I appreciate being joined here with my colleague from Illinois to talk about somewhat of a new issue, I think, in the Congress, but more of a broad overview of the situation here in the United States and the situation of the Congress where…
I appreciate being joined here with my colleague from Illinois to talk about somewhat of a new issue, I think, in the Congress, but more of a broad overview of the situation here in the United States and the situation of the Congress where we might be headed as a country and some new ideas that might be in order.
Mr. Speaker, I can't help but think during this special time of the references of our current situation to the Great Depression in the 1930s and the FDR administration, how Franklin Roosevelt dealt with those issues and a contract, a social contract that was written during those times that was felt to be necessary in order to deal with the trying times of the day.
And I am not suggesting that the Depression is anything like what we are facing now. We are lucky to not be dealing with 30 percent unemployment, although there are some places in California that have that. Nationally we are not there. But there are some similarities.
And I was reading a book the other day by Jonathan Alter, a very interesting book, called ``The Defining Moment.'' And it was that time during the first 150 days of the FDR administration that it dawned on FDR that he was writing a new social contract.
Jonathan Alter said it well when he wrote: ``FDR knew he was on the verge of proposing nothing less than a rewriting of the American social contract. Instead of every man being the captain of his own fate, he envisioned the ship of state carrying a safety net. He favored what he called cradle-to-grave coverage, including national health insurance. But he knew that trying to insulate average Americans from the ravages of the market was a long-term process.'' So, in public, he borrowed a term from the private sector and spoke vaguely of social insurance.
It dawned on me that having been here a number of years, having had a Republican majority for about 12 years, having thought of reading the signals back in 1994 that the American people wanted a change in their government, and less government, the fact that perhaps during that time a new social contract would have been something that could have succeeded in achieving those goals while we were in office.
Now, the Republicans, when they came in charge, didn't do what they had promised to do in reducing government, and that has led to us being in the minority now. I think the Republicans get that, and I think we are in a position now where we are trying to assess, where do we go from here? And it dawned on me that it is probably no surprise that we are drawing up these similarities to the Depression and the time for a new deal. We have a President in the White House who has been characterized as the next FDR and very popular and spending money like FDR, but I think that leaves to Republicans the opportunity to define a new social contract, and that interests me.
And I have to go back to times of the contract with America; and that was a contract, but it wasn't necessarily a social contract. It was a political contract. If the American people gave the majority in the House to the Republicans, they would bring 10 bills to the floor, and that was it. It didn't really speak of a social contract in that what government would do and then the rest of society would do as a response to that. It didn't really define a new social contract that we need today.
So I would like to encourage some conversation about that or along those lines. I am so proud to be joined by my friend from Illinois, Mr. Roskam, and also my friend from South Carolina, Mr. Inglis, to discuss it.
It is very interesting. Yes, we do talk about opportunity. But I am reminded about the opening line to Common Sense, which was the book written, that sparked the American Revolution, by Thomas Paine. In the very opening sentence he says: Writers have so confused government with society as to leave no distinction between the two.
It is a reminder today that there is more than one institution in this country. In fact, if you go back to the Bible, in Genesis there were institutions created there. God said, go forth and multiply; He created the family institution. He said, tend to the garden. He created the business institution. And He said, worship me, which meant love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself. And then afterwards, Cain killed Abel, and we needed another institution to keep from killing each other, and that was the government, and so we had four.
Even back in the Revolutionary time, there wasn't really a clear idea about what institution did what in society so that we could have the opportunity that we are looking for. Right now, I think, with this New Deal social contract that I believe that we have in place now, which started in the 1930's, Ronald Reagan, the great President that he was, the conservative that he was, still was not able to distinguish between all of those, and the growth of government still happened during that time. The Contract with America wasn't necessarily anything more than a promise to bring 10 bills to the floor. It had its purpose. It was good in many ways, but it didn't address what Thomas Paine thought was the confusion out there about what is government doing, what do we call this remaining society part, and what does it look like, and who does what in this country. Does government raise families or does family raise families? Does government provide jobs or does government protect people and business is the one and should be allowed to provide the jobs and the economy?
And so when we look today at the new administration, the change in majority that we have right now, the growth in the budget, the intention of taking over 17 percent of the business sector and the health care sector, bringing it in under government control and creating a new bubble that will happen, and that is replacing fossil fuels with solar and energy production with massive subsidies that will rack up the national debt like we have never seen, it does make you wonder about whether or not at some point in time the old ATM is going to stop giving out cash. And then what are we going to do? Because we have based our society on a complete reliance of government while ignoring the value of the other institutions, and while relying more on government, we weaken the other institutions. That, I think, is what frightens me the most.
Everybody wants the President to succeed, but we wonder whether he will under the policies that he has adopted. And our hope is there with him, but there is a realistic expectation that if a liberal left policy of dramatically increasing the size and influence of the government is going to collapse upon itself I think at some point in time.
I thank the gentleman.
You raise an excellent point, and you speak of the virtue of work. And I'm reminded of virtue. I just have to think about where this virtue that you say comes from, and discussing previously the idea of what other institutions do and what they provide to us in our society. One of those is the issue of virtue. Where does that come from? And there is a chapter in the Bible in Second Peter where it addresses the issue of where freedom and independence come from. And it really starts with faith. And so the growing of that virtue doesn't start here. It starts in the faith institutions. Call it ``church,'' call it ``religion,'' whatever you want to call it; it starts with faith. And that, as outlined in Second Peter, produces virtue which produces freedom and independence. And it all goes into the ability that you describe and that is the desire and the ability to go and reap the rewards of your own labor.
The point I would make in response to yours is that that faith institution has to be really strong in the country because the Founding Fathers relied on it to be the virtue builder in a free society. They restricted government and religion because that had been the forms of tyranny over the last thousand years. Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall after they signed the Declaration of Independence. Somebody said, What have you given us? He said, Liberty, if you can handle it. And he was really talking about this idea that self- government doesn't come without virtuous people, and virtue originates in a sector that has been beaten down quite a bit. I think that is one of those institutions that has been suffering from Big Government.
I would love to take just a second to illustrate the most artful example and the best form of describing how we love one another as ourselves. It is charity. And if you look at a cross-section of charity in this country, I have identified about $1.2 trillion of charity that occurs in the United States every year. Americans give about 1.5 to 2 percent of their gross income to charity on average, and that accounts for about $300 billion a year that goes to churches and nonprofits and the like. Surprisingly, corporations and foundations only give about $100 billion a year. That makes $400 billion. The balance, $800 billion, comes from government charity, that is the forced levy of taxes on you and me. Twenty-five cents of our tax dollar goes to government charity in the form of Medicaid, food stamps--rack them up-- farm subsidies and everything else. It adds up to about 25 cents on every dollar. And if the Founding Fathers were relying on the faith institutions to be the originators of virtue through faith, freedom and independence, it is getting less than one-third of the charity that is operating in this country today, while the lion's share of it goes to government which, at best, can sustain people at where they are.
The story you described about the person who is hungry and the main motivator of going to work and improving your life and doing things better, how can they be motivated when the charity is coming from a government institution that doesn't really encourage them beyond their own current situation and never really educates them on the need to work and why and the benefits of it? So I'm not surprised that there is more of a dependency on government, the growth of government, the overreliance on it, and this trend toward Big Government, because you have to follow the charity money. Frankly there are less of those virtues in this country because the faith institution has been weakened by the growth of government, and they are not able to--and they are the source that brings up this notion of freedom and independence, which is wanting in this country.
Anyway, I was intrigue by your thoughts of how people are motivated to work and what are the original origins of that ethic. And it is severely underfunded and being run over today by government.
I am intrigued by the gentleman from Illinois's thoughts about this person who was so amazed that someone asked her what she wanted to do with her life.
Speaking about the authors of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, how important it is to be able to decide your own fate and be able to choose. And I believe, I think the progress of civilization, it moves from tyranny to self-government. I think we are on that march. There are a lot of bumps along the way and a lot of misconceptions about how order and society ought to be, but I think the beauty of the Declaration of Independence was that government was reined in and religion was put in its place, and after that you had the freedom to be able to--by and large, there were still a lot of problems in the United States even in its beginning, but it was the beginning of that.
In the 1830s, a gentleman by the name of Abraham Kuyper, he was a Calvinist Prime Minister in the Netherlands, he originated a concept. And again, this was while European countries were still figuring out their social contract and who was responsible for what, but he came up with this notion called coram deo, a Latin term, but it meant living life in the face of God.
It reminded me of what you said about this young child having her choice. And it was quite a bold statement for the time, but the statement was that government had no authority to be able to limit your freedoms in life, and neither did the church or any other form of authority, that that connection between the individual and God was the supreme connection.
And when Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, what a huge step in moving from tyranny to self-government. This idea of Kuyper and living life in the face of God came afterwards in the 1830s. This
is when Darwin came out with ``The Origin of Species'' and Karl Marx and fascism and some of these others things were being mulled about. I think he set a new landmark about what are our freedoms. And to me, it further illuminates what a social contract might be, but that that individual had those freedoms.
I can't help but think in addition to that what the mandates were in the Garden and the ability to create a family, to go to work and worship God and love each other as ourselves, and have a government that protects you, and the freedom to be able to live life in the face of God through those institutions that were built up. Not everybody has those freedoms. Not everybody has a loving father and mother. Not everybody has learned the ability to work or has the ability to go do that. Not everybody has the freedom to worship God and love their neighbor as they wish.
I am kind of intrigued about what a new social contract would look like if we are back to the social contract of cradle to grave by government, government is getting too big, it is likely to come to an end of itself one way or the other. And if that is the case, what do Republicans present? And do you present it in a way that people logically say by golly, I want to go with that.
Thank you. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina. I know the gentleman holds in such high esteem the words of the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence, and what a wonderful contribution to the world that was, but I can't help but think what Thomas
Jefferson might have worded differently had he gone through the sixties--had he been a flower child in the sixties or had he lived through the Great Depression; the collapse of business the way it did.
I think what I admire the most about what they did was the reining in of government and religion and putting them in their proper place. There was the assumption that, as Thomas Paine said, the rest of society would be families and business and they would operate according to the norms.
I'm not one of those people that say we have got to get back to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, we have got to get back to our founding principles, because I think this is more about looking forward with new illumination built on that.
But what I find interesting is that, had Thomas Jefferson gone through the Great Depression or was a hippie in the sixties, or at least was around when that was happening, would he have reworded life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness a little different. I wonder.
Would he have made a statement about the need for every child to have a mom and a dad, or, you know, the need for business to not be taken up by wrong principles and end up in collapse, and what would have been his advice on how to deal with the Great Depression?
The bottom line is: Would he have worded those opening lines of the Declaration of Independence any different? And I don't have the answer, but it would have been interesting to have a conversation with him today, where he has the knowledge of what occurred after that.
Not that I would ever suggest that it needs to be rewritten, but it does speak to me of perhaps some new inalienable rights that have been illuminated since then because of the history of the United States and what has happened over time and what we have experienced and what our world has become and the results of new knowledge, new science. So, I wonder.
I think it's kind of interesting because we have the opportunity, I think, in the form of a new social contract, to plow new ground and to be bold to develop a contract that really does speak to and contribute to this rise of out of tyranny to self-government. We're not there with self-government yet.
I think the gentleman from Illinois references things that are at risk. I really do believe it's the leadership we provided in the world since the foundation of the country and the Declaration of Independence and the statement of rights that we are going to lose if we are overly reliant on a large Federal Government that has increased dramatically in these last few months at the expense of these other institutions, including business, that is more encumbered daily and provides less incentive to go out and do the things that we have talked about--going out and prospering and earning an income and taking care of yourself, and benefiting from it, as well as families and the virtue-building power of faith.
I think that is what we stand to lose. I sure don't want that to happen.
I appreciate the time from the gentleman from South Carolina. I think I would just leave with the note that the social contract that we are operating with right now is cradle to grave. It started during the Depression. We're back at it with full force now.
If we were to create a new social contract, what would it look like, in opposition to something like that? If we were to hold up to the American public a different social contract, try to imagine--and I'd even implore the public to do this, too--what would the alternative look like? I think it's something to think about. Because we are obviously unsustainable for the rest.
I just want to send my prayers to a colleague here who is away on a family matter and couldn't join us tonight.