The Economy/Carl Rove

THE ECONOMY/CARL ROVE -- (House of Representatives - July 18, 2005)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poe). Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago, our Democrat colleagues said Republicans should not lower taxes because we needed those tax dollars for more programs and more spending. Republicans knew that more new programs and additional spending was the last thing we needed to be doing. We fought to reduce taxes, and we said that lower taxes would bring this economy out of a recession.

Today, our policies have been proven to be correct. Our tax relief has spurred economic growth and created jobs. We have a near historically low unemployment rate of about 5 percent. Home ownership is at historic highs. We have helped millions of Americans achieve the dream of home ownership. We have a 69 percent home ownership rate.

Mr. Speaker, 146,000 new jobs were created in June, adding to the millions of jobs created in the past 3 years, giving us 25 months of sustained consecutive economic growth. We lowered taxes and this year we are seeing unexpectedly high tax revenues. Our deficit is going to be $100 billion less because of tremendous economic growth.

And what about this is confusing to Democrats? Well, they say, okay, that is good economic news, but we have a deficit. And to that we say, well, why not join us and cut spending. Let us reduce and eliminate unneeded programs. Let us not raise taxes.

When we lowered taxes, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader, led the Democrats in predicting that this relief would do nothing at all for our Nation's economy. I think it is fair to say that she and her party are pretty much out of touch on that issue. And I know that the newspapers, many of which opposed our tax relief, are hesitant to admit that they were wrong, but they should be out there reporting this data, showing the American people that this economy is growing and that jobs are being created.

Mr. Speaker, our philosophy on this side of the aisle is that when you get government out of the way and let the American people in this wonderful free enterprise system go to work, they do it quite well. This great economic news shows that Republicans are on the right side of this argument.

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of other things I want to say this evening. Last year, former Clinton Security Adviser Sandy Berger stole, that is right, stole classified materials from the National Archives. This is not an accusation. It is fact. He pled guilty. He stole classified material. In the ``Sloppy Socks Scandal,'' Berger stuffed classified materials in his clothing in order to sneak them out of the National Archives building. Democrats, however, never considered this a big deal. In fact, most barely seemed to notice or say anything at all about what had happened.

Today, those same Democrats, who did not blink at Berger's actions, are calling for Karl Rove's head. Now, let us put this in perspective. Sandy Berger devised a plan, got into the archives to view the documents, then he stuffed classified documents in his pants to smuggle them out of the National Archives so that he could destroy the material, and Democrats did not so much as call for an inquiry. Today, the minority leader is calling for President Bush to fire Karl Rove for telling a reporter that they were ``barking up the wrong tree.''

I hope Americans see this for what it is, a partisan attack launched by a minority leader who cannot get her party to unite around a policy.

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