Economic Stimulus Bill and the Freedom of Choice Act
Floor Speech
Economic Stimulus Bill And The Freedom Of Choice Act
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Mrs. BACHMANN. I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey). He has done a marvelous job laying the groundwork and pouring the pillars of this important discussion. This is historic, as we all know. Our colleagues understand how historic this level of spending is. Never before in the history of this country have we seen the type of profligate spending that has occurred just since January of this year. Just yesterday, as a matter of fact, we had a $3 trillion day here on Capitol Hill. That is big money. You have heard of fantasy football before. Well, this is fantasy economics that is happening here in Washington, D.C.
My colleague will recall it wasn't that long ago that we were fighting on expanding the SCHIP program by $35 billion before we first take care of the children who needed to be on the SCHIP program. We didn't want to expand eligibility until we first took care of the poor children that needed to have that SCHIP funding. So to just get things in perspective for the American people, we've moved from fighting tooth and nail over spending $35 billion to today we're talking, as my colleague mentioned, what appears to be $798 billion. But again, that is the raw number. It is just like when you buy a house or if you buy a car on credit and you're making your mortgage payment, you know you pay an awful lot more back to the bank because you have to make all those interest payments. This bill will be well over $1 trillion, including the debt service. So we're not talking about a small amount of money.
And just also to put this in perspective and in context, normally this Congress spends about $1 trillion a year in Federal discretionary spending. And we will take what, perhaps 1,000, 1,200 votes in the course of a year until we finally spend about $1 trillion in spending. Well, consider, it wasn't even the end of January and this body spent, in one vote, what this body normally spends in over 1,000 votes over the course of 12 months to spend in discretionary spending.
And remember, this body has hasn't even taken up yet the normal appropriations bills that we have to take up for parks, public safety and education. We haven't even gone there yet with regular budgetary spending that is the duty of this House of Representatives to spend. We've already over and above spent now another $1 trillion on the spending package. We're very concerned about the level of profligate spending.
I wanted to mention a study that was completed by Harvard in the year 2002. It was a long-term study. It looked at 18 different economies across the globe. And it asked this very simple question. What is it that governments can do to stimulate or cause economies to prosper, and concomitantly, what do governments do to cause economies to go in a downward spiral? Well, here is the bottom line. Here is what the nutshell of what this long-term study discovered. It was this: If you want an economy, any kind of economy, to prosper and advance, governments need to do two things. You need to cut government wages, number one, and number two, you need to cut transfer payments, which is redistribution of wealth.
This stimulus package, which is a big government bailout package, does just the opposite. It increases funding eventually of government wages and also of transfer payments. The reverse then also is true in this Harvard study. It said what can governments do to hurt their economies? And it is very simple: Tax increases. That is what hasn't been talked about in this discussion. The only subject of discussion in Washington, D.C. has been, how big can this bill be? How much can we spend?
I'm a former Federal tax litigation attorney. That is what I did for a living, deal with taxes. This bill doesn't answer the question, how are we going to pay for this bill? I don't think the American people realize that yet. Congress has been so free with the American people's money to spend it in every direction they possibly can, but they haven't even addressed the question yet of how they are going to pay for this trillion dollars. And my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is exactly right when he said that we have over $10 trillion of debt, $10 trillion in debt. And now we're going to add to that another 10 percent, and we haven't answered the question, how are we going to pay for it? Well, it is real simple. This is not too tough to figure out. There are only two ways to pay for that kind of spending. You either borrow it from other countries, or you increase the tax load on your citizens, or the Federal Government prints money and puts that money out into the money supply.
Well, what does that mean? Massive tax increases. We already know it's going to hurt the individual. It will hurt the economy. What about borrowing? Borrowing is the same thing. We have to pay that money back. We pay it back to other countries. Well, guess what? Other countries right now are suffering globally with their economies as well.
What about printing money, putting that into the money supply? We could do that, but that's the cruelest tax of all because that's the tax of inflation. So hardworking, prudent Americans who've done all the right things, who've invested well, will see the value of their dollar drop dramatically because their money isn't worth what it once was.
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Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Georgia to bring that point up, because what he is stating for the American people is that this Congress is making a decision, together with the Obama administration, we are adding to uncertainty in the marketplace, and that's really the issue, will this Congress address the issue of certainty versus uncertainty in the economy.
I have the largest window manufacturer in the United States in my district. I met with the president of that company several years ago and he said to me, Michele, what we need more than anything is certainty in the marketplace.
If you go back to January of 2008, when this Congress made a decision to spend $168 billion in rebate payments that went back into the economy, that decision only led to uncertainty for the American people, uncertainty for American business.
We could go through all of the spending initiatives that Congress took through all of 2008 and now into 2009. But I think yesterday said it all, when our United States Treasury Secretary, Mr. Tim Geithner, made his press conference that was well anticipated, what will the Obama administration do about the TARP monies that are available? We saw Wall Street's response, and it was to tank. Why? Because the Obama administration said what they want to do is have bigger and more powerful government. That's what they wanted, bottom line, bigger more powerful government. That did not calm the markets. That only led to uncertainty in the marketplace. It didn't lead to certainty. That's what we need. What would lead to certainty? And what would lead to certainty into the marketplace would be permanent tax reductions. If businesses and individuals who were interested in risk-taking with their investments knew that we would permanently cut the capital gains tax, permanently lower the business tax, the corporate tax rate, permanently lower marginal tax rates, do something about the estate tax problem that's going to spring open in 2010, and also, if they knew that we were going to radically reform the Sarbanes-Oxley rules, that would send a signal.
Instead, what does the stimulus do? It tells the American people, well, we're also going to embrace socialized medicine. What? Embrace socialized medicine? This is not what the American people bargained for. This is not what they asked for.
We also know that the current administration wants to impose the largest energy tax we've ever seen in the history of our country, also known as the cap-and-trade system. This leads to massive uncertainty.
If we would have taken $1 trillion last year that we spent on spending and put $1 trillion into permanent tax relief, I think the gentleman from Georgia would agree, this year, our biggest problem would be finding enough workers to fill the jobs that would have been created from permanent tax relief. That's an alternative that the Republican positive solution has put on the table for American business and American individuals. We've got a plan. We've got a big plan. And that's the genius of America. We trust the American people to take their ingenuity to pour it into the marketplace, because we understand that's true wealth creation.
Governments can't create wealth. They never have, they never will. It's the American people and American businesses that create wealth. How? By productivity. How do you get productivity? You produce goods, you produce services. How do you do that? You put capital at work. Why do you do that? You know that you're going to have a return on your investment.
Today, the American business world sees there will be very little return on investment. But the Republican plan offers all sorts of return on investment. And that's why, to the gentleman from Georgia I know this is a marvelous way to go, and I'll be happy to add to your colloquy as we go.
I'll yield back.
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Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank my colleague, Mr. Gingrey of Georgia. I think he has every reason to be very concerned about this Freedom of Choice Act coming before this body, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
Why? Because during the campaign, the President stated quite clearly that he wanted the Freedom of Choice Act to be the first piece of legislation that he would sign as President. So important to this pro-abortion President is the issue of the Freedom of Choice Act, he wanted to make that the signature item of his Presidency.
It's a cruel statement to make to the children of this country because there's a lie that's been perpetrated over the years since the 1960s. Planned Parenthood has said "every child, a wanted child;'' which, by implication, means that if a mother does not want the child, it's better to kill the child than to allow that child to receive life.
But I can attest to the fact that I believe every child in the United States and across the world is a wanted child because there are arms that are open and waiting of childless parents all across this country who would love to receive a child, but children just aren't available for adoption.
My husband and I are fortunate enough to have 5 children born to us, and we were also fortunate to have 23 foster children come into our home. We were delighted to take at-risk children into our home, thrilled that we could have that opportunity. There are people all across this country who would also like to have that opportunity.
It is horrific to know that in the African American community, 50 percent of all African American pregnancies in the United States end in abortion, 50 percent. That is a genocide of African Americans of the United States. It should not be. There are Americans all across this country who would love to adopt African American babies, but they can't because 50 percent of all African American pregnancies today are ending in abortion.
What would the Freedom of Choice Act do? Very simply, it's this: It would eviscerate, it would take away every State and local restriction that there is today on abortion--reasonable restrictions, restrictions like making sure every woman has the right to know what options are available to her, to know what is an abortion, what does it mean. For women who have the opportunity to see their unborn child on an ultrasound machine, it's an earthshaking experience to see your baby, your flesh and blood, moving on an ultrasound machine.
It takes a woman, it takes the father of that baby to think of what this means. This is human life, and it causes them to want to choose life and give life to that unborn child.
Reasonable restrictions have been passed all across this country in many hard-fought battles, and 35 years of effort from the pro-life community would be extinguished just like that. But that's what our President wants to have happen. He wants to take away any pro-life opportunity available from American women.
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