Economics and Energy

Floor Speech

ECONOMICS AND ENERGY -- (House of Representatives - May 13, 2009)

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Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And you bring out a great point.

Mr. Speaker, cap-and-trade is not about the environment. And, in fact, the President recently said that if this is not passed into law, then he will not have the revenue to foster or pay for the Big Government that he is trying to force down the throats of the American people. This is not about the environment. Mr. King, you brought that out very clearly. This is about greater revenue. It is a about a tax, cap-and-tax. I call it ``tax-and-cap'' because tax is what this is all about.

And your chart right there brings out a very strong point. Even the President says that electricity rates will skyrocket. Every single energy source in this country will skyrocket. That means that everything is going to go up in price, food, medicine, health care, all goods and services are going to go up. Why? Because the leadership in this House, the leadership in the U.S. Senate, the administration, wants to continue down a road towards total government control of everything that people do. There is a word for that. It is called ``socialism.'' And that is exactly what they are doing. They are driving a steamroller of socialism that is being forced down the throats of the American people. And it is going to strangle our economy. It is going to hurt

the people that our Democratic colleagues say that they represent the most. Electricity costs and heating costs are going to affect the retirees, people on limited income and the poor people more than anybody else.

My good friend from Iowa made some excellent points. And I just want to reiterate what you said. It is going to cost the American people a tremendous amount of money. The American Association of Manufacturers has estimated that every single family in this country is going to pay $3,128 more in taxes. Everybody is going to have that tax burden placed on them plus the increased cost of all goods and services. And it has to stop.

The American people can do something about it. They can tell their Members of Congress, We don't want this tax-and-cap bill to pass. And it is absolutely critical for the people all over this country to call their Congressman, call their Senators and say ``no'' to this crazy cap-and-trade policy that is being forced down their throats. And it has just got to stop because it is going to kill our economy. It is going to hurt everybody in this country. And I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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