Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I rise today because we are, once again, considering another legislative cover-up from mistakes that have already been made.

Last week, Democratic leadership here in Congress drove their steamroll of socialism right over this legislative body, forcing through an unconstitutional 90 percent tax targeting AIG employees, but it serves no other purpose than to divert attention from the truth, the truth that congressional leaders made these bonus payments possible through a lack of transparency.

Today, we are hastily considering another bill with the intention of correcting a mistake that should not have been made in the first place. Today's bill to expand the powers of the TARP Inspector General is akin to locking the door on the henhouse after the fox has already snuck in, and now the chickens are dead.

Congress has irresponsibly wasted $700 billion of the taxpayers' money on TARP, selling this plan to the American people as a way to free up credit markets. But they are not freed up. They are still frozen. We were sold a bill of goods, and now we know that the taxpayer-funded TARP program lacks transparency and accountability.

Madam Speaker, by now, we should anticipate the sly fox's arrival and start locking--in fact, deadbolting--the henhouse door before it gets in, not after. We have to demand transparency. We have to demand accountability. We are not getting it. The American people should demand that. We are spending too much. We are taxing too much. We are borrowing too much money from the TARP all the way to this new budget that has been proposed that we are going to be considering in the very near future. We have got to stop the steamroll of socialism.

As Members of Congress, we have taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Today's vote on the omnibus lands bill is a vote on the right to own private property and on the second amendment right of law-abiding citizens to have and use firearms. The fifth amendment concludes with these words ``nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.''

Our Nation is facing an economic crisis today. Yet Democrats are forcing this Chamber to rush through a bill that will increase government spending by as much as $10 billion. The Federal Government already owns over 650 million acres of land that they can't take care of. The National Park Service alone faces a backlog of $9 billion worth of projects that need to be funded.

If S. 22 passes, there will be more wilderness areas in the United States than

the total developed land, 109-plus million acres versus 108.1 million acres. We should not be permanently locking up tens of millions of acres of the people's land.

The second amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to have firearms and use firearms are also in danger today. The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that ``a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'' Last week, Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate added the Altmire amendment to the omnibus lands bill to prevent the Federal Government from banning hunting and fishing on certain types of Federal land.

At the time this amendment was added, the right of Americans to carry concealed firearms on park lands and wildlife refuges, in accordance with State law, was already recognized in Federal regulations. However, last Thursday, a U.S. District Court judge single-handedly decided to block this right. And it was an unconstitutional decision by this judge. Now there is a giant hole in the current Altmire language, and Congress should fix it. Congress must not allow one Federal judge to single-handedly deny Americans their second amendment rights on Federal lands.

My colleagues Mr. Hastings and Mr. Bishop introduced an amendment to this bill that would write into law the very protections struck down by this one Federal judge. Unfortunately, Democratic leadership would not allow a vote on this amendment that would repair the massive void in the current Altmire language. The omnibus lands bill was the best place to fix what this one Federal judge in Washington, D.C., has done, but we won't even be allowed a vote today.

It is not the role of the Federal Government to hoard massive amounts of land. And it is not the role to take away law-abiding citizens' second amendment rights.

Protect the fifth amendment. Protect the second amendment. Vote ``no'' on S. 22.

I want to commend Dr. Gingrey, because we have been proposing all along some method of trying to develop a market for these toxic assets so that the taxpayers don't have to bail out Wall Street by giving money to the individuals that have created this mess through their own greed, through seeking their own end and putting the bill on the backs of the taxpayers, in fact, the people who can least afford to have that burden put on them, and that is small business in this country.

I want to remind the Speaker, as well as those here in the House and those listening, that Republicans offered an alternative to the TARP bill that was presented in the last Congress. Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson was totally wrong. A lot of us on the Republican side voted against it, there were some Democrats even that voted against it. And we had an alternative, an alternative that would not have created this huge debt on the backs of the small businesses and the taxpayers of this country, and we need to find solutions.

We have proposed suspending capital gains tax. That would bring in a tremendous influx of cash offshore that is just sitting there. It would bring in a tremendous influx of cash into the financial system that would be placed in banks so that they would have money to capitalize loans. And, it would help stop some of the problems that we have with frozen credit markets in this country.

We have proposed suspending the mark-to-market accounting that the Federal regulators are still requiring the banks to go by, which is continuing to freeze up assets so that banks cannot lend out money to people with good credit. It makes absolutely no sense. We need to suspend mark-to-market and find some other means of accounting that makes sense, that doesn't just totally torpedo the capital assets of all these financial institutions.

Republicans have presented these plans. Unfortunately, the leadership, last year President Bush and under the directions of Hank Paulson, wouldn't even listen to us. They wouldn't consider those things. And it is one of the big mistakes I think that the last administration made. But, more importantly, we see the same kind of policy coming on right now today through Secretary of Treasury, as well as this current administration, as well as the leadership here in this House. And we as Republicans presented proposal after proposal after proposal, and the leadership here in this House and in the Senate have been obstructionist. They will not listen to any other alternative but their own steamroller of socialism that is being shoved down the throats of the American public. And it is going to strangle the American economy. It is going to choke the American people economically.

So I commend Dr. Gingrey for a proposal of creating a market for these so-called toxic assets. They have value as you, Judge Carter, and Dr. Gingrey

were just discussing, and I applaud that.

We can solve an economic problem, and we can do it in the private sector, without increasing the debt of the Federal Government; because the Federal Government is borrowing too much, it is taxing too much, and it is spending too much, and we have got to stop it. I believe very firmly that if we don't have these alternatives considered, that it is going to strangle the American economy, it is going to lengthen the recession, it is going to deepen the recession, and maybe even push us into a frank depression. And we have got to stop it; not only for the good of small business, which is the engine that creates jobs and is the economic engine that pulls along the train of economic prosperity here in America, but also for the people who are going to be most disserved by this philosophy that the leadership in this House and the Senate are proposing, and that is, it is going to hurt the people on limited incomes, it is going to hurt the people that are on the lower end of the economic ladder here. We need to help them up the ladder by giving them good jobs, good-paying jobs. And the policies that have been proposed by this administration, particularly this new budget, are going to hurt the people that our colleagues on the other side supposedly want to help the most. But it is going to hurt those poor people. It is going to help to put those people in more economic straits, dire straits, where they are going to be struggling even more.

So I do congratulate Dr. Gingrey for bringing us another proposal, one that makes sense economically, one that makes sense to get us out of this economic downturn that we are suffering under.

If the gentleman will yield.

I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

You made a couple points that I would like to point out to the folks who are listening to us tonight, is that we have a proposal by the Democratic leadership, by Secretary Geithner and by the administration, that is going to continue to borrow and borrow and borrow. And who are they borrowing from? Short term, they are borrowing from China and other foreign entities; but long term, they are borrowing from our children and grandchildren.

But, Judge Carter, you made an excellent point, a good commonsense point that people all over this country do when they have economic problems, and that is that they tighten their belt and stop spending. And that is exactly what the Federal Government needs to do. We need to live on a balanced budget, just like the American people do every day. Unfortunately, there is not much common sense around here in the Federal Government, and we just see this policy of borrowing and borrowing and borrowing. We are borrowing way too much. And all it is going to do is just continue us into a deeper and deeper hole, because you cannot borrow and spend yourself to prosperity. And I think that is a great point that you just made.

And these assets, these so-called toxic assets have value, they have real value. They are not zero that the mark-to-marketing accounting rules require banks to mark them down to just because they don't have a market today.

Will the gentleman yield?

Let's call it the Rangel Dangle Rule. I like that better.

It seems like people around here don't mind, there are a number of people around here that don't mind raising other people's taxes because they don't pay any themselves. So I compliment the gentleman. I appreciate your allowing me to throw in that. But I like your Rangel Rule. Can I do that?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We were just speaking a few moments ago about many alternatives that have been presented to this House that would be in the private sector that wouldn't borrow from our grandchildren, and our good friend, Mr. Gohmert, with his Federal tax holiday, has provided us with a plan that would stimulate the economy and help hardworking Americans without growing the size of government.

My friend from Texas serves as a constant reminder that we are spending

the people's money and that policies like those supported by Secretary Geithner are just the most recent examples of policies from this administration that are not for the people, of the people, or by the people.

Mr. Gohmert's plan is especially necessary as Secretary Geithner attempts to increase his power while moving away from the dollar, now that he is apparently open to moving the world economy towards an IMF- controlled currency system. Maybe he was at IMF too long and he is embracing a world currency based on IMF. I believe that the Secretary of the Treasury needs reminding that we are part of a government that is directed by the Constitution of the United States.

In fact, Congresswoman Bachmann just yesterday asked him where in the Constitution is the authority that he is wanting to claim and expand his powers? He couldn't answer that because there is none there.

And that document, the Constitution, does not provide for any evolutionary changes in the Secretary's power without explicit Congressional approval, and, by extension, approval from the people of the United States.

Right now, neither has granted such approval.

This expansion of the powers of the Treasury Department is a cause of great concern and should be of great concern to every American. I was concerned when former Secretary Henry Paulson first started us down this path towards nationalization and government-run industries. And I'm even more concerned as I stand before the American public today and before this House today.

There are many good and justified actions that Congress can take to get us back on the path to economic prosperity, like a Federal tax holiday of Mr. Gohmert's. But these recent developments, spearheaded by Secretary Geithner, are not only ill-advised, but they do not begin to fall into the realm of constitutional duties or authority.

I hope and pray that there is economic success in America's near future. But I believe that any gains to be made will come in spite of the actions of Treasury Secretary Geithner and not because of them.

It is my sincerest hope that people all over this great Nation will contact their friends, contact their family and contract their elected representatives to tell them to prevent the unconstitutional extension of the Secretary's power.

I'm pleased that Mr. Gohmert has led the charge today to discuss these commonsense plans to restore power back to the people of this country, and I wish that congressional leaders would spend much more time considering our, the Republicans', commonsense alternatives that return power to the people instead of promoting the Treasury's grab for more and more power, particularly in view of the fact that it is unconstitutional and they have no constitutional authority to do that. I am very concerned about the Secretary's grab for power, nationalization of banks, nationalization of all businesses, such as they want to control AIG and others.

We have got to stop it. We have a steamroller of socialism going on here. That steamroller of socialism is being shoved down the throats of the American people. It is going to strangle the American economy. It is going to choke the American people economically. That steamroller of socialism is being driven by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the President of the United States. And that steamroller needs a speed bump. It needs a stop sign.

And Mr. Gohmert's plan is an excellent plan. In fact, I'm a cosponsor of your bill. And I applaud this ingenious way of helping to stimulate the economy. And I'm also, should be a cosponsor of Judge Carter's bill, for the Rangel rule. I love it. I think it's a commonsense way of saying that everybody should be treated equal under the law. That's what the Constitution calls for. Everybody should be treated equal under the law. And if Mr. Rangel, Mr. Geithner, and others have the ability to do that, every American in this country should have the ability to write ``Rangel rule'' on the bottom of their tax form. And I love it. I think it's something that just puts a microscopic focus on the problem we have in this country today. The powerful, the elite, want to live in a way that all the other people in this country cannot, and it's wrong. It's absolutely wrong. And we must stop it. And I congratulate you, Judge Carter.

Thank you, Judge Carter. I appreciate your yielding.

You brought up a whole lot of very, very good points here. The American people should not trust this budget that's being presented because all it's going to do, in my opinion, is deepen the depression or recession, and probably put us into a recession.

I believe very firmly that if there is corruption, people should go to jail. If there are people who we cannot trust, as Congressman Gohmert was talking about, if an IRS agent can't be trusted, they're fired. The American people need to be firing people who can't be trusted.

And we, as Republicans, are presenting a lot of things that the American people can trust in that look to the private sector, and will solve this economic problem. I applaud Congressman Gohmert's plan of a 2-month tax holiday. That's the reason I very strongly endorsed his bill. In fact, I presented my own bill, or actually it was an amendment to that stimulus or nonstimulus, ``porkulus'' bill that we had here. My idea was if the Democratic majority was so bent on spending $835 billion, let's just divide it amongst the American people who are taxpayers, legal resident taxpayers in this country, and bail them out, instead of bailing out Wall Street. And if you divide that out, per legal resident taxpayer, we would have sent every single legal resident taxpayer in this country right at $9,000. A couple would have got almost $18,000.

But the Democratic majority would not consider my amendment, one which makes sense and one which does not borrow from our grandchildren and put them in hock the way we see with this new budget coming forth on this floor next week.

So I applaud you, Judge Carter, for bringing out these issues of trust. I know the American people did not trust Republicans, and they took us out of the majority in 2006. I was not here then. In 2008, they actually took more Republicans out of office.

We have, I think, presented many things to the American people that they can look at, and they can trust the Republicans to bring forth ideas and to stand firm on good ethics. On the trust of the American people, we are presenting solutions after solutions that make sense economically and that do not borrow from our grandchildren, and hopefully, the American people will trust us.

I just applaud what you are doing, Judge Carter. I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Carney) for offering this very important suspension.

As the gentleman knows, I am also on the Homeland Security Committee, and feel as though there is no greater responsibility of this body than to protect the homeland. But, Mr. Speaker, protecting the homeland doesn't begin and end with creating privacy officers in the Department of Homeland Security. It is also our responsibility as Members of Congress to protect the economic security of the homeland. Governing in a fiscally responsible manner is one way to ensure that the citizens of this country are economically secure.

I would note, Mr. Speaker, that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Carney) who brought forth this suspension has voted for both the $1 trillion stimulus which included a secret provision to allow the AIG bonuses to go forward, and a $410 billion omnibus spending bill which contained nearly 9,000 earmarks. That is nearly $2 trillion of added debt that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Carney) and his Democratic colleagues voted to place on our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, next week we will have another opportunity to vote up or down on massive deficit spending. The Democratic budget will add trillions more of spending to the national debt and to the families of this country.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, Mr. Carney, if he intends to vote for next week's budget which runs contrary to the security of this country?

I yield to the gentleman, if he would care to respond.

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the gentleman from Pennsylvania will not share his intentions with the American people. I think we should all be transparent about our votes here in Congress.

In 8 years, American families will either be on the hook for $70,000 apiece, or they won't. If you vote ``yes'' on this budget, you intend to put $70,000 of debt on each family in this country. If you vote ``no'' on the budget, you don't intend to put that burden on families. I hope we all keep that in mind as we prepare to vote on the Democratic budget next week. I believe that this budget is fiscally irresponsible.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because the American people are witnessing one of the greatest magic tricks of all time. The 2010 budget proposed by this administration and currently under consideration by this legislative body is worthy of being mentioned with the greatest illusions created by Houdini himself.

This budget proposal is on one hand being held out as addressing the challenges of our Nation while taking steps to reduce the deficit. This one hand being shown to the American people reveals the ideas of reducing entitlement spending, partially fixing the AMT, and creating an emergency reserve fund. And while the magician waves his hand and distracts the American people, the other hand is out of public view, and this is where the trick is being played. This other hand contains the real instruments of this budget: More Federal spending on more Federal programs; more taxes on all American families and small businesses; and a Federal deficit higher than in the past 4 years combined.

Simply put, Mr. Speaker, the end result of this magic trick is a budget that spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. This budget proposal increases spending to $3.9 trillion, nearly one-third of the gross domestic product, a rate not seen in this country since World War II.

To put this into perspective, under this budget nearly $1 out of $3 in the entire American economy will be a result of Federal government spending. And what does this huge increase in government spending go towards?

Approximately $1 trillion will be spent on an increase in entitlement spending over the next decade. More than $600 billion will be spent on government-run health care, socialized medicine. And, more than $1.1 trillion will be spent on more discretionary spending, that is, optional spending, with several government agencies receiving budget increases of more than 30 percent.

Now, where does this great magician get the money to pay for all this increased government spending and programs? By picking the pockets of the American public.

Here, again, the great illusionist holds out one hand and claims they will only increase taxes on the rich while giving tax cuts to the other 95 percent of all of us American taxpayers. However, once again, the other hand is hidden away, and this is where the trick happens. The real result of the tax trick in this budget is more taxes on America's small businesses.

Mr. Speaker, I ask you, in these tough economic times, with rising unemployment, is a tax increase on small businesses, the engine that drives our economy, really the best course to take? How about resurrecting the death tax, which this budget does. Is that an appropriate course of action? I think not. I ask, what does an increase in capital gains taxes while cutting the tax deduction for the interest paid on mortgages do to stimulate our economy?

And I am sure that the 95 percent of Americans who are expecting a promised tax cut will find that money useful when it comes time to pay their share of the new $646 billion cap-and-trade--so-called cap-and- trade, I call it cap-and-tax--energy tax that will result in higher costs on electricity, natural gas, home heating, gasoline, and all goods and services in America.

Just looking at my home State alone, with this new energy tax Georgians will see their disposable income reduced by $941; and the State is projected to lose up to 62,000 jobs by 2020. Even Houdini can't hide these numbers.

Now, Mr. Speaker, just when the American people think they have seen the finale of this magic trick, they are then surprised with an ending twist. This is a magic twist that will be replayed for their children and grandchildren.

By their own estimates, the current deficit would decrease by half if this administration did nothing and we kept spending constant. We cannot continue this magic trick. We must stop this irresponsible budget that is being proposed by the administration.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Promises made, promises broken. This administration has made many, many promises to the American public and has broken promise after promise after promise.

We were promised that wasteful spending would decrease and be eliminated. But what do we see? We see a huge increase in the size of the Federal Government. We have been promised that those wasteful programs of the Federal Government would be cut and eliminated. What do we see? We see a bigger growth of the Federal Government, and we see more wasteful spending and a huge increase in the size of the Federal Government.

We were promised that any bill that has earmarks in it would be vetoed. Well, the omnibus bill--I call it the ominous omnibus bill--was nothing but earmarks. The whole bill was nothing but paybacks to the folks who elected the leadership here in Washington today, and that promise has been broken.

And now we have a budget. Leader Boehner was here just a few minutes ago and spoke about the increase of the Federal debt. And I want to make it clear something that he said that is very important to the American people, should be important to the American people. The deficit spending, the debt that has been created with this budget alone, is greater than all presidencies combined. Every one of them combined. This one budget is greater than all of those. We can't continue down this road.

This budget bill is a steamroll of socialism that has been shoved down the throats of the American public. It is going to strangle the American economy. It is going to choke the American people economically.

We have been promised that 95 percent of Americans were going to get a tax cut. We saw that in this recent stimulus bill where the tax cut is $1.10 per day. That's it, $1.10 per day. I'm a physician, and I don't believe in smoking. I think everybody should quit. But you can't even buy a pack of cigarettes for that amount of money.

And not only that, but this cap-and-tax issue that's being proposed in this budget is going to tax every single American family by over $3,100 per family. Let me repeat that. Every single family is going to pay an increase in their cost of living by $3,100 per family. We can't afford that. It is going to hurt the poorest of people in this country. It is going to hurt our seniors who are living on a fixed income. It is going to hurt small business because of this class envy and class warfare that's being proposed by this administration.

We have seen promise after promise broken by this administration. And not only that, we are creating a debt for our future generations so that their standard of living is going to be much less, much lower than ours today.

As Mr. Duncan was talking about, we are either going to have hyperinflation or deflation. I think we're fixing to head for hyperinflation. We have seen in the past that gross deficit spending by governments has created hyperinflation to the point that people almost literally had to have a wheelbarrow to take the currency to the grocery store to buy one loaf of bread. That's where we're heading today. Warren Buffet just 2 weeks ago said that we're off the cliff.

I think we're headed towards a marked prolongation of this recession, a deepening of this recession, and very probably a severe depression.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he was spending taxpayers' dollars like a drunken sailor, did nothing but prolong that Depression. That's exactly what this philosophy that's being promoted here in this House and in the Senate across the way and by this administration is going to do.

In fact, the only thing that got us out of the Great Depression was the creation of a manufacturing entity in America to supply the needs for World War II. Are we going to need a world war to get us out of this depression that we're headed towards? I hope not.

But this deficit spending is totally irresponsible. It is unconscionable that we would have this kind of philosophy promoted in this Congress. It is going to hurt the people who can stand to be hurt the least, and that's the poor people, the retirees, those on fixed incomes.

This cap-and-tax policy is going to raise the price of all goods and services: medicines at the drug store, which is going to hurt our elderly; it is going to raise the price of groceries at the grocery store for everybody, and that's going to hurt all of us.

We cannot continue down this road. We have to put a stop to it. The steamroller of socialism that's being shoved down the throats of the American public that's being driven by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama, it needs to hit a speed bump. It needs to hit a stop sign. And the only people in America that could put up that stop sign, that speed bump up is the American public to cry out, No, we're not going to put up with this. We want bipartisanship. We Republicans and Democrats to come together and solve the problem.

And small businesses are going to be hurt markedly by the tax increases, and that's going to cost jobs. We're not creating jobs.

We have been promised by this administration that we were going to invest in our infrastructure. Well, the stimulus bill had only a miniscule amount of the--this huge deficit spending geared towards infrastructure which would, at least, create some jobs in the private sector.

But where are the jobs being created by bigger government? Bigger socialism. Taking our freedom away, taking our money away, taking our future away and taking our children and our grandchildren's future away. Because this budget spends too much. It taxes too much. It borrows too much. And we've got to put an end to it. It is up to the American people to cry out to Members of Congress to say, No, absolutely no. We're going to stop this.

So I encourage people to contact their congressman, contact their senator and say ``no'' to this budget.

And I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

I thank my good friend from Louisiana for yielding.

This is a steamroller of socialism that is being shoved down the throats of the American public, that is going to strangle the American economy and is going to choke the American people economically. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama are driving this steamroller of socialism. Socialism never has worked, it never will work. It is not going to work today, and it hasn't worked in the past, as our doctor colleague from Louisiana was just talking about the history, and I agree with that.

The thing that this is going to hurt most, though, are people on limited income. We hear from our friends on the Democratic side that they are for the poor people and for the disadvantaged, but this cap- and-tax policy, or cap-and-trade as it is called, is going to hurt the most the people on limited income, the retirees. It is going to hurt people who are at the bottom end of the social ladder; because, as you said, Mr. Scalise, it is going to be $3,000 per family that they are going to have to pay, not only for energy costs, but when gas and diesel prices go up, that means it costs more to get food to the grocery store. That means that grocery prices are going to go up. It means that it costs more money to get medicines in to the drug stores, so medication is going to go up. Every single good and service in this Nation will go up because of this cap-and-tax policy that is being proposed by this administration and by the liberals on the Democratic side. It is going to strangle our economy, as I just mentioned, and it is going to hurt the people who can least afford to pay the $3,000.

I am a physician, as the gentleman knows. Many of my patients can't afford to pay an extra $3,000 out of their pocket to pay for this crazy idea of taxing energy at this kind of rate. It is just untenable, it is totally unacceptable, and we have got to stop it. And that is what Republicans are doing here tonight, is talking about this, and we are going to continue to fight to stop this.

In fact, the reason I came down here tonight to join you in this discussion, if you would just take the top chart down and we will look at the top chart as well as the one just below it that you just covered up.

We keep hearing from our Democratic colleagues that all this financial problem is something that they inherited and they are trying to fix it. Well, they didn't inherit it; they have created it themselves. And the chart that you have up top just shows that the budget deficit is going to climb markedly under the proposals that have already been passed by this House. We have just seen bill after bill after bill that has increased the deficit.

We are borrowing too much money from our grandchildren. I don't know a grandparent in this country that will say anything but, I will try to sacrifice for my children and for my grandchildren. That's what parents and grandparents do, we sacrifice for our children and our grandchildren. But the Democrats don't want to do that. They want to take from our children, they want to take from our grandchildren.

Republicans have presented many, many alternatives to the housing bill that this Congress passed that is going to increase the cost of housing loans to everybody, and it is going to actually deny people, particularly just getting in the market that don't have good credit ratings, it is going to deny the poor people from being able to get mortgages in the future.

We saw this awful TARP bill that President Bush and Hank Paulson pushed forward, we have seen how that has been mismanaged. That is borrowing from our grandchildren. We have seen bill after bill, and now this budget on top of that, we are borrowing too much, we are spending too much, we are taxing too much, and it has got to stop.

Republicans have offered many alternatives. But the Democratic leadership are being obstructionist. They won't even hear of our plan, because they are driving this steamroller of socialism down the throats of the American people. I'm beginning to think that there is a very concerted effort to try to change the philosophy of government in America, one, as Mr. Jordan was just talking about, where we are going to lose our freedom. We have seen that happen historically. We have got to put a stop to it. It is up to the American people. It is up to the American people to put a stop to it by demanding that we not pass this budget that the Democrats in this administration are bringing forward.

We have got to stop bailing out AIG and all these other entities that are just taking us down the road to financial serfdom of the American people. We have got to stop it. It is up to the American people, and it is up to Republicans to stop it. We have got to get the American people to demand that our voice as Republicans is heard so that we can present our alternatives that Nancy Pelosi won't even bring to the floor. She won't allow our proposals to be heard in committee. We can't get a vote.

It is wrong. It is hurting the American people, and it is hurting the people who the Democrats say that they want to represent, and that is the poor people and the disadvantaged people, the people on limited incomes. So we have proposals, Republicans have proposals that will stop the spending, that will stop the taxation, that will look to the free enterprise system, that will get our economy back on the right road so that we can solve this financial crisis that we have and even get the housing market back on the right road. But our proposals need to be heard on this floor.

So the American people need to demand that our proposals are heard, voted upon and let's have a debate. We would want to join with our Democratic colleagues to find some commonsense, market-based solutions that will maintain freedom and stop this steamroller of socialism that is going to take away from not only this current generation, but it is going to put our children and our grandchildren in a position that their standard of living is going to be much lower than ours is today.

It is up to us. And we are going to continue to fight. That is what we are doing here tonight. I congratulate you, Mr. Scalise, for being down here tonight with these charts to try to show the American people the direction we are headed by this administration, by the leadership in this House and this U.S. Senate. We have got to stop it. We have got to put the brakes on this steamroller of socialism so that the American people can be free and can throw off the shackles of the Federal Government, can run their family, run their businesses and run their lives without all the government intrusion. And that is what we are here fighting for tonight.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I yield back.

You brought up a good point there. In fact I was talking to a manufacturer in my district not long ago about this so-called employers free----

The reason I have a hard time remembering that is because there is nothing free about it. It is actually a method of trying to force unionization on employers and employees alike. It is going to cost jobs. In fact, what I just was fixing to say was that I was talking to an employer in my district who said to me that if this act passes, he is going to shut the doors, and his business is going to go offshore. And that is going to happen all over this country. It is going to cost thousands and thousands of jobs.

Why is that happening? It is happening as a payback. It is happening as a payback to the Democrats who get all this money and all the support from the labor unions because the labor unions want to make an environment where they can force unionization on small businesses and large businesses all over this country. And what is even more egregious is the forced arbitration that is in that bill that is not free either. It is totally wrong. Again, this is a steamroller of socialism being shoved down the throats of the American people. And we have got to stop it.

But it is going to cost jobs. And what it is going to do is it is going to put us in a bigger financial mess as a Nation. When we have the cap-and-tax placed on all energy, it is going to drive up the cost of all goods and services. Just like Dr. Roe was just talking about up in Tennessee, folks up there already saw what happened. We have already seen in Georgia what happens. People stop utilizing energy. It is going to actually cost the Federal Government money instead of--and it is going to cost jobs.

I am beginning to think that that is the purpose of all this is to try to put everybody on the government dole, try

to create a big socialistic society where everybody gets a check from the Federal Government.

But the thing is, America's hurting. America's hurting terribly. We have got to do something and we have got to do it now. But going down this road towards bigger deficits, borrowing more, spending more, taxing more is not the solution. The solution is stimulating the free enterprise system. Free enterprise is the economic engine that pulls along the train of economic security in America. And we are killing that engine. We are throttling it down, and we are shutting it off.

And we have got to create jobs. We have got to create good-paying jobs. Building a bigger government, borrowing from our children and our grandchildren, is not the solution. And so we have just got to do everything we can to stop it.

And I applaud you, Mr. Scalise, for bringing all these issues forward because it is just absolutely critical that the American people understand what is going on.

You brought out the quote from the President. The problem is, what he says and what he does are two different things. He said he would never, never sign a bill that has earmarks in it. Well the first bill, that omnibus bill, was nothing but earmarks. It was just a payback to the liberal entities, as well as all of the liberal agenda that they have had stuck in some drawer somewhere. They just dusted them all off and brought them forth. We don't have the money to pay for that. And it markedly increases the size of government.

We saw that with the budget that he has been proposing. And everything we are going to see is, we just see over and over again, the President says one thing and he does another. He says, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences, but that is exactly what he is doing.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. One other place that they are proposing taking money from is from our defense, from procurement. They are going to take away from our troops, and that is absolutely the worst thing to do. We live in a dangerous world. And we hear people talk about we have got to support our troops. But they want to take away the procurement that is absolutely critical for us to have a strong national defense. Constitutionally, that is the major function of the Federal Government. And the liberals want to take money away from our troops who are fighting for our freedom, who are giving up and their families are giving up sometimes their lives, their limbs and a whole lot of sacrifices that they are giving. And what we are hearing from the other side is they want to take away from our troops and take away from our defense.

The anti-missile defense system is another area that they are talking about taking money from. Just last week I went and watched a rocket shoot down another rocket, a SCUD missile. It was just a phenomenal test, and they want to cancel that, which is going to make us less secure as a Nation. We can't continue down this same road. We have got to stop it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I appreciate you bringing these very important points to the floor tonight.

I want to talk about the issue that you just brought up about the lack of primary care physicians in our home State of Georgia, but before I do that, I wanted to remark about something Dr. Murphy brought up tonight, and that's the cost of regulatory burden on the health care system, particularly as it deals with lab and X-ray and those types of things.

I want to give an example. Back a number of years ago, I was practicing medicine in rural south Georgia, and Congress passed a bill called the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act. It was signed into law. It's called CLIA. I had a small lab in my office, totally quality controlled, wanted to make sure that the tests that I did there were accurate so that I could give the best quality care to my patients that I possibly was trained to do.

And CLIA shut down that lab. Well, why? Well, the reason that CLIA shut down the lab was that the people here in Congress decided that it was a conflict of interest for doctors to own labs and that they may be an overutilization. But the thing is, what this has done is it's markedly driven up the cost of health care for all of us, the cost of insurance, and it made insurance less affordable.

Now, to show you how that works is that in my lab, if a patient came to see me with a red, sore throat, maybe had little white patches on their throat, running a fever, coughing, aching all over, runny nose, this could be a strep throat, need a penicillin shot or some antibiotics. It could be a viral infection. They look exactly the same. I would do a test in my office called the complete blood count, or CBC. It took 5 minutes to do the test. I charged $12 for the test. I made 50 cents on it, if any at all.

Well, CLIA shut down my lab. I couldn't do those tests any longer. If patients came in with those same symptoms, I had to decide whether just to go ahead and give them antibiotics and expose them to the overutilization of antibiotics that, not only the exposure to them which could create superinfections, also increases the cost, because the overutilization of antibiotics markedly drives up the costs for all of us. Or I would do the test, and to do so, I would have to send them over to the hospital to get that done. It would take 2 to 3 hours to do a test I could do in 5 minutes, and it cost $75 whereas the test in my office cost $12.

You can see what that one test, the cost across the whole health care system has been for that one test for patients that come in with sore threats which is a very common illness that primary care physicians, like I, see.

So the regulatory burden on the system markedly increases the cost and makes it less affordable. So if we could get the regulatory burden off of the health care system, it would literally lower the cost of insurance and would make it more affordable.

We actually hear of about 47 million people in this country not having health care. Well, everybody has health care. As Dr. Fleming was talking about, entitlement laws made it so that people could go to the emergency room and get health care. So everybody has access to health care. Everybody can get health care. The question is where do they get it, at what cost, and who pays for it.

Well, if we go to a socialized medicine system--and the code word for socialized medicine in this body here is comprehensive health care reform--if we go to socialized health care, it's going to make it less affordable and be harder for people to get health care, provided to them.

But in Georgia, we have a tremendous lack of primary care doctors. In fact, in more than one-third of the counties--we have 159 counties in the State of Georgia. Fifty-eight of those counties, over a third, are officially designated as primary health professional shortage areas. This means on average that there is less than one doctor per 3,500 people in those counties. About 1.5 million people in the State of Georgia alone are affected by the shortage of doctors.

We need in Georgia 259 more doctors to serve those underserved areas, just to fill that official estimate of shortage, and ideally, in fact, the experts say that there should be one doctor per 2,000 people. To attain that goal, we would need another 421 doctors, primary care providers, to face that shortage.

Now, the Medical College of Georgia, my school that I graduated from, is just expanding and developing new campuses. There's one that's going to start accepting their new class in Athens, and they're going to have other communities around the State of Georgia to try to train physicians. But we've got to give doctors the freedom to practice medicine, not put constraints on them, not to shackle them. We've got to get the regulatory burden off of their practices so they can practice medicine without all this government intrusion so they can give the care that they're trained to give.

And going down this road of socialized medicine that this administration and that the liberal leadership here in Congress is pushing us towards is going to hurt the health care system. It's going to create a larger doctor shortage, and it's going to mean that people have less access to care, particularly good, quality care.

So we need to have a patient-focused health care reform and not a government-focused health care reform, which is what we and the Doctors Caucus, what the Republican party is bringing forth as the solution to the health care crisis, which is actually a health care financing crisis, not a health care crisis in itself.

So I thank the gentleman for bringing this up tonight. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I look forward to working with our colleagues so that we can actually find some commonsense, market-based solutions that we propose and, hopefully, the American people will demand it from their Member of Congress so that we can continue to give good, quality health care here in America.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, today leaders in this Congress have hastily pushed through a bill with the direct intent of correcting a mistake, a mistake that could have been prevented in the first place. Let me repeat that. A mistake that could have been prevented in the first place.

We've all seen the devastation that occurs following congressional knee-jerk reactions, and I am afraid that today's AIG bonus bill will not be an exception to that rule.

I have serious constitutional concerns about our government's targeting such a narrow group of citizens with a retroactive tax hike. Regulating the pay of thousands of private citizens because of a mistake made by the leadership of this Congress starts us down a slippery constitutional slope. And what are our constitutional leaders planning to do with the taxes that they collect from this bill? It will probably all go back to AIG in their next bailout payment.

My mama always taught me that two wrongs do not make a right, and this bill is no more than a legislative coverup by the leadership of this Congress. It's time for this body to instead address the problem that got us here in the first place: the lack of transparency. Lack of transparency is the true perpetrator in this high crime against the taxpayers. Ultimately, the taxpayers are not only the defendant in this case, but also the jury. And I think the taxpayers must serve congressional leaders with a clear verdict.

It's congressional leadership who relinquished their promises for a more transparent government and instead steamrolled the ``nonstimulus'' stimulus bill down our throats, bypassing the regular committee process and refusing input from the minority party.

Why are my colleagues on the other side acting surprised to find that a provision was ripped out of this bill that would have prevented these bonuses in the first place? In fact, that was even introduced by a Democratic U.S. Senator. They finally made the 1,000-page bill public in the middle of the night and then steamrolled it through Congress only a few hours later, all without adequate public or congressional scrutiny. This is absolutely outrageous. The American people deserve better and must demand better.

They say that making legislation is like making sausage; you don't want to see it. But I beg to differ because these are trillion-dollar hot dogs that are being slammed and shoved down the throats of the taxpayers, and the taxpayers have to swallow it. It's time for congressional leaders to let taxpayers into the sausage factory. It's time for taxpayers to see what goes on here in Congress and goes into the sausage, and what's left out. Then and only then will we avoid coming back to fix mistakes that shouldn't have been made in the first place.

We have seen bill after bill shoved down the taxpayers' throats. It's a steamroll of socialism that's being shoved down our throats. It's going to strangle the American economy, and it's going to choke the American taxpayers.

Taxpayers deserve better. Taxpayers have to demand better. Taxpayers are not being treated fairly. We've seen bill after bill that's going to hurt the economy. It's going to cost jobs. It's going to create a longer and a deeper recession, maybe even a depression. We have seen people on the other side blame President Bush and they show righteous indignation, and it's totally misplaced because in this last Congress, 110th, now in the 111th, and with this administration, we have seen bill after bill that's going to hurt the economy, that's going to hurt the American taxpayer, that's going to cost jobs. It spends too much, it taxes too much, it borrows too much, and it's going to kill our economy.

We have got to demand more and better from this leadership and this Congress. The steamroll of socialism is being driven by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and this administration, and it must stop because it's going to destroy America economically.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that if a study were done on facial expressions made during a word association test, the results would show that most people's facial expression given the word ``taxes'' would be strikingly similar to that as when they were asked to recall the last time that they stubbed their toe or they smashed their finger with a hammer. Just as each physical injury has left a memory of pain and discomfort, so has each tax season burned a memory of stress and anger into the minds of most Americans.

As many of you may know, I am an original-intent constitutionalist. I believe the Federal Government was not established to tax and spend; it was established to protect freedom and liberty. Yet, here we are today trying to solve our Nation's economic woes through an outdated and failed philosophy of more taxes, more spending, more borrowing, and an overall belief that more government is the solution. How many times, Mr. Speaker, will we hit ourselves in the thumb with an economic hammer before we realize that this is not the way to approach our problems? As the great Winston Churchill once said, ``For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.''

With the tax filing deadline just around the corner and many Georgia families struggling to figure out how they will pay off Uncle Sam this year, now is the time to do away with our terrible tax system, scrap this tax-and-spend mentality so we can go about a better way to get this country back on track.

Mr. Speaker, I would submit that one great way to reform our tax system would be to institute the Fair Tax, which I'm an ardent supporter, a system that would replace all Federal

taxes with one single retail sales tax. Just imagine the money that would flow into our economy if hardworking Americans were actually allowed to keep more of their money that they earned, if they didn't see increasing amounts being taken by a government that can't even pass a balanced budget, much less operate on one.

However, it would be foolish to only discuss reforming our tax system without addressing its soul mate, and that is government spending. Skyrocketing growth in government spending by both Congress and Presidents, regardless of political party, has grown to a level of astronomical proportions. Spending by the Federal Government has more than doubled since 1980 and tripled since 1965. Recent history has shown us that cutting taxes is not a viable solution if we do not also address our gluttonous spending.

This government exists for the sole purpose of serving the people, but for too many years, government has been merely serving itself. It has taxed and spent itself into a debt that shows no signs of receding.

You see, this is something that seems to have been forgotten by Congress and by this administration. To spend these huge increases as they are proposing, they must first take it way from people through taxes. And what happens when there are not enough taxes to cover all the increased spending? They simply increase taxes, often through new and creative methods, while also increasing our Federal debt.

In 1930 the U.S. Tax Code was a brisk 500 pages long. Today it has swollen to more than 45,000 pages, full of provisions that too often produce negative results. A Fair Tax system, empowering the American people to decide how much taxes they'll pay through their own purchasing decisions, will force this spending-engorged government to change their ways and enact fiscally responsible budgets.

In addition, a Fair Tax system will move the responsibility of taxing citizens back to the States, simplifying the process, and remove the temptation by Congress and the administration to feed their growing appetites at the smorgasbord that is our current tax system.

Often when I'm at home talking with my constituents in Georgia about taxes, I tell them if 10 percent is good enough for the Lord, it ought to be good enough for Uncle Sam. We have to reduce the size of government and government spending to achieve this heavenly goal. Under the original intent of our Constitution, 10 percent would be more than enough to fund all of the functions of the Federal Government as envisioned by our founders.

I call on my colleagues to listen to the American people who are demanding a better system. We can and should give it to them by reducing Federal Government spending and reforming our tax system by enacting the Fair Tax.

I congratulate my dear colleague from Iowa for allowing me to speak and bringing this very, very important issue to the forefront of the American people.

We have to stop spending. We are spending too much. We are taxing too much. We are borrowing too much. And it's going to kill our economy. I call this a steamroll of socialism being shoved down the throats of the American people that's going to strangle our economy. It's going to slay the American people economically if we don't stop it. Thank you so much.

I thank you for yielding.

I want to just point out that you have been a leader on this Fair Tax and trying to offer solutions. Republicans have offered solution after solution after solution to energy, to housing, to taxes, to the spending; and the leadership has totally denied us from bringing this forward to the American public. And I congratulate you for being a leader in this regard.

Wait a minute, would you please repeat that for the people who are watching tonight so that they understand very clearly what you just said? Say it slow for us down south.

I thank the gentlelady.

I just came from a meeting where I heard some very interesting information about this taxing, this cap and tax, as we are calling it. The Democrats call it cap and trade.

But there is a video called ``Apocalypse? No!'' This was Christopher Lord, Christopher Monckton, one of the greatest outspoken people in this world, about how the global warming is just totally a farce, and he was talking about how it was going to hurt the poorest of people, not only in the United States but in the world. He was begging for us, not as a Congress, as a government, for us to not put this cap and tax policy in place, because what it's going to do is it's going to put people out of work, it's going to lock them into a welfare state, which is going to hurt everybody's pocketbook long term. It's going to hurt small business, it's going to hurt the economy of not only the United States, but the world.

And he was begging us not to pass a cap and tax policy here in the United States and was saying that we in America need to do the right things. He was showing us graphs, and the lies, actually, that are being put out by a NASA scientist by the name of Mr. Hanson and others who are promoting this, now they talk about climate change.

But Lord was saying in the last 7 years we have actually had global cooling, global cooling. So they have stopped talking about global warming because we have had global cooling for the last 7 years. And this was in the normal variability of climate going up and down over the years.

And he was pointing out that sun spots, sun activity actually has more to do with the temperature than the CO2 that has been emitted.

Thank you for yielding. In fact, you're exactly right. I think one point I really want to reiterate about this cap and tax or cap and trade issue--whose going to be hurt the worst? It's going to be the poor people in this country because groceries will go up, the cost of medications will go up so the elderly and the sick and the people who are on fixed incomes will have more to pay for their drugs.

It's going to hurt the poorest and the people who are in the least position to be able to take care of paying this higher tax. And this cap and tax is going to hurt everybody. But it's going to cost jobs. So that is going to make more people unemployed. Not only that, as the chart says, President Obama's budget spends too much, it taxes too much, it borrows too much. But it also hurts the poor too much.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Every single policy that we hear from this administration is going to hurt the most vulnerable in our economic system.

In fact, he wants to cap charitable giving in this country, which means people won't give to the Salvation Army, people won't give to the Red Cross.

If the gentlelady will yield, down in my part of the country, down the in southeast, we had a couple of little hurricanes a few years back. Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

If you look at the Federal response and compare it to the private response, where FEMA came in. People are still living in trailer houses. The neighborhoods are still empty, businesses are still boarded. But where the private sector, churches, synagogues, and other private entities went in to help these people in need, communities are back functioning. People are back in their homes, they're back in their businesses. The communities are back functioning.

What that shows is that the private sector works a whole lot better than how the bureaucracy works when it has all of its encumbrances. How it crawls slowly and how it cannot really respond.

Now, we have an administration that wants to take money away from those entities that work the best to help people. I just don't understand it.

We have, as Republicans, we have solutions. We are not just the Party of ``No,'' as Ms. Foxx was saying. We have presented solution after solution after solution.

Unfortunately, on the Wall Street bailout, President Bush and his Democratic Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, wouldn't consider our proposals. Our proposals were to cut the capital gains tax. That would even bring a lot of money offshore into America and free up a lot of capital so banks could start loaning to banks again. Banks could loan to people again. We had other solutions that President Bush and Hank Paulson wouldn't consider.

Since then we have had proposal after proposal that this House, the Senate leadership, as well as President Obama will not consider anything that we bring forward, which, actually, every single solution that we bring forward will help small businesses, it will create jobs.

Just in Georgia, the proposal that we had on the stimulus would have created twice the number of jobs--73,000 new jobs above what the Democrats say that they hope to save or create, using their own rules.

We would have created 73,000 more jobs in Georgia alone, under the Republican proposal, at half the cost. And we would not have borrowed any money at all. We would not have borrowed from our grandchildren like the stimulus bill or ``non-stimulus'' bill did.

Will the gentleman yield? The sad thing is our children and grandchildren are going to live at a lower standard. Their standard of living is going to be lower than ours today because they are going to be saddled with this huge debt.

You cannot borrow and spend your way into prosperity. In fact, our President has, if you all remember, came and told the Republican conference that he wasn't going to make the same mistake that Franklin Delano Roosevelt made when FDR got scared and quit spending. Our President said he was going to continue to spend. And it's just wrong. That policy during the Depression did not get us out of that Depression.

Warren Buffet just last week said he thinks we've been pushed off the edge and our economy is heading into a very severe depression or a very severe recession. And we may well be. I hope and pray that we aren't.

But, I know this. Every single thing that this administration and the leadership in this House and this Senate have proposed is going to hurt our economy. It's going to deepen the recession, it's going to prolong it, and may push us into a severe depression.

We keep hearing this is the worst economic time since the Great Depression. No, this is the worst time since Jimmy Carter and those failed policies. What our President has done is he's bought into that philosophy, that Keynesian economic policy, which is socialism. That's is exactly what he's bought into.

In fact, the way I have described it in some floor speeches is that we have a steamroller of socialism being shoved down the throats of the American people. It's going to strangle the American economy and it's going to slay the American people economically. And it's going to.

That steamroller of socialism is being driven by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. We have got to stop it because it's going to hurt the poor people in this country. It's going to hurt the small businessmen and women in this country. It's going to hurt the most economically disadvantaged in this country.

We have policies that we are proposing that will actually help small businesses, that will create jobs. It will create paychecks instead of welfare checks. That's exactly what we are trying to promote, is giving people a paycheck instead of a welfare check.

Let me tell you about one government regulation that came in to the health care system when I was practicing medicine down in rural South Georgia to show you and just give you a picture of how much government regulation increases the cost for all of us.

I had a small automated lab with quality controls, because when I did tests I wanted to make sure that the tests were appropriate and that they gave good results so that I could treat my patients in the best way. Well, Congress passed a bill that was signed into law called the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act, CLIA. If a patient came in to see me and had a red, sore throat and I want to find out if they had a bacterial infection or a viral infection, I would do a CBC. It cost $12 and I could do it in 5 minutes. CLIA shut down my lab. I had to send them to the hospital. It cost $75 and took 2 to 3 hours. That is with just one government regulatory burden.