Fiscal Irresponsibility

FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY -- (House of Representatives - December 17, 2007)

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Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. And, again, I thank her for her leadership in this institution, a very clear, concise, conservative voice on this House floor, particularly when it comes to trying to save the family budget from the onslaught of the Federal budget.

As my colleague from Tennessee has pointed out, the House is completely broken. It is completely broken and felled under this new Democratic leadership. They said they would do better if they were in charge. So what do they bring us today? Today they bring us a 3,565-page spending bill which people have been able to see beside my colleague's speaking position over here, weighing in at 34.4 pounds, roughly the weight of my 5-year-old daughter.

It spends $515 billion of the people's money, and the Democrat majority brought it to the floor tonight and devoted less than 1 hour of floor time debating this omnibus bill. This body spent about a minute debating every $9.1 billion being spent in this bill.

Now, that is money if left in the hands of the families of America and the small businesses of America, who make the jobs and have to work hard to send their kids to college and put food on the table and put roofs over their heads, that money is coming from them; and we spent less than a minute debating $9 billion. The minutes went by, and all of a sudden this House passed a $515 billion bill.

Now, Mr. Speaker, when the Republicans were in charge, unfortunately, my party occasionally brought an omnibus bill to the floor, and I personally voted against each and every one because I don't believe that was the vision of the Founding Fathers. It is not the way we should run this government. In fact, I was at a town hall meeting in my district not too long ago and a gentleman from the Athens, Texas, in the 5th Congressional District of Texas, said: Don't you think we would have a much better government if Members of Congress were actually required to read the legislation before they vote on it?

What human being can read 34.4 pounds, 3,565 pages in one day? That is right, Mr. Speaker, this bill was just given to us today. In the early morning hours, this bill was laid upon this institution.

So there is no transparency here. It is interesting to me that when the majority party was in the minority, they screamed to the rafters about this process. Listen to what Speaker Pelosi, then minority Pelosi had to say about this process: ``The Republican leadership forced through a so-called `martial law' rule that required a same-day vote preventing Members of Congress from having enough time to read legislation. They spent hundreds of billions of dollars and it was thousands of pages long. This arrogance of power is part of a pattern of abuse.''

Now that is what Speaker Pelosi said 3 years ago when she was in the minority. Now that she is the Speaker, does this mean she is imposing martial law on this House with this process that she decried 3 years ago? Is she now bringing a spirit of arrogance to this institution which she decried 3 years ago? Is she part of the pattern of abuse that she decried 3 years by forcing Members of this institution to vote on this monstrosity?

So on process alone, this bill ought to be rejected. But it really ought to be rejected because it puts us on a path of extreme fiscal irresponsibility. Already today this government is on automatic pilot to force the largest single tax increase in American history on working families all across America. It was included in the Democrat budget. More spending fosters more taxes.

And that's just the start, Mr. Speaker, because after imposing the single largest tax increase in American history in the Democrat budget, with their so-called ``mother of all tax increases,'' they are going to once again make history by imposing the single largest tax increase in American history yet again, perhaps twice in a 12-month period. I am sure that will break some kind of record here in the House of Representatives.

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But don't take my word for it. Listen to the head of the Congressional Budget Office, the head of the Government Accountability Office, the Federal Reserve chairman. They are all going to tell you the same thing, Mr. Speaker, and that is without changing the spending patterns of the Federal Government of which this omnibus represents some of the worst, we are on automatic pilot to double taxes on the next generation. Double. And the average American family pays roughly $22,000 a year in taxes. That will go to $44,000. How many American dreams are going to be squashed by a tax burden of that magnitude, represented by that 34.4 pound omnibus spending legislation which will flatten the American taxpayer like a bus.

It is full of gimmicks from people who said they were going to bring the most honest and ethical Congress in the history of mankind to this institution. They take a rubber stamp and they stamp ``emergency spending'' on anything that moves because they have this little clever device that allows them to avoid any kind of budget discipline when they do that. They have this gimmick called ``advanced appropriations'' that would make an Enron accountant blush, but they use it to once again evade any spending discipline whatsoever in this institution.

They said they would clean up earmarks and this is chock full of earmarks. Mr. Speaker, if you look closely, maybe some of these earmarks pass the legal test. Maybe they even pass some ethical test, but all too often the American people are seeing campaign cash going into the institution on this end, and they are seeing earmarks coming out the other end. It doesn't meet the fiscal responsibility test, and it doesn't meet the American taxpayer smell test. And that bill is chock full of it. Out of 3,565 pages, 692 pages are devoted to individual congressional earmarks, which many of the American people believe serve no other purposes other than to get Members of Congress reelected.

Again, the Democrat majority said they would clean it up and there would be transparency and accountability. We haven't even had time to read the 692 pages. We don't know what is in there. Maybe there is another museum to a Member of Congress, as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee managed to earmark $2 million to create a museum to himself.

One final point before turning this over to some of my other able colleagues from the Republican Study Committee. I want to harken back to a point made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), ranking member of the Budget Committee. Earlier tonight the Democrat majority leader came to the floor and said, We have a responsibility to fund our government.

Well, I don't know everything that is in that bill, Mr. Speaker, but I know something that isn't in that bill. There is no funding for the men and women fighting for freedom in Iraq. Not one penny. Now how do you have a bill that ostensibly funds the United States Government and somehow you leave out the men and women who wear our Nation's uniform? They wear our Nation's uniform. They come from the small towns and factories and fields from all over America. Their paychecks come from the same United States Treasury that Members of Congress' do. Somehow the Democrat majority managed to put into their 34-pound bill thousands of earmarks. They managed to fund every single bureaucrat at the Commerce Department, but they can't find one penny for our brave men and women fighting on the front lines of freedom in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, maybe they don't believe in the cause, but don't they believe in the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines?

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There is no way that any Member with any credibility can come to this floor and say we are presenting a bill to fund the Federal Government but, oh, we don't really consider members of our armed services fighting in Iraq to be members of our government. I just don't know what planet some of these people come from, Mr. Speaker, and that's just shameful. It is a shameful moment this year in the history of the House to present this spending abomination, chock full of earmarks that ignore our men and women in harm's way in Iraq. And it's one of the lowest points of this entire year for this Democrat Congress. And I hope that the American people are paying very special attention to what is going on here tonight.

I appreciate the gentlelady, again, for her leadership for taking the time to help elaborate on really this heinous piece of legislation that came to the floor earlier, and I want to thank her. And I want to thank all the members of the House Conservative Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus in the House, for always being ready and vigilant to fight for freedom and to work for less government and more freedom and more opportunity, and that's what the Republican Study Committee is all about. And I appreciate the opportunity to share in this Special Order, and I yield back to the gentlelady from Tennessee.

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