Solutions for Our Country

Floor Speech

Mr. ROTHFUS. It's a pleasure to join this conversation. I thank the gentlelady from Alabama for starting it.

And we've heard this phrase for years now, ``pivot to jobs.'' And, frankly, I'm new here. I've been here a little over 6 months, maybe 7 months, and I've been looking at it from the outside, and I haven't seen that pivot to jobs.

And sometimes folks hear that phrase in Washington, D.C., and they think ``pivot to jobs.'' Well, what they really mean is pivot to government, and that's certainly what we've seen. Every time they think they're going to do something to help the job market, they pivot to more and more government.

Remember when they passed the health care bill, it was suggested that this is going to be a job creator. Well, it really hasn't been, and we're talking to businesses time and again who are not hiring people.

I had a great conversation with somebody in my district, a very tough conversation, and she was upset because her hours are being cut back because of the health care bill. And of course we see this across the country, not just in my district.

And then we see more government as a proposal for more jobs, but we see the regulations coming out of this town that are hurting the jobs in my district.

Just last week, we learned that some power plants are going to be closing in western Pennsylvania. These power plants are not in my district, but you know what? There are people who support those power plants by providing things to those power plants. You have jobs of truckers, of shippers, miners.

More regulations coming out of this town by these Federal elites doesn't help jobs. I'm glad that we're going to pivot to jobs.

I've talked about how you get jobs going in this country for quite a long time now, and I've stumbled on to three Rs. You remember the three Rs from going to school.

Well, the three Rs, I think the number one R, or the first R is ``repeal.'' Repeal ObamaCare.

The administration acknowledged, I think, the problems with this bill by coming out with a unilateral action just a couple of weeks ago, saying, Don't worry, big business; you don't have to comply for another year with the mandates here; but the everyday folks, you still have to comply.

So this House, last week, took an action to provide some relief there. We'll give the President the authority that he assumed unilaterally, but it needs to come from this House, and it's called the rule of law, that the President--it's our authority to give that waiver.

And so we passed a bill last week to say, You know what? Take another year. And to the individuals who are going to be struggling, give them the same break, too.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROTHFUS. When you look at the regulatory framework that we have, this House is soon to consider a bill known as the REINS Act. It's a very simple bill. It basically says to the agencies that are staffed by bureaucrats, not by individuals who are elected, who are accountable--the people in this House are accountable. We stand for election every 2 years. We get a performance review every 2 years. I tell the people in my district I'm their employee. I'm the employee of about 705,000 people, and I get a performance review every couple of years.

Well, you know, the regulators, we need a check and a balance on them.

So there's a thing called the REINS Act, a very simple bill that talks about if an agency puts out a regulation that's going to have an impact on this economy of $100 million or more. And as the gentleman from Colorado said earlier, the SBA, the Small Business Administration, has said that the cost of complying with all the regulations in our Federal Register is $1.8 trillion across the economy. The REINS Act says if you have $100 million or more in a regulation that's going to go on the economy, it comes back to the Congress for a vote. We get to take accountability there.

And so we get to assess whether the cost benefit is going to be good for this economy and good for the American people. Otherwise, the out-of-control government is going to continue to choke our communities and our businesses. And what happens? Middle class jobs are lost. Power plant workers. You can't replace jobs like that.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROTHFUS. The good news is that we can do that. If we empower our communities, empower individuals, and empower families, we can do that. The solutions are not inside this Beltway. They're out there. And Washington needs to get out of the way so that people can take their own initiative and build those real economies out there.

The third R I talked about--we've got repeal ObamaCare and replace it with commonsense, patient-centered reform that gets care to people. The second R is the REINS Act. Stop the overregulating. And thirdly, reform. Reform our Tax Code. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, the highest business taxes in the world. This is a world economy. Ninety-five percent of the consumers in the world are outside our borders. We need to be competing for the world's capital to come here to invest in our communities.

I was talking with a business in my district that is a subsidiary. They have a foreign owner. But they were trying to convince the foreign owner to invest in our country, which would be a good thing because that's going to mean more jobs. The parent company said, You're just not competitive right now. And that's a lost opportunity.

Our corporate tax rate is 35 percent. And do the corporations really pay that? Our Tax Code is so riddled with loopholes and picking the winners and the losers, rather than having a competitive, fair playing field. We have to move to have the most competitive tax system in the world.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROTHFUS. You think of the mom who no longer has the free checking. They're paying the monthly bills. They're looking at that utility bill. The electric bill is coming in. And remember when the President in 2008 said that electricity rates are necessarily going to skyrocket with his plan? Well, there's the mom who's going through the monthly bills, wondering how she's going to make ends meet. And all of a sudden there's another $5 or $10 or whatever the charge is going to be for losing the free checking. That's real money. And then she goes to the gas tank and all of a sudden prices are going up at the gas tank again. Another $10 there, $10 for the checking. That's $20 right there. And it grows and it grows and it grows.

Source