Republican Freshmen on Job Creation
Floor Speech
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Mr. REED. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I'm proud to join him and my other colleague from Wisconsin tonight to talk about jobs and what we are doing here in this Chamber on that issue.
I listen many times to my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, and they say we haven't put forth a jobs bill, as if there's some simple fix that we here in Washington, some bureaucrat sitting in a cubicle over at the White House is going to come up with a plan that's going to cure this economy with a magic wave of the wand here in the U.S. House or in Washington, D.C.
I join my colleague in his sentiments that I'd rather be listening to the people on the front line. I'd rather be listening to the people that are in the position to really create those jobs, because I believe in a private sector-based economy. I believe it's going to be the private sector that is going to be the primary engine of pulling us out of this economic crisis that we now find ourselves--not the public sector, not more spending out of Washington, D.C. But rather, what we need to do in this House is come together to create an environment so that the private sector can be competitive in this world economy and this world market, and it can really lead us to a better condition tomorrow so that generations of families, of American families, will have the opportunities that generations of families before us so enjoyed.
I've gone out and I've also had those town halls, and I've talked to people on the front line. And really, it boils down to some simple philosophies. We run our office here in the New York 29th Congressional District like a business. I come at this from a business perspective. Having started four businesses on my own, I've always had a business plan, and I've always had accountability metrics built into those plans. So we put forth a mission statement. We developed themes, we developed goals, and we put metrics to those themes and goals to make sure that we accomplish them. And the primary theme that we have adopted in our office is to create economic opportunity through the private sector.
How do you do that? We have adopted four main goals that we work on each day. We tackle this debt in a credible way, as my colleague from Arkansas has indicated, because it has so many indirect implications to our private-sector economy, be it in the financing world and be it in just the uncertainty of the U.S. markets. And we really have got to get a credible plan put together so that we can bring back that confidence in the American market that our job creators, the people that are going to invest in the American market, feel comfortable putting that capital at play.
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Mr. REED. I appreciate that. And what a great comment. That's exactly what I'm trying to articulate. I join my colleague and associate myself with those words, that we need a true plan that will solve this problem. And the $14.8 trillion in debt is such a huge problem that it's not going to be solved overnight. But we have the vision, and we have the plan. We're going to bring that certainty and confidence back to the American market.
The second point on our four-point theme in our office that we operate under is going after our Tax Code in a way that is going to make it competitive in this world economy. That means going from page 1 to the 70,000th page of the IRS code and streamlining it and doing comprehensive tax reform in such a way that simplifies it and makes it so that we are competing on the same field as competitors around the world.
The third point of our plan is to focus on a comprehensive, domestic-oriented energy policy right here, going after not only the fossil fuels in our backyard but not taking our eye off the long-term vision of the alternatives and renewables; looking at the commonsense solutions of going after our natural gas supplies, our oils and our shale formations and our tight sands formations around America but at the same time focusing on the alternatives and renewables, because we know those fossil fuels are a limited source.
But not only because of the national security implications that so many people in America know so well, but also looking at it from the perspective of making a competitive private sector arena in which our manufacturers and industry can compete again here right with operations in America. Because if you put those supplies in motion, you can create low-cost utility rates for 30, 40, maybe even 70, years is what the projections I've read in the reports and talking to people on the front line have articulated to me. So those decreased utility costs make our market that much more competitive when we're dealing with a world market that we now find ourselves in.
The last point that we always stress in our office is going after this regulatory burden that my colleague from Arkansas spoke about earlier. It's about not living in a world where there would be no regulations, but where there will be reasonable regulations, regulations based on a cost-benefit approach, a business approach, recognizing that with every regulation there's a cost. We're trying to achieve a benefit, but we've got to be reasonable to make sure that those costs don't outweigh those benefits. And so we've adopted that type of framework of operation in our office, and we've found some great success.
One last point I'll make before yielding back to my colleague from Arkansas is one of the stories that really resonated with me as I went through some of these town hall meetings--and we've done, I don't know, 30 or 40 of them now at this point in time--is I heard this story in August, and I'll call him Dr. Bill. He was a physician, and he had a small practice back in the 29th Congressional District. He was talking about how he wanted to invest and expand his practice. And he went over to the bank to get the financing to build the little addition--he was going to put maybe three people, new people to work.
And I listened to his story, and he was talking about the uncertainty that my colleague from Arkansas is talking about. And I want to put a face to it because Dr. Bill, as he told me, whenever he would go to the bank historically, he would go in and he would give his financial projections as to what his practice was going to do. A lot of times he would have to footnote because we have a lot of issues here in Washington with temporary policies that have been done more for politics than for true policy.
And what I'm talking about is we're dealing with things like the SGR, the physicians reimbursement under Medicare and the doc fix that always comes in. Typically what happens, America, if you haven't been aware of it, there's a fix, a Band-Aid that's put on it each year. And what he was able to do is he was able to always go to his bank and say, you know, I know the law says that I'm going to take a 30 percent cut, for example, this year in my reimbursements under Medicare, but we all know that Congress is going to get around and eventually fix it by putting another Band-Aid on it. So then he projects out a 2 percent increase in his reimbursements for his practice.
Well, he went to the bank. He went to the bank and he said, okay, here are my financials again. I want to do this expansion. And you know what the bank told him? The bank said, you know what, we don't know what's going on out of Washington, D.C. You've been dealing with the issues in your physician practice under ObamaCare, the Health Insurance Reform Act--whatever you want to call it--we're dealing--this is the bank talking to him--under the new Dodd-Frank bill that came into existence. Those regulations are uncertain to us. We don't know what they're going to require.
And the bank told him, we're not going to accept that footnote anymore. You've got to project out what your revenues are under what the law says, and that's a 30 percent cut in your revenue. And when he went back and he did the numbers, obviously, with the 30 percent cut to his revenues, he couldn't get the financing; the bank had to say no.
So that's the real story from the front lines that we have to come to terms with down here in Washington. Our decisions, our policies have ramifications. And if we can just have some commonsense points and deal with people like Dr. Bill in a way that says we're going to adopt policy for the long term, not the short term. We're going to get away from the politics or the tax politics and get into tax policy. We're going to get into the substance of these issues and adopt certain rules and regulations and legislation that's going to go on for 5, 10, 20 years so at least people know what the rules are. I think if we do that, we're going to go a long way to improving the private economy of America. We're going to work day in and day out.
I know my colleagues share a lot of these sentiments; and I'm just here to join them, to really focus on what has to be the priority issue, and that's putting people back to work. That is what we're doing here in the House. We're not looking for the political headline of a jobs bill. We're here to talk about jobs policy and leading this country out of the recession it finds itself in through strong policy rather than politics.
With that, I thank my colleague from Arkansas for yielding.
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Mr. REED. I appreciate my colleague from Arkansas, my great friend, for yielding to me.
Just to add a comment. When my colleague from Wisconsin spoke and my colleague just mentioned when we talk about the Forgotten 15, now 16, we've got to be clear to the American public that those bills that came out of this House had bipartisan support. There are colleagues from the other side of the aisle that have seen the wisdom in the sound policy that's represented by those bills, and they've joined us and supported those bills going over to the Senate.
Yet Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has blocked, in my opinion, those bills from coming to the floor. It's time now for the Senate to act. At least bring them up and debate the issue.
Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. In fact, on the Keystone bill that I mentioned, H.R. 1938, that was passed on July 26, 2011, the North American-Made Energy Security Act, looks like there were 47 Democrats that joined with us on that bill. Many of our Democrats joined us in a bipartisan effort.
But again, stacking up like cordwood on the steps of the Senate.
Mr. REED. Just to conclude on this point. Now is not the time for our President to divide this country. We have had bipartisan support on these bills here in the House. I know it hasn't been reported on by the press. But that's the fact.
Now, what we need to do now rather than divide the country--when I hear comments from our President talking about how he has to break up the American Jobs Act that he submitted so that we Republicans can understand it. That's not productive conversation. We understand the jobs bill. I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle understand it, too, and that's demonstrated by the fact that there's only one sponsor of that proposed piece of legislation from the President. No other individual in this Chamber cosponsored that
legislation. I think that speaks volumes. They understand that's not good sound policy.
So now is not the time to try to divide the country with scare tactics, class warfare, trying to go after and paint the top 2 percent as the reason why we're in this situation. This is not the time to try to say, ``Oh, China is the bad guy.'' Of course it's not the policies coming out of Washington and the overregulations and the noncompetitive Tax Code or the lack of a vision for a comprehensive energy policy. Or doing the responsible thing with coming up with a credible plan to deal with the debt.
No. We have to divide this country is the rhetoric that I'm hearing on the campaign trail during this Presidential election from our President. I disagree with that.
We're here as a freshman class to really change the culture of Washington, and I think we are. We're making progress. But we've got a lot more work to do.
Let us never forget that the Forgotten 16 bills that are now on the Senate floor were done with bipartisan support. And we'll continue to work at it because I don't believe the American people are stupid. They will see through all of the rhetoric because the American people are like me. They are sick and tired of politics as usual out of Washington. That's why we ran. That's why I'm sure my colleagues who joined me today would join in the sentiment that we ran, we left our families and our businesses, to come down here and once and for all stand up for what's right.
And what is right is a strong private sector America, an America of principle based on capitalism, based on individualism, individual accountability, and responsibility. Those are the themes that we promote and that we stand here and will fight for, because if we can get those themes implemented into strong, long-term policy, America not only will survive, it will prosper for generations to come. That's my promise to you here tonight.
I again thank my friend for yielding.
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