing our debt. And so what's going to happen? It's already happening. We're increasing the money supply. Up until just recently, we had increased the money supply by almost 300 percent. That means that we've increased the money supply three times in just recent years. And when that money gets into circulation, along with the money we're going to be printing because of all these expenditures I just enumerated, we're going to have a tremendous amount of dollars chasing fewer and fewer goods and services. More dollars, less production, and that means we're going to have inflation. So I'd just like to say to my colleagues tonight, you may be celebrating this great budget that you passed, but it's going to end up costing our kids and our grandkids more in taxes and inflation, and they're going to look back on this day and on what we're doing and they're going to say, why in the world did you do this to us, why did you do it to us? And I hope I and my colleagues are alive to look back and remember what happened today and what's been happening in recent days, weeks and months. It's a tragedy, and I'm very depressed over it. I hope that something will change the way things are going. I hope people will see the light and will start cutting taxes instead of increasing taxes and spending, but I doubt that's going to happen.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Chairman, Thomas Jefferson said in 1821, ``There does not exist an engine so destructive of the government and so demoralizing of the Nation as a public debt. It will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad.'' This was said in 1821. One of my colleagues on the Democrat side a while ago said something about the hemorrhaging of the dollar. One of the reasons the dollar is hemorrhaging right now is we're inflating the money supply so rapidly that the dollar's going down the tubes. And if we keep on this trail, it's going to be worthless. We're spending money so fast it's unbelievable. Mr. Geithner's got to put another 2 or $3 trillion into the financial system, and this budget, $3.5 trillion, is going to bankrupt this country. And my colleagues, like Mr. Ryan said a while ago, we're going to saddle our kids and our posterity with a debt that they'll never be able to repay. The inflation and the taxes they'll face will be unbelievable. Let me just say, since we don't have a lot of time, there are parallels with what's happened in history. The same things we're doing today--if you don't believe this, read the book The Forgotten Man. The same things that we did during the Great Depression we're doing right now today, and it prolonged the Depression, and it lasted 10 or 11 years because of that. And in the 1970s we had a similar situation. We had inflation that was 14 percent, unemployment that was 12 percent. And Ronald Reagan came in and, instead of raising spending like you're doing today, he cut taxes across the board and, as a result, we had the longest period of economic expansion that we've had in history. Why don't we learn from history? It seems to me my colleagues on the Democrat side think we can spend our way out of this. Tax and spend, tax and spend. It will not work. It hasn't worked in the past, it only makes things worse. We are heading toward a major, major depression if we don't cut this spending and start doing things that will stimulate economic growth like cutting taxes.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. That's right. He did it, and Reagan did it. Reagan cut taxes for business, as well as for individuals, and today, if we cut the capital gains tax in half or cut it out all together for maybe a year and if we cut the income tax out for just two or three months, that would cost a great deal less than we're spending, and I have no doubt that it would stimulate a real rapid growth in the economy of this country. So I'd just like to say to my colleague and my other colleague that just showed up on the floor, I want to thank you both for taking this Special Order. The American people really ought to appreciate what you're doing by explaining what in the Dickens is going on around this place, and I'm very happy that you're doing that.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Yeah, but the thing about it that's important is we're making the same basic mistakes we've made in the past during the 1920s and the 1930s that led to the Great Depression and caused a tremendous amount of unemployment and heartache for the people of this country. And the thing that really bothers me is that we went through a very large recession back in the late 1970s. When Ronald Reagan, your hero and my hero, came into office in 1980, he immediately moved to cut taxes across the board, and because of that, even though that economic problem we faced back then was worse than it is now, we came out of that and had the longest period of economic growth that we've had in my memory, and that's because he cut taxes. He didn't raise spending like this. He cut taxes so people and businesses had disposable income that they could use to invest and buy things. That's what we need to be doing today.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. There's just no question in my mind that the tremendous amount of spending that we're doing right now is going to be very bad, not only for us but for the future generations. The kids and the grandkids that we're going to be having are going to be bearing the burden of higher taxes and inflation, and it's not necessary if we did the right thing today by cutting taxes across the board. And I see both my colleagues are here, and I really appreciate. And I'd just like to say one more thing before I yield the floor to my colleague, and that is, everybody ought to take a hard look at what happened in the Great Depression and what happened in the 1970s and the 1980s with Ronald Reagan. And you will see a real contrast between trying to spend our way out of a problem instead of cutting taxes and let the American people spend the money the way they want to spend it and the way business wants to spend it. Because if the American people have more money to spend and if business has more money to invest, then they're going to start doing the things that will stimulate economic growth and make the economy work; whereas, government trying to control everything and trying to spend our way out of these problems we're facing, it only leads to disaster. It did in the 1920s. It did in the 1970s, and they will do it again right now if we don't get real and start cutting taxes instead of increasing spending across the board. With that, let me yield to my colleague, and I really appreciate you taking the time tonight to do this.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Well, I do read it on the airplane.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Well, I really appreciate you saying that, and I just hope everybody in my district in Indiana heard you say that because I want to make sure they appreciate me. So thank you very much for saying those nice things. The thing that I wanted to mention is you're absolutely right. The amount of money that this is going to cost the average homeowner is just unbelievable, and it's going to be a tax increase that's going to be borne by every single person in this country. But in addition to that, the inflationary pressure that's going to be created by all this printing of all this money is unbelievable. They're talking about something like over the next decade 7, 8, 9 trillion dollars in spending, and that's going to result in a tremendous amount of printing presses being run over at the Treasury Department. And when that money gets into circulation, it's going to cause a tremendous amount of pressure as far as inflation is concerned. As a matter of fact, I know my colleague knows this, but just in the last couple of weeks we found out that the money supply in this country has been almost tripled in the last couple of years. And because of that, we already have a built-in inflationary pressure that will be taking place I think in the next couple of years. So I think there's going to be a spike in inflation. But I'd just like to add one more thing.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. If the gentleman will yield, there's no question that the inflationary pressure is very real, and the taxation that people are going to face is very real, and it's not something that we're just making up for political purposes. It's going to happen, and it's going to happen very quickly on the tax issue, and the inflation issue is going to come in just the next couple of years, in my opinion. But one of the things I wanted to mention--and I appreciate my colleague taking this time--and that is, that there's a book out called ``The Forgotten Man,'' and it's a book that I hope everybody who's interested in what happened during the Great Depression and how that correlates to what's happening today, if they're interested in that, they really ought to read it because there's tremendous parallels between what happened between 1929 and 1941 with what's going on here today. And that depression that we went through in this country lasted for over 10 years, and that's something that we don't want to see happen in the United States.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, my good friend Mr. Poe of Texas and I are down here almost every night, talking about our concerns about the country, and tonight is no exception. I want to compliment my colleague for his learned comments. I really appreciate his being down here with me. Sometimes it gets lonely. I think the thing that concerns me the most, which is the reason I am here tonight, is that I think America is heading toward a socialist- type government, and it really worries me because, throughout our history, we have been a free enterprise government, a free enterprise society, and we have done very, very well. This country has been the greatest economic country in the history of the world because of free enterprise, and now we see, day in and day out, a movement toward more and more government control over the private sector. We have seen the huge bailout of AIG and of other financial institutions. Trillions of dollars are being put into these institutions along with government control, and that is not what this country is all about. These companies that are failing should go through the bankruptcy procedure, as has been the case throughout history, and because of this procedure, this legal procedure, the free enterprise system has had its ups and downs, but it has flourished year in and year out, decade in and decade out because the system works. Now we see they are moving toward the control of the health industry. In the budget that we are going to be discussing this week, we are going to have about $680 billion as a down payment on a socialized medicine system, and that, once again, is government control over the health care of this country. Government control over, as my colleague said tonight, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other institutions, really has not proven to be too successful, and yet we are going to have the government taking over and socializing medicine in this country. It has not worked in Europe. It has not worked in other parts of the world. It is not going to work here. It is going to end up rationing health care, and the people who are going to be hurt the most are senior citizens in this country, who will be put at the back of the line. So it has not worked in the private sector as far as financial institutions are concerned. It has not worked throughout the world when we have socialized medicine, and now we see that the government is moving toward control over the automobile industry. They are forcing the people out of leadership positions, like the president of General Motors. Now, maybe he should have been replaced, but we certainly do not need the government coming in and telling the private sector, the automobile industry, how to run itself. They should have gone through Chapter 11 in the first place, General Motors and Chrysler, instead of the government of this country and the administration putting $14 billion to $15 billion into those companies which were failing. If they had gone through the bankruptcy procedure, we would not be facing right now another $20 billion or $30 billion of taxpayers' money that is going to have to be put into those institutions. So, tonight, I would just like to protest once again, one Member of Congress talking about the movement toward government control over every part of our lives. Socialism does not work. It is a repressive form of government, and it is something that is going to hurt everybody in this country, that plus the inflation that is going to be caused by these trillions of dollars that we are printing, these moneys that we are printing. It is going to hurt the future generations of this country. I listen to Sean Hannity and I listen to Rush Limbaugh and I listen to Mr. Beck, the so-called conservative right-wing radicals. In my opinion, they are the ones who really understand the direction this country is heading. I just hope the American people, Madam Speaker, would listen and pay attention, because I think they don't realize how quickly we are moving toward complete government control over our lives. It is something that we ought to all be concerned about. I am concerned about it, and I hope my colleagues who may be paying attention back in their offices are concerned about it as well.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, one of the worst things that you can do during an economic downturn is to raise taxes. And Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats' budget does exactly that. The amount of taxes that they anticipate raising in their budget, which we are going to debate next week, is $1.4 trillion. One point four trillion dollars. And the majority of the burden of this tax increase is on a number of different areas of government. One of those is a $637 billion tax increase that is going to be borne by small businesses that pay taxes as individuals. Small businesses create about 60 to 80 percent of all the new jobs in America, and these new taxes will be a real wet blanket on job creation and economic growth right in the middle of this recession. They are also going to tax everybody in this country with the energy tax that they are going to add. The budget proposes to raise taxes by $646 billion on consumers of oil, coal and natural gas through a complicated cap-and-tax program that will increase the cost of energy for every American. If you turn on your light switch, if you use gas in your car, if you use gas to heat your home, any kind of energy that you use is going to be taxed. And that is going to amount to, on average, $3,128 in new taxes on every family in America. Also under the Speaker's budget, taxes on capital gains and dividends will increase from 15 to 20 percent, increasing taxes on investors by $338 billion over 10 years. These taxes would directly affect investors and stockholders, including people who have 401(k) programs and pension funds, mostly impacted by the declining stock market, and would further discourage investments during a time when new investments are absolutely essential to jump-start our economy. They are also going to tax charitable giving. They are going to reduce the amount of money that people can deduct from their taxes when they give money to charities. And the charities of this country indicate that is going to cost them at least $4 to $9 billion. Now, if the charities in this country can't spend that $4 to $9 billion that is given to them by the people of this country, then where are they going to get the money? Where are the people of this country going to get the money to solve these problems? It is going to probably end up on the back of the taxpayers. And then we have what is called the ``death tax'' that they are reinstating. And that says that everybody that has a business, if you want to pass it on to your relatives or your children or grandchildren when you die, there is going to be a tax on it. They are going to tax it and tax it and tax it so that the value of the property or the investment will go down dramatically. And many of the people who would inherit a business so that they can carry on, a farmer, an agricultural family, they will lose it because they can't pay the taxes. And then they are also going to tax investors, Part 2 investors. The budget would more than double the taxes on carried interest, increasing taxes up from the capital gains rate of 15 percent to the income tax rate of 35 percent. And all I can say to my colleagues is that the Speaker and the Democrat proposal needs to be re-evaluated. At a time when this economy is suffering, we need to have tax cuts, tax incentives for new job creation, and tax cuts that will allow Americans to take more of their pay home that they can spend on things like refrigerators, cars, food and clothing. And what they're going to do is they're going to tax, tax, tax, which is going to be another wet blanket on the economy. One of the great things, one of the things that really hurt this country during the Great Depression in the twenties and thirties, was because they raised taxes. That's exactly the wrong thing to do. After Jimmy Carter put us in this trick bag with 14 percent unemployment, or 14 percent inflation and 12 percent unemployment, Ronald Reagan came in and cut taxes across the board, and that increased the productivity in this country. People had more disposable income, and the economy flourished, and we had a period of unprecedented economic growth. That's what we should be doing now, not raising taxes, not adding to the deficit by having these huge budgetary expenditures that are in Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats' plan. Mr. Speaker, I hope that everybody will listen to what was just said because we don't need tax increases and more spending right now.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, there was testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions just recently by a fellow named Larry Getts who is an employee of the Dana Corporation in Indiana. He was very concerned that the secret ballot on whether or not they were going to join a union was not being given to them. And I would like to read part of his testimony. He said, ``Before I begin, I'd like to say that, as many workers have learned firsthand, I believe Card Check organizing drives put the interests of the union officials ahead of those of the workers. ``While the bill has been officially named the Employee Free Choice Act by its proponents in organized labor and their allies in Congress, my own personal experience shows a more appropriate name would be the Worker Coercion Act.'' He talks about the union officials and how they came to the company to try to get them to join the union through what they call Card Check without a secret ballot. He said, ``After this first attempt to organize our shop failed, the UAW changed tactics and sent in a whole new crew. At that point, it became clear to all of us that the UAW was going to do whatever was necessary to get the required number of signatures. ``The entire time they were constantly badgering us to sign the cards. I refused to sign the card every time they asked, and I know that many of my colleagues shared my sentiment. But none of that mattered to the UAW, because the pressure did not let up. ``In fact, one day, an official approached me again claiming 50 percent of the plant had signed, so now I was going to have to sign the card to `get my information in the system.' I signed the card because I thought I had to.'' I didn't learn until later that even then, I should not have been forced to sign the card. In the end, the UAW did succeed in organizing our plant, but I thought they succeeded only because of their confrontational tactics and not because the majority of our workers wanted UAW representation. So immediately, after the union came in, I began a decertification effort. The only reason I was able to fight back was because other Dana Corporation employees in Ohio appealed to the National Labor Relations Board after facing aggression from the UAW, and the NLRB decided that workers should be allowed to seek decertification. Of course, the UAW responded to my effort by increasing the pressure, and even started visiting me at my home, and my coworkers. Despite their intimidation, my coworkers and I voted to decertify the UAW 45 days after the Card Check drive in a secret ballot. I believe the results of the secret ballot election showed the true free choice of my coworkers regarding UAW representation. We didn't want the UAW representation that was foisted on us through Card Check. At the end of the day, the voice of the worker needs to be considered. Union officials say they speak for the workers, and they say passage of the Card Check bill is needed to give workers a free choice. But the only way to give workers a free choice is the way we vote in this country, and that's to give them a secret ballot. If they want to join the union, they should be able to join the union through a secret ballot. But if they don't want to join the union, they should not be coerced into joining the union by signing a card. They should have the right, as every American citizen does, to a secret vote on whether or not they want to be employed in a union shop. Now, if they don't want to do that, they shouldn't have to vote for it. And that's exactly what the gentleman went through and all of his coworkers. And after they went through it and were forced to join the union, they found out they could have a secret ballot, they did a secret ballot, and they threw the union out. I'm not an anti-union person, but there ought to be a free choice for people to join the union or not to join it, and they should not be coerced by Card Check.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I won't take the whole 2 minutes. I think everything that is going to be said about the Republic of China on Taiwan can be boiled down to just a few words. They are our true friend. They have been with us through thick and thin. There have been times when we haven't been as good a friend to them as I think we should have been. But they have always been there for us. Ever since they left the mainland and went to Taiwan, they have been a strong free country that has grown into one of the biggest economic countries in the entire world, certainly one of our greatest trading partners. So I would just like to say that I am very happy to be here to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act and to say to all of my friends, all of our friends in Taiwan, thank you, thank you, thank you for being such great friends.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to do something novel tonight. I am going to reach out to my Democrat colleagues. And I'm glad to see some of them, like Don, over there tonight to listen to my exhortations. Mr. Speaker, the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers was one of the reasons why home sales went up by about 5.1 percent last month. That was an indication that we are probably moving in the right direction as far as stimulating some economic growth in the housing industry. But the housing industry is in a depression right now. And we need more than just the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers. Now, back in 1975, Congress passed the Tax Reduction Act of 1975, which included a tax credit not just for first-time homebuyers, but for all homebuyers, up to $2,000 in a tax credit. As a result, they increased within the next year by 400,000 the number of houses that were sold, and in 2 years they were back up to the 2 million house level. So we need to stimulate economic growth in the housing industry across the board, not just for first-time homebuyers. Now Ken Calvert of California, our colleague, has introduced a bill, H.R. 1245. I'm a cosponsor of it. And it will give a 10 percent credit, 10 percent of the home price, up to $15,000 for all homebuyers for 1 year. Now if we did that like they did back in 1975--and this was sponsored mainly by Democrats back in 1975--if we did that across the board for homebuyers up to $15,000, we would stimulate a huge movement towards home purchasing. Twenty-five percent of the people in this country say they want to buy a home within the next 10 years. We can move that up pretty rapidly if we extend the tax credit to $15,000 and allow everybody to get it for 1 year. And if we did that, I think that would go a long way toward solving the economic problems we are facing right now. Right now, what we are doing is we are throwing money at the problem, and we are hoping that that will solve it. It is probably going to help a little bit in the short run. But in the long run, if we really want to stimulate economic growth and activity, we have to get the free market working again. And the best way to do that in my opinion, and I'm saying this to my Democrat colleagues as well as my Republican colleagues, is to give an incentive for people to buy homes, not just first-time homebuyers, but everyone who would like to buy a home or move into a better one. So if we allow, say, a 10 percent tax credit up to an amount of $15,000 for just 1 year, I think you would see a huge movement in the purchase of homes in this country, and it will really help the economy. Now the realtors of this country and the homebuilders of this country really need help. They want this bill. They think it is extremely important. They are out here this week and they are going to be talking about it. So I would like to say to you, Don, and all my Democrat colleagues and my Republican colleagues, let's get together on this one. We can fight on something else. But right now we have an opportunity to really stimulate home purchases in this country and get this economy moving more rapidly in the right direction. So I hope you will join with me in cosponsoring Ken's bill, H.R. 1245, and I'll be glad to sign any of you up tonight.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. But it was charged to him, the time?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. My good friend, Mr. Rangel, took some time to make a statement just a moment ago. Did he claim any time when he made that statement?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The stimulus bill was 1,100 pages. My good friend, Charlie Rangel, signed that. And in that was this language that was stuck in in the middle of the night that allowed for all these bonuses to be paid to AIG executives. Charlie, you signed that, and nobody on our side voted for it, and nobody on our side read the bill, and nobody on your side read the bill. And that's because they were trying to sneak this through in the middle of the night without anybody knowing it. In my opinion, this is a way that you cover up a big mistake that was made by you and the conferees. This should never have happened. These bonuses should never have happened. And now you are trying to do something that's of questionable constitutionality to cover up a big mistake. I don't know why you just don't own up to it. This is something that should not have happened. This is something that the Democrats, my good friend, Charlie, and others signed on to, it's a bill that nobody read in this Chamber, and we certainly didn't vote for it. And now you are saying if we don't vote for this cover-up that you are coming up with, we are the bad guys. We are not. The American people won't be fooled by this.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, the President showed some real anger about the bonuses that were paid to AIG executives. The problem is, he either knew they were getting the bonuses or he should have because every one of the spending bills that came through this House went through a conference committee, and the White House was deeply involved in what was put in those conference committee reports. The stimulus package, the TARP bill, every single bill that gave money to AIG and to others went through the scrutiny of the White House. The President is up there today saying, ``Oh my gosh, this is terrible,'' and he shows real anger. Well, if he didn't know about it, he should have; and if he did know about it, he shouldn't be raising Cain about it.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I rise today to salute the life of Corporal Donte Jamal Whitworth of Noblesville, Indiana who died on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 while serving our country near Al Taquddum Air Base, about 50 miles west of Baghdad. Donte graduated from Noblesville High School in 2005 and promptly joined the United States Marine Corps where he served for the last 4 years. Most recently he deployed to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom where he was responsible for commanding supply convoys. Donte's commitment for this country is something we can all be proud of. A marine and a soldier, he served to promote freedom. He gave his life in defense of his family, community, State and Nation. He made our world safer. He made his family and every American proud. For this, each and every American owes him and his family a great debt of gratitude. Madam Speaker, Corporal Donte Jamal Whitworth is a true American hero who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. He will be deeply missed, but the strength of his character and the courage he demonstrated through his service will live on. I ask my colleagues to keep his family and friends in their thoughts and prayers during this very difficult time.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I'm happy to stick around here tonight with you to go into some of the things that I think ought to be explained to our colleagues and to the American people if they happen to be paying attention here tonight to what we are doing. The people really do have a right to know where we are spending this money. And we had people from the Treasury Department appear before the Senate Banking Committee last week. And Senator Shelby, as I recall, asked where some of the money was being spent. They actually would not even tell him where the money was going. And we are talking about $700 billion that was passed by the House and the Senate. There was supposed to be transparency so that we knew where the money was going. Now we did find out, and I mentioned this in a previous Special Order tonight, we did find out that some of the money that was given to the financial institutions to get the economy moving again was used to help other countries. Now this is $700 billion that was supposed to be used to help the American people, help the American economy and help the financial institutions to be able to survive. And yet $8 billion, $8,000 million, was loaned by Citigroup to Dubai, $1,000 million was loaned by JPMorgan Treasury Services to India, $7,000 million was loaned by the Bank of America to the China Construction Bank Corporation, and a whole lot more. There were 297 other entities that got the money, and they would not tell us where the money went. Now we are the representatives of the people. The Senators are the representatives of the people. And we have a right to know where the money is going when we vote to spend it. That is one of the reasons why I voted against almost every one of these spending bills this year because we haven't been able to understand where the money is going to be spent or why it is being spent, and there hasn't been any real plan. We have just thrown money at it, like that is going to solve the problem. If we are going to spend taxpayers' dollars, in my opinion, they have the right to know where the money is going, number one. And number two, we need to see the plan, as representatives of the people, so that we know where the money is going to be spent, how it is going to be spent and whether or not it is going to be spent wisely. And so far, every single one of the spending bills that I have looked at--and I think my colleagues looked at it as well--not one of them really gives us a plan on how to work our way out of this morass that we are in. I went into some of the things that I have mentioned in the past. And we are looking at trillions and trillions of dollars that we have been spending. And when I talk to the American people out in my district, in the Fifth District of Indiana, about all this spending, and you talk to them about $1,000, they understand, $1 million they understand, $1 billion they start to glaze over. And when you get to $1 trillion, it just does not register because it is so much. That is a thousand thousand million dollars, $1 trillion. And we are spending money in the trillions. The budget that is coming up here after we have already spent trillions of dollars is going to be almost $4 trillion in addition to that. And today we found out that the Speaker of the House has indicated we might have another stimulus bill, which means we will probably add another $1 trillion on top of that. Now I brought a chart with me tonight, Mr. Gohmert. I can't talk to the American people, because we are in the well. But if I were talking to them, I would like for them to take a look at this chart just like my colleagues do. And it shows what happens when you inflate the money supply. And when I talk about ``inflating the money supply,'' I'm talking about when we spend all these trillions of dollars that we don't have. We have to either borrow it from countries like China or we have to borrow it from countries like Japan. And we owe Japan over $600 billion. We owe China over $700 billion. And it will soon be over $1 trillion. And when we borrow that money, it is supposed to help out the problem. But we have to pay them interest on that money. But the money that we cannot borrow, we have to print. And I hope my colleagues are listening to this. We have to print the money. And so far, we have increased the money supply by almost 300 percent. That means if we were buying something 1 week ago or 1 month ago, such as a car, in the future, when this money starts getting into circulation, because we have increased the money supply 300 percent, we are going to have a heck of a rate of inflation. That means the cost of everything is going to go up and up and up. That means college educations, cars, refrigerators, homes, the price of everything will go up. If my colleagues doubt this, I hope they take a look at this chart. It shows the money supply and how it has changed over the years. And you go all the way to 1990 and you start to see a rise. And then you see in 2000 it goes up more rapidly. And then you go to where we are today, and you see the money supply is going straight up. I mean it is going up straight. It is not going at an angle anymore. It is going straight up. And that means we are continuing to spend more than we are taking in. And we are printing that money. We had this problem back in the 1970s. Mr. Gohmert remembers. I think you're old enough to remember that. Back in the 1970s, we had this problem when President Carter was in office. And we ended up with double-digit inflation. We had 14 percent inflation and 12 percent unemployment. And they ended up raising the interest rate to slow the inflationary trend at 21 percent. And that put us into a deep, deep recession. What we are doing today is going to bring those days back in spades. It is going to be worse because we are increasing the money supply and spending much more rapidly than they did in the 1970s. And that was a tragic experience. Ronald Reagan came in and cut taxes across the board. And we ended up working our way out of the economy, and we had a long period of time of economic growth. But we are digging such a hole right now with this spending that it is going to be much, much more difficult to dig ourselves out of that than it was back in the 1980s when Reagan was President. So I really appreciate Mr. Gohmert taking this special hour. He is one of the real stalwarts as far as fiscal responsibility is concerned. Unless we get our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to start paying attention to what we are doing and not just thinking, ``oh, my gosh, we don't have to worry about the spending, it will take care of itself,'' then we are going to continue to dig ourselves into this hole. And I just wish the American people, Mr. Speaker, would call every one of their congressional representatives and their Senators and say, hey, let's start being fiscally responsible. Let's cut spending. We want to know where the money is going, and we don't want to waste it. And we certainly don't want to have hyperinflation. This will be passed on to our kids and our grandkids in our posterity. They are going to pay more in taxes. They are going to be paying more in inflation. And their quality of life is going to go down if we don't change this stuff pretty dog-gone quickly. With that, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate being with you tonight.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, the phones in my offices have been ringing off the wall today because people are very upset that we just passed the omnibus spending bill for $410 billion that has between 8,000 and 9,000 pork barrel projects in it. The people of this country can hardly believe the way we are spending money up here. They all want to see the economy turn around, but I think they realize that the way to turn the economy around is by instilling enthusiasm and confidence in the American people by cutting taxes across the board, including taxes for businesses, such as the capital gains tax. Mr. Speaker, so far, we passed a TARP bill for $700 billion, and that TARP bill that was supposed to help get the economy moving and help the financial institutions--we found that $8 billion of that was loaned by Citigroup to Dubai public sector entities; $1 billion was invested by JPMorgan in India; $7 billion was invested by Bank of America in the China Construction Bank Corporation. And the American people are wondering why the $700 billion that their representatives voted for is being used to help other countries. That money was supposed to help our economy. In addition to that, we spent $14 billion for the auto bailout, almost $1 trillion when you add in interest for the stimulus bill and the omnibus bill I just talked about. And the budget is coming up, and it is going to cost about $3.9 trillion, of which $635 billion is for a new socialized medicine health program. But that is not the end of it. The stimulus package that we passed, almost $1 trillion, was supposed to really help get the economy moving, and now we hear that there probably is going to be another stimulus package. We don't know how much that is going to cost. Speaker Pelosi is quoted as saying that she is open to a second stimulus package. That was on CNN. It says, ``The Democrats eye another stimulus bill on the Hill.'' ``Pelosi open to another stimulus,'' in Roll Call. ``Pelosi raises the prospect of another stimulus economic package, a second one, this year,'' in CQ. ``Pelosi leaves the door open to a second stimulus,'' in Reuters. And the Wall Street Journal talks about that by saying, ``Lawmakers weigh the need for a second stimulus to spur job growth.'' If you add all this together, Mr. Speaker, we are spending God only knows how many trillions of dollars that we do not have, and we are mortgaging the future of our kids and grandkids. I have been down here night after night talking about this, and I cannot understand why we don't approach the solving of these problems in a logical and orderly manner as we have in the past under people such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. They cut taxes to stimulate economic growth, and it worked, giving us economic recovery and long periods of economic growth. But what we are doing is just throwing taxpayers' money at it as fast as we possibly can, and it is money which we don't have. And we are going to print that money, the money that we can't borrow from somebody else. We already owe China about $800 billion, $900 billion. We owe Japan about $600 billion. They are not going to continue to loan us money. We have borrowed money from the Social Security trust fund, so much so that it is probably bankrupt if we were to really look at it today. Yet, we continue to spend money and spend the future generations right down the tube. The inflation rate that we are going to face in the next 2, 3, 4 years I think is going to be untenable. I really believe we are going to have double-digit inflation as well as double-digit unemployment because of the way we are going about solving these problems. Mr. Speaker, I just cannot understand it. Then, on top of that, what did we do to stimulate buying homes? We cut the amount of mortgage deductions that people can deduct from their taxes by about 30 percent. So if a person has a mortgage deduction on their house, we cut that. We reduced it by 30 percent. There is a real inducement for people to buy a home. Then, as far as charitable giving is concerned, we reduced the amount that people can deduct from their taxes for giving money to charities, and that is going to put the charitable institutions in a real bind, and that means the government will probably pick up more of the responsibility of taking care of the people of this country. That is just unconscionable, in my opinion. We need to be doing what is necessary to stimulate economic growth and not put this country into a financial trick bag. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and I have been down here night after night talking about this. We feel like it is falling upon deaf ears, but we must come down here and try to explain to our colleagues and the American people how really horrible is the approach that we are taking right now.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I would like to follow up on what my colleague said. There is a real problem down in Central America. We have a communist government in Nicaragua controlled by the Ortegas. We have in Venezuela Mr. Chavez. And we also have other countries down there, like Bolivia with Mr. Morales that are moving to the left. If El Salvador moves to the left like that, I think it is going to be very bad for not only that part of the world but the entire hemisphere. But I would like to point out one thing. If I were talking to the people of El Salvador, they get $4 billion a year in money coming from the United States into their country to help the people who live down there. That money, in my opinion, will be cut dramatically if they elect a leftist government. Those moneys coming from here to there I am confident will be cut, and I hope that the people of El Salvador are aware of that because it will have a tremendous impact on individuals and their economy.