The Economy and our Freedom

Floor Speech

THE ECONOMY AND OUR FREEDOM -- (House of Representatives - March 3, 2009)

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Absolutely. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding, and I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the discussion that is here because, as we have all been home over the weekend and have been working in our districts, meeting with constituents, the economy is the number one issue. I have talked to so many people who are using the words that they are appalled, that they are horrified with what they see happening here. They are very concerned with what they see taking place with the economic policies of the new administration.

Indeed, as a broker from one of our fine banks in Tennessee said to me yesterday, the stock market has voted on the Obama economic policies--on Pelosi, Reid and their economic policies--and they have obviously voted ``no'' because the stock market was over 9,000 before this administration took control, and now we see where it is today, which is at 6,700. It is of great concern to us.

We know our Nation is in a recession. We know that people are hurting. We know that they want to see something done, and most people fully realize that you cannot declare a war on prosperity and get yourself out of a recession.

You both have recognized, Ms. Foxx and the gentleman from Missouri, the quote from Henry Morgenthau and the importance of that, which is that it does not work, that this kind of spending does not work. I brought a chart along that I felt was important to the discussion that we are having.

As my colleagues know, the Democrats took control of this body in January '07, and we see where we were with the Federal deficit, the green line. The orange line is discretionary spending, and mandatory spending is in the blue. Now, we continued to hear from the leadership--from Speaker Pelosi, from Leader Reid and from the President--that they inherited this debt, that they inherited an annual deficit, but I think it's important to note that they voted ``yes'' on all of this. It has pushed our spending.

You can see what has happened with the spending in the past year alone. Stimulus I was $152 billion. You'll see where it comes in there in '08, the pre-TARP funds. That was from March to September of '08, $323 billion. Then there was TARP, the auto bailout--stimulus II--which was $787 billion. There was the omnibus, which was $410 billion. Now what we have seen happen with the spending is, by the end of '07, the Democrat-led House had moved our same year mandatory spending from $3 billion to $37 billion, and by the end of '08, they'd increased that number to $333 billion.

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