House Proceeding 02-13-09 on Feb 13th, 2009 :: 1:12:25 to 1:32:25
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Speech By: Phil Gingrey

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Phil Gingrey: colleagues understand and put in perspective the amount of money we're spending because you know,

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,000 is a heck of a lot of money to me. you get up to million and billion and trillion and i don't even know how many zeros we're talking about, but let's just use this poster to help us. sizing up the stimulus. well, this proposed stimulus, as i said to my colleagues, is .2 trillion.

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if we can focus on this first poster. .2 trillion. now, let's put that in perspective. back in the late 1960's, in that terrible, terrible time of the vietnam war, we lost almost 60,000 of our precious men and women in that battle. 11 billion was spent.

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if you adjust that for inflation in today's dollars, it's billion. compared to .2 trillion. that's a few more zeros. the invasion of iraq, inflation adjusted, 97 billion. the money that we spent there

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has gone up a little bit more now but it's certainly under federal. well under. now let's go back -- trillion. well under. let's go back to the 1932 to the 1934, 1940 era. the order of the new deal. 2 billion, adjusted for inflation, it's been a long time

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ago, 00 billion. in comparison, this is the largest in the history, mr. speaker, of the united states. i lieve if, i'm not wrong on this, and i don't think i am, this is the largest spending bill that any government has

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Phil Gingrey: enacted in the world. in the history of the world. we're talking about increasing our na deficit, but the national debt, which today is about 0.7 trillion -- with a t. we're talking about increasing that by 10% in one snap of your finger.

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Speech By: Phil Gingrey

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Phil Gingrey: as soon as president obama signs this bill into law monday, all of a sudden we have increased the national debt 10%. up to 2.5 trillion. how in the world, mr. speaker, are we ever going to pay that off? i mean, it's downright

1:14:59 to 1:15:19( Edit History Discussion )

Phil Gingrey: depressing, is what it is. not just scary, but it's downright depressing. and speaking of that money that was spent on the new deal, and i know people love to say, well, f.d.r. was one of our greatest presidents and no doubt he was a man of great courage, great

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Phil Gingrey: personal courage, overcame tremendous adversity physically and was our president during very difficult times, world war ii, and did some wonderful things. and i commend him for that. but i am not so sure that the new deal was such a good deal. in fact, it may very well have

1:15:43 to 1:16:03( Edit History Discussion )

Phil Gingrey: been a raw deal. and let me quote someone who should know better than i. because he was there and he lived through it, he advised president roosevelt. he was president roosevelt's secretary of the treasury. and his name was henry morgenthau.

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Phil Gingrey: and listen to what the secretary of the treasury under president roosevt said to a hearing before the ways and means committee of this house in 1939. and i'll quote, we have tried spending money, we are spending

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Phil Gingrey: more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. i want to see this country prosperous, i want to see people get a job, i want to see people get enough to eat. we have never made good on our promises.

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Phil Gingrey: i say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot. end of quote. secretary of treasury, henry morgenthau, under president roosevelt, 1939, some seven

1:17:07 to 1:17:27( Edit History Discussion )

Phil Gingrey: years into the new deal. that's probably why vice president biden, mr. speaker, said that, you know, look, this thing's got a 30% chance of not being successful. and making -- allowing this recession to be deeper and more prolonged than if we indeed did nothing.

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Phil Gingrey: well, let me ask my colleagues to join with me and look at a few more posters, just to again put the spending in perspective. with this amount of money, the $ 789 billion and of course when i say .2 trillion, that's the interest over 10 years on the

1:17:49 to 1:18:09( Edit History Discussion )

Phil Gingrey: debt, but when you do the math, it's fairly simple, and you say that you're going to create four million jobs, four million jobs with this, that means you're spending 75,000 for every job. 75,000 for every job. that's what it's going to cost.

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Phil Gingrey: and a lot of these jobs are going to pay 5,000, maybe even

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0,000, 5,000 a year. that is shocking when you think about it. that that much money to create one job, 75,000 worth of spending. here's another chart that i think is real instructive and i wanted my colleagues to also look at. those of new the back of the

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chamber, you may not be able to see this, or the far left, far right, but this says, can you afford to pay for the democratic spending bill? an 25 billion, at 25 billion or 89 billion, the economic stimulus plan sailing through

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congress would cost each american family, each american family, more than 0,000 on average. here's how that price tag compares with the typical family expenses in a year. stimulus spending, 0,500.

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Phil Gingrey: what the family spends on food, clothing and health care, 0,400. what the family spends on shelter, whether they're renter or owning their own home, 1,657. so, 1/3 of their expenditure in

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Speech By: Phil Gingrey

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Phil Gingrey: a year, that's what it's going to cost them in the final analysis, 0,500, every year, every family, to pay for this .2 trillion. that's why we're going back. remember when i said i read the article about literally, why

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Phil Gingrey: don't the federal government just write a 0,000 check and give it to every family and say, look, i don't know your situation, you may have a mortgage past due, a car payment past due, you may need to pay down a credit card debt, you may have a child that wants to go

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Phil Gingrey: back to college and you don't have the tuition for the next semester. indeed you may even have a family member that needs an operation or some dental work or something and you can't pay for it. and you can take money out of that 0,000 or maybe you simply want to save it for a rainy day. lord knows we have a rainy day

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Phil Gingrey: now but you might want to do it. but you might, if your situation is such, you know the old clinker of a car is falling apart and we want to buy american and general motors -- ford motor company has got a great new car that gets good gas mileage.

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Phil Gingrey: we'll go ahead and buy a car. or whatever, washing machine. and all of a sudden, you know, the economy starts moving. and so this shows that i think, mr. speaker, in a very vivid,

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Phil Gingrey: vivid way. you know, there's -- before i finish up, mr. speaker, and i didn't want to take the entire hour, but i wanted to talk just a little bit about some of the health care things that are in this bill. there's money toward moving us

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Phil Gingrey: as a nation for complet electronic medical recds. i am -- i am for that, mr. speaker. i think that will be a good thing. i think that would save lives and save money. and i clearly feel that this is something that we want to do. but there's a number of provisions -- and i'll just

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Phil Gingrey: mention one that really, really concerns me, and that's this comparative effectiveness commission. comparative effective, where the federal government, and i think blion, if i'm not

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Phil Gingrey: mistaken goes into creating this other layer of government bureaucracy called comparative effectiveness that would decide which medical procedures or medications were cost-effective

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Phil Gingrey: and in certain instances would simple -- we'll simply say, we don't think that's st-effective, that m.r.i. that mom had in the emergency room last week or the cat scan or electroenself la gram

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Phil Gingrey: because -- e -- electroencep have they ever had a white lab coat on? no. they're number crunchers and all of a sudden they're going to come between you and our constituents, men and women and your health care provider, your physician, whether it's a immediate trigs or on stay

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Phil Gingrey: trigs or general -- pediatrician or on stay trigs or general practitioner. we don't see anything that will put people back to work, that 7% on infrastructure, that ought to be 25% of the spending. it ought to be much more than it is, but yet it's things in

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Phil Gingrey: there i could go through a list of them and it's almost appallinbut i mentioned that about that health care. it's just trying to set policy in this bill, moving us in a direction that i don't think -- i do not think the american people want. and i think the american

1:24:41 to 1:25:03( Edit History Discussion )

Phil Gingrey: people, my colleagues, rember back in 1993, 1992, 1993 under president clinton when secretary of state -- current secretary of state clinton now but first l sort of put in charge of trying to develop a single payer

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Phil Gingrey: national health care system like they have in the united kingdom or canada or other countries that doesn't work so well and care is rationed. my fear, and as you read this bill and you try to read through, the devil's in the details, you see what's happening in the health care provision it is definitely

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Phil Gingrey: trying to move us in that direction once again. so, you know, there's -- again, our opposition to the bill is not that we don't want to help people and help them right now, that we don't have compassion. indeed, there's no one more compassionate in this chamber

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Phil Gingrey: than the minority leader, mr. boehner. in fact, many times he's to the point of tears he's so compassionate. we need to look at this thing as we have and realize that so much of the money, mr. speaker, in this bill is all about pushing an agenda and spending

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Phil Gingrey: money, some of which may be worthwhile, but it should go through the regular order. that's why we're up here mainly to authorize and appropriate spending. that's a major responsibility to the members of the congress and the house and senate. and we should do that under regular order. but it's like the chief of

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Phil Gingrey: staff now, our former colleague here in the house, the chief of staff to president obama, rahm emanuel, the gentleman from illinois, same state as the president, said it would be a tragedy to let any crisis go unused or something to that effect.

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Phil Gingrey: i'm paraphrasing, but it would be a tragedy to let a crisis go to waste. in other words, take a cris and, you know, try to do some good things and put people back to work, but at the same time pump all other stuff in there that you've been trying to get

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Phil Gingrey: past for years and have not been successful because the majority of the congress does not want in there so you put it in there as emergencspending and drag it along as we tug at heart strings. that's not right, mr. speaker. that is unfair. it's deceiving the american public and it's putting a

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Phil Gingrey: burden on them that i will have no part of. and my colleagues on this side of the aisle, 178 of us republicans and six or seven fiscally conservative democrats feel the same way. i just feel like if we had an

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Phil Gingrey: opportunity, mr. speaker, if had had an opportunity to present an alternative, we can do that in a bipartisan way. we don't hate each other, you know, mr. speaker. we respect each other.

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Phil Gingrey: in many cases best friends on on opposite sides of the aisle. we can do these things but somehow this top down, my way or the highway, closed rules, no oortunity to go through committee, we're losing out and that's not right because the

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Phil Gingrey: minority represents, what, 48%. lo of people in this country, mr. speaker elected -- a lot of people in this country, mr. speaker, elected republican members to the house and senate. so as i conclude, i just want to say to all of my colleagues on the republican side we voted

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Phil Gingrey: no and we voted no for a very good reason. we have great fear just as vice president biden said that this won't work. and it's not like, hey, we, it just didn't work and we lost that game and we'll play another one. no. this is -- this is too big a

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Phil Gingrey: risk. it puts too big of burden on our future generations and it has the likelihood of leaving us in this recession for a long time to come. we had an opportunity. my colleague, my senate colleague from georgia, johnny

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Phil Gingrey: isakson, had an amendment on the senate side that would give every person, every family that bought a new home a 5,000 credit. it was -- it passed on the senate side i think by a voice

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Phil Gingrey: vote, unanimous consent. everybody. i heard senator schumer say what a wonderful, wonderful idea that the gentleman from georgia, senator johnny isakson, had, because this whole mess started with the downturn of the housing market.

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Phil Gingrey: and until we get those houses moving and sold and -- that will get us out of this mess. and the senate knew it and yet when it got to conference committee, what happened? they pulled that amendment out. pulled that amendment out. i really believe if that and

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Phil Gingrey: maybe an opportunity for people to get a fixed rate mortgage at 4%, 4,, 5%, 30-year fixed rate, let them have that opportunity over the next year oso, the johnny isakson amendment, the republican alternative to this

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Phil Gingrey: spendulous bill, where we emphasize tax cuts and speing cuts and we spend more money on infrastructure, i think if we came back and did that we would be out of this recession in 12 to 18 months. and so that's why i'm here this afternoon, mr. speaker, just to share those thoughts with my colleagues. i hope and pray that president

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Phil Gingrey: obama will be successful, but when it's something that i have great fear of, hurting the

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country, taking us down a road that our founding fathers never intended us to go that i will stand up and i'm going to say no, mr. president, as i did today. and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the

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gentleman yields back. the gentleman from georgia. mr. gingrey: mr. speaker, pursuant to the order of the house of today, i move that the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. and accordingly, pursuant to