Strengthening the Economy

STRENGTHENING THE ECONOMY -- (House of Representatives - December 07, 2005)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I thank you for your leadership on this issue. One of the things that we are so fortunate to have in this body is such a wide variety of experience from our Members that bring that experience to bear here as we look at how we grow the economy, how we exercise economic opportunity, how we make certain that free enterprise stays free. Just as the gentleman from Georgia has mentioned, it is no secret, everybody knows that this economy, this wonderful U.S. economy, truly is our Nation's, our world's economic engine. It is the envy of all of the world. It is, I guess, something that is really a little bit uniquely American. There is something about us. We strive to do things a little bit better. Maybe it is that Yankee ingenuity. Maybe it is that we are out here with that good old common-sense know-how, but we are always trying to do things faster, better, more efficiently, more effectively; and one of the things we certainly want to do is to build a strong economy so that our children know that they are going to have hope and opportunity and the ability to dream big dreams and create a really exciting life for themselves and for their families. I guess that is just kind of the American way of doing things. We try to improve it. Give us something, and we are going to build a better mousetrap. Then we are going to figure out how to get that mousetrap into the marketplace.

In today's economy, we look at it and we say, How do we get that into a global marketplace? We know in order to do that it means you have to stay competitive. We know that as you look at policies, creating the right environment so that job growth can take place, so that economic growth can take place, that when we see that right environment created, then free enterprise and the private sector take over and they do what they do well. The gentleman has shown us the charts which tell this story. You go back and you look at 2003 and look at when those tax reforms were implemented, and what we saw was an economy that took off.

What we are seeing is consistent economic growth every single month. We are reaping the benefits from that. We see that our GDP growth continues to be very consistent. It was 4.1 percent last quarter. There are some really wonderful benefits that come from this. As the gentleman mentioned, 4,460,000 new jobs. Those are new jobs. Many of those jobs are jobs that are basically in new sectors, technology sectors, sectors of the economy that will lead to an economic renaissance and lead to an economic renaissance in this country.

It works out to be 194,000 jobs a month that we have been creating over the past several months, and I find it so interesting that the unemployment rate is near all-time lows. When we look at the charts on that, we see that as these tax reforms have been put in place, and I applaud the Senate, I applaud the administration, and I certainly applaud the leadership in this House for pushing forward these tax reforms in 2003, and as we see those going into place and we see the GDP growth and we see the jobs creation and we watch the unemployment level fall to near historic lows, there is also another benefit from this.

Our colleagues who are joining us here on the floor this evening certainly are watching this one with us, and it is that we are seeing the deficit reduced through two ways. We have talked so many times on this floor about there being two ways that we work through reducing the deficit and reducing the size of government and right-sizing the Federal Government, and that is, we reduce spending and continue to work to root out waste, fraud and abuse, focusing on that spending column, but at the same time, we put the focus on economic growth. That is where our focus rightfully should be.

This is an aggressive economy, and it is, therefore, a reason, and tomorrow this House is going to move forward and take some excellent steps to pass a bill that is going to continue these tax reforms.

At this time, I am going to yield back to the gentleman from Georgia so that he can yield to another of our colleagues, and we can continue with our discussion this evening on the benefits that lie ahead by extending these tax reforms and continuing to work toward having a Federal income tax system that is flatter, that is fairer, that is simpler and having one that is going to work to energize our economy. I will yield back at this point for further discussion.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov