Republican Freshmen Third Quarterly Report to the 110th Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. Let me thank the gentleman from California for putting this together. I appreciate the chance to be with you and some of my colleagues from the freshman class.

I particularly want to reference the tone that the gentlewoman from Minnesota brought to the discussion this evening. She talked about the optimistic can-do spirit that has always been a part of this country and that is alive and well today. Frankly, we are going to need that spirit when we confront the challenges that we face.

I call it the David attitude. You may remember the old story from Scripture. When the Israelites were

camped against the Philistines, and every day the Philistine giant would walk out and issue the challenge. He would ask: Who will fight Goliath?

The Israelites' response was: He is so big, we can never defeat him. But David's response was: He is so big, I can't miss.

That is the attitude we need to confront the challenges we face. You think about the challenges that America faces today, unprecedented in our Nation's history.

First, we have the terrorist threat as real and serious as it gets. We have this debate in our culture over whose set of values are going to win. There is a core set of principles, a traditional set of American values that made this Nation special. We should not be afraid to defend and protect and promote those principles and values.

But the challenge I want to focus on tonight is fiscal discipline. This is so, so important. Many of us have been back home over the last 6 weeks talking to all kinds of folks across our congressional districts. Many times what I do when I am speaking in front of a group, I say, you all may find this a surprise, but the Federal Government spends a lot of money. Everyone starts to laugh. And I say, they spend a heck of a lot of money.

The Federal Government spends $23,000 per household per year. We have an $8 trillion national debt. We have spending that is out of control. If we don't get a handle on that, what we are going to do to future generations is going to be difficult and it is going to make it tough for us as a Nation to continue to be number one economically.

I like to remind folks that the way the world works today, the economic superpower is also the leader in the military area. The economic superpower is the military superpower. Right now that is the United States of America, and I believe the world is safer because of that fact. We want America to lead diplomatically, we want America to lead militarily, and we want America to lead economically. It is important we do that. When America leads, the world is a safer and better place. And we want to make sure that continues.

In order for that to continue, we have to get spending under control. Over the course of the budget process, the budget that the majority party brought forward would in essence raise taxes over the next several years over $200 billion. When they look at scaling back the good tax cuts that were put in place back in 2001 and 2003, that have helped our economy respond to some of the hardships we faced after the 9/11 attacks and the recession that followed, we need to make sure that we get spending under control.

We always hear about tax-and-spend elected officials, tax-and-spend politicians. In fact, I would argue it is the opposite. It is spend and tax. Spending always drives the equation. We have to get spending under control.

In the appropriations process that we went through this summer, 12 different spending bills that finance the government over the course of the fiscal year, of those 12 bills, nine are nondefense. To those nine bills we offered a series of amendments that would have held spending at last year's level. It wouldn't have been a cut. It would have simply said to the government, the government that already spends $23,000 per household, it would have simply said: We want the government to spend what we spent last year. After all, all kinds of families have to do that, and all kinds of taxpayers have to do that, and all kinds of businesses have to do it from time to time. Why can't the Federal Government do the same thing?

Yet we heard from the majority party we can't do that. If we would simply spend what we spent last year, the sky would fall. The world would end. We have to have more of the taxpayers' money. That is the argument we heard. But it was not a cut; it was simply level spending. If we would have been able to do that, we would have saved taxpayers $20 billion and helped to begin to put us on a path to deal with the financial problems that will come if we continue to deficit spend.

Don't take my word for it. A former governor on the Federal Reserve Board, Dr. Edward Gramlich, said this: ``Budget deficits lead to less economic growth and a lower level of economic activity than would otherwise be the case.''

Mr. Walker, the comptroller general said, ``Today, we are failing in one of our most important stewardship duties: our duty to pass on a country better positioned to deal with the challenges of the future than the one we were given.''

One of our fundamental challenges as people elected to public office is to make sure that the next generation has it better than we did. If you think about what has really allowed America to grow and prosper, we are the greatest country in the world for all kinds of reasons and all kinds of policies that we have, but in the end it is that parents have been willing to sacrifice so that their kids can have life a little better than they did. That kind of philosophy should be present in how we run the United States Congress and how we run government and how we spend taxpayer dollars.

Unfortunately, those amendments weren't passed and we were not able to save over $20 billion to help to begin to put us on a path towards greater fiscal responsibility. It is important that we do that, and it is important that we do it for the future of Americans. But we are going to get there.

The gentlewoman from Minnesota is right; Americans always figure out a way to address the obstacles and hurdles that are in front of us, and we will figure out a way to do this. We just need to keep talking about it and stay diligent. If we do that, we will put our country on the path that it needs to be fiscally so we continue to be that leader economically, militarily and diplomatically.

I appreciate what the gentleman from California is doing in helping to lead our freshman class and thank him for a chance to be a part of this hour this evening.

I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio because he is right. Many people talk about the tax and spend, but really it is the spending that drives it. Just from last year, with the bills that were passed on this floor with the largest tax increase in American history, they increased spending by 9 percent. A lot of people ask out there: What was the spending on? How did you go about doing it? I think that is what we are going to talk about tonight.

Before I get to our next speaker, I just want to show a couple of little slides here about where we are going. First, you see the promise that was made, that the gentleman from Illinois talked about, what Speaker Pelosi had said: ``Democrats are ready to lead, prepared to govern, and determined to make you proud.''

Today, we sit at an 11 percent approval rating of this new majority. That is the lowest in the history that they have ever taken the poll. Lower than in the years of Watergate. Lower than when we had to ration gasoline during the years of President Jimmy Carter. Lower than in 1994 when the public decided after 40 years they wanted to change the majority here and put the Republicans in charge. It is now at the lowest level.

Why? And why is that spending taking place? I want to tell you an example, and I actually saw this on the news the other day, and I credit the news, Mr. Speaker, and CBS doing a story on this. What are we spending our money on? You sit around that table and you decide where you put your money away and where you go to save. Let me tell you a little story. It happened right here on this floor.

I was sitting down here and I was watching, and one of those spending bills, the Health and Human Services, there was $2 million put in. You say was it put in for education? Was it put in to make America greater? It was put in by a Member, Mr. Speaker, to name a library after himself. Two million dollars was spent. What did it say within here that it needed to be? You needed $2 million for the new Rangel Conference Center, a well-furnished office for Charles Rangel and the Charles Rangel Library. In the brochure, when you look at this library for a college that the library is not even there yet, it will say it will be as nice as President Clinton and as nice as President Jimmy Carter. Well, those libraries were funded by private funds. Those people were Presidents.

Now, what do you say? Maybe this is something that every chairman of Ways and Means would do. It just so happens the Member that served and represented Kern County, where I represent, was chairman of Ways and Means just a year ago. What did he do with his papers? He didn't name a library after himself. He took his papers to the junior college, Bakersfield Junior College, and gave them to them, where the kids can go and look and read.

Well, you know what happened? Just like Mr. Jordan had said, there were many amendments on this floor, many amendments by this freshman Republican class that said we want to get spending under control. There was an amendment by a Congressman from California, John Campbell, Mr. Speaker, that wanted to take that $2 million out. He thought that wasn't the best way to go about it. Much as the Congressman from Illinois said, earmarks. This is what an earmark is all about.

Well, just behold, the Congressman that had put this in, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Rangel, came to this floor. He said he was proud of this. One of the Congressmen asked him: ``Well, if it's going to name it after yourself, should we name one after ourselves?'' He said: ``No, they don't deserve it. They haven't been here long enough.''

Mr. Speaker, this is the monument to me, but it is the monument to me paid by taxpayers. It is a monument to me, where not even the college asked to name it after him. He asked to name it after himself.

I am proud to tell you that all 13 freshmen Republicans voted for the amendment to strike out this earmark, to stop this type of activity. This is why we ran, this is what we said we would do, and this is not what the Democrats in the majority party said they would do when they were in control.

This is what has got to stop. This is why spending is 9.3 percent higher, and it's paid by taxpayers' money. I don't think the Members across this country wanted this to take place, I don't believe this person was the President of the United States, and I think individuals that are chairmen of Ways and Means ought to look for the path of what Congressman Bill Thomas did when he was chairman of Ways and Means, he gave his papers to a junior college. He didn't put $2 millions in to have nice furniture and an office and a librarian, to be as nice as the presidential libraries are.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, we have some more Members with us tonight. We have an individual from Tennessee, the First District of Tennessee. He served in the legislature back there. You may recognize him. He is on the floor quite often talking about bringing America back, finding solutions here.

I yield to Congressman David Davis.

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