Floor Statements

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

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?

But it was charged to him, the time?

Thank you.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

Mr. Speaker, the people of this country last year saw us appropriate $700 billion for what they called TARP. And that money was supposed to be used to help out financial institutions that were in difficult trouble. It was also supposed to help out with the home problem, the houses that were being foreclosed on. And those of us in Congress that didn't support it said we didn't support it because there was no plan. We didn't know where the money was going to be spent.

So today we had a hearing on this. And during that hearing we asked

questions about where the money was allocated and who got it and what they did with it. And we found out some very interesting things. Eight billion dollars was loaned from the TARP money to Citigroup--they got a lot more than that, I think they got about $35 or $40 billion--but Citigroup loaned $8 billion from the TARP funds to Dubai. Dubai is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and their public sector borrowed $8 billion from Citigroup, here in the United States, that had just gotten about $30 or $40 billion from the taxpayers in the TARP funds. And that just made my hair stand on end. Why would the taxpayers in this country want to give money to Citigroup and then have them turn right around and loan it to Dubai, halfway around the world, which is a very wealthy country? One billion dollars was invested by the J.P. Morgan Treasury Services in development of cash management and trade finance solutions in India. There's another billion, another thousand million dollars, that J.P. Morgan took from the American taxpayer in the TARP funds and then loaned it to an organization called Trade Finance Solutions in India.

And then $7 billion was invested by the Bank of America in the China Construction Bank Corporation. Now, China has quite a bit of our money already and quite a bit of our business, and I don't know why in the world American taxpayers should be having their money that is given to the Bank of America to keep them afloat to be given or loaned to the China Construction Bank Corporation. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

We had $700 billion that was put into the TARP fund. Of the $700 billion, there are only about eight or nine places that we know where the money went. There are another 297 places that are unaccounted for. We had a hearing today to try to find out where the money went and what it went for, and we couldn't find it, but we know that there are 297 areas where we don't have any idea what the money was used for or where it went.

In addition to that, we had other expenses or places where we put our money. We put $14 billion into the auto bailout, and there's going to be another $30 billion in that before this is over; $780 billion, I believe it was, that went into the account that was supposed to stimulate the economy, the stimulus bill, and that is almost another trillion dollars. We passed a $410 billion supplemental yesterday, and we're going to pass a $3.6 trillion budget before too long that's going to include 660 some billion dollars for a new socialized national health care program.

The reason I bring all this up, my colleagues, is because I think the American people and my colleagues ought to know that we are spending trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money, and in many, many cases we don't have a clue where it went. And I think that this government and this administration and the Congress should demand, demand, that the TARP funds and all the other funds that are being expended by the taxpayer to take care of these financial institutions to keep our economy above water and to help bail out homeowners who are losing their homes ought to be accounted for. Most of that money so far, as far as I can tell, isn't doing anything to stimulate economic growth or to help the homeowners or the financial institutions to solve this problem.

And in addition to that, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Geithner, said that they're going to have to put another $2 to $3 trillion into the financial institutions to keep them buoyed up and survivable.

Now, just add all that together in your mind and you're looking at $5 or $6 or $7 trillion, and that money is not there. We're going to have to print it. It's going to be passed on to our kids in the form of tax increases or inflation. We need to have an accounting.

Madam Speaker, the Washington Post the other day commented about the President's support of the $410 billion omnibus spending bill that's crawling through the Senate, and they said that it borders on the irresponsible for the administration to try to blame this on last year's administration because they are the ones that are going to sign the bill into law and spend the money.

In another newspaper here in Washington D.C., the Washington Examiner, they wrote ``In quick succession, (President) Obama rolled out a $2 trillion financial services bailout, $2 trillion, a $788 billion stimulus package, the $13.4 billion preliminary bailout for automakers, a $410 billion spending plan to cover the rest of the current fiscal year, a proposed $275 billion foreclosure rescue plan, and a $3.5 trillion budget that includes a $634 billion fund for health care.''

People in America, their eyes glaze over when they hear this. Trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars that we don't have are going to be spent for all of these programs.

And so people say, well, how are you going to solve the economic problems facing this country if you don't spend that money? If we spend the money, we are not going to solve the problems. The economic conditions will continue to go in the wrong direction, but we will be loading on the backs of our kids and grandkids and future generations, higher inflation and higher taxes and a quality of life that won't be anything like what we have today.

The key to solving these problems is to cut government spending, and to cut

taxes for every American so they have more disposable income, and to cut taxes on capital gains so people will take stocks, bonds and property they have and sell it and reinvest it someplace else, thus creating money for investment in business and industry so they can create jobs and cut business taxes across the board.

If we did those three things, we would have an immediate movement toward improvement in our economy, and we wouldn't be doing it by loading trillions and trillions of dollars on the backs of our kids and grandkids.

This chart here shows what's happened in the last several years as far as the growth in the money supply. It was pretty consistent up until the year 2000, and now it's going straight up. That means to every single American that the cost of living is going to go up because there's more money in circulation, fewer goods and services, and the cost of everything is going to rise because of the inflation that's created by printing all this money.

John F. Kennedy said that the way to solve these problems--back in the early sixties, a Democrat--that it was to cut taxes. Here's exactly what he said. ``Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restricted tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today, and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest ways to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut taxes now.''

The best way to raise revenues for the Treasury is to cut taxes. The best way to stimulate economic growth is to cut taxes. Yet, this administration is going to be raising taxes in one way or another on every single family in this country, either through the tax that is going to be on energy or the taxes they are going to levy on the upper income people. But there's going to be taxes levied on every single American, and that is the wrong way to stimulate economic growth.

What they are doing is they are throwing money at this problem, saying that that will solve the problem. It has never worked in the past. It will not work now.

Back in the 1970s, under Jimmy Carter, this was tried. And we ended up with double-digit inflation--14 percent inflation, 12 percent unemployment--and they ended up raising interest rates to 21.5 percent to stop the runaway inflation that was killing the economy of the United States, and they put us into another real bad recession. It wasn't until Reagan came in in 1980 and cut taxes across the board that we ended up with the longest period of economic recovery in the United States history.

History shows that cutting taxes in times of economic stress is the way to work our way out of this situation. And throwing money, trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars, and move us toward a socialistic economy, is not the solution.

I hope my colleagues will look into history. Look at what John F. Kennedy, what Ronald Reagan, and others said about this, because it's extremely important that we profit from history.

Madam Speaker, we have an organization in this country called the Independent Sector. It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of charities, foundations, and corporate philanthropic programs collectively representing tens of thousands of charitable groups in every State across the Nation. The mission of this organization is to advance the common good by leading, strengthening, and mobilizing the nonprofit community.

The reason that I bring this up tonight is that the way that the administration, through the budget, wants to help fund health care reform is they want to reduce the amount that people can deduct when they make charitable contributions. And this organization that represents the Volunteers of America, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, all these organizations, says that if the legislation passes in the budget in its present form, they will lose $4 billion a year in charitable contributions because people won't be able to deduct the same amount that they've been deducting before when they make a contribution to these charities. And I think that's tragic because people who need help from the Salvation Army or the Red Cross or these other philanthropic organizations really need help, and if they can't get it from those organizations, the place they are going to go to try to get it is where? From the taxpayers, from their local trustee, their State government, their city government, or the Federal Government. So what we are going to see is a transfer of responsibility from these independent philanthropic organizations to these local government entities and the Federal Government if we start reducing the amount that people can deduct in charitable contributions. I think that's tragic.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Geithner, appeared before the Senate this past week, and he was asked about this, and he said, well, he thinks there might be other ways that they could fund the health care changes in this country without dipping into the charitable contribution deductions. Well, the head of OMB indicated, I think, yesterday on Face the Nation that Mr. Geithner probably wasn't right, that once the American people see how this money is going to be used, they'll understand it.

I don't believe that, Madam Speaker. I believe the American people, when they give money to a charity, want to make sure that that money is going to that charity and that they get their charitable deduction for that. If they don't get that charitable deduction, they're going to start cutting back on the money they give to charities, and the minute they start doing that, Madam Speaker, then you're going to see these charities start wanting for money because they won't be getting the money they have been getting in the past.

These organizations have said collectively they are going to lose $4 billion a year if the budget proposed by the administration and proposed by the House leadership and the Senate leadership, if that goes through. And it may go through tomorrow. Then these charities are not going to get that money, $4 billion in losses, and it's going to be borne by other institutions. And I submit to you it will be the local governments, the State governments, and probably the Federal Government. I think that's just dead wrong.

I want to end up tonight by saying one more thing, Madam Speaker, to my colleagues back in their offices. We have been increasing the money supply, printing more money very rapidly, and we are indebting the people of this country to the tune of trillions of dollars. The Secretary of the Treasury is going to have another $3 trillion that he's going to have to print to give to financial institutions to keep them above water. The budget that we're talking about, the bailout bill that we're talking about, the stimulus package, all of those add up to trillions of dollars more in spending.

If you look at this chart, you will see that the money supply in this country has been pretty level up through the year 2000, and then it starts going up like a rocket, and now it's going straight up. And what that means to the American people, and I hope the American people, if they happen to be paying attention, and I can't talk to them, I know, but if they happen to be paying attention, I hope they realize that the increase in the money supply is going to come directly to them eventually. It's going to affect them in higher taxes and higher costs of goods and services when they go to buy them. If you have more money in circulation, and we're looking at trillions of dollars more that's going to be printed, that money is going to be chasing fewer goods and services. What that means simply is if you go to buy a loaf of bread, it's going to cost more. If you buy a gallon of gas, it's going to cost more. If you buy electricity in your home, when you turn the switch on, it's going to cost more.

So I would just like to say to my colleagues, we really need to do something about spending. We have got to say to the administration and our colleagues in the House and the Senate it's time to cut spending. We don't need to spend more. We don't need to spend these trillions of dollars. We ought to be cutting taxes instead of doing that to stimulate economic growth, and we need to make sure that the American people and the future generations of this country are not saddled with more debt and hyperinflation.

There are so many things going on right now, Madam Speaker, that troubles me, it's not even funny. And it all comes down to spending more money and imposing more burden on the American taxpayers and the future of this country.

You know, the people of this country, Madam Speaker, are not only hurting, they're mad as hell. They're losing their jobs. They're losing their homes. And then they look at Washington, D.C., and they see us spending this country right down the tubes.

They worry about their kids and their grandkids and what kind of a life we're going to leave for them with higher taxes and huge amounts of inflation because we're blowing so much money right now. And they say, why are they doing that? Why don't they freeze spending? Why don't they live like I have to live back in my district, back in my home?

$787 billion, ultimately over $1 trillion in the stimulus, $410 billion in this bill, a budget of $3.9 trillion, with a $635 billion down payment on a new health care plan that's going to lead to socialized medicine and probably bankrupt the country down the road.

The people of this country want us to do our job. They want us to make sure that they have a better quality of life. They want to make sure they have lower taxes and they can send their kids to school and not have to worry about not having the money to do it.

And what are we doing here?

We're blowing their money over and over again, trillions of dollars, and putting them in a bigger and bigger hole.

My good friends on the Democrat side, I hope they'll listen to the people of this country. I hope you'll listen.