Michele Bachmann

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. I yield to the gentleman.

Mrs. BACHMANN. It was 1,073 pages on the stimulus, which not one Member of Congress read. It wasn't released to the public until after midnight. I kept my staff here until 9 o'clock at night hoping we could have a chance to read this bill. I released them at 9. It didn't come on-line until after midnight. And had the Members of Congress stayed up all night and had we not taken one break and just read it, we would have had 23 seconds per page to read that. Not one person could read it. I think there is a reason for it. We know why. There was no stimulus contained in the stimulus bill, nothing that would help small businesses. We even had essentially an admission of that this morning from President Obama because President Obama said now he has to have a plan for small business. There wasn't much of anything to speak of in the stimulus bill or in his budget bill for the rest of the year; so now he wants to have a new small business bill that is quite a bit of money. But what does it do? It funds the SBA, government. It funds more government. It has no nothing to do with tax reductions for small business. You talk to any businessman. I'm a small businessman with my husband. We started a business from scratch, and I'll tell you what would help: Lower the tax rate for businesses. American businesses pay the second highest tax rate in the world, 34 percent. Imagine. You want to have certainty in the marketplace? Bring the corporate tax rate from 34 percent down to 9 percent. The world right now is nervous. We think we're nervous in the United States. The world doesn't know where to invest. How do we know that the world is nervous? This weekend, and this is humorous, you have the specter of the Chinese communists lecturing the Obama administration, could you please stop spending so much money, President Obama? You're making me nervous. I'm worried that I am going to lose my Chinese debt pretty soon if you don't get a grip on your spending. Then you have European socialists saying to the Obama administration, gee, we don't want to spend all the money that you want us to spend. Isn't it interesting that you have an American President now that's making the world nervous? We were all told that the President was going to bring the world together. We were going to have unity. All of our allies were going to be on board. Our allies are running like mice off a sinking ship saying we don't want any part of this out-of-control spending because our allies have been down that road themselves. I'll tell you if this out-of-control spending would have worked, Japan would have been looking great for 10 years rather than this ``lost decade.'' Europe would be the beacon, the envy of the world for investment. Instead, these are economies in shambles, and I think that's what the American people are worried about. And I yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey. I think they're worried because they know. The American people get it that they're going to have to pay the bill.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I know these Minnesota accents are a little tough to get through, but I also want to mention, just for point of reference, I am a Federal tax attorney. That's my background. That's what I do. Taxes are us. But the top 1 percent of income earners pay 40 percent of all the taxes. The top 5 percent of income earners in the United States pay 60 percent of all taxes. The top 10 percent of all income earners pay 80 percent of all taxes. Today in the United States, 40 percent of all Americans pay no taxes. And under President Obama's plan, 50 percent of all Americans will pay no taxes. This weekend I was up in the northern part of my district, probably no one in this group made more than $50,000 a year. All the people I spoke to were very upset with President Obama's plan. They were upset because they believe in tax fairness. They believe that every American should pay something, no matter what their income is, everybody should have something in on the deal. Why? We all benefit from national defense. We all benefit from roads. We all benefit from corrections. All of us benefit. All of us should be paying it. I will yield to our counterpart from Georgia.

Mrs. BACHMANN. You had mentioned that you felt that the President maybe was revealing his true colors in an off-the-cuff remark, but I have in front of me a copy of the President's budget. This is in black and white and anyone can read it. And this is page 5, ``Inheriting a Legacy of Misplaced Priorities.'' I think the President is pretty clear about wealth transfer. He's been very clear. He's got it down in black and white. And I will quote from it. It says this: ``While middle class families have been playing by the rules living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not.'' He is saying that people, the top end, have not been playing by the rules. Now, this is a canard that gets repeated over and over and over again, saying that people have not been paying their taxes, somehow it's been unfair and they have skimmed. But as the gentleman from New Jersey knows, and that as our colleague who has joined us, Dr. Broun, knows, I know the gentlelady from North Carolina is aware of this, the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States pay 40 percent of all the taxes in the United States.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I just want to inject, actually, this economic situation that we are in is not too tough to figure out. It's real doable. We have a plan for it, and it's pretty simple. We have a very high rate of tax on investments. If we would take that tax off, it's called capital gains, and zero it out and shout out from the house tops, for 4 years we will have a zero capital gains. You invest, take your money off the sideline, put it into the marketplace, any profit you get back, it's yours, 100 percent. If we would have a zero capital gain, and if we would take our corporate tax rate from 34 percent down to 9 percent, cut everyone's marginal tax rate by 5 percent, even President Obama wants to increase the death tax. We say kill the death tax. That's not a good idea to have Uncle Sam reach into somebody's coffin after they have died and take 45 percent of what they own. And get rid of that alternative minimum tax. You do that, next quarter you have an increase in GDP and jobs. Next quarter you have the Dow Jones up. Next quarter, you are going to see unprecedented levels of growth and unprecedented levels of investment in the United States from the world markets. This is pretty easy to solve. But the Obama administration has taken a completely different view. They have taken the view of the French Revolution, which is to tax, tax, tax and spend, spend, spend. And now they have even taken another cue from them, off with their heads. Because in their budget proposal, by their own language, the evil are the top 1 percent of income earners. And that's who they want to whack off their heads. But the Wall Street Journal even had a great article that said this. It said you could confiscate the wealth of everyone making $75,000 or more, it still wouldn't be enough to pay for all the spending that President Barack Obama wants to spend.

Mrs. BACHMANN. It's raising taxes.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Isn't it interesting that we are getting a blanket approach to about everything there is. I know the gentleman from Georgia had brought up the whole cap and tax thing, where we have to have a global warming tax, an energy tax, and everybody has to pay. I thought it was interesting. I was back in the district over the weekend and I heard President Obama on the radio admitting essentially and saying that he wants to have this new energy tax passed, but he does not want implementation to occur until after 2012. The reason why, he said, is because the economy is in such rough shape right now, businesses and the economy couldn't take it. And that's a general admission that this new energy tax is going to tank our economy. As a matter of fact, I had a conservation over the weekend with some people who are experts in this area, and they said this new energy tax literally has the potential of reducing American's standard of living 30 percent. Thirty percent reduction in standard of living because of this energy tax. The worst feature of all is that it gives all the power to Washington, D.C., and takes at way from the individuals by putting this right of taxation in the Federal government's hands. It's almost like an invisible tax that is put into every aspect of our lives. How do we ever get rid of it? How do we deal with it? We are losing freedom by the boatload. That's the difference between, I think, what the Republican agenda is and the Democrat agenda. We believe in the Constitution. We believe in the first amendment, religious freedom, freedom of speech. We believe in the second amendment, the right to hold and bear arms. We believe in these important values. We believe in bedrock values for our country. Marriage should be between a man and a woman; life should be protected from the moment of conception. We believe in these values. We believe in securing our Nation. We believe in taking on the enemy and winning and not being ashamed to win. One thing we don't believe in are open borders. We don't believe that we should have open borders. We believe that we should deal with the drug problem that is coming across, and the illegal alien problem. And we believe in low taxes. We don't believe in high taxes. And our country will change forever if this new energy tax comes in. Did the gentleman from New Jersey have something you wanted to say, or can I go to the gentleman from Georgia?

Mrs. BACHMANN. It hurts the poor and it hurts every segment of the economy.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Because, remember, how did this start? The housing problem. Mr. Garrett started talking about that with foreclosures. This hurts the housing segment where you showed on the chart--Florida, Arizona, California, Nevada. They have all sorts of trouble. What does President Obama want to do? He wants to take away the home mortgage interest deduction that will hurt people who have already made 30 years' worth of plan on their finances. They took this interest deduction out, and now it's going to be taken away from them. That is going to hurt the housing industry.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Imagine what it will do to churches. Imagine--already churches are being decimated. There's a foundation in Minnesota that does good work all across the world helping people to learn how to hear. They have had donors already this year pull $300,000 worth of donations because they are going to lose that donation. We're going to see donations dry up to some of the best organizations; ministries, churches, synagogues. This is serious, what's happening right now.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, the jobs that are being created are new government jobs. They aren't new jobs in the private sector. They're government jobs that will somehow have to be continued and sustained.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, the cost of these jobs in the stimulus were easily $300,000 per jobs. Some of these jobs were $650,000 per job that they created.

Mrs. BACHMANN. We haven't even talked yet about socialized medicine. We talked a little bit about cap and tax. We haven't even talked about socialized medicine. Find me one model anywhere in the world where socialized medicine has delivered better care at a cheaper cost. You want to talk about tax increases, socialized medicine will break the bank in the United States, because now President Obama even voted for the SCHIP bill, which we all know will now for the first time swing the door wide open for illegal aliens. I know one thing, the people in my district are not interested in paying for the health care for illegal aliens that are coming across our border to be yet one more magnet to bring people in that should come here legally. That is a very real concern that we are addressing, and that is why I think people are so concerned right now about what they are seeing on the taxing climate.

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. I would like to add to the stunning Steve King from Iowa for his comment. He is absolutely right that the cost of a good is labor and capital. But the third component is the added cost of government. That's the third component that goes into an item. And that cost is getting exceedingly high. And I know that my colleague from Texas, Louie Gohmert, knows this very well because, if you look at the energy industry, at oil and gas production, the amount of money that companies make in profits is exceeded dramatically by the amount of money that the corporations pay in taxes to the government. People think that oil and gas companies have obscene profits, but they pay even more obscene levels of taxation. Literally, they have spent trillions of dollars that they've paid over to government in taxes, while they've kept billions of dollars in profit. But out of that profit pool, that is where the oil and gas companies have had to take that money to invest back into the business so Americans can enjoy more energy. I am so pleased about the positive solution that's been offered by one of our colleagues, John Shadegg, and also Mr. Bishop, and also Senator Vitter, and it is the No Cost to the Taxpayer Stimulus Bill that says, very simply, let's open up and legalize all forms of energy production all across the United States--wind, solar, biofuels, oil, gas--all of them, let's open all of them up--in fact, I say hamsters running on cages. No matter what it is, let's make sure that we legalize the source of energy. And that is zero cost to the taxpayer. It relieves the American people's burden on dependable gasoline at affordable prices. Let's do that. I know I was absolutely astounded, Senator Obama, during the campaign--and I will yield back after this quote. This is a quote from our now President. He said, during the course of the campaign, ``What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.'' He is admitting that his plan will bankrupt coal companies. ``When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, you know, under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.'' That's the future that the American people have to look forward to, and I think that's audacious. I yield back.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Texas. I appreciate that. I would just like to expand on what Mr. King said. When you look at this body of the House of Representatives and when you look at the United States Senate and when you look at the White House, one thing that we all do when we come in is we take an oath and we pledge our allegiance, not to the American people, not to an issue; we pledge our allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. Every time this House acts in contravention of the Constitution, we cause a distortion of freedom and we cause a diminution in the freedom of the people. We cause a diminution in the prosperity of this great land. That's the problem. Our founding principles are all contained in the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln republished and reaffirmed this Nation to a new foundation grounded in the Declaration of Independence. And, of course, we know what that beauty is. The beauty is that our rights were given to us from a Creator. Those rights are not from government, the rights of man. The rights come from a Creator God. And that Creator gave those rights to every human being on the planet. Among those rights are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Those are rights that only God can give. Government can't give them; government can't take them away. And our government was instituted for only one reason, and it was to secure those unalienable rights. None of us in this Chamber with an election certificate has any right to violate those rights because we are here only by the consent of the governed. And when we act in contravention of that, that's how we get into the soup we're in. And today we are in some kind of soup. So if we return to our Constitution, we're in good shape.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas, Louie Gohmert, and I want to thank you for the great idea that you proffered to this body earlier on, which is if we want that true stimulus, Mr. President, I recall you saying, Mr. Gohmert, then why don't we let the American people keep that stimulus dollar directly, pull the United States Government out as the middleman and let's prohibit the government from skimming off its portion to go into a bureaucratic cliff that no one knows where the money goes, let's let the American people keep their money. That was the Louie Gohmert plan. People all across America have said to me, Do you know that Louie Gohmert? Have you heard of his plan? And I tell them, You bet I know him. I can't imagine a more stimulative impact. As a matter of fact, I was with two ladies yesterday, women who don't necessarily think about politics day and night, and I told them about the Louie Gohmert stimulus plan. They said hey, I would love that. I would love to have of that money because, as the gentleman from Texas knows, in the last 50-52 days under the current Obama administration, the average American family has just had placed on their shoulders an incredible debt load of over $18,500 per family. That is just in the last 52 days. I don't know about you, my family cannot afford these current spending policies. What we have seen in the last 52 days, out of a Democrat-controlled House, a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Democrat-controlled White House, is spending at historic proportions: $18,500 per American family. That's on top of the debt load that we already have. What has been the response of the American people? In the month of January, the American people were spooked about what is happening in this economy. What did the American people do? Their personal savings rate has elevated to 5 percent. You know what that savings rate was before, Mr. Speaker, that savings rate was minus 1 percent. The American people are so afraid of these historic levels of spending, they are holding on to every dollar they have, and the personal savings rate has increased to 5 percent. I think that it is great that the American people are going down a savings route. It shows that inherently the American people are prudent with their own money. But what has been the Obama plan? The Obama plan has been to raise spending to such historic levels that it will force the United States Government to continue to borrow more money from China, and the Chinese right now are a little skittish about buying more American debt. So skittish are they that our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, had to go to China about 2 weeks ago and practically beg the Chinese to continue buying American debt. Our Secretary of State wouldn't be in that embarrassing position if the Obama administration wouldn't be so bent on spending this level of money. Well, if we don't have to spend this kind of money, then we don't have to borrow from China. We don't have to have punishing high tax increases, and that is what is amazing to me in the President's budget. He was just here in the Chamber about 2 weeks ago with his State of the Union address, and he said that he plans to tax the American people under the new cap-and-tax plan. Under this tax plan, which is hard to believe, I know, in the midst of a recession, adding to the burden of the American people $646 billion in new energy taxes. Well, we all remember how much fun it was last July to pay over $4 a gallon for gas, that is the road we are heading down again. In fact, some estimates say that the average American family will see an increase in their yearly energy bill of over $1,400 a year in their utility bill because of this energy tax. Why do we have to have this tax? Because spending is out of control. As a matter of fact, it won't just stop with the utility bill, it is also the gas bill when you go to your local gas station and fill up. The energy tax will impact the price of food. It will impact the price of goods at Wal-Mart. If you go to a local clothing outlet like Target, it will increase the cost of things there. Everything we touch will be impacted by the energy tax. We wouldn't need to do this if we didn't have these historic levels of spending. One thing that was alluded to by our colleagues, Mr. Burton and Mr. Gohmert, is the fact that what we will see happen, other than punishing tax increases and going to other countries to borrow money, we will have to resort to inflation. What's that? Inflation occurs because the Federal Reserve is printing money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and putting that money into the money supply. If we have $100 in the money supply and the Federal Reserve puts another $100 into the money supply, what does that do to the $100 we have now? It means that our $100 is actually worth half of what it was before. The cruelest tax of all is the tax of inflation, especially for senior citizens and especially for people who have spent their entire life trying to create wealth, and that is the genius of the United States of America, freedom. Freedom is the genius of our country. And with freedom, we have been able to amass private wealth creation. Now I'm not just talking about billionaires, I am talking about my grandparents who lived through the Depression. My grandfather made a dollar a day working as a meat cutter, $7 a week. He had seven children that he had to feed on $7 a week. But they wanted to create as much private wealth as they could in their family. My grandmother and grandfather never became wealthy, but what did they try to do individually, they tried to save as much money as they could so that someday they could afford to buy a home. My little grandmother was eventually able to buy a one-bedroom home. She was so proud of that home. She took such good care of that home because she wanted to make sure that my mother and her six brothers would one day have an inheritance. And at the time of her death, she was able to give them $10,000 each. That was her goal, to transfer to them some of her private wealth. And that is what I am so worried about, Mr. Speaker. That is what I am so worried about, that we are going to take away the right of the American people to amass private wealth no matter how much because they want to be able to use it to be able to pass on to their own kids. They cannot do that, Mr. Speaker, when this body continues to spend money on the most worthless projects imaginable. We could spend the next hour in this Chamber going after worthless project after worthless project. We just saw in this body this week, President Obama signed it yesterday, almost 9,000 earmarks; 9,000 earmarks. And that is after President Obama campaigned and said I will be a new President. I don't want to see earmarks; I don't want any more earmarks. And what did he do in the first 52 days, putting a burden on the American people of over $18,500, including wasteful projects, 9,000 of them, and having the audacity to say to the American people, This is the end of the old way of doing business. From here on out, it is the new. It is not the new, Mr. Speaker, not when you are looking at continual rampant spending to have continual rampant taxing. That is what is around the corner. This horrible energy tax is going to forever change our American way of life, and now is our opportunity to stop it. I know, Mr. Speaker, that Representative Gohmert and I were talking about that earlier today. The opportunity that we have between now and May when the Obama administration wants to make sure that the American people are saddled with this horrible new tax, and how do we know that? He has already built it into his budget. He has already assumed that you are going to be paying $4,000 per family in new taxes to finance these boondoggles that all of us come up with here in Washington, D.C. I didn't vote for any of this. I am more proud every day that I voted against every one of these wasteful spending programs. I know that Representative Gohmert feels the same way. With that, I would like to hand it back to Representative Gohmert, and I would be happy to talk about that with him.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Thank you. I think we see two separate agendas at work here. The American people want low-cost energy that's dependable. We need that. Not only just individuals but also businesses, we need low- cost, dependable energy. But the Obama administration has taken a very different view on energy. Then Candidate Obama said he wants high-cost energy. Why? Because he wants to force the American people to have to pay the carbon tax that's about to come down the pike. We wouldn't need this terrible carbon tax that will completely damage our economy, especially in this time of recession, if the Obama administration wasn't addicted to spending. Because they are so addicted to these high levels of spending, President Obama, in his State of the Union address, said what he wants to do with that money. He wants socialized medicine. Is that what the American people want? The American people aren't crying out for socialized medicine, but that's what President Obama wants to give to the American people. Not only that, but in his State of the Union address, he said his vision for America is that government's hand would be in the hospital room of a brand new baby with a brand new mother. He wants, from cradle to career, the Federal Government's hand on the life of that child. I don't know about you, but the people in the Sixth Congressional District of Minnesota, moms and dads want to have one of the parents at home with that baby to be able to love that child, rear that child. They don't want to send that little baby off to a government daycare center from the day that baby is born. That is President Obama's vision for child rearing, that the Federal Government would be involved in the cradle stages of a child's life. Massive spending demands a way of taxation. This cap and trade isn't going to solve our energy problem. It will add to our energy problem because, again, it's going to take out of the pockets of the middle class of this country to put into the pocket of the Federal Government.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield, in Minnesota that's true.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield. I'm familiar with that story as well. Davy Crockett did come back to this Chamber, he did go to his fellow representatives and ask for money. And the disgraceful thing is that Members did not want to give money personally out of their own pocket to be able to help--it was a widow, I believe, they didn't want to give that money to the widow. I have only been in this body for 3 years, but if there is anything that I have learned it is how easy it is to spend other people's money. It is so easy to be generous. But one thing that this body needs to remember, one thing that President Obama needs to remember, we are not a philanthropic society, we are not the family, and we certainly are not the church. And when government tries to be the church, when government tries to be the family, and when government tries to be a philanthropic society, we distort everything and usually mess it up. If you look today, the news just came out that Freddie and Fannie, which were the engines behind this failure on the housing mortgage meltdown, Freddie and Fannie need another $30 billion of infusion of money because, guess what? They're now nationalized; they're owned by the American taxpayer. They can't stop spending money. They're addicted. As a matter of fact, our government charged Freddie and Fannie with making more loans to people who can't even afford to put down payments on houses. The government hasn't learned its lesson, and it seems unwilling to learn its lesson. I don't know why in the world we would want to take more money out of the hands of people who get how to save it and how to spend it and bring it here to Washington to people who have proved for all time that they have no clue how to spend it. I yield back.

Mrs. BACHMANN. And if the gentleman would yield. We could go to the Old Testament as well and look no further than the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments say, ``Thou shalt not steal.'' And whether it comes from government or whether it comes from an individual, we are not to steal from our neighbor. That's what has me so concerned about this new energy tax from the Obama administration because it literally will be widows and orphans that will be in the worst possible position. Because this energy tax will hit every aspect of American Society, it will forever lower America's cost of living and our way of life. We need look no further than Europe. Europe has already instituted this energy tax. It is continuing to lower the standard of living in Europe, and it is creating job losses all across the United States. Why would we be cruel to widows? Why would we be cruel to orphans? This will not work. It has been a disaster. And now is the time for the American people to raise up, contact their Member of Congress, and say, please shield me from this Obama energy tax, I can't afford it. Why would we do this when we see crushing debt loads? Earlier this week, Mr. Speaker--I was sharing this with Mr. Gohmert-- I met with people from the furniture industry. And I don't know if the American people know yet, the furniture industry, if you look at their stock value, the stock value of the American furniture industry has dropped 90 percent. So if you have people who spent their life working in the furniture industry and that's what their retirement was made of, they have lost 90 percent of the value of their wealth assets. Why would you impose a cruel energy tax where we are going to require more jobs to flee from this country? I yield back to the gentleman.

Mrs. BACHMANN. If the gentleman would yield.

Mrs. BACHMANN

Mrs. BACHMANN. Thank you for yielding back. The gentleman from Missouri, Todd Akin, is so well respected in Missouri for a reason; he's a great historian and a lover of history. And I had done some reading myself on depression-era economics because that's really, I think, a very important area for us to look at right now when you look at the parallel and compare and contrast between the policies that are being implemented today and the parallel nature that they have with the 1930s. Eleanor Roosevelt said that there were only two people who could say anything to her husband and cross him; one of them was Henry Morgenthau. And Henry Morgenthau, the United States Treasurer, as Mr. Akin had stated, was one of the people who came to the very clear conclusion that overspending had been a huge mistake. And that is the focus of this Special Order hour this evening is on spending. And we saw that, throughout the 1930s, a misery index unlike any other had been created because of rampant out-of-control spending. And Henry Morgenthau said--probably the person who could testify the best to that level of government intervention--it was wrong, it was a mistake, it didn't work. And the one thing we know about history is if we don't learn from it, we will live to repeat it. And I believe, Representative Akin, you can correct me, that it seems that you are saying clearly to the American people, let's not, President Obama and the Democrats who run the House and Senate here in Washington, repeat that same mistake. I will yield to the gentleman.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to be able to speak this afternoon to the American people about something that has been on all of their minds for the last 5 months, and that is spending, the out-of-control spending that they see occurring here in their Nation's Capital. And they are worried. They are worried, Madam Speaker, about what they are seeing. And there is an old adage that we have heard as a precursor to a joke. Since we have been children, we have heard the adage that asks a simple question: What comes first, the chicken or the egg? And we ask that question in public policy: What comes first, spending or taxes? And clearly, spending is the precursor to taxes. And what we have seen the Obama administration and the Democrats who currently control both the House and the Senate embrace is a new initiative never seen before in the history of our country, a level of spending that is unprecedented. Joining me now in this hour that we have to speak to the American people is one of our new freshmen. His name is Mr. Jason Chaffetz. And he hails from Utah's Third Congressional District. We are very excited to have him join us and to have him speak now to this body and to the American people on spending and what that means for our economy. Mr. Chaffetz, I yield.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank Representative Chaffetz from Utah's Third Congressional District, and what an honor to serve with you. What an honor to know that we have freshmen who have learned the true lessons of life, that you live on Ramon noodles rather than get money from mom and dad. That's where it all comes from. Our country is well served from having his representation. Spending is the issue that we need to address right now. It comes down to a philosophical claim and a philosophical shift. That may not seem like much, but we are here debating ideas on the floor of the House of Representatives. And there is a big idea that we are grappling with right now: where are the answers to the problems that lie before our Nation? Where are those answers? Who is the best person to solve those problems? What we have seen in just the last 50 days is a decided shift, a transformational shift, a groundbreaking shift from the way America has previously done business, and it says this. It says that there is a real belief that the genius of America lies in government, and that it lies in Washington, D.C., and that it lies with the Federal Government making more and more decisions over the personal areas of our lives. And that the Federal Government is far wiser with our money than the individual is with their own money, or that a private business is with their money, or a local community is with their money. These are troubling times to be sure, but is the answer to be found in a larger government that comes about through greater levels of spending? Well, that is not what a Harvard study found back in about 2002. Researchers from Harvard made an exhaustive study, one of the largest of its kind done over a series of years. This is what they studied. They studied over 18 different economies across the world. Of course not all of them are free market-based economies like America's economy. It was the whole gamut of economies across the world, and they asked a very simple question and one that would be prudent for us to look at now as we are engaging in this economic debate, and it is this: What are the courses of action that causes an economy to climb and to grow and to find prosperity? Just exactly what we are trying to find now here in the midst as we grapple with these very real problems. What is the way out? And conversely, what is not the way out? What causes economies to contract, to fail, to have hyperinflation ensue, to see a misery index go up? What is that policy? And this is the result. I think for the common sense quotient that makes up most Americans today, the answer is not real startling. This Harvard study from 2002 that looked at 18 different economies said this: When nations have contracted their spending, when they have brought their spending under control and reduced their spending, when they have lowered the amount of spending that they pay for government wages so they aren't increasing government public wages, in fact they are lowering government wages, and when those same economies cut taxes for the people of the government, then you see the economies turnaround and you see the economies thrive and you see the economies grow. The study also found just the converse. It found that where nations decided that the answer to the economic problem would be to grow spending, in fact dramatically increase spending, to increase wages for public employees in the government sector, where taxes would be increased on the people and burdens would be heaped up on both businesses and on private individuals, again the common sense quotient that makes up the great majority of American people won't be surprised by the results from this Harvard study. These are the results: the results are when governments decide to dramatically increase spending, as the current Obama administration and the current Democrat-controlled Congress is about to engage in and in fact have engaged in, then government economies at that point fall into a spiral. It becomes negative, the revenue that comes in, and there is not growth out of the economy. That only makes sense because where do governments have to go to finance what they have to do. There is one place that they have to go, and that is in my pocket and in the pocket of the American consumer and that is in the pocket of private industry. Now there are some nations that don't allow for private industry. They have government-controlled economies. We have seen that in the living laboratory of the last 100 years of history across the world. We have seen the engine, the greatest engine of prosperity known to man through the annals of history which would be the United States free market capitalist-based system. You look at the dramatic growth and increase of standard of living, opportunity and freedom, it has occurred on America's watch from 1900 to the year 2000. You saw dramatic growth and wealth creation like we have never seen before in the history of the world. In fact, up until about 2006, we saw the greatest wealth enhancement in recent times. Under six of the eight years of President Bush, we saw some of the greatest increases in private wealth enhancement than we had ever seen in all of history. How did that happen? How did that occur? Well, it didn't occur because of dramatic increases in government spending. Where it occurred was the genius of private wealth creation. That is what America has given to our people. We have given the genius of freedom which in turn has given us the genius of prosperity and the genius of private wealth creation. It is what I wish for my parents. It is what I wish for my children. It is what I wish for my neighbors, that they would have private wealth sufficient to be able to satisfy not only themselves, but so that they can give out of their bounty to others. And that is what we have seen occur in this country, and the genius of wealth creation in private hands that has led to some of the greatest levels of compassion and of charitable giving that we have ever seen in the history of our country. But what has been the response of the Obama administration? President Obama in his State of the Union address stood in this Chamber addressing this body as well as the United States Senate and the American public. And he said very simply and unashamedly, he planned to cut the deduction that Americans can take for charitable giving. Now I don't know about you, but I think it is very good, Madam Speaker, to encourage Americans to give more money to the charity of their choice. Whether it is their local church, and local churches and religious groups were the groups which began America's hospital system. In every community across the United States, we boast wonderful hospitals--Presbyterian hospitals, Lutheran hospitals, Catholic hospitals, Baptist hospitals. Denominations saw to it that in their local communities, they weren't just meeting the needs of their parishioners only--only of Catholics, only of Presbyterians, only of Lutherans--they saw as Christ reached out to the infirm with his own hand, that they wanted to reach out in a charitable context and reach the needs of people beyond their own denominational doors, reach out to literally give a glass of cold water to those who were infirm, and meet the health care needs of those in their community. I worry, Madam Speaker, I fear, Madam Speaker, that as President Obama is seeking to cap the gift giving that Americans will now be able to do to their local churches, to their local hospitals, to their local charitable institutions, that we will see these great givers of gifts, local charities, dry up. Why, because the Federal Government, the philosophical direction that President Obama has taken is that he believes the Federal Government can do a far better job spending your money than the American people can spending their own money. Madam Speaker, I beg to differ. No one spends their money better than the individual, and no one needs their money more right now than the individual. No single mother needs their money more right now than that single mother who may have three kids, who may have four kids. I know personally in my own life when my mother found herself a single mother after a divorce that left her with four children, she had to take a low-paying job because she was determined that her children would be fed, sheltered and clothed. There wasn't much money available. We went immediately overnight from being middle class to being below poverty. But I had a mother who was determined that her children would have shelter. We didn't have a home any longer in the suburbs. That had to be sold. But we had an apartment, we had somewhere to live, and my mother made sure that she worked. And I began at about age 12 getting baby-sitting jobs. My brothers got newspaper routes. We did what families are doing today. They are doing whatever it takes so they can survive so their children can have a meal tonight when they come home from school. They are doing whatever they can. So, Madam Speaker, it strikes me as cruel that a philosophical decision has been made by the Obama administration and by the Democrat leadership that runs both the House and the Senate now in Washington, D.C., every lever of power today is controlled by the Democrat majority, and that decision has been made. Clearly it has been made affirmatively, and it has been made time and time again in the last 50 days of this administration. And it has been that we need to spend more money which in turn will mean the poor American people will have to be taxed almost into poverty to pay for this profligate spending. Madam Speaker, I would ask: what is this emergency spending that the President believes must be done to save the economy? And I think, Madam Speaker, that it would sicken the American people if they knew what some of these spending projects are. Here are some among them. My colleague, Representative Jason Chaffetz of the Third Congressional District of Utah talked a little bit about the stimulus bill that is costing the American taxpayers well over a trillion dollars with debt service. We received that bill and had only limited hours to be able to debate and vote on that bill. But the nasty little secret, Madam Speaker, that the American people are sadly learning is that not one Member of Congress was given an opportunity to read this bill before we were asked to vote on the highest spending bill that has ever come before this body. Ever in the history of man, no one has ever spent in one fell swoop a trillion dollars before in a spending measure. And the Members of this body, the people's representatives, weren't even given the courtesy of reading this bill which broke every promise that was made to the American people during the course of the last election. On the campaign trail, we heard over and over again from then-Senator Obama that he wished to give the American people 5 days to read these bills online so the people's representatives would have time to read these bills before we vote on them. He wanted to ensure complete transparency, complete openness. We cheered President Obama when we heard that, and we are sadly disappointed that President Obama has chosen, together with the Democrat leadership that runs Congress, that they did not want, that they were so ashamed, could it be, of the stimulus bill, we don't know what their motives were, we don't know. But what would lead them to keep this bill in hiding? As a matter of fact, there isn't one Republican word in the trillion- dollar spending bill, not one word of bipartisan support. There were some offers of bipartisanship that we heard in the press, but no real extending of the hand to the American people to have true bipartisan intervention in this bill. As a matter of fact, President Obama came over to meet with the Republicans, and we were so delighted. When President Obama came over to the Capitol, the Republicans in the House came together. We welcomed President Obama. When he came in our closed-door meeting, we prayed for our President and we promised him that we will pray for him at every meeting and that we will also have an open door to him. We have an eternal olive branch held out to President Obama because we want to be able to work with him. However, what we saw was that olive branch was not extended to the House Republicans. We were not invited to those negotiations. As a matter of fact, the ranking member, the House Republican, lead member on the House Ways and Means Committee--and that would be Ranking Member U.S. Representative Dave Camp from the great State of Michigan--he said he was walking to the rotunda, and never in his career here in Congress has this ever happened to him. He walked past Senator Harry Reid, who was at a microphone announcing that a deal had already been struck in negotiations on the stimulus bill. Where was Representative Camp going? He was going to attend the conference committee that was supposed to come up with the agreement on the stimulus bill. Representative Camp, the Republican, hadn't even yet made it into the conference committee meeting and Senator Harry Reid was already at the microphone announcing that an agreement had been made. The Republicans had been had. But what was worse, Madam Speaker, the American people had been had because there was no bipartisan agreement. We questioned President Obama. One of our Members, Representative Roscoe Bartlett from the State of Maryland, said, Mr. President, I have lived through the Great Depression, I have seen it. What evidence do you have that this radical spending and radical government intervention into a troubled economy will be able to pull our economy out of these current doldrums? Because it's never occurred before in the history of America where radical spending has literally brought us back to American prosperity. Prosperity does not follow spending. Prosperity follows the belt tightening that government has to do so the American people have more of their own money to spend. When our Member, Representative Bartlett, asked this question of the President, here was the President's response; he said, I disagree with your premise. He said, I believe that the problem with President Roosevelt is that he failed to spend too much in the 1930s. I, for one, was incredulous, Madam Speaker, when I heard President Obama say that he believed that President Roosevelt failed to spend too much to bring the economy out of the doldrums. That was amazing. No President has ever intervened more, has ever spent more. In fact, many historians agree that what was a recession that President Roosevelt inherited turned into a Great Depression. And we don't want to see that happen again for the sake of our children, for the sake of the United States economy. And then the question was asked about taxes to our President. He was asked about the massive tax increases that will surely result as night follows day from all these dramatic spending increases. And President Obama said simply this--he was attempting to be humorous, and he said, Well, I live down the street in a very nice house, Pennsylvania Avenue, 1600. I really like it there. And he said, I don't have a lot of expenses and I don't pay property taxes; I can afford to pay a little more. And again, I was incredulous by that statement. It almost reminded me of Marie Antoinette when she said, ``Let them eat cake,'' meaning that the rest of us aren't living in public housing, the rest of us are struggling with the day-to-day expenses that we deal with. We are all in need of as much money as we can keep in our own hands, not sending it on to the Federal Government. We have joining us in the Chamber right now another representative from the great State of Missouri. His name is Todd Akin. And Todd Akin has long been a champion against dramatic increases in government spending. He has long called on this body to get its house in order. And I will now yield to the gentleman from Missouri.